Brink of War

1

I could feel the cold radiating in from the steel hatch that led from Flight Control to the flight deck. The air duct overhead was pumping out intermittent blasts of hot air, but couldn't keep pace with the arctic air separated from this compartment by only an inch of steel. The enlisted aviation specialists behind the service counter were bulky and sexless in layers of sweaters, foul-weather jackets, and long underwear. All of them wore gloves and black watch caps pulled down tight over ears and forehead.

They crowded around one point located directly under the counter, surreptitiously elbowing and jostling. From the occasional bliss on their faces, I deduced that somebody had managed to smuggle in a highly illegal, completely unsafe, and critically necessary space heater. It was cached out of view of the officers who'd undoubtedly make them remove it from the space, citing the potential for electrical fires, shock hazard, and class alpha fires should the hot filaments make contact with one of the stacks of papers cluttering their work space behind the counter. A conscientious officer would confiscate it, preventing any one of those highly unlikely risks from escalating into a problem, leaving the enlisted men and women to combat the cold as best they could.

I studiously ignored it. An early Christmas present, guys, and probably the best one you're likely to get this year until you get home.

"My bird ready?"

The chief in charge of the space nodded. Chief Jabrowski, a gnarled veteran of ships and flight decks with almost thirty years in the Navy, was only four months away from mandatory retirement. His eyes were ice blue, framed by a network of wrinkles and creases that marked the face of any man who spent so many years at sea. He had a small, dark mustache, flecked now with the same stray white strands that were scattered around his temples.

His hair was clipped close to his head, almost a Marine Corps cut. Red, windburned skin, wrinkled down to a thin pair of lips curved up in a surprisingly congenial smile.

"Double nuts," he answered. "They're de-icing again now ― can't be too careful in this weather."

I nodded, understanding the dangers of operating in this brutal environment. Even though the day outside was stunningly clear and bright, harsh sunlight spilling across the dark black of the nonskid on the flight deck, there was always the danger of icing as moisture from the air condensed on metal surfaces. I'd spent my share of time in cold weather ops. So had the chief.

Besides, the double nuts bird was worth taking care of. The zero-zero tail number designated it as the CAG's aircraft, and it was usually kept in top shape. Not that that's the only one he flew, but it meant something to the squadron that they'd assigned this bird to me.

And to me. Too many years ago, I'd been skipper of VF-95. I hadn't forgotten it ― and neither had they.

"Any other last-minute problems?" I asked, knowing there weren't or the chief would have told me about them.

He shook his head. "Nary a one." The odd Arkansas twang seemed alien in this near-freezing compartment.

The handler, Lieutenant Commander Bernie Hanks, was now scurrying over to pay his respects. When I entered the compartment, he'd been deep in argument with a yellow-shirted flight deck handler, gesticulating at the carrier's flight deck mock-up behind him and tapping impatiently on the wooden cutout form of an E-2 Hawkeye. I caught the gist of the conversation in a few words, the eternal argument about how and where to place too many aircraft in too little space.

The technician wanted to move the Hawkeye down into the hangar bay for maintenance work, and Bernie wasn't buying it. "Maybe after flight ops, yeah. But not right now. No way, not a chance in hell. And if the helmeted and goggled yellow shirt in front of him didn't like it, well then he could just shit in one hand and-"

A pointed, entirely unnecessary cough from the chief cut the argument short before Bernie could complete the traditional Navy suggestion. No love lost between the chief and Bernie, clearly. Otherwise, the chief would have been a little bit smoother, a little bit faster with the cough and would have saved Bernie the embarrassment of not noticing my arrival.

I let my eyes rest on the chief for a moment, twitched the corner of my mouth to let him know I was on to his game. The bland, completely innocent look I got in return was all the answer I needed.

"Admiral, I'm sorry… didn't notice you-" Bernie began.

I cut him off with a gesture. "No need ― Chief was just filling me in.

I take it we're good to go?"

Bernie nodded. "Green deck whenever you want."

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the service counter. "How bad is that E-2?"

Bernie scowled. "The green shirts think everything is an emergency," he muttered. "You know how it is."

Every specialty on the flight deck is identified by a different color jersey. Yellow, the handlers and flight deck control people, the ones who owned deck space and anything moving on it. White, safety and medics. The grapes, the purple shirts, handled the fueling, and the ordies who loaded weapons on the planes wore red ones. The green shirts were mechanics and avionics technicians, anyone working on the aircraft. Brown, the plane captains who owned the aircraft when the aviators weren't around.

"Pretty bad, Admiral," a much-maligned green shirt spoke up from behind the flight deck mock-up. "We're going to have to pull the engine."

I winced. Although Jefferson was no longer under my direct command ― though it had been years ago ― I took anything that affected her combat capabilities personally. Losing one of the four Hawkeyes ― an electronic surveillance bird the equivalent of the Air Force AWACS-was more critical than turning a fighter into a hangar queen. The Hawkeyes were our eyes and ears in a battle and were capable of controlling multiple flights of U.S. fighters against adversary air. Additionally, although her capabilities were more limited than the AWACS, the Hawkeye could serve as electronic intercept aircraft and provide a whole host of intelligence information.

"What happened to it?" I asked.

"FOD, I think," the technician answered. "Chipped rotor blade. At any rate, we're gonna have to pull the engine. Can't fly the way it is."

Bernie broke in again, apparently not comfortable with letting the technician talk directly to me. A mistake, that ― I'd garnered some of my most important information on how the ship was doing from talking directly to my enlisted men and women.

Batman's enlisted men and women, I should say. They were his now, had been since he'd relieved me as commander of Carrier Battle Group 14.

"Jones, take the admiral out to his bird," Bernie ordered.

"I can find it myself," I said gently.

"If you like, Admiral," Bernie answered, clearly a bit miffed this his courtesy had been rebuffed.

I hadn't meant to be rude. Sometimes the constant immediate deference to my presence and opinions, my every need and want, became entirely obnoxious. If truth be said, all I really wanted out of life in this Navy was what I'd wanted from the very beginning ― to strap a Tomcat on my ass and go screaming through the air until I damn near grayed out from my own G forces.

But times change, and so do duties in the Navy. For me, every promotion meant less and less time in the cockpit, more time spent on administration or training, or any one of the other myriad duties a flag officer acquires along with the additional pay. Sometimes, you almost get nostalgic for somebody who'll tell you you're full of shit.

