Warrior Class

Zhukovsky Might Research Center, Bykovo (Moscow), Russia

“Everyone freeze! This is a raid! No one move!”

The uniformed Spetsnaz shock troops burst into the Metyor Aerospace building without warning, automatic weapons drawn, thirty minutes past midnight. They quickly fanned oat through the first floor of the building. They were followed by plainclothes Glavnoe Razvedivatel’noe Upravlenie (GRU), General Staff Intelligence Directorate, agents, with bulletproof vests under their long coats, carrying small automatic pistols.

Pyotr Fursenko and Pavel Kazakov were sitting in Fursenko’s office when the agents burst in without any further warning, guns leveled. Kazakov was casually sipping a glass of fine French sherry and enjoying a Cuban cigar; Fursenko was nervously guzzling coffee and chain-smoking bitter Egyptian cigarettes. “How much longer were you going to make us wait?” Kazakov asked, with a smile. They did not answer, but roughly hauled both of them to their feet, out of the office, and out to the main hangar floor.

There, surrounded by plainclothed agents and uniformed Spetsnaz special forces commandos, was Sergey Yejsk, President Sen’kov’s national security advisor, and Colonel-General Valeriy Zhurbenko, chief of the general staff. Fursenko looked at both men in wide-eyed shock. Pavel Kazakov merely smiled and looked directly at Yejsk and Zhurbenko, in turn.

Yejsk nodded to the officer in charge of his detail, and he had his men roughly search both civilians. Fursenko looked horrified, his body jerking away at every soldier’s touch; Kazakov merely allowed the search without resisting, smiling confidently at Yejsk. The soldiers put the two men’s hands up to the backs of their heads, then slapped the hands with the barrels of their rifles to warn them to keep them there. When the soldiers were finished, Yejsk stepped over first to Kazakov, who looked directly back at him, and then over to Fursenko, who looked very much like a doe caught in headlights.

Yejsk stepped closer to Fursenko until he was almost nose to nose with him and asked, “Do you know who I am?” The scientist nodded. “Do you know who these men are?” This time a shake of his head. “They are the men that will tear this building apart piece by piece, take you to prison, and throw you naked into a cold four-by-four-foot cell if I do not like the answers you give to my questions. Do you understand?”

Fursenko nodded so hard, every soldier in the hangar could see it. Kazakov merely smiled. “That’s an easy one,” he said. “Are you done? Can we go now?” His guard whacked him on the side of his head with the barrel of his rifle.

“I will give you an easy one, Doctor — where is the bomber?”

“Which bomber?” Now it was Fursenko’s turn to get a shot to the head.

A soldier ran up to Zhurbenko and whispered in his ear. “What is the combination to that door lock, Doctor?” Zhurbenko asked. Fursenko gave it to him instantly, and moments later they had the secure hangar door open and the lights on. Inside they found nothing but an aircraft skeleton, roughly resembling the Metyor-179 bomber, with several large pieces of composite material, wiring, and engine parts scattered around the polished floor. “What is that?” Yejsk shouted.

“Our latest project, the Metyor-179. It didn’t work,” Fursenko replied uneasily.

“The real Metyor-179. Where is it?”

“It’s right there, sir,” Fursenko replied. “That’s all there’s left of it.”

“Ni kruti mn’e yaytsa! Don’t twist my balls!” Yejsk stepped up close to Fursenko and slapped him backhandedly across the face. “One more time, Doctor — where is the Metyor-179?”

“Stop hitting the poor doctor on the head, Yejsk,” Kazakov said. “You don’t want to ruin that fine brain of his.”

“Zakroy yibala! Shut your fucking mouth!” Yejsk shouted. “I should do the world a favor and put a bullet in your brain right now!”

“That’s not why you came here, Yejsk, or we’d be dead already,” Kazakov said. “But of course, then you would be, as well.” His eyes fell, and he motioned down, inviting Yejsk to look. Yejsk and Zhurbenko glanced down at their crotches and saw tiny red dots of light dancing on their clothing right near their genitals. They looked at all the soldiers in the hangar and saw red laser dots on their heads, their shoulders, and their crotches — every man had at least three dots on him, all centered on areas not protected by bulletproof vests.

“You dare threaten me?” Yejsk cried out, beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. “I will tear down everything you own and dump it into the Black Sea, and then I will have your broken corpses tossed on top of it all.”

“Well, well, General Yejsk, you are beginning to sound just like a gangster,” Kazakov said. His eyes narrowed, and the casual, relaxed, amused smile disappeared. “We stop the bullshit now, Yejsk. You came here on the orders of the president to find out what we’re doing and to get in on the action.” Yejsk glared at Kazakov, but Kazakov knew that he had guessed correctly. “Now, I suggest we send all of these security men home for the evening, and let’s talk business.”

“You had better cooperate with us, or you’ll wish you were back humping goats in Kazakhstan,” Yejsk said angrily. With a wave of his hand, Yejsk dismissed the Spetsnaz troops, leaving only two personal bodyguards. He could see none of Kazakov’s men in the rafters anymore — but they hadn’t seen them up there the first time, either. The rumors were obviously true — Kazakov had an army of former Spetsnaz commandos, well-trained and now well-paid and loyal, working for him.

“Where is the bomber, Pavel?” Zhurbenko asked. “We know it departed here two hours before the attack against Kukes, Albania, and now it’s missing.”

Kazakov lit up a cigar, then offered one to Zhurbenko and Yejsk — Zhurbenko accepted. “It’s safe, being hidden in several different secret locations in three or four different countries.”

“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Yejsk thundered. “Conducting your own little foreign policy campaign, your own little imperialistic war? Don’t tell me you actually loved your father so much that you stole a stealth bomber and killed hundreds of men, women, and children to avenge him?”

“I wouldn’t bother to pick up the phone to save my father,” Kazakov said, a malevolent grin on his face. “Besides, he died precisely the way he wanted to die — maybe not with his boots on, but at least within spitting distance of his enemy. He probably called them names just before they put a rope around his neck — that would appeal to his sense of defiance. I’ve got better things to do with my time and money than launch off on some romantic quest to avenge a man who didn’t care one shit about me.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I am creating a favorable economic and political climate for myself — and if you and that patsy Sen’kov were smart, a favorable economic climate for Russia, too,” Kazakov said.

“How? Are you going to bomb every national capital in the Balkans and the Transcaucasus, just to lay down some pipe?”

“I won’t have to,” Kazakov said. “The raid on Kukes was a warning. Unless you blabbermouths leak the information sooner and reveal me, I will go to the Albanian and Macedonian governments and make the same offer to them. If they refuse my generous offer, they will suffer the same fate.”

“You’re insane!” Yejsk retorted. “You expect one aircraft to bomb two sovereign governments into submission so you can build a pipeline through their countries?”

“I am hoping Russia will intervene,” Kazakov said. “Russia should come to those countries’ assistance and guarantee their security. With Russian troops firmly but discreetly in place, the security of both those republics and my pipeline will be assured. In a year, the pipeline will be in place and we can all start making money.”

“This is the most asinine idea I have ever heard!” Yejsk said. “Do you just expect these governments to roll over and play dead? What about—?”

“NATO?” Kazakov interjected. “You tell me, Comrade National Security Advisor — will NATO be a factor?” He smiled when he saw Yejsk look away, lost in thought — his intelligence information was accurate. The United States was indeed pulling out of NATO and leaving Europe. This was truly the opportunity of a lifetime, and finally some high-ranking members of the Russian government were beginning to notice it, too. “Who else? Germany? I have information that says that there is an extraordinary level of cooperation growing between Russia and Germany, now that the United States is removing itself from Europe and NATO.”

“So why do we need you, Kazakov?” Yejsk asked angrily. How in hell did this punk gangster know so much? “You’re nothing but a drug dealer. Why does Russia need any cooperation from you and Fursenko’s pretty toy?”

“Go ahead and try,” Kazakov said. “Try to march Russian Army troops into Macedonia now, without an invitation — Greece and Turkey will declare war, and it might drag the United States back into Europe and the alliance. As I understand it, the United States hasn’t left NATO yet — you will certainly give them a reason to stay. Invade Albania, and Germany will feel threatened and may break off your new little détente. You need me, Yejsk. You need the Metyor-179 to perform precision, devastating, and most important, deniable destruction in the Balkans and the Transcaucasus. If the republics believe you are at all behind this, the game is up. But if you make them believe that they need Russia’s help, you assert control over your former sphere of influence again, and I get the economic, military, and political stability I need to invest two billion dollars into the region.”

“This sounds like some kind of protection racket, Pavel,” Zhurbenko said. “Why should we be a part of it? Why can’t Russia pledge to invest in a pipeline? Have GAZPROM, or LUKoil build the pipeline and we pay for the project with revenues from the oil purchases?”

“If you could do it, you would have done it already,” Kazakov argued. “Both those companies are wallowing in corruption and debt, mostly because of the bungling and interference from their biggest shareholder, the Russian government, and its inept bureaucracy. With my plan, neither Russia nor the republics lay out any money at all — I pay for the pipeline. It belongs to me. I pay a prenegotiated flowage fee to the republics, which is pure profit for them, in addition to the profits they make if they decide to buy and refine some of the crude in their own refineries. I will make them a good deal for the crude.”

“And so what does Russia get?” Yejsk asked. “What do we get?”

Kazakov smiled broadly — he knew he had them now. Once they start thinking about themselves and their cut of the action, Pavel knew they were hooked. “Overtly, Russia gets a flowage fee from the oil that I transport across Russia and ship out of Novorossiysk,” Kazakov replied. “Covertly, I will pay a percentage of the profits for protection of my pipeline. Russia maintains a presence in the Balkans again, plus you earn whatever you can squeeze out of the republics. I know Russia is very good at milking the republics it has sworn to protect — Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Albania should be no different. I will offer the same … incentives, shall we say, to Macedonia and Albania.”

“Plomo o plata?” Zhurbenko asked. “If they accept they get rich, and if they refuse they get dead?”

“It is a win-win situation for all of us,” Kazakov said. “It is an offer no one can refuse.”

“An offer you can’t refuse, all right,” Linda Mae Valentrovna Maslyukov muttered to herself, as she finished her stretching exercises and then began a simple black-belt karate kata routine while standing on a narrow gravel turnout on the side of the road near the end of the runway.

Linda Mae was an electronics expert from St. Petersburg, the daughter of a Russian father — a former Russian consul and trade negotiator based in New Orleans and Los Angeles — and an Irish-American mother from Monroe, Louisiana. Although she’d been born in New Orleans and had spent most of her life in the United States, when her father had been reassigned back to Moscow, she had eagerly gone along. Her long, flaming red hair and sparkling green eyes made quite an impression on the boys and professors at Ioffe-Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, but she didn’t allow her popularity to interfere with getting first a bachelor’s, then a master’s degree in science in semiconductor heterostructures.

Linda had renounced her American citizenship in 1995 after receiving her master’s degree, which completely opened up her career paths in Russia. With a citizen’s fluency in both English and Russian and advanced degrees in sophisticated electronics technology, she had her choice of jobs and salaries. She rejected a few more lucrative job offers in Moscow and professorships in St. Petersburg to go to Zhukovsky and work in a communications design laboratory. Because of her prior U.S. citizenship, she could hold no higher than a secret security clearance, but she still enjoyed a good lifestyle and a high level of prestige from her colleagues and fellow workers. She often spoke about moving to Moscow or St. Petersburg, but the talk always faded — mostly after meeting a new pilot or senior officer from one of the bomber squadrons at Zhukovsky.

