Warrior Class

Near Zhukovsky Air Base, Russian Federation

“Nasrat f karman!” one of the hoboes exclaimed as the stranger emerged from the shadows. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

The five hoboes under the bridge slowly rose to their feet as the woman in the jogging suit approached their tiny campfire. Outside, the freezing rain had started again, driven by gradually increasing winds; it would begin snowing soon, and this time they were in for measurable accumulations.

Even in the dim light, the hoboes could tell she was shivering uncontrollably. She may have once looked pretty, but her features were now pale and haggard. Her jogging suit, an expensive imported one, was filthy and encrusted with frozen mud and leaves. “Who might you be, sika?”

“Pamageetye … pamageetye mnye pazahalsta. I … I need help, please,” the woman stammered through chattering, blistered lips. “Please … please help me.”

“A pretty young thing like you?” the biggest hobo, obviously the leader of the group, responded. “Of course, of course. Anything you want.” He stroked a thick, scraggly beard and licked his lips. “But it’ll cost you. Don’t worry, though. It’ll help you warm up.”

Linda Mae Valentrovna Maslyukov brought her right hand up, the one holding the police pistol. “Don’t move, asshole,” she said weakly. The hoboes tensed, staring at the gun in total surprise. “All I want is a blanket and some food. We don’t want any police attention.” Two days in the freezing cold, with no shelter and no warm clothing, had finally taken its toll. She reasoned — probably correctly — that she was better off trying to get help from these hoboes under the bridge than risk being seen at the tavern. It was either die of hypothermia or risk being caught. “Just give me some food and I’ll—”

The piece of driftwood came out of nowhere, landing squarely on the back of her head. Already half-conscious from exposure, Maslyukov collapsed in a heap.

“You huyisos!” the big hobo shouted angrily at the hobo who had been hiding in the shadows and had clubbed Linda from behind. “What did you knock her out for? I’m not going to fuck an unconscious bitch!”

“Well, then I will!” one of the other hoboes chimed in eagerly.

“Uobyvat! Get the fuck out! I get first taste!” the big one said. “You, get over to the highway and flag down a cop. This has got to be the bitch the police have been looking for. Maybe we’ll get a reward for finding her. Take your time.” He bent down, pocketed the pistol, then unzipped the woman’s jogging suit jacket and fondled her breasts. “And someone get me some water and some vodka. Let’s see if we can wake sleeping beauty up and have ourselves a party before the police get here.”

“It’s her, all right,” the police officer said, holding the photograph up to the face. Even though her face was white with cold, streaked with frozen dirt, blood, and mucus, and the hair tangled and twisted, she was recognizable. The officer unzipped the top of her jogging suit, checked her carotid for signs of a pulse. “She’s still alive. Barely.” He then roughly fondled I; her breasts. “Wow. Nice big American breasts.”

“Knock it off, pizdasos,” the first officer’s partner said. “Is i the only way you can cop a

feel with a woman is to find one half frozen to death?” He shined his flashlight over her body, noting the torn pants pulled halfway down her buttocks and the palm prints across her breasts. “Besides, you want any of that after these gavnos pawed her? If she doesn’t die of the cold or of any diseases from these animals, she’ll die of shame once she finds out who touched her.”

They were at the edge of the river, several meters upstream from the bridge abutment where the hoboes lived. They had found the woman facedown in three inches of snow. The first officer shined his flashlight under the river overpass and saw a few faces. “Disgusting pigs. How in hell could you give those animals any money?”

“Shto ty priyibalsa ka mn’e? We’ve been working double shifts for two days trying to find this kurva,” the second officer said. “If they hadn’t come forward, we’d still be working to find her, and you know we’re not going to get paid any overtime. A few rubles is cheap goodwill for handing her over to us alive. If they killed her, I’d make sure they all got their balls handed to them. Now stop copping a feel and call it in. The faster you leave her tits alone and have the MSB collect her, the faster we can go get a drink.” While the first officer pulled out his portable radio to call in their discovery, the second officer searched the woman, then covered her with his coat to keep her from dying of exposure.

“Ambulance and an Interior Ministry unit are on the way,” the first officer reported. “ETA twenty minutes.”

“Christ, she might be dead by then,” the second officer said. “We better take her to the hospital at Zhukovsky.” The two police officers picked her up and had carried her several dozen meters through the brush and rocky riverbank toward their car parked just off the bridge, when they heard the heavy rotor sounds of an approaching helicopter. “Well, they got here fast. We’ll stay put.”

“Sounds like a heavy chopper — must be army,” the first officer said. The helicopter flew out of sight, but they could hear it hover, then land nearby. It did not use any lights for landing — a very remarkable feat, considering the poor weather. A few minutes later, they heard a rustling of branches, but could see no one. “Where in hell are they? What’s taking them so long?”

“I’ll go and—” But just then, their flashlights spotted a figure dressed in what looked like a bulky flight suit or battledress uniform, wearing what looked like a flying helmet. “That looks like the pilot. Where’s his crew? Or is he by himself?” He raised his voice and shouted, “Vi zlidyolye kavoneebood? Are you waiting for someone? Get over here!”

Suddenly, they heard a voice say directly behind them in terrible, electronically synthesized Russian, “Ya plokha gavaryoo parooskee, tovarisch. I don’t speak much Russian, comrade. Neither does my friend over there.” They turned and saw a figure dressed in a dull-gray bodysuit wearing some sort of space-age full-face helmet with bug-eyed electronic sensors.

“Who in hell are you?” the first police officer shouted in Russian.

As if in reply, there was a flash of blue-white light, and bolts of lightning shot out from small electrodes on the figure’s shoulders. The first police officer screamed, stiffened as if he had touched a high-tension wire, and fell flat on his face in the snow, twitching as if every nerve ending in his body was firing uncontrollably.

“Yop tvayu mat!” The second police officer swung his body, flinging his submachine gun hanging on its shoulder strap from behind his back around into his hands, and he fired a three-round burst from his hip from a distance of no more than fifteen feet. At that range, he couldn’t miss … but to his amazement, the stranger didn’t go down, only staggered back a few steps. “Ya nee paneemayoo …?”

“Spakoyniy nochyee, dude,” the stranger said, and he hit the second officer with another bolt of energy. Sparks of electricity leapt from the officer’s body to the gun until the officer finally fell unconscious to the ground.

The stranger quickly bent down to examine Linda Maslyukov. “It’s her, Chris,” he told his partner via short-range datalink. He hefted the woman over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “I’ll take her. You cover us. Make sure our grimy friends behind us don’t try to get too brave.”

“Roger. Follow me,” the second stranger responded, and he headed out back toward where the helicopter had landed.

But they had not gone too far when they heard the sound of several sirens approaching fast. “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into this time, Ollie,” the strangely costumed figure carrying Maslyukov said in an electronically synthesized voice. His helmet-mounted electronic displays showed a two-dimensional depiction of the vehicles, including their speed, direction of travel, and an electronic guess of the vehicle type, based on the strength of the millimeter-wave radar return. “Aces, I’ve got a couple visitors at my three o’clock, three hundred and twenty yards, two inbounds. One armored vehicle, maybe a BTR.”

“Copy, Tin Man,” a voice belonging to Duane Deverill, mission commander of an EB-1C Vampire bomber flying nearby, responded. Seconds later, there was a tremendous explosion, and the armored personnel carrier disappeared in a ball of fire.

“Good shooting, Aces,” Briggs said. “C’mon, Sarge, let’s move.”

“For Pete’s sake, sir,” the strange figure’s partner responded in his microphone with an exasperated voice. The big commando, his face a death’s mask in black and green camouflage makeup beneath his multifunction combat helmet, turned toward his partner, his mouth curled in a sneer. The U.S. Marine Corps veteran looked like some sort of monster beetle — along with the oddly shaped helmet with large electronic “eyes,” the commando wore a battle-dress uniform composed of thin ceramic armor plates, a web harness with several devices and pouches attached to it, and a utility belt with as many computer modules and sensors attached to it as weapons. “It’s Stan, not Ollie. Oliver Hardy would say that to Stan Laurel. And it’s not fine mess, it’s nice mess. ‘Here is another nice mess you’ve gotten me into, Stan.’ You keep on mixing them up like that, sir, and I’ll have to waste you.”

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Hal Briggs, the man carrying Linda Mae Maslyukov, shrugged his shoulders, which only accentuated his very unsoldierlike appearance. While his partner, Marine Corps Master Sergeant Chris Wohl, looked unusual in his insectlike exoskeleton, his commanding officer looked even stranger. Hal Briggs wore a sleek, dark gray body suit resembling a scuba diver’s wet suit, with only a thin backpack, bullet-shaped shoulder-mounted devices, and a utility belt with several small modules attached. His helmet, too, had A large bug-eyed electronic sensors, but it was a full-face helmet that completely sealed the outfit. He-wore all-terrain boots with thick soles and strange extensions on the backs of his calves.

