Warrior Class

Codlea, Romania

“He let them go?” Pavel Kazakov shouted into the secure satellite telephone. He was in his office at his secret base in central Romania, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. “That damned destroyer captain was just a few miles away from my tanker, and he let them go?”

“He did not ‘let them go,’ Pavel,” Colonel-General Valeriy Zhurbenko, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, retorted angrily, speaking from a secure communications room in the Kremlin. “He had six large aircraft with antiship cruise missiles bearing down on him. He had two choices — turn around as ordered, or get blasted out of the water. Besides, he thought there was nothing he could do — the terrorists set off an explosive on the tanker, and he thought it was on its way to the bottom of the Black Sea anyway.” Kazakov turned angrily at his satellite television set, tuned to CNN. “Oh really? Then why am I watching the damned Turks off-loading my oil onto their tankers in their harbor?” It was true: there was no fire or explosion on the tanker, at least not one set by the terrorists. Shortly after the Turkish Navy and Coast Guard had arrived on the scene, the tremendous fire in the forward hold had mysteriously disappeared; it had turned out it was in no danger of sinking after all. The tanker had continued under its own power, and pulled into the Turkish Navy base at Eregli. As if by magic, another tanker happened to be at anchor in the vicinity, empty of course, and it was pressed into service transferring oil to it from the Ustinov.

The terrorists were nowhere to be seen.

The stories of the Ustinov’s crew were even more fantastic. There were only two terrorists, they claimed. They were invincible. Bullets bounced off them like spitballs. They carried no weapons. They shot lightning bolts from their eyes and carried rifles taller than a man that fired bullets as big as a sausage that could stop a ship many kilometers away.

“What in hell is going on here?” Kazakov fumed. “I’m surrounded by cowards and incompetents. What is the government doing to get my tanker and my oil back? This amounts to an act of piracy on the high seas! That tanker was flying a Russian flag. What are you doing about it?”

“The Supreme Tribunal is appealing to the World Court on your behalf, as a Russian citizen,” Zhurbenko replied. “Unfortunately, your ship was struck and damaged by illegal activity — namely, the unauthorized discharge of a weapon — in Turkish treaty waters. That brought the matter up before the Turkish military. The vessel was clearly in danger of sinking, both by the terrorists’ acts and the Russian Navy’s actions, so the matter was again transferred to the Turkish Coast Guard, Minister of Commerce, and Director of Environmental Protection. There will certainly be a criminal and a military investigation.”

“This all sounds like bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, General,” Kazakov retorted. “When do I get my ship back? When do I get my oil back? That product is worth twenty-five million dollars!”

“There is another matter, Pavel,” Zhurbenko said.

“And that is?”

“You happen to be under indictment in Turkey for narcotics smuggling, murder, robbery, securities fraud, tax evasion, and a half-dozen other felony crimes,” Zhurbenko said. “It is no secret that you own both the ship and the oil, so both have been seized by the Turkish courts because of your failure to appear in a Turkish court to answer charges against you.”

“What?” Kazakov shouted. “They can’t do that!”

“They can and they have,” Zhurbenko said. “Your bond in all of your indictments equaled precisely five hundred million dollars, which is how much the ship and the oil are worth, so both have been seized by the Turkish courts.”

“I want you to get that ship and that oil back,” Kazakov snapped. “I don’t care what you have to do. Send in the military, send in Spetsnaz, kidnap the Turkish president — I don’t care! Just get them back! I will not be thumb-tied by a bunch of Turkish lawyers and bureaucrats!”

“The government has its own problems right now,” Zhurbenko said. “In case you haven’t noticed, the lid is exploding off our little deal. The taped conversations between Thorn and Sen’kov and between us at Metyor have been broadcast in a hundred countries and twenty languages around the world. When I … when we leaked the details of the deal between Sen’kov and Thorn, we sealed our fate and Sen’kov’s as well. No one is even paying any attention to the American president — the spineless popinjay has admitted everything, and the world loves him for sacrificing so much to rescue his men and women from the evil clutches of the Russians, or some such nonsense. All eyes are on us. And I think Sen’kov may have found a way to insulate himself from this whole mess — after all, he never gave any orders and never authorized any of this.”

“I have plenty to implicate Sen’kov,” Kazakov said angrily. “I have bank records, wire transfers, and account numbers in seven banks around the world. I’ve paid him millions to get him to issue orders and deploy the army in my favor.”

“All his bank accounts are numbered, all anonymous,” Zhurbenko said. “Not one of them points to Sen’kov. Besides, the Russian constitution prohibits Sen’kov from prosecution for anything he does while in office, and if the Duma tries to impeach him — which they will not do, he is too powerful for that — he can simply dissolve it. The worst that will happen to him is he’ll be accused of being a dupe. It is I and the others in his cabinet and security council that will go to prison.”

As if to punctuate Zhurbenko’s words, the images on CNN shifted to demonstrators outside German and Russian embassies around the world, from Albania to Moscow, from Norway to South Africa, protesting the actions of the German and Russian armies in the Balkans. The entire world now feared a Russo-German Axis alliance, another attempt to occupy all of Europe, and perhaps even a third world war — but this time, with no help from the United States expected, a successful one.

All this, CNN said, because of Pavel Kazakov and his bloodthirsty greed. Kazakov had once been feared for his reputation. Fear had been replaced by grudging respect for his entrepreneurial audacity and success. Now he was hated. He was the world’s Public Enemy Number One. He could never walk anywhere in the real world, even with an army of bodyguards. Even without a reward on his head — and Pavel had no doubt one was soon going to be announced — he was not safe from anyone. Who wouldn’t want to be known as the one who’d rid the world of such a monster?

Kazakov’s eyes grew narrow with anger, but slowly his logical mind took over from his emotions, and he started to devise a plan. “Then I assume,” he asked sarcastically, “you are speaking to me from a private chartered aircraft taking you over the Mediterranean to some nameless African republic with no extradition treaty with the Russian Federation?”

“I am not a rich drug-dealing bastard like you, Kazakov,” Zhurbenko said. “I did all this for Russia. Yes, I took your money, and I hope I can get my wife and sons out of the country so they can enjoy it before the Interior Ministry takes away everything I own. But I did all this for mother Russia, to regain some of our lost power and influence around the world. I will not abandon my post or my country.” ‘

“Then I suppose you have to live with your decision, General,” Kazakov said casually.

