Warrior Class

High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center (HAWC)

“I’ve alerted the weapons teams, sir,” David Luger shouted as he dashed into the battle staff area. General Samson and John Long were already there, checking computerized charts and satellite imagery of the shootdown area, along with several other staff and operational members from both HAWC and the 111th Bombardment Wing. “They’re ready to upload a full hard target penetration load on every Vampire we got. I’ve got the combat support team putting together an intel package and attack routing scenario to the shootdown area immediately — they can have DTECs and flight plans ready to brief in three hours. I’ve also called a secure dataconference meeting with ISA to put together a plan of action.”

“Wait a minute, Colonel, just wait one goddamned minute,” Long interjected angrily. “You HAWC guys are forgetting — again — that you don’t command the 111th. We don’t just go launching off into space with bombs and missiles and start shooting everybody up, especially the Russians. We need authorization, and we need a warning order and frag order. We need to coordinate our efforts. I’m not going to start launching Vampires without a plan of action.”

“There’s no time for that,” Luger shot back. He went to a nearby computer terminal, calling up the maintenance status of their aircraft. “We can launch three birds in about six hours. In the meantime, we can divert Rebecca and Patrick to a refueling anchor over the Baltic Sea. We can also—”

“Hey, Luger, that’s my job,” Long interjected. “You don’t work for Aces High.”

“Get off your ass, Major!” Luger retorted angrily. “Annie is out there on the ground in goddamned Russia! We need to get her out of there now!”

“Colonel, Major, knock it off, now,” General Terrill Samson cut in. “Everyone relax—”

“Relax? We can’t relax!” Luger exploded. “Do you realize the danger if Annie or Dev gets captured by the Russians? Do you realize what the Russians do to captured fliers? Huh? Do you?”

“Dave, ease off—”

“They’ll twist their minds, empty their brains, use drugs or chemicals or physical or mental torture to make you reject or deny everything you’ve ever believed.”

“What in hell are you blabbering about, Luger?” Long asked. “You been watching too many spy movies.”

Terrill Samson knew what John Long did not — that when David Luger spoke about being tortured by the Russians, he spoke from personal experience. He put a hand out toward his chief engineer. “Easy, David, take it easy—”

“1 will not take it easy, sir!” Luger shouted. “You have got to put out an alert to every intelligence and special operations team within a thousand miles of that shootdown point-tell them to mount up and get a search-and-rescue operation started immediately.”

Long shook his head in exasperation. Look at this hotshot HAWC smart-ass going to pieces, he thought. They’re all a bunch of blubbering candy-asses. “Take a pill, Colonel—”

“Shut up, Long,” Samson said. “David—”

“If you won’t do something now, General, I will!”

“Colonel!” Samson shouted. He finally stopped, but his chest was heaving as if he had just gone three rounds in a boxing ring.

Samson looked at his chief engineer with serious concern. Luger had reported his two contacts with the Ukrainian bomber forces commander, who happened to have been one of the test pilots at the same facility where Luger had been held captive years ago. He’d considered sending him off on leave while the Ukrainians were at Nellis, to avoid any further complications, but he’d let Luger override him. He’d seemed just fine. Obviously, those two brief encounters had dredged up a lot of very bad memories. “Stand at ease! That’s an order!” Samson’s booming voice finally seemed to shake Luger out of his near-panicked anguish. “We’re going to help them, Colonel, I promise you. But we need to devise a plan of action and get approval from Washington. Prepare your planes and get weapons uploaded right away, but I don’t want anyone launching. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Luger said. He took a deep breath and wiped cold sweat from his forehead. Quickly, his tortured mind began to think rationally. “But if the decision is made to do a rescue, we should brief up the teams and launch as many Vampires as we can to forward strike locations. If Annie and Dev can evade capture long enough, we might be able to rescue them, but we need to get ISA units moving now. If the Russians capture and then release Annie and Dev right away, we’ll just come home. But if they don’t, we want to be in a position to nab them before they get moved all the way back to Moscow.”

“I said, no one launches without my go-ahead. End of discussion.” To Long, he said, “I’m preparing for a briefing to the National Security Council staff right now. I’ll get you clearance as quickly as I can.”

“Yes, sir,” Long said.

“We are still receiving life signs,” Luger said, checking the satellite communications server’s readouts on Deverill and Dewey. “Still no voice contact. The longer they’re on the ground, the better the chances of them getting caught. General, at least give us clearance to refuel and divert Furness and McLanahan in the mission backup plane. We can schedule a tanker and get it turned around in minutes.”

“Request denied,” Samson said. “Furness and McLanahan follow their original recovery routing back here — no alterations unless I get approval from the White House. That is all. Major, you’re with me. We should be getting a videoconference call from the White House any minute.” Luger was left with nothing to do, so he got ready to depart.

“Colonel, are you going to be okay?” Samson asked just before Luger reached the door.

“I’ll be all right, sir,” he responded evenly.

“I would like you to assist in preparing available Vampire aircraft for weapons upload and launch in case we’re given the go-ahead,” Samson said. “John will be working with me here to get ready for the NSC brief. I’m sure it would be a big help to have you and Major Cheshire in the maintenance area supervising things.” John Long said nothing, but nodded.

“I’ll be over there if you need me, sir,” Luger said.

“And David? Advise General McLanahan and Colonel Furness on what’s happened.” He paused, staring at Luger as if punctuating his next order: “I want them to continue on their recovery track. Under no circumstances are they permitted to try a rescue mission without prior authorization. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll advise them.”

“They can contact me directly via satellite if they have any other information, or if they have recommendations, but I want them to head on back otherwise,” Samson said again. For some reason, he felt a strong need to repeat his orders to Luger. “No heroics. I don’t want to lose any more aircraft over Russia.”

“Understood, sir.”

David Luger went over to the maintenance hangar complex and briefed the chief maintenance officer, the chief civilian engineer, and the NCO in charge, on what was happening, but he was wise enough to let them do their thing without hovering around them. Besides, he was too angry and frustrated — at Samson, at Long, at himself — to think and organize effectively.

His mind drifted away to his friend and lover, on the ground in Russia. He activated his subcutaneous satellite transceiver and spoke: “Dewey, this is Luger… Heels, this is David — can you hear me? Please answer, Annie. Can you hear me?” His voice choked as he thought of her lying on the ground half a world away, and he too far away to help her. “Annie, answer me, please … answer me, goddammit …”

No reply.

He understood General Samson’s order. Sampson wanted to be sure Patrick returned — meaning, he fully expected Patrick to turn around and fly cover for Annie and Dev. Luger knew what could happen if he disobeyed him — but also knew that Patrick McLanahan was Annie’s best hope to avoid capture. Samson could have contacted McLanahan himself via the satellite transceiver and directly issued the order to him. He was purposely vague about it. Did he want Patrick to fly cover — or was he passing the responsibility to his second-in-command?

Again, Luger activated the worldwide satellite transceiver: “Luger to McLanahan.”

“Go ahead, Dave.”

“We’ve got a situation, Muck,” Luger said, and he ran it down for him.

“Come to a heading of one-two-five, right now, “ Patrick said urgently. His mouth was dry, and his fingers shook as they flew across the large supercockpit touchscreen display. “Heading back to our due-regard point. Steering is good. Take it.” The due-regard point was a special point in a flight plan where flights were “dropped” or “accepted,” without any air traffic control agencies knowing or responsible for where the flight went — they were used primarily by classified military flights. They were currently over southern Norway, well out of range of any ground radar sites, but they still used satellite communications and GPS to call in their position to transoceanic air traffic controllers. “I’ll call Oslo Transoceanic and get a clearance.”