“Stan, Ollie, Sergeant Chris Wohl — they’re all just a bunch of old farts to me,” Briggs quipped. He ignored Wohl’s dark scowl. Through his electronic visor, he could see the exfiltration helicopter in the distance. “Follow me.” Staying close to whatever cover he could find, but not really bothering to use proper cover techniques, Hal Briggs dashed off in the direction indicated on his visor’s navigation display. Wohl followed closely behind, taking a bit more care to keep himself concealed but not wanting to lag behind.

Air Force Major John “Trash Man” Weston swore he could feel the heat from the exploding Russian armored personnel carrier through the cockpit of his MV-22 Pave Hammer special operations transport, even though he was a couple miles away from where the vehicle suddenly exploded, at night, in the dead of an eastern European winter. “Check in, Tin Man,” Weston radioed. “Was that explosion yours?”

“We’re on our way, Hammer,” Briggs radioed back. “That was our guardian angel helping out. Our ETA two minutes.”

Weston and his six-man crew were part of a team called “Madcap Magician,” a secret cell of the Intelligence Support Agency. The ISA was composed of a series of such cells, unknown to each other, deployed all over the world to assist the CIA in high-value rescues, high-risk attacks, reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering, or other missions considered too “hot” for field operatives and too politically sensitive for the military.

This was by far the riskiest operation Weston’s crew had ever flown as special ops crews: deploy from the U.S. Special Operations Command detachment based at Batman Air Base in eastern Turkey across the Black Sea and the Republic of Ukraine, refuel at low level with an MC-130P aerial refueling tanker over eastern Ukraine near Char’kov, then fly another five hundred miles across southwestem Russia to the outskirts of Moscow itself.

But that twelve-hundred-mile trip was only the beginning of Weston’s extraordinary mission. Dodging civilian and military air defense radar coverage around Moscow and Zhukovsky, Air Base, Weston and his crew had to search four different contact points around Zhukovsky Air Base, looking for a single agent who was probably in hiding. The MV-22’s infrared scanner was the primary search sensor; if the sensor showed any individuals in the area, Weston would drop off Briggs and Wohl, who would search the area near each contact point for the agent. They had less than an hour loiter time to find her before fuel would run low and they’d be forced to return to the MC-130P Hercules tanker flying in northeastern Ukraine to refuel. They had enough daylight for only two such searches before they’d have to return to Batman Air Base before sunrise.

Their only advantage: they knew that the agent would be at one of those four contact points.

The thirty-two year-old aircraft commander, married and father of two, had been briefed on the importance and dangers of this mission, but he had volunteered anyway. As shitty as he felt his job was sometimes, being a spy for the United States government had to be an even shittier job. If he had the skills to attempt to save this spy’s life, he had an obligation to use them. And with the MV-22E Pave Hammer I special operations transport, he definitely had the gear to do the job. The MV-22E was modified with more powerful engines and stronger wings for low-level flying; an air refueling probe for extended range; rugged landing gear for landing on unimproved surfaces; ultraprecise satellite and inertial navigation systems, night vision, forward-looking infrared scanners, and terrain- and obstacle-avoidance radar for treetop-level flying in any weather, day or night; and threat countermeasures equipment such as radar jammers, radar warning receivers, and decoys to protect the crew from hostile antiaircraft fire.

Of course, Weston would never ask his family the question about whether or not he should go. His wife was especially accustomed to the bliss of ignorance that surrounded her husband’s job. The ISA deployed year-round to every corner of the globe. The wives and families never knew any details. The cell’s rotation came up, they were gone, and sometime later — days, weeks, months later — they would return. The families watched the news and speculated about whether their husbands or wives were involved in that particular crisis, but they never knew for sure. The only indications that they might have been involved in something horrible were the faraway stares and wandering attention at the dinner table.

Sometimes, they didn’t come back. Instead of reunions with loved ones, there were condolences, tears, and a flag folded up into a triangle. If they were lucky, they got the body back. Even then, no explanations. Never any explanations.

Quite unabashedly, Weston believed one other thing: the ISA picked the right guy for the job. John Weston, an ROTC cadet and high school chess champion from Springfield, Illinois, was pretty much a book-loving stay-at-home-with-the-kids ex-farm boy nerd most of the time, but he did have one quality absolutely no one disputed: he could make an MV-22 Pave Hammer transport plane dance.

Right now, however, he wasn’t sure if all the dancing in the world could get them out of this mess. “How’s it look, Flex?” Weston asked.

“Like shit, boss,” Master Sergeant Ed “Flex” Fratierie, the senior loadmaster, responded. The big amateur bodybuilder and Air Force special ops veteran was standing in the port-side doorway of the MV-22, strapped to the interior of the fuselage with a safety harness and wearing night-vision goggles. “I don’t see Tin Man. But I do see more heavy military vehicles coming down the road. ETA about five minutes.”

“Tin Man, Hammer, we’ve got company,” Weston radioed. “Four minutes out. Better hustle.”

“Exfils inbound from the southeast and east, crew,” Fratierie radioed on the secure intercom channel, watching Briggs and Wohl through his NVGs. “Identity confirmed.”

“Security out!” Weston ordered. Fratierie directed his three commandos to deploy around the MV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor as guards during the evacuation. “Get ready to—”

“Heavy weapons fire west!” one loadmaster shouted. “Coming from one of the inbound vehicles. Range four klicks!”

“Aces will be coming in hot in twenty seconds,” Deverill reported. “Can you catch him, Tin Man?”

“Roger,” Chris Wohl responded. “I need a range and bearing to the inbound, sir.”

Hal Briggs stopped, then turned to the west and scanned the area with his helmet-mounted sensors. He pointed away down the highway. “Three point five K meters, Stan,” he radioed. “Fast-moving, big — might be a wheeled APC.”

“Finally got it right, sir,” Wohl said. He raised a large weapon that resembled a cross between an M60 machine gun and a ray gun, sighted through a large electronic multispectral scope, aimed, and fired toward the highway. A hypervelocity projectile about the size of a cigar, but traveling five times faster than a bullet, hissed out of the weapon’s muzzle with a sound resembling a loud buzzing cough. There was no recoil — the same electromagnetic impulses that sent the projectile on its way also dampened out the tremendous recoil.

Exactly three thousand and seventeen yards away, the depleted uranium hypervelocity railgun projectile shot through a half-inch of steel plating on a Russian BTR-27 wheeled armored command post vehicle racing down the highway, proceeded unimpeded through the six-hundred-horsepower diesel engine, through the fuel tank, out the back end, and into the engine compartment of a police car traveling fifty yards behind the BTR, before it finally stopped. The BTR’s engine exploded, then the diesel fuel exploded. The police car was knocked sideways into the ditch as if it were a toy.

Wohl continued to scan the area with his electronic scope. “I’ve got infantry moving in,” he reported. “Three klicks out. They might be setting up a mortar or getting ready to shoot in grenades. We better move.”

“Pop smoke, pop smoke!” Weston ordered. Soon, thick clouds of gray infrared-blocking smoke wafted across the windscreen, covering every direction except the one in which they intended to take off. Hopefully the smoke would make it a bit more difficult for the mortar crews to range in on them. Union, Weston breathed, c’mon, hurry!

“More mortar fire! Incoming!” That time, Weston felt the explosion rattle his plane’s fuselage, clumps of dirt, snow, and tarmac pinging off his props and fuselage. Despite the clouds of smoke swirling around the plane, the rounds were being quickly, expertly walked in. Another one or two rounds, and they’d have their range. Weston could almost feel the bad guys loading that deadly round into the tube, letting it slide down, hearing its ballistic charges light off with a loud KA-BLAM! The MV-22 rocked on its wheels, and two engines coughed and rattled as the overpressure from a large explosion forced air backward through the turbine engines.

But as he watched, one by one, Fratierie saw the oncoming Russian military vehicles blasted apart by some unseen force. The last to die caused a tremendous explosion as its magazine of antivehicle mortars was hit and detonated. But the nonmilitary vehicles — a police car and a second ambulance — were untouched.

“What was that?” Weston shouted on the secure intercom. “Sing out!”

“Looks like our guardian angel took care of our newcomers,” one of his loadmasters responded. “Lots of secondaries. Road’s clear right now except for a police cruiser and an ambulance.”

Good shooting by someone out there, Weston thought. The driving rain and winds were dissipating the cover smoke quickly-there was no more time to waste. “How long until our exfils get on board?”

“All exfils under the tail. Wounded coming aboard.”

