Eagle Station

“Just this,” Patrick said. He slid a small, handwritten note across. “It was attached to the doll set before we took it apart.”

Martindale stared down at the note. Written in the Cyrillic alphabet it read: В будущем. Slowly, he puzzled through the unfamiliar characters, switching them out for their Latin alphabet equivalents. “To the future?” he translated.

“That’s what it says,” Patrick agreed.

“And there was nothing else?”

“Nope,” Patrick said. “No hidden listening devices. No lethal toxins. Nada.” He scowled. “Which leaves us with one big question—”

“What sort of message is Leonov trying to send?” Martindale finished for him.

Patrick nodded. “Admittedly, we don’t know much about his psychology. But nothing suggests he shares Gennadiy Gryzlov’s psychotic craving for personal revenge. If anything, Leonov’s supposed to be one coldhearted bastard — never making a move unless he’s analyzed it six ways from Sunday.”

“Which makes him more dangerous,” Martindale commented sourly. “He’s not as easy to predict… or to manipulate… as the late and very unlamented Gennadiy.”

“Too true.”

Martindale tapped the tiny spaceplane miniature with the tip of one finger. “Then the simplest explanation may also be the most likely.” He looked up. “By now the Russians must realize how valuable our single-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes are, both for military and civilian space operations.”

Patrick nodded again. The Russians had their own Elektron spaceplanes, but they were primitive compared to the hypersonic S-series ships built by Sky Masters. The S-29 Shadow and its counterparts could take off and land on runways built for ordinary commercial airliners. In contrast, the Russians could only launch their comparatively tiny, single-pilot spacecraft atop expendable rockets. And even when they reached orbit, they were easily outgunned and outmaneuvered by their larger, more capable American rivals. “So?”

“Well, this little exercise could just be Leonov putting us on notice that he plans to build his own versions of the S-29 Shadow and our other spaceplanes,” Martindale mused.

“Why give us any warning at all?” Patrick asked, not hiding his skepticism.

Martindale shrugged. “Leonov might be playing a weak hand to the best of his ability. After all, there’s no way in hell he could hope to hide a full-scale spaceplane development and flight test program. Not for very long, anyhow.”

“He hid the Energia heavy-lift rocket program from us for years,” Patrick pointed out quietly.

Martindale looked pained. “That’s not a mistake my Scion intelligence teams will make again.” He went on. “Anyway, maybe he just wants to make us sweat a little, while his engineers and scientists work on reverse-engineering Sky Masters technology, just like he did with our CID combat robots.”

Patrick winced. Learning that the Russians had successfully built their own robotic war machines, their Kiberneticheskiye Voyennyye Mashiny, had come at a terrible price — one that included thousands of dead American civilians, airmen, and sailors… and both of his beautiful new daughter-in-law’s legs. “Is there any evidence at all that Moscow has a serious spaceplane R&D program under way?”

Reluctantly, Martindale nodded. “For the past couple of months, my people inside Russia have been picking up rumors of something called Proyekt Zhar-Ptitsa, the Firebird Project.”

“Firebird,” Patrick said heavily.

“That is dismayingly suggestive,” Martindale agreed.

“So why is this the first time I’m hearing about it?” Patrick asked.

Martindale sighed. “Mostly because all I had were a few unsubstantiated bits of information, more random gossip than hard intelligence. Not anything worth sounding the alarm about, especially with Brad and Nadia’s wedding coming up.”

“And that’s changed recently?”

Martindale nodded. “My operatives have learned that, whatever this Firebird Project is, it involves some of the top aerospace engineers and designers from Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Mikoyan.” Those were the top Russian military aircraft manufacturers.

“Then we’d better make damned sure Sky Masters tightens up its security,” Patrick growled. “Because those LPDRS triple-hybrid engines it produces are the key component for any real spaceplane program.”

Martindale nodded his understanding. All the other elements needed to build a working single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane — hypersonic airframe designs, composite materials, advanced computer flight controls, and the like — were already readily available. So if the Russians ever got their hands on Sky Masters’ revolutionary engine technology, all bets were off. Moscow could have its own fleet of hypersonic aircraft and spacecraft flying within one or two years — completely upsetting the favorable balance of power the United States had so recently achieved.

Eleven

Aerospace City, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Several Weeks Later