Delta Blue

Eleven

“We set to go, David?”

Thorpe was in his chair overlooking the operations center, and Brackman went in and stood beside him, looking at the big plotting board on the far wall, through the windows of the crow’s nest. Almost all of the targets currently being tracked were displayed in blue and red.

“Getting there, Marv. The First Aero put down at Merlin twenty-five minutes ago. We should get word soon on the equipment.”

Brackman checked the lower right-hand corner of the plotting board. The island of Borneo had three yellow dots on it.

He tracked back across the map and found Murmansk. There was one green dot superimposed on the city.

“What are the Soviets sending?” he asked.

“Sheremetevo’s operations officer is supposed to call me in the next half hour, Marv, but the early word was eight Fulcrums and an AWACS.”

“This is the first time we’ve ever shown the Reds in green, isn’t it?” the commander said.

“Grates a little, doesn’t it?”

Mildenhall Royal Air Force Base on the east side of England had a lavender dot. That would be the Boeing E-3 Sentry. Brackman had decided that he wanted an AWACS of his own aloft to watch over the action. Now that missiles had been exchanged, he was going to maintain much closer scrutiny. Themis could not be relied upon for a constant overhead surveillance because of her orbit, and there was no reason, just yet, to call the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and have a KH-11 moved into an overhead orbit. Besides, that might entail getting the National Security Agency involved and briefed, and the more agencies with an interest, the more difficult it was to reach decisions.

“Where are you spotting the Sentry, David?”

“At forty thousand feet over Greenland’s east coast, if that’s all right with you, Marv. It’ll give us the coverage we want, but keep her out of the fray, if one develops.”

“Overflight permission?”

“We’ve got it.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s good. McKenna give you any idea on the timetable?”

“He said a couple hours or a couple weeks,” Thorpe told him. “It all depends on Benny Shalbot.”

Col. Pyotr Volontov sat in his borrowed, jury-rigged office half a kilometer from the main runway at Murmansk. He thought the chair was a castoff from the Great War. The iron casters squealed, and the left arm was loose.

He rubbed his cheeks with the fingers of his right hand, deciding he should shave before takeoff time. The face mask tended to grate and rub his face raw when he had a stubble of whiskers.

Volontov had just talked on the telephone with Martina, the dark-haired, fair-skinned woman to whom he was betrothed. The engagement seemed to have become more permanent than marriage, now approaching two years of endurance. Neither Martina Davidoff, who was a medical doctor specializing in obstetrics in Moscow, and whose father happened to be an admiral in the Red Banner Northern Fleet, nor Volontov had yet felt inclined to take that last step.

There was comfort in their relationship. Each had an escort for the more important social events, and neither had to devise excuses for an unmarried state to parents or friends. On long weekends at Admiral Davidoff’s dacha outside Moscow, they had each other.

Several times, they had set a wedding date, but acceptable delays had intervened. Volontov was sent on temporary duty to Afghanistan or Egypt or Iraq. Martina had a closely watched experiment of one kind or another under way. Her research absorbed her time like a sponge, and Volontov had his airplanes and the responsibility of his wing command.

The telephone rang, startling him out of his review.

“Colonel Volontov.”

“Colonel, this is Major Petrov.”

“Yes, Micha, what is it?”

“We have a message from General Sheremetevo’s office. Permission is granted for the use of eight MiG-29s, two tankers, and one Airborne Early-Warning craft.”

“Very well, Micha. We will utilize seven aircraft from the 2032nd. I will fly as lead of the first flight. Tell Major Rostoken that he will lead the second flight and that he is to select the pilots. We will brief at… what time did General Sheremetevo give?”

“None, Comrade Colonel. We are waiting on a United States Air Force sergeant.”

Benny Shalbot had bitched for most of the reentry flight from Themis to Merlin Air Force Base. He didn’t like his seat in the passenger module, couldn’t see a damned thing, didn’t like the environmental suit, didn’t like leaving his responsibilities aboard the space station in the hands of his junior, and most of all, he didn’t like Borneo.

It was too isolated.

There were none of the right kind of women around. Shalbot did not define his kind of woman.