“Roger.” Weston revved the throttle, starting to feed in takeoff torque. “Security, pull in. Let’s get the hell out of here!”

The loadmasters acting as security forces started pulling back toward the plane — when suddenly they stopped, then dove for the ground. Weston couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the engines until the last moment. It was the scream of an inbound mortar round. And as he looked on helplessly, one of his loadmasters disappeared in a blinding flash of light and an earsplitting explosion, just thirty yards from the plane.

“Jesus! “ the copilot shouted. “Candy got hit! Triggerman, Flex, check east, see if you can help Candy!”

“Negative,” Weston interjected, his words acidity in his throat. It was the hardest decision he had ever had to make, but one he made without any hesitation. “Candy took a direct hit. Get in the plane. Let’s go.”

“Cap, we can’t leave our men behind—”

“We don’t have any choice,” Weston said. “Security, pull in, now. Flex, where did that mortar come from?”

“More inbound from the north on the other side of the river,” Fratierie responded. “Can’t pinpoint their location, but the round came from the north, probably the other side of the bridge. Aces, Aces, can you see the newcomers north of our position?”

“Flex, give me a countdown for when everyone’s on board.”

“Twenty seconds, Cap … fifteen … ten seconds … cargo ramp’s moving, everyone on board! Go! Go!”

Weston poured in power right to the redline, and the MV-22 lifted off. He thumbed the nacelle control knob, which rotated the engine nacelles downward a few degrees, increasing their forward speed. As their forward speed increased, the MV-22’s wings produced more lift, but because Weston held the nose down and kept the tilt-rotor aircraft at treetop level, speed increased dramatically. As speed increased more, Weston eventually rotated the nacelles to full horizontal position, changing the Pave Hammer from helicopter to airplane mode. He activated the terrain-following radar and low-light TV sensors so he could see and avoid all terrain and obstacles outside in the darkness.

“Holy shit, we made it,” the copilot breathed. “I thought we’d never—”

At that instant, the threat-warning receiver in the cockpit emitted a shrill DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! tone, an A symbol appeared near the top of the display, and an instant later the electronic warfare officer shouted, “Radar-guided triple A, four o’clock, break left now!” A ripple of antiaircraft fire erupted just to the right of the nose, tracers sweeping in their direction. Weston banked hard left, but not quickly enough. The twenty-three-millimeter shells of a mobile ZSU-23-2 antiaircraft artillery unit belonging to the Russian Federation Air Force’s Troops of Air Defense detachment based at Zhukovsky Air Base ripped into the MV-22’s forward fuselage. The force of the big shells piercing the plane’s belly and hitting the copilot’s body nearly pushed him right out of his seat and made him look as if he was trying to stand up and turn around to escape his bloody fate. Weston heard sounds of explosions, popping, and snapping of electrical circuits behind him; most of the electronic readouts and multifunction displays on the forward instrument panel extinguished, and a thin layer of blue electrical smoke filled the cabin. There was a loud squeal in the intercom, and Weston had to rip his helmet off because he couldn’t shut it off. The cabin instantly got fifty degrees colder, with swirls of icy, rainy air penetrating the cabin. Ice immediately began to form on the windshield on the inside — soon it would ice over completely.

Weston pulled his copilot’s shredded body off the center throttle quadrant, his shaking right hand and arm instantly covered in blood up to his shoulder. “Oh shit,” he exclaimed. “Flex! Give me a hand! Help me!” The senior jumpmaster rushed forward, unstrapped the copilot from his seat, and laid him on the deck. It seemed as if blood covered every square inch of the cockpit. “Flex, get in the right seat, help me keep this thing level. We’re all blasted to hell.” He kept the nose down, but the airspeed was steadily decreasing, and the vibration coming from the right wing was getting worse. “Check the gauges, Flex. What else did I lose?”

“Fluctuating prop RPMs on the right,” the jumpmaster said. Weston pulled some power back to try to dampen the vibrations, but it had no effect. “Looks like a bunch of gauges for the right engine are oscillating. Vibration is getting worse, too.”

“Shit. I’m going to shut down number two.” Weston switched the MV-22’s transmission system so that both rotors were being powered by the left engine, isolated the right engine’s electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic systems, then quickly shut off fuel to the right engine to shut it down. “Airspeed’s dropped off about forty knots,” he said, “but I’ve got control. Vibration has decreased a bit.” He knew that was being very, very optimistic. “Any more damage?”

“We got a bunch of c/b’s that won’t reset, and a blown fuse light on the number three inverter and current limiter,” the jumpmaster reported. “Where’s the current limiter fuse?”

“Not accessible inflight,” Weston replied. “Let’s start shedding electrical loads and setting up the electrical panel for single-inverter operation. Crap, what else could go wr—?”

Suddenly, it was as if the entire horizon ahead of them erupted into sheets of blazing gunfire. The plane had inadvertently drifted right over toward Zhukovsky Air Base, and almost every antiaircraft artillery piece on the base opened fire on them. Weston immediately banked hard left to try to get away, but there was gunfire in every direction. The arcs of glowing tracer rounds got closer and closer every second. Just then, a searchlight popped on, and in a few seconds it had locked directly on them.

Time to die, Weston thought. No ejection seats, and not enough parachutes for everyone. His only chance was to try a forced landing, but if those triple-A units got a clean shot at them, there wouldn’t be enough of the plane left to land. Weston thought of his family, thought about the service his kids would have to attend, thought about …

Just then there were several sharp flashes of light, one after another, illuminating the cockpit like dozens of flashbulbs popping one after another. So this was what it was like, Weston thought, to take a direct triple-A hit? This was what it was like to die….

“God almighty,” the crew mission commander, Nevada Air National Guard Major Duane “Dev” Deverill muttered. “That was the definition of a wrong turn. Either Trash Man is lost, or he’s just plain stupid.”

From twenty miles east of Zhukovsky, Deverill and his aircraft commander, Nevada Air National Guard Captain Annie Dewey, orbited above the hellish nightmare aboard an EB-1C Megafortress II bomber. They had watched the entire episode from high above, well above antiaircraft artillery range, using the Megafortress’s LADAR, or Laser Radar, to paint a three-dimensional image of the MV-22’s entire approach and escape. The LADAR also imaged and targeted the positions of some of the advancing Russian forces.

“Is the MV-22 still airborne?” Annie asked.

“Yep,” Duane responded. “The Longhorn got to him just in time. Bombers save the day again.” Deverill had released an AGM-89D Longhorn Maverick precision-guided missile when they saw the MV-22 drifting over toward Zhukovsky, and it had scored a direct hit on the antiaircraft artillery site that was about to open fire on them. The Longhorn missile, an upgrade of the venerable AGM-89 Maverick missile, was fitted with an imaging-infrared seeker and a millimeter-wave radar that could detect and home in on vehicles as small as an automobile. It had a range of over thirty miles and was big enough to destroy a main battle tank or penetrate five feet of reinforced concrete. Along with a rotary launcher of eight Longhorn missiles in the center bomb bay and an extended fuel tank in the aft bomb bay, the Vampire also carried a rotary launcher with eight special air-to-air missiles in the forward bomb bay.

“Give ‘em a break, Dev,” Annie said. “It looked like they caught some triple-A back there after they lifted off. Maybe they’re badly damaged.”.

Duane snorted, politely conceding the point. “You’re right, Heels. I’d hate to think they just plain screwed up.”

Annie looked over at Deverill and studied him for a moment. How, she thought, could a guy so damned cute be so damned insensitive?

Annie couldn’t help being drawn to him, despite his cocky, confident, self-indulgent attitude. If he wasn’t so popular and highly qualified, he would be the biggest asshole on base. But he really knew his shit and he contributed a lot to the 111th Bomb Wing “Aces High” and to his fellow crewdogs.

“I think he’s in trouble,” Annie said after studying Dev’s large multifunction display as it plotted the MV-22’s position. “We need to help him.”

“You know we’re not allowed to do that,” Deverill said. We’re not supposed to be here, remember? We’re ghosts.”

“Ghosts who launched cruise missiles against a country that we’re not at war with,” Annie pointed out.

“Hey, Heels, you’re preaching to the choir,” Duane said. “I’d be just as happy planting a few sticks of cluster bombs on the Russians any day. But the plan was not to descend below fifteen thousand feet or risk revealing our position in any way. If the world found out the U.S. had sent us to fly air cover for an extraction of an American spy inside Russia, it could ruin relations with everybody. Longhorns from high altitude, yes. But if we get ourselves shot down by a lucky Russian gunner with itchy trigger fingers, we violate orders and the U.S. of A. gets egg all over its face.”