No one knew the real reason why she stayed at Zhukovsky, why she broke off torrid affairs with high-ranking officers, why, she was satisfied with a relatively low salary at Zhukovsky when she could command much higher wages in the city. The reason: Linda Mae was a paid spy for the United States of America. Whatever she might have made elsewhere was more than compensated for by numbered Cayman Islands bank accounts, where she hoped to retire the second it looked like her cover was going to blow.

She had just downloaded the latest tap from a passive listening device she’d installed in the Metyor Aerospace hangar several weeks before. Metyor had never had very much activity until recently, right around the time that the father of Metyor IIG’s largest shareholder, Pavel Kazakov, had been brutally killed in Kosovo. Suddenly, Metyor Aerospace was buzzing with activity. Before it got too hairy over there, she had managed to plant listening devices inside the main hangar and in the administrative offices. No matter how old, young, married, busy, or noninterested they were, her red hair, green eyes, luscious Louisiana breasts, and sassy attitude attracted men like nothing else, and she practically had free access to Metyor. But no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to get inside the secure hangar or get close to the facility director, Pyotr Fursenko. The old fart had to be gay — she’d tried all of her feminine charms on him, to no avail.

Linda had not seen it depart, but she knew the Metyor-179 was gone the day after the raid on Kukes, Albania. There was no doubt in her mind that it had done the raid. She’d pieced together snippets of other conversations and could draw a fairly detailed timeline of the entire mission, all the way back to when live weapons were uploaded, what kind they used, where they got them, the strike routing — even details on what they would do if they encountered an AWACS radar plane, which obviously they had. The listening devices were very, very effective.

Unfortunately, in order to prevent detection, they were extremely low-power devices, which meant she had to get very close to the facility in order to download the stored recordings; they also had to be very-low-frequency transmissions in order to penetrate the radio-resistant steel hangar, so each packet of data, although compressed, took a long time to download. She had to bring the downloading device somewhere where it would be within the two hundred meters range of the pickup/transmitters. She needed at least one minute to download five minutes’ worth of conversations, so the recorder had to be within range for at least thirty minutes.

Linda could never get permission to live at base housing, and at the current time she didn’t have a boyfriend who lived there, so she had to disguise these download sessions by taking up jogging. The main road around the airfield at Zhukovsky led from the main base area around the long northeast-southwest runway and all the way to the housing area on the south side of the base. Every day, after working late in her office or in the design labs, Linda would go to the base gymnasium, stretch or lift weights for an hour or so to let the traffic die down, then change into a jogging suit, put on her Austrian-made portable tape recorder, and jog the main road all the way to the housing area, rest or visit friends who lived there, and then jog back. As long as she was within two hundred meters of the Metyor hangar, the transmitter would feed digital packets of data into the CompactFlash memory card inside the tape recorder. She made sure she stopped many times along the way — although she was fit enough to run a marathon if she wanted to, she would stop every kilometer or so to check her pulse, make like she had to get her breath back, watch airplanes land, or just do some karate kata or stretch. The entrance to the Metyor Aerospace facility sometimes had a friendly guard on duty, so she stopped there often to chat, flirt, or do whatever was necessary to hang out long enough to collect data.

She could also listen to the data as it was downloading — dangerous, but it helped to remind her of the importance of what she was doing, why she was risking her life to get this information to the United States. Ever since things started buzzing inside Metyor, she started listening to the downloads — and it scared the hell out of her. This development was even scarier. They were actually going to use the Metyor-179 to …

She heard the rustle of tires on gravel coming up behind her. She had the headphones on, so she pretended not to notice. She switched the data downloader off, switched the Russian rock music back on, tried some jumping jacks, unzipped her jogging suit jacket about halfway down her chest, then took the headphones off.

“Prasteetye, gaspazha, “ a man said behind her. She pretended to be startled and turned around. It was a base security police vehicle, with two officers. They didn’t have their flashing lights on, so maybe this wasn’t an enforcement stop, just a friendly …

At that instant, the officer behind the wheel turned on the flashing red and blue lights. Oh, shit, what was this about?

“Da?” Linda asked in her most seductive, disarming voice, adding just a hint of her Louisiana accent to try to put them off guard. “What’s going on, fellas?”

“Miss Maslyukov, we would like to ask you some questions,” the officer outside the vehicle said. “Would you mind coming with us, please?”

“May I ask what this is about, officer?”

“We will explain everything at base security headquarters, Miss Maslyukov,” the officer said. It was then that Linda noticed it — a strange antenna bolted to the hood of the trunk. A scanner, probably to detect eavesdroppers. That was new to the base. It must’ve come from outside the base, because if the base commander wanted any sort of electronic gear, he came to Linda’s shop to get it.

“Kharasho, “ Linda acknowledged. She stepped toward the officer outside the car. Once out of the glare of the headlights, she looked inside the vehicle. No dog. The other officer was still in the driver’s seat, still seat-belted in, the radio microphone in his hand casually watching her approach, a cigarette in his left hand. Obviously, he expected this to be a very routine pickup.

She knew, whatever happened, she must not get inside that car.

The second officer had a large metal flashlight in his left hand, his right hand behind his back, unsnapping a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt pouch. As she approached the officer outside the car, she noticed he was doing exactly what she expected him to be doing — staring at her chest, the flashlight beam focused right on her cleavage. “Please put your hands behind your back, miss,” the officer ordered, in a not-too forceful, almost anticipatory voice.

“Like this?” Linda put her hands behind her back without turning around, which served to push out her breasts even farther. The second officer’s attention was fully riveted on her tits.

She didn’t know where the strength came from. Maybe it was from worrying about this very moment for so long. Maybe it was some sort of heroic, defiant gesture. Maybe she had just watched too many episodes of Charlie’s Angels. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, it was happening whether she thought it was safe or sane or whatever. Prison, interrogation center, Hell, or the Cayman Islands. One way or the other, she was on her way.

Just as the second officer took a step toward her, still paying attention to nothing else but her white billowy breasts, Linda executed a perfect snap kick, just like her black-belt-qualifying kata move. It missed by a mile, nailing the officer in the shins. But the officer seemed frozen, as if he couldn’t believe what she had done, which gave her the opportunity to line up an even better kick. Her second attack was right on target, her right foot burying itself deeply into the officers groin. He made a loud, long grunt and bent over nearly double. She quickly stepped beside him and jammed her left foot into the side of his left knee. The joint buckled, and he went down on his left side — exposing the side arm on the right, its safety strap unfastened. She snatched it out of the holster. He reached out, grabbing for her, but she twisted out of reach.

“Astanavleevat’sya! Stop! “ The first officer, much younger than the second, seemed confused about what to do — get out of the car, call for help, or pull out his weapon — so he tried everything at once. He seemed to be moving in slow motion, while at the same time Linda’s head was spinning as if everything was happening in triple speed.

The pistol she had taken from the second officer was much heavier than she thought — and it fired much easier than she thought, too, two rounds going off at the slightest finger pressure. The first round went through the passenger’s side window into the car, spraying the first officer with glass and shattering the instrument panel. The second went somewhere off into space over the car. “Get out of the car!” Linda yelled. “Get out!”

“Freeze! Don’t move!” the officer shouted. His hand squeezed the microphone transmit button. “Emergency! Officer down! I need assis—”

Linda only wanted to put a bullet through the car radio — at least that’s what she told herself But when she stopped squeezing the trigger, the driver’s side window was shattered and the officer’s head was blasted apart like a hammered coconut, with strings of blood-soaked hair surrounding a gory hole.

It took all of her physical and emotional strength to go around to that car door, reach across the pool of brains, blood, and bones on the dead officers lap to unfasten his seat belt, and drag the corpse out onto the ground. Somewhere in the background noise of the blood roaring in her ears, she could hear the second officer shouting, probably into a portable radio, but she didn’t care. She jumped into the police car, shifted it into drive, and sped away. The first left turn took her to the road to the back gate of the base. She saw emergency lights and, not realizing they belonged to her car, she sped up. The guard shack to the back gate was coming up fast. She saw the automatic assault rifle in a holder next to her and for an instant thought about grabbing it and trying to shoot her way off the base, but she sped by the guardhouse before she could act on the idea. Linda heard several sharp raps on the outside of the car-bullets fired from the security officers on duty at the guardhouse — but it kept running.

At the end of the access road, she took a left turn, which took her toward the nearest city, Itslay. She finally found the switch for the emergency lights and shut them off.

Now that she was on the move, things actually began to get clearer for her, because Linda rehearsed her escape procedures several times a year, and she knew exactly what to do. The one thing the American Central Intelligence Agency did well for its agents was plan an escape system. There were four contact points around Zhukovsky Air Base. On a signal from Linda sent via a secret satellite signal beacon in the recorder, or after some trigger event — and a murder at Zhukovsky certainly qualified as a trigger event — a person would begin to visit the contact points on a regular basis. Linda had no idea who it was, when he or she would show, or what he or she would do — it was up to her to identify the person and make contact. If it were her contact person, she would be taken to a secret location, identified, and then inserted into a preestablished exfiltration network set up inside Russia for exactly this purpose. All Linda had to do was to activate the satellite signal beacon in the recorder and …

… But when she reached down to her side, she realized she didn’t have the recorder. The second guard must’ve torn it off her when they struggled.

After swearing hotly in English, Creole, and Russian for several moments, Linda collected her thoughts and calmed herself. The signal beacon wasn’t important. Certainly all the excitement at the base would activate the escape network. All she had to do was make her way to one of the contact points, properly meet up with the contact, and then do exactly what she was told to do until she was safe.

Her first task was to ditch the police car. She selected a utility company parking lot, about ten miles away from the base, hiding it between two large trucks that looked as if they hadn’t been moved in a while. She kept the handgun, after counting and finding three rounds still in the magazine — the assault rifle was much heavier than she thought, so she left it in the car — then walked all the way back out of the lot and onto the highway. Linda was tempted to try hitchhiking east on the highway toward the nearest contact point, but her handlers advised against that. Too many escapees got caught that way. The south side of the highway had numerous businesses and lighted parking lots along it, but the north side was mostly open fields of winter wheat turned mushy from melting snows, with a small river farther north beyond the trees. She crossed the highway at a dark place, as far as possible from streetlights, walked away from the highway to the tree line about a kilometer from the highway, then began to parallel it, heading eastbound. Linda passed a few businesses and parking lots between her and the highway, but none of the lights or fences extended to the tree line, so it was a fairly straight shot. Her handler was very explicit — stay away from roads, rivers, railroads, transmission lines, any sort of travel path.