“Clearance? What in hell are you talking about?” Rebecca Furness asked. She had to paddle off the autopilot to prevent the EB-1C Vampire bomber from automatically following the new steering command Patrick had given. “We’re not turning around and flying hundreds of miles back through Russian airspace. Are you nuts?”

“Rebecca, one of our planes just got shot down — one of your planes, a point you made very clear to me the other day,” Patrick said. “Two of your crew members are on the ground in Russia. If they get captured, it’ll be an enormous security breach for the United States. It’ll be the military classified information discovery coup of the decade!” He scanned his flight information. “I can have us over the shootdown point in less than two hours. I’ll download Annie and Dev’s position from the satellite server, and Dave will upload the updated tactical order of battle to us, so we can—”

“Hold on, General,” Rebecca said. “Why didn’t General Samson or someone from the Pentagon call us?”

“They’re probably deciding exactly what to do,” Patrick replied. “Terrill won’t be in charge — it’ll be someone at USAFE, or it might be turned over to the Director of Central Intelligence or Defense Intelligence Agency. It might take them hours just to decide who the hell is in charge. By that time, we can be over the shootdown point and helping Annie and Dev. If the Intelligence Support Agency or U.S. Special Operations Command launches a rescue sortie out of Turkey, they can be over the shootdown spot at the same time we arrive, and we can cover them. Let’s go, Rebecca!”

“I don’t know—”

“Rebecca, don’t hesitate now,” Patrick urged her. “Those are your people on the ground. We can help them. We just got a refueling, so we don’t need gas—”

“We’ve been talking with Oslo Transoceanic for the past fifteen minutes,” Rebecca argued. “We’ve broadcast our aircraft type on open channels. If we turn around, they’ll be able to track us.”

“Not if we go in hard,” Patrick said. “We’ve got enough fuel to go in low right now. But we need to get turned around now, Rebecca. Every pound of fuel we waste going westbound is one pound less we’ll have over the shootdown point.” When Furness still hesitated, Patrick added, “I know I can’t tell an aircraft commander to do anything he or she doesn’t think is safe—”

“Damn straight.”

“—but I’m ordering you right now, Colonel, as your superior officer: turn right to a heading of one-two-five, center up the steering bug, and prepare to commence hostile airspace penetration operations at the original route entry point. Do it now, or by God, I’ll prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law when we get back to base.”

“You’re crazy, McLanahan,” Rebecca exploded. “You’ll never be able to convict me of disobeying an order like that. You’ll be laughed out of court — probably court-martialed yourself.”

“Are you going to refuse my order?”

“It’ll be daylight by the time we reach the shootdown point,” Furness argued. “We’ll be sitting ducks—”

“You don’t know that,” Patrick said. “All we do know is that Dev and Annie are sitting ducks right now. We are the only chance they have of escaping or getting rescued. Now I’m ordering you once more — center up the steering bug now.”

Rebecca Furness looked into Patrick McLanahan’s eyes and saw nothing but red-hot fury in them, unlike anything she had seen in the short but intense time they had worked together. She knew that, although it was probably unauthorized, his was not an unlawful order. The Rules of Conduct under the Uniform Code of Military Justice stated that she was not obligated to obey unlawful orders or orders that violated her own morality. This did neither. If she obeyed his order, she felt certain she could not be prosecuted for doing so.

Damn it, Rebecca, she admonished herself, stop thinking about the legalities and start thinking about what could happen if you don’t do it! Dev and Annie could be captured. They were only a few miles from the Ukrainian border — if they were unhurt from the ejection, they still had a chance to make it across the border. The Russians might still go after them, but that’s why they needed to be there for them.

Rebecca released the paddle switch on her control stick, which allowed the Vampire bomber’s autopilot to follow the computer’s steering signals. They were on their way back to Russia.

In the Sredneruskaja Plains, near Obojan, Russian Federation

There was only one way to describe what ejecting out of an exploding aircraft was like: pure, unadulterated violence.

Annie Dewey’s only warning of what was about to occur was when the overhead hatch blew free, her shoulder and lap belt straps tightened, the leg restraints snapped her ankles back so they wouldn’t flail around during the shot, and the ejection seat slid backward against the launch rail. Then her body was racked by immense pain as the main rocket motor fired her clear of the aircraft. The force exerted on the human body during the ejection sequence had been compared to hitting a brick wall in an automobile traveling twenty miles an hour — headfirst — and Annie probably would’ve doubled that number.

The sky, which had been cold, dark, and stormy all night, was a blaze of hot yellow and red flames. Annie lost her oxygen mask right away — that’ll teach you always to lock it in tight, she somehow managed to admonish herself throughout the chaos — and the helmet almost came flying off with it. The only thing that helped catch her helmet was the chin strap digging into her nose. She was sure her nose was broken. Time for that nose job she always wanted — maybe she would finally get Nicole Kidman’s nose at last.

Because the Vampire was flying at such a slow speed — almost approach speed — and they were relatively low to the ground, the ejection sequence happened fast and violent. She got both rocket motors on full ignition right away, which tripled the force exerted on her body. Thankfully, that ride was over in less than two seconds. She then got the mule-kick in the back from the man-seat separator, a thick nylon strap along the back of the seat that tightened and propelled her away from the ejection seat pan like a slingshot. Next the drogue chute deployed, which whipped her body upside down, followed almost immediately by the shoulder-cracking snap of the big main chute. Fortunately, the Vampire bomber was still accelerating away, and her chute did not open inside the rapidly growing fireball that used to be her warplane. Annie got half a dozen good swings in her chute, but all she remembered was crashing into the frozen rocky earth in typical Air Force crew member fashion: feet, butt, back of head.

The wind tugged at her half-inflated parachute, as if insisting that she get up, but Annie wasn’t going to move one inch, even though she was almost facedown in the snow. She could smell and taste blood, so she knew that at least two senses were working. A few moments later, her hearing kicked in as she caught the sound of her beloved B-1 bomber crashing into the low hills, not far away. The ground heaved and rumbled like an earthquake — touch was okay, too. She tried the last sense, sight, but that didn’t seem to want to work quite yet. Four out of five — not bad for just hitting the ground under a parachute after ejecting from a shot-up bomber.

Her plane was gone, history. An incredible, almost overwhelming, sense of fear, dread, and guilt washed through her brain. What have I done? she asked herself If I had followed orders, I’d still be flying far overhead, out of range of antiaircraft guns and safe from Russian fighters. I’d still be able to protect the special operations guys with her weapons, or vector in fighter support, or jam Russian radars, or a whole number of other things. The MV-22 Pave Hammer crew might have been able to fly the plane out themselves. Or what if a trigger-happy Russian fighter jock got both them and the MC-130P tanker as well? Her rescue attempt would have been a waste. What if everything she did was all for nothing?

The fear and the cold caused her to shiver. It was hypothermia setting in. Annie didn’t care. She had failed. She had probably killed Dev, and she had certainly caused the loss of a multimillion dollar warplane. The Russians were obviously going to find the wreckage and discover who and what they were. Their secret would be out. She would be captured, Dev’s body taken to some grimy little prison morgue, maybe broadcast around the world so Dev’s poor parents could see his mutilated body. The United States would suffer one of its greatest foreign policy and military embarrassments since Iran-Contra. The United States government might disavow any knowledge of their mission. Lives and careers would be ruined. Everything the United States said or did for the next decade would have the stink of this failure tainting it.