What there was at Merlin Air Force Base, however, were the electromagnetic measuring electronics necessary for Pearson’s mapping project. They were not designed for use with the MakoShark, however, and Benny Shalbot also became necessary to Pearson’s project.

Once on the ground, though, Shalbot ran around Hangar One three times to recondition his leg muscles to gravity, rounded up a large bunch of technicians, confiscated most of the tools and electronic black boxes in sight, and disappeared into the hangar with the three MakoSharks.

Complaining all the while. He wasn’t happy with the magnetometers they would have to use. “Shoddy, sum-bitchin’ low-tech shit.”

McKenna and his five squadron members ate lunch in the dining hall.

McKenna took a long shower.

Munoz and Abrams went down to the beach to swim with the sharks.

Nitro Fizz Williams took a short jaunt into the jungle, looking for fruit right off the tree, and arguing with the monkeys. He collected a lot of exotic flowers, and he saw a leopard. He decided to return to the base early.

The squadron got together again in the evening for dinner, and McKenna sent boxed meals over to the hangar for the technicians. After dinner, they spent an hour going over the mission.

McKenna and the others found a dormitory bunk room, turned the air conditioning on high, and crawled under the sheets after taking half-hour showers. McKenna tried to invent a shower that would work in space.

At five-thirty in the morning, the intercom buzzed, and McKenna rolled out of his top bunk, hit the floor on his feet, and pressed the button.

“This had better be good.”

“I got you set up, Colonel.”

“We’ll be there in ten minutes, Benny.”

Munoz was bright-eyed and ready to go and the others complained bitterly and almost meaningfully when McKenna roused them. They dressed and crossed the dark grounds, still hot and humid, to the hangar.

Unlocking and slipping through the judas door, McKenna saw the three MakoSharks lined up, noses out, ready to go. Each had two pylons mounted, one gun pod, and four Wasps. Underneath them, the crewmen that Shalbot had bossed were flaked out, slumped against crates and tractors, spread out on the floor. Coke and Pepsi cans, lunch boxes, and candy wrappers were scattered around on the floor and on castered toolboxes. The normal aroma of JP-7 fuel was augmented with the acrid odor of sweat.

Shalbot, grimy and stained and baggy-eyed, grinned at him. “The sumbitch works, Colonel.”

“Guaranteed, Benny?”

“Fuckin’-A.”

“How’d you do it?” Munoz asked.

“Wanted to put ’em in a pylon pod, but we couldn’t route the cables. Ain’t enough room without screwing up the pylon mounts. So what we did, we made ourselves some bird cages outta plastic tubing and suspended the magnetometers inside the cage. The cage fits into the pay-load bay, hooks right onto the module-securing hardware. Then we ran the cables through the avionics bay and into the rear compartment. The control setup looks like shit, but it works okay.”

“Sounds good, Benny,” McKenna said.

“Yeah, well, I got to get the WSOs up on Delta Blue and explain how to make this stuff work.

While Shalbot conducted his tutoring session, the weapons systems officers standing on the wing around the open cockpit, McKenna went to a phone on the hangar wall, called the duty officer, and dictated a message to him for the base commander. All of the technicians who had worked for Shalbot on the retrofit were to get three-day passes and a free round-trip flight to Singapore.

Then he composed a message for Volontov in Murmansk, using the codes he and the Russian had agreed upon when they met in Chad.

“This goes to Murmansk, Colonel?” the duty officer said. “In the USSR?”

“That’s right, Lieutenant.”

“I, uh, I wonder if, uh, maybe I should wake the base commander?”

“Not necessary, Lieutenant. If that message isn’t on its way in five minutes, I’ll have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs give you a call to confirm it.”

“Yessir. Right away, sir.”

When Shalbot was through with his teaching session, he and the backseaters slipped down the ladder from Delta Blue’s rear cockpit. The technicians began to groan and moan, then crawled to their feet.

McKenna thanked them for their work and said, “You all get the rest of the day to sleep, then you’re off to Singapore for a couple days.”

“All right!.. way to go… damn sure!”

“Not me,” Shalbot said.

McKenna looked at him.

