Arctic Storm Rising by Dale Brown (readera ebook reader .TXT) 📗

is safely on the ground, far outside your reach. You can no more hope to recover it through your own efforts than you can hope to put a man on the moon before the sun sets tonight.”

Zhdanov bit down on a curse. This traitor was mocking him. His inability to promise a manned Russian lunar landing any timesooner than the next twenty years—at a time when both the American and Chinese space programs were racing ahead—was a sourceof long-standing irritation and shame.

“Which brings me to the crux of this matter,” Petrov continued somberly. “If you want the PAK-DA stealth bomber, its deadlypayload, and all of its many secrets back safely, you will have to pay for them all . . . and pay dearly. To the tune of twohundred billion rubles.”

That created a stir of disbelief and dismay among the watching officers and government officials. Two hundred billion rubleswas more than 2.6 billion U.S. dollars. Such a figure represented a huge sum for Russia’s increasingly cash-strapped governmentand military.

“I have attached an additional file to this signal. It contains the detailed instructions required to make this payment,”Petrov went on.

Zhdanov glanced at the colonel. The younger man nodded. “We found such a file, sir. It’s been relayed to Federal SecurityService experts for analysis.”

Petrov leaned closer to the camera. “But let me be blunt. There will be no bargaining, no haggling. In fact, for every seventy-two hours that elapses from the transmission of this signal without full payment, the price you must pay will increase. The longer you delay, the more it will cost you to regain the stealth bomber and the twelve nuclear-armed Kh-102 cruise missiles currently in my sole possession.” He shrugged. “Should you be tempted to play foolish games and ignore this warning, consider this: While I remain a Russian patriot, despite the weakened, corrupted state of your government and our society, my patience, and that of those who have backed me, is not limitless. If necessary, we will sell the PAK-DA prototype and its weapons to a foreign power—one that will welcome the opportunity to pry open our nation’s most tightly held technological and military secrets.” On the screen, the camera zoomed in on the renegade colonel’s utterly determined face. “Consider the consequences carefully, Mr. President. Don’t fuck this up. Petrov out.” The screen blanked.

For a few moments more, Zhdanov said nothing. Then he glared around the table. “Well?” he demanded. “What do we do now?”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Somewhat understandably, none of the assembled generals and senior government officialswanted to be the first to stick his neck out on what could all too easily become the president’s chopping block. Finally,Rogozin reluctantly cleared his throat. “I think it would be best if we took some additional time to analyze the availabledata, Mr. President.” The Air Force chief looked pale. “The situation we now confront is . . . unprecedented.” Other headsinclined marginally in agreement.

“True,” Zhdanov said harshly. “If by unprecedented, you mean a complete catastrophe.” He glanced at his watch. “Very well, you have one hour.” The expression in his cold eyeshardened. “But not a single minute more. Clear?”

Then, without waiting for further responses, he got up and walked out—leaving his silent advisers still seated, warily staringat each other.

 

True to his word, Piotr Zhdanov returned to the command center precisely sixty minutes later. Briefly, he’d toyed with theidea of delaying longer, knowing the wait would further unnerve the generals and officials who’d failed him so singularlythus far. But faced with Petrov’s own hard deadline, he’d finally decided the pleasure of making them sweat wasn’t worth theloss of more time.

He dropped into his chair. “All right, gentlemen. Let’s get started.” He stabbed a finger at the now-blank wall screen. “First,can we trace that son of a bitch Petrov’s message back to its point of transmission?”

Rogozin shook his head. “I’m afraid not. The PAK-DA prototype’s strategic communications system is completely secure. We designed it specifically to handle signals between strike aircraft and higher headquarters under wartime conditions. It’s essentially undetectable by any enemy, and, unfortunately, equally untraceable by us now.”

“Explain that,” Zhdanov said.

“The system automatically encrypts any message and compresses it to a microsecond burst,” Rogozin said. “Those blips are thenrelayed to our orbiting Meridian-class military communications satellites and beamed back down to receiving stations here.”

Zhdanov frowned. “Don’t our satellites record where the signal originated?”

“No, sir,” Rogozin said uncomfortably. “As a precaution against the possibility of American hacking which could allow themto track our bombers in flight, our programmers deleted that function.”

“Wonderful,” the Russian president said dryly. “A piece of brilliant software design that’s just bitten us in the ass.” Heturned toward a paunchy, gray-haired man farther down the table. Konstantin Yumashev was the director of the Federal SecurityService, the FSB. Largely responsible for counterintelligence, counterterrorism, border security, and political surveillance,the FSB’s ranks also included specialists in cybersecurity and financial crimes. “Can your people exploit that file containingPetrov’s payment instructions, Yumashev?”

The FSB director looked apologetic. “It’s highly unlikely, Mr. President. My experts tell me the funds transfer instructionthe colonel attached appears uncrackable. If we agree to meet his demands, any money we deposit will undoubtedly vanish deeperinto an intricate web of secret accounts within minutes, perhaps only seconds. With a tremendous expenditure of time and effort,my people might be able to pry their way into the top layer of financial institutions used as transfer nodes, but, ultimately,the odds are very much against our ever finding the ultimate destination.”

Zhdanov nodded his understanding. Like many of those in this room, he maintained his own network of private, offshore bank accounts. So he was already intimately familiar with the methods required to shield certain . . . dubious . . . financial transactions from inconvenient public or regulatory scrutiny. His brow furrowed in thought. The fact that a relatively junior Air Force officer like Petrov apparently knew how to game the international banking system so effectively strongly suggested the colonel’s boast about having powerful backers was accurate.

He frowned, wondering who they might be. Between enemies he’d made here