“Oh, I can live with myself just fine, Pavel,” Zhurbenko said. “Russia again has troops in the Balkans and throughout Western Europe — all legal, all sanctioned by the United Nations — the NATO alliance has been fractured, we have a powerful new ally in Germany, and Caspian oil is making my country rich. I am proud of what I’ve done for my country, Kazakov, even if I end up going to prison for it. The loss of your tanker and your million barrels of oil is of no consequence to me.”

“Then I think our business is at an end,” Kazakov said. “You enjoy being a good little soldier in Lefortovo Prison. Remember, if you drop the bar of soap in the shower, don’t bend over to pick it up.”

Kazakov slammed the phone down so hard, he nearly broke the receiver on his three-thousand-dollar satellite phone. He had tried to sound casual and flippant on the phone with Zhurbenko, as if the loss of half a billion dollars was no big deal for him, but in actuality it was a huge blow. Since he owned the oil from the well to the refinery, including the terminals all along the way, and since he had numerous “side deals” with the individual countries to transport the oil, none of his product or the ships that carried it across the Black Sea was insured — not that many companies around the world would sell insurance to a drug smuggler and gangster. In addition, his investors expected to be paid whether or not the oil made it to the pipeline, and that was seven and a half million dollars that bad to come out of his own pocket. There was no interest on this money, no grace period, and no declaring bankruptcy — it was either pay up or be hunted for the rest of his life.

Further, the loss of one tanker by some shadowy, obviously powerful terrorist outfit — probably some CIA or SAS strike team — put the brakes on any more shipments on tankers bearing his name. That meant leasing other tankers, and that didn’t come cheap. In any case, his oil was as much of a target as his tankers were, and shipping companies would either simply refuse to transport any Metyorgaz crude, or charge a hefty premium to do so, to compensate for the possibility of another terrorist attack.

There was only one answer: divert the world’s attention away from him and onto another topic.

He left his private office and stormed out to the aircraft hangar. Although they continued to move the Metyor-179 Tyenee from place to place on a regular basis, most of Metyor’s known or suspected bases in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Bulgaria were under heavy surveillance, so the base in Romania seemed to be the safest. He marched past the security guards and found Pyotr Fursenko standing in front of the Mt-179 stealth aircraft, worriedly discussing the streaks of black and gray on the leading edge — the internal missile launchers. “Doctor, get the aircraft ready to go tonight,” he ordered.

The technician Fursenko was talking to stepped away, thankful to get away from Pavel Kazakov. “We have some problems, sir,” Fursenko said.

“I’m not interested in problems right now, Fursenko, only action and results.” Fursenko said nothing, only looked at the hangar floor. “Well? What is wrong now?”

“There was more damage to the wing structure after the last missile launches—”

“I thought you had that problem solved.”

“We could not reengineer the internal launcher system and still keep the plane operational and on around-the-clock alert as you wanted,” Fursenko explained. “We could do nothing else but make minor repairs and impose operational limitations. The crew was restricted to firing internal missiles only in an emergency, after all other missiles were expended, only if the aircraft was in danger, and with a zero-point-eight Mach speed restriction, two-g acceleration, and five point zero angle-of-attack limits.” Fursenko could tell that this flurry of aeronautical technospeak was giving his young boss a headache, so he quickly decided to conclude with more or less happy news: “But we have repaired the damage, and I think we can be ready to fly.”

“So if you had operational limitations, why was there damage to the wing?” Fursenko hesitated, and Kazakov guessed the reason. “Obviously, because Stoica and Yegorov violated the restrictions, is that correct?”

“Their orders were to shoot down the patrol planes,” Fursenko argued. “They did a very good job—”

“They only got one bomber!”

“Which is very good, considering the odds they were up against,” Fursenko pointed out. “They faced four well-trained Turkish adversaries and managed to get two of them, maybe three.”

Kazakov looked up at the cockpit. Gennadi Yegorov was up there in the forward cockpit, making notes on a clipboard as the technicians tested electrical circuits, his head in a bandage. “What happened to Yegorov?”

“A slight concussion during some of their evasive maneuvers. The corpsman thinks he’ll be fine.”

“And Stoica?”

“Over there.” Fursenko looked apprehensive. Kazakov saw Stoica nursing a cup of coffee, one hand covering his eyes. “I think he has a touch of flu. When will you give us a list of new targets, sir?”

“Right away,” Kazakov said. He stared angrily at Stoica and realized the bastard did not have the flu. “There will be two of them, both to be hit on the same night.”

“That is risky, sir,” Fursenko said. “A heavy weapons load will mean using external weapon pylons—”

“Why? You have the internal weapons bay. Two air-to-ground weapons, two targets.”

“That’s risky, sir,” Fursenko explained. “We typically plan on twice the number of weapons than necessary to ensure success of the mission — two targets, four weapons, in case of a miss or a weapons malfunction.”

“So then use the external pylons.”

“If we put air-to-ground missiles on an external pylon, it means we cannot put air-to-air missiles on a pylon because of weight restrictions. The air-to-ground weapons are much heavier than air-to-air weapons, and they have a narrower carriage envelope.”

“So’? Use the pylons and the weapons bay for offensive weapons, and the internal missiles for defense.”

“But we cannot use internal defensive missiles, sir,” Fursenko said. “The damage—”

“I thought you said you repaired the damage.”

“We have repaired the damage caused by launching missiles from the last mission, but we have not solved the underlying problem yet,” Fursenko said. “And there is certainly much more damage to the wing that we can’t see. I would caution against using any internal missiles at all except in an emergency, and to be extra safe I would advise not even to load missiles into the launchers.”

“I pay those men a lot of money to take certain risks, Doctor,” Kazakov said flatly. “Besides, if it might help bring them and the aircraft back in one piece, I want it used. The missiles go on, but they are not to be used except in absolute emergencies — no chasing, after targets of opportunity. Issue the order.”

“But that leaves us with no defensive weapons to counter known threats,” Fursenko argued. “We will need the external pylons both for defensive and for offensive weapons.”

“Fursenko, you are beginning to talk in circles,” Kazakov said irritably. “First you say we cannot use internal missiles, and then you say we cannot do the mission unless we use internals. What are you really saying, Doctor? Are you saying we cannot fly the aircraft?”

“I … I guess that’s what I’m saying,” Fursenko said finally. “It cannot be safely used without extensive inspection and repair.”

Pavel Kazakov seemed to accept this bit of news. He nodded, then seemed to shrug his shoulders. “Then perhaps we will strike just one target,” he said. “Will that satisfy you, Doctor? You can use the internal weapons bay for offensive weapons, and the pylons for defensive weapons.”

