Iron Wolf (19 page)

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

—
C
ARL
J
UNG,
S
WISS PSYCHIATRIST

T
RAKHTEMYRIV
N
ATURE AND

A
RCHAEOLOGICAL
R
ESERVE,

W
ESTERN
U
KRAINE

T
HE NEXT NIGHT

Fedir Kravchenko crouched down in cover, watching the opposite bank of the Dnieper through night-vision binoculars. A few kilometers to the south, the natural flow of the river was obstructed by the Kaniv Hydroelectric Power Plant's massive dam—forming a huge reservoir that was almost two kilometers wide at this point.

To some extent, that made this stretch of the Dnieper more dangerous as a potential crossing point, since any boats would be out on the open water for that much longer. On the other hand, the Trakhtemyriv Reserve's dense belt of woodland ran all the way to the water's edge. The forest canopy made it easier for his partisans to conceal their motorized inflatable rafts and gear from Russian
reconnaissance drones and aircraft while they were moving up to the shoreline. As an added plus, the eastern shore was also thickly wooded, offering shelter and ready camouflage for infiltrators right after they landed. The woods there were also cut by a number of small tracks and farm roads—offering his partisans the opportunity to move quickly inland to safe houses and hidden camps farther east.

Kravchenko knew that all military decisions involved calculated risk. You weighed the different options and took the ones that seemed to offer the greatest gain for the least chance of disaster. Making the right call was always a gamble.

Unfortunately, anytime you gambled, you could lose.

And this time, he had lost.

Pop-pop-pop
.

Seen through the night-imaging binoculars, three green sparks soared skyward on the other side of the water. They flew high directly over the two motorized rafts speeding eastward across the reservoir. Even this far away, he could see the four men on each inflatable suddenly look up in horror.

“Hell.”

Kravchenko lowered the binoculars right before the flares burst into full light over the Dnieper. Sputtering evilly, they drifted slowly downwind—illuminating everything for hundreds of meters.

More flashes stuttered among the trees on the far bank of the Dnieper, casting eerie, dancing shadows that lit up a tangled mosaic of leaves and branches. Fountains of white spray erupted all around the fast-moving inflatables. The Ukrainian partisan leader bit down on another oath as the chatter of Russian heavy machine guns echoed across the water.

He had just sent eight men straight into an ambush.

Through the radio clipped to his body armor, Kravchenko could hear them screaming and pleading for help. “Covering fire! We need covering fire now!” one of them yelled. “We're getting murdered out here!”

Slowly, clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw ached, the
Ukrainian looked away. Those enemy machine guns were too far away, out of effective range of the assault rifles carried by the men deployed on this side of the river. Trying to hit the Russians would only give away his own positions, and offer the enemy a juicy target for their artillery and mortars.

No, he decided grimly, the partisans trapped on those rafts were as good as dead. Either the Russians would keep shooting until nothing moved, or they would send out boats of their own to take prisoners for interrogation. Then, once torture and truth drugs had squeezed every morsel of information out of their captives, the Russians would simply murder them.

There was only one thing he could do for his men now.

Kravchenko turned to Pavlo Lytvyn. “Execute code OMEGA.”

“Very well, Major,” the bigger man agreed, not trying to hide his own regret and anger. He carefully set a frequency on his own radio transmitter and clicked the send button. Then he switched to another frequency and hit the button a second time.

Charges rigged to the inflatables detonated. Two huge explosions rocked the surface of the Dnieper. When the smoke and spray drifted away, there was nothing identifiable left—only bits and pieces of debris left floating in the foaming water.

For a few moments more, Kravchenko stared blindly out across the wide river, aware only of the bitter taste of failure and defeat. Until he could figure out how to move more men and weapons to the east without suffering unacceptable losses, the Russians were out of his reach.

I
RON
W
OLF
S
QUADRON
S
ECURE

C
OMPOUND
, 33
RD
A
IR
B
ASE,

NEAR
P
OWIDZ,
C
ENTRAL
P
OLAND

T
HE NEXT MORNING

“CID Two, stand by for field resupply maneuver. Iron Wolf One-Five coming in hot. Two minutes out.”

“Two copies, Wolf One-Five. Ready to rock and rearm.”

Captain Nadia Rozek stood near the flight line at the 33rd Air Base, listening closely to the crisp, confident messages crackling through her radio earpiece. She was one of several Polish Special Forces officers newly assigned to the Iron Wolf Squadron. Most of her comrades would serve as translators where needed and as liaisons between the Scion-organized unit and Poland's more conventional air and ground units.

