“I will need to send recon units out to get an accurate impression of the target areas.”
“I anticipated this. Before dawn we inserted two teams of two men each to within one thousand yards of each of the three locations. We have reliable comms and real-time video.”
“Excellent. How many Jamaat Shariat men at each site?”
“Since the launch from 109, they have consolidated their men. There seem to be about eight to ten tangos around each launch silo. There are four more at a bunker near? the access road that leads to the Dnepr area. We have no idea how many are in launch control. From a distance we’ve seen one man on the roof, but that doesn’t really help. The facility is essentially a bunker, and we cannot get our eyes in there. If we attack, we will have to attack blind.”
“Why can’t we use surface-to-air missiles to take out the rockets if they launch?”
Gummesson shook his head. “When they are still very low to the ground that is possible, but we are unable to move the equipment close enough to take them out before they are moving too fast for SAMs. Missiles fired from aircraft cannot reach them, either.”
Clark nodded. “Figured it wouldn’t be that easy. Okay. We also need our own operations center. Where are the rest of the men?”
“We have a large tent outside for CCC.” Communication, command, and control would be the Rainbow operations center. “There is another tent for equipment and a third where the men are billeted.”
Clark nodded. “Let’s go there now.”
Clark and Gummesson talked as they walked with Biryukov and several Alpha Group officers toward the parking lot. They had made it into to the lobby of the Sputnik when Domingo Chavez entered through the front door. Ding wore a brown cotton shirt and blue jeans, no coat or hat, though it was well below freezing.
Chavez noticed his father-in-law from across the lobby and he approached. As he neared, his smile faded. He gave the older man a gentle hug, and when he pulled away Ding’s face showed unbridled fury. “Jesus Christ, John! What the fuck did they do to you?”
“I’m okay.”
“The hell you are!” Chavez looked around at Biryukov and the other Russians, but he continued to address John. “What do you say we tell these Russians to fuck themselves, then we can go home, find a couch and a TV, then sit back and watch Moscow burn to the goddamned ground?”
One of the big Russian Spetsnaz men, an English speaker obviously, moved on Chavez, but the smaller, older Mexican-American stood up to him. “Fuck you.”
Clark found himself having to play peacemaker. “Ding. It’s okay. These guys didn’t do this to me. It was a rogue SVR guy and his crew.”
Chavez did not back down from the big Slav standing over him, but finally he gave a half-nod. “Okay, then. What the fuck? Let’s go save their asses, I guess.”
77
Mohammed al Darkur knocked on the door of Ryan and Dominic’s flat at nine a.m. The Americans were up and drinking coffee, and they poured a cup for the Pakistani major while he talked.
“There have been developments overnight. Artillery shells from India have struck the village of Wahga, just east of Lahore, killing thirty civilians. PDF returned fire into India. We don’t know about damage there. Another shelling, just a few miles further north, damaged a mosque.”
Ryan cocked his head. “How strange that Rehan, the guy who’s orchestrating this entire conflict, happens to be in the area.”
The major said, “We can’t discount his involvement in these acts. Rogue Pakistani forces could be firing on their own country in order to escalate Pakistan’s response.”
“What’s the plan today?” asked Caruso.
“If Rehan leaves his flat, we follow him. If anyone comes to Rehan’s flat, we follow them.”
“Simple enough,” replied Dom.
Georgi Safronov sat alone in the third-floor cafeteria of the LCC and finished his breakfast: coffee, a reconstituted bowl of potato soup from the cafeteria, and a cigarette. He was bone-tired, but he knew he would get his energy back. He had spent most of the early morning conducting phone interviews with news stations from Al Jazeera to Radio Havana, spreading the word of the plight of the people of Dagestan. It was necessary work, he needed to leverage this event in any way possible to help his cause, but he had never worked so hard in his life as he had in the past few months.
While he smoked he watched the television on the wall. It was a news report showing Russian armored forces moving north near the Caspian Sea in northern Dagestan. The commentator said Russian government sources were denying this had anything to do with the situation at the Cosmodrome, but Safronov knew that, like much of Russian television, it was a bald-faced lie.
Several of his men had seen a television in a ground-floor office, and they rushed in to the cafeteria to embrace their leader. Tears welled in his eyes as the emotion of his men brought his own nationalistic pride to the forefront of his consciousness. He had wanted this all his life, long before he knew what that feeling inside him was, the sense of purpose, of untapped power.
A need to belong to something greater.
Today was the greatest day in Georgi Safronov’s life.
A call came over the radio that Magomed Dagestani — Georgi’s nom de guerre — was wanted in the launch control room for a call. He assumed it was his awaited conversation with Commander Nabiyev, and he hurried out of the cafeteria. He was anxious to talk to the prisoner and to make arrangements for his arrival. He took the back steps down to the second floor, then entered the LCC through the south stairwell entrance. He put on his headset and took the call.
It was the Kremlin crisis center. Vladimir Gamov, the director of the Russian Federal Space Agency, was on the line. Georgi thought his own family relationship with Gamov was the only reason the old gasbag was the one communicating with him, as if it made any difference. “Georgi?”
“Gamov, I have asked to be called by another name.”
“I am sorry, Magomed Dagestani, it’s just that I have known you as Georgi since the 1970s.”
“Then we both were misled. Are you going to connect me with Nabiyev?”
“Yes, I will patch him through in a moment. First I wanted to let you know the status of the troop movements in the Caucasus. I want to be clear. We have begun but there are over fifteen thousand troops in Dagestan alone. Twice that in Chechnya and more in Ingushetia. Many are on leave, many are on patrols or multiday exercises and away from their bases. We simply cannot move them in a day. We are pushing everyone north we can. We are flying people out via the airport and the air base, but we will not have everyone out by your deadline. If you can give us one more day and one more night you will see our full commitment.”
Safronov did not commit to anything. “I will check with my own sources to make sure this is not a propaganda trick. If you are really moving units north, then I will consider extending the deadline for one d??ay. No promises, Gamov. Now, let me speak with Commander Nabiyev.”
Georgi was put through and soon he found himself speaking with the young leader of the military wing of his troops. Nabiyev informed Safronov that he was told by his captors that he would be delivered to Baikonur that evening.