“Our other problem came with using external pylons, because using them greatly increases our radar cross-section and destroys our stealthiness,” Fursenko explained. “If we only strike one target, we can still use the other two internal launchers for emergency use, and then use the internal bay for offensive weapons.”

Kazakov nodded again. “And what of Gennadi and Ion?” he asked. “Will they be all right?”

“Gennadi seems to be well. He has been under close supervision, and seems to be suffering no effects of his concussion.” Fursenko frowned at Stoica. “Ion … we’ll have to see how well he can recover. From the flu.”

Kazakov nodded. He looked at Yegorov, who was flipping switches and speaking on a headset to the technicians. “If we need to do a test flight, Gennadi can do it?”

“Of course. Gennadi is a trained pilot and is almost as familiar with the Tyenee as Ion. We would substitute myself or one of the other technicians in the weapons officer’s position for the test flight.”

“Excellent.” Kazakov strolled over toward Stoica. The pilot did not stand or even acknowledge Kazakov’s presence, just sat with his hand covering his eyes. “Ion? I hope you are feeling better. Is there anything I can do?”

“I’ve done everything I can think of, Pavel,” Stoica moaned. A faint whiff of fortified wine caught Kazakov’s nostrils. “I just need a little time so I can get my head together.”

“It’ll take more than time to get your head together, Ion,” Kazakov said. Stoica raised his head and looked at Kazakov through bloodshot eyes and was about to ask his boss what he meant when Kazakov pulled a SIG-Sauer P226 nine-millimeter pistol from a shoulder holster, held it to Stoica’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. Half the contents of Stoica’s skull splattered out onto the table, and his limp, lifeless body collapsed on top of the mess of brains, blood, and bone. Kazakov fired three more rounds into Stoica’s eyes and mouth until his head was nothing more than a lump of gore.

He turned back toward Fursenko, still holding the smoking pistol clenched in his fist, and wiped blobs of blood and bits of brain matter across his face until he wore a macabre death mask. “No more excuses from any of you!” he screamed. “No more excuses! When I say I want a job done, you will do it! When I say I want a target destroyed, all the targets, you had better destroy them, or don’t bother returning to my base! I don’t care about safety, or malfunctions, or caution lights, or excuses, or danger. You do a job or you will die. Is that clear?

“Fursenko, I want that aircraft airborne with as many weapons as you need to do the job, and I want it airborne tonight, or I will slaughter each and every one of you! And you will destroy both targets I give you, both of them, or don’t bother coming back — in fact, don’t even bother living anymore! Do I make myself clear? Now, get busy, all of you!”

The White House Oval Office

The three Air Force general officers entered the Oval Office and stood quietly and unobtrusively along the wall, not daring to say a word or even make any sudden moves. They all expected the same thing: a major-league ass-chewing, thanks to Patrick McLanahan and his high-tech toys.

The President finished reading the report that Director of Central Intelligence Douglas Morgan had given him moments earlier. After the President read the report, he gave it to Vice President Les Busick, then stared off into space, thinking. Busick glanced at the report, then passed it along to Secretary of State Kercheval. Robert Goff had already briefed both men; Kercheval seemed even more upset than the President. After a few moments, President Thorn shook his head in exasperation, then glanced at Secretary of Defense Goff. “Take a seat, gentlemen,” he said.

After several long, silent, awkward moments, the President stood, crossed in front of his desk, then sat down on its edge. The seething anger on his face was painfully obvious to all. Thorn stared at each of the generals in turn, then asked slowly and measurably, “General Venti, how do I stop McLanahan?”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought for a moment, then replied, “We believe McLanahan’s raid started off from a small Ukrainian base near Nikolayev. Special Operations Command is ready to dispatch several teams into the area to hunt them down. Meanwhile, we retask reconnaissance satellites to scan every possible base for their presence.”

“If we get lucky, we’ll find them in a couple days — if they haven’t packed up and moved to a different location,” Morgan interjected.

“If they modified other Ukrainian helicopters to act as aerial refueling tankers,” Air Force Chief of Staff General Victor Hayes pointed out, “that could double the size of the area we’d need to search. It’d be a needle in a haystack.”

“Not necessarily,” Morgan said. “If we knew what their next move was, we might be able to set up a picket and nab them.”

“And if we got a little more cooperation from the Ukrainians or the Turks, we’d find them easier, too,” Kercheval added. “But this Black Sea Alliance is refusing to give us any information, although we’re certain they’ve been tracking and perhaps even assisting McLanahan in his raids.”

“They stole a damned supertanker loaded with a million barrels of oil in the middle of the Black Sea,” Vice President Busick retorted. “Who would’ve guessed they’d try something like that? Are we supposed to set up surveillance on every tanker in the area? What are they up to? What do they hope to accomplish?”

“McLanahan told me exactly what he hopes to accomplish, sir,” General Hayes said. “Draw the Russians out into the open,” the President said. “Attack Kazakov’s center — his oil empire — and force him to retaliate.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Oil tankers first, then oil terminals next?”

“They’re fairly easy targets for the weapons McLanahan has at his disposal, sir,” Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson added.

“We can set up round-the-clock AWACS patrols and nab him as soon as he appears,” Hayes said. “We interdict every noncorrelated flight in the area. A few fighters and tankers on patrol should take care of it. We can set that up immediately.”

“Find him,” the President ordered bitterly. “I don’t care if you have to send every fighter in the force to do it. Find him. No more sneak attacks.” The President glanced again at Goff, then at Terrill Samson. “General, you can help me get in contact with McLanahan.”

“Sir?”

“That subcutaneous transceiver system you use at Dreamland,” the President said, pointing to his left shoulder with a jabbing motion. “That works almost anywhere in the world, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. But I’ve attempted to contact General McLanahan and other members of his team several times. No response.”

“He thinks you betrayed him.”

Samson looked frozen for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t know what be—” He stopped when he saw Thorn’s knowing glance, then nodded. “Yes, he does, sir.”

“He thinks I betrayed him, too,” the President said. “He thinks I’m selling the United States down the river.”

“Sir, it shouldn’t matter what McLanahan thinks,” Samson said emphatically. “He’s a soldier. He was … I mean, he is supposed to follow orders.”

“You know where he is, don’t you, General?”

Samson swallowed hard. “Sir?”

“McLanahan may not be answering you, but those implants allow you to track and monitor anyone wearing them,” the President said. “You said so yourself. You know exactly where he is, but you haven’t told General Venti or Secretary Goff. Why?”

“What in hell is this, Samson?” Joint Chiefs Chairman Venti exclaimed. “You’ve been keeping this information from us the whole time?”

