"They already have," she said, studying her cell phone. "My call to Calgary is going through right now." Once she heard the familiar hum, she need only dial two numbers: 5 9.
Confirmation that the weapon was armed to detonate in twenty seconds would come as three beeps.
But the humming continued.
She hit the numbers again. And again.
She cursed.
"I told you this would happen," Vox cried.
"No!"
"Yes! They've already dismantled the nuke because you let your ego get in the way. You didn't need to contact Kapalkin and Izotov."
"After all those years, I deserved that much," she said through her teeth.
"Well, now what? Do you really believe your brother can come through for us?"
"He will."
"Are you ever going to tell me who he is? What the plan is now? We're in this together."
She cocked a well-tweezed brow. "We all have secrets."
Vox grabbed her by the throat, shoved her up against the wall. "You stupid . . ."
He didn't finish. Instead, he came in for a violent kiss, and she offered no resistance.
When he finally pulled back, his voice lowered to warning depths. "Tell me what's happening."
"If you only knew . . ."
"Tell me, otherwise-"
"What?" She glared at him. "We just made love. Now you're threatening me?"
"You have no idea how much money is at stake."
She snorted. "Oh, yes I do. This will happen-one way or the other."
"We're not leaving until you talk."
"All right. You want to know it all, huh? It doesn't matter anymore. Listen closely. My brother is commander of the Romanov Romanov. He will will launch a salvo of Bulava missiles. They'll fly low, and the JSF's missile shield can't stop them. It'll destroy a series of decoys while the live missiles reach their targets in Alberta." launch a salvo of Bulava missiles. They'll fly low, and the JSF's missile shield can't stop them. It'll destroy a series of decoys while the live missiles reach their targets in Alberta."
"This has never been tried before."
"Until now."
"How did you manage this?"
"Very carefully."
"And you're so very sure."
"I am."
"And you don't care about how many innocent lives will be lost if you're right."
She smiled darkly. "I am Snegurochka. What did you expect?" She shoved him away, drew the silenced pistol tucked into her pants.
"Viktoria, what are you doing?"
"Did you really really think I was working with you?" think I was working with you?"
His mouth fell open. "You can't be serious."
She grinned and extended her arm.
Vox's face filled with hatred. "Go ahead, kill me. Green Vox will return. He always does."
She shot him between the eyes. He dropped hard to the floor.
"Yes," she said, staring down at his body. "You always come back-and always as a man. What a pity."
After ducking down the next side street, Sergeant Nathan Vatz sent two of his operators across the street, where they kept low in a doorway, while the team's senior communications sergeant paired up with him.
They set up behind two parked cars, both so beat up that it was clear why their owners had abandoned them, and waited for the pursuing Spetsnaz troops to round the corner.
Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. They didn't come.
Vatz immediately assumed they had doubled back in an attempt to catch them from behind. Now he had two choices, neither good: he could avoid the ambush and head back to the truck-but the air support no doubt had moved on. Or they could rush ahead, try to catch the enemy by surprise, ambush the ambushers.
The decision was obvious.
He ordered the group to move out, to keep moving forward. They kept tight to the walls, were twenty yards from the corner when the Russians burst into view, just as he'd expected. All six of them.
Vatz jammed down his trigger, spraying the soldiers, as did his men.
The Russians fell back around the corner, but one spun and cut loose a last burst.
Vatz was about to order his men to drive on, but a second group of troops, four in all, appeared behind them and opened up, driving Vatz and his partner into the next doorway.
Across the street, one of Vatz's operators had taken a round in his thigh. He lay there clutching the wound, a dark stain growing on the sidewalk.
They were now cut off, with the Spetsnaz troops at both ends of the street.
Vatz had been taught that it was moments like this that separated the good team sergeants from the great ones. Despite all the stress and heightened senses, you needed to clear your head, analyze the situation, and use cunning, speed, and maneuverability to your advantage.
Calling for help was a good idea, too.
He switched to the team's channel. Maybe Murphy would allow him to get through. "Black Bear, this is Bali, over."
"Go ahead, Bali."
He sighed over the small miracle. "Check the Blue Force Tracker. I'm pinned down here with one wounded, over."