“Ask me if I care,” Annie said. She switched to a prebriefed tactical channel and keyed her mike switch: “Hammer, Hammer, this is Terminator on red four. How copy?” No response. She tried several times and thought she heard a scratchy carrier tone, as if someone was keying a mike switch in response but no voice was going out. “I think that’s him, but there’s something wrong. He might have serious battle damage. We’ve got to do a rejoin on him, get a look at him, and if necessary lead him home.”

“A B-1 bomber flying formation with a MV-22 tilt-rotor? It’s kinda like the Great Dane wanting to screw the Chihuahua, isn’t it?”

“Dev, I’m not going to sit up here and watch that Pave Hammer flight get chewed up by triple-A with guys I know on board,” Annie said resolutely. She paddled off the autopilot that was holding them in their cover orbit. “Get ready to do a rejoin on that MV-22.”

“Heels, think about that first for a sec, dammit,” Deverill said earnestly. Annie glared angrily at her mission commander, but when she did, she realized that he wasn’t giving her an order, just a suggestion. Annie sensed no fear in his voice, only concern that her brave efforts weren’t going to do any good. He nodded toward the God’s-eye display. “He’s at six hundred feet going only two hundred knots. To match him we’ll have to sweep the wings forward and deploy flaps and slats, and we won’t be stealthy anymore. That also means we can’t release weapons and won’t be able to use the electronic countermeasures stuff, except maybe for the towed decoy, which we might as well not use at that point, because our radar cross-section will obliterate the decoy. We’ll be just as vulnerable as the MV-22, maybe even more so. At that speed and altitude, we’ll be burning fuel like crazy, and we don’t have a tanker scheduled to come in over the Black Sea. We may not make it out of the region. We’d have to abort to a base in Turkey.”

Annie looked at her mission commander, anger burning in her eyes — but not anger toward him. He was right, of course. She hadn’t considered any of those facts, and that made her angrier still — with herself. Annie Dewey prided herself on developing all the skills and knowledge necessary as an aircraft commander, and first on the list of skills had to be analyzing facts and proper decision-making. She wasn’t demonstrating much of that right now.

“I hear what you’re saying, Dev,” Annie said, “and I agree with all your concerns. Every one of them. But it doesn’t matter. I want to go down there anyway.”

Deverill’s face looked grim, but he nodded, slowly. She felt that he would go along, but she didn’t know if he was one hundred percent behind her, and that was important to her. Annie was quiet for a moment; then, without keying a microphone button, she spoke: “Genesis, this is Terminator … Terminator to Genesis.”

A moment later, they heard, “Go ahead, Annie. We’re secure.”

“General, you been watching our situation?”

“Affirmative,” Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson replied. He was talking to Annie via the satellite-based microtransceiver “installed” into every member of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. With the tiny beneath-the- skin transceiver, they could speak with each other anytime, anywhere. “Stand by one.” They heard Samson say, “Genesis to Tin Man. How do you hear, Hal?”

“I hear you now, sir,” Hal Briggs responded. Hal Briggs and Chris Wohl had the same kind of subcutaneous microtransceivers as everyone else at HAWC. “We’re in deep shit here. The plane’s pretty shot up and the copilot is dead. Looks like Trash Man lost all his cockpit displays. We need help right now or Trash Man’s liable to fly us over another ack-ack site.”

“Stand by, Hal, I’ll patch in Annie and Duane. Patch in Dewey and Deverill…. Annie, Duane, this is Samson. How copy?”

“Loud and clear, General,” Deverill said, his eyes wide with wonder. Deverill had been one of the first members of the Nevada Air National Guard’s 111th Bomb Squadron to get the subcutaneous transceiver, a tribute to his skills as a bombardier and instructor. But the technology astounded him. It was as if Samson was talking to him over the ship’s intercom. Deverill knew that they could patch a hundred others into their conversation; they could track their location, monitor their physiological status, and exchange data via small handheld computers.

“Hammer has taken casualties and severe battle damage. What do you have in mind?”

“A rejoin, using LADAR, and hope we can get within visual range.”

There was a long pause, then: “The latest satellite weather observation shows very poor weather. Definitely not ideal conditions. What’s your visibility? Any chance you’ll get a visual within a half-mile?”

“Pretty unlikely.”

“Then a rejoin is not authorized.”

“Boss, if we don’t help that flight, they’re liable to get shot down right over the rebel position,” Annie said. “The Russians might not enjoy the idea of an American special operations plane crash-landing over them — unless they shoot them down, of course.”

“And they’d be even angrier if they found out the United States was flying a stealth warplane over them,” Samson said. “Operation not approved. Maintain altitude, continue to attempt to establish radio contact, and interdict any enemy opposition to the maximum extent possible. Do not attempt a rejoin.”

“Sir, with the laser radar, we can close to within a quarter-mile easily — we’ve done it before,” Deverill said. “At least let us give it a try. If we don’t have contact within a half-mile, we’ll abort.”

“And I should be able to help with my sensors,” Briggs said. The electronic suit of armor he wore also included sophisticated infrared and radar sensors, good to ranges as far as three miles.

There was another lengthy pause, then: “Very well. Operation approved,” Samson said. “If no contact within a half-mile, abort and return to patrol altitude.”

“Thanks, boss,” Annie said. She turned to Duane and said, “Thanks for the support, Dev. I’ll only do it if you’re with me.”

Duane looked at Annie with a touch of concern — then that ever-present, cocky, Cheshire-cat smile crossed his face. “I’m with you, Heels,” he said. “I will always be with you.” Annie felt her face flush with embarrassment, and she thanked the stars he couldn’t see her pleased smile behind her oxygen mask. “Let’s go and show those Madcap Magician pukes the way home.”

“I heard that,” Briggs interjected.

“Then let’s do it, Dev,” she said.

“I’m right here with you, Heels,” Deverill said, with a smile, as he fastened his oxygen mask in place and lowered his clear visor. “Show me some of your bad-ass pilot moves.”

Annie was happy to comply. She swept the wings full aft, rolled inverted, and dove for the ground, losing fourteen thousand feet in the blink of an eye. When they rolled wings-level, they were only five miles in trail from the MV-22 and closing quickly. Meanwhile, Deverill had punched up the laser radar and had the MV-22 Pave Hammer aircraft locked on with ease. All the Vampire crew had to do was lower their electronic helmet visors, and they saw a virtual three-dimensional image of the MV-22 and showed its location when they looked in its direction, with tiny arrows showing which way to look for the target. Annie flew the rejoin as if she could see the aircraft through the clouds and darkness.

“Stand by, Hammer,” Annie Dewey said. “We’re moving in.”

“Rog,” Briggs replied. He had changed seats with Fratierie and was now in the copilot’s seat, scanning the sky out the right-side cockpit windows with his suit’s sensors. “Come on down.”

“Stand by on towed arrays and countermeasures, Dev.” He swallowed hard, watching the laser radar display intently. Inside three miles, Annie announced, “Okay, Dev, let’s dirty her up.

“Go for it,” her mission commander said. “Towed decoy retracted, transmitters and countermeasures in standby. Ready.” Their threat warning receivers still showed antiaircraft artillery sites and search radars in the vicinity, but none aimed in their direction. “I gotta tell you, Heels, I feel naked up here.”

“Me, too,” Annie admitted.

“Nah. That’s only me undressing you with my eyes.”

“Har har,” Annie shot back — but he sounded truthful about that, and it made her smile again.

Annie slowed the plane to two hundred and fifty knots, swept the wings full forward, lowered flaps and slats to the approach setting. One hundred and sixty knots. It was still too fast, so Annie lowered the flaps to the next notch. The Vampire automatically settled into its before-landing nose-high attitude. It was a little weird flying with the deck angled up so sharply, flying next to another aircraft that was flying straight and level.

The LADAR showed the MV-22 in startling detail-including the shut-down engine, which showed blue-cold in their sensors, and the antiaircraft artillery damage it sustained. “Holy crap,” she exclaimed. “They got blasted all to hell. They got the right engine shut down, but the prop’s not feathered. The right side got all shot up.”

“Visibility looks like it’s less than a half-mile up here,” Deverill said. “If we got any chance of doing this, we gotta get within visual range.” Just then, the threat warning receiver emitted a slow DEEDLE … DEEDLE… DEEDLE tone. “Soviet-made triple-A, probably a ZSU-23A, ten o’clock, range about ten miles. We’re flying right into its lethal range. You gotta get him turned around in the next two minutes or we’ll both be Swiss cheese.”

“Oh, hell,” Annie murmured. She dipped the nose and quickly scooted under the MV-22 to put herself between it and the triple-A site, and to put Deverill on the same side as the MV-22 so he could try to communicate with them while she flew the plane. She pulled off another notch of power and eased the big EB-1C flying battleship closer to the stricken turboprop. She had to fly formation cross-cockpit, looking through Dev’s windows, but with the orange and yellow virtual 3-D image hovering in front of her eyes, it was as if she could look right through Dev’s body and through the clouds and darkness and watch the big MV-22 transport move closer and closer. “Where’d you guys go?” Briggs asked.