“No one ever ordered me to locate McLanahan, sir,” Samson said.

“You’re busted, General,” Venti thundered. “That kind of insubordinate bullshit just landed you in hock.”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Denied!” Venti shouted.

“Hold on, General,” the President interrupted. “Go ahead, General Samson.”

Samson paused, but only for a moment. He gave the President a fin-n look. “Sir, I don’t like what McLanahan’s doing — but only because he’s doing my job.”

“Your job?”

“My job is to track down wack-jobs like Kazakov and his stealth fighter-bomber and knock it out of the sky, not try to knock down one of our own,” Samson said. “Sir, you’re not prepared or not willing to get involved in this matter, that’s fine. You’re the President and my commander-in-chief, and your decision is the final word. But when honest fighting men like Patrick McLanahan do decide to act, they shouldn’t be persecuted by their own government.”

Samson looked at Venti, then General Hayes, the others in the Oval Office, and then President Thorn. “If you order me to find McLanahan and bring him in, sir, I’ll do it. I’ll use every means at my disposal to do it.”

“Fine. I’ll give you a direct order, General Samson,” the President said. He paused for a moment, then said: “General, I want you to install one of those subcutaneous transceivers in me. Today. Right now.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. Make the call, get one out here immediately.”

“But … but what about McLanahan?” Busick retorted. “How is that going to stop him?”

“I’m going to talk with him. I want to hear his voice,” Thorn said. “If he’s turning into some kind of high-tech terrorist or supervigilante, I need to find out for myself. If I determine he or the ones that fly with him are unstable, I’ll send every last jet and every last infantryman out to nail his ass.”

Tirane, Republic of Albania

For the second night in a row, the crowds had gathered in front of the four-story office building across from the German embassy in the Albanian capital of Tirane, the headquarters of the United Nations Protection Force, composed mostly of Russian and German troops, assigned to patrol the southern Albania — Macedonia border. Since the stories had broken in the world media about the deal between Pavel Kazakov and members of the Russian government, massive protests had broken out all over the Balkans, but none larger or louder than in Tirane. The German government, considered Russian collaborators, became equal targets for the protesters.

Tonight’s protests were the worst. Albanian troops were called in early, which only angered the protesters even more. Albanian labor unions, upset because Kazakov had not used union labor to build his pipeline, led the protests, and the army and police were not anxious to confront the unions. The crowd was unruly, surging back and forth between the United Nations headquarters and the German embassy. Shouting quickly turned to pushing, and the police and army had trouble controlling the massive crowds. Pushing turned to fighting, fighting turned to rock and bottle throwing, and rocks and bottles turned into Molotov cocktails.

Virtually unheard and unnoticed in all the confusion and growing panic in the streets was the wail of an extraordinarily loud siren, but not a police or fire siren — it was an air raid warning siren. Moments later, the lights on all Albanian government buildings automatically started to extinguish — another automatic response to an attack warning dating back to the German blitzkriegs of World War II. The sudden darkness, combined with the lights of emergency vehicles and fires on the streets, sent some protesters into flights of sheer panic.

The police had just started to deploy riot-control vehicles with water and tear gas cannons when hell broke loose. There was an impossibly bright flash of light, a huge ball of fire, and a deafening explosion that engulfed an entire city block, centered precisely on the German embassy. When the smoke and fire cleared, the Germany embassy was nothing more than a smoking hole and a pile of rubble. Everyone within a block of the embassy-protesters, police, army, embassy workers, and curious onlookers-were either dead or dying, and fires had broken out for several blocks around the blast.

The President’s study, The White House, Washington, D.C.

“The devastation is enormous, sir,” Director of Central Intelligence Douglas Morgan reported, reading from the initial reports on the incident. “The entire Germany embassy is gone — nothing but a pile of concrete. Police and news media estimated a crowd of perhaps five thousand was outside the embassy involved in the protest, with another five to ten thousand police, news media, and onlookers within the blast radius. The joint United Nations-NATO headquarters across the street was severely damaged — casualty estimates there could top three hundred dead or injured.”

President Thomas Thorn sat quietly in his study next to the Oval Office. He was dressed in a casual shirt and slacks and wearing only a pair of sandals, having been awakened shortly after going to bed with news of the terrible blast in Tirane. His bank of television monitors were tuned to various world news channels, but he had the sound muted on all of them and was listening to his Cabinet officials feeding him reports as they came in, staring not at the televisions but at a spot on the wall, staring intently as if he could see for himself the horror unfolding thousands of miles away.

“Sir, the situation is getting worse by the minute,” Morgan said urgently. “The German government has ordered troops bivouacked in three Albanian port cities to move eastward toward the capital — the number of troops deploying into the capital Tirane is estimated so far to top three thousand. An estimated five thousand Russian troops are moving from outlying camps in Serbia and Macedonia into the cities and are setting up so-called security checkpoints — it looks like an occupation.”

“They’re overreacting,” Thorn said in a low voice. Secretary of Defense Robert Goff looked at the President with a surprised look on his face, as if Thorn had just grown donkey’s ears. Was that a trace of hesitation, maybe even doubt, in Thorn’s voice? “I need facts, Doug, not speculation or newspaper hyperbole. If it’s an invasion force, tell me so. If it’s a redeployment of troops in response to a major terrorist incident, tell me that.”

“It’s a major redeployment of troops, obviously in a defensive response to the explosion in Tirane, that can easily escalate into an invasion force.” Morgan narrowed his eyes to emphasize his last point: “And that’s not some newspaper’s assessment. sir, that’s mine.”

“Thank you, Doug,” the President said, not seeming to notice Morgan’s emphatic response but with a touch of apology in his voice nonetheless. “Any more details about this air raid warning that was issued moments before the blast?”

“No information about that, sir,” Morgan said. “The Albanian Ministry of Defense claims the Interior Ministry ordered them to blow the horn to try to disperse the protesters. There is no word from the Transportation Ministry on whether or not there was an unidentified aircraft over the capital. Russian or German radar stations claim they were not tracking any unidentified aircraft.”

“So there could have been an unidentified aircraft — only no one is admitting that one got by them,” Secretary of Defense Robert Goff observed.

“What other forces are mobilizing?” the President asked. “German forces in Albania; Russian forces in Serbia and Macedonia. Any troops on the move in Russia? In the Commonwealth states? Any Russian naval forces moving? Any Russian or German tactical air forces?”

Morgan shook his head, glanced quickly at his briefing notes to double-check, then shook his head. “No, sir. Only tactical airlift and sealift units, and they look like routine support missions.”

