Eagle Station

Leonov’s smile widened as he explained. “Remember what your own great countryman, the formidable strategist Sun Tzu, wrote: ‘Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.’” His gaze grew colder. “We will let the Americans chase after a chimera, while we, in turn, will hunt them.”

Ten

St. Mary’s Basilica, Kraków, Poland

Summer 2022

Brad McLanahan only came out of his daze when the lilting, joyful strains of Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” filled the vast interior of the ancient Gothic church. He looked down into Nadia Rozek’s beautiful, blue-gray eyes. “What the heck just happened?” he whispered.

She smiled up at him. “We are married. And you just kissed me.”

“Wow.” Brad felt as though he were waking up after a months-long slumber. He remembered standing nervously in front of the high altar, looking down the center aisle past pews filled with expectant faces — waiting for Nadia to make her entrance. He’d felt his pulse pounding harder than it ever had before, even under the stress of combat.

And then she’d appeared, clad in a dazzling floor-length, white silk wedding dress, silhouetted against sunlight streaming through the basilica’s open doors. From that moment on, his memories were a blur, more a swelling cascade of emotion than of conscious thought. The whole elaborate wedding ceremony itself, with its ancient rites and responses, had slid past in what seemed like only seconds, submerged beneath an overwhelming tide of pure happiness.

“Now what?” he asked quietly.

Nadia laughed and lovingly took his hand in hers. “Now we endure a few minutes more of pomp and circumstance… and then we begin our life together.”

Brad grinned. Pomp and circumstance was the perfect phrase, he thought. Their first plans for a quiet, private wedding in Nadia’s home village had been overruled by Poland’s president, Piotr Wilk. Instead, he’d insisted on a lavish, state-funded public ceremony to honor them. Wilk, who’d led Poland through the dark years of struggle against renewed Russian aggression, had long wanted to give them the recognition he thought they deserved.

“Your marriage is more than just a union of two hearts and two lives,” Wilk had explained seriously, when they’d protested his decision. “It should also be a celebration of the alliance which saved Poland — and a celebration of the victory earned by your courage and devotion and sacrifice.” In the end, Brad and Nadia, faced with enthusiastic support for Wilk’s idea from her parents, his father, Kevin Martindale, and President Farrell, had reluctantly yielded.

Some good, at least, had come out of the Polish president’s determination to make this partly a political show, Brad thought. Instead of a tuxedo, Wilk had encouraged him to wear his Iron Wolf Squadron dress uniform. And there was no doubt that he felt more comfortable in this familiar dark, rifle-green uniform jacket, white collared shirt, and black tie. The squadron patch on his right shoulder, a metal-gray robotic wolf’s head with glowing red eyes on a bright green background, was almost the only splash of bright color besides the flowers entwined in Nadia’s dark hair and her bridal bouquet.

Together, Brad and Nadia turned and started down the basilica’s long central aisle — passing through a sea of delighted onlookers. Apart from a handful of close friends and family, most of those in the church were military and political dignitaries from Poland, the United States, and half a dozen Eastern European allies.

For one brief moment, Brad’s elation faltered. That so many of these faces were those of relative strangers was a reminder of the grim price paid on the way to this joy-filled day. Too many of their fellow pilots and soldiers had been killed in action against the Russians in the past few years. Now their names and faces crowded in on his memory. It was almost as though they were calling out to him… begging not to be forgotten.

But then, as if she’d sensed his darkening mood, Nadia gently squeezed his hand. “Our comrades are never truly gone. Not while we remember them,” she told him softly.

He nodded, grateful all over again for the undeserved good fortune that had brought this amazing woman into his life. “Kocham cię,” he murmured into her ear. “I love you.”

“I am very pleased to hear that,” she said, with a quick grin. “Because otherwise, this marriage would be off to a somewhat rocky start.”