Several hours later, she arrived at an intersection where a bridge took traffic north across the river, and where there was a tavern that she sometimes visited, still open and still inviting. Linda even thought she saw cars belonging to friends of hers, good friends that had known her for years. She was tired, aching, hungry, freezing cold, cut, bruised, and bleeding from crossing fences and snagged by branches and sticker bushes. She could stay hidden in the parking lot, wait for her friends to show, ask for help, maybe get a ride to someplace close to the contact point …

No, no, no, she admonished herself. Again, her handlers were very specific — stay away from everyone, no matter how close or trusted they were. Reluctantly, almost whimpering in pain and fear and weakness, she trudged through the ankle-deep, half-frozen mud behind the tavern, keeping to the shadows. She followed a dirt path toward the river and found another path that led under the bridge abutment. Under the bridge, she found some homeless persons huddled under blankets with tiny fires in buckets, drinking vodka and eating discarded food from the tavern, and again she considered asking for something, anything, to help ease the cold and hunger. She could either use the gun to buy food or threaten to kill someone if they didn’t help her. But she kept away, staying away from the hoboes and staying away from the narrow access road along the river’s edge without their detecting her presence. Leaving even that tiny bit of civilization was the hardest thing she ever had to do.

But as she disappeared back into the shadows once again, she heard sirens behind her. Two police cars had pulled up to the tavern, lights flashing. If she had stopped, even for five minutes, she would’ve been trapped. If she had talked to the hoboes, and they were later questioned by police, they would surely have betrayed her. How about that? she thought — maybe her handlers really knew what they were talking about!

By the time the dawn started to peek above the horizon, Linda had reached the contact spot. There was a small dirt parking lot next to the river beside another north-south bridge, where during the summer vacationers could launch rafts and float down the river toward the city. There used to be a small campground there, where rafters from farther upstream could spend the night, but a lack of funds and abuse by drug dealers and hoboes had caused the campground to fall into disuse and disrepair. Of the dozen campsites, only one still had a rickety picnic table on it. That was her contact point.

The ground was rocky and felt frozen, but there were plenty of trees and vegetation. Her job was to find a good hiding spot and wait. Sometime during daylight hours, her contact person would arrive at the contact point and somehow make himself known to her. She had to stay hidden the rest of the day and night. Surely, she thought, the hue and cry for her was out. Surely, she prayed, the network had heard of the murder on base and activated itself. Surely, she pleaded, her contact would realize she was on the move and show this morning.

But the time came and went, and no one showed. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and her lips trembled in fear and loneliness. Nothing. She had never felt so alone, so helpless.

Since it was now daytime and she was less than a kilometer from both the highway and the bridge — and if she could see cars, they might be able to see her — Linda had no choice but to crawl away to the densest part of the little patch of trees near the park, crawl into the deepest and darkest dirt gully she could find, and wait. The river was just a few meters away across the parking lot, but she didn’t dare try to get water in daytime; there was even a coffee and doughnut vendor in the parking lot across the highway to the south, selling his goods to workers arriving at the steel scrapyard and woodworking factory on the south side of the highway, and even in her hole she could smell the boiled dough and strong black coffee. She always had rolled-up pancake crepes with jam, fruit, or cream cheese inside and coffee every morning, and now the emptiness in her belly was beginning to turn into a dull ache.

This was going to be impossible, she thought grimly. She had practiced her procedures, memorized her directives, and thought through her moves for years, and all the time thought she could do it, if she ever had to. But it was just barely twelve hours since going on the run, and she doubted whether she could make it even another twelve hours. Her handler said it could take days to activate the network, and then it was up to the contact person to decide if it was safe enough to try to make contact. Even then, the actual procedure took days — Linda wasn’t supposed to contact the first person she saw, but had to verify simply by waiting and watching if he or she was the right one. Sleep was impossible — every sound, every car noise, every voice she heard was a potential captor.

From her hole, she could see the parking lot and campground. A few hoboes came around, searching the garbage cans. To Linda’s immense shock, moments after the hoboes arrived, they were jacked up by local police and taken away. The police were everywhere, but they were out of sight, immediately pouncing on anyone who looked suspicious. After the arrest, the police would do a short search of the area, checking nearby bushes and trees for any sign of anyone else’s presence. They would sweep denser bushes aside roughly with nightsticks, beating them and looking for evidence of anyone’s presence, checking behind and around any shrubs that might be large enough to conceal a person, then disappear as quickly as they appeared.

It was hopeless, Linda thought. The contact person would never dare come anywhere near here, ever. Her handler had warned her exactly what would happen. Eventually, her hunger, loneliness, hopelessness, weariness, and fear would cause her to do something stupid, and she would be nabbed, and just like that, the game would be over.

She burrowed down as deep as she could into the dirt, sobbing softly to herself, afraid to show even the tiniest bit of skin outside her hole. It began to rain, big fat cold sleety drops, then soon started to snow. She had never been so cold in her life, and she knew she would probably die of hypothermia before long. When darkness fell, she felt brave enough to eat some dirty wet snow for water and carefully pile leaves and branches around herself, and with a sort of crude nest made for herself, she at least felt strong enough to make it through the night. But it was hopeless, useless. The police were everywhere, and the killing of a fellow cop only made them more determined to get the killer.

She expected, then soon hoped, that the police would swoop down on her and take her away any moment. Even being gang-raped and sodomized by vengeful police officers in an MSB prison cell would be far better than freezing to death.

High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Elliott Air Force Base, Groom Lake, Nevada

“Good morning, General Sivarek, General Smoliy, ladies and gentlemen,” Brigadier-General Patrick McLanahan said, as his image appeared on the secure videoteleconference screen. “I am General Patrick McLanahan, here to brief the special mission portion of this morning’s exercise. This briefing is classified Secret. Our rooms are secure, and this videoconference is being conducted on a secure closed circuit.” In the room with McLanahan were the pilots from the United States; in the conference room at Nellis Air Force Base were the crew members from Ukraine and Turkey involved in today’s exercise.

Patrick hit the button on his wireless remote computer controller, and the first PowerPoint slide popped onto a separate frame on the Nellis videoconference screen. “As you all know, the unclassified reason you’re here is that you’re on a goodwill tour of the United States and as part of NATO exercises here in Nevada. The classified reason is to test your aerial warfighting capabilities and to try to integrate your flight operations with some of the technologies we’re developing for NATO. This is the first in a series of six missions we’ll fly together to see how well we can coordinate both defensive and offensive operations from an aerial platform.”

“We have worked with AWACS controllers many times, General,” Sivarek pointed out.

“As have we,” Smoliy added. “Both Russian and NATO versions.” The attempt at one-upmanship had been going on ever since the two had met. So far, it was still on a friendly, although sometimes childish, level.

“You won’t be working with AWACS aircraft,” Patrick said. “At this point, we cannot reveal what kind of aircraft will be involved.”

“I should think we will find out soon,” Sivarek said. “If it is on the range and interfering with our pilots, we will shoot it down.”

“It is fair game on the range — if you can find it and take a shot, it’s yours,” Patrick said. “However, we ask you both to follow the range controller’s directions. If you are vectored away or are issued a ‘knock it off’ call, obey it immediately. We will attempt to keep you outside visual range of our aircraft, but we don’t want to interfere with training, either.”

“This sounds very interesting,” General Smoliy remarked. “It is an allied plane, but you do not wish us to see it. It will be controlling us, but you cannot tell us who or what it is. Very mysterious.”

“The entire concept is experimental at this point,” Patrick said. “Although we have received clearance to perform these exercises, the actual program itself has not yet been approved. If the program is canceled in midstream, the less you know about it, the better.”

“You are not placing a lot of trust in us, Patrick,” Sivarek said acidly. “We are allies — at least, I think we are still so.” Sivarek had made it very plain that he didn’t care for President Thomas Thorn and his attitude toward supporting his Eurasian allies.

“There is no offense intended, sir,” Patrick said. “You will be briefed on the entire program and the results of this exercise before you depart Nellis. Whether or not the program is implemented will be decided by others later.”

“Bes Para etmez,” Sivarek remarked grumpily. Literally it meant, “Does my head have a bald spot?” but in actuality it meant, “What’s the problem here?” But he nodded, indicating that he was through asking questions and was ready to continue. Smoliy, far more animated and affable, took another sip of tea and waited patiently.

Patrick gave a time hack, a weather report, and then briefed the mission lineup. For this first mission, both of the foreign general officers were “playing.” Normally, Patrick discouraged this, but he could not talk them out of it — it was part of their “prerogative,” and of course it was fun to be out on the Nellis ranges playing war. And because both foreign general officers were going to fly, naturally Patrick had to bump one of his flyers off one of the American planes so he could fly, too. Yes, rank did have its privileges.

“Ornx 101 flight of two will defend inside the range Patrick went on. “You pick your own patrol altitude. You will have your own controllers manning Tatil Control during the exercise.” The Dreamland ranges had a simple ground-controlled intercept radar facility set up for allied nations that still relied heavily on ground controllers, although most NATO nations now used airborne radar controllers. “Sila Zero One flight of two will approach the range complex from the east — that’s as specific as I get. Vampire will also enter from the east, plus or minus five minutes from Sila flight. You are cleared to Level Two maneuvers — no maximum altitude, minimum altitude of five hundred feet above ground level, maximum airspeed six hundred, maximum closure speed twelve hundred miles per hour, minimum vertical and lateral separation one nautical mile. We want you to be aggressive, but not dangerous.

“We will adjust separation from Vampire as necessary for operational security. Please be aware, Vampire may be employing a towed electronic countermeasures array, so be careful approaching from the rear quadrant. Again, if the range controllers give you a vector away from Vampire, follow their instructions exactly. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to attack. Questions?” Patrick waited for the translators to finish and the two generals shake their heads, then concluded with: “I must remind you, this briefing is classified Secret. Good luck, good hunting. This concludes my briefing. End of transmission.”

Patrick headed back to his office to pick up his flight gear and head over to the mission planning room for his crew briefing when the secure phone rang. He considered letting voice mail pick it up, but he knew that only a handful of persons had that number, so he answered it. “McLanahan.”

“Ever wonder what we do when we retire, Patrick?”

Patrick recognized the voice instantly, although they had only spoken to each other a handful of times in the past twelve years. “How are you, sir?”

“Sharp as ever,” the caller said, pleased that McLanahan had recognized his voice. “I’m fine, General. You?”

“Fine, sir. How can I help you?”

“I have a project for you and your team.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but this is not a topic for discussion, even on a secure line.”

“Don’t worry — I’ll do all the talking,” the caller said. “Been reading the intelligence files on the Balkans lately?”

“Other than what happened a few days ago with the AWACS plane — no, sir.”

“Something happened a few hours ago that could tear the whole place wide open,” the caller said. “You’ll be getting a call in the next few hours from the Pentagon, inquiring as to the possibility of your team participating in a high-risk, high-value cover mission. I need you to build a flight plan for a mission into Russia for one, possibly two, Megafortress bombers, and be ready to present it to the National Command Authority as soon as possible.”

“But I—”

“Just do it, Patrick,” the caller said — urgently, almost but not quite an order. Patrick knew he had no authority to order anyone to do anything. “Have it ready to go ASAP, as complete as you can make it without having access to the details. When the warning order is issued, I want you ready to present the plan to the NCA.” And the line went dead.

Patrick had absolutely zero time to spend on this — the crew bus was going to depart for the flight line in ten minutes — so he furiously typed out an e-mail message to David Luger, relaying the strange request and asking him to work something up. He had no way of knowing if the voice on the other end of the line was really who he thought it was, but whatever was really going on, it would be a good exercise for David and the Operational Support Group.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. “Hey, Muck what’s this about?” It was David Luger, and he had already received the e-mail.

“A project I’m working on.”

“Did we receive a warning order?”

“No. But the requester said we will. I’d like to brief a mission package within three hours.”