Shalbot poked a thumb over his shoulder at the MakoShark behind him. “Those boxes won’t take the ride outta the atmosphere, Colonel. Ain’t designed for it. You’re going to have to recover at Chad. If you get me a ride on a Lear, I’ll meet you there and pull the tape cartridges. We’ll leave the magnetometers at Chad.”

“Damn, that sounds sensitive. How well are they going to stand up under normal flight, Benny?”

“They weren’t designed for use on attack planes, Colonel. I don’t want you pulling more than three G’s.” McKenna looked to Munoz. “What’s that do to our flight schedule, Tiger?”

“No more than three G’s? Hang on.”

Munoz scrambled up the ladder and into his cockpit to use the computer. Four minutes later, he stood up and leaned out of the cockpit.

“We can still do it tonight, if we hustle out of here, Kev. We’re gonna lose sixteen minutes, acceleratin’ that slowly. But we can still hit the objective before dawn. We’re gonna come out the other end nice and bright, though. It might be a little dicey.”

“Okay, we’ll do it, anyway,” McKenna decided. “Suit up, guys. Benny, you’re an ace.”

Shalbot looked at the stained concrete. “Just get me a Learjet, Colonel. I always wanted my own Lear.”

McKenna went back to the phone on the wall and called the duty officer again to send a second message to Pyotr Vorontov. He also issued orders to wake up two pilots for Shalbot’s Learjet.

The three MakoSharks were off the ground at six-forty in the morning, Borneo time.

Three hours and twelve minutes later, on the northern side of the equator, over seven thousand miles from Merlin Air Force Base, they descended from 100,000 feet.

It was two-fifty-six in the morning, and the sun was already rising in the northern latitudes, though still low on the horizon.

Crossing the Austrian border, McKenna pressed the stud for the Tac-1 frequency, already set in a scrambling mode. “Delta Flight, break.”

“Yellow gone.”

“Green doing it.”

On either side of him, Dimatta and Conover began to pull away. The three MakoSharks would make the single run northward flying parallel, but with forty miles between each of the craft. Shalbot had said that would give the mapping coverage a slight overlap.

“Alpha One, Delta Blue.”

“Go ahead, Blue.” Overton was on the microphone.

“Six minutes to IP, on schedule.”

“Copy, Blue.”

“Semaphore, Delta Blue,” McKenna said.

“Delta Blue, this is Semaphore,” General Thorpe said.

“Semaphore, did you get my message about the need for a Hot Country recovery?”

“Roger. The boss wants to know when we started having tech sergeants running the air force.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have any promotion allocations for my squadron,” McKenna said, “but I want him to be a master sergeant by the time we get back. Can master sergeants run the air force?”

“They already do,” Thorpe told him. “I’ll process your oral recommendation, and we’ll see if we can’t find an allocation somewhere.”

Munoz broke in, “You’ve got my recommendation, too. How about silver oak leaves? Got any of those laying around somewhere?”

“Can it, Tiger. I appreciate that, Semaphore. How we doing for Cottonseed?”

“Cottonseed’s four minutes from station. He’s standing by on this frequency,” Thorpe said. “Condor and Vulture are in alert status.”

“Roger, that. Are we a go?”

“Go, Delta Blue.”

McKenna checked the HUD. Mach 1.4. Altitude

42,000. Green LED’s everywhere.

On his right, the low sun was threatening, a pink nipple on the horizon. At lower altitude, though, it would be dark enough for the first part of the flight.

The plan was to make a curving pass northward, starting over the German mainland, swinging around the jut of Norway over the North Sea, continuing over the Norwegian Sea, and then into the Greenland Sea. Pearson was hoping to trace the electromagnetic anomalies out of Germany to the offshore platforms.

They had to do it at 600 knots. Right at 690 miles per hour. Slower was better, faster might jumble the readings, since, according to Shalbot, the tape recording mechanism was equivalent to, “the one Moses used.”

The distance was 1,900 miles. It would take two and three-quarters hours, and they would hit the platforms in strong early morning light.

McKenna pressed the Tac-2 button, preset for the frequency he and Volontov had agreed upon. It was not a scrambled frequency.

“Condor One, Delta Blue.”

“Delta Blue, this is Condor One. Proceed.”

“Condor, we’ll be on our IP in two minutes. You might want to start engines in about forty minutes.”

