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

at home and enemies he’d made abroad, the list ofpossible suspects would be very long. Then he shrugged. First things first, he reminded himself. Right now, recovering thePAK-DA bomber prototype had to be his top priority. For the moment, vengeance would have to take second place.

Once more, Zhdanov ran his cold gaze around the crowded table. “Recommendations?” he snapped.

Of them all, bald-headed Gennadiy Kokorin was the first one with the guts to speak up. The elderly minister of defense wasvery close to retirement. Perhaps between that and his long years of loyal service, he felt he had relatively little to lose.“Meeting Colonel Petrov’s demands might be safest, Piotr,” he said quietly. “Admittedly, his price is very steep, but seeingthe Americans or the Chinese get their hands on our new bomber prototype would be much worse.”

Zhdanov shook his head. “I will not pay this traitor so much as a single kopek, let alone two hundred billion rubles.” His jaw tightened. No matter how hard they tried to keep such a decision secret, word that he’d yielded so tamelyto blackmail would be sure to leak out. It would make him appear fatally weak at a time of growing political unrest. Essentially,if he caved in to Petrov’s terms, he’d be signing his own political death warrant. Besides, such cowardice would also openthe door to other greedy fools throughout Russia’s armed forces and other government ministries—fools who might decide toimitate the colonel’s criminal example for their own gains.

“But the Americans—” Kokorin began to protest.

“Screw the Americans,” Zhdanov said coarsely, cutting the older man off. “And screw the Chinese, too. For the record, Gennadiy, we’re not going to let Beijing or Washington buy the PAK-DA out from under our noses.”

“Then what do you want us to do?” the defense minister asked.

“If possible, I want the stealth bomber recaptured,” Zhdanov replied. “But if necessary, I want the aircraft completely destroyed.If we can’t have it, no one else will.” He saw his advisers nod enthusiastically in agreement. Of course they agree, he thought sourly. Now that I’ve made the hard decision on my own, they’ll back me up. And then deny having had any responsibility if things go wrong. He turned back to Rogozin. “Which means our first step must be to find out where Petrov has landed.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the Air Force commander agreed. He sighed. “One thing is clear: this is an organized conspiracy. Whileit might be possible for the colonel and his copilot to have stolen the PAK-DA on their own, it would be absolutely impossiblefor them to find a suitable landing field and then conceal the bomber without substantial help on the ground.”

Kokorin nodded somberly. “Very true, General.” He shook his head. “Since Petrov hasn’t yet turned the aircraft over to a foreigngovernment, he’s almost certainly in league with a powerful criminal cabal.” He rubbed a weary hand across his bald scalp.“Probably the Mafiya or some other organized crime group.”

Zhdanov noticed that some of his advisers looked even more worried by that possibility. That was no surprise, he supposed. Many of Moscow’s political and military elites had at least an arm’s-length relationship with the capital’s wealthier crime bosses. Like was attracted to like, he thought cynically. Now, no doubt, some of them were nervously considering the prospect that those ties might suddenly land them in very hot water, at least if any of their Mafiya “friends” turned out to be involved in Petrov’s scheme. He made a note to himself to consult with Yumashev after this meeting. Many of the FSB’s agents were probably on the take, too, but an investigation might still bear fruit—especially if it became a choice between a firing squad on the one hand or losing a little extra under-the-table income on the other.

“We’ll worry about who’s helping the traitor later,” he said impatiently. “Right now, I want your best guesses as to wherethe PAK-DA could be.”

In answer, Rogozin tapped a control on the computer keyboard at his place. The wall screen lit up again, this time showinga digital map of the entire world. “Determining its hiding place will be very difficult,” he warned. “Fully fueled, the stealthbomber prototype had a maximum range of eleven thousand kilometers.” On the screen, a bright red circle centered on the bomber’slast-known position, the refueling rendezvous point over the Yenisei River in central Russia, rapidly expanded outward untilit reached a radius of eleven thousand kilometers. “And, as you can see, that means almost all of the world’s landmasses andmajor islands were within its reach.”

Zhdanov nodded grimly, astonished despite himself at what he saw. Petrov could theoretically have flown anywhere in all ofRussia, North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and most of Australia. It was an enormous area, containing dozensof separate countries and close to two hundred million square kilometers, much of it sparsely populated forests, jungles,steppes, deserts, and mountains.

“Fortunately,” Rogozin continued, “we can rule out certain major areas immediately.” He touched another key. Europe blankedoff the large digital map. “Given Europe’s population density, high level of law enforcement, and the sheer numbers of othercivilian and military aircraft operating inside its tightly monitored airspace last night, there is virtually no chance thatPetrov could have flown anywhere there without being detected. Nor could he have hoped to land unobserved.”

Another swipe by Rogozin’s fingers eliminated a second large swath of the globe, this time the Middle East and Africa.

“How can you eliminate those regions as possible hiding places? Especially so quickly?” Zhdanov objected. “Huge portions of Africa and the Middle East are only thinly peopled. And in many of those same areas, there are almost no functioning governments, only warring tribes and rival religious and political factions.”

“That’s true, Mr. President,” Rogozin acknowledged. He entered a new command on his computer. Icons depicting military aircraft,alerted air defense radars, and missile sites suddenly appeared on the wall map. They were deployed along a wide band fromTurkey and Georgia through Turkmenistan and all the way to Afghanistan. “But we observed intense American and American alliedair