Just at that moment, two of the people who might be willing to do just that walked into the compartment. One I knew would for sure ― the other would be willing to soon enough, albeit the words would be couched in the gentle euphemisms a junior used to a very senior officer.

The first man was Rear Admiral Everett "Batman" Wayne, now in command of Carrier Battle Group 14. I'd known Batman since my earliest days in the Navy. We'd gone to Basic together, selected Tomcats out of the pipeline, and started circling around each other about the time I was a lieutenant commander. Wherever I went, Batman was there. As we got more senior ― he by some odd split of his promotion year group, one year junior to me ― the Navy had taken to detailing Batman to relieve me wherever I went. It became something of a joke to us, first when he'd showed up as my replacement as commanding officer of USS Jefferson, then later more seriously when he'd relieved me as commander of Carrier Battle Group 14.

Batman was a little bit shorter than me, not by much, but enough to make a difference in a bar fight. He had my dark hair and dark eyes, but they were set in a face that was as mobile and cheerful as mine was impassive. Or at least that's what I've been told ― I can't see the supposed great stone face that earned me the nickname Tombstone.

Over the past several years, Batman had fought an increasingly difficult battle against fat. Since his assignment to Jefferson, even though he spent countless hours on the Stairmaster, he was starting to thicken up around his waistline. Not enough yet to make him look ridiculous in a flight suit, although God knows he rarely got a chance to wear one of those, but enough to be noticeable to someone who'd known him for a long time.

Batman had in tow a junior aviator, one I knew well and had been expecting to meet me up here. Lieutenant Skeeter Harmon, a fellow Tomcat pilot. I'd been on two cruises with Skeeter now, and I liked what I saw.

He'd gotten off to a rocky start in his first few minutes onboard the carrier after I'd rescued him from a TAD assignment on another ship, and gotten into a fight on the flight deck with a kid who was trying to keep him from getting chewed up inside an inbound disabled aircraft. But he'd more than made up for it by now. There weren't a whole lot of guys who were his equal in the air ― me maybe, although that would have had to have been in my younger days. Now youth and reflexes sometimes won out over age and wisdom. That's the way it is in fighter air.

He was a tall kid, lean and lanky. Maybe three percent body fat, if that. Black, with his hair clipped close to his skull. if his attitude was any indication, he cut a wide swath through the available women when he was ashore. I'd never heard him bragging about it, but gossip travels fast on a ship.

"You out of here, Admiral?" Batman asked.

"Shortly. Now that you've got my wingman here, it's looking like a sure thing. I'm not sure I really believed it before that."

Batman's answering grin told me he understood all too well the difficulties of getting stick time for a flag officer. "I didn't want him getting held up by anything that could wait," he agreed, and gave Skeeter a gentle shove forward. "He's all yours, Admiral. Bring him back in one piece."

Skeeter spoke up. "It's the Russians you ought to worry about, sir."

The cocky, easy grin on his face was his trademark. "Gonna kick some serious Russian ass, I am." I almost smiled in spite of myself. The young pilot didn't even realize how sweet a deal this was. All he could think about was the flying.

Skeeter and I were headed to a small Russian air base located at Arkhangelsk. Relationships between the United States and the former master of the Soviet Union were allegedly a good deal warmer than the weather. It had started with Russian ships making port calls in the United States, a gesture we reciprocated. Cruisers, destroyers, even submarines, all carefully sanitized ― cleared of classified material ― and open to what had once been our bitterest enemies.

The Russians, unable to get their own primitive aircraft carriers under way due to engineering problems and lack of maintenance, had suggested this somewhat lopsided mission that we were on now ― the Jefferson would visit the port of Arkhangelsk, and in exchange, the Russians would host a professional conference aimed at both Russian and American fighter pilots. The conference was to be held at their version of Top Gun, a small, remote airfield located one hundred miles south of Arkhangelsk. A few days of professional conferences, the usual looky-loo demonstrations, then the pice de resistance ― a display of aerial combat techniques using real MiG-29s and -31s versus Tomcats. The outcome would be decided by a panel of judges drawn from other countries, and the engagements monitored by United States Navy fighter training gear, called MILES gear. It's a network of low-power lasers and tiny receptors mounted on the skin of the opposing aircraft. That data, along with cockpit-mounted cameras, would supply a complete record of each engagement.

In addition to two Tomcats, we were taking along a C-2 Greyhound, commonly known as a COD ― Carrier Onboard Delivery ― with some maintenance technicians, radiomen and secure communications gear, and a small security force. Not that we expected to need the latter. Washington had already approved the details of the visit, which included using Russian forces to guard our aircraft. I guess the thinking was that since it was their idea to play, the last thing they'd do would be to foul up their chances of access to American markets by playing games with our aircraft. I wasn't happy about it. The in and outs of diplomacy can be frustrating, particularly when they have the potential to affect my safety in flight.

Well, we had a few surprises for them if they tried to renege on the agreement. Not many ― but a few.

"Let's get going," I said. Outside the steel-cold hatch, freedom waited.

"There's a lot at stake this time, Tombstone." Batman's voice had an odd cautionary note in it that I didn't recognize.

"Sure, baseball, apple pie, and motherhood. C'mon, Batman. This ain't even the real thing." I tried to make my voice light, but something in his voice bothered me.

I stood watching him for a moment, suddenly aware of how much older we'd each gotten. Life at sea takes it out of you. Batman and I had had a few more advantages than the rugged chief behind the desk, but I could still see the effects of too many hours without sleep, too many missed meals, and the sheer, life-sapping stress that we operated under every day.

Batman was shaking his head now, something clearly on his mind. I took him by the elbow and drew him off to a far corner of the compartment.

"Is there something I don't know?" I asked.

Batman shook his head again. "Of course not." But he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"There is, isn't there?" I pressed. I was out of line, even if I did have one more star on my collar than he did. Command of this CVBG was his, not mine. In all probability there were things that JCS wanted him to know, tactical considerations that would make no difference to me on the ground. Still, being out of the loop bothered me.

"What is it?" I demanded, my uneasiness overriding my sense of propriety.

Batman finally looked up at me. "Nothing you need to know."

Shit, I'd made him actually say it.