I might as well die, Annie thought. Death would certainly be preferable to living with the shame of what her decisions had caused tonight. She was probably already blind, certainly shattered from the ejection and the hard landing. So not only would she be a national disgrace, but if she lived, someone would have to take care of her. She’d have to be fed through a tube, shit in a pair of diapers like an infant, be set out on a patio like a potted plant so she could get some sun so she wouldn’t shrivel up and die, and the attendant would know who she was and would be embarrassed and probably disgusted to have to take care of such a loser oh God why did I do it why didn’t I listen to orders oh Jesus I want to die let me die don’t let me live like a paraplegic vegetable being hated by my mother and father oh mom oh dad I’m sorry I apologize I only wanted to help I thought I was doing the right thing I …

It was a clump of snow falling off a branch and landing a few inches from her face that finally snapped her out of her despair. It sounded like a footstep, and a thrill of panic — a new panic — shot through her head. I’m not dead. I’m going to be captured. Should I pretend to be dead or unconscious? What if they just shoot me to make sure I’m dead? What if I …?

NO! she screamed at herself. Stop it! Stop talking yourself into dying or screwing things up even worse than you already have! She had a crew member out there somewhere who probably needed her help. She had a duty to herself and to her country to get out and make it back into friendly territory. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Annie Dewey, and get on your damn feet and move! If Dev Deverill dies because you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself, then you do deserve to die! Get up, you bitch, and act like a real American airman instead of a whiny overprotected coed!

She heard no voices and no more footsteps. Good time to get the hell away from here. Hands and arms, working. Good. Try to roll over … no, bad, very bad, excruciatingly painful back pain, like ice picks were being driven up her spine. She tried to return to her original spot to try to relieve the pain, but her body was telling her, too late, Annie, there’s no pain-free way to move now. She cried out as she rolled over on her back. The pain seemed to constrict her throat, cutting off her airway, strangling her. Now panic was setting in again. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and the pain in her back was mind-numbing. Stars swam in her field of vision, and she prayed she would pass out to save her from the pain.

She wasn’t that lucky. The only soothing thing she felt was the cold and wet snow against her back. The pain was still there, still as sharp as ever, but at least she felt it, and at least she could move. She wasn’t paralyzed. Even through the shattering pain, she felt a twinge of hope. Maybe she would be all right.

Annie reached up to her eyes and immediately found one source of her vision and breathing problems — her helmet had shoved itself down over her face. Making the slightest movement only increased the pain even more, but she was able to unsnap the helmet and pull it off her head. Her fingertips found a deep crack in the helmet — it had saved her life. A gash like that on her skull would’ve easily killed her.

The snow on the back of her head felt good, and several moments later she started to see and sense more things — flickers of fires in the distance against the stormy skies, the acid smell of burning jet fuel, and the creaks, shrieks, and groans as the Vampire bomber continued its death-rattles; wet icy snow falling on her face, cold moisture seeping through her flight suit and cold-weather gear against her butt. She wasn’t wearing ultra-cold-weather stuff, but she was wearing insulated long-underwear, thick wool socks, a turtleneck long underwear shirt, and cold-weather Thinsulate flying gloves. The pain felt like it was subsiding. Now she started to be afraid of going into shock if she got too cold, so it was important that she get moving. Get up, Annie, she told herself Find Dev. Find the survival gear. Find shelter. Get away from the crash site and hide.

The pain came back full force as soon as she tried to get up, but she knew she had no choice — either get up and have a chance of surviving, or stay on the ground and freeze to death or get captured. With the helmet no longer muffling her, she was able to cry out as loud as she dared, but she knew searchers would be on their way and she didn’t want to risk being captured. Crawling to her hands and knees seemed to take a half hour, but she did it. Reaching up to unfasten her parachute risers and unbuckle her parachute harness seemed to drain every erg of strength from her body, but she did it. Pulling on the nylon strap that connected her harness to the survival pack seemed an impossibility, like trying to pull a cruise ship into its dock after someone o n deck threw her a line, but she did it. Now, with the survival pack clutched safely in her arms, she felt better. I may be hurting, she thought, and I may be down hard, but I’m not out of the game yet.

Walking was out of the question, so she crawled. She didn’t know which way to go, so she decided just to go away from the glow of the fires from the crash scene. That seemed a good choice, because the direction she chose was downhill. After a few dozen yards, she found a big pine tree. Feeling around its base with her hands, she noticed the ground underneath the thick bottom branches was dry, so she crawled underneath. Hey, she thought, those survival instructors were right: it’s surprisingly comfortable in here. It smelled good, and after a few moments, it even started to feel warm. Man oh man, what a break. She heard a scampering sound and figured she had probably disturbed some ground squirrel’s rest, but she didn’t much care who or what she was sharing that warm, soft, pine-needle-cushioned ground with right now.

She knew she had to keep going. She had only moved a very short distance away from her landing spot, and they could find her easily by her drag marks. But she had to take time to check herself out, get her thoughts together, decide on a plan of action, then do it.

The first thing she had to do was take care of herself. Annie opened the survival pack, a square green nylon case about eighteen inches square, three inches thick, and weighing about twenty pounds. A tiny red-lensed flashlight was right or, top, which helped her inventory the rest of the kit — even that tiny bit of artificial American-made light helped to lift her spirits. She was finally back in control of her environment, at least a little bit.

Four pint-sized cans of water — she drank one can immediately and put the others inside the leg pockets of her flight suit. Waterproof matches — inside her flight suit, between her T-shirt and long-underwear shirt. Survival rations: dried beef bars, granola bars, fruit bars, chocolate bars. One dried beef bar and one fruit bar in her flight suit, the rest back in the survival pack. Folding knife, in her flight suit. A space blanket, silver on one side, black on the other, in her flight suit. Vacuum-packed sleeping bag, compressed and squished into a nine-inch-long, three-inch-diameter tube, in the survival kit. Pretty amazing shit. Signal mirror, around her neck, along with a magnetic compass. Wool cap, on her head. Aha, the good gadget: combination satellite survival radio and GPS satellite navigation receiver — in her flight suit pocket, along with two spare batteries, which went inside her T-shirt next to her skin to keep them warm.

Signal flares, smoke signaling devices, flare gun with forest-penetrator cartridges, back in the survival pack. Booklets, fishing kit, first-aid kit, mittens, compression bandages, snare wire, a wire saw, aspirin tablets, water-purification tablets, a small tarp to make a tent, nylon twine, a radiation tester, two pairs of socks sealed in plastic, a canteen — all stayed in the survival kit for now, except she popped two aspirins and washed them down with water to help take the edge off the pain in her back and shoulders. Everything but nylon stockings, chewing gum, gold pieces, Russian rubles, and condoms … oops, a moment later she found the condoms. They stayed in the survival kit.

Annie felt immensely better after she closed up the survival kit. She had read that the vast majority of crash victims who died while in a survival situation never even bothered to do the simplest things, like seek shelter or open their survival kits. They were either in a daze, in shock, or simply couldn’t believe the situation they were in. Most of the time they ended up dropping all their gear and walking off in circles until they died of exhaustion, hypothermia, or shock. The old saying was that crash victims who died in survival situations died of embarrassment. Annie understood that feeling very, very well right now.

