Tom Clancy - Command Authority

The four Reaper drones had been flying out of this airport for the entire war. Now that the entire JOC and all the aircraft had arrived, the four Reapers had to share hangar space with troops and equipment, but the CIA crews were glad to be under the protection of U.S. forces now and not Ukrainian Army units whose loyalties had been questioned more than once in the past few days by Ukraine’s president.

The relocated JOC was up and running here by eight p.m., and by eight-thirty they were commanding forces on laser targeting missions to the east.

Colonel Barry Jankowski, code name Midas, moved throughout the JOC, talking to intel officers in comms with the teams still lasing for the Ukrainians. The United States and British forces were pulling back, still in an organized manner, but as the Russians continued their advance across eastern Ukraine toward Kiev and the Dnieper River, Midas knew his soft holding action had already turned into a series of less coordinated hit-and-run strikes, and it soon would be little more than small-scale harassment in the midst of a full retreat.

That said, his boys were still out there, they were still killing Russian armor, and had it not been for this small coalition of special operations personnel, Russian tanks would likely already be driving down the streets of Kiev.

As Midas reached for a can of cola from a Styrofoam cooler, a voice came through his headset. “Midas, call from the Pentagon. SecDef.”

Midas forgot the cola and headed back to his desk. A moment later, he answered the call from Secretary of Defense Robert Burgess, and ten minutes after he finished that call, he picked up his handheld sat phone and walked out of the JOC. He stepped into a quiet grassy space near the pararescue Black Hawks and made a call of his own.

After several rings he heard: “Clark.”

Midas blew out a sigh of relief. “It’s Midas here. You still in Kiev?”

“I am. How about you?”

“I’m at Boryspil Airport. We’ve moved our operation here.”

“That’s still twenty-five miles east of Kiev. Are you guys safe there?”

“We’d be safer in Idaho, but I couldn’t get command to approve the move.”

Clark laughed. “I’m impressed by a man who can keep his humor in all this.”

“It’s about all I have left.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I need to know if you still have eyes on the Fairmont.”

“We do. Not a perfect location, but we can see the front from our safe house. We can also see the balconies at the top where the POI is holed up. Why?”

“Can you see the roof?”

“Affirmative.”

“What’s up there?”

“Last time I checked, there were a few goons and a pair of Eurocopters. They are civilian models, but they look pretty robust.”

Midas said, “I was afraid of that.”

“Can you fill me in on what’s going on?”

“Any chance you can come over to Boryspil for a chat?”

Clark said, “I’m ten minutes out. Meeting an aircraft with some of my guys on it. They’ll be landing in an hour and heading over to an FBO hangar on the southern side of the airport. Where are you located? I’ll drop by.”

“Tell you what, Clark. You are a little bit like my crazy aunt in the attic. I’d rather as few people knew about you as possible. I’ll meet you at the FBO. Say twenty minutes?”

“Roger that,” Clark replied with a chuckle.

Clark sat alone on a bench in the cold night air. There was no one around, although the airport runway a quarter-mile away was in a constant state of activity as planes landed and took off with no more than thirty seconds’ separation between them.

Half of the flights were civilian carriers full of people getting the fuck out of town, and the other half were military transport or combat aircraft.

Clark had just started thinking of other civilian airports he had seen in war zones around the world and over time, when Midas appeared around the corner of a metal outbuilding attached to the FBO. He was dressed in jeans and a nylon coat, under which Clark assumed he wore body armor and a gun. He was alone, which Clark found fascinating given that this man was in charge of U.S. combat ops in the entire country.

“Thanks for meeting me,” Midas said, as they shook hands.

“Glad to see you are still in one piece,” Clark replied. “How can I help you out?”

Midas didn’t waste time. “I’ve been ordered to send a force to the Fairmont Grand to arrest Dmitri Nesterov, aka Gleb the Scar. Apparently he’s got something to do with the polonium attack on Golovko.”

Clark knew this, but he didn’t bother mentioning it. He said, “Why doesn’t JSOC send SEALs to do it?”

Midas gave Clark an annoyed look there in the darkness. Clark knew there was a little friction between SEALs and Delta, predominantly of the good-natured variety. Both forces wanted to get in on the big hits, and this was most definitely a big hit. “You were a SEAL, weren’t you?”

Clark said, “Guilty as charged. We didn’t have a Team Six back then, though.”

“Yeah, well, Six won’t get here in time. The problem is, they have reason to believe he’s about to make a run for it. Maybe even tonight. If we don’t grab Nesterov now, he can shoot north to the Belarussian border, or east to get behind the advancing Russians. He does that and the only way SEAL Team Six can take him is to enter denied territory.”

“So you need to grab him right now.”

Midas looked out into the night as a pair of MiGs took off on the runway. “Like I don’t have enough on my plate.”

“How many men do you have available for this op?”

“I’ve got A-teams in goddamned pickups smashing through gridlocked traffic trying to stay in front of the Russian armor. I’ve got all my ODAs down below half-strength, and if I pull any of them out of the field there will be no way to reinsert them. The Unit guys I have are split up as well. I’ve got a dozen assaulters and recce men back here in the JOC because their position was overrun this afternoon, but that’s it.”

“Could you use your Rangers for this?”

“No. I need the Ranger QRF on standby for emergencies to the east, and the rest pulling security here. I’m sure Rangers would get the job done, but shit like this is what the Army pays us Unit guys to do.”

“A dozen guys can’t take that place,” Clark said flatly.

“They don’t have to take the place, they only have to take Nesterov.”

Clark whistled. “Damn, Midas. I don’t know if you are planning on hitting that hotel with a dozen men, but I hope I can dissuade you from that. Delta or no, a dozen shooters is going to mean a dozen dead Americans.”

Midas said, “I’ve got an idea or two. I’m in good with a Ukrainian Army colonel. His battalion has the duty of protecting the government offices of the city, he’s a nationalist, and he’s culled his unit of everyone who thinks differently than he does. He’s worked with the CIA for years, and I’ve known him since I came over here last year.

“I don’t trust him to hit that building to capture Nesterov—he’d probably try to level it with T-72s—but I do trust him to keep quiet about this to the Russians. I’m thinking I can have him send troops to the Fairmont, just park outside like they are going to hit from below, maybe send some armored cars up to the door to engage men in the lobby, just to keep the majority of the Seven Strong Men forces there occupied.”

Clark said, “If you do that, Gleb will fly out on a Eurocopter.”

“Not if we hit the roof, disable the helos, and cut off his escape. Personally, I’d just have a Little Bird fire rockets onto the roof to blow the Eurocopters to shit, but we run the risk of killing the dude we’ve been ordered to take alive. His suite is right below the roof, so we can’t just blast the helos. We have to do an in extremis takedown and get him out of there before the Russians come.”