"If you're certain?" I let the question hang in the air for a moment, then clapped him once on the shoulder. "Fine, we're out of here. Keep our airfield in one piece ― I don't want to get stranded in there."

Batman seemed unwilling to let me walk away. He fidgeted for a moment, then asked, "How much longer, Stoney? What if there aren't any answers this time?"

I considered the question, as out of line in its own way as my earlier one had been to him. "There are answers, I think. Maybe not good ones ― but answers nonetheless."

"He's probably dead." Batman's statement was brutal.

The anger I'd reined in over the last months swept over me now, harsh and demanding. If the Vietnamese and Russians had done what I thought they'd done, someone would pay. All those years of waiting, not knowing, then the final curt announcement by the U.S. that all the missing-in-action aviators that were presumed to be POWs would be reclassified as KIA ― Killed In Action. The assurances from both Vietnam and Russia that none of the men were still alive. The stone wall even a senior military officer ran into, trying to find out the truth.

Someone was going to pay.

But not Batman. He was on my side if anyone was, trying to shield me from the pain of too much hope.

I put aside the anger and nodded. "Probably. But if there's a chance-"

It was Batman's turn to nod. He sighed, then said, "I know, I know.

In your shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. Listen, either way ― and on both counts ― good luck. We'll be waiting for you when you're done."

Skeeter was fidgeting impatiently behind me when I turned back to him.

"Let's go," I said.

"I send the RIOs on out ahead, sir," Skeeter answered. "You want to get any useful work out of them, YOU got to stay on them."

I laughed at that, hearing the classic arrogance of a pilot, letting it sweep away the last vestiges of my anger. A good RIO ― Radar Intercept Officer ― in the backseat had kept my ass from getting shot down more than once. You like to fly with the same one in combat all the time, because you get attuned to each other's moves. Skeeter was taking his usual partner, Lieutenant Commander Sheila Kennedy, along for the ride. Since it'd been years since I'd had a running mate, the skipper of VF-95 had loaned me his XO, Commander Gator Cummings. Gator was a sharp fellow, one of the best. He'd jumped at the opportunity to go. As XO, he'd be fleeting up to skipper in a year or so, and then he'd be fighting for stick time like the rest of us.

I pushed open the hatch, stepped out into the freezing air, and shut everything else out of my mind as we preflighted the aircraft. You don't want to make mistakes when you're launching off a carrier, particularly not in weather like this. The sea that surrounded Jefferson was only a few degrees above freezing, and our survival time if anything went wrong would be counted in seconds rather than minutes. The Sea-Air Rescue ― SAR ― helo was launching while we finished up the preflight, a bit of bravado if I ever saw it. If anything went wrong, all SAR could do was recover the bodies.

Finally satisfied, I motioned my RIO over and we climbed up into the cockpit. Two enlisted technicians heavily bundled in foul-weather gear followed us up, made sure our ejection harnesses were securely fastened, then pulled out the cotter pins that disabled the ejection seats. After they withdrew, we buttoned up, and my RIO began reading through the pre-start checklist.

I went by the book, double-checking each step as we worked our way through the standard procedures. Finally, the comforting spooling sound of a Tomcat engine starting, the massive turbofan engines that were going to kick some serious MiG ass.

Off to my right, Skeeter finished up a few seconds after I did. I released the brake, taxied forward slowly in response to the yellow shirt's direction, and positioned the Tomcat on the catapult. Skeeter waited behind the JBDs ― the Jet Blast Deflectors. The COD was queued up farther back waiting for the fighters to launch before she taxied forward for her cat shot.

I followed the hand signals from the yellow shirt, cycling the stick for a final check of control surfaces, sliding the throttles forward to full military power, and finally taking one last visual check of my wings.

I gave the yellow shirt a thumbs-up ― he responded with a sharp, precise salute, releasing control of the aircraft to me. I returned the salute, checked on my backseater, then braced my back and head against the seat.

The noise from the engines was deafening, far past mere sound, acoustic fury that flooded the cockpit, seeping in through flight suit and Nomex to penetrate my very bones. It was urgent, demanding, all-encompassing, binding my flesh to the airframe and melting us irrevocably into a single fighting force.

The acceleration began slowly as always, a thump, a small jar, then the sensation of sliding forward on the catapult. We picked up speed quickly, accelerating up to 134 knots in a matter of seconds. There was a final, shuddering jar as the steam piston reached the end of its run ― and the end of the ship.

Tomcat double nuts staggered into the air, her wings grabbing for lift. There was, as always, that single sickening moment in which we were falling, plummeting ever closer to the sea black as ice while the sheer power of the Tomcat's engines fought to overcome the pull of gravity. A soft cat, one that had launched us off the end of the ship with insufficient airspeed to maintain airworthiness, was every Naval aviator's worst nightmare.

I felt it immediately, the slight pull upward as the Tomcat caught the air and fought for altitude, nose slightly up but concentrating on speed rather than altitude for the first couple of moments. Finally, that steadying sensation that told me we were going to stay airborne. As soon as it was safe, I eased back on the yoke and started gaining altitude.

I climbed to seven thousand feet and waited for Skeeter. I could see him below, climbing rapidly, then he circled and joined on me from behind and above, settling into a rock-steady position to my right.

I keyed the tactical circuit. "Good to go?"

"Roger."

I had a feeling Skeeter would have added something to that laconic comment if we hadn't been on tactical near the Russian coast and I hadn't been an admiral. I nodded approvingly ― at least the brash young pilot was starting to show some good head work.

Jefferson was still clearly visible below us, a massive, floating fortress that represented the bulwark of America's military power. Even after spending so many years on carriers, launching off carriers, and recovering on them, I could still marvel in her impressive appearance. A floating office building, turned on side, her hull plunging down far below the surface like an iceberg.

Icebergs ― involuntarily, I scanned the water around her. No, that wasn't a probable danger here, not in this part of the North Sea. However, the ice forming on the surface of the waters was.

The Russians were used to this. Ever since their earliest days as a blue-water Navy, they'd spent an enormous amount of time and money developing special ice-breaking ships to keep their seaways open. With most of their ports clobbered by deep layers of winter ice for up to four months out of the year, ice-breaking ships were essential to their being able to maintain a worldwide presence with their navy.