“I moved over to your left side, Hammer,” Annie said. “We’ve got a triple-A site ahead. John, you’re going to have to get a good visual on us real quick.”

“Copy, Heels,” Weston replied. Unlike the others, he couldn’t see a thing outside the windows except darkness, interrupted occasionally by flashes of antiaircraft artillery fire. Duane fished through his pubs bag stuffed into the cubby beside his seat and produced a three-cell flashlight. “My Kmart special,” he quipped. “I hope I remembered to change the damn batteries.” They worked the first time, and he shone the thin beam out the cockpit window.

Normally the beam was bright enough to inspect the deepest, darkest, tallest wheel wells of the EB-1C bomber even during the darkest preflight, but now it barely seemed to reach out to the Vampire’s wingtips. “Looks like we got some ice forming on the wings,” Deverill said. “About a half-inch right now.” He looked over to be sure the bleed air anti-ice system was activated. Normally they wouldn’t fly in conditions like this for very long-the B-1 bomber was very susceptible to ice accumulation and had terrible flight conditions with even a small load. “Any sign of the MV-22?”

“Nope,” Deverill said. He could “see” it through the electronic visor, but if he couldn’t see it visually, the MV-22 crew couldn’t see them. “I’ve got you at half a mile, Heels.”

“I’m not stopping, Dev.”

“You don’t hear me arguing, do you? Keep it coming.”

“Terminator, this is Genesis,” Samson’s ethereal voice emerged from thin air. “Genesis to Terminator. Status check.”

“We’re at one-half mile, General,” Deverill reported. “No contact.”

“We have you and the MV-22 on JTIDS,” Samson reminded them. JTIDS, or Joint Tactical Information Distribution System, allowed many different users to share information with each other. When the Vampire’s laser radar locked on to the MV-22 transport, its position was instantly relayed via JTIDS to all authorized users, including General Samson. He could clearly see that they had moved closer than one-half mile. “If you don’t have a visual, cancel the rejoin and move back up to patrol altitude.”

“General, you saw the Zeus-23-4 site up ahead,” Deverill said. “The MV’s headed right for it. We’ve got a chance to get him turned around-we’re going for it.”

“All the more reason to get the hell out of there,” Samson said. “Climb out, nail that Zeus site, and try a rejoin again when the visibility improves. Do it.”

“We’re only going to get one shot at this, sir,” Annie said hesitantly.

“I copy that, Annie, but I can’t risk both of you,” Samson said. “Abort and climb out. That’s an order.”

Annie swore under her breath, then suddenly cobbed the throttles to full afterburner. As soon as she reached two hundred knots, she started raising flaps and slats and swept the wings to the climb setting. “Dev, nail that Zeus-23!” she shouted.

“Crap, we’re losing our ticket home,” Weston swore. The roar of the EB-1’s afterburners rattled the cockpit windows, and the long tongue of flame from the four afterburners lit up the cockpit as if they overflew a searchlight. They could see nothing else except the four bright shafts of fire; then, seconds later, darkness again. They could smell the jet fuel and feel the heat of that very close encounter. “We’re deaf, dumb, and blind up here,” Weston said, hoping that stating the obvious could help them plan a way out. If they couldn’t rejoin, Weston, his crew, his passenger, and his aircraft would probably never make it home.

“I got it, Heels,” Deverill said. With the plane no longer in automatic takeoff-and-land mode, he was able to program the attack computer again. He selected another Longhorn missile, slaved its autopilot to the coordinates of the antiaircraft artillery site, and programmed a launch. Deverill watched as the radar-enhanced infrared image of the tanklike mobile antiaircraft gun unit got bigger and bigger on his large multifunction display. From only five miles away, the kill came fast. The Longhorn’s millimeter-wave radar locked on to the center of mass of the ZSU-23/4 and killed it in seconds.

But they weren’t out of the woods yet. “Another triple-A just popped up,” Duane said. “Eleven o’clock, ten miles. Must be part of the same regiment. We should … wait, another popup threat. SA-6, twelve o’clock, twelve miles. They must’ve seen their buddy go up in smoke, and now they’re hunting for us. We’re bracketed. I think we just highlighted the MV-22. They can’t see us, but they can see him.”

“Great. We just signed his death warrant,” Annie said. She cut the afterburners and started an orbit around the MV-22. “The only chance we got is to get him to do a one-eighty, and then tag all those antiaircraft sites.”

“I’m on it,” Duane said. His fingers flew over the attack computer controls, trackball, and touchscreens, designating targets and programming the missiles for launch. As they completed their orbit, the attack computers opened the middle bomb bay doors and spit a Longhorn missile into space. “Stand by for multiple missile launches.”

But their luck began to run out. The Longhorn missiles did have one major flaw: their big rocket engines, which ignited seconds after release, highlighted the launch aircraft like a bright neon sign. The other antiaircraft sites wised up and started moving to another firing location. Every time they launched another Longhorn missile, several ripples of 23-millimeter cannon fire streamed in their direction, and Annie was forced to dodge and jink away. It was a valiant effort, but it didn’t work. The AGM-89 Longhorn missile was able to lock onto a target once in flight, but without guidance corrections from the bombardier, its hit percentage decreased markedly. Deverill simply could not juggle six Longhorn missiles in the air at one time. After one orbit, there was still a ZSU-23/4 unit operational. “All missiles expended,” Deverill said breathlessly. “Triple-A still active, eleven o’clock, range indefinite. Sorry, Annie.”

“I’m not going to let that MV-22 get shot down,” Annie said.

“Terminator, this is Genesis,” Samson tried. “We show all air-to-ground weapons expended. You’re done for the night. Return to the refueling anchor.”

“Deactivate voice link,” Annie ordered to the satellite voice server.

“He can override,” Deverill reminded her. “You can’t shut off the general.”

“Just give me a heading and altitude on Hammer,” Annie said. “I’ll give it one more shot.”

“You’re going to ignore Samson? He’ll eat you for breakfast.”

“Do I gotta do it myself, Dev? Give me a damned vector to the MV-22.” Deverill shook his head, gave Annie a heading, altitude, airspeed, and range to the MV-22 Pave Hammer, then fell silent.

If it was possible, the weather had gotten worse — now, along with the structural ice, darkness, and poor visibility, they encountered strong, choppy turbulence. A few times, the turbulence was so bad they thought they had been hit by antiaircraft fire. In addition, the MV-22 was in. a slight turn. At first it was in a good direction — northwest, away from the advancing Russian army — but the turn kept on coming, and now they were headed back the way they came, toward the oncoming forces.

Again, Annie began her rejoin on the MV-22. She lowered flaps right to the landing position to slow down and stabilize faster. But it was obvious after only a few moments that it was not going to be any easier — the pounding caused by the turbulence was getting worse by the minute. “Damn it, I can’t do it,” Annie said. “The turbulence is too strong. I’m getting a cramp in my hand.”

“You’ve come this far, Annie. Keep it coming. Relax your grip on the stick.”

“I can’t do this, Dev—”

“Heels, just shut up and move it in,” Deverill said. “Nice and easy, but keep it coming. We’ve got about ninety seconds before we get within lethal range of that Zeus-23.”

Annie nudged the EB-1 closer, closer… “Three thousand feet … twenty-five hundred … good closure, two thousand … fifteen hundred …” But suddenly the MV-22 hit some turbulence and yawed hard left. Annie yanked the control stick left, avoiding a collision by just a few dozen yards. Annie had no choice but to bank away hard, back out to three-quarters of a mile.

“Why are they turning left?” Annie exclaimed, her voice strained and hoarse. “Don’t they realize they’re about to get their butts shot off?”

“Never mind, Annie,” Deverill coached. “Ease it back over. You can do it. Four thousand feet … c’mon, Annie, time’s a-wastin’, get it over there … whoa, whoa, a little too fast, two thousand … good correction, fifteen hundred … one thousand … good, five hundred feet … slide ‘er over a hair more…” He scanned the sky with the flashlight, aiming it where the electronic image said the cockpit was. “Trash Man’s probably got all his attention on his gauges, trying to keep himself upright. C’mon, you guys, look up, look up!”

“Crap, crap, crap, “ Weston swore to himself. The primary electronic artificial horizon had gone out when the triple-A guns got them, and now the backup gyroscopic artificial horizon was starting to look wobbly. He glanced over at the pneumatic pressure gauge and saw it was two dots below the green arc — the backup gyro instruments would probably go out very soon. When that happened, he’d have to rely on the electric turn and bank indicator, the pitot-static altimeter and vertical velocity indicator, and the backup “whiskey” compass — instrument flying at its most basic.

