Fortunes of War

24

They were waiting when Atsuko Abe entered the war room in the basement of the defense ministry. The foreign minister, Cho, was there with four other ministers and half a dozen senior politicians from the Diet. The chief of staff of the Japanese Self-Defense Force, General Yamashita, stood in their midst. “What are you doing here?” Abe demanded of the group as they bowed. Without waiting for an answer, he walked around them. He went to the prime minister’s raised chair and climbed into it. “A Russian submarine is in Sagami Bay, just outside the mouth of Tokyo Bay,” Abe said. “I suppose you’ve heard. Come, let us see about it.”

They turned to face him. The raised chair resembled a throne, Cho thought, annoyed that such a thought should intrude at a time like this. “The submarine can wait, Mr. Prime Minister,” Cho replied. “We have come about a more serious matter.”

Abe looked from face to face, scrutinizing each. “My conscience forced me to violate the security laws,” Cho continued. “I told these gentlemen of your plans to use nuclear weapons to destroy the American air base at Chita. My colleagues decided that verification must be obtained before any decision was possible on a matter this serious. General Yamashita agreed to meet with us. He confirmed that you ordered this attack.”

Abe’s eyes flashed angrily. “Without air superiority, gentlemen, our position in Siberia is untenable. We cannot resupply our forces through the winter. Does anyone dispute that?”

No one spoke. Abe bored in. “General Yamashita? Do you concur with my assessment?” Yamashita gave a tiny affirmative bow. “We must eliminate the American F-22’s or lose the war. If we lose the war, this government will fall. If this government falls, Japan will lose its last, best hope for greatness. Surely you see our dilemma. Des perate situations call for extreme remedies — I have the courage to do what must be done.”

“Mr. Prime Minister,” Cho said, “sometimes defeat is impossible to avoid. The wise man submits to the inevitable with grace.”

“Defeat is never inevitable. Our resolve must be as great as the crisis.”

“To struggle against the inevitable is to dishonor oneself.”

Abe flared at that shot. “How dare you speak to me of honor!” he roared. Cho gave not an inch, which surprised Abe. He didn’t think the old man had it in him. “I speak of our honor, ours collectively, yours and mine, the honor of the people in this room, and the honor of Japan. We must choose a course worthy of ourselves and our nation.”

“And that is?” Abe whispered. “We must withdraw from Siberia. Nuclear weapons are abhorrent to the Japanese people. To have them as a deterrent is one thing, but to use them on a foe when the life of the nation is not at stake is quite another.”

“The life of Japan ix at stake.” Abe looked again at every face, trying to read what was written there. “We are a small, poor island in a vast ocean bordered by great nations. We are caught between China and the United States. With Siberia, Japan can also be great. Without it …”

His voice trailed off. “Your failing, Mr. Prime Minister,” Cho said slowly, “is that you have never been able to admit the possibility of visions other than your own. But the time for discussion is past. The decision has been made. The Japanese government will not betray the ideals of the Japanese people.”

Abe seemed to shrink in his large chair. General Yamashita stepped forward and presented a piece of paper. “Please sign this, Mr. Prime Minister, canceling preparations for the nuclear strike.”

Abe made the smallest of gestures, motioning the paper away. “I cannot,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “The strike was launched a half hour ago.”

“Call it back,” one of the senior politicians said harshly. Atsuko Abe smiled grimly. “The possibility always existed that weak men might lose their resolve. The pilots were ordered to ignore any recall orders.”

The politicians stood in stunned silence, trying to comprehend the enormity of the step taken by Abe.

Cho was one of the first to find his tongue. “Come with me,” he said to General Yamashita. “We will call the American president.”

David Herbert Hood was still on the telephone with Marshal Stolypin when the call from the Japanese defense ministry came in. Hood listened in silence to the translation of the words of Foreign Minister Cho. When he realized that Cho was saying the nuclear strike against Chita had been airborne from Vladivostok for forty-two minutes, Hood pushed the button on the telephone that allowed everyone in the room to hear the translator, and in the background, the voice of Cho talking rapidly in Japanese. Hood was horrified. The news that a nuclear strike couldn’t be recalled struck him as complete insanity. The Russians had done the very same thing. “Mr. Cho,” Hood replied, trying to keep control of his voice. “I just got off the telephone with the Russian chief of staff. Are you aware that Russia launched a nuclear strike via aerial bombers against Tokyo and the missile-launch facilities on the Tateyama Peninsula two hours ago?”