That was something that bothered me about this mission, had from the first moments it was described to me. Why couldn't a goodwill mission take place in the summer months? It would still be cold but not this bitterly brutal. The ice, always the ice ― during the winter, we were completely dependent upon Russia's ice breakers as winter closed in on the port.

It wasn't solid yet, not as far as I could see. Nearer the coast, where the cold was already seeping into the deep heat sink of the ocean, ice was forming, barely indistinguishable from the frozen, snow-covered ground around it. It was thin, a sickly black-and-gray coating, one with no regular consistency to it. But another storm blowing through, the meteorologist had assured me, would soon turn the tide. Within three to four weeks at the very latest, Arkhangel'sk and all the other ports lining the Kola Peninsula would be iced in. This whole fiasco ― for that's how I'd started to think of the mission from the very beginning ― started with the institution of a new American national security strategy. The President called it "cooperative engagement." It meant that we were supposed to win the post-Cold War competition by cozying up to the former Communist nations, letting them get a taste of good old capitalism and converting them to our way of life by sheer attraction. A number of hoary adages were cited in support of this concept ― that democracies don't start wars, that free trade decreases the need for conflict. We'd taken it to ridiculous lengths a couple of years ago by actually trying to buy up the world's supply of combat aircraft, starting with a gaggle of MiG-29s from Moldovia.

In my humble opinion, having fought too many wars in too many countries, the strategy ignored another important principle Good fences make good neighbors.

However, no one ever asked my opinion, and this current mission was a prime example of cooperative engagement. We were going to Russia as part of a friendship visit ― friendship spiced up with a little healthy competition. I guess it's too cold to play football up here, so our leaders came up with the next best thing.

Since we'd had a couple of years to play around with a MiG as well as some damned good intelligence on the MiG-3 1, I was pretty certain my team could take on any group of Russian pilots easy. Sure, they knew a fair amount about the Tomcat as well, but there's really not much in the Russian training syllabus that prepares them for going one-on-one with a smart, aggressive American fighter pilot. The difference is initiative ― an American fighter pilot has it. A Russian one doesn't. He's trained to listen to the ground intercept controller, the scope dope on the deck who tells him which targets to engage, how to attack them, and everything from when to refuel to when it's time to wipe his butt.

There was the difference in aircraft type to consider as well. The Russians had been cagey about exactly which aircraft they wanted to fly against us, the MiG-29 or the MiG-31. Both of them posed the same challenge for the Tomcat, with the difference being that the -31 had a bit better avionics and targeting suite and a smidgen more power. Both MiGs, though, had one thing in common. They were angles fighters, smaller airframes that relied on speed and maneuverability to win engagements. In level flight, they could cut inside a Tomcat's turn radius, curling in around behind the heavier, more powerful American fighter to slam a missile up your ass before you could even think about it. In a fair fight, one-on-one at a constant altitude, the Tomcat doesn't stand a chance.

That's why we don't fight fair. There's no glory in it, not if it means giving up tactical advantage to some Commie bastard who's listening to his GCI.

The advantage a Tomcat has is that it's a massive, powerful airframe, eight thousand pounds of metal and armament strapped onto two screaming turbofans. The F-14 can climb faster, harder, and farther than a MiG ever dreamed possible.

Great, so you grab altitude ― there's no inherent virtue in that, except for one little odd law of aerodynamics. Altitude and speed are interchangeable ― you can trade one for the other in whatever direction you're headed.

See, the Tomcat starts climbing, turning away from the MiG. The MiG has to follow ― if he doesn't, the Tomcat simply turns and comes in on his ass from behind. So the MiG starts climbing, trying to figure out exactly how far up to follow the Tomcat, making his own break for the deck just before the Tomcat can use that superior altitude to build up speed and cut back in behind him. The climbing game and trading altitudes isn't his preferred fight ― he'll try to start his break back into level flight in time to catch the Tomcat at the same altitude and force the Tomcat back into the angles fight, not letting him use his superior power and speed against the MiG.

The Tomcat driver, on the other hand, wants to be yo-yoing up and down in the sky like an idiot, forcing the MiG to bleed off airspeed and sacrifice maneuverability. Get the MiG going slowly enough and it's either an easy target or the MiG has to forget about trying to shoot you down while he concentrates on pulling some airspeed out of his ass in order to stay airborne.

The bottom line was that we knew what kind of fight we were in for, regardless of which MiG showed up on the ramp. Skeeter had had his share of experience with the -29 and I'd seen both versions in action, including an advanced prototype that the Chinese had built based on Russian designs.

The Russians had made a fairly interesting pitch for this whole contest, and I still hadn't exactly figured out what was behind it. They'd proposed four separate contests, and left the possibilities for additional training opportunities open. "As available," the message had said. Made me nervous ― flexibility in the Russian mind always indicates something devious afoot.

The first contest would pit a young American pilot and backseater ― that would be Skeeter and Sheila ― against a young Russian pilot.

The second would pit two more experienced aviators against each other ― veterans of the Cold War, Russia had insisted. The Navy picked me for that one, since I've probably got more stick time against Russians than any other pilot in the Fleet. Gator was a good choice as well, since he'd cut his eye-teeth fighting MiGs with Bird Dog driving.

The third would be a bombing run, probably by the younger opponents.

The final contest would be two-on-two, and of all the engagements, that was the one I was certain we would wax their asses in. American fighters are trained to fight in pairs, in a loose deuce formation. One aircraft high, keeping the big picture ― and let's not forget that altitude that he can trade instantly for speed ― and the other forward and below, sniffing out the threat and engaging first with the longer-range weapons such as Phoenix. We train in pairs, think in pairs, and win in pairs. The Russian equivalent, pairing a pilot with a GCI operator, didn't stand a chance.

There was one more contest going on, one that only a few other people knew about. It didn't involve aircraft, flying, or even airborne weapons.

It was a hell of a lot more personal ― and, of all the four missions, the least likely to succeed.

A couple of years ago, during one of the innumerable conflicts that seem to spring up around the world, I learned something that shook me to my very core. A Cuban radical told me that there was a very good chance that my father had not died on a bombing run over Vietnam. Before he left, he hinted that my father had been captured alive but seriously injured and taken to Russia for further interrogation.