"Roger that. Cross Com's back up now. Tenth's got people on the ground. I'll send a squad or two your way, over."
"That would be nice," Vatz answered matter-of-factly. "Misery loves company. Bali, out." He turned to his commo guy. "We can't stay here."
"But they have us cut off."
"Which is why we can't stay here." He pointed over at his two men across the street. "Cover them. I saw a staircase on one building. I'm going to check it out."
"You're going alone?"
Vatz bit back a curse. "Cover them. Do it."
As Vatz jogged up the street, he realized his team-mate wasn't questioning orders but genuinely concerned about his safety.
Well, Vatz was also genuinely concerned about his safety, and it puzzled him why he wasn't drawing any fire.
Racing to the end of the building, which appeared to be some kind of factory or warehouse, he turned left, found the metal staircase leading up to some heavy machinery on the roof.
He slipped onto the stairs, controlled his breathing, and took it one step at a time.
At the top, he spotted the four Russian soldiers that had been behind them, skulking along the edge, preparing to move along the rooftop to ambush his men below.
One poorly placed step would give him away. He eased off the stairs and onto the ice-covered roof, his boots barely finding traction. He shifted over to a tall aluminum venting system, crouched down, and raised his rifle, just as footfalls rumbled on the staircase and the sounds of the battle grew louder.
"Captain, I'm picking up flow noise from Sierra One on narrowband, bearing three-three-nine," said the Florida Florida's sonar operator.
Andreas's breath grew shallow with excitement. "Where's the thermal layer?"
"Two hundred feet, sir."
"We couldn't pick up his flow noises if he wasn't below the layer with us."
"Concur, Captain."
Andreas called out to the officer of the deck. "Come right to three-three-nine, slow to one third, make your depth sixteen hundred feet."
He waited until the OOD repeated and executed his order, then switched his attention back to sonar. "What's your best guess on that flow noise source?"
"I think it's flow-induced resonance, Captain. That snap shot might've unlatched a stowage bin outside on his hull. It sounds like blowing into an empty Coke bottle. He has to hear it himself. I'm surprised he hasn't slowed down to make it go away."
Andreas squinted and thought aloud: "He knows we're still alive, but he's not sure of our status or where we are, so he's risking some noise to put distance between himself and our contact point. Then he'll slow to a crawl and acoustically vanish."
"I agree, Captain."
"Stay on him, Sonar. That's two mistakes he's made."
"Two, sir?"
"Yeah, taking a cheap panic shot at us during our emergency was his first. On the other hand, we'd most likely have missed each other if we hadn't had that jam."
Andreas had to assume that the Romanov Romanov would behave like the SSBN it was and try to skulk away and hide- would behave like the SSBN it was and try to skulk away and hide- Because a Joint Strike Force nuclear attack sub was a Russian SSBN crew's worst nightmare.
Major Alice Dennison's monitor showed streaming video from the High Level Bridge in Edmonton, just as Spetsnaz mechanized forces were making their way over it- And just as the Tomahawks launched from the Florida Florida made impact. made impact.
As explosions flashed in a string of lights festooning the bridge's lines, Dennison nodded. A perfect strike.
Sure, the nuke there had already been deactivated, but the Euros had reported that the Russian ground force moving in was much larger than initial intel had indicated, and cutting off their main avenue of approach would now allow the Euros to better engage and delay them, until more follow-on forces arrived, or until the Russians decided to pull out.
The bridge broke apart in three distinct pieces and dropped to the river, creating tremendous waves and sending fountains high into the night sky.
And along with the bridge came the Russian vehicles, tumbling end over end, crashing into the pieces of bridge before they sank or simply splashing hard into the water.
At least a dozen more vehicles had been moving so swiftly that they couldn't stop, and like elephants herded to a cliff, they plunged over the side.
She took a long pull on her coffee cup, leaned back in her chair, and continued to watch as, in another set of windows, images came in from Calgary Tower, where wounded or killed infantrymen were being evaced away.
She'd spoken to one of the company commanders there, a man named Welch, who'd said one of his rifle squad leaders had saved the entire NEST team by throwing himself on a fragmentation grenade. Stories of men doing this in order to save their brothers in arms were common during times of war.