The translator fired ten seconds of Japanese at Cho, who asked in horror, “Tokyo?”

“Tokyo,” thundered David Hood. “And the crazy sons of bitches sent planes without any way to recall them.” Cho said something to try to get the message straight. In a moment, Hood continued: “Yes, sir. The Russians did do that. They are doing it now. Six Mig-25 bombers, three for each target, with Sukhoi-27’s for escort.”

He handed the telephone to Jack Innes. “Tell them where the Russian strike is. They may be able to intercept it.”

While Innes talked, Hood scanned the giant display that covered most of the wall in front of him. It was a presentation of raw data from the satellites, massaged by the best computer programs yet devised. What Hood focused upon were the symbols marking unknown airborne targets in eastern Siberia. There were several. One of the formations the Americans were watching was undoubtedly the nuclear strike, probably that one a hundred miles north of Khabarovsk. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Stanford Tuck, was standing beside him. “Nukes,” Hood told him. “The bastards are trying to nuke each other.”

“What are the targets?”

“The Russians are sending two strikes, one against Tokyo, one against the missile-launch facilities on the Tateyama Peninsula. Mean while, the Japanese are trying to nuke the F-22 base at Chita.”

Tuck was horrified. “Tokyo …”

“The F-22 squadron,” Hood said, pursing his lips. “There are hotheads in Congress who will want Japanese blood if they use a nuke to kill Americans.”

“How did we get to the edge of the abyss?” Stanford Tuck asked. “How do we keep from falling in?” Hood countered. He pointed to the computer presentation on the wall. “The Russians are too far east to be intercepted by the F-22’s. It would be a futile tail chase. The Japanese are going to have to take care of themselves. Our only option is to scramble the F-22’s to intercept the Japanese strike headed their way.”

“The planes near Khabarovsk must be the Japanese,” Tuck said. He grabbed a satellite telephone.

Stunned by the agony of the knife that had been rammed through his left shoulder from behind, michman Martos almost lost his scuba mouthpiece. His instinct and years of training saved him. Without conscious thought, he turned and grabbed his assailant’s throat with his left hand and buried his knife in the man’s stomach again. Continuing the same movement, he then spun the man toward Esenin and flippered as hard as he could.

The agony in his shoulder was extraordinary, so bad that he could barely stay focused.

Esenin tried to push the dying naval infantryman out of the way so that he could get at Martos, but while he was using his hands for this, Martos pulled his knife from the human shield and stabbed Esenin under his left armpit.

Esenin twisted away before Martos could withdraw his weapon. He floated away, looking down at his left side, reaching with his right hand. Martos turned back toward the bomb.

Lights … numbers … Where was the on-off switch?

As he looked for it, the sheer volume of the pinging noises got his attention. And a noise like a train. Martos looked up, toward the surface a hundred feet above.

He saw the destroyer speeding over, and splashes. Out to either side of the racing ship’s hull, splashes.

Depth charges! The Japanese destroyer was dropping depth charges!

“Depth charges in the water, Captain.”

“All hands into life jackets. Let’s pray these charges are set too shallow. If we survive them, we’ll blow the tanks, surface the boat, and abandon it. Pass the word.”

Every man in the boat was talking to someone, reaching for something, bracing himself.

“Close all watertight fittings.”

Saratov heard the hatches clanging shut. He reached for a life jacket and pulled it on, fumbling with the straps.

He was still at it when the first depth charge exploded.

The detonation rocked the sub, causing circuit breakers to pop and emergency lighting to come on.

Another blast, like Thor pounding on the boat with his mighty hammer.

Then the worst of all, three stupendous concussions in close succession.

Silence. “Damage reports?” Saratov shouted the question into the blackness. Even the emergency lights were out.

The reports came back over the sound-powered telephone. The boat was still intact.

“Emergency surface. Blow the tanks. All hands stand by to abandon ship.”

Martos had only a few seconds, so he looked again at the panel on the bomb still sitting in its cradle on the transport container. Esenin and his helpers had merely opened the container by releasing the two steel bands that held it together. Surely these damned fools weren’t arming the thing before they got it off the submarine?

But it was armed.

Martos tried to remember — as he knifed the first man, Esenin had been on his left, and doing something to this panel. What?