“Piece of cake — seeing we have no concrete information such as a target time, weapon load, threat assessment, or mission objectives,” Luger said. “But it would be more valuable to you if I had a few more details.”

“As soon as I get more information, I’ll pass it along,” Patrick said. “Meanwhile, have OSG put a package together.”

“Should I ask General Samson to review it if you’re still up flying?”

Patrick immediately recognized what Luger was really asking: Is this job authorized? Does Samson know anything about it? Does Samson need to know anything about it? “I’ll brief him personally if and when we get a warning order,” Patrick replied. “Until then, no need to notify the boss.”

“Okay, Muck, you got it,” Luger said. “You know the boss will get a flag in his security file the minute we open a new intelligence file and start pulling overhead imagery and data on the Russian Federation?”

“I know. If he asks, I’ll brief him. But he’ll be busy at Nellis with the Ukrainians and Turks. This thing may go away — or it may start to spin up before he has a chance to notice the security flag and call a stop. Get your guys to work.”

“You got it. Have a good flight.”

Oh yeah, Patrick thought as he hung up the phone — he had a mission to fly. Enough intrigue for now — it was time to earn his living.

Aboard an F-16 fighter of the Republic of Turkey Air Force

“Yyuz iki, nah sihl sih nihz?” the lead pilot of the American-made Turkish F- 16 Fighting Falcon fighter asked, glancing out his right cockpit canopy at the fighter jet flying loose formation on his right wingtip. “Status check, 102.”

“Cok iyiyim, shef,” his wingman responded. Then, in English, he added: “Full of joy, boss.”

The flight leader, Major-General Erdal Sivarek, smiled at his wingman’s casual use of American fighter pilot’s slang. All the years they had spent studying Western fighter tactics, military procedures, and even Western life and society, were obvious. Although using American slang was not officially approved in the cockpit, it helped to get everyone involved geared up and ready to fight.

Sivarek settled into his seat, quickly scanned his instruments, engaged the autopilot, and loosened his straps a bit, cursing his family’s bad genetic luck as he did. Unlike the average Turk, Sivarek was just over five feet tall — he needed a specially designed ejection-seat-pan cushion to get the proper cockpit sill clearance, then had to extend the rudder pedals to their full extension so he could reach them. He was built like a fireplug, with a thick chest, thick waist, square head and jaw, and lots of hair — lots of hair on his knuckles, hair on his ankles, and a perpetual “five o’clock shadow.” Sivarek, call sign “Magara oglan, “ or “Cave Boy,” was quick to tell everyone that being short and a little heavy helped him to fight off g-forces encountered in high-speed jet fighter maneuvering, which partially explained why he always pushed himself and his machine beyond the limits-and may have explained why he was the best of the best. Even though he was the commander of the Republic of Turkey’s air defense fighters, he was also that country’s best fighter pilot and one of the best F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots in the world.

With the MASTER ARM switch off, Sivarek selected each of his weapons to check connectivity. He carried a very light combat load on this patrol mission, just two AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missiles and two AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles, a 30-millimeter cannon with 150 rounds of ammunition, plus a centerline fuel tank. Sivarek then activated each of his radar’s functions one by one to check them out. His improved F-16C Block 50 fighter, nicknamed Ornx II in Turkey, had most of the latest radar, computer, and weapons technology, and was one of the most advanced light combat fighters around, but he was already bored with it. It was agile, sophisticated, and simple to fly and maintain, but it lacked power, speed, and real load-carrying capability. Sivarek had seen the F-15 Eagle fighters and had lusted after one for years, but now the new F-22 Raptor fighters were ready for delivery, and he lusted after one of those now.

“Yyuz iki hazirim, “ Sivarek’s wingman, flying in an identical F-16C, responded on the interplane frequency.

“Yyuz beer hazirim, “ Sivarek responded. “10l’s in the green.” He expected nothing else but one-hundred-percent combat-ready aircraft. His squadron was small, just six aircraft, but he firmly believed they were the best-maintained F-l6s in the world. “Take spacing. Weapons check.”

“Tamam, “ replied the wingman. Sivarek’s wingman was one of his squadron’s more junior officers, but an excellent pilot and inspired instructor. Normally, Sivarek liked to have his junior officers assume flight lead duties, but this mission was more important than most. They were up against an unknown number of strategic bombers attacking targets in the Tolicha Airfield. It was Sivarek’s job to find it and stop it. They might have some fighter protection, type and number unknown.

At that very moment, Sivarek picked up a single, quick flash on his radar-warning receiver, ahead and to the left. He immediately turned toward the signal’s bearing and, using hand signals, ordered his wingman to assume a combat spread formation, slightly high, slightly behind, and to the leader’s right. Definitely an enemy radar signal. It was only there for two seconds, but it was long enough. Sivarek had to chuckle to himself No matter how high-tech or stealthy a machine is, he thought, the slightest operator error meant the difference between evasion and detection, escape or capture, life or death. The bomber crew had obviously violated procedures by transmitting with their radar — that mistake would cost them dearly.

“Control, 101 has music, India-band search radar,” Sivarek reported.

“Acknowledged, 101,” the ground radar controller responded. “Radar contact, unidentified aircraft, northeast of your position, low, seventeen miles. Weak radar returns. Stand by.” Sivarek knew the ground radar controller would be frantically switching radar modes, trying to refine the intruder’s radar information. “Still weak radar returns, 101. Fly heading zero-four-five, fly flight level two-zero-zero, stand by for further data. Clear to intercept.”

“Roger, Control.” It must be the stealth bomber, Sivarek thought — the ground radar should be able to see a normal aircraft by now. He turned right a little, offsetting the target slightly so he could use his radar to scan behind the enemy aircraft for other attackers, then switched on his attack radar. Two targets appeared: the closest was at his ten o’clock position, fifteen miles, large, low, and fast; the other was about fifty miles behind the first, high, and outside the range they were using. Being outside the range didn’t automatically exclude it from being a player, but because it was so far away, it wasn’t in an effective cover position — it was still close enough to possibly launch missiles from long range or join in the fight after a high-speed dash, but the two F-16s had plenty of time to engage it after taking out the first. Sivarek highlighted each target and briefly activated his IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) interrogator, which scanned for friendly radio codes coming from the targets. No response. They were enemy aircraft, all right.

“Control, 101 flight has target lock, negative IFF. Bandit one is currently at my ten o’clock position, low. Bandit two is at twelve o’clock, fifty miles. We will take bandit one first. Requesting permission to engage bandit one, requesting clearance and advisories on bandit two.”

“Acknowledged, 101,” the ground controller reported. “Copy negative IFF. You are clear to engage. Radar contact on bandit two, weak return, range fifty-three miles northeast. Will advise on his position. Clear to engage all bandits.”

“Acknowledged, Control, we are proceeding with the attack on bandit one,” Sivarek responded. Calmly and coolly, he selected the AIM-7 radar-guided missile and squeezed the arming button on his inner throttle. “Radar launch ready,” the sensuous female computerized voice responded. Sivarek called out “Oldunnek!” on the command radio to the ground controller and his wingman and squeezed the trigger, commanding a missile launch. Sivarek started a stopwatch on his kneeboard to time the missile’s flight time, then checked to be sure his wingman was still with him.

The bandit made a few high-bank but not very aggressive turns-it was easy to keep the radar beam on him. When the missile flight timer ran out, Sivarek radioed, “Target down radar, target down radar.”

“Acknowledged, 101,” the ground controller replied. “Good shooting, Range is clear, players are ready. Clear to engage at pilot’s discretion.”

For at least the hundredth time this flight, Sivarek checked to be sure the MASTER ARM switch was still OFF, then replied, “Acknowledged, Control. 102, you have me in sight?”

“Roger, lead.”

“One-oh-two, maintain visual spacing and take the lead. Check nose is cold.” That was a command to check that his weapons were safed as well.

“Acknowledged, 101, 1 have you in sight, at your four o’clock, high. My nose is cold. Leaving high patrol.”

“Roger.” Erdal looked up and to the right and saw his wing-man, right where he said he’d be. I have you in sight, 102. Do you have the bandit on radar?”

“Affirmative, 102,” the wingman said.

“You are clear to engage bandit one, 102. You are clear to close in for a gun kill. I will take high patrol and keep an eye on bandit two. Good hunting.” Sivarek removed his oxygen mask as he started a quick climb to get a radar fix on bandit two. A quick kill, nice and neat. A very impressive showing so far for the visiting team.

General Erdal Sivarek was the fifty-two year-old commander of the Republic of Turkey Air Force, and was one of the true fast-rising stars in the Turk Hava Kuwetleri, the Republic of Turkey Air Force. Sivarek had been an instructor pilot in several different foreign-made combat-coded tactical fighters, including the T-33 jet trainer, F-104 fighter interceptors, F-5E Tiger day interceptor, F-4E Phantom fighter-bomber, and the F-16 fighter-bomber. He’d won the coveted “Sniper Pilot” wings of a senior experienced attack pilot a full year before most other pilots his age, and he’d made flight leader, operations officer, deputy commander, and commander of his filo far ahead of his contemporaries. Three of his five children, including one daughter, were following in his proud footsteps and joining the Turkish Air Force, a fact that made him far prouder than all his other achievements.

Sivarek’s “visiting team” consisted of the very best pilots of the Second Tactical Air Force Command, Turkish Air Force, temporarily assigned to the Nineteenth Aggressor Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base. The Turkish fighter pilots got a chance to train against advanced Western warplanes, and the American and NATO participants benefited by getting realistic adversary training against some of eastern Europe’s best fighter pilots and the world’s most advanced warplanes. Tolicha Airfield was not in Turkey, but was a large simulated airbase complex built in the high desert wastelands of south central Nevada, in the Air Force bombing ranges about two hundred miles northwest of Las Vegas. The “airfield” had three long dirt runways, several plywood structures vaguely resembling military-looking buildings, a “fuel depot” built of hundreds of steel fifty-five-gallon drums welded together, antiaircraft missile and artillery radar emitters to simulate actual airfield defenses, and even plywood or inflatable aircraft shapes set up here and there to make it look like a real operating airfield. And although the 11 enemy” target was real and the F-16s did indeed carry live weapons, Sivarek never fired any missiles at it, only electronic signals to the range controllers — he, like his wingman, checked that the MASTER ARM switch was off about every twenty seconds. The range controllers would plot aircraft position and flight parameters at the time the attack signal was received and compute whether or not Sivarek had actually “killed” his target.

“He killed the leader, Vampire,” Colonel David Luger, the senior mission control officer on this test flight, reported over the secure satellite commlink. Luger was in a special classified section of the Nellis range control complex, watching the exercise unfold before him on several multicolor electronic wall-size monitors. The Nellis range complex was in use twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, by military units from all over the world, so special facilities were set up to monitor and control classified military weapons tests.

“Sila Zero One didn’t make very many hard evasive maneuvers, about half the normal chaff drops, and didn’t bother going lower than two thousand AGL,” David added, his Texas drawl coming through the scrambled satellite transmission. “Just not very aggressive threat reaction.” He had seen every iteration of hotshot fighter and bomber pilots — and the “target’ in this exercise didn’t measure up one bit.