She had other orders. First, she was slated to receive training on one of the squadron's two Cybernetic Infantry Devices—the “Iron Wolves” that gave the unit its new name. Perhaps even more importantly, she was here to act as President Piotr Wilk's personal “eyes and ears,” keeping him closely posted on the squadron's plans and operations.

“You will not be a spy, Captain,” Wilk had told her with a smile. “But I want you there to help me cut through the regular chain of command if necessary. From what we have seen, if it goes into action, this Iron Wolf force will use tactics far outside the realm of conventional military experience and training. It's vital that I receive firsthand reports from an officer who understands and can thoroughly evaluate how Martindale's people do their fighting.”

Which meant she was something of a spy, after all, Nadia decided—though not a hostile or especially covert one. No one in the Iron Wolf Squadron would be surprised to find out that their new employer planned to keep a careful watch on his $500 million investment.

At least this new assignment had brought her back to her old stomping grounds. This air base, halfway between Poznan and Warsaw, was home to Poland's 7th Special Operations Squadron. She'd spent a year here flying Mi-17 helicopters, practicing nap-of-the-earth flying and all the other dangerous maneuvers needed to insert Polish commandos behind enemy lines and retrieve them under fire. Its existing ties to Poland's Special Forces made Powidz the logical place to base this new unit. The 33rd Air Base had a tight security perimeter and the local civilians were already used to hearing unusual aircraft coming and going at odd intervals.

Through her earpiece, Nadia heard another signal from the Iron Wolf Squadron aircraft that was supposed to be approaching the 33rd Air Base. “CID Two, this is Wolf One-Five. Field in sight. Thirty seconds. Out.”

“Standing by,” the CID pilot said laconically.

Puzzled, she turned around, scanning the horizon in all directions. Nothing was in sight. No airplane. No helicopter. And certainly no huge manned war robot. Were these Americans pulling a practical joke on her?

Abruptly, a large, twin-engine aircraft in mottled dark green, light green, and gray camouflage streaked into view, booming in from the south just over the treetops. As it crossed over the field, it banked into a steep, tight turn, decelerating dramatically, almost impossibly, fast.

Nadia's eyes widened. The huge propellers on each wing were swiveling upward, turning into rotors. Of course, she thought, figuring it out. This mysterious aircraft was a tilt-rotor, designed to take off and land like a helicopter while cruising long distances at high speeds like a conventional turboprop. It looked very much like the V-22 Ospreys flown by the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, but it was somewhat smaller and seemed more agile than the Ospreys she had seen before.

She realized this must be another of the experimental planes built by Sky Masters. The aerospace engineers working for that American firm seemed to have an almost limitless ability to push the boundaries of aircraft design.

Rotors spinning fast, the twin-engine aircraft descended toward the wide grass verge beside the runway and touched down. As soon as it settled, a rear ramp whined open and a small, four-wheel vehicle roared out and onto the grass. Swinging wide around the still-spinning rotors, it drove toward her at high speed. There were three crew—two in front and a top gunner manning a .50-caliber M2 machine gun in the back.

Nadia forced herself to stand absolutely still as the 4x4 sped right past her, racing by at more than sixty kilometers an hour. The gunner, wearing a helmet, body armor, and goggles, gave her a cheerful wave.

Suddenly the driver slammed on his brakes and spun the little vehicle into a tight, hard turn, coming to a dead stop in a spray of gravel and grass just a few meters away. The driver and the other man seated in front were already unbuckling their safety harnesses while the gunner stayed put—swinging his heavy machine gun around to cover the nearby woods.

Nadia caught a flicker of motion out the corner of her eye and then gasped as one of the tall Cybernetic Infantry Devices bounded past her and slid to a halt right beside the 4x4. Its arms were already in motion, shrugging off heavy weapons packs and sliding them onto the small vehicle's cargo deck. As soon as the old packs were stowed, the CID retrieved new weapons and ammunition carriers. At the same time, the two crewmen who'd dismounted were busy popping open panels on the huge robot's legs and torso, disconnecting depleted lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen fuel cells and then replacing them with fully charged batteries and fuel cells. Their coordinated speed and precision was astounding, reminding her of a top-notch Formula One pit crew.

In less than two minutes, they were finished.

“Rearm and recharge complete!” Nadia heard the CID pilot report.