Russia. The very thought of it made my blood run cold, and the careful compartmentalization I try to maintain in the cockpit started to crumble. This wasn't the time to start thinking about my father and Russia, not if I expected to be able to put on a diplomatic show of goodwill when I landed. If I found proof that he'd survived the ejection, that he'd been taken to Russia as I expected, then I'd… I'd… I'd what?

Batman had hit it on the head when he'd asked what I'd do if nothing came of this. The short answer I didn't know.

I have a few memories of my dad ― nothing very specific, just fragments of memories, more like quick snapshots than specific sequences of events.

I remember a pair of cowboy boots, my first attempts to hit a foam softball with a plastic bat, a birthday party here and there. He was gone so much during the early years, deployed with his squadron and doing what he knew was important to do for the country ― fighting the war that no one was very sure we were winning.

For thirty years plus, I've believed he died over that godforsaken land. Even though he was officially listed as MIA ― Missing In Action ― we knew he was gone. When the word finally came changing his status to KIA ― Killed In Action ― it was more a confirmation of something we'd tacitly accepted for years rather than any real change. It wasn't until I married Tomboy that I realized how very much I missed him. My uncle, Dad's brother, did what he could. A damned fine job, most of the time, filling in for his younger brother as the father figure in his only nephew's life.

Mom seemed to appreciate it. We did, too, but not to the extent that I do now.

Uncle Thomas thought I was getting suckered on this. He believed with all his heart that his younger brother died over that bridge. He tried to talk me out of this mission, but in the end, when all else had failed, he came through with the goods.

Not that it was that tough. When you're chief of naval operations and a front-line candidate for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you draw a lot of water. If once in a while you use it to do something for your family, how wrong can that be? Especially when you're making up for something the U.S. screwed up over the years.

So I'd wangled my way over to Vietnam on Jefferson and spent some time on the ground tracing my father's steps ― or at least what I thought were his steps. There'd been one clue, a scrawled saying in the cinder block wall of one prison camp Go west.

Russia. The rumors had been floating around for years that Russian military advisors had taken American POWs back to the Soviet Union for further interrogation. The moment I saw that phrase scribbled over my father's signature, I knew that was what had happened.

West ― and into the Soviet Union, in those days the most brutal regime in the world. What the Viet Cong came up with paled in comparison to the GRU and Stalin. If my father had gone into Russia, odds were he'd been brutally interrogated until they'd leeched every last bit of information they thought they could get out of him ― then shot.

Were records even kept back then? Not likely ― Stalin had executed millions simply because he could, and a full accounting of any American POWs was not only unlikely but probably impossible as well. Hell, the Russians weren't even admitting they'd ever taken any out of Vietnam ― now, in the post-glasnost era of peristroika, what incentive did they have to admit to that particular war crime?

None. None at all.

It might have ended there, but there was another piece of evidence.

Two cruises ago, a Ukrainian officer admitted to me that he knew my father in Russia. That meant there might be records ― or, at a minimum, someone who might remember him.

Not officially, of course. The party line was that none of it had ever happened. But there were more avenues of information than government agencies and press releases. I'd found some of them. In at least one instance, they'd found me, and the possibility that my own government, the one I'd faithfully served for so long in uniform, might have lied to me about my father cut deep. I didn't want to believe it of my own country.

Tracking down the truth about POWs is like being on a ship. You want the real scoop on what's going down, the latest in information and data, you don't watch the skipper's announcement on closed-circuit TV. You might ― just might, mind you, if you can get access ― head for the deepest, darkest compartments in the intelligence spaces, the ones that they call SCIF ― Specially Compartmented Information. This is the stuff you always hear called "burn before reading," so sensitive that the average fighter jock never even knows the capabilities exist. But even with all its esoteric magic, SCIF isn't the place for the real truth.

No, every sailor knows where to get the gouge ― MDI. Mess Deck Intelligence. Somehow the cooks and the galley slaves and the mess cooks knew the real truth about what's going on far before anyone else on the ship. MDI is the tightest, fastest, and most righteous information collection and dissemination network in existence. Don't ask me how it works ― no one knows ― but it does.

Within the family-of-POWs network, there's something similar. It doesn't have a physical location like MDI does, but it's damned near as effective. The outer layer is all for show ― the Internet web pages, the public posters and pamphlets and the letter writing campaigns, the copper bracelets we wear in remembrance of those that aren't coming back. That's just the tip of the network, just like the skipper's daily pep talk on the closed-circuit TV. Under neath that are the E-mails, the hand-delivered copies of documents and resources passed from family to family when electronic means are deemed too sensitive, the volumes and volumes of in-country contacts that these survivors have amassed over the decades since Vietnam.

Discolored photos, shards of personal belongings, snatches of transcripts blurred by being photocopied and handled so many times, evidence ― of what? Of men that were alive and weren't brought home, just like my father.

I'd had some help on the first part of my search for my father in the form of in-country contacts. Now that the trail pointed to Russia, information was significantly harder to get, more ambiguous, and, in some cases, downright wrong. But it was there, flowing from the other survivors, the Navy Department, even from immigrants.

During the Vietnam War, the air bases just outside Arkhangelsk had attracted the Central Intelligence Agency's attention. The activity around the base was inconsistent ― aircraft parked on aprons, a cover story that claimed the base was an advance training facility, but a notable lack of routine takeoffs and landings. You expect a sort of cyclical activity at a training facility as classes graduate and new students arrive a spate of simple orientation and formation flights as student pilots become accustomed to new aircraft, followed by increasingly difficult training missions including ACM and bombing runs; then, a period of quiet, the time after a class graduates and the next one starts; then the whole cycle repeated over and over again.

That didn't happen at Arkhangelsk. In fact, it had more transit flights ― aircraft originating from somewhere outside our satellite coverage and vectoring in to the isolated base ― than it did training flights. That worried the CIA enough to give this one particular base code-word sensitivity and scrutiny.

They called it Hidden Archer, the name itself peculiarly appropriate for the facility. Over the next five years of painstaking observation and critical analysis, the CIA arrived at the conclusion that Hidden Archer had one primary function ― to serve as a debriefing facility for captured aviators.

In the early days of the Vietnam War, satellite technology wasn't what it is today. But by late 1970s, even after the war was officially over, we had satellite and surveillance capabilities that would have seemed like Buck Rogers science fiction to military men of just a few decades earlier.