Which is the power switch?

Running out of time … Which one is it?

He heard a powerful click, and instinctively he slammed his knees into the fetal position and hugged them. The concussion smashed into his left side like a speeding truck. For a second or two, he lost consciousness. Another blast, and another. These blasts were above him and to his right, farther away than the first, which had almost opened him up like a ripe tomato. Martos concentrated on staying conscious and keeping his mouthpiece in place as the shock waves from the explosions hammered at him. The knife buried in his shoulder helped. The pain was a fire that burned and burned, and his mind couldn’t shut it out. Then the explosions were over. Amazingly, he was still alive. And deaf. He could hear nothing. His eardrums must have burst. He tried to find the warheads, the containers, but couldn’t. The water was opaque. The rising submarine hit him, carried him upward on an expanding tower of bubbles, a universe of rising bubbles. Instinctively, Martos used both hands to grasp the slippery tiles of the deck, which was pushing him up, up, toward the light. He was going upward too fast. He was going to get the bends. He could feel his abdomen swelling. Oh, sweet Christ!

More and more light, coming closer and closer … When the submarine surfaced, Pavel Saratov used the public address system. The emergency power was back on, so the loudspeakers worked. “Abandon ship. All hands into the water.”

Already the control room crew had the hatch open to the sail cockpit. “Let’s go. Everybody out,” Saratov roared. Amazingly, the sonar michman held back. “I’m sorry, Captain. What I said—“

“Forget it, son. Ou. Up the ladder.”

He waited until the last man was out of the control room and conning tower area, then Pavel Saratov climbed the ladder to the cockpit. The daylight shocked him. The men that preceded him were in the water, wearing their life vests, paddling away from the sub. Men were still coming out of the torpedo room forward and the engine room aft. The swells — they weren’t so large, but they were lapping at the open engine room hatch.

The destroyers were circling. One was coming back with a bone in its teeth. The choppers were out there circling … Saratov’s attention turned to the bomb containers welded to the deck forward of the sail. Three of them were still sealed. One, however, was open. The top of the container was missing, but the steel straps were there, loose. Entangled in one was a body in a wet suit, wearing a scuba tank. Saratov climbed down the handholds on the port side of the sail to the deck and carefully walked forward on the wet tiles. The man entangled in the strap moved. Esenin. The hilt of a knife protruded from under his left arm. Saratov lifted Esenin’s head. “Where is Martos?”

“Captain, over here.”

The cry was from beside the sail, on the starboard side. Saratov went aft. Martos was trying to get erect. He had found a handhold on the sail to hold on to as the sub came up from the depths; otherwise, the water would have washed him away. The point of a knife was sticking out of Martos’s shoulder. “Don’t pull it out,” Martos said. I’ll bleed to death.”

“Can you get in the water and swim? The Japanese may start shooting.”

“I can barely hear you. I think my eardrums are ruptured.” Saratov raised his voice, “I said—“

“We must check the bomb. I think Esenin armed one, started a timer. Help me.”

The two men went over to look, Saratov half-carrying the Spetsnaz fighter. “See the numbers, ticking down.”

“We need something to break into this, to cut the circuits.”

“The knife in Esenin,” Martos said. “Get it.”

Saratov moved the three steps and pulled the knife from the tangled man. He handed it to Martos, who raised it in the air with his right hand and jabbed it into the electronic box with all his strength. The knife went in about three inches. Martos pried with the blade. “Captain!”

The call came from the water. Saratov looked in that direction. Askold was calling. Now he pointed. “Water … the engine-room hatch. The boat is flooding.”

Now he could feel the deck shifting. The bow was rising. “Quickly,” he said to Martos. “I—” Martos passed him the knife and ripped at the top of the control box that he had pried loose. It gave. He bent it, trying to enlarge the opening. The deck was shifting, rising from the sea and tilting. “Help me,” Martos gasped. Saratov grabbed the Spetsnaz fighter with his left hand and used his right to slash the exposed wires. “Keep me from falling and give me the knife,” Martos gasped. Saratov handed over the knife and grabbed Martos with both hands. Martos sawed with the blade against the wires. Several parted. He sawed some more. The bow was completely out of the water. Nearby, sailors in life-jackets were shouting. Saratov looked up. A Japanese destroyer was coasting to a stop less than fifty meters away. Faces lined the rail. Someone on the bridge was using a bullhorn, shouting and waving an arm. Beside him were men with rifles. “The boat is going to go under, Captain,” Martos said. “Cut the last of the wires.”