He knew he was in serious trouble. It would take all his skills to keep the big plane upright now. Any distraction, any emergency, any attack now that diverted his attention away from flying the aircraft, might send them into an unrecoverable death-spiral right into the ground. Weston tried to relax his grip on the controls, tried to loosen up.

“Where are you guys?” Briggs asked, frantically searching out the cockpit windows. “My pilot’s getting pretty antsy, and so’s his gauges.”

“At your nine o’clock, less than a half-mile,” Deverill replied. “Coming in fast.”

At that instant, Weston saw it-it looked like a flashlight beam, as if shining through a thick fog. Weston’s eyes darted back and forth, from window to instruments. He then had to scramble to stop a steeper-than-anticipated left bank. Shit, that came out of nowhere! An instantaneous distraction was all it took to start a violent maneuver. Weston quickly realized he couldn’t keep that up any longer — the plane was drifting farther and farther off course every time he looked out the window.

Suddenly he saw it, flying just below and to their left, less than a football field’s distance away. How in the world they’d avoided a collision, Weston couldn’t figure. “Tally-ho! Tallyho!” Weston crowed. “Got you in sight!”

“There it is!” Deverill crowed. “You see it, Heels?”

“Tally-ho!” Annie responded happily. Sure in hell, it’d worked. Her attitude changed instantly. Before she’d had visual contact, all she could think about was how to stay away from the MV-22. Now that she had visual contact, she wasn’t going to lose sight of him again, even if Deverill had to open the window so they could hold hands together. “I got you now, sucker.”

Her flying instincts and skills kicked in immediately. Seconds earlier, five hundred feet apart in the soup was too close — now fifty feet didn’t seem unreasonable at all. She smoothly, expertly tucked herself right underneath the pilot’s window — fortunately, the EB-1’s high angle of attack, with its nose sticking high above the horizon, helped Annie to get closer than she ever thought she could do.

Just then, a shrill warbling DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! warning tone sounded, followed by a AAA THREAT light on the threat warning display. “Triple-A, ten o’clock, inside lethal range!” Deverill shouted. And then the shells came, bright yellow pops of light slicing upward through the darkness. Duane knew that for every flash of light he saw, there were ten others zipping around with it. The snake of shells swung hard in their direction. They were too close to turn in either direction — there was no way out.

Deverill shouted, “Vertical jinks!” But it was too late. Dewey and Deverill heard what sounded like a rapid, heavy drumming on the left wing, followed by a heavy vibration emanating from the left wing and tail. The MASTER CAUTION light and several yellow warning lights illuminated on both sides. “Fuel malfunction … configuration warning … flight control warning,” Deverill said. “Looks like they shot the hell out of our left wing and tail section—” At that moment, the first red light on the warning panel illuminated. “Oh, crap, number-one hydraulic hot warning light.”

“Annie, this is Dave,” a disembodied voice announced. It was Colonel David Luger, seated in the “virtual cockpit” of the EB-1C Vampire bomber back at Elliott Air Force Base, which allowed several crew members and support personnel to remotely monitor the aircraft during its mission. “Annie, I’m going to shut down your number-one primary and secondary hydraulic systems before they seize and put the entire system into isolate mode. I’ve also sent a test signal to your left flap and slat actuators, spoiler group, and adaptive wing actuators, and there’s no response, so it looks like you lost all your left-side-wing flight controls. The rudder actuator seems okay, so you still have limited turn control via the rudder. Copy all?”

“We copy,” Annie said. “We’ve got a pretty good vibration coming from the left side.”

“Could be a shot-up wingtip, spoiler, flap, or malfunctioning adaptive wing actuators,” Luger said. “In any case, don’t touch the flap or wing sweep controls or you’ll put your hydraulic system into isolate mode and end up wrapping yourself up in a ball.”

“Roger.”

“Captain Dewey,” General Samson cut in, “I want you out of there right now. That’s an order. Return to the due regard point. We’ll coordinate a tanker rendezvous.”

“I’m not leaving the MV-22 now that I’m in contact,” Annie said. “He’s on my wing, and he’s going to stay there. If you want me to leave, get another plane up here to lead this guy. Otherwise he won’t be able to keep himself upright.”

There was a long pause, then: “Help is on the way right now,” Samson said in a tunnel-deep monotone that signaled how angry he was. “An MC-130P is en route to top off the MV-22 and lead him home. Stay with him until the P arrives.”

“Thanks, boss,” Annie said. There was no reply. She knew she was going to catch hell for disregarding his orders. “He sounded pissed,” she said to Duane.

“You did real good, Heels,” Deverill said. He reached over and patted her shoulder, then gave it a friendly rub. “Let the big guy be pissed — that’s his job. I’m your MC, and I think you did all right.” His touch was electric — it sent a current of warmth through her body. She dared take an eye off the MV-22 to glance at him, and he smiled at her across the dark cockpit.

An hour later, over the Sredneruskaja plains of southwestern Russia near the Ukraine border, the MC-130P special operations aerial refueling aircraft finally rendezvoused with the pair. Visibility had increased to just under a mile as the storm front began to move through the region, so there was little trouble during the rejoin. Just before the MC-130P got into visual range, Annie backed the EB-1C Vampire bomber away, out of visual range, while keeping a close watch on the damaged Pave Hammer aircraft. The stricken MV-22 made visual contact with the MC-130P less than a minute after the Vampire bomber moved away, and another minute later it was happily sipping fuel from the MC-130P’s hose and drogue refueling system, using position lights on the MC-130P’s wings and fuselage to stay straight and level.

“Thanks, you guys,” Hal Briggs radioed. “A big thank-you from Trash Man and his guys, too. You saved the day. You guys going to be okay?”

“We’ll find out right now, Hal.” Annie started to push the throttles forward to get some better controllability, but the faster she flew, the worse the vibrations got. She could manage only another fifty knots without threatening to tear the EB-1C apart. “Crap. We’ll be up here all night,” she cursed.

“If we’re lucky,” Duane said.

For the third time, Annie had to reapply the autopilot after it kicked itself off-line. “Autopilot can’t hold it anymore.”

“I think the vibration is getting worse. I’ve noticed you keep on pulling back on the power. We’re down to two hundred and twenty knots now. I think we got major structural problems happening.”

“I know, I know,” Annie said. She paused, trying to think of options, but she was fast running out of them. Annie felt a loud, swift roaring in her ears as she realized she might have only one option left. “I want you in your cold-weather survival gear. Now.”

“You go first,” Deverill said, his voice remarkably calm. “I can hold it.”

“I said, get in your cold-weather gear and check your survival kit is secure. Now.” She watched with half-angry, half-sorrowful eyes as Deverill nodded, then safetied his ejection seat and began to unstrap. Annie spoke: “Genesis, this is Terminator.”

“Go ahead, Annie,” General Samson responded.

“The vibration is getting worse,” she reported. “I think we might be getting ready to lose part of our left wing. I’ve ordered Dev into his cold-weather survival gear.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Affirmative. Sorry, sir. I think I’m about to break one of your planes.”

“Hey, it’s your plane, Captain — you signed for it,” Samson quipped, his voice still eerily deep and dark. “The Ukrainian border is just sixty miles ahead. Jump out as close to the border as you can. See any populated areas at all?”

“I can’t see squat outside,” Annie said. “I’ve been in the soup since forever. Visual display to cultural.” The voice command switched her electronic visor to display cultural features such as cities, towns, roads, and bridges. Just a handful of small cities were close by; the largest, Kursk, a town of fifteen thousand citizens, was right off their right wing. The eastern Ukrainian provincial capital of Char’kov was seventy miles straight ahead.

“We’ve alerted the Ukrainian Army and Border Patrols in eastern Ukraine, and they’re mobilizing search-and-rescue forces,” Samson said. “The Ukrainian Third Army headquarters is in Char’kov, and they have a regional airport that we can secure if you can make it there. But the Russians have a major Troops of Air Defense base at Belgorod at your eleven o’clock, forty miles. The U.S. Special Operations Command detachment at Batman Air Base has been alerted, and they’ll forward-deploy to Ukraine to help out in case you drop into Russia.”

Annie could see the computerized depiction of the Russia-Ukraine border region. The Ukrainian city of Char’kov was beyond the horizon with an electronic arrow pointing to it, and she aimed right for it. “I’m going direct to Char’kov at this time,” she said. “If things get too rough, or if we get any company, I’ll deviate further east around Belgorod.” She paused, then added, “Sorry I screwed things up, General.”