“Copy forty minutes. Condor out.”

Back to Tac-1. “Cottonseed, Delta Blue.”

“Go ahead, Delta Blue.”

“What do you see me flying into?”

“Blue, we no longer have coverage of your area, but an hour ago, two Eurofighters and two Tornados took off from New Amsterdam, headed north. Mildenhall RAF reports two Tornados flying the French border. You’ve got eleven scheduled commercial flights in the area of operations. I can read them off for you, if you like.”

“We’ve got the commercial aircraft input already,” McKenna said. “What about in your area?”

“We’re showing three formations currently. The flight makeup appears to consist of two Tornados and two Eurofighters, Blue. We have a flight approaching the ice, a flight on the southbound leg, and two tankers are aloft at three-zero-thousand, south of Svalbard. Then, we’re expecting the flight from New Amsterdam.”

“Thank you, Cottonseed. Delta Blue out.”

On the intercom, Munoz said, “They’re beefin’ up the beef, amigo.”

“Looks that way, Tiger.”

“IP!”

McKenna set the elapsed time counter on his chronometer to zero, then eased the hand controller forward. By the time they passed over Bremerhaven, the MakoShark was steady at 600 knots and 3,000 feet of altitude. Dimatta and Conover each checked in with the same readings.

Munoz cussed Shalbot’s jury-rigged controls, lashed to the left side of his cockpit, but seemed to think the magnetometer was operating.

Bremerhaven was dark, the streets identified by long rows of street lights. A few early risers were up, pushing headlight beams along the shaded streets. The naval base was well lit, a destroyer and a freighter putting out to sea side by side. New Amsterdam Air Force Base launched a multi-engined jet transport of some kind that took off to the east.

No one seemed to notice them.

“Let’s make the turn, Snake Eyes.”

McKenna used a lot of space to make a left turn to a heading of 345 degrees.

“Green turning.”

“Yellow turned.”

“Copy,” McKenna told them.

Twenty minutes later, they all turned back to dead north. If the expectations were correct, Delta Blue was approximately over the eastern cable.

“I wish to hell I could get a concurrent readin’ on this thing,” Munoz said. “I don’t like not knowin’ what we’re gettin’. If anything.”

“Trust to God and Benny Shalbot, Tiger.”

Twenty minutes after that, Munoz said, “Arctic Circle, jefe.”

“Roger.”

He called Cottonseed and got an update on the German patrol planes.

McKenna went to Tac-2. “Condor One, Delta Blue.”

“Proceed, Delta Blue.”

“What’s your situation, Condor?”

“On station, the last two aircraft are almost finished refueling.”

The Fulcrums were circling at 30,000 feet over the Barents Sea, fifty miles out of range of radar aboard either the offshore platforms or the tankers replenishing the German aircraft.

“Condor, you have two flights of mixed Tornados and Eurofighters. Flight One is currently refueling south of Svalbard. Flight Two is on the western edge of the ice pack. I’d appreciate your help.”

“Delta Blue, Condor. We will depart these coordinates now.”

It was getting light out, the dawn a milky gray spreading over a darker gray sea. To the east a few miles was some cloud cover, but it wasn’t doing Delta Blue any good. It might mask Delta Green for a while.

Unable to change his speed, heading, or altitude, McKenna felt a little exposed.

“One o’clock high,” Munoz said.

McKenna looked up. There were four aircraft in a loose formation.

“They’re southbound and down,” Munoz quoted. “Those assholes are thinking about sausage and eggs, not us.”

“I don’t think so, either,” McKenna agreed.

He estimated that the Germans were flying at 30,000 feet. Having successfully completed their patrol of the platforms, they were not looking for intruders in the middle of the Norwegian Sea.

Ten minutes later, the German planes were out of sight to the south.

But he saw a ship coming up on the horizon.

Zeigman circled to the east of the tanker, waiting for his last two planes to be fueled.

He was watching the sea. It was bland and mesmerizing, shades of gray. Most of his days and nights were that way. The northern regions always gave a feeling of overcast, even when the sun was shining. As he came around, Svalbard Island appeared in his windscreen, also bland. It was fifteen kilometers away.

Idly, he automatically swept the instrument panel with his eyes. He glanced at the radar scope.

