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  Air Force General Anatoliy Gryzlov liked to get out of the office at least once a month and fly. With training hours in short supply, it was a luxury even most Russian general officers could not manage. But Gryzlov was different: Because he was the deputy minister of defense for the Russian government and the chief of the general staff of the military forces of the Russian Federation, he got everything he wanted. The troops loved seeing the former bomber pilot, test pilot, and cosmonaut at their base, and they were absolutely thrilled to see the fifty-nine-year-old chief of the general staff take command of a mission.

  Unlike many Russian military men, Gryzlov was slight of stature, slender, and quick, with light brown hair cut short—he actually looked good in a flight suit, even a bulky winter-weight one. He found it easy to maneuver inside his favorite aircraft, the famed Tupolev-160 long-range strategic bomber, the one the West called the “Blackjack” bomber. Originally designed to attack the United States of America with nuclear weapons, the Tu-160 was still by far the world’s largest attack aircraft. Capable of supersonic dash speeds in excess of two thousand kilometers per hour at midaltitude and near-supersonic speeds at terrain-following altitude, the Tupolev-160 could deliver as many as twelve cruise missiles or a total of more than forty thousand kilograms of weapons at unrefueled ranges of well over fourteen thousand kilometers. Only forty were built, but the little wing at Engels Air Base near Saratov, six hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow, was the pride of the Russian air force.

  Gryzlov made his way back from the cockpit and sat in the instructor’s seat between the navigator/bombardier and defensive-systems officers, who sat side by side in their ejection seats behind the two pilots. Although the Tu-160 was a dream to fly, and the best seat in the house was definitely the cockpit—except during landing, when the long nose and very high approach and landing speeds made landing the Blackjack very, very hairy—all the action was back here. He stopped at the “honey bucket” in the rest area between the pilots’ and systems officers’ compartments and took a pee, glancing wryly at the toilet-paper holder hanging on a wire next to the bucket—the only piece of wood, it was said, carried aloft on a Russian attack plane.

  The systems operators’ compartment was dark but spacious—there was even enough room for beach chairs and ice chests back here for very long flights, although they were not needed on this one. “How is it going, Major?” Gryzlov asked cross-cockpit.

  “Very well, sir,” Major Boris Bolkeim, the navigator/bombardier, replied. He gave the DSO, or defensive systems officer, a swat on the shoulder, and the other man hurriedly safed his ejection seat and started to unstrap so Gryzlov could sit there. But Gryzlov shook his hand at the DSO to tell him to stay put and instead took the jump seat. “Twenty minutes to initial point. The system’s doing well.”

  “Any warning broadcasts, Captain?”

  “None, sir,” responded Captain Mikhail Osipov, the defensive systems officer. “All known frequencies are silent. I’m a little surprised.”

  “Hopefully it means everyone’s done his job,” Gryzlov said. Bolkeim offered Gryzlov a Russian cigarette, but the chief of staff took out a pack of Marlboros, and both he and the DSO accepted hungrily. As they smoked, they chatted about the mission, the military, their families at home. It was just like old times, Gryzlov thought—taking a break before the action started, talking about everything and nothing in particular. This was the part of the job he really enjoyed, getting out into the field with the troops, having a little fun, and doing some serious business at the same time. Sure, he was showing his stars, too, but that wasn’t the main reason he did it.

  It was not a particularly good time to be chief of the general staff. Anatoliy Gryzlov was unlucky enough to take over the position from the disgraced and imprisoned Valeriy Zhurbenko, who had tried to make a deal with a Russian mobster to force a number of Balkan states to agree to allow the mobster, Pavel Kazakov, to build a pipeline through their country. Gryzlov was nothing more than a politically expedient choice—he was a highly decorated and capable but profoundly unpolitical air force officer—just the way the Russian parliament wanted it.