“Copy, Dave,” Brigadier-General Patrick McLanahan radioed back. He was flying the right seat on the flight deck of an EB-1C Megafortress-2 strategic “flying battleship,” an experimental B-1B Lancer supersonic bomber modified as a multipurpose attack and defensive weapons platform. “We’ll put all that on the debriefing tape. Where are they now?”

“Now, now — if I told you, we’d spoil the exercise,” Luger responded with a smile. David Luger had spent most of his Air Force career designing and flying experimental aircraft and was normally a quiet, reserved, almost nerdy guy. But once one of his warplanes were up in action, he took complete control, no matter how badly things appeared to be spinning out of control. “You said you wanted max realism in this test, so you gotta find them yourself No fair using other sensor links either — remember, we’re simulating, you’re deep over enemy territory, with no overhead sensor support.”

“All right, all right, no harm in asking,” Patrick said. He signed off with a curt “Later.”

Sometimes, McLanahan thought, it was as if David was working extra hard just to prove to everyone that he was okay, that the Russian brainwashing or his subsequent CIA deprogramming/reprogramming hadn’t affected his mental powers. He had no hobbies, took no vacations, and had few relationships outside of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. Patrick was pleased to see a budding intimate friendship — hardly a romance yet, but promising — between Dave and Annie Dewey, one of the Air National Guard EB-1 pilots. If only Dave took enough time to get to know her better, David Luger might actually develop a personal life.

To his aircraft commander sitting beside him in the cockpit of the EB-1C Megafortress-2 bomber, nicknamed “Vampire,” Patrick said, “Luger’s not going to let us sneak a peek, so I better get a fix on all our players. LADAR coming on.”

“Go ahead,” the pilot, Colonel Rebecca Furness, responded curtly. “Make it quick, General.”

“Rog,” McLanahan said as he activated the LADAR, or Laser Radar. Using tiny laser emitters, the LADAR scanned the sky for fifty miles in all directions, including near-space, and “drew” a three-dimensional image of all terrain, surface, and airborne objects. In five seconds, LADAR had scanned one hundred and twenty-five thousand cubic miles of earth and sky around the bomber, correlated the scan with known terrain features and current intelligence information, and stored the image in computer memory. Patrick deactivated the system and reported, “LADAR down, Rebecca.”

Furness glanced over at the large multifunction display mounted on the mission commander’s instrument panel, which showed a “God’s-eye” view of the battlefield. “What do we got, MC?” Furness asked impatiently. Rebecca Furness was a twenty-plus year veteran of the Air Force, serving mostly in the Reserves and Air National Guard. She also had the distinction of being one of the first female combat pilots in the Air Force and one of the first to command a combat unit, the 111th Bomb Squadron of the Nevada Air National Guard — twice. Furness made it clear to everyone who would listen that Patrick McLanahan had been mostly responsible for her losing her command — and she grudgingly admitted that he had been mostly responsible for getting it back for her.

She could think of a hundred things she’d rather be doing than playing chauffeur for the boy general on yet another of his endless test flights. Rebecca had a squadron to assemble, and she knew that a lot of heavy hitters in the Pentagon, in Washington, and all over the world were watching her.

“The Falcons split up,” Patrick replied. “Number two is chasing the leader while number one is sweeping to his six to check on the number two Sila. Looks like the number two Falcon’s going to take his turn and get the lead Sila with a Sidewinder.”

“Well, let’s not wait for them to kill both of our attackers,” Furness said. “Let’s bust a move.”

“Hold your horses, pilot,” Patrick said. “We briefed this engagement a half-dozen times — you know the plan as well as I do. We want to see what they can do on their own first.”

“Why are we doing this support stuff anyway, sir?” Rebecca asked. “You picked my unit because we’re good at tactical bombing. The Bone was built to penetrate heavily defended airspace and attack high-value targets. Your Megafortress contraption can do that job better than even I ever thought possible. Why not let us do our job?”

“This is our job right now, Rebecca,” Patrick said testily. “We are here to deploy a tactical strike support system. The EB-1C Megafortress aircraft are designed to be strategic airborne battleships — that means strike support, surveillance, and reconnaissance as well as attack. Our turn to have fun comes later.”

Rebecca Furness fell silent, disappointed but not surprised over the young general’s lack of corporate knowledge. Her first combat unit, the 394th Air Battle Wing of the Air Force Reserve, had flown a modified F-111G Aardvark supersonic bomber nicknamed the RF-111G Vampire bomber, which had been primarily designed for armed reconnaissance. Rebecca herself had dubbed the EB-1C bomber the Vampire in her old jet’s honor. She had enjoyed the armed reconnaissance role back then. Each mission had been a combination of many different responsibilities — standoff attack, antiship, antiradar, antiairfield, minelaying, and antireconnaissance, along with photoreconnaissance and data relay — and she’d enjoyed the challenge. Rebecca had been positive that, as the nation’s first woman to fly in a combat unit, she had been assigned to the 394th because the Vampire was supposed to be a safe, standoff weapon system, not really designed to be a frontline attack unit. The possibility of her being shot down and captured was supposed to be low. But she’d commanded her flight and flown her missions with aggressiveness and courage that won her a lot of attention and praise, and eventually her own command of a combat unit.

But truth to tell, the RF-111 was not a huge success. It was fast, stealthy, capable, and carried a large variety of payloads, like the EB-1, but it was maintenance-intensive, needed a lot of aerial refueling and ground support, and was considered old technology and not a good buy for the military — again, like the B-1. Despite their success in Operation Desert Storm, all of the F-111 models were soon retired from service — and the first to go was the RF-111. Having one aircraft do a variety of missions looked good on paper, but if the sortie didn’t launch or couldn’t continue the mission, the entire strike package suffered greatly. In effect, the weapon system was too capable — instead of considering all the incredible things the plane could do, all the planners could think of was what would happen if the plane broke down and didn’t make it to the target area. That was enough to kill the program.

The B-1 fleet came within a few votes of being mothballed as well. Sixty of ninety planes were placed in “flyable storage,” which meant they could be flown only after a few months of intensive resuscitation. The rest were transferred to the Air National Guard and Reserves as a cost-cutting measure. Patrick McLanahan and his research group at Dreamland had had other ideas for the fleet. He’d received enough funding to turn eight B-1B Lancers into EB-1C Vampire “flying battleships,” operated by the Nevada Air National Guard in peacetime and federalized into the Air Force’s Air Combat Command in wartime.

The Vampire could drop or launch every weapon in the U.S. arsenal, including antisatellite and anti-ballistic missile weapons and every kind of cruise missile imaginable. Its three bomb bays could hold over sixty thousand pounds of ordnance, and external hardpoints on the fuselage gave it the ability to carry even more weapons. Rebecca was proud to command the nation’s one and only Vampire unit. But the EB-1 was very much like a very big RF-111, and in this age of budget cuts and changing priorities, the second coming of the Vampire was very likely to suffer the same fate as the first.

Whether or not the EB-1C actually made it, Rebecca reminded herself that all these tests were helping to make Patrick McLanahan look pretty good, too. His use of the “we” word, she thought, was being a little disingenuous. Patrick McLanahan seemed like a good guy, but all one-star generals were alike — they just wanted to be two-star generals, and all two-stars wanted was three stars, and so on. When it came right down to it, Rebecca was sure McLanahan would grab the next rung of the ladder and use her and everyone else around him as a step to help himself up.

He was certainly, as the old saying went, “making hay while the sun shines.” Following his successful efforts both in protecting the United Republic of Korea from attack by China and at the same time protecting China from rogue retaliatory attacks by a power-mad Korean general with control of several dozen nuclear weapons, Patrick McLanahan had become an overnight hero, almost on a par with Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell. Many comparisons had been instantly made between him and his mentor, friend, former commander, and perennial thorn in the Pentagon’s ass, Brad Elliott, the former commander of HAWC, although McLanahan was definitely perceived as more of a team player than Elliott. Patrick’s promotion to major-general, his second star in three years, and eventual command of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center — or possibly an operational command — were almost assured.

Now, Rebecca thought, he was going full speed ahead on every possible weapons program that popped into his head — or, more likely, every one that popped into his buddy Dr. Jon Masters’s head — and he was getting lots of funding and high-powered attention for almost every one of them. Jon Masters was the head of a small high-tech military contractor, Sky Masters Inc., that designed and built various pieces of hardware, including satellites, “brilliant” cruise missiles, and satellite communications and reconnaissance systems. When most of the officers in charge of HAWC had been dismissed a few years ago because of the Kenneth Francis James spy scandal, McLanahan and his wife Wendy, an electronics engineer, had gone to work for Jon Masters — and Dr. Wendy Tork still worked for him today. There was obviously a financial motive for Patrick to develop Sky Masters Inc.’s systems. It all looked a bit improper for such a direct pipeline between the military and civilian world to exist, but Rebecca was sure that relationship had been scrutinized by the Pentagon seven ways to Sunday by now.

Even though Rebecca questioned and maybe even resented McLanahan’s business dealings, to tell the truth, she liked McLanahan’s enthusiasm and drive. But she believed sometimes it was all being done at someone else’s expense. Namely, hers.

“Vampire, this is Control,” Luger radioed to Furness and McLanahan on the secure Blue Force channel. “Muck, the Ukrainians look like they’re asleep or something. You’re going to have to kick the Ukrainians in the butt a little. They seemed to be taking this exercise a little too lightly.”

“Roger,” Patrick responded. He took another laser radar snapshot” of the area, studied it for a moment, then radioed on the tactical interplane frequency: “Sila Zero-One, this is Vampire. You’ve got a bandit on your tail, seven o’clock, less than four miles! I have you at two thousand feet AGL. Recommend you descend, accelerate, begin evasive maneuvers, begin terrain masking, and prepare to respond to a heat-seeking missile threat.”

“Acknowledged,” the pilot responded simply.

Patrick waited — and nothing happened. “Sila Zero-One, the bandit will be within missile range in five seconds. Get out of there! Now!”

“Give us a heading, Vampire,” the Ukrainian pilot said.

“A heading? Any heading! You need to get away from him now!”

“Our Sirena tail-warning system is inoperative,”‘ the pilot reported. “We do not have contact. We need a heading, please.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake…” Patrick was ready to explode in frustration. He had just given them all the information they needed. Besides, they were two minutes from the target — they should be going balls-to-the-wall anyway! “Sila Zero-One, do a hard break to the right toward that ridgeline, descend at least fifteen hundred feet, then reverse about two miles from the ridge and accelerate. Make him start thinking about hitting the mountains instead of lining up a shot on you!”

“Acknowledged,” the Backfire pilot said. He started a relatively slow turn toward the north, then reversed his turn almost immediately. “Maneuver completed,” he reported. “Returning to target heading. One hundred seventeen seconds to target.”

“I think he’s more scared of the mountains than that F-16 pilot will be,” Rebecca said. “Well, scratch one Backfire,” Patrick said disgustedly. “Might as well let the Turks get some air-to-air work in and let the Ukrainians practice some bombing.”

“He’s not doing anything — just heading direct to the target,” the second Turkish F-16 pilot reported. “Apparently his tail-warning system is not functioning.”

“Your tail is clear, so he’s not playing possum so a fighter can sneak up behind you,” Sivarek said. “Give him a wake-up call with the radar and see what he does.”