“The suction will take us down.”

“Perhaps. Cut the damned wires.”

“I am trying.”

The bow rose higher and higher into the air. Saratov heard a bulkhead inside the submarine tear loose with a bang. When the angle of the deck got to about sixty degrees, Saratov lost his grip on Martos, who was still holding the clock part of the mechanism. He dropped the knife and grabbed the clock with both hands. Then the wires holding the clock mechanism tore away and Martos slid down the deck into the sea. Holding on precariously, Saratov checked the mechanism. The clock was gone, all the lights off. Then he could hold on no longer. He started to slide down the deck, then kicked away with his feet and fell into the water. As the boat loomed above him, he stroked for Martos. Towing the diver by his oxygen hose, Saratov turned his back on the boat and paddled away as hard as he could. He hadn’t gone far when he heard shouting. He looked. Admiral Kolchak was going under. As the boat went into the depths for the last time, Esenin was conscious, trying to free himself from the steel cable that held him trapped. With a huge sigh as the last of the air rushed from the boat’s interior, the bow of Admiral Kolchak disappeared into the sea.

The swirling undertow dragged Saratov under. He held on to Martos’s oxygen hose with a death grip. When he thought his lungs would burst, he opened his eyes. He was still underwater, rising toward the surface. Gagging, he sucked the air, then pulled Martos up and got his head above water. “Breathe, damn it! Breathe.”

Martos coughed, gagged, spit water, then sucked in air. “Don’t die on me, Martos.”

“Yes, Captain,” Martos said, and passed out, still in Saratov’s grasp.

The Sukhois and Migs were thirty minutes away from the second tanker rendezvous when Major Yan Chernov flipped his radar switch to the transmit position. He and the other Sukhoi pilots had been listening passively for radar transmissions by Japanese Zeros and not radiating themselves. So far, they had heard nothing. Now he adjusted the sensitivity and gain on the scope, ran the range out to maximum, and watched the sweep go back and forth, back and forth. The scope was empty, of course, just like the dusty sky. The dust in the atmosphere diffused the sunlight and limited visibility. Maybe six miles visibility here, he decided, but worse to the south. Perhaps the damned tankers would not show up. Screwups of this order were an everyday occurrence in Russian life. That the first set of tankers had showed up in the proper place, on time, was a minor military miracle, worthy of comment wherever uniformed professionals gathered. A similar miracle two hours later was too much to expect. So Chernov’s thoughts went. He turned his head and looked for all his charges, the bombers and the escorts. When he squinted against the glare, he could just see the second section of Sukhois, about four miles away to the south, at this altitude. And of course his eyes dropped to his fuel gauges. He had enough to get to the tanker rendezvous and fly for another fifteen minutes. That was it. No doubt the other fighters and bombers were in a similar condition. Without fuel from the tankers, the three Mig-25 bombers and their Sukhoi escorts would flat run out of gas. The Tateyama strike would suffer a similar fate. Chernov looked at the chart of this area that he had folded on his lap.

The rendezvous position was plainly marked. Unfortunately, there were no runways within range if Chernov and his charges didn’t get fuel. Watching the radar sweep was mesmerizing. With the plane on autopilot, Chernov had time to study the scope, twiddle the knobs, search the vast sky visually, look at his chart. Finally he saw it, a dot on the scope, well left of course, 140 miles away. It was moving slowly across the scope toward the extended centerline of Chernov’s airplane. This blip was the tanker formation, of course. Right on time. Right where they should be. And not a Zero in sight. At a hundred miles, the tankers turned toward the oncoming fighters. They were now in their racetrack pattern. They would spend five minutes on their present heading, then do a 180-degree turn to their right to the reciprocal heading, where they would do another five-minute leg. The fighters would rendezvous on them. The distance to the tankers was only twenty miles when they began their 180-degree right turn. What had been one blip on Chernov’s radar was now three separate, distinct targets.