What!

He counted the blips, then pressed the transmit button. “Tiger Flight, break off refueling and join on me. Panther Leader, do you hear me?”

Wilhelm Metzenbaum, Panther Führer; came back to him immediately. “Panther Leader, Tiger.”

“Go to military power, Panther Flight, and join on me. I have eight targets, possibly Soviet aircraft, at one-six-zero-zero-zero altitude, three-five kilometers, my bearing zero-three-eight.”

As his wingman and second element closed in on him, Zeigman advanced his throttles and began to climb.

“You are an asshole,” he told his weapons system operator over the intercom.

“Major?” squeaked Hauptman Fritz Gehring.

“You should have seen the Russians earlier.”

“I am sorry, Major.”

“Do not be sorry. Keep your eyes open. We will arm all systems now.”

Within minutes, Wilhelm Metzenbaum’s flight sidled in next to them.

“Tiger Leader, our new tactics will not work against MiGs.”

“Agreed, Panther. Take the Eurofighters and go to three-five-zero-zero-zero meters. We will make the first strike, and you the second.”

“One strike is all we have in us, Tiger Leader. Our fuel supply is limited.”

“One pass is all you will need,” Zeigman promised, “if that.”

He worked his shoulder muscles and stretched his fingers. He felt good, all charged up.

MiGs.

He had never attacked MiGs before.

Gerhard Schmidt listened to the radio exchanges of the German pilots, sitting in his upholstered chair in his flag plot aboard the Hamburg.

Provide them with a warning Tiger Leader. Shoo them away.

He heard nothing.

Schmidt looked at his aide, Werner Niels. The man looked slightly sickly.

“Lieutenant,” he said to his plotter, “have we a radar contact with those aircraft?”

The leutnant spoke into his headphone, listened, then tapped his keyboard. Eight green rectangles appeared on the plotting board. They were east of Svalbard Island, heading east-north-east.

“I am sorry, Herr Admiral, the radar can reach only Tiger and Panther flights. The Soviet airplanes are beyond our range.”

Schmidt detested seeing only half the battle. His mind was good at imagining the things he could not see, one of the reasons he was an excellent tactician. His brain kept track of unseen destroyers, frigates, and submarines with only minimal input as to course, heading, and speed. He anticipated the intentions of ship commanders with frequent success. Airplanes, and their arrogant operators, were much more difficult.

He studied the plotting board. One by one, the green rectangles blinked out as they chased the Soviet aircraft out of radar range.

Just below the ice cap on the plotting board was his own ship, the Hamburg and her escorts. The second battle group, centered on the Stuttgart, was also out of his radar range, but plotted by hand. It was forty miles off the northern coast of Norway. The third battle group was near Iceland, practicing maneuvers. The fourth group patrolled the southwestern edge of the offshore platforms.

Two of the tugboats were fending off an ice floe at Bahnsteig Zwei, and the other was standing by near Bahnsteig Vierzehn. A fuel tender was approaching the fourth battle group.

He looked out the big window at the coming day. The visibility was good for about a kilometer.

He turned back and studied the plotting board.

“What do you think, Werner?”

His aide broke off a trance between himself and the board. “I think, Admiral, that all of our air cover has fled to the east. There is not one airplane in the sky over the ice or the offshore platforms.”

“My observation, also.”

Schmidt thought about it for one more minute, then keyed the intercom button set into the arm of his chair.

“Sir?” Kapitän Froelich said.

“Captain, I want you to sound General Quarters. Alert the second and fourth battle groups to do the same. Also alert any of the platforms that have been armed. All antiaircraft and missile batteries are freed. They may fire at any aircraft they see.”

“But, Admiral! Our fighters… ”

“Are off on a wild-goose chase, Captain. Do as you are told.”

The klaxon sounded immediately.

Delta Blue passed almost directly over the ship.

“It’s a fuel tanker, Snake Eyes. Unarmed.”

“Think they saw us?”

“Damned sure of it. Couple of those guys nearly fell overboard, gawking.”

“Okay, then. The alarm’s been sounded. You can play with your radar set.”

“Finally.”