“I would think that an ‘occupation’ force would need a lot of support units set in motion fairly quickly for an occupation of an entire capital city to be successful,” the President observed. “And few successful occupation forces leap into action from a standing start. I don’t see an invasion happening yet.”

“Not that we could do anything about it if it was happening!” Goff commented.

“Perhaps not,” the President said, with only a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“I can’t believe we are going to sit here and do nothing!” Goff said. “Shouldn’t we be calling the German chancellor and the Russian president, warning them that their actions resemble an occupation force and that we object to such a move? Shouldn’t we be calling the Italians or the Bosnians or our NATO allies, reassuring them that we’re at least monitoring the situation and perhaps discussing some options?”

“I’m sure they know that we are doing and thinking all those things,” the President said easily. “Besides, actions speak louder than words. Even watching and waiting is doing something.”

“Not in my book, it isn’t,” Goff said under his breath.

“What would you have me do, Robert?” the President snapped. “Tell me right now: what forces would you like to commit? We have two Marine Expeditionary Units nearby in the Med and in the Adriatic Sea, plus one aircraft carrier battle group in the Aegean Sea. We have two B-1B bomber squadrons on alert in Georgia and two B-2A stealth bomber squadrons ready to go with conventional bombs and cruise missiles in Missouri, plus one air expeditionary wing in South Carolina ready to deploy if needed. That’s about twenty-five thousand men and women, fourteen warships, and perhaps one hundred combat aircraft we can have over the Balkans in eight hours, and perhaps double that number in twelve hours. Do you have a target for me, Robert? What’s the mission? What do you want to blow up now?”

“I don’t want to blow up anything, sir — I just want to make it clear to Sen’kov, Keisinger, Zhurbenko, and all those other nutcases that we don’t like what they’re doing and we are ready to act if they persist!” Goff replied. “In case they interpret our silence as disinterest or even as tacit acceptance or permission, I want it clearly and emphatically known that we will tolerate no offensive moves in Europe, no matter what the provocation.”

“I think it’s you that needs to be told,” the President said. “Robert, I’m telling you now — don’t you interpret my so-called inaction as tacit permission or disinterest. But I am not going to respond to the threat of war with a threat of my own.” He went over and clasped Goff on the shoulder. “Robert, you seem to think there’s someone out there that needs to get slapped down. I’m here to tell you: there isn’t. Let it go.” He could tell that there was a lot that his friend still needed to say, so he took away the reassuring tone in his voice and said, “Go home, Robert,” and it was an order, not a suggestion.

Goff took a step closer to the President and asked, “Is that what you told President Martindale during your little meeting with him? ‘Just go home’? Or did you tell him or help him do something else?”

If Goff expected the President to be surprised that he knew about the private meeting, he didn’t show it. “That’s exactly what I told him, Robert — whatever he wants to do, whatever ideas he has, forget about them,” the President replied. “He is not the president any longer. He does not run U.S. foreign or military policy — I do. He’s a private citizen now, subject to all laws, with no special protections or considerations because of his previous position.”

“Then why did you keep the meeting secret from me?”

“Because it was between him and me,” Thorn said. “It was one president talking with another. If I couldn’t convince him to stay out of it, without the rest of my Cabinet behind me, it was my failure.” Goff looked skeptical. The President gave his friend a slight, knowing smile, then said, “Maybe the same reason you didn’t tell me you met with him.” Goff’s mouth dropped open in complete surprise, then bobbed up and down like a freshly caught trout. “How did I know? You told me — not in words, but in your eyes, your mannerisms. I know you, Robert, just like you know me. The problem is, you know me so well you think you can reason with me, change my mind. You can’t. I know you so well, I know Martindale approached you — and I know you turned him down.”

Goff couldn’t hide his amazement, but he couldn’t help toying with Thorn anyway — he was so infuriatingly confident, Goff actually wanted to try to get his friend mad at him any way he could, just to get a rise out of him. “You’re sure of that? You’re sure I turned him down, Thomas?”

“Fairly sure,” the President said. “‘What Martindale wants to do is bold and exciting and challenging and risky, and it’s what you want to do. Problem is, it’s also illegal, and you know it, and you will not break the law. That’s why you’re trying so hard to convince me to do something — because if I don’t do it, Martindale might, and if he does, he will probably fail, and then the United States looks even more like an inept failure. Whatever’s going to happen, Robert, will happen. I’m not going to add to the confusion and fear. We let it play out. So go home, my friend. I’ll call you if I need you.”

Both Morgan and Goff exited the study, leaving the President alone with his thoughts — and his secret fears.

Over the Black Sea

The attack on the German embassy in Tirane went off with surprising precision and flawless execution — even Pyotr Fursenko, who had enormous trust in his constructs, was as pleased as he was surprised. It went off so well and so quickly that he had little time to prepare for the second part of their dangerous mission.

Gennadi Yegorov was the quiet, unexcitable captain of their pickup strike team. Even with the constant threat of Pavel Kazakov and his demonic anger hovering around them, Yegorov took his time, refamiliarizing himself with the forward cockpit and explaining several key pieces of information to Fursenko — he was mindful of the fact that although Fursenko had designed and built the plane, he had never flown in it or any other aircraft before. Yegorov got Kazakov to agree to an extra day to prepare, and it was time well spent. By the time they were ready to launch, Fursenko felt confident he could play the role of Yegorov’s assistant and flip the right switches at the proper time.

If not, and their mission ended in failure, he felt very confident he could punch them both out of the aircraft.

It was without a doubt the biggest warload the Metyor-179 had ever carried: a pylon with one R-60 air-to-air missile and one Kh-73 laser-guided one-thousand-kilogram bomb under each wing, two Kh-73 bombs in the internal weapons bay, and four R-60 missiles in the internal wing launchers for emergency use only. The R-60s on the wing pylons were a last-minute suggestion from Yegorov. His logic was simple: the Tyenee was most vulnerable with the two big bombs on those pylons, so why not carry some extra insurance? When the external bombs were expended or if they got jumped before the target area, they could use the two extra missiles to fight their way out, jettison the bombs and pylons, and use their stealthiness to get away. It turns out they were not needed, but Yegorov proved he was definitely in charge of this mission and this aircraft.