  Unfortunately, that also meant he was no friend of anyone in the Kremlin, especially the president, Valentin Gennadievich Sen’kov. So far that didn’t seem to make too much difference. Sen’kov was lying low, reluctant to poke his nose out of the Kremlin too far for fear of its getting bitten off by some zealous—or jealous—politician. Things were just plain stagnant in Moscow these days. There was no money to do anything—which was fine with most folks, since no one really wanted to do much of anything anyway.

  But Gryzlov wanted something more. Gryzlov was a former Russian air force interceptor pilot, flight test pilot, and astronaut. With his gymnast’s physique, he exuded energy—and he saw most of his energy going to waste in the eyes of his troops, everyone from generals to the lowliest clerks and cooks.

  A perfect example of the lack of Russian determination: Chechnya. The little Russian enclave in southern Russia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, had already been granted limited autonomy by the Russian government, yet the Muslim separatists there still held considerable power and still performed acts of terrorism throughout Russia, especially in neighboring Dagestan province. The separatists were being openly supported by the pro-Muslim governments of nearby Azerbaijan, who in turn were funded and supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey.

  The place was still a Russian province, for God’s sake. And with just a few hundred thousand people in all of the province of Chechnya, most of whom lived in the major cities of Grozny and Gudermes, and very few resources except for the fertile farmlands in the east. It should be simple, Gryzlov thought, to crush the Chechen rebels no matter how much support they were getting from overseas. But the terrain was very rugged in the south, which made it easy for guerrillas and terrorists to covertly move out of the country into Dagestan and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

  That’s why, when reliable intelligence information came in about rebel movements, it was important to react quickly. Sending in ground forces was almost always a waste of time—the rebels knew the mountains better than the military did. Helicopter gunships were effective, but the rebels had every known or suspected full- or part-time helicopter base within five hundred kilometers under constant surveillance. If a single helicopter moved, the rebels knew about it instantly.

  The best way to deal with the rebels was by air from well outside the region. Anatoliy Gryzlov preferred the long-range bombers. Not because he was a former bomber pilot, but because they were the most effective weapon system for the job—as long as the political will to use them still existed. He was determined to spark that political will. He wanted nothing more than to begin an era of Russian military dominance in all of Central Asia and Europe—starting with the breakaway province of Chechnya.

  “Ten minutes to initial point,” the bombardier announced.

  “General?” the pilot called back on intercom.

  “I’ll stay back here,” Gryzlov said. The spare pilot took the copilot’s seat, and Gryzlov tightened his shoulder straps in the jump seat and got ready for the action.

  Large numbers of rebel forces had been detected moving north from the Republic of Georgia along the Caucasus Mountains between Dagestan and Chechnya. They had been untouchable and virtually untrackable until they were most likely forced to leave the protection of the mountains—driven out, no doubt, by the freezing temperatures and unbearable living conditions of the mountains—and moved into the small mining town of Vedeno, just sixteen kilometers north of the provincial border. The force was estimated at about two to three thousand—a very large force to be traveling together. Not all were fighters, perhaps four or five hundred; the rest were family members and support personnel.

  “Initial point in one minute,” the navigator/bombardier announced. He checked his inertial navigation system’s drift rate—less than two miles per hour, pretty good for
this system. He made the final radar update and zeroed out all of the system’s velocity errors, then dumped the latest alignment, heading, position, and velocity information to the twenty-four Kh-15 short-range attack missiles they carried in the bomber’s two huge bomb bays.

  The plan was simple: first cut it off, then kill it.

  At the initial point the bombardier began launching the missiles. One by one, each 1,200-kilogram missile dropped from its rotary launcher, ignited its solid-rocket motor, and shot off into space. A protective coating kept the missile safe as it flew at over twice the speed of sound up to fifteen thousand meters altitude, then started its terminal dive on its targets.

  The first twelve missiles, carrying 150-kilogram high-explosive warheads, hit bridges and major intersections of the roads leading in and out of the rebels’ sanctuary at Vedeno. Since the missiles had a range of almost ninety kilometers, no one on the ground had any warning of the attack. Five other Tu-160 Blackjack bombers also launched their missiles around the outskirts of Vedeno from long range, blasting away at known vehicle-marshaling areas, storage facilities, hideouts, and encampments outside the town.