McKenna saw the first of the platforms coming up. The dome had a bare, dull gleam of morning reflecting off of it. It was light enough now to see that the sea had a rough look to it. The waves were capping at about four feet, he guessed. White spume sprayed from the crests.

He hit Tac-1. “Delta Flight, arm missiles and guns, but maintain your courses. They’re on to us, but completing the map is the priority. Do-Wop, you still monitoring the Soviet channel?”

“Roger that, Snake Eyes. They’ve got themselves a skirmish going. From their AWACS guys, who are recapping in English for me, I make it seven missiles fired on both sides, no hits. The Sovs are starting to break it off, and two of the Germans have skedaddled. The tankers are headed east, so maybe they’re short of go-juice.”

“Okay, Do-Wop, keep me posted if anything gets out of hand. Cottonseed, you there?”

“Go, Delta Blue.”

“Any readings?”

“Nothing airborne. You feel like squawking me?” McKenna hit the IFF switch, counted to three, then killed it.

“Got you, Delta Blue. Four miles to the first platform. That’s number nine. Then you’ll see number one off your right wing, then number seven off your left. Then you’ll see the Hamburg, dead on.”

“What’s she doing, Cottonseed?”

“She and her two destroyers are now turning south. I’m going to call it one-seven-seven degrees. They’ve probably gotten a report from that fuel tanker.”

“Thank you, Cottonseed. Blue out.”

The radar screen showed three targets, wells nine, thirteen, and five.

“Going back to visual, Snake Eyes.”

The screen went to gray. Gray sea. Gray day.

McKenna checked the HUD. Airspeed 600 knots, altitude 3,000 feet. Boring routine, gray day.

“Hey, hombre! That sucker’s armed.”

McKenna looked down at the magnified image. On the helicopter pad near the dome, two antiaircraft guns had been mounted. On the far side of the pad were two SAM installations, the missile mounts sporting three cylinders each. Midway between them was a small house trailer topped with a radar antenna.

“Kill the radar,” he said.

“Already done.”

“Alert the others.”

Munoz called Dimatta and Conover and passed on the information.

“Delta Blue, Semaphore.”

“Go Semaphore.”

“Do we read armed platforms?”

“Two AA batteries and two SAMs on nine.”

The platform was coming up quickly.

“Abort the mission.”

“That’ll piss Amy-baby,” Munoz said, fortunately on the intercom.

“Delta Yellow, Delta Green, abort,” McKenna said. “Semaphore, I’m going to take it on through. My course is right up the middle, and if we don’t get it now, we may not get it at all.”

Brackman’s voice: “Delta Blue, you had an order.”

“Hey, Semaphore, if it gets hairy, we’ll boost out.”

A couple seconds of carrier wave.

“Very well, Delta Blue. Use your judgment.”

Airspeed 600, altitude 3,000.

“We’ve got to do some critical thinkin’ about our ordnance loads, jefe. All we got is air-to-air.”

McKenna reached out and armed all four of the Wasps and the gun. “Do the best you can, Tiger. Scare hell out of them, anyway.”

At one mile, the AA guns opened up.

Puffs of flak began to pop around them.

McKenna held course, speed, and altitude.

“Amy better kiss you for this, amigo.”

“Precisely.”

One of the SAM emplacements started to rotate, the missiles tilting over toward them.

Nothing happened.

“They can’t figure out where the hell we are on radar,” Munoz said.

He launched one Wasp, waited a count of three, then launched a second.

McKenna saw the rocket trail as the first one homed in on the SAM radar trailer. Munoz guided the second by hand toward the closest AA gun.

Germans scattered like ants in a Raid storm. McKenna saw two men go over the side of the platform into the sea. He thought it would be pretty damned cold.

Whump-whump.

The Wasps detonated, one after the other.

Whoosh.

Delta Blue flashed over the platform.

“Scratch one AA, one SAM radar,” Munoz said. “Hell, they never even got a missile off.”

Seconds later, they went by platform number five and found it unarmed.

Platform one was armed, but they passed it six miles to the west, and the dome was between them and the well’s defensive armament.

Platform seven wasn’t armed, either, but it had the Hamburg for company.

“I think we have all the electromagnetic readings we want to have,” McKenna said.

“I’m sure that’s true, compadre?”