“Roger,” the wingman said. He briefly activated his attack radar. Sure enough, the big Ukrainian bomber sped up slightly and made a steep banked turn to the south, pumping out chaff cartridges from its dorsal ejectors as he detected the F-16’s radar sweep. The F-16’s radar was effectively decoyed away from the bomber with the combination of chaff and electronic jammers, so the F-16 pilot merely shut off the radar. The Ukrainian bomber rolled right and headed back to his original course, speed, and altitude, as if the threat had suddenly disappeared. “Level-one evasive maneuvers. Good jamming and chaff, but small altitude and airspeed deviations. He’s back on original course and speed. No problem reacquiring.”

“Then take the kill and come join on me and we’ll get the second bandit,” Sivarek said.

“Roger,” the wingman said. He immediately switched to Sidewinder missiles, got a locked-on tone seconds later — the Backfire’s two big Kuznetov turbofans, developing almost fifty-six thousand pounds of thrust each in afterburner, were pumping out plenty of heat-and “fired.” “Missile away, two miles,” the wingman said. No need to start a stopwatch — missile flight time would be mere seconds at this range. “Good kill.”

“Give him a flyby, then come join on me, zero-four-five at sixty-two bull’s-eye, angels minus ten.”

“My pleasure, boss,” the wingman said. He cobbed the throttle to zone three afterburner, flew less than two hundred feet above the Tupolev-22M bomber, waited until he was clear, did two barrel rolls right in front of the Backfire’s cockpit windscreen, then started a fast climb. Easy kill against what was once the most feared air-breathing weapon in the Soviet arsenal.

The wingman let his speed build until he went supersonic, sending a crashing sonic shock wave washing over the bomber. That should wake him up. He then did a victory roll right in front of him, then pitched up and climbed out back to patrol altitude.

One down, one to go.

The threat warning receiver bleeped, displaying a bat-wing enemy-aircraft symbol on the God’s-eye display with range, heading, altitude, and airspeed information. “We got company,” Patrick announced to Rebecca. He reactivated the laser radar and took another “snapshot” of the skies around them. “They’re both after the second Sila.”

“We gonna let him get shot down, too?” Rebecca asked sarcastically.

“Let’s stick with the plan and see what happens,” Patrick said ruefully.

But with a few more flashes of the laser radar, it was obvious the Ukrainian bomber wasn’t quite up to the challenge. When the F-16s hit the Backfire with its radar, the second big Ukrainian bomber started a rapid yet normal descent — wings level, lots of negative g’s to blur the pilot’s vision, and no steep-bank or inverted maneuvers to increase the descent rate. Patrick even suspected the Backfire bomber’s pilot of pulling back on the throttles instead of pegging airspeed right at the max, as if he was afraid of overstressing his plane. The F-16 pilots had an easy attack run, and seconds later recorded a successful AIM-7 radar-guided missile kill.

“I’ve seen airline captains make more aggressive maneuvers with three hundred paying passengers on their plane,” Rebecca observed. “Sheesh, does he want to get shot down? He have an urge to see an F-16 up close?” It certainly did look as if this new set of attacks on the Backfire bomber were going to be a walk in the park for the skilled Turkish pilots. “What more do you need to see, General?” Rebecca added. “The Turks are going to die of boredom if we don’t do something.”

“Okay, okay, let’s do it,” Patrick said finally. On the interplane frequency, he called out, “Sila Zero-Two, bandits are at your twelve to one o’clock, thirty miles and closing at five hundred eighty knots.”

“Acknowledged, Vampire. We have them on threat receiver. Commencing attack.”

“Show me something, boys,” Patrick radioed. To the attack computer, he ordered, “Ready Wolverine, attack route Alpha, sensor response, datalink active.”

“Ready Wolverine, safe all,” the computer responded, adding the recommended stop-attack order; then: “Attack route Alpha confirmed, all sensors active, sensor response active, datalink active. Launch one Wolverine.”

“Launch one Wolverine,” Patrick ordered.

“Warning, launch order received, stop launch … Launch sequence commencing, midbay doors opening partial … missile away … launcher ready … doors closed.”

Patrick waited fifteen seconds until after the last Wolverine cruise missile had launched and the bomb doors closed, then keyed the secure primary UHF radio mike switch and said, “Sila Zero-Two, this is Vampire Zero-One, you are clear to the target. Good hunting.”

“Acknowledged, Vampire,” a thickly accented Slavic voice responded. “Prosteesiya haryachiy. We are target inbound and weapons are hot.”

Both Rebecca and Patrick watched as their wingman took spacing and prepared for its descent. “What a monster that sucker is,” Patrick breathed.

“It’s a piece of shit,” Rebecca murmured.

“Maybe not,” Patrick added proudly. “Give me a budget and a couple months, and I think I can make that big mother sing.”

“The million-dollar question is: why?” Rebecca asked. “Ukraine can’t afford to outfit their Backfire bombers like a Megafortress — that’s at least thirty million dollars a copy, and those planes don’t look like they’re worth it. The crews will take years to train in advanced bomber strike tactics. Who’s going to pay for all this? Hell, our new president is downsizing our military like crazy, and he doesn’t believe in helping foreign countries — he’s not going to pay it.”

“That’s not my concern, Rebecca,” Patrick said. “If they give me a budget to convert Backfires to Megafortresses, and train their crews on how to use them, I’ll do it. I’ll have the baddest-ass group of flyers in the neighborhood. I guarantee it.”

Well, well, Erdal Sivarek thought, finally these Ukrainian pilots are showing him something. He had locked up the second Ukrainian bomber on radar with ease, and immediately the second target started a rapid descent, over ten thousand feet per minute and steadily increasing. Very impressive. Maybe the Ukrainians knew how to fly evasive maneuvers after all.

The radar box quickly danced to the right side of Sivarek’s HUD, and he had to turn hard right to keep the target within the radar cone so the AIM-7 Sparrow missile could home in on it. That was odd — aircraft at this range normally did not move that quickly across the radarscope. The enemy aircraft was sending out jamming signals, but Sivarek’s F-16’s anti-jamming electronics were successful at hopping to another clear frequency and maintaining a lock …

… right up to the moment when the target suddenly junked left and skittered across the HUD in the other direction. Sivarek reversed his turn again, but it was too late — the target had jinked right off the scope. Somehow it had maneuvered hard enough to beat an F-16, probably the most maneuverable aircraft in the world, and completely disappear from sight!

“Yyuz bir kor!” Sivarek called out. “One-oh-one has lost contact!”

“Lead, I’ve lost visual with you!” Sivarek’s wingman called out. It was understandable — it was bound to happen after all that hard maneuvering. “I’m at five thousand meters, climbing to high patrol altitude.”

“Tabii, “ Sivarek replied, consciously forcing himself to slow his breathing to keep from hyperventilating. They had at least five hundred meters’ altitude separation — they weren’t going to collide. “I’m trying to reacquire the target now.” He turned immediately to the target’s initial heading and swept the skies with his radar, trying to spot the target again. Obviously, the AIM-7 missile wouldn’t track without a radar lock, so he had wasted his last Sparrow missile. He felt foolish losing the target. But he quickly choked that thought away. No time to punish himself. Reacquire and kill the bastard, he ordered himself, then figure out why he lost him in the first place when he was back on the ground.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long. The target had indeed returned to its original inbound track — predictable, but necessary for most bombers. Few bomber units taught their crews to plan multiple ingress tracks, in case the first one was compromised. If there was only one planned bomb run, the aircrew that survived an attack had no choice but to return to that very same track, and that made it easier for defenders to find them again. “One-oh-one has reacquired bandit one,” Sivarek reported. “Tied on and engaged.”

“Don’t let him get away this time, Caveboy,” Sivarek’s wingman admonished him, with a touch of humor in his voice.

“You will have your chance, Badger,” Erdal radioed back irritably. “Now stay off the radio and join on me.”

“I have contact on you, lead,” the wingman reported, obviously still enjoying twisting his squadron commander’s tail a little. “Your six is clear.”

It was a tail chase this time, a piece of cake compared to the first head-to-head engagement. Sivarek locked up the target right away, maneuvered behind him, selected heat-seeking missiles, and fired another AIM-9 missile as soon as he got within range. Again, the bandit jinked right — same direction as last time. Sivarek took a chance and started a left turn, and sure enough the bandit jinked hard left. It was much easier to keep the bandit in radar lock once he anticipated the turn, and even though the target tried another hard turn, this time it was too late. He scored a direct hit.

“Splash two heater,” Sivarek announced. “Do you have a visual on me?”

“Affirmative, lead,” Sivarek’s wingman said. “Clear to the south. I’m above and north of you. I’m in hot.”

Sivarek turned hard left, staying at his same altitude. Once his wingman announced he was clear, he started a climb back up to a cover position.

He would have to be sure to quietly accept a good amount of ribbing once the mass and unit debriefs began, Erdal reminded himself “Criticize in private, praise in public” was a good rule of thumb for the men, but the men always wanted to see if their commanding officer could take it as well as dish it out. He had to …

“Bombok!” Sivarek’s wingman shouted over the interplane frequency. “I have a visual on bandit two! It’s a decoy! An unmanned aircraft!”

A decoy aircraft that moved as fast as a jet fighter, that was even more maneuverable than an F-16? Well, Sivarek thought, this was Nellis. They were playing in the ranges near Dreamland, the top-secret American weapons research facility. The Americans probably flew such exotic, high-tech aircraft every day, just for fun. He just didn’t expect to be up against one, that’s all.

“Disengage, 102,” Sivarek ordered. He quickly scanned the sky, silently cursing himself The other bandit must be the carrier aircraft — the real target. He had assumed because the second target was smaller and up high that it was not a threat. He should’ve had his wingman go after the second bandit. Sivarek immediately shoved in afterburner power and began a steep climbing turn, heading back to where he guessed the second bandit would be. “One-oh-two, I’m reversing course, heading back to where I first detected bandit two,” Sivarek said. “Join on me.”

“Two.”

Sivarek immediately got a radar lock on the second aircraft. It was in a steep descent at about eight hundred knots, just over the speed of sound. The radar immediately broke lock, jammed with much heavier jamming signals than before. “Badger, I’ve got heavy music …?” Just then, the F-16 radar indicated a sweep processor lock fault — the jamming was so intensive and the anti-jamming frequency hopping so rapid and intense that the radar finally gave up. “Gadget bent. I’ve got a visual on bandit two at my twelve o’clock, five miles. He’s started a rapid descent, heading your way. I’m engaged. I think this is another bomber. Reverse course and cover me. Acknowledge!”

“I copy, 101.”

The Turkish F-16’s Sidewinder missile was fully capable of a nose-to-nose missile kill, especially with a target glowing nice and hot from a supersonic descent. Their closure rate put him in firing position in seconds. He double-checked that the MASTER ARM switch was OFF, selected AIM-9 on the weapons panel, got a flashing SHOOT indication in his heads-up display, then called out on interplane, “Badger, target in range, I am—”

Suddenly his threat-warning receiver blared to life — an enemy fighter had him locked on radar, well within lethal range! He had gone right to missile guidance without using search radars.

“One-oh-one, Control, pop-up target at your three o’clock, ten miles, low,” the ground radar controller reported. “Range telemetry flash records a missile kill. You have him in sight?”

At first he was going to say that it was unlikely he’d see any fighter ten miles away, but sure enough he saw him — it looked like another Tupolev-22M, only smaller. A B-1 bomber? “I see another sweep-wing bomber, Control,” Sivarek said, “but no fighter.”