Jiro Kimura had been awake for thirty hours. The night before, he had lain down but sleep was impossible. He thought of his wife, Shizuko, of Bob Cassidy, of duty, honor, and country and tried to decide what all of it meant, if anything. He was trapped, like a fly in amber. He had too many loyalties to too many things. There was no way to resolve the conflicts. The sun fell softly from the dust-filled lemon sky. Windstorms in Manchuria had lifted dust high into the atmosphere, limiting visibility. Here between Vlad and Khabarovsk, the dust was particularly thick. The forecasters said that the dust would thin when the flight rounded the corner of Chinese airspace at Khabarovsk and headed west for Chita. Three miles ahead and a mile to the right, cruising several thousand feet below, was the converted Boeing 747 tanker that would pass fuel to the four Chita-bound fighters after Khabarovsk was passed. Jiro could just make it out in the yellowish haze. He and his wingman were stationed in the tanker’s left-rear quadrant to guard against American or Russian fighters lining up for a gun or Sidewinder shot. The flight leader, Colonel Nishimura, had also stationed himself and his wingman behind the tanker, on the right side, in the quadrant that he felt it most likely the F-22’s would attack from. That the F-22’s would attack the four bomb-carrying Zeros before they began their bombing run on Chita, the colonel regarded as a fact barely worth discussion. Of course the Americans would attack!

Jiro also thought an attack highly probable. At the brief the colonel had made the classic Japanese warrior’s mistake — he underestimated his Western opponent. He seemed to think that Bob Cassidy and company were going to be easy kills, even made a half-joking, disparaging reference to them. Jiro hoped that somewhere his old friends killed by F-22’s were having a good laugh at Nishimura’s naivteand Or stupidity. Whichever. When Cassidy came slashing in, Nishimura was going to get a quick education. He would probably die before he realized his folly. Jiro had recommended that the Zeros use their radars until they were fifty miles from Chita. “Only at Chita have we encountered antiradiation missiles, which must be ground-based. We must use our radars to find the F-22’s before they find us.”

Nishimura refused. “Athena will prevent them from seeing us. If we leave our radars off there is no way they can detect us.”

“Sir, I respectfully disagree. We must rely on Athena for our protection, and use our radar to detect and kill the F-22’s before they get within Sidewinder range.”

Nishimura refused to listen. He knew better. Jiro looked down and left, at the tip of the bomb just visible under his left wing. The weapon was a white, supersonic shape.

At seven miles, Yan Chernov located the Russian tankers visually. They were in a trail formation, each plane a mile behind the others and stepped up a thousand feet. The lead tanker was the designated donor for the Tokyo strike. Instead of swinging in behind the lead tanker, Chernov climbed several thousand feet and lined up a mile or so astern of the third tanker in line, Tail-end Charlie, the spare. His wingman, Malakov, was on his right wing, of course, but much closer than he should be. Now less than a hundred feet separated them. When Chernov looked over, Malakov was signaling madly with his hands. No doubt in the next few seconds Malakov would break radio silence. Chernov patted his head, then pointed at Malakov, the hand signal for passing the lead. Malakov patted his own head, confirming the lead change. Now Malakov added throttle and his plane moved out in front of Chernov, who flipped his armament selector switch to “Gun.” He didn’t waste time. With Malakov moving away, Chernov eased the stick ever so gently to the right to turn in behind him. As the crosshair in the heads-up display approached the cockpit area of Malakov’s fighter, Chernov squeezed the trigger on the stick. A river of fire vomited from the cannon at the rate of fifty 30-mm shells a second. Chernov didn’t waste shells — at this point-blank range, a quarter-second burst was quite enough. He released the trigger and pulled up abruptly. Malakov’s Sukhoi nosed over in a gentle parabola toward the earth 42,000 feet below. A wave of fear and horror and self-loathing swept over Yan Cheer nov.

By an exercise of iron will, he forced himself back to the business at hand. Armament selector switch to “Missile,” green lights on all four missiles, radar lock on Tail-end Charlie, squeeze the trigger on the stick and wait one second. Whoosh — the missile on the outboard station was away. It shot across the mile of sky separating the tanker from Chernov’s fighter, then exploded in the area of the tail. The left wing of the tanker dropped precipitously; then the nose went down. Chernov didn’t have time to watch it fall. He had already locked up the middle tanker with the radar, and now he launched a missile at it. Four seconds later, the third missile left the rail, aimed at the lead tanker. That missile, the third one, struck the first of the Mig-25’s joining on the lead tanker to get fuel. The fighter exploded. “Zeros,” Chernov shouted into the radio. “Six Zeros.”