“Shall we go home?”

“Chad, Chad, Snake Eyes. Beer and a Bloody Mary.”

“Right you are.”

The cruiser fired its first missile as McKenna went into a left turn, streaking over platform seven.

“Incoming,” Munoz said. The volume of his voice didn’t even raise.

McKenna tightened his turn, rolling his right wing vertical.

“The G’s, Snake Eyes! The G’s!”

“Oh, shit! I forgot.”

Pushing the hand controller forward, McKenna relieved the gravitational forces. He didn’t want to lose anything recorded by Shalbot’s sensitive equipment and have to rehash this flight.

The right wing was still up, the MakoShark in knife-edge flight.

The rearview screen showed the SAM homing on the flicker of heat it was getting from one of the engines.

“That one’s a heat-seeker. Another one launched,” Munoz said.

“Chaff.”

Munoz released a flurry of aluminized confetti intended to confuse the missile’s guidance system.

“Flare.”

The WSO punched out two magnesium flares. The brightly burning flares might draw off a heat-seeking missile.

McKenna touched the right rudder, turning right — climbing, and hiding his exhaust from the missile. He shoved the throttles full forward, watching the gravitational force readout.

When it reached 1.9, he backed off the throttles.

The SAM exploded just behind them.

“Jesus, that was close!” Cottonseed said. “You’ve got another coming, Blue!”

McKenna rolled upright, still climbing, passing through 9,000 feet. The airspeed indicator held at Mach.9.

The SAM was a deadly black eye in the rearview screen.

“Blow off a Wasp, Tiger.”

Instantly, the Wasp launched from its rail, then dove downward under Munoz’s guidance.

The SAM liked the hot exhaust of the Wasp better than the negligible one of the MakoShark. It curved away from them, disappearing from the rearview screen.

“Delta Blue, Semaphore. You all right?”

“A-one. Just taking care of the IO’s interests, Semaphore.”

At ten o’clock in the morning, Felix Eisenach appeared in Marshal Hoch’s office, as ordered.

Eisenach was accompanied by Oberst Maximillian Oberlin and Oberst Albert Weismann. All of them were in immaculate uniform, but the sleeplessness of an early morning was in their eyes.

Marshal Hoch had abandoned the discipline of military weight training fifteen years before. Eisenach judged him to be close to 135 kilograms, all of it hanging from a very short frame. His jaws bulged, and his eyes were recessed behind plump cheeks and overhanging eyebrows.

Despite the appearance, he was still a marshal, and he was still very intelligent.

His face was flushed with his indignation.

He stood behind his desk and said, “There are two things, Felix.”

“Yes, Herr Marshal?”

“This.” Hoch held out a sheet of paper, and Eisenach stepped forward to take it. Oberlin and Weismann remained near the door.

Eisenach read through it quickly. Another request from the American State Department, this time addressed to the High Command, demanding explanations for the activities in the Greenland Sea.

“I would direct them to the Bremerhaven Petroleum Corporation, Marshal Hoch.”

“Yes. And the next communiqué will be more fiercely worded”

“So be it,” Eisenach said. “By then, we shall have Ghost operational and flight-tested. Then, you will see a change in the American tone.”

Hoch glared hard at him from those deep-set eyes. “Perhaps.”

Eisenach waited in silence, not eager to hear of the second item.

The marshall turned his head on his bull neck to look at Oberst Weismann. “You have an explanation for this morning’s fiasco, Colonel?

Weismann’s red face became redder. “I have no excuses that are acceptable, Herr Marshal. I was at Peenemünde when the attacks came. My squadron leaders took it upon themselves to engage the Soviets.”

“Leaving the platforms without air cover.”

“Yes, Herr Marshal.”

“And not even, as a byproduct, managing to shoot down a single Soviet aircraft.”

“Yes, Herr Marshal. The MiG pilots were very good, and the plan well executed. As soon as our planes were drawn away from the platforms, the MiG’s turned and ran. Nine missiles were fired, six from our aircraft, but the distances were too great for accuracy.”

Hoch turned back to Eisenach. “Admiral Schmidt seems to have been the only one prepared to meet an enemy, General. Must we always rely on the navy?”

“No, Herr Marshall, not again.”