Checking herself out didn’t take long. The pain in her back was immense, now spreading from her spine and radiating out to her legs, arms, and neck. Her nose creaked and snapped like cellophane, and in the survival mirror she could see blood covering her cheeks and chin and thickly caked in her nose, but if there was any pain from the broken nose it was being overshadowed by the pain in her back. Her whole body was sore, and she knew she was going to find some humongous bruises. Her butt hurt badly, and she thought she might have a broken tailbone. No other obvious injuries. Annie counted herself very, very fortunate. She knew that she could have easily …

“Annie, this is McLanahan. Do you hear me? Annie?”

“General!” Annie exclaimed aloud. The global satellite transceiver they’d planted under her skin, powered by the thick rubber-coated bracelet on her ankle, sort of like a futuristic miniature OnStar assistance device — my God, it was working, even way out here in the middle of nowhere. “I hear you! I hear you!”

“I read you loud and clear, too, Annie,” Patrick McLanahan said. “Lower your voice. I assume you’re safe for now. What’s your situation?”

“I’m under a tree,” Annie said. “I was just resting, checking my survival gear out. I’m okay. My back hurts, I got a broken nose and maybe a broken butt bone, but otherwise I’m okay.”

“Good. You did the right thing,” Patrick said. “You can divvy up the survival gear later.”

“Already did it. I even had some water and a couple aspirins.”

“Good job. Okay. We’re with you now, we have your location, and help’s on the way. You’re going to have to find Dev, then find as safe a place as you can to hide until we can send in the rescue teams.”

Annie almost burst into tears when McLanahan mentioned the “rescue teams”—she finally felt she might make it out of this alive. “What about Dev?” she asked. “Are you talking to him? Can you find him, too?”

“We’re still picking up life signs from Dev, but there’s no answer from him,” McLanahan said. “He’s about two hundred, yards east of you, but we can’t be too precise. If you feel up to it, I’d like you to try to join up with him, check him out, hide him if you can, and help him. Are you able to move?”

“I think so,” Annie replied.

“We know the weather’s bad, but that will help you stay concealed,” Patrick said. “It’ll be tough going, but give it a try. I’ll direct you as best I can, but you have to move several yards before your position will update, so it’s imprecise. I don’t want you falling into a ravine trying to find him in the dark, and I don’t want you to get captured. If you can’t do it safely, go back to your nest there, or find another hiding spot, and stay hidden.”

“I’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

“Good. We’re putting together a rescue package for you as we speak. The entire Intelligence Support Agency is gearing up to launch a rescue. You’re heroes for what you did for Weston and his crew, Heels. They’ll move heaven and earth to get to you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Annie said, not embarrassed by the gush of joy and relief in her voice. “Thank you so much. I–I’m sorry for what I did. I disobeyed orders, and I got us shot down. I take full responsibility for whatever happens.”

“The cost of the Vampire is already being deducted from your paycheck, Annie,” McLanahan quipped. “You have about three hours until local sunrise, so you’d better get moving. Take it nice and slow and easy. Good luck. We’ll let you know if we hear from Dev.”

Annie looped the survival kit across her body under her right arm, pulled the watch cap down over her head and ears, then crawled out from under the pine tree. The pain in her back was still there, but thanks to the aspirin and her improved attitude, the pain was only talking, not screaming, to her now. Sure enough, the snow and wind had increased in intensity. Visibility was almost zero. Fortunately, the snow was less than a foot deep, which made moving relatively easy.

“General, I’m heading east,” she spoke into the frigid air. “A Pave Hammer tilt-rotor hovering overhead would sure be welcome right about now.”

“We’re right here with you, Annie,” came the reply. “The PJs are on the way.” Annie didn’t ask how far out they were or how long it would take for them to arrive — she didn’t need to ask any questions when she potentially wouldn’t like the answers.

It was slow going. Using the compass from around her neck, Annie simply went from tree to tree, about ten yards at a time. She used the flashlight sparingly, shining the beam just two or three yards ahead at a time to avoid detection. She tried to count paces but gave up after tripping a few times on rocks, relying on the subcutaneous transceiver and Patrick McLanahan’s deep, solid, reassuring voice to guide her.

She had gone perhaps fifty yards when she heard a noise. She turned and saw a pair of headlight beams slicing through the freezing rain. As the headlights got closer, she realized she was only about a dozen yards above a dirt road. The truck using the headlights shifted into a lower gear and slowed. “Oh, shit,” Annie said softly, “a truck just came out of nowhere. I think they saw me.”

“Can you hide?” Patrick asked.

“I’ll try,” Annie said. The truck was heading toward her, up a slight grade. Annie immediately ran forward in the opposite direction, not daring to use the flashlight. She extended her arms out in front of her, but still couldn’t help colliding with trees, crashing into boulders, and tripping on rocks. The pain was back full force. But she ignored all of that and kept on running. She didn’t care what direction, only that it was away from the truck. “I … don’t hear the … engine revving anymore,” Annie panted. “It must have stopped.”

“Keep going as long as you can, then find cover,” Patrick said.

“I’ll try, “ Annie said, breathing hard. “I’ll …” She tripped once again and fell, sprawled out face-first in the snow. She was about to leap to her feet and keep running when she realized that she hadn’t just tripped on something — she had hooked her foot on something … something like string … like …

… parachute risers.

Annie wheeled around and dropped to the snow. She caught the risers again and pulled. More nylon cords came out of the snow. My God, they were parachute risers! “I found a parachute! I found a parachute!” she cried out.

“Lower your voice, Annie. I can hear you fine,” McLanahan said. “Is it Dev?”

“Stand by.” She frantically pulled on the risers she could find, the snow flying in all directions. No, wrong direction — she found the white parachute canopy. She whirled around and began pulling and digging in the other direction. Please, God, oh please, let it be him. Let him still be alive….

She found the body under four inches of fresh snow, lying faceup. He still had his helmet on, his clear visor down and his oxygen mask connected. His parachute risers were wrapped around a nearby tree, meaning he had either landed in the tree and then fallen, or was dragged and crashed into it. Using the red-lensed flashlight, she whipped off the oxygen mask’s bayonet clips on the side of his helmet. A gentle cloud of steam escaped. “General, I found him!” Annie said. “I found him! I think he’s still alive!”

“Thank God,” Patrick said. “Check him over as best you can before you move him.”

“He looks like he’s okay, just unconscious,” Annie said as she began to examine him. He was securely bundled up in the cold-weather gear she’d seen him put on. She saw a big scrape against the left front side of his helmet and guessed he must have hit a tree face-first. “I don’t see any broken bones. He’s just unconscious,” Annie repeated.

“If he’s still in his parachute, unfasten his risers and drag him as far as you can away from there,” Patrick said.

Annie unclipped the parachute risers from Dev’s harness, then retrieved his survival pack, laid it on his chest, then grabbed his parachute harness near his shoulders and pulled. Although Deverill was tall, he wasn’t very big, but he wouldn’t budge. She pulled harder, throwing her weight into it, and finally broke him out of the crust of snow so he would move. But she could only move him a few inches at a time, and soon found that she couldn’t keep him from sliding down the embankment toward the road. This was not going to work. If she kept on moving him, he’d eventually slide all the way down, and then whoever was in the truck, or whoever might follow them toward the Vampire’s crash site, would …

A flashlight beam swept across her. They were coming! They were a couple dozen yards away, but they were getting closer by the second. She heard voices, angry men’s voices. They were tracking her.