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that the MV-22 and the MC-130P are doing okay,” Samson said. “The MV-22 is still upright. They’ve refueled and they’re on their way through Ukrainian airspace. They’re reporting breaks in the weather farther west, so they’re going to divert to Kiev. The crew sends their thanks. You saved all of them. Feel any better?”

“I’ll let you know when I’m back home sipping a cold one, sir,” Annie said.

Suddenly, an electronic warning tone went off. Annie looked up. In her electronic visor, she saw a bat-wing symbol of an enemy aircraft. “Enemy aircraft, five o’clock, thirty miles, heading south,” she announced.

“Sukhoi-27 Flanker,” another voice cut in. That was Major Nancy Cheshire, also manning the “virtual cockpit” back at Elliott Air Force Base, helping advise Annie as her “virtual pilot.” “Looks like single ship so far … no, wait.” At that instant, a second enemy aircraft appeared, several thousand feet higher and slightly behind the first. “He’s got a wingman in high combat air patrol. Another Flanker. We got any help on the way, General?”

“The Ukrainian Air Force has scrambled some fighters from Kiev,” Samson replied. “ETA sixteen minutes. Hang tight.”

By then, Duane Deverill was climbing back into his seat. He now wore a pair of insulated mukluks with leg gaiters reaching all the way to his knees instead of flying boots; a short winter-weight flight jacket; a pair of thick insulated mittens over glove inserts with a finger opening so he could work the controls; a watch cap under his flying helmet; and his survival vest and parachute harness over his parka. It took him an extra minute to readjust all his straps for the added bulk.

As soon as he was all strapped and plugged in, he announced the threat also. “Go get in your survival gear, Annie,” he said urgently. “I’ll keep an eye on this bastard.”

“No. He’s flying away from us.”

“Even better reason to clear off and get in your cold-weather gear,” he said. “I’ve got the aircraft. Get going.”

Annie nodded and began to safe her ejection seat when suddenly they heard a fast-pitched DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! tone in their headsets. Annie looked up. A yellow triangle was now emanating from the pointed top of the bat-wing enemy aircraft signal, the computer’s estimate of the enemy aircraft’s radar range and sweep — and it was completely surrounding the aircraft symbols of the MC-130P tanker and the MV-22 Pave Hammer transport. The yellow color meant that the radar had locked onto them.

“That Flanker just locked up the -130s! “ Deverill shouted.

“We gotta do something!” Annie shouted. “We’re well within Anaconda range. Let’s get ‘em warmed up!” The AIM-152 Anaconda missile was the Air Force’s newest air-to-air missile-so new that it was still several years from deployment. The AIM-152s, carried in a rotary launcher in the forward bomb bay, was unique because it was the first air-to-air missile that did not need to be guided by its launch aircraft — it could be launched against a target designated by another aircraft or ground radar station. It used a scranijet propulsion system that gave it extremely long range, in excess of eighty miles, and a top speed of over five times the speed of sound, making it capable even against incoming ballistic missiles or reentry ballistic missile warheads. Once in the predetermined vicinity of the enemy aircraft, the Anaconda activated its onboard radar and infrared sensors to locate its target, or it could continue to home in on sensor signals passed from other aircraft.

“We can’t launch missiles — the bomb bay doors are inhibited from opening when we’re in takeoff or land mode,” Deverill reminded her.

“Then override it!” Annie shouted.

“We still can’t do it,” Nancy Cheshire radioed to the crew from the “virtual cockpit.”

“We never tested a missile launch from this high angle of attack or this configuration. We don’t know how the missile will fly if we launch it in your present configuration or airspeed. It could fail to stabilize, the wingtip vortices or uneven flow patterns from the flaps and slats could disrupt it during the rocket pulse, the missile could accidentally arm — dozens of things. It just hasn’t been tested!”

“Dammit, I don’t care! Override the lockouts and launch those suckers!”

“Stand by,” Cheshire finally said, after a momentary pause. A few moments later: “Try to prearm the weapons, Dev.”

Deverill spoke “Ready Anaconda missiles” into the voice-command computer.

“AIM152 ready, “ the computer responded, and it presented a target reticle in his electronic visor. Deverill looked at the attacking enemy aircraft, centering the bat-wing symbol in the center-aiming reticle, and spoke: “Attack.”

“Warning, aircraft configuration error,” the attack computer responded, then added the computer’s next recommended command: “No attack. Ready.”

“Override configuration error and attack,” Duane said.

“Warning, configuration error override, aircraft still out of launch parameters,” the computer responded. “AIM152 in range. Recommend launch two. Ready.”

“Launch two,” Deverill ordered.

“Warning, launch command received, stop launch … bay doors opening partial … missile one away, seven remaining … launcher rotating … missile two away, six remaining … bay doors closed,” the computer responded. When the bomb bay doors opened, it felt as if the entire bottom of the EB-1C Vampire was ready to shake off. But seconds later, both AIM-152 Anaconda missiles could be seen for a brief instant flying off into the murky sky, trailing a wobbly line of fire through the storm-filled sky. Moments later, as the missiles accelerated through Mach 2, they heard two distinct BOOMs as the missiles’ scramjet motors ignited.

Just then, the triangle from the bat-wing symbol turned from yellow to red. “Oh, shit, missile launch!” Annie exclaimed. “You bastards … c’mon, Anaconda baby, nail that sucker!” A few seconds later, the triangle changed from red to yellow, then to green again. “What happened?”

“Jammers,” Deverill said. “The MC-130P has almost as many electronic jammers as a bomber. They might have just saved their lives.”

It did. Exactly thirty-seven seconds after launch, the computer reported, “Splash one target,” along with the next recommended command: “Attack target two.”

The second Su-27 Flanker made several heading and altitude changes, as if uncertain what had happened or what to do. He made a complete one-eighty, scanning the skies around him-and then the triangle disappeared and a green, then yellow, circle appeared around the bat wing. “He’s got us locked up!” Annie shouted. “Get that SOB!”

Deverill centered the target reticle on the second Flanker. “Attack,” he ordered. The computer gave him the same warnings as before, and as before, Deverill overrode them and ordered, “Launch two.”

“Warning, launch command received, stop launch … bay doors opening … missile three away, five remaining … launcher rotating…”

But the first missile did not appear from under the belly. The EB-1C hit a patch of turbulence right at the instant the missile was ejected from its rotary launcher. The ejector’s push was canceled out, so the missile failed to push free of the bomb bay doors. Instead of a smooth SWOOOSH! of a successful launch, they felt a tremendous BANG! as the missile struck one of the bomb bay doors. Instead of falling free, the missile clattered underneath the partially open bomb doors, caught in the disturbed air swirling under the bomber caused by the deployed flaps and slats and the bomber’s high nose-up flight attitude.

“Missile four…”

“Stop launch!” Deverill screamed into the voice-command system.

But it was too late. “… away, four remaining, “ the computer spoke. The second missile shot off the launcher-smack into the first missile, still caught under the bomb bay. The first missile went spinning out of control, thumping hard against the bottom of the Vampire’s fuselage until it reached the number-two engine’s intake. It bounced hard off the mouth of the intake, nearly cracking the entire nacelle off the wing. The disruption of airflow caused the number-one and — two engine to do a double compressor stall — the fire was still on inside the engines, but now there was no smooth airflow directing air and hot gases out through them. The overtemp automatically caused the power-plant control computer to shut both engines down.

The sudden yaw created by the loss of both engines momentarily sent the EB-1C bomber into a wild left skid. This sent the second Anaconda missile back bumping across the belly until it reached the hot exhaust of the number-two engine — where it exploded. Luckily, the computer had already shut the engines down, or else the explosion of the Anaconda missile’s sixty-pound fragmentation warhead, added to the white — hot jet fuel from the engines, would have destroyed the aircraft instantly.

Even with full right stick and full right rudder, Annie Dewey could not keep the plane flying straight — it was in a severe left yaw no matter how hard she struggled and trimmed. Duane grabbed his control stick to help, and he couldn’t believe what he felt — a deep, heavy, relentless vibration. “Annie …?”

“I’ve got it, Dev, I’ve got it,” she responded. The strain and the vibration rattling in her throat disguised her voice so much that she seemed like a completely different person sitting across from him. “Check the warnings and cautions and let me know what we got left.”

“Computer has shut down number one and two,” Deverill said. “Fire extinguishers popped on both of them, so they’re done for the day. Hydraulic system is in isolate. Three generators are off-line — wait, we got two, so we got the emergency and primary bus energized. Forward bomb bay doors are still partially open — it feels like they’re dragging in the slipstream and might be leaking hydraulic fluid. The navigation, weapons, and ECM systems are in reset. Heading system is spinning up again. Navigation is by satellite only until our ring-laser gyros come back up. We’re a mess, Heels, but we still got two good blowers.”