The navigation system was as tight and as accurate as could be during the short flight from Codlea to Tirane. The radar warning receiver bleeped during most of the flight, especially near the Macedonian and Albanian capitals, but no fighters or antiaircraft weapon systems ever appeared to challenge them. Yegorov had made Fursenko some drawings of what the German embassy might look like in the targeting display, in case he had to refine the aim, but the targeting box was right on the correct building all the way, so Fursenko didn’t have to touch a thing except to be sure the weapon arming and release switches were in the proper setting for the bomb run, which of course he could do with his eyes closed — after all, he’d designed and positioned each and every one of them, and he knew to the smallest detail exactly what had to happen to get a successful weapon release.

But Fursenko did not have his eyes closed — and lie saw everything, including the thousands of persons filling the streets near the German embassy. One one-thousand-kilo bomb was certainly enough to destroy the small embassy building. The second weapon was targeted on the very same point, but actually impacted several meters short — right into the crowded street in the midst of the protesters. When the first bomb hit the German embassy, and as the impossibly bright cloud of fire blossomed across the screen, Fursenko thought he could see the people as individuals, could see the shock wave hit them first, knocking down their signs, blowing tons of debris toward them in the blink of an eye, and whisking their heads back just milliseconds before the wall of heat and concrete washed over them. Then the laser targeting system automatically flipped to a wide bomb damage assessment shot of the target area, so Fursenko could not see any more details except for the second bomb falling short and adding its fury to the first.

But he knew there was going to be death down there. They had only targeted buildings, sure — but Kazakov must’ve known that those protesters were going to be there. He could’ve waited a few hours until the streets were clear, but he didn’t. He could’ve targeted another building, or picked some other target to make his point and cause a distraction, but he hadn’t. He’d deliberately chosen this target because of the number of people that would be in the path of that blast.

It was true: Pavel Kazakov was a murderous monster. He would order the deaths of thousands just to cover his tracks as easily and as casually as he’d order Cornish game hen from a restaurant menu.

“How are you doing back there, Doctor?” Gennadi Yegorov asked.

“All right,” Fursenko asked. “And call me Pyotr, please.”

“I will. And call me Gennadi.”

They fell silent for a few moments; then: “I was thinking …”

“Yes, Pyotr?”

“I was thinking about how coldly Comrade Kazakov can kill a person,” Fursenko said. “Human life means absolutely nothing to him.”

“It certainly adds a new dynamic to our business, doesn’t it? Yegorov said with casual, dark humor. “Just too many ways to die.”

Fursenko dropped his mask, afraid he might hyperventilate. He looked at Yegorov’s eyes in the rearview mirror, then raised his oxygen mask and spoke into its microphone: “He will not let us live if we return. You know that, don’t you?”

Ion was falling apart, Pyotr,” Yegorov said. “He couldn’t handle the task. He was getting bored and making mistakes.”

“But Kazakov shot him four times in the head, as easily as … as cutting open a melon for breakfast,” Fursenko pointed out.

“Pyotr, forget about Stoica. He was a drunk and an idiot.”

“As soon as he’s done with us, he’ll discard us, the Metyor-179, and everyone working out there in Codlea. He’ll kill us all, just as easily as he killed Stoica and those soldiers in Bulgaria.”

“Pyotr, you agreed to work for the man,” Yegorov pointed out. “You did it voluntarily, same as I. We both knew who he was and what he wanted long before we agreed to work for him. After we shot down that unarmed AWACS plane, we took his money. After we killed those people in Kukes, we took his money. After he killed those soldiers in Bulgaria, we took his money. We’re heartless butchers, just like he is. What do you want to do now? Fly away? Try to run and hide?”

“How about we save ourselves?”

“Then you had better find a way to make sure he’s dead,” Yegorov said. “Because if he’s alive and you cross him, he’ll find you and devise some ugly, horrible way to kill you. He did Stoica a favor by killing him quickly.”

“Should we ask the West for protection?”

“The West would want us to testify as witnesses against Kazakov, and then our lives would be worthless,” Yegorov said. “We’re co-conspirators with him now, Pyotr, can’t you understand that? We’re his hired killers. Just because you’re a scientist and not a pilot or gunman doesn’t absolve you from guilt. If we testify against Kazakov, we’d be put in prison ourselves, and then we’d be targets for his worldwide network of assassins. If we’re put into a witness protection program, our lives would be at the mercy of some government bureaucrat — no guarantee we’d be safe from Pavel Kazakov. No. We have a job to do, you and I. Let’s do it.”

“Are you crazy, or just blind?” Fursenko asked incredulously. “Can’t you see what’s happening? Kazakov is a killer. Once he’s done with us, we’re dead. He’ll have his billions, and we’ll be dead.”

“Doctor, to my knowledge, no one in Kazakov’s employ has ever been killed without good reason — they were killed either for disloyalty or incompetence,” Yegorov said. “Kazakov is generous and loyal to those who are loyal to him. I told you before, Ion was unstable, unreliable, and taking unnecessary risks. He was a danger to Kazakov’s organization, and he had to be eliminated. Ion was my friend and longtime colleague, but under the circumstances, I agree with Comrade Kazakov — he had to be eliminated. And if there was any other way Ion could have been retired without blabbing his drunken mouth off to the world about what we’d done, I’d be angry about how he died. But he brought it on himself.

“I will not let that happen to us,” Yegorov said, impaling Fursenko with a stem gaze through the rearview mirror. “We are going to accomplish this mission successfully, and then return home, and get ready to fly and fight again. If we did any less, we’d deserve to die ourselves.”

There was simply no arguing with Gennadi Yegorov. Fursenko was stunned. This intelligent, soft-spoken pilot and engineer had turned into some kind of mindless killing machine. Was it the money? The power? The thrill of the hunt and the kill? Whatever it was, Yegorov was not going to be deterred.

There was no more time to think about it, because the last target complex was coming up. Yegorov had Fursenko configure the release switches and pre-arm the last two remaining Kh-73 laser-guided bombs several minutes before the bomb-run initial point. His trigger was hot. Once IP inbound, Fursenko extended the imaging infrared scanner and laser designator and began searching for the last set of targets.

It was easy to find — because the Metyorgaz oil tanker Ustinov was one of the world’s largest vessels. Surrounded by Turkish military vessels and a second tanker, to which the last five hundred thousand barrels of oil left in its holds was being transferred, the cluster of ships made a very inviting target.

“There’s the Ustinov, “Yegorov said, as he looked carefully into his targeting monitor. “The navigation system is dead on, just like over Tirane. Remember, we release on the Ustinov first. We’ll probably lose it in the fireball, but we have to keep aiming as long as we can. If we miss the Ustinov, we’ll drop the second Kh-73 on it. If we hit the first time, we’ll shift aim to either the Turkish tanker or that big Turkish frigate nearby.” He actually laughed. “This’ll teach the Turks to take something that doesn’t belong to them! Get ready, Doctor.”