Both vehicle crewmen slapped the torso panels closed and then hopped back aboard their 4x4. As soon as they'd buckled in, the
driver sped off back down the runway toward the waiting tilt-rotor. Slowing, he drove straight up the aircraft's rear ramp.

In seconds, the ramp closed and the aircraft lifted off, climbing just high enough to transition its rotors for level flight. Moments later, it streaked away just over the treetops and was gone.

“Iron Wolf One-Five outbound,” Nadia heard the tilt-rotor's pilot report. “Field resupply complete. Mission time on ground: approximately five minutes.”

Beside her, the CID crouched down, extending one leg and both arms backward. A hatch popped open on its back and a broad-shouldered, blond-haired man wearing a black flight suit climbed out. The name tag over his left breast pocket read
BRAD MCLANAHAN
. He dropped lightly to the ground and walked over.

“So what did you think, Captain Rozek?” he asked, with a mischievous grin. “Impressive enough for you?”

Nadia eyed him carefully. This American had a nice smile and some of the cocky swagger that marked many young pilots . . . including, she admitted to herself, a certain Nadia Rozek when she was fresh out of flight school. Well, there were ways to deal with that.

“Your resupply maneuver?” she asked. “Is that something your crews practice routinely?”

Brad nodded. “Yep. We can use that Sky Masters XV-40 Sparrowhawk tilt-rotor you saw or a specially modified Chinook helicopter, something along the lines of the MH-47G models used by the U.S. Army's One Hundred and Sixtieth Special Aviation Regiment. Both of them can lift that fast little four-by-four resupply vehicle we use to haul ammo, weapons, batteries, and fuel cells. And by the way, that four-by-four is a version of the Interim Fast Attack Vehicle our Marine Force Recon guys use—a souped-up Mercedes-Benz Wolf 290GDT.”

“A Wolf four-by-four?” Nadia said, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

His grin grew wider. “Yeah, really. I guess this new Iron Wolf name suits us for a lot of reasons.”

“So I gather,” she said coolly, really hoping this brash McLanahan character could restrain himself before he started pretending to howl at the moon or do something equally childish. “And you are one of those who will pilot these Iron Wolves in combat?” she asked, nodding toward the CID.

To her relief, he looked slightly abashed. “Me? No, probably not.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I've driven CIDs a few times. But my real passion is flying, which is why I'm assigned to the squadron's aviation team. We'll be handling the unit's drone aircraft and the remote-piloted XF-111 SuperVarks once they get here.”

“McLanahan! You are related to General McLanahan?” Nadia said, suddenly realizing why this young man's name had seemed so familiar. Among her peers in Poland's air force, the missions flown by Patrick McLanahan and the men and women under his command were legendary.

“He's . . . I mean, he
was
. . . my father,” Brad said quietly.

“I am very sorry,” Nadia told him, fumbling slightly for the proper English phrases. “He was a great man. Please accept my condolences on your loss.”

She looked even more closely at the younger McLanahan. Now that her memory was working at full speed, it reminded her that this boyish-looking American had flown on the daredevil bombing mission in which his father was killed. And that, later, he had also gone on to fly in outer space as part of the ill-fated Starfire Project. She colored slightly, abruptly aware that she might have come across as just a bit patronizing to someone whose real-world experience easily exceeded hers by a factor of ten.

Fortunately, Nadia decided, seeing the equally embarrassed look on his face, he seemed unaware of that.

“Thanks, Captain Rozek,” Brad said, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “I really appreciate it.” He looked down at his shoes and then resolutely back up at her. “I hope you don't think I was just showing off or anything earlier. President Martindale and Whack Macomber suggested I take this practice run to keep my CID piloting skills sharp. Just in case.”

On impulse, she smiled at him. “If we are going to be flying and fighting together, Mr. Brad McLanahan, I think you can call me Nadia.”

“Really? That's great, Captain . . . I mean, Nadia,” Brad said, looking more cheerful again. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. “Then how about I get started familiarizing you with old Robo Lobo there?”

“Robo Lobo?” Nadia asked, confused again. Then she got it. “Oh, no! Not more of your American ‘wolf' humor?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Brad said jauntily. Then he relented, looking slightly contrite. “Sorry, Nadia. But it was just hanging out there, waiting to be said, and I couldn't stop myself.”

Almost against her will, she laughed. “Never mind. I will forgive you.” She held up a single finger. “Once. But you will resist the temptation from now on, is that understood?”

“Or else?” he asked, intrigued.

“Exactly,” Nadia said, with great satisfaction. “Or else.”