“Except we’re going nowhere fast,” Annie said. “I’m going to pull a little power off number four and see if we can straighten out.” She pulled a notch of power off on number four, then made a tiny forward adjustment when the Vampire felt sloppy and uneasy. But she was able to regain some directional control. Their airspeed was down to one-fifty — just thirty knots above landing speed, right at the edge of a stall in straight-and-level flight — but they were still flying. “All right, all I need now is a heading out of no-man’s-land and a runway big enough to set this mother down.”

“Annie, the Ukrainian fighters are five minutes out, crossing the border and heading right for you,” Nancy Cheshire radioed. “Hold present heading, squawk modes one, two, and four. The cavalry’s coming. Hold on.”

“Your heading is one-seven-zero, Annie, direct Char’kov,” Duane said. “We lost about a thousand feet — let’s try to gain a little altitude.”

Annie started a very slow climb. Normally the EB-1C Vampire could climb at over ten thousand feet per minute at gross weight — now she was lucky to get five hundred feet per minute without feeling the sloshing, muddy, unsteady wobbliness of an impending stall. A stall with two engines on one side out meant a spin, and the B-1 bomber did not tolerate spins well. Annie had done them only in the simulator, and she liked at least twenty thousand feet above ground level before attempting spin recovery.

“Looks like I really screwed up, didn’t I?’ she asked.

“Don’t see how,” Duane said. “Our mission was to make sure ISA got the spy out of Russia safely. You saved their asses three times today. That’s a pretty good night’s work.”

“I think I’m going to be screwed, blued, and tattooed when I get home.”

“You’re a hero, Annie,” Deverill said. “You should be proud of what you’ve done. You should … Oh, shit.”

Duane stopped, and Annie glanced over to him to see what was the matter. She saw him staring out his right cockpit window. She looked — and saw why. The second Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighter was perched right beside them, less than a hundred feet away. Without the threat detection gear, the Flanker had been able to sneak right in and get a good look at them.

“Oh, hell,” Annie murmured. “Busted.”

“You gotta admit, that’s some pretty good flying,” Deverill said.

“Pretty good for a bastard who tried to blow two unarmed cargo planes out of the sky,” Annie added. Now that the fighter pilot saw that the crew members of the bomber had him in sight, he turned on all of his exterior lights. The brightest light lit up his twin vertical stabilizers, which featured the red star of the Russian Air Force. “A Russian air defense interceptor,” she breathed. “Perfect.”

“I’ll bet he’s not too pleased we blew away his leader.”

“How far are we from the Ukrainian border?”

“Thirty-nine, miles.”

“My God,” Annie said. “Where the hell are those Ukrainian fighters? They should’ve rendezvoused by now.”

“Sixty seconds out,” Cheshire replied. “They’ve got you and the Flanker in radar contact.”

“This bastard’s right next to us, on our right side,” Annie said excitedly. “If anyone farts, we’re going to trade paint. Get em down here and help us!”

At that moment, the Su-27 moved in closer, less than fifty feet away, and a burst of cannon fire erupted from the rightwing leading-edge muzzle. Annie screamed into her oxygen mask. The Russian fighter pilot seemed to be sitting right next to her mission commander. They could both clearly see him making an up-and-down motion with a flashlight-the international signal for “turn and follow me, you have been intercepted.”

“Kiss my ass, Boris,” Annie said. “I’m not turning.”

As if the Russian heard her, he maneuvered in front of them, then stroked his engines into zone one afterburner. The white-hot afterburner flame threatened to blow out their windscreen. The Russian fighter then smoothly, expertly slid back into impossibly tight formation, crowding them even more, and the Russian again made a “follow me” light signal.

“Genesis, this is Terminator,” Annie radioed, the fear plainly obvious in her voice. “Where the hell are those Ukrainian fighters?”

“We see him,” General Samson responded immediately.

“You’ve got three more inbound from Kiev, about one hundred miles southeast. ETA, five minutes.”

“How about some help up here?”

“Stand by,” Samson replied.

“‘Stand by’?” Deverill shouted. “Boss, we need some help right now or we’re going to get hosed.”

“We’re having some … diplomatic problems,” Samson said.

“Say again, Genesis?”

“Just hold your heading and keep coming for the border,” Samson said. There was an unusual sense of urgency in his voice. Terrill Samson never got grim-sounding about anything.

“Talk to us, General,” Annie said, almost pleading.

“The … the Ukrainian government is inquiring about the nature of your mission and the events leading up to this intercept,” Samson said. “The Ukrainians won’t engage Russian fighters unless they cross the border. I doubt if they’d try to take on a Russian Flanker even if they did cross the border. Ukrainian pilots are good, but they’re not stupid.”

“You mean, they won’t help us?”

“You just hold tight. I’m going to brief the Pentagon and the White House by teleconference any minute now.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Sure. But you don’t want to hear them.”

“Oh, shit,” Annie breathed. “I’m not letting them have this plane.”

“Try to make it to the border,” Samson said. “Do whatever you need to do to keep those fighters off your back. Make up a plausible story. Use your feminine wiles on them, sweet-talk them, promise them a night they’ll never forget, anything you can think of. They might be surprised enough to hear a woman on the radio that they’ll leave you alone. They might be waiting for orders, too.”

“And what if that doesn’t work?”

“Just hope it does work. Stay calm. We’re right here with you.”

Annie ordered the computer to set the number-two radio to 243.0, the universal UHF emergency channel, and keyed the mike button: “Russian fighter off my right wingtip, this is Annie. How are you tonight?”

“Unidentified American bomber aircraft, this is Unit Two-Zero, Fifty-fourth Air Defense Fighter Regiment, Voyska Protivovozdushnoy Oborony, Zhukovsky,” the Flanker pilot responded. “You are in violation of the sovereign airspace of the Russian Federation. You are ordered to follow me for landing at Zhukovsky. Do you copy? Over.”

“Am I over Russia right now?” Annie asked, with all the feminine innocence she could muster. “My navigation system must be all screwed up. I thought I was over the Black Sea. Oh dear, this is pretty embarrassing. Why don’t you just point me toward the Black Sea and I’ll get out of your hair. Pretty please, commander?”

“I have observed your aircraft launch weapons at V-PVO aircraft, and I observe one of your weapons bays is partially open,” the Flanker pilot replied angrily. “I suspect you of attacking and destroying a Russian air defense aircraft, and attacking Russian military forces. That is an act of war, and I am authorized to divert you to a suitable airfield for detention and interrogation of you, your aircraft, and your crew. You will be given all rights under the Warsaw Convention regarding treatment of airspace violators. I am authorized to take any actions I feel I must take to ensure your compliance. I order you to turn to a heading of one-five-zero immediately or you will be shot down.”

“Hey, honey, you’ve got it all wrong,” Annie said sweetly. “I didn’t attack anyone. I’ve got two engines shut down and major damage to my aircraft. I don’t have any weapons on board — this is an unarmed training flight. Do I look like a fighter plane? I was on my way to land and have apparently gone off course. If you can offer any assistance, I’m sure my company will reward you handsomely. I’ll personally see to that. Just let me turn back toward the northwest, and I’ll see to it that you’re compensated in full. You have my promise, commander.”

There was no response. The Sukhoi-27 Flanker merely pulled up and out of sight.

“Hey, Nancy,” Annie said, “you see where this guy went?”

“He’s at your four o’clock, slightly high,” Nancy Cheshire replied. “Moving to six o’clock, one mile.”

“We got any weapons yet, Dev?”

“Weapons just came on-line,” Deverill replied. To the weapons computer, he spoke, “Ready Anacondas. Target aircraft at six o’clock, one mile. Attack.”

“Warning, configuration error, “ the computer responded. “Warning, bay doors not ready. Warning, airspeed too low for safe weapon release. Stop attack.”

“Override configuration error,” Deverill ordered. “Override airspeed inhibits. Emergency open forward bay doors. Launch two.”

“Warning, configuration error override … warning, weapon airspeed limit override, no safe separation … warning, bomb bay doors not latched.” They received bomb door open indications as the computer merely unlatched the forward bomb bay doors and allowed them to gravity-fall fully open. Warning, launch command received, stop launch…”

“Annie! Dev!” Cheshire shouted over the satellite transceiver. “Get out! Get …!”

It felt as if they had crashed headlong into a brick wall. The Flanker pilot had fired two R-60 heat-seeking missiles at the EB-1C Vampire, and both missiles had hit the only operable engines on the right wing. The engines exploded, igniting jet fuel in the right-wing and aft body tanks.

Both Annie Dewey and Duane Deverill knew the time had come. When Nancy Cheshire issued her warning, their hands were already reaching for the ejection handles, and by the time the fireball engulfed the Vampire bomber, the ejection seats had already cleared the plane and they were blasted free.