We could read license plates on cars from space, discern a man's face as he walked between buildings. In response to these technological developments, training for aircrews changed, and the SERE ― Survival, Evasion, Rescue, Escape ― schools emphasized continually looking up at the sky, every chance you got. There was no telling when a satellite or high-flying reconnaissance aircraft might be overhead, and exposing your face to the sky maximized your chances of being identified.

At the time he was flying, my father knew something of how fast technology was coming along. He was an engineer by training, and from all accounts a pretty damned smart man. My uncle says I remind him of my father, his brother. I usually take it as a compliment, but there's something in me that protests at that. I've been shot down a couple of times, but I always made it out somehow. Out of the cockpit, out of the fire zone. That's the one difference I'm sure of between me and my father.

But what my father knew about satellites added credibility to the odd, ragged photo that had turned up carefully sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard. It had come to my house, not the office, in a nondescript brown padded envelope. Address in neat, printed letters, no return address.

Correct postage, and a postmark showing it was mailed from Washington, D.C.

Not much to go on. I suppose I could have reported it to the FBI, had them dust it for fingerprints or DNA or some such, but I didn't. I looked at the grainy photo and saw my own face staring back at me. It was blurred, either a high-resolution camera shot enlarged past its tolerance or a shot taken while moving. But the similarity was unmistakable. Even with some of the features blurred, I could see the line of my jaw in it, the set of my head on my own shoulders. It wasn't me, but it was someone who looked a hell of a lot like an older me, a Tombstone that the forces of gravity and time had warped and wrinkled.

I debated over it for a couple of days, then showed it to my mother.

She recognized my father instantly.

So, given that someone ― or something ― had taken a picture of my father much older than he'd been at the time he'd disappeared over the bridge, what were the odds that he was still alive? Minimal ― both my mother and I knew that.

The second bit of the puzzle was the one that bothered me the most. A clipping taken from what appeared to be a small, cheaply printed newspaper.

The same man, noticeably older than he'd been in the first photo, smiling and waving at the camera.

The date ― seven months ago.

This time, I did go the official route. Having three stars on my collar, plus the four that my uncle sports, gives us a fair amount of horsepower. Within a couple of hours, the intelligence organization at the Pentagon was able to identify the paper and produce a complete page, the one this clipping had been torn from, along with a translation of the article.

The man in the picture was celebrating his recent marriage. His first, according to the Russian writer.

Not according to my mother. Over the years, she'd found ways to live with losing Dad. On the surface, she sounded like she was convinced he'd died. She and Batman were alike in that way, although I think Batman's conviction went to his core. With Mom, it was just a way to survive. But I could tell from her involvement in the POW/MIA groups that she'd never really given up hope.

The paper covered a small area around Nikolayev, another military air base to the south. While not as important as Hidden Archer and the Kola Peninsula during the Vietnam War, Nikolayev had had its own share of notoriety as a weapons test facility.

I was going there. I wasn't certain how or when, but sometime during the next two weeks I was going to Nikolayev.

"Lead, two." Skeeter's calm, professional voice broke into my thoughts. I'd been flying the aircraft by reflex, caught up in the anger and the possibility of hope, blinded by my emotions. Skeeter, in an unusually tactful maneuver for him, had simply brought my attention back to the present.

"Lead," I acknowledged.

"Starting pre-landing checklist."

"Roger ― we are, too."

I could hear my RIO fumbling through his checklist. I flipped open the right section and began reading aloud.

We made a beautiful, precision formation approach, with Skeeter slipping in to land just five seconds after I did. He maintained the precisely correct formation distance throughout the approach, touchdown, and taxi, one of the smoothest bits of formation flying I'd seen in a while. You don't do a lot of formation landings on an aircraft carrier, and maintaining proficiency is tough.

A yellow follow-me truck met us at the end of the landing strip. I used my nose-wheel steering gear to fall in behind him. The turbofans were spooled down to a gentle thunder now, oddly reassuring in the notion that I could turn, power up, and be airborne again within moments if I wanted to.

There was something surreal about taxiing down a Russian airfield.

For those of us raised in the Cold War, the idea that someday we would be voluntarily landing some of our most advanced fighter aircraft inside Soviet territory would have been unthinkable just five years before. Five years ― just a small portion of the time I'd spent in uniform, but longer than Skeeter's entire career to date. He'd joined the Navy after the Berlin Wall fell, after Desert Storm and Desert Shield, at a time when the most formative politicians of my career were just old bogeymen.

No matter that Russia ― and China, as well ― continued to foment disorder and conflict in this brave new world we fought in. The official party line was that it was over. We'd won, and were now entitled to a well-deserved peace dividend.

Then why did I end up with MiGs shooting at me and my aircrews so often?

I glanced back at Skeeter, who was now closing the distance between us. How would it be, to have grown up in his times? How much difference did it make in the way we saw the world ― the Russians, in particular? I resolved to have a quiet word with him again about the need for a little respectable paranoia while we were on the ground in Arkhangelsk.

It probably wasn't necessary. Commander "Lab Rat" Busby, the senior intelligence officer onboard Jefferson, had briefed us extensively on our visit. In particular, he'd pointed out that it was important for us to watch everything we could, make note of anything that seemed new or different from what we already knew about Russian aviation. He gave us two solid capabilities briefings, complete with quizzes, getting us up to speed on the very latest U.S. information on Russian systems and technologies so that we'd know what to look for.

Like most nasty games, intelligence collection works both ways. The birds we were flying into Russia were specially configured, stripped of some of the very latest toys and technologies we didn't think they knew about yet. Most of the avionics were useless without the Zip drive cassette plugged into the instrument panel in front of me ― Lab Rat made sure we understood that. We were to take our Zip cassettes with us everywhere we went, keeping them on our persons at all times. Without them, the Russians could learn nothing of use from the bare carcass of our airframes. And there were other telltales as well. The most sensitive avionics compartments were wired with small devices intended to keep anything but a charred black box from falling into their hands. Lab Rat assured me that the fires were too localized to do any permanent damage to the airframe, and that even if one were triggered, we'd be able to safely fly the aircraft out. I was not reassured.

"What happens if we lose one of these super-secret Zip drives? Or damage it?" Skeeter had asked. An eminently sensible question, I'd thought.