  The second phase of the attack didn’t commence for ten minutes. The reason was simple: The rebels’ typical pattern when under attack was to leave their families behind in town and try to escape into the mountains. In ten minutes they should just be discovering that their escape routes had been cut off—leaving them out in the open. At that moment the Tu-160s opened up their aft bomb bays.

  And the real carnage began.

  All the aft bomb bays carried twelve more Kh-15 missiles on rotary launchers, but the warheads on these contained fuel-air explosive devices. Explosive fuel was dispensed in a large cloud about two hundred meters aboveground and then ignited, creating a massive fireball over three hundred meters in diameter that instantly incinerated anything it touched. And each missile was targeted not just for the outskirts of Vedeno but for the town itself.

  Within moments the place that was once the city of Vedeno was completely engulfed in fire. Over four square kilometers were leveled and burned instantly, and the overpressure caused by the multiple fuel-air explosions destroyed anything within seven square kilometers. The only thing left standing was the Caucasus Mountains, completely denuded of all vegetation and wiped clean of snow, with immense blankets of smoke and steam rising into the night sky.

  “Good job, everyone,” Gryzlov said. He shook hands with the systems officers, then returned to the copilot’s seat. The pilot was just checking in the rest of the formation—all aircraft in the green, all aircraft released live weapons, all aircraft returning to base. “Excellent job, everyone,” Gryzlov radioed on the secure command frequency to the other bombers in the formation. “I’m buying the first round back home.”

  BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA

  That evening

  Air Force Colonel Daren Mace decided to drive his beat-up Ford pickup into town to look around before heading out to the base. The town of Battle Mountain was hardly more than a dusty bump in the road off Interstate 80 in northern Nevada. With the construction of the Air Reserve base, several civilian construction projects were also under way—a large chain hotel and casino, a sizable truck stop, several apartment buildings, and a small single-family-home subdivision—but even after three years since construction began on the base, the town had changed very little. It still had its old, isolated, mining-town rough edge.

  Closing in on the big five-oh, Daren Mace had recently turned into the world’s biggest health freak, which for him was a complete one-eighty from his previous lifestyle. Not long before, his favorite hangout for everything from mission planning to dating to doing his taxes was in a tavern somewhere—he was such a fixture in some of his favorite places that he could often be seen serving drinks or repairing equipment in his spare time. But then he found himself needing glasses for reading, found his flight suits getting a little tight around the middle, so he started an exercise regime. Now every day started off with a run. His consumption of beer, cigarettes, and pizza also declined, as did his blood pressure and cholesterol count, so he was able to maintain the same lean, trim figure he’d had most of his adult life, even though he was getting more and more deskbound in his military career.

  Sure, the hair was turning grayer, and he was popping aspirins almost every morning to counteract the unexpected little aches he’d encounter. But those were all signs of maturity—weren’t they?

  Maturity was never one of his strong suits in the past. Born and raised in Jackpot, Nevada, several hours’ drive northeast of Battle Mountain, the younger Mace found that his main concerns usually involved staying one step ahead of his strict parents, the game wardens during his many illegal hunting trips in the high desert, the fathers of his various love interests, and—first on the list—getting the hell out of back-country Nevada. The Air Force was his ticket out.

  His twenty-three-year Air Force career wasn’t all aches and pains. Because of his exceptional knowledge, his skills, and his ability to think, plan, and execute quickly and effectively, Mace was one of the youngest aviators ever chosen to fly the FB-111A “Aardvark” supersonic strategic bomber, at a time when there were only forty of the long-range nuclear-armed bombers in the Air Force inventory and only six navigators per year chosen from the entire force to serve on them. He didn’t disappoint. He was not only a knowledgeable and hardworking bombardier and crew member, but he took the time to study the aircraft, all its systems, and its incredible capabilities. Mace soon became known as the primary expert in all facets of the “Go-Fast” supersonic strike aircraft.