The bomb run was short and quick. There were enemy aircraft nearby, but they were patrolling farther north and east, probably to protect against any attack aircraft coming from Russia. The Turkish frigate was scanning the skies with its air search radar, but with the external pylons jettisoned long ago, the Mt-179 was too stealthy to be picked up by it. By the time it flew close enough to be detected, the bombs would already be in the air. One bomb would certainly be enough to send the Ustinov to the bottom, and the explosion would probably destroy the Turkish tanker and severely damage any nearby vessels, too — the second bomb would ensure complete and total devastation. Half the oil from the Ustinov was already offloaded, but spilling half a million barrels of crude oil into the Black Sea would certainly qualify as the world’s biggest oil spill, more than double the size of the enormous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

The white computer targeting square was dead on the tanker. Yegorov had Fursenko move the pipper slightly so it centered on the very center of the middle hold, the structurally weakest point on the upper deck and also one of the empty holds. The bomb detonating inside an empty hold would ignite the petroleum vapors and quadruple the size of the blast, which would certainly rip the tanker into pieces and create the enormous spill they wanted. Yegorov had already had Fursenko set up the secondary target pipper on the Turkish frigate, although he wouldn’t switch targeting away from the Ustinov until they were sure it was holed.

Switches configured, final release checks accomplished, Fursenko opened the inwardly-opening bomb doors, and the first Kh-73 bomb dropped into space. “Bomb doors closed! Laser on!” Yegorov commanded. Fursenko activated the laser designator and received a good steering signal from the weapon. “Data good, laser off.” They only needed to turn the laser on for a few seconds after release to give the bomb its initial course, then for ten seconds before impact to give it its terminal steering. The pipper stayed locked on target. Everything was going perfectly, just like Tirane. Everything was—

DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE! they heard from the threat warning receiver — an enemy radar had just locked on to them. It was the Turkish frigate’s air search radar. Yegorov started a shallow turn away from the ship, careful not to turn too suddenly so as to break the laser’s aim. Yegorov wondered about the warning, but soon dismissed it. The frigate might be trying to lock on to the bomb, he thought — the Kh-73 one-thousand kilogram bomb probably had ten times the radar cross-section of the Metyor-179 stealth fighter ‘right now. No problem. The bomb was tracking perfectly.

Ten seconds to impact. “Laser on!” Yegorov shouted. He immediately received another “data good” signal from the bomb. Nothing could stop it now….

“Contact!” Duane Deverill shouted. “Annie, come thirty left now!” He keyed the voice command button on his target tracking joystick and ordered, “Attack target two with two Anacondas!”

“Attack command two Anacondas, stop attack … bomb doors open, missile one away … launcher rotating, stop attack … missile two away … doors closed, launcher rotating,” the computer replied, and it fired two AIM-152 Anaconda long-range air-to-air missiles from twenty-three miles away. The missile’s first-stage motors accelerated the big weapon to twice the speed of sound, and then the missile’s scramjet engine kicked in, accelerating it well past five times the speed of sound in seconds. Traveling at a speed of over a mile per second, the Anaconda missile closed the gap in moments.

Steered by its own onboard radar, the missile arrived at a point in space just two hundred feet above the tanker Ustinov, then detonated — at the exact moment the Kh-73 laser-guided bomb arrived at the exact spot. There was a massive fireball above the tanker, like a gigantic flashbulb popping in the night, that froze everything within a mile in the strobelike glare. The Anaconda missile’s sixty-three-pound warhead split the big Kh-73 into several pieces before it exploded, so the size of the fireball wasn’t enough to do much damage to the tanker except cook some paint and blow out every window not already destroyed on its superstructure.

“Any aircraft on this frequency, any aircraft on this frequency, this is Aces One-Niner,” Deverill radioed on 243.0 megahertz, the international UHF emergency frequency, as he studied his supercockpit display, “I have an unidentified aircraft one-seven miles northwest of Eregli at thirty-one thousand feet, heading south in a slow right turn.” He was aboard an EB-1C Megafortress Two bomber, flying high over the Black Sea about thirty miles north of the Turkish naval base at Eregli. He had been scanning the area with the Megafortress’s laser radar all evening, but had detected nothing until seconds before the bomb came hurtling down from the sky toward the Russian tanker. “Just a friendly advisory. Thought someone would like to know.”

“Aces One-Niner, this is Stalker One-Zero, we read you loud and clear,” David Luger replied. Luger was aboard the Sky Masters Inc.’s DC-10 launch-and-control aircraft, orbiting not far from the EB-1C Megafortress at a different altitude. He, too, had been scanning the skies with a laser radar mounted aboard the DC-10, and he had detected the unidentified aircraft and the falling bomb at the same instant. “You might want to contact Eregli approach on two-seven-five-point-three. Thanks, guys.”

“You’re welcome — whoever you are,” the Megafortress’s aircraft commander, Annie Dewey, replied. She found it impossible to hold back a tear and keep her voice from cracking. “Have a nice flight.”

“You too, Aces One-Niner,” David said. Annie heard his voice soften for the first time, and it was a voice filled with promise, and good wishes, and peace. “Have a nice life, you guys.”

Dev reached over and touched Annie’s gloved hand resting on the throttles.

She looked over at him and smiled, and he smiled back. “We will,” Annie replied. “Thanks. Be careful out there.”

David Luger switched over from the emergency frequency with a touch of sadness, but no regrets. He knew it would probably be the last time he’d ever talk to Annie. But she had made a life with Duane Deverill, and it was hers to hold on to and build if she wanted it. His destiny lay elsewhere.

On the new secure interplane frequency, he radioed, “Stalkers, Stalkers, this is Stalker One, your bandit is now two-two-one degrees bull’s-eye, range three-one miles, level at angels three-one, turning right, possibly racetracking around for another pass.”

“Stalker Two-Two flight of three, roger,” the Turkish F-16 flight leader responded. “Converging on bandit at angels three-four.”

“Stalker Three-One flight of two, acknowledged,” the Ukrainian MiG-29 flight leader responded. “We will converge on target at angels two-niner.”

“Stalkers, datalink on blue seven.”

“Two-Two flight, push blue seven.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Three-One flight, push blue seven.”

“Two.” Each fighter pilot set the same laser frequency channel into their receivers, corresponding with the frequency that Luger, in the DC- 10, was using to track the unidentified aircraft with the laser radar. Since none of their air-to-air radars could pinpoint a stealth aircraft, the laser radar on the DC- 10, tuned to the only frequency that could track the aircraft — a fact known by the Metyor-179’s first chief designer, David Luger — was the only way to do it.