There was nowhere else to go but down the embankment. Annie turned Dev’s body so his head was facing downhill. He moved much easier now, so she pulled faster. The flashlight beam swung in her direction again, much closer now. She crashed against a tree, swore gently, maneuvered Dev’s body around the tree, and continued to pull.

Excited, frantic voices now. Annie guessed they had found the parachute. It was only a matter of time now…

Unexpectedly, Annie reached the bottom of the embankment, fell, and landed hard on the frozen dirt road. She twisted an ankle trying to land on her feet and couldn’t help but cry out in pain. The flashlights again swung right in her direction.

They had them now…

Borispol Air Base, Kiev, Republic of Ukraine

The landing was anything but pretty — in fact, it was more of a controlled crash than anything else. With most of his hydraulic system gone, Major John Weston had no control of most of the flight surface, engine nacelle control, or landing gear systems. He was able to use the emergency blow-down system and got one good main landing gear and the nose gear out of the sponsons. But it didn’t matter — since he had no control of the engine rotating system, he couldn’t switch to helicopter mode. They were going to hit hard no matter how good the Trash Man was.

Borispol Air Base was a large combined Ukrainian air force and army aviation base. Weston got a general layout of the base from his flight information publications. The northeast side of the base housed the army aviation eskadriyls, with Mil-8 and Mil-6 heavy transport helicopter squadrons and one Mil-24 attack helicopter squadron; the south side had a mixture of fixed-wing air defense, attack, bomber, and transport planes. Weston used the large runway to get oriented, then slowly, carefully, diverted over to the taxiway opposite the blast deflectors beside the mass helicopter parking ramp. If he lost any pieces of his Pave Hammer aircraft, at least they probably wouldn’t hit any Ukrainian aircraft, and he wouldn’t close the runway by crash-landing on the main runway.

“Hang on!” Weston shouted behind him over the roar of the windblast and engine noises. “Prepare for a hard landing!” Normally he would’ve said, “Prepare for a copilot landing,” but he didn’t think the shades of his dead copilot would appreciate the humor. As he touched down, traveling at least thirty knots beyond normal approach speed to maintain controllability, the first to arrive were the tips of his rotors, chewing huge double gouges into the taxiway. As soon as the rotors stopped, all lift ceased, and the MV-22 slammed into the pavement. The landing gear collapsed instantly, and the Pave Hammer aircraft began a long, ugly belly-slide, stopping four hundred feet later in the dirt between the taxiway and runway.

Weston had all of the major systems shut off several seconds before they landed. Ignoring the emergency escape system in the cockpit, he leapt out of his seat, stepping carefully over the body of his copilot in the aisle, and went to assist his surviving crew members in the evacuation. But Wohl, Briggs, Fratierie, and the surviving PJs had quickly evacuated Linda Mae Maslyukov out of the already-extended aft cargo ramp the moment the aircraft stopped, and had moved her several hundred feet upwind from the crash-landing site.

The aircraft was not on fire, just smoke belching from each seized engine, so Weston accepted the grisly but important task of carrying his copilot’s body out of the aircraft. He half dragged, half carried him as far upwind as he could, then laid him on the grass as carefully as possible. Exhausted, shaking from the buckets of adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream, very glad to be alive, Weston collapsed on the grass upwind of the aircraft. His job was over for now. All he needed was a beer and his wife and kids by his side.

Ukrainian soldiers and airmen were running over to them, jabbering excitedly. Several of them spoke English, and they hurried to help the PJs attend to Siren. They started an intravenous drip to try to rehydrate and nourish her, and a Ukrainian medic began dressing her wounds. Ukrainian firefighters knocked down the smoldering engine fires quickly. Weston was introduced first to the security forces first sergeant, and then to a progressive string of higher-ranking officers, until the base commander himself finally appeared.

Hal Briggs and Chris Wohl, looking like some sort of sci-fi Starship Troopers, walked up to them. Since they had just landed on a Commonwealth air base and might still be pursued by the Russian Air Force, both of them were on guard: Briggs had his helmet on, scanning the sky and the base for any sign of a threat; Wohl had his huge electromagnetic antitank rail gun out and ready. “Guys, this is the base commander, Brigadier-General Mykhaylo Sakhan, commander of the Second Aviation Division here at Borispol.” Briggs saluted; Wohl stood silently, his rail gun at port arms.

“And who are you, sir?” Sakhan asked, after he returned his salute, staring in amazement at both their strange outfits and their weapons.

“Our code name is Tin Man, sir,” Briggs replied in his electronically synthesized voice. “We are American military personnel. That’s all I am authorized to reveal to you.”

“Neechohol” Sakhan said. “We were warned by your American state department that you would be arriving, although they said nothing about arriving spacemen.”

“We need one of your helicopters to return to Russia, sir,” Briggs said simply.

“What happened?” Weston asked.

“Our guardian angel took a hit. Terminator is down. We’re going in after them.”

“Damn. I wish I had my ride.” And he meant it — all thoughts of relaxing with his family and a cold one were gone. Dewey and Deverill had risked their lives to save his. “You guys get out of here. We’ll be okay.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot help you,” Sakhan said. I have not received authorization from my superiors to assist you in violating Russian territory. I understand lives are at stake, but your government has not made the reason for all this activity clear to us. Perhaps you can explain who you are and what you were doing in Russia, and I can pass this information along to my superiors.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not possible, sir,” Briggs said. “But I assure you, my government will take full responsibility for our actions and reimburse you in full.”

“Would you sell me your strange outfit, or allow me to rent it for a while, or accept my assurance that whatever I might do with it would not be your responsibility?” Sakhan asked with a smile.

“No, sir.”

Sakhan raised his hands. “So there we have it. You can expect a representative from your embassy to arrive shortly, and we will secure the, wreckage of your aircraft and assist your injured in any way we can.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get any authorized assistance, sir,” Briggs said.

Sakhan narrowed his eyes. “This means what, soldier?”

Briggs and Wohl walked down the taxiway and made their way over to the mass helicopter parking ramp. Sakhan and several of his officers and personnel followed. They walked down the middle of the ramp until they saw a Mil-8MTV twin-turboprop helicopter gunship readying for takeoff, with a machine gun mounted on the nose but its weapon outriggers empty. “We’ll take this one,” he said.

“Pereproshopyoo?” Sakhan exclaimed, the rising anger apparent in his voice. “You will ‘take’ this helicopter? What do you mean?”

“I mean, sir, that I will take this helicopter to Russia on a rescue mission, or my associate will destroy it.”

“Destroy it? How dare you?”

Briggs turned to Wohl. “Demonstrate,” he ordered.

Wohl turned and, shooting from the hip, fired a depleted uranium projectile into another parked helicopter about a hundred yards away. The projectile created a bright one-inch contrail through the moist predawn sky that was very visible under the ballpark lights illuminating the ramp. Several large pieces of the helicopter’s engine compartment flew off, and the rotor mast listed sideways so far that one rotor blade tip sagged all the way to the ramp.

“Gavnuk! That little display of false bravado just cost your government five million dollars, and cost you a year in prison!” Sakhan shouted. He turned to two of his security men standing behind him and issued an order in Ukrainian.