“That’s who recorded the kill, 101,” the ground radar controller said. “He has just now recorded a kill on your wingman.”

“Kill? Kill with what? Sticks and stones?”

“Range control referee confirms that aircraft has air-to-air capability,” the controller replied. “Report ready for counterair engagement.”

Sivarek whipped off his oxygen mask in exasperation, but he choked back his anger with a loud laugh. “You bet we are ready for counterair engagement, Control!” Sivarek shouted. “Let that pig just try to come at us again.”

“Roger, 101,” the controller said. “Proceed to waypoint Tango at patrol altitude and hold for range clearance. Advise when established in patrol orbit.”

“Acknowledged,” Sivarek responded. “Badger, join on me.

“What happened, Caveboy?”

“We got shot down.”

“By who? I didn’t see anyone! I got one squeak on my warning receiver!”

“They claim we got shot down by a B-1 bomber,” Sivarek said. “Don’t worry, it’s our turn now. Join on me.”

“Hey, Muck, the Turks say they’re pissed and they want a shot at you,” David Luger radioed, the humor obvious in his voice. “Let’s racetrack the Backfires back to destination D-3 and fly the ingress route again with two-minute spacing. Report reaching.”

Like knights on their chargers galloping back to the start of the lists for another pass at their opponents, the two Tupolev-22M bombers and the single EB-1C Vampire escort traveled back to the northeast corner of the range. McLanahan reported their position just before reaching the point, and moments later they were cleared inbound.

“Looks like the Turks aren’t going to mess with the Backfires this time,” Patrick reported, as he studied the first laser radar image. The Turkish F-16s were both staying high, practically ignoring the two Backfire bombers trying to fly in low under them. He touched the super-cockpit display on the right side of the Vampire’s big instrument panel, then said to the attack computer, “Weapons safe, simulated, attack targets.”

“Warning, weapons safe, attack command simulated received, stop attack,” the computer responded. “Scorpion missiles ready, launch two simulated.”

“Simulated launch two against each target at maximum range,” Patrick said. “Got you now, boys …

“Warning, launch command received…”

“Patrick, this is Control, emergency! Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off!” Luger suddenly radioed with the emergency “stop attack” call. “Abort the run. Abort the run. Return to base ASAP.”

“Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off!” Rebecca called out on the exercise channel. “Stop launch!” The warning was echoed by the range controllers to the Turkish Air Force and their air combat controllers, and the computer canceled the launch command just as the forward bomb bay doors were opening. “What the hell is going on, Luger?”

“We’re going operational — right now,” David said breathlessly. “Get on the ground ASAP.”

“Seats,” Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson said in a booming voice as he trotted into the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center’s battle staff room, ordering everyone back into their seats from attention. McLanahan and Hal Briggs were already there, along with Colonel Furness and other members of the One-Eleventh Bomb Squadron and a few senior staff officers from HAWC. “All right, all right, someone tell me what in hell’s going on.”

“We just received a warning order ten minutes ago, sir,” Patrick responded. “There’s an incident occurring in Russia, and we’ve been asked to get ready to provide support.”

“That’s not entirely true, sir,” Rebecca interjected. “We don’t have a warning order. We haven’t been authorized to do anything yet.”

“There exists an opportunity for the One-Eleventh to provide air support,” Patrick said. “I think we should get moving on this immediately. The warning order will be coming through at any moment.”

Terrill Samson hadn’t felt this kind of excitement since accepting this position at HAWC two years earlier. Although working at HAWC was certainly challenging and exciting, it never had the immediacy and vitality of a combat unit. They tested the world’s most advanced weapon systems, true, but in the end mostly what Samson did was write a report, submit engineering data, and give the hardware back to whoever had built it.

Samson glanced at the raw eagerness on the face of Patrick McLanahan, HAWC’s deputy commander. He was a natural-born leader, certainly deserving of his own command. But he had been with HAWC too long, seen too much, and did so much weird — and probably illegal — stuff with the high-tech gadgets that filled this place that there was no place for him in the real-world Air Force. How could he be asked to command a wing of B-2A Spirit stealth bombers, the most advanced warplanes known, when he knew that there existed in Dreamland planes and weapons that were a hundred times more advanced, a thousand times deadlier?

Samson was concerned. Patrick McLanahan’s career had developed under the tutelage — most would use the term “curse”—of Lieutenant-General Brad Elliott, Samson’s predecessor and the man for whom their base had been named. To put it as politely as possible, Elliott had been a rogue officer, a completely loose cannon. He’d been killed on one of his infamous “operational test flights,” where he had flown an experimental B-52 bomber — stolen right out from under federal agents — over China during the recent China-Taiwan conflict. Although his efforts had helped avert a global thermonuclear exchange, perhaps for the sixth or seventh time in his career at HAWC, one couldn’t help but notice that most officials in the White House and the Pentagon had breathed a sigh of relief after hearing that Elliott was dead. The only thing that still kept them up at night was the fact that Elliott’s body had never been recovered, so there was still a possibility that the bastard was still alive.

Patrick McLanahan had learned from Brad Elliott that, when the shooting starts and it seems like the world is on the brink of destruction, sometimes in order to get results it was necessary to color outside the lines. Patrick was much more of a “team player” than Brad Elliott ever was — but he was no longer young, he had rank and certainly much higher status, and he was entering his second decade at the isolated supersecret desert research base. Like McLanahan, Terrill Samson was a protégé of Brad Elliott — he knew him, knew what a little power and a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude could do to a man. Samson had chosen to follow his own path, and he’d earned his stars by playing by the rules. He was certainly worried that Patrick McLanahan was following the ghost of Brad Elliott down the wrong path.

“Time out, children, time out,” Samson said pointedly. “I got a call saying that we received a warning order. Whatever we received, who’s got it?”

“Actually, sir, I do,” Lieutenant Colonel Hal Briggs said. ‘You do?” Samson knew that Hal Briggs was a highly trained and experienced commando and infantryman — serving as HAWC’s chief of security was only one of his areas of expertise. He also knew that Briggs had been an operative in some highly classified intelligence operations unit that he had not been privileged enough to have a need to know. Briggs handed him a telefax from the command post, sent from the Director of Central Intelligence, authorizing Hal Briggs as the point of contact for this operation. “Okay, I’m impressed,” Samson said truthfully. “Well, Colonel, we’re waiting. If you’re permitted to tell us, let’s hear it.”

“Yes, sir,” Briggs said. The tall, thin, black officer, who had been assigned to Dreamland longer than anyone else in the room, looked as excited as a kid who’d just been told he’d be going to Disneyland for his birthday. “Since Patrick has been involved in operations of this sort before, I briefed him on the warning order. He gave me some suggestions, and then recommended I call you and the One-Eleventh in on it. Since I’m the man in charge of the team, I authorized it.”

“Proceed, then.”

Briggs motioned to Patrick, who punched instructions into his computer terminal, and a map of western Russia appeared on the large electronic computer monitor at the foot of the conference table. “My team has been tasked to support a hostile rescue mission inside Russia. Apparently the CIA has a deep cover agent on the run outside Zhukovsky Air Base east of Moscow. The normal procedure was to activate an underground railroad-type network inside Russia to get her out, but the network was shut down.”

“Obviously, CIA neglected to tell the agent about this tiny detail,” Terrill Samson surmised.

“You got it, sir,” Briggs said.

“What team are you talking about, Colonel?” Furness asked, glancing warily at both McLanahan and Briggs. She was a full member of HAWC as well as the One-Eleventh Bomb Squadron and had complete access to the facility, but she also reminded herself that what she knew was probably only the tip of the iceberg — this place was so compartmentalized and so deep undercover that she’d probably be stupefied by everything that went on here.

“Unfortunately, I can’t go into details, ma’am,” Briggs replied. “I’ll reveal as much as I can to give as much planning data to your guys, but you’ll have to follow my lead on a lot of it. Anyway, CIA wants this agent out immediately. I fly out immediately. I’m going to pick up some gear at a friend of ours place in Arkansas, and then deploy with my team to Turkey to stage out of there.”

“Well, good luck,” Samson said. “But I’m still confused. What’s our involvement?”

“Hal was tasked to perform a hostile exfiltration deep in Russian airspace,” Patrick explained. “I recommended that we provide air cover for his team.”

“Air cover?” Samson asked. “What do you mean, ‘air cover’?”

“Here’s the target area,” Patrick replied, motioning to the computerized map. “In about forty-two hours, Hal’s team will land somewhere near Zhukovsky, here, to attempt to extract the CIA operative. Hal expects heavy resistance — apparently they’ve been looking for the agent for about twelve hours already, and the search is intensifying. I suggested stealth airborne cover for the infiltration and exfiltration.”

“You mean, send Vampires into Russia to cover a CIA rescue operation?” Samson asked incredulously. “C’mon, Patrick, you’ve got to be joking! We aren’t in a position to provide any sort of air cover!”

“I disagree, sir,” Patrick said. He punched up the operational status readout for the 111th Bomb Squadron and displayed it on the screen. “Out of six operational EB-1C Vampire bombers,” he summarized, as the readout popped up on the large electronic briefing board, “two are available right now, one is airborne and can be ready to go a few hours after the first two are loaded, one is in post-maintenance and can be ready if necessary in about eight hours, and one is undergoing major modifications and is unavailable.”

Samson checked the data block for this set of information — and saw that Patrick had had this data pulled a few hours earlier. So this wasn’t exactly the no-notice action meeting it looked like: McLanahan, most likely Luger, and maybe even Briggs had already gotten word about this operation and hadn’t told him about it.

“But the One-Eleventh isn’t operational yet,” Samson argued, deciding to hold off confronting McLanahan with his thoughts for now. “We’re still deep into the demonstration — evaluation stage. They won’t be operational for at least another year.”

Patrick called up the roster of all the flight crews qualified to fly the Vampire strategic flying battleship. “We’ve got the crews available, sir,” Patrick went on hurriedly. “I’ll take the lead plane. Major Cheshire can fly as my aircraft commander.” Major Nancy Cheshire was HAWC’s chief flight test pilot. If Terrill Samson knew her better, he would be far more afraid of her transforming into an ideological clone of Brad Elliott than Patrick McLanahan or anyone else at HAWC. “Colonel Furness and Colonel Luger can fly as the backup crew, followed by Dewey and Deverill. They’re the most advanced of the One-Eleventh’s initial cadre. Then—”

“Pardon me, sir,” Rebecca interjected, her eyes narrowing in exasperation, “but you aren’t in our squadron.”

“This will be an important mission for all of us. Major Cheshire and I have the most experience—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Rebecca said, more insistently this time, “but with all due respect — you got us into this, and you have to let us finish it.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Rebecca?”

“Sir, you created this unit specifically for missions like this,” Rebecca said. “You gave us the tools, you trained us, and you prepared us. Now you’ve got to let us do our job.”

“This unit has been together for less than a year,” McLanahan said. “It’s not an operational unit, not by a long shot. Those planes still belong to us. If there’s a mission to do—”

“Everyone, stop!” Samson cut in hotly. “Listen to me, Patrick. We will never be approved for a mission like this. We barely got approval to form the One-Eleventh, and that was just a few months ago. We may have two birds ready to fly, but that’s ready to fly test and evaluation missions on the ranges, not fly into combat — and sure as hell not over Russia!”