“Two-Two flight, tally-ho!” the Turkish flight lead called out.

“Three — One flight has contact,” the Ukrainians called a few moments later. “Three-One has the lead.”

“What happened?” Yegorov shouted. “We lost contact with the weapon! What is going on?”

“The weapon exploded before it hit the tanker,” Fursenko said. The infrared scanner was still locked on to the tanker Ustinov. Except for some minor damage, the tanker was still very much intact.

The attack had looked perfect until one or two seconds before impact — what could have happened? Yegorov wondered. Now the threat warning receiver was blaring constantly, with multiple lock-on signals — and there was no longer a bomb in the air, meaning the enemy radars were definitely locked on them. Yegorov furiously scanned his instruments. Everything looked perfectly normal — no speed brakes or flaps deployed, no engine malfunctions that might be highlighting their position, no warning or caution lights, no—

Wait, there was one caution light, but not on the “Warning and Caution” panel, but on the “Weapons” panel on the lower right side — the bomb doors were still open. “Fursenko, damn you!” Yegorov shouted, staring wide-eyed at the engineer in his rearview mirror. “The bomb doors are still open’ Close them immediately!”

Fursenko looked down at his instrument panel, then up at Yegorov almost immediately. “I can’t,” he said in a calm, even voice. “The hydraulic system B circuit breaker has popped, and it will not reset. I have no control over the doors.”

If Yegorov thought the scrawny pencil-necked scientist had it in him, he would’ve thought the old man was lying to him! “Disengage the hydraulic system B and motor the doors closed with the electric motor.”

“I tried that,” Fursenko said, still in that calm, even voice — the voice of someone who was resigned to his fate. “The door mechanism must be jammed — I cannot motor the doors closed. Maybe the Kh-73 dropping on partially opened doors caused it to malfunction and detonate early.”

The bastard, he was doing this on purpose! He didn’t believe for a second it was a malfunction! “Damn you, Fursenko, do you realize what you’re doing?” Yegorov shouted in utter fury. Whatever Fursenko had done to the bomb doors, Yegorov couldn’t undo them from the front seat. “You are signing our death warrants!”

“Why, Yegorov?” Fursenko asked. “Don’t you think your buddy Pavel Kazakov will understand when you tell him your bomb doors were jammed open?”

“Fuck you!” Yegorov shouted. He immediately started a turn back toward the tanker, then hit a switch on his weapons panel to override the backseater’s laser aiming control. “I advise you not to touch another switch or circuit breaker back there, Fursenko,” he warned. “If we strike our intended target, Kazakov may let you live, even if he does discover it was sabotage.”

“You fool, look at that threat scope,” Fursenko shouted. Yegorov had indeed been looking — it appeared as if the entire Turkish Air Force were after them. “Forget this bomb run — the Turks will be all over you in one minute, long before you can line up for another bomb run. Get us out of here while you still can!”

“No!” Yegorov shouted wildly. “This is my mission I Comrade Kazakov ordered me to take command and complete this mission, and that’s what I’ll do I No one is going to stop me!”

The threat warning receiver now showed two sets of enemy fighters — one set Turkish, the other Russian-made fighters, probably Ukrainians — bearing down on them. “We’re not going to make it!” Fursenko shouted. “Turn away! Turn back before they shoot us down!”

“No!” Yegorov shouted again. He armed his internal R-60 missiles. “No one is going to get me! No one!” He flicked on the Metyor-179’s infrared scanner, lined up on the closest set of fighters coming in from the north, waited until he got a lock-on indication, opened fire with one missile per fighter, then turned back toward the tanker Ustinov. The aiming pipper had drifted off the tanker slightly, and he—

The MASTER CAUTION light snapped on. Yegorov checked the warning panel and saw two LAUNCHER HOT lights on. Both internal launchers that he had just used were on fire. “I’m going to cut off power to the stores panel!” Fursenko shouted.

“No!” Yegorov shouted. “Keep power on until after bomb release.”

“We can’t!” Fursenko shot back. “There’s a serious short or fire in the wing launcher, and there’s no way to stop it unless we cut off all power to the weapons panel. If you allow that fire to continue, it could completely burn through the wing. I’m going to turn off weapons power before that wing fails and we are both killed!”

“I said, leave it on, you traitorous bastard!” Fursenko was reaching for the master weapons power switch when he heard a tremendous BANG! and felt a sharp stinging sensation in his left shoulder. To his amazement, he realized that Yegorov had pulled out his survival pistol, reached back between the seats, and shot him! The bullet tore through his shoulder, bounced off the metal ejection-seat back, and lodged deep in his left lung. Fursenko tasted blood, and soon blood was pouring from his mouth and nostrils.

Fursenko’s head was spinning, and he tried to keep himself upright and find the weapons power switch. He felt as if he was only moments away from passing out when he looked out the left side of the cockpit canopy and saw a flash of fire burst from just aft of the leading edge of the wing beside the fuselage. He knew precisely what it was. At that same moment, he felt a jolt and a rumble as the last Kh-73 laser-guided bomb fell free from the bomb bay.

He reached between his legs just as the burst of fire became an explosion, and the entire left wing separated from the fuselage. With his last ounce of strength, Fursenko pulled the ejection handle between his legs and fired himself out of the Metyor-179. The spinning, flaming remnants of his longtime pride and joy narrowly missed him as he plummeted toward the Black Sea. His man-seat separator snapped him free from his ejection seat, and his body began a ballistic arch through the air, decelerating as he fell. At exactly fourteen thousand feet above the water, his baro initiator shot his pilot chute out of his backpack, which pulled his main chute safely out of its pack. He was thankfully unconscious through the entire ride.

Once he hit the water, his life vest automatically inflated and infrared seawater-activated rescue lights illuminated, and he lay halftangled in the parachute riser cords, halfsubmerged as his parachute began to sink. Luckily, a Turkish Coast Guard patrol boat was just a few miles away, and he was picked up just moments before the parachute dragged his head below the surface.

The Metyor-179 splashed down about ten miles away, with Gennadi Yegorov still in the front pilot’s seat, trying to fly his bird down to a safe ditching in the Black Sea. The impact broke the stealth warplane — and Yegorov — into a thousand pieces and scattered them across the ocean.

Unguided, without even an initial beam to get it moving in the right direction, the second Kh-73 one-thousand-kilo bomb missed the tanker Ustinov by two hundred and fifty yards and exploded harmlessly in the sea.