But when the guards leveled their assault rifles on Briggs and Wohl, Briggs immediately sent both of them to the tarmac with one quick electric blast each from his electrodes. Wohl covered Briggs with the big rail gun but did not aim it at anyone. The other officers around Sakhan were stunned, not daring to make a move. Briggs nodded toward another helicopter. “Now that one.”

“Nee! Zhoda! Zhoda! Very well, very well,” Sakhan said angrily, holding up his hands. “If you wish to kill or maim dozens of my men just so you may sacrifice your lives and the life of one of my helicopter crews over Russia, I cannot stop you. But I wish you to know that you are in violation of Ukrainian law and I will see to it that you are punished.”

“Thank you, sir,” Briggs said. He and Wohl trotted over to the helicopter that had just started engines; meanwhile, Sakhan had issued orders over a portable radio to the crew. As the two Americans approached, several crew members departed the helicopter. When Briggs and Wohl climbed aboard, only the pilot and copilot remained.

Briggs strapped into the flight engineer’s seat behind the copilot, then swiveled the seat so he sat between the two pilots. He saw their shocked reactions as they stared at the weirdly outfitted man. “Stand by for instructions,” he told the pilot. He nodded in return — obviously he understood English and could hear Briggs’s synthesized voice. Briggs activated his satellite transceiver: “Briggs to Luger secure.”

“Go ahead, Hal.”

“Me and the master sergeant just got a ride,” Briggs said. “We might need to smooth things over with the Ukrainian army, but we’ll deal with that problem later. I need a heading and as much intel as you can give me to the shootdown point.”

“Roger. Be advised, Dewey and Deverill have been captured.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Annie is still in contact with us,” Luger went on. “They were captured by locals and turned over to Border Police. They’re not on the move right now — we think they’re in a vehicle, but stationary right now. Deverill is unconscious. Stand by … your magnetic course is one-one-seven degrees, range two-two-three nautical miles. One thousand feet AGL should be a good emergency safe altitude for you.”

“I’ve got a good visual on the terrain,” Briggs said. “We’re on our way. ETA, seventy minutes.” The Ukrainian pilots did not have night-vision goggles, but Briggs could see everything with perfect clarity with his electronic visor sensors. “One-one-seven degree heading, boys,” Briggs shouted to the pilots. “And step on it.”

“Step on it. Bistra. Ochen bistra. Haul ass, right, Mr. Robot?” the pilot echoed, laughing. Obviously, the pilots were much more excited about this mission than the base commander was. They lifted off the ground and headed off, staying just above the treetops.

Codlea, Romania

About a hundred miles north-northwest of the Romanian capital of Bucharest, nestled within the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps, Codlea was the site of a former Warsaw Pact bombing range and dispersal airfield, long ago sold to Pavel Kazakov — he never said why a Russian “businessman” needed an entire military base in the Carpathian Mountains, and the Romanian government, after seeing how much Kazakov was willing to pay for the abandoned ghost town of a base, didn’t ask.

Romania was a rich source of weapons, fuel, maintenance personnel, intelligence officers, and fighters — all it took was money, and the supplies seemed unlimited. Romania, once only a junior member of the Warsaw Pact, had developed a substantial weapons-manufacturing industry during the Nicolae Ceausescu regime, manufacturing license-built and copies of Soviet and Chinese weapons of all kinds, from small-arms ammunition to jet fighters. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia and China flooding the markets with weapons, and hard economic times in most of Eastern Europe, those weapons factories turned to the underground weapons dealers to stay alive. Kazakov was a regular and welcome customer in Romania.

From the outside, the big hangar looked as decrepit and as much in danger of collapse as all the buildings out there. But on closer inspection, one would first notice that the tall five meter-high barbed-wire fence surrounding the hangar was new. As one got closer, it’d be apparent that the peeling paint, loose siding, and rusty bolts on the outside of the hangar actually hid a soundproof steel lining, and that the old hangar door actually sat squarely on well-lubricated rollers. Although grass still popped up through cracks all over the runway and taxiways, some of the grass was clearly mashed down in places, denoting very recent activity by heavy vehicles.

Inside the fifty year-old hangar was one of the world’s most Modern aircraft-the Metyor-179 “Tyenee” stealth fighter-bomber. After its raid on Kukes, Pavel Kazakov had had Stoica and Yegorov fly the plane to this isolated, virtually unknown destination, where fuel, maintenance, and weapons were waiting. A crew of thirty technicians and workers were standing by, ready to check out the plane, download postmission data from its computers, and get it ready for its next mission.

After its first taste of action, the Mt-179 was in almost perfect condition. The pilot, Ion Stoica, was examining the aircraft with the maintenance chief during an early-morning status briefing. “That’s the worst of it, Mr. Stoica,” the maintenance supervisor said. He pointed to the leading edge of the wing near the muzzles where the air-to-air missiles were fired. “The missiles are ejected from the launch tubes by a slug of compressed nitrogen gas. The gas slug is supposed to push the missile thirty to forty meters from the wing before the missile’s motor fires, to avoid any exhaust damage to the wing. For some reason, the missiles are only being pushed ten to fifteen meters away before the motor ignites. The tube’s shutter, which is titanium, protects the inside of the wing from exhaust damage, but the exhaust is badly corroding the surface of the leading edge, and it appears that the shutter is partially open when the motor fires, because we are seeing some heat damage inside the launch tube itself.”

“What do you recommend?” Stoica asked.

“Several things: a larger and higher-pressure nitrogen bottle, bigger feed lines to the launch tube, redesigned replacement seals inside the launch tube, perhaps a faster-acting shutter to protect the tube, and perhaps some extra titanium sheathing around the muzzles to protect the wing,” the maintenance chief said.

“How soon can we get these things?”

“Not long at all — if we were at Zhukovsky,” the maintenance chief said. “Out here in the middle of Transylvania, there’s probably not a piece of titanium anywhere for three hundred kilometers. It will take time to obtain and fabricate these parts. And if Mr. Kazakov moves us again, it will only delay repairs even longer.”

“Can we still use the interior launchers?” Gennadi Yegorov, the Mt-179’s weapons officer, asked.

“You see how much damage was done after one launch, Mr. Yegorov,” the maintenance chief said. “One more launch could severely damage the composite wing, and then we’re looking at a long and complicated repair job. If it damages the structure around the launch tube, we could be looking at replacing the entire inboard wing section — that could take weeks, even months.”

Yegorov looked at Stoica, then shrugged. “We can keep the tubes loaded in case of emergencies,” he suggested, “and depending on our mission, we can load missiles on wing pylons.”

“How much do loaded wing pylons increase our radar cross-section?”

“Ya nee znayoo, “ Yegorov replied. “I would guess about ten to fifteen percent — more if we had air-to-ground missiles. But if we needed the stealth capability more than the missiles, we could always jettison the pylons and we would regain our stealth cross-section, and we’d still have air-to-air weapons on board in case of emergency.”

“The internal launch tubes that you did not use on your last flight are loaded with R-60s and they’re ready to go,” the maintenance chief said. “We need to clear the damage from the other launch tubes before we can load missiles in there. We can get the shutters to retract, but we need to find out if there’s any internal damage.”

“You’d better get started, then,” Stoica said. “I don’t know what the boss has in store for us, but I’d like to be ready to fly as soon as—”

Just then, one of the planning officers ran up to them. “Did you guys hear? There’s some kind of air defense emergency declared on the Russia-Ukraine border. The Russian Air Force is scrambling dozens of jets. Sounds like a war going on!”

