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tactical radio clipped to his collar. The terrorists had not been in a hurry when they’d hidden this boat. They’d heaped allthis crap across it long before they slaughtered Voronov and his men. Which meant the inflatable raft had never been used as part of an escape across the Bug River into Poland.
    Which meant—
    A 7.62mm round moving at 830 meters per second hit the veteran Spetsnaz scout in the face and tore out through the back of his head.
    Crack!
    Ivan Chapayev was dead before the sound of the shot arrived.
    Several hundred meters to the north, lying prone in a clump of brush on the Ukrainian side of the river, Pavlo Lytvyn peered through the SVD Dragunov sniper rifle’s telescopic sight for another few seconds. “No movement,” he said finally with grim satisfaction. “My target is down.”
    Fedir Kravchenko clapped him on the shoulder. “Nicely done!”
    The sudden crackle of automatic weapons fire brought a smile to his face. The trigger-happy Poles and Russians were shooting at each other. Killing that fat pig Voronov had been satisfying, but it was only part of a larger plan—a plan that was unfolding successfully. He had lured the Russian Federation into a direct armed confrontation with a member of the NATO alliance. Perhaps now the West would push back against the Kremlin’s domination of his beloved country!
    â€œTime to go, Pavlo,” Kravchenko said. “We’re finished here.”
    Nodding, the bigger man packed up his sniper rifle and followed his leader back through the carefully camouflaged entrance of their hideout, a concrete bunker dug deep into the riverbank. Originally built by the Soviets as part of the so-called Molotov Defense Line during their 1939–1941 occupation of eastern Poland, the half-buried bunker had moldered away for decades—forgotten by everyone except the odd Romany tramp or occasional kayaking tourists taking refuge during a thunderstorm. By the time anyone official stumbled across it, Kravchenko and his men would be long gone.

A IR C ONTROL P OINT A LPHA ,
    OVER THE U KRAINE
    T HAT SAME TIME
    Four thousand meters above the Ukrainian countryside, Major Viktor Zelin jogged his Su-34 fighter-bomber’s stick slightly left, beginning another lazy, slow racetrack turn. His eyes flicked to the fuel indicator. They still had plenty of flying time left before they would have to break away and refuel.
    He glanced out the canopy, making sure his wingman was still in position. The other Su-34 was right where it was supposed to be, hanging back about a kilometer off his wing tip. Two mottled green, brown, and tan specks were just visible off to the north, circling low above the mosaic of woods and fields. The two single-seater Su-35 fighters sent to back them up were staying well down on the deck, avoiding Polish radar detection.
    â€œ My popali v zasadu! We’ve been ambushed!” The Spetsnaz captain’s frantic radio call broke into his headset. “A sniper just killed one of my men and now we’re taking fire!”
    In the seat beside him, Starikov keyed his mike. “This is Sentinel Leader, Hunter One. Do you need air support? Over.”
    â€œHell, yes!” the Spetsnaz commander shouted. They could hear gunfire in the background, rising steadily in volume. “We’re pinned down at the edge of the trees along the river, with terrorists to our front. Range is between two and three hundred meters. I can paint the target for you with a laser!”
    Zelin frowned. That was awfully close for an air strike, even with precision-guided munitions. One little equipment or computer glitch could strew their bombs across friendly troops, not the enemy.
    â€œCan you break contact?” Starikov asked, obviously thinking the same thing.
    â€œNegative! Negative! We’ve practically got our backs up against the river as it is!”
    â€œUnderstood, Hunter One,” the navigation and weapons