“Actually, sir — I went ahead and got approval,” Patrick said.

“Say again?” Samson boomed, his eyes blazing in fury.

“That was my call, sir,” Briggs said. “Patrick ran the idea down to me, I called the DCI, Director Morgan; he happened to be meeting with Secretary of Defense Goff in the White House, he pitched the idea to him, spoke with Patrick for a while—”

“You spoke with the Secretary of Defense?” Samson asked. Left unsaid was “Without notifying me first?”

But Patrick knew what Samson was angry about. “I called you as soon as I was put through to the Secretary, sir,” Patrick said. “He gave a provisional ‘go-ahead’ a few moments later, pending clearance from the President. He should be talking to the President right about now. It happened pretty fast.” Patrick handed him a printout with a signed authorization from the SecDef. Samson stared in disbelief at his deputy commander, his lips taut, but said nothing else. “I’ve already built the generation schedule, put the crews on crew rest — except myself, of course — and I’ll have my first status briefing in—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Long interjected again, “but that’s my job. I’d appreciate it if you’d step aside and let me do it.”

“Major, I appreciate your enthusiasm, and this is not a criticism of you or your unit’s skill or readiness,” Patrick said, typing more instructions into the computer as he spoke, “but I’m in charge of this mission, and I’ll take care of the planning this time around. I’d appreciate it if you’d stand by and help me get the maintenance and combat support staffs briefed and organized, and then we’ll—”

“Hold it right there, Patrick,” General Samson interjected. “I’ve heard enough. Patrick, this time you’re wrong, and the major is correct, on all counts. You’ve done a good job training the One-Eleventh. They’ve done well, better than anyone’s expected, given their recent history and reputation. Colonel Furness is also correct in pointing out that you are not a member of that squadron. And another thing: technically, the Vampires belong to the taxpayers, not to me, not to you. They are not your personal property.”

“I’m well aware of that, sir,” McLanahan said. “I wasn’t implying—”

“Frankly, General, I expected a little more support for one of the teams you yourself created,” Samson said. “I know you want to get in on the action, but try not to slain one of your own to do it. I only need one word from you, Patrick: is the One-Eleventh ready to fight?”

Patrick looked at Furness and Long, who glared back at him, and then at the other representatives of the 111th Bombardment Wing “‘Aces High.” Patrick found it was one of the hardest questions he’d ever had to answer: if he said “no,” he’d be a liar, and if he said “yes,” he’d be effectively cutting himself out of the unit and the mission he’d worked so hard to build. But there really wasn’t any conflict over the question at all — and he knew it:

“The answer is, yes, sir, they are,” Patrick replied resolutely. “They’ve flown every training sortie and every research mission we’ve asked them to fly; they’ve prepared well. The initial cadre is some of the best flyers I’ve ever worked with — they’re aggressive, knowledgeable, and dedicated. They’re ready to go kick some butt.” He turned to Rebecca. “My apologies. I was out of line. Of course, it’s your squadron.” His eyes were no longer ordering or demanding, but not quite pleading, either — not yet. “But I do know more about the Vampires than anyone else on this base, and I’ve worked with ISA before many times. Put me on the inflight backup bird, along with Nancy Cheshire. She’s the most experienced aircraft commander.”

“We can use your expertise in the virtual cockpit, sir,” Long said. It was too obvious that Long enjoyed watching McLanahan get a good hand-slapping by Samson and was only too anxious to give him one last jab in the ribs.

“No, I think having him in the backup bird is a good idea,” Samson interjected. “But I’m going to exercise a little commander’s prerogative and order Colonel Furness to fly as Patrick’s AC. Nancy Cheshire and Dave Luger will command the virtual cockpit for the mission.” To Long, he said, “Major, you’re taking over planning for this operation. I’d like a mass briefing in twenty-four hours. According to the warning order, your planes are supposed to be over the patrol area in about forty hours.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be ready.”

“Colonel Briggs, I imagine you’ll be on your way too,” Samson said with a smile. “Stopping off for some wonder toys, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” Briggs said happily. “I can think of one or two things we might need for a mission like this.”

“I’m sure you can,” Samson said. He extended his big hand, and Briggs shook it warmly. “Good luck, good hunting. Tell me all about it when you get back.”

“You got it, General.”

General Samson dismissed his staff and the One-Eleventh squadron officers, but not before giving Patrick a warning glare. For the first time since they had been working together, Patrick McLanahan had come very, very close to stepping over the line. He had a much better reputation than that. Hopefully, it did not portend a sign of bad things to come. He made a mental note to sit down with Patrick after this was over with and have a talk — not a “heart-to-heart,” but a real “get the shit out of your ears” talk.

Most of the senior officers and NCOs headed right for the combat support staff mission planning room, which held a series of computers that would assist them in mission planning. As usual, Patrick headed for the seat behind the master terminal — but he realized he had virtually pushed John Long out of the way. Patrick waited a few heartbeats to see if Long would let “rank have its privileges,” but no chance of that. This was Long’s chance to show what he and the One-Eleventh Strategic Squadron could do, and he was anxious to go. “Sorry about that, John,” Patrick said. He yielded the seat to the One-Eleventh’s operations officer.

“No problem, sir,” Long said, not bothering to disguise a smirk. Following McLanahan’s lead, the HAWC staff officers gave up their seats to the One-Eleventh’s staff members. Long handed him a printout. “Here are the things I’ll need you to work up for us, sir. We’ll have a ‘how d’ya do’ brief in two hours. Let me know if you need any help with that.”

“I can work better at the master console, Major,” Patrick said. But Long had already turned back and logged into the master terminal, ready to start building his flight plan, scheduling refueling and forward basing support, and downloading intelligence data. His flight commanders and support staff logged on as well, and in moments they were all busy entering data and running mission planning checklists.

If the little prick asks me to get coffee for him, Patrick thought as he left to head back to his office, I’m going to have to deck him.

The White House President’s Study

The one good thing about this president, Secretary of Defense Robert Goff remarked to himself, is that he was totally accessible — because he never went anywhere. He was always working in the office, usually in the study adjacent to the Oval Office, except if conducting a small meeting with his staff or greeting visitors. Because he had a very small political machine behind him, he rarely did public appearances or Party fund-raisers. If he had any free moments, they were spent with his wife and children upstairs in the residence. Robert knew enough not to disturb the President when he was meditating, usually at ten A.M. and three P.M., but otherwise President Thorn was working the phones or on his computer, being the chief executive.

Goff sometimes worried about his old friend. He didn’t play golf, didn’t jog, didn’t sail, rarely visited Camp David, didn’t do many of the things other chief executives were noted for doing to relax. His only relief from life in Washington was the occasional weekend visit to his parents’ home in Vermont or his wife’s mother’s home in New Hampshire to see the grandkids. Other presidents were criticized for being “trapped” in the White House by their duties and responsibilities, but Thorn seemed to get his drive and energy from the deluge of meetings, reports, briefings, and decisions he had to deal with every day.

Goff knew he was intruding on the President’s meditation time, but he entered the study anyway and quietly took a seat on his favorite chair in a corner of the room, watching his friend, the most powerful man on planet Earth, in silence. The President sat quietly, hands folded serenely in his lap, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow and even. Goff had gone through the meditation lessons years ago, given by Thomas’s wife, and he had tried to do it twice a day, but that practice had stopped long ago. If he tried very hard, he could remember his mantra. He told Thomas he still kept up with his meditation, and Thomas just smiled and nodded.

Well, Goff thought, maybe Thomas didn’t need to take up golf or jogging or sailing. The President was in extraordinary physical condition, even though as far as Goff knew, he didn’t exercise regularly. Seated there in a white shirt, his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up above his wrists, he looked fit and trim. Bob had once asked Thorn about his lack of exercise, and he had responded by dropping down on the floor in his business suit and doing a handstand, holding his legs out completely horizontal with the floor for fifteen full seconds — first with two hands, then one hand, then three fingers. It was a most impressive display of strength and balance. Thorn claimed that it was part of the Vedic sciences, a harmony of spirit, mind, and body that allowed his body to do anything his mind commanded. He said the possibilities were endless — that was only a small sample of what he could do.

Of course, as a former Special Forces commando, Thorn had already done enough exercise to last twenty men a lifetime — to him, supporting his body with one finger might be child’s play. Goff had a hard time believing any of that New Age yogi crap.

“You ever regret we did this, Bob?” he heard Thorn ask. He hadn’t heard or even noticed the President conclude his meditation.

“Every day,” Goff responded. The President smiled. “You?”

“No,” the President replied gently, and Goff knew that was the truth. The relaxed smile dimmed, replaced by a grim, no-nonsense visage. “Something’s happened? My first sensitive international intelligence crisis?”

Goff had no idea how the President could have guessed this — he had just gotten wind of it himself. “Yes, sir,” Goff said. “Doug Morgan and the Vice President are on their way. It has to do with Project Siren.” Goff knew he never had to back-brief the President on anything they had talked about within the past six to nine months — Thorn had a remarkable ability to recall the details of any discussion or briefing, no matter how informal or routine. He had been briefed on roughly three dozen ongoing intelligence operations inside Russia alone, but he could recall major details about each and every one of them. “She was flushed out of hiding, and the network set up to retrieve her broke down. CIA wants to pull her out immediately. They believe she might have information relating to the recent attack in Albania.”

“Deep inside Russia, near Moscow — Zhukovsky, I believe?” Goff nodded. “Has to be by air, then. They have someone in mind? Delta Force? Air Force Special Ops?”

“Intelligence Support Agency.”

“Which cell?” He then held up a hand. “Madcap Magician, launching out of Turkey.”

“The very one, sir.”

“They need air support?”

Goff was flabbergasted — it was as if the President had already planned this operation in his head, considered all the possible hazards, and had come up with a full set of contingency plans. “They’re requesting specialized stealth air cover.”

“That deep into the heart of Russia, they want counterair, SEAD, antitank, antipersonnel, the works — they want someone from HAWC, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sit down with Doug, Lester, and General Venti, give them the go-ahead,” the President said. “Advise me when the operation is under way.”

“Don’t you want to discuss this with the rest of the Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs, with the congressional leadership?”

“Bob, unless the Constitution’s been rescinded in the past twenty minutes, I am the commander-in-chief,” the President said. “You are my secretary of defense and national security advisor, and the Vice President is my chief of staff. I’m familiar with Project Siren, and I think I have an idea about the difficulties of doing a covert extraction so far inside enemy territory. I am therefore authorizing you to plan the mission with the help of your intelligence and military advisors and get it under way immediately.”

“But … but what about the possibility of something going wrong?” Goff asked. “Are you going to just authorize such a dangerous mission without considering all the dangers and ramifications first?”

“If we had the time, I would. But I presume we don’t have the time to waste. ISA and HAWC are good choices. Get them moving.”

Goff, still stunned, could do nothing else but nod. The President nodded and got back to work on his computer. Goff headed for the door; then he stopped and said, “This could be a very big disaster, Mr. President. Are you sure you don’t want to think about it some more?” Without looking up from his work, the President asked, “You haven’t been keeping up with your meditation, have you, Bob?”

Goff shook his head and chuckled. It was Thorn’s ass on the line, he knew it, and he didn’t seem too perturbed by it. “I’ll get the mission moving immediately, sir.”