“Of course. And if you want to mobilize your military for a training exercise, I’m sure no one would stop you.”
“One more thing, Mr. President. If the Russians are coming in by helicopter, they had to have used carriers or some other ships.”
“That’s why I’m trying to reestablish contact with my submarine. They might be able to confirm that.”
“Meaning your submarine was operating illegally in our waters.”
“Let’s not go there. The debate whether the Northwest Passage waters are international or Canadian is irrelevant right now. There are only four words that are important to us: the Russians are coming.”
“Mr. President,” called Chief of Staff Hellenberg from across the aisle. “Sorry to interrupt you, but General Kennedy is on the line.” Hellenberg’s expression said it all.
“Mr. Prime Minister, I have to go, but myself or a member of my staff will update you as soon as we know more.”
With that, Becerra, ended the call and switched to the other video line. “You don’t look happy, General.”
“No, sir. It seems we’re backed into a corner on this one. We’ve attempted several different scenarios, but at this point, the ANGELS satellite has attached itself to the ISS. No communication at all from the crew inside. We suspect that the Russians have already killed the Japanese and Brazilian crew members. The ISS will be within range of one of our kinetic energy platforms in approximately fifteen minutes. The Russians could destroy that platform,” she pointed out. Unnecessarily.
“Understood.”
“All I need is authorization from you.”
Becerra rubbed the corners of his eyes, took a deep breath. “You have it, General. Take out the station.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll connect you in to the platform’s cameras.”
Hellenberg came over and stood behind Becerra. “I’m sorry, Mr. President.”
“For what?”
“For this difficult decision you’ve had to make.”
“It’s cut-and-dried now, Mark.”
Voices of the ANGELS satellite controllers sounded in the background as an image of the ISS, floating over the blue globe of Earth, dominated the screen. They had a spectacular view of the station and listened as one controller, in a cool, even voice finished his sentence with the words, “… and detonate…”
A small flash came from the underside of the station, followed by a much larger, more orange explosion haloed in white-hot specks.
The station’s long, rectangular arrays, perhaps its most prominent and memorable feature, suddenly broke away and began tumbling end over end, as the rest of the laboratories and connecting modules began their own strangely graceful ballet, moving with underwater slowness in the vacuum of space.
General Kennedy returned to the screen. “Sir, the threat has been eliminated. Now I suggest we turn our attention to the next one.”
“Those helos up in Canada.”
“That’s right. But sir, we count more than sixty heavy Russian transport aircraft with fighter escorts lifting off from every air base along the east coast of the country. Could be one or more brigades, with accompanying vehicles. We believe they’ll put down just north of Alberta.”
“Let’s get some fighters up there to stop them.”
“There are far too many aircraft, and many of our units in Alaska have been deployed to Europe. The squadrons we do have are already in the air.”
Becerra held back a curse. “Kapalkin has been working on this one for a long time, carefully weakening us, spreading us out too far.”
“Well, as we like to say, Mr. President, the balloon is going up. At the very least, we’d like to get boys from the Tenth Mountain up there, along with some Marines from Pendleton. And we have a Stryker Brigade in Alaska we’ll bring down, along with another one we’ll bring up from Fort Lewis, so long as you can work out a deal with the prime minister.”
“What about air strikes?”
“They’ll have limited effect, because if we’re right, the Russians will be attempting to seize key infrastructure, pipelines, refineries, and so on, intact. We can’t risk damaging those facilities, so for the most part, we’ll be on the ground, with close air support at our shoulders. We’ll need to hold back on the bombers and kinetic energy weapons as our very last resorts.”
“I think the prime minster would agree.”
She smiled crookedly. “Mr. President, I also have to point out that the Russians could cut off their noses to spite their faces.”
“You mean if they can’t control the Alberta reserves—”
“They’ll destroy them. In fact, if those inbound Russian aircraft were bombers, we’d assume that’s the mission. Still could be.”
“General, can we do this? Can we fight this war on multiple fronts and put more people up in Canada?”
“We think so, sir. And remember, the Russians are further dividing their own forces to continue their push. But the key is the prime minister. If you can get him to commit his forces, we’ll be in a lot better shape.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen, not in any official capacity anyway. There will always be some Canadian units that’ll fight if attacked, no matter what the prime minister says.”
“So in that regard, the Russians might be doing us a favor.”
“Yes, sir. In the meantime, we’ll get what fighters we can in the air to disrupt those incoming aircraft.”
“Good. You know, I just spoke to an F-35 pilot operating out of a little base north of Yellowknife. She took out more than half a dozen of those Russian helos. I want her up there.”
“I’ll make sure of that, sir.”
FIFTEEN
Major Stephanie Halverson spotted Boyd lying in the snow, not far from the ejection seat, half covered by the drogue chute. He’d unbuckled, crawled a few meters in the snow, and collapsed. He wasn’t moving.
Now she wouldn’t just fly over, trying to figure out if he was alive or dead. And she wouldn’t tell Igloo Base what she was doing. With the Russian helos still not far off, they would never authorize such an action. They had just ordered her back to refuel and rearm.
Of course she would comply (eventually), but she couldn’t live with herself if she abandoned Jake. She’d rather take the risk, which was, damn it, risking everything.
And God help her, she set down on the snow, landed the multimillion dollar bird, leaving her entirely vulnerable to air attack.
It took her another minute to detach herself from the cockpit, remove her helmet, and finally get down to the snow.
The icy wind stung her cheek, and it smelled as though a storm was coming.
“Jake!” She jogged toward him, the top layer of snow breaking into glistening puzzle pieces that rose to her ankles.
She reached him, slowly rolled him over, and worked on getting off his helmet. Finally, it gave. His nose had been bleeding and his left cheek was beginning to swell.
“Jake, can you hear me? It’s Steph.”
His eyes flickered open. “I want to puke.”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
He swallowed. “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what happened. It was like a dream… they fired rockets!”
“I know, Jake.”
“Wait a minute. What the hell? You landed?” He suddenly sat up, looked to her plane, the engine still