"Your Tomcats will still fly without them, if that's what you mean," Lab Rat had answered. "You'll lose most of your advanced decision aids as well as some resolution on your targeting packages, but that's about it.

The techs on the COD will take some diagnostic software with them, a few replacement parts, but not replacement disks."

"Can they make anything out of them without the Tomcat's gut?" I'd followed up.

Lab Rat looked thoughtful. "Honestly, I don't know. The guys at NSA ― National Security Agency ― don't think so, but I wouldn't want to bet on it. It's supposed to require the same crypto load that's in your communications circuitry, but you know how that is. With computers they've pirated from the West, they might be able to get something out of the tapes. That's why there won't be any duplicates on the COD."

"Sounds risky, putting us in over there," Skeeter said.

Lab Rat nodded. "I think so, too. But evidently this is important to somebody with a hell of a lot more firepower than I have. So we do what we can to minimize the risks. Really, though, I don't think there'll be any problems. Not if you're careful with the Zips. The Russians need us for friends right now a lot more than we need them."

And that was the truth. With a resurgent China prowling Russia's borders, massing and moving divisions of armored troops every couple of weeks for supposed routine exercises, Russia had good reason to want to be on good terms with the United States. We'd faced China down before, in the Spratly Islands and in other hot spots around the globe, something Russia couldn't do on her own right now.

Finally, we reached the end of the apron and a yellow-shirted handler stepped out from the crowd to replace the follow-me truck. Confidently and with stunning precision, the yellow shirt began flashing the standard hand and arm signals used on the flight deck of a carrier to signal to us. "You believe this fellow?" Skeeter said, his amusement clear over our private coordination circuit. "Man, they been practicing or what?"

"Get that out of your system before we shut down," I ordered.

"They've put some effort into it and the last thing we need to do is start off by pissing them off laughing at their personnel."

"Yes, sir, Admiral. I kind of figured that out, sir, and there ain't a trace of a smile showing on this young black man's face." Skeeter sometimes fell back into a sort of uneducated slang whenever I made the very dangerous mistake of underestimating him. This time, I figured I deserved it.

"I'm talking to myself as much as you, Lieutenant. We're all on new ground here ― you see something that looks like an opportunity to step on our dicks, I hope you'll be pointing it out real quick. Got that?" I said.

"Yes, Admiral." This time, Skeeter's voice was back to normal. "You hear that, Gib? No dick stepping."

"Kind of you to worry," Sheila answered angrily.

I laughed in spite of myself. If the KGB or GRU or whatever weird collection of initials that was Russia's current intelligence agency was listening in, they were going to have fun figuring that one out. Skeeter's RIO was markedly short of the required equipment.

The Russians have always done ceremonies well. Massive, forbidding shows of force imbued with the ancient dignity of a grim warrior society.

Ahead of us, at the edge of the airfield, Army troops were massed in formation, almost a brigade's worth I estimated. Twenty tanks flanked the formation, each with its barrel elevated only slightly above the arc that would put a missile directly on our assigned parking spot. Officers and dignitaries were festooned in the drab olive-green-accented-with-red Army uniforms, the darker, more traditional blue-black of the Navy, and a few uniforms I couldn't recognize right off. No doubt they'd changed some since the days of the Soviet Union's breakup ― at least in name.

Many brass, as befitted the historic nature of this occasion. For just a moment, I wondered whether or not we'd made an error in not following suit and ferrying in an aircraft load of dignitaries of our own.

Just for balance, if nothing else. How did the Russians see that lack? As a sign of disrespect, an American insult in the refusal to take these games seriously? Or would they take it as a sign of weakness, this deploying of two advanced fighter aircraft to Russia's own soil without the appropriate formalities and dignitaries?

It all seemed too trivial, given what my real mission was. For a moment I felt the fury again, but I was no longer certain whether it was directed at the Russians for taking my father or at my own country for letting it happen. Two betrayals ― my father's trust that the U.S. would come and get him, and my own for believing what I'd been told for so many years.

I taxied in, stopping neatly on the spot indicated by the technician.

Skeeter pulled in behind, slightly aft and to my right just as he was in flight. I twisted around, trying to catch a glimpse of the COD, but it was still too far out.

We ran through the postflight and preshutdown checklists quickly, not wanting to keep our hosts waiting. Finally, our engines spooled down, and I popped my canopy. I could see the COD now, barely visible on the horizon.

The rush of air was bitterly cold, condensing immediately into clouds as I breathed out. It bit hard into my exposed skin, and I jammed the fingers of my gloves down a bit more securely. The icy air found a thin exposed strip of skin between the glove and the sleeve of my flight suit, burrowed into it, and tried to race up my arm.

"Let's get the hell out of here, Boss," Gator said. "Colder than a-"

I cut him off with a gesture. "Remember, we're in Russia now.

Anything you say can and will be used against you. And not in a court of law either, buddy. Quiet, now ― here they come."

A rickety ladder was pushed forward to our Tomcat. I motioned it away after I noted that the edges were not coated with any padding to prevent it from scraping the fuselage. The technicians paused, uncertain, and I beat them to the punch by popping out the footholds on the Tomcat, the boarding ladder, and clambering down myself. I jumped lightly off the last step, flexed my knees as I hit, and felt the shock of the cold concrete start to seep into my boots. My RIO hit the deck a few seconds after me.

There were three officers approaching me, flanked by what looked to be a translator. I recognized the two in front from the intelligence briefings Field Marshal Gorklov and Admiral Ilanovich. I snapped up a formal, correct salute, holding it until they'd returned it. Then I held out my hand. "Vice Admiral Magruder, General. An impressive reception ― thank you."

I saw that both Gorklov and Ilanovich understood, but they waited until the translator finished. Then Gorklov held out his hand and said, "Welcome," in heavily accented English. "Field Marshal Gorklov. And this," he continued, gesturing to his right, "is Admiral of the Fleet Gregorio Ilanovich."

I tendered another salute, then a handshake to the admiral. In the scheme of things, he technically outranked me, but I was certain that a three-star admiral in the United States Navy had far more firepower under his control than Admiral Ilanovich did. Still, he had home court advantage ― one rarely gets in trouble for being too courteous.

Ilanovich's appearance puzzled me for a moment, and it took me a couple of seconds to dredge up the information from Lab Rat's briefing.