The Russian fighters scattered like flushed quail. Chernov took his time. He doubled-checked the radar lock-on, ensured the last missile was slaved to it, then carefully squeezed the thing off. It left with a flash, trailing a wisp of smoke, then turned toward Mother Earth seven miles below and disappeared into the haze at Mach 3. Chernov switched back to “Gun.” He was out of missiles. Throttles forward, burners lit to close the distance quickly…, at a half mile, he had the HUD crosshairs on the tail of the large, defenseless four-engine tanker. At a quarter of a mile he pulled the trigger. Like a laser beam, the streak of flame from the gun reached out and touched the tanker’s fuselage. Chernov held the trigger down for a long burst.

Fire! A lick of fire from the fuselage, still absorbing fifty cannon shells a second. The tanker’s right wing dropped. Chernov was out of burner now, still closing, only a hundred meters aft. He pulled the crosshairs out to a wing, touched the trigger, then watched as the cannon shells cut it in half. He released the trigger and slammed the stick left, trying to roll out of the doomed tanker’s slipstream. As he did a stream of tracers went over his head, just a few feet above the cockpit. Yan Chernov didn’t want to kill any more Russians. He rolled onto his back and pulled the nose straight down. Several miles below, he saw a tanker — this must be the second one— descending in a circle and trailing a stream of fuel that stretched for a mile or so behind. He yanked his nose over and pulled the power back, deployed the speed brakes. He had to be sure. If one of the tankers survived to give fuel to a Mig-25, all this pain and blood would be for naught. Even as he pulled the nose toward the tanker, the stream of fuel pouring from the injured tanker caught fire. Two seconds later the big four-engined airplane exploded with a dazzling flash. Yan Chernov plummeted earthward. Somewhere above him, one of members of the second section might be coming down behind, angling for a shot. Chernov didn’t look back.

When the call came from the White House on the satellite telephone, the duty officer took it. He handed it to Paul Scheer, who listened carefully, jotted some info on the duty officer’s desk tablet, then said, “Yes, sir” three times before he put the instrument back in its cradle. “Four Zeros are on the way, all of them carrying nuclear weapons. They plan to nuke this base.”

“Where?” Cassidy asked. “Right now they’re just south of Khabarovsk. The White House wants us to intercept them and shoot them down.”

“The White House?” Cassidy asked when the shock of hearing the word nuke wore off a bit. “You won’t believe this, Skipper, but the voice sounded like President Hood’s to me.”

That had been an hour ago. Now, Cassidy, Scheer, Dixie Elitch, and one other pilot, a man named Smith, were on their way eastward. Before Cassidy manned up, he vomited on the concrete. Jiro was out there — Cassidy knew it. Hestnew it for a certainty. He was living a nightmare. “Are you okay, sir?” the crew chief asked. “Must be something I ate,” Cassidy mumbled.

When Yan Chernov leveled off a few hundred feet above the ground, doing Mach 2, he looked over his shoulder. He was only human. Nothing to the right, nothing to the left, nothing behind. The sky appeared empty. Where the other Russian fighters might be, he didn’t know. He scanned the terrain ahead, then the sky behind. Nothing. ECM silent. Fuel? The warning light on the instrument panel was lit. A thousand pounds remaining, perhaps. He was in a valley headed north, with mountains to the east and west. The land below was covered with pines. There were no roads in sight, just an endless sea of green trees with the mountains in the distance. He pulled the power to idle and pulled the nose up, zoom-climbing. At five thousand feet, he saw the wandering scar of a dirt road through the forest. He advanced the throttle to a cruise setting and picked the nose up to a level-flight attitude. He was doing less than five hundred knots now. He should just jump out and be done with it. Wander in the forest until he starved or broke a leg. He had his left hand on the ejection handle on the left side of the seat pan, but he didn’t pull it. Four hundred pounds of gas. The road was beneath him now, running northwest toward the distant mountains. He turned to follow it. A road would lead somewhere — to a place where there were people. He didn’t think consciously about any of this, but it was in the back of his mind. The gauge for the main fuel cell still read a few hundred pounds above empty when the engines died. Chernov let the plane slow to its best glide speed. He straightened himself in the seat, put his head back in the rest, and pulled the ejection handle.