They all hurried over to the operations office, where they monitored several UHF, HF, and satellite channels belonging to the Russian Air Force and other Russian military agencies, courtesy of Colonel-General Zhurbenko. It did indeed sound as if a full-scale air war was in progress. Several Russian aircraft and air defense sites had already been destroyed. The entire southeast military district was under an air defense emergency.

“Vi shooteetye!” Yegorov exclaimed. “I wish we were up there! We could show them all what a real fighter jet can do!”

Stoica shrugged, then looked at the maintenance chief. “Well, let’s go. Load those missile pylons on board, give us a full load of missiles, and let’s see what happens.”

“You’re crazy!”

“We need to test what our detection threshold is for pylon-mounted weapons,” Stoica said. “We still have some darkness left — we’ll be back over the Carpathians well before daylight. Let’s do it.”

Everyone had the same thought — what will Pavel Kazakov do when he finds out we launched his stealth fighter without permission? — but everyone was game if Ion Stoica was willing to okay the flight. If he was going to take the beat, that left everyone else off the hook.

The maintenance crews already had pylons ready to upload — they just had to transfer weapons from the weapon storage area: several steel and concrete containers flown in by transport plane — to the maintenance hangar. Stoica selected two R-60 heat-seeking air-to-air missiles on each pylon, plus one R-27 radar-homing missile mounted on the bottom of the pylon. The R-27 missile, developed at Metyor Aerospace, was designed to attack airborne radar aircraft and electronic warfare aircraft from long range — the missile could home in on enemy radio, radar, or jamming transmissions, as well as be guided by the Mt-179’s fire control radar.

Although the Tyenee with its long forward-swept wings, seemed to completely engulf the mounted weapon pylons, the externally mounted weapons also obviously spoiled the stealth fighter’s smooth, sleek lines. “It’s certain our stealth characteristics are going to suffer,” Stoica said. “But we need to find out by how much. If we can penetrate Belgorod airspace and cruise around undetected, we know we have a good system.”

“And maybe we’ll bag ourselves a Ukrainian or Turkish fighter,” Yegorov said happily. He waved a sheet of paper. “I’ve got the latest radar plots and fixes on the unidentified aircraft-we can be there in twenty minutes.”

Aboard the Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter

Just as the first rays of light were peeping over the horizon, the Ukrainian helicopter crossed the Russian border. “Dave, how are we doing?” Briggs asked via the satellite transceiver.

“Five degrees right, then straight ahead, thirty-one miles,” Luger replied. “Belgorod early-warning radar is forty miles south, but I think you’re below their coverage. Continue terrain masking. Dewey and Deverill are on the move. Looks like they’re in a vehicle, heading southeast toward Belgorod. They might be on the highway, judging by how fast they’re moving. They’re about twenty miles north of the town of Jakovlevo. We’re trying to get a good satellite image of the area to see if we can identify the vehicle, but I don’t think there’s time. I’ll vector you in as close as I can, and then you’ll have to take it from there.”

The chase took only a few more minutes. The highway they were following was growing quickly — it was the main highway between Moscow and Sevastopol, running almost the entire width of western Russia. Traffic was increasing rapidly as the workday began. “This is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Briggs said grimly. “We can see several dozen vehicles out here.”

“Twelve o’clock, five miles,” Luger said. “Speed forty-eight knots … four miles, straight ahead … three miles … speed forty-five knots …”

Briggs used his electronic visor to scan every vehicle. Traffic was starting to get busy as they got closer to town, so everyone was slowing down together. There were no military-looking vehicles apparent.”

Annie, this is Hal secure,” Briggs radioed. “Don’t answer. I can’t see your vehicle. I need you to do something to distract the driver and make him swerve or slow down or pull off the road. Scream, throw a tantrum, swear, anything. We’re just a few seconds out.”

“Two miles. You got them yet, Hal?”

“Nothing. Every vehicle was in line. No one pulled off the road, no one swerved, no one sped up or slowed down.”

“One mile,” Luger reported. “Distance and speed are getting more unreliable, guys. The system just isn’t precise enough to give you an exact bead on them. See anything?”

“Nothing. Nothing that looks like a prisoner transport, or a military vehicle, or anything unusual at all. A few buses, a bunch of station wagons, a bunch of minivans.”

“Then we’ll have to do it the hard way,” Chris Wohl said. “Rotate left, translate sideways.” As the pilot turned the big chopper so it was flying sideways down the highway, Wohl leaned out the starboard side cargo door, raised his rail gun, aimed, and fired. Both dual left rear tires of a large passenger bus exploded. The bus swerved left, blocking the highway and stopping traffic. “Make a low pass over the stopped cars, and keep an eye out for a response.”

It did not take long at all. From a large but otherwise plain black sedan, very much like dozens of others on the highway, Briggs saw a soldier in camouflaged battle-dress uniform emerge with an AK-74 assault rifle in his hands, staring at the low-flying helicopter. “Tally-ho!” Briggs shouted. “There’s suspect number one! You got him covered, Sarge? Don’t let him get a shot off at our ride.”

“Roger,” Wohl responded. He already had the gunman in his sights, and Briggs hoped he wouldn’t pull the trigger — a human body shot with a blunt one-pound projectile traveling over three thousand feet per second would burst apart like an overripe melon.

Briggs didn’t wait for the helicopter to hover or position itself near the suspect vehicle — he simply ran to the open portside cargo door and leaped out, with the helicopter still over a hundred feet in the air and flying about thirty miles an hour. A fraction of a second before his feet hit the pavement, a burst of jet propellant from his boots softened his fall. Another blast of propellant flung Briggs through the air, and he landed right beside the flabbergasted gunman. A lightning burst of electrical energy from an electrode dropped the startled gunman before he could even think about leveling his rifle.

The windows in the sedan were inch-thick bulletproof glass, but they were no match for the electronically controlled armor that turned Briggs’s fists into battering rams. He cracked open the left rear window first and peered inside. The moment he saw two passengers wearing HAWC black flight suits inside, he raced into action. He shot another burst of high-voltage disabling energy into the second armed guard sitting in the aft-facing passenger seat. At the same moment, another shot from Wohl’s rail gun disabled the sedan’s engine with a tremendous KA-BANG! and flying pieces of engine block before the driver could speed away through traffic. One pull through the broken window, and the thick bulletproof door popped free of its frame.

Briggs immediately found out why Annie couldn’t respond — she and Deverill were handcuffed to the floor, their mouths taped shut, and a hood pulled over their eyes. One quick yank, and the handcuffs popped off their floor bolts, and he hustled the two fliers out of the disabled sedan.

“Stand by, sir, we’re coming down,” Wohl radioed. “Hurry it up,” Briggs radioed back. But as he watched the sky while the Ukrainian chopper came in for a landing, he saw something else that made his blood turn to slush: four Russian Mi-24 gunships, armed to the teeth. At the same instant, two Russian fighter planes screamed overhead, providing air cover for the gunships.

The game was up. The rescue mission was over. The gunships were bearing down on them quickly, two staying high opposing the Ukrainian chopper, the other two swinging wide apart, swooping in low to cover Briggs and the others on the ground. The only thing they could do now was surrender. There was no way they could—

Suddenly, the two high Mi-24 gunships lining up on the Ukrainian helicopter swerved, ratcheted back and forth across the sky unsteadily, then dove for the earth, trailing a thick cloud of smoke. The two low Mi-24s swerved left and right, popping bright decoy flares and ejecting bundles of chaff. The two heavily armored Mi-24s were able to autorotate to hard but survivable landings several hundred yards away. They heard loud BOOOMs across the sky as the MiG fighters sped away, either running from or looking for a fight.