The Russian admiral was clearly not a pure-blooded Russian. His eyes were narrowed and dark, and the high cheekbones and coloring hinted of an exotic mixture of Cossack and Asiatic blood. Probably some Ukrainian as well, since that country is noted for producing the very finest naval officers.

Enough Ukrainian, at least, to compensate for the general prejudice against the Far Eastern blood.

Ilanovich himself was part of the Russians' attempt to demonstrate their similarity to American culture. My team had two white men, one black man, and one white woman on it. The admiral was Russia's attempt to cover all bases in one body.

Well, almost all.

I made the introductions of the rest of my team quickly, first my RIO, then Skeeter and Lieutenant Commander Kennedy. We'd been through this drill a thousand times, and each one followed my lead, a salute followed by a handshake.

"It is very cold out here," the admiral said finally. He gestured toward the hangar. "We will tow your aircraft inside, and if you will come with us ― a brief reception, nothing formal. No need to change, you will be meeting with fellow aviators." He shot me a sidelong glance, rich with sly amusement. "They, like yourselves, dislike undue formality." I smiled politely, realizing that it was probably true. Aviators the world over are renowned for their lack of the traditional military courtesies and ceremonies that mark every important event. Given a chance, about 99 percent of us would rather be in a flight suit and airborne.

Admiral Ilanovich fell into step beside me. "I think I know much more about you than you know about me," he began. He looked at me, as though waiting for a response.

"I'm sure you're correct," I said neutrally. It was an amateurish sort of foray into the world of intelligence, a quick attempt to find out just exactly what I knew about him. And what I didn't. "I hope we will have the chance to remedy that over the next several weeks."

Admiral Ilanovich regarded me with quiet amusement. "Oh, I am sure we will. Especially in the air."

"I look forward to it."

"They told you, did they not?" he continued without missing a beat.

"That I will be flying the MiG-31 against your Tomcat." He gestured back in the direction of the hangar, vaguely indicating my aircraft. "The Hornet ― now, that would have presented a real challenge. I would like to do that someday," he continued. "Go one-on-one with one of your Hornets.

Much more maneuverable than the Tomcat, wouldn't you agree?"

"In all except one instance," I agreed amiably. "They can't pass a tanker without wanting a drink."

Ilanovich laughed. "Oh, of course. That is the problem with all of the smaller aircraft, is it not? Fuel consumption ― why, until we developed an in-flight refueling capability for the MiG-31, that very thing imposed serious limitations on our combat readiness. No, I was speaking of course about the weight-to-thrust factor."

"Of course," I answered, feeling a slight twinge of uneasiness. Just what was this admiral driving at? Everyone knew about the performance characteristics and differences between a MiG and a Tomcat ― no news there.

Nor any opportunity for any intelligence gathering ― anything I could tell him about that he would have already read in Aviation Weekly.

"And your young Navy lieutenant, his name was… Kyrrul?" I asked, changing the subject. "He will also be flying?"

"Yes, he is the one." Gregorio Ilanovich looked faintly amused. "A fine flyer ― with perhaps not as many kills as your young Skeeter, but very capable nonetheless."

Another small bit of intelligence ― while it was no great state secret, Ilanovich had made a point of telling me that he knew my young lieutenant's call sign. And my own, most likely.

"Tell me, Admiral," I said casually, "in naval aviation, do your aviators adopt call signs such as ours? I'm certain that you've heard mine ― Tombstone." I wondered how many hours of Russian intelligence it had taken to fight over the exact meaning of that one. Did it mean that I was a gunfighter, one who consistently reduced my opponents to graveyards? Or were they perhaps misled, as some were, by thinking it had to do with a gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona? The actual answer was far less interesting ― some of my early squadron mates had simply thought that my face was as expressionless as a tombstone. They said I looked stern all the time, and hinted that I lacked a sense of humor. While nothing could be further from the truth, I didn't mind having most people believe that. It keeps them off guard.

"Something similar, and perhaps a good deal racier. We are not bound by considerations of political correctness." The admiral walked on for a few steps longer, his boots tapping out a staccato rhythm on the pavement.

"My own call sign, for instance ― it has changed several times, but the latest one I have had for fifteen years. Translated loosely from the Russian proverb from which it is taken, it comes out as ' Your Ass.'"

I laughed out loud, despite my resolution to maintain a somber and professional demeanor. "Watch Your Ass? Hell of a call sign, Admiral. I like it."

The admiral clapped me on the shoulder, obviously amused at my reaction. "We will see if you like it over the next several weeks. I think you will not be laughing then as much."

"Well, I guess we'll see. When is the first engagement scheduled?" I asked.

"This afternoon." The admiral noted my look of surprise with sardonic amusement. "Unless, of course, that is too soon? Perhaps you have maintenance problems with your aircraft, or need to rest up after your grueling journey?" The sarcasm was in the words, not in the tone ― it had been merely a forty-five-minute flight from Jefferson's windswept deck to this airfield.

"Not at all," I said immediately. "I'm ready to fly right now."

"We thought perhaps the younger men would begin." He motioned behind him, pointing out the young officer carrying on a conversation in broken English with Skeeter, a translator hovering behind them. "Ah, their endurance, their stamina ― it makes one wistful, does it not?"

I wasn't sure how to take this statement. Did he mean that the reflexes and stamina of our young pilots outweighed the experience that he and I undoubtedly possessed in equal measure? I wasn't certain, so I settled for an expression of vague neutrality. "No vodka at the reception, then," I said. "Not if we're flying." I raised my voice slightly to make sure that Skeeter heard me, and turned my head to see him nod in agreement.

"Well, then. A little refreshment, then back in the air." Admiral Ilanovich smiled.

I followed him into the crowded hangar and saw the large buffet tables covered with food, a cluster of aviators already well into the vodka by their appearance. Not for the first time, I wondered just what we'd gotten ourselves into.

Another flash of anger at the sight of so much food and drink. If my father had been brought here, odds were that he hadn't had quite such a sumptuous feast spread out in front of him, that the faces weren't smiling, slightly flushed with vodka and good cheer. For just a moment, I felt my father's presence so close and near to me that I could almost see him. I tried to make out his expression, but the details were too fuzzy.

I'll find out what happened, I swore as I stared at the welcoming Russian forces. I'll find out ― and I'll make them pay.