  So in 1990, during Operation Desert Shield, Daren Mace was the natural choice for one of the most important and dangerous missions conceived as a result of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the tensions created in the Middle East—the American response to an all-out nuclear, chemical, or biological attack by Iraq or one of the other hostile nations against U.S. forces in the region. Should such an attack take place, Mace’s mission was to take off in his FB-111A bomber from a secret air base in eastern Turkey and launch thermonuclear-tipped missiles at four of Iraq’s most important underground command-and-control centers, all in one mission.

  On January 17, 1991, the Iraqis attacked Israel with a SCUD rocket armed with what was thought to be a chemical-weapon warhead, and several more SCUDs hit areas of Saudi Arabia, close to where American troops were garrisoned. Mace and his squadron commander took off from Batman Air Base in Turkey on their deadly mission to stop the Iraqi war machine from launching any more weapons of mass destruction. Loaded with four three-thousand-gallon fuel tanks and four AGM-69A short-range attack missiles tipped with three-hundred-kiloton thermonuclear warheads, they zoomed in at treetop level under cover of darkness, at full military power or greater the whole way. They received the execution order: It would be America’s first nuclear attack since World War II.

  Except it hadn’t been a chemical-weapon attack. It was determined that the Iraqi warhead did not contain chemical or biological weapons—the rocket had hit a dry-cleaning facility, and the chemicals released from inside the building mimicked chemical weapons. Within minutes an abort code was sent to the strike aircraft.

  Moments before launch, the crew received a coded message. There was no time to decode it before launch, and they already had a valid strike order authorizing them to launch their missiles—but Mace canceled the attack anyway. Legally, procedurally, he should have fired his nuclear missiles. Instead Mace used his common sense and his gut feeling and aborted.

  Now deep inside enemy territory, flying right over Iraq’s most sensitive military areas, the crew had relied on the nuclear strike to help them escape. Without it they were in the fight of their lives. With no fighter protection, low on fuel, and heavily loaded with dangerous weapons, they were attacked mercilessly with every weapon in the Iraqi air-defense arsenal. Mace’s aircraft commander was badly injured and his plane shot up and flying on one engine. Mace managed to do an
emergency refueling with a KC-10 aerial refueling tanker that had crossed the Iraqi border to do the rendezvous before the FB-111 flamed out, then crash-landed his plane on a highway in northern Saudi Arabia.

  In anyone’s book, in any other situation, Mace would’ve been a hero. Instead he was ostracized as the bombardier who couldn’t follow orders and had lost his nerve. He was bounced from assignment to assignment, squirreled away in remote operational locations, and then finally offered a Reserve commission. His fitness reports were always “firewalled”—meaning he always got the highest marks on job performance—but he was never considered for any command assignments, never believed to have the right stuff to command a tactical unit. His last assignment was as a protocol officer in the secretary of defense’s office, where he’d been relegated to escorting VIPs and running errands for the honchos in the Pentagon.

  Battle Mountain seemed to be the newest “squirrel’s nest” for him.

  Daren always seemed to gravitate toward bars and taverns located on the wrong side of town, and he did so again that night. There were four very small casinos in Battle Mountain, one open-all-day restaurant and eight that were open part-time, eight motels, four gas stations, and one truck stop. The truck stop had billiard tables, friendly waitresses, good burgers . . . and, next door, a brothel.

  Donatella’s looked nothing like the hundreds of antique stores, rock shops, or tourist traps that lined the highways. A flashing sign with a slinky black cat was the only visible advertisement. A long, wide ramp—the place was fully wheelchair-accessible—was enclosed and brilliantly lit, with a valet-parking attendant and buzzer-operated iron gate at the bottom and a doorman/bouncer and another buzzer-operated gate at the top of the ramp. It reminded Daren of entering an alert facility when he pulled nuclear duty in the FB-111s. There was even covered parking for motorcycles. Daren was impressed. He’d never been in a brothel before, so he decided to check it out.