“Tin Man, this is Terminator Two,” Briggs heard General Patrick McLanahan announce on his personal satellite transceiver. “Splash two Hinds. We’re defensive with two MiGs coming around after us. Get off the ground as fast as you can. We’ll try to put these MiGs down and keep the other Hinds off your six.”

“Sweet lord, someone’s looking out for us!” Briggs crowed. “C’mon, Sarge, get that beast on the ground and pick us up now before our luck runs out.”

The White House Situation Room, Washington, D.C.

“I’m afraid, Mr. President,” Robert G. Goff, the U.S. secretary of defense, said solemnly, “that this might be the worst peacetime military incident since the Francis Gary Powers U-2 spy plane affair.”

Secretary of Defense Goff was giving a late-night report to President Thomas Thorn in the White House Situation Room, which was very much like most conference rooms anywhere except for the sophisticated communications capabilities — the President could pick up the phone in front of him and talk to virtually anyone on the planet, even those aloft or afloat. Arrayed around Thorn were Edward Kercheval, the Secretary of State; Air Force General Richard W. Venti, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Robert R. Morgan, Director of Central Intelligence. Vice President Lester R. Busick was seated beside the President.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad, Robert,” the President said in a soft voice. “As far as we can detect, the world has not stopped spinning on its axis. Run it down for us.”

For most folks, the President’s quiet tone and demeanor, his soft-spoken attitude, and his almost constant level of energy were a calming influence. But with these men, in this situation, it was beginning to get annoying. For Robert Goff, his friend the President’s constant lack of … alacrity, for lack of a better term, was beginning to get infuriating.

“Yes, sir,” Goff began, after taking a deep breath. “The rescue mission for Siren was a success. Unfortunately, just before exiting Russian airspace, the EB-1C Vampire bomber used for air cover was shot down by Russian air defense forces.”

“Maybe this Vampire wasn’t as survivable as we were led to believe,” the Vice President scoffed.

“The best-laid plans, Les, the best-laid plans,” the President said, gently admonishing his vice president. “The only real failure is the failure to try.”

Busick hid a scowl and fell silent. It was obvious to most of the nation that Thomas Thorn and Lester Busick were definitely two different men; if given a choice, most folks in the know would never pick these two men to work together in the White House. Thorn was a complete Washington novice; Busick was the archetypical Washington insider. Busick worked best when operating in crisis mode; Thorn treated every incident, from the lowliest political flap to the most serious world crisis, with the same quiet, understated coolness. He had a sort of Jimmy Carter innocence about him and a seemingly Ronald Reagan-type detachment from the seriousness of a particular incident, but at the same time his finely tuned mind kept his staff and advisors well coordinated and moving generally in unison.

For many years, Lester Busick had seen himself as the ultimate Washington puppetmaster, the man in the wings pulling the strings of power — but with the advent of Thomas Nathaniel Thorn on the political scene, he could tell right away that he was being outclassed. The difference was that Thorn pulled the strings without seemingly lifting a hand.

“What about the Vampire’s crew?” the President asked.

“Sir, Air Force Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson was in charge of the cover mission — he’s with us on a secure videophone link. I’d like to bring him in on our discussion.” Thorn nodded, and an aide activated the link. Samson was seated in his battle staff area at Dreamland, along with Major John Long. “General Samson, this is Secretary Goff. I’m here with the President and the National Security Council in the Situation Room. Who’s with you, General?”

“This is Major John Long, operations officer of the 111th Bombardment Squadron, the unit that the aircrew and aircraft were assigned; he is the acting commander. The unit commander, Colonel Furness, is the aircraft commander of the backup aircraft and is en route back here.”

“Very well, General. What’s the latest on the crew?”

“Both crew members are alive,” Samson said. “One crew member is still unconscious. The crew was captured by local Russian militiamen and transferred to the Border Police, who are taking them to an unknown location, presumably a Border Police regional headquarters, possibly Belgorod.”

“The plane was destroyed in the crash, General Samson?” the President asked.

“Our telemetry indicates that the plane was completely destroyed, sir,” Samson replied.

“Telemetry?”

“We monitor hundreds of different parameters of every weapon system involved in our missions by satellite, sir.”

“Too bad you can’t monitor your human ‘weapon systems’ the same way, General,” Busick quipped.

“In fact, sir, we can,” Samson said. “We’re in constant voice contact with all of our personnel, and we monitor a range of readings on each one constantly by satellite.”

“You do?” the President asked incredulously. “You know where they are, what they say, whether their hearts are beating or not?”

“Exactly, Mr. President,” Samson said. “My staff has been monitoring them continuously during this mission. We are not currently in voice contact, but we are monitoring life signs and they are alive. We can also plot their positions with some degree of accuracy, and we’ve determined that they are indeed on the move.” Thorn’s eyebrows arched in amazement. “Their situation appears to be quite desperate. I’m aft-aid they’ve been captured and will be in the Russian military prisoner system shortly.”

“Amazing,” Busick gasped. “So you know exactly where they are right now?

Why don’t we just go in and get them, then?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Defense Secretary Goff said enthusiastically. He turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “General Venti?”

“General Samson’s cover mission included a number of contingency operations, including an armed rescue mission,” Venti said. “If I know General Samson and his staff, he’s got his folks moving already.”

“We do, sir,” Samson said. “We’re hoping that the forces controlling Dewey and Deverill are not regular military or paramilitaries, but reserves or local police. There are few regular army forces stationed on the Ukrainian border. If we launch a rescue mission before they are transferred to regular military control or taken out of the frontier region, we might be able to rescue them successfully.

“The Intelligence Support Agency cell that was successfully rescued by the Vampire bomber crew is safe on the ground in Ukraine at an airfield outside Kiev,” Samson went on. “They want permission to procure a helicopter and return to the shootdown area. They are the closest special-ops capable forces in the area — they can be on scene in about two hours, depending on what kind of transportation they procure. The next-nearest forces would be in Turkey, at least three hours away plus generation and briefing time.”

“We seem to have decided on an armed hostile infiltration action,” the President observed. No one replied. “I may sound incredibly naive here, gentlemen, but why don’t we just ask the Russians to give our people back to us?”

“I’m afraid we couldn’t expect too much help from the Russians once they found out who they had in their possession, sir,” Robert Goff said, trying hard not to look too shocked at the President’s seemingly childish question. “I mean, in a very real sense, our crews are hostiles, enemy attackers, just as if we were at war. They flew a strategic bomber inside Russia, shot down Russian aircraft, destroyed Russian military property. They don’t have any reason to be nice to us. I expect them to delay returning the crew until they have had ample time to interrogate them thoroughly. Then they’ll examine the wreckage and interrogate them some more about the technology they’ll undoubtedly find. They could be prisoners for a very, very long time.”

“The best opportunity to get them out is now, sir,” Venti stressed. “Although they appear to be taken by paramilitary forces, they’re still not in the hands of trained prison guards or professional soldiers. If we can get to them right now, we have the best chance of rescuing them.”

“And then once the crew is out of the Russians’ hands, we can do our own stalling technique,” Goff went on. “The Russians will have what’s left of the bomber, but they won’t have the crew. That’s far more important. They’ll ask a ton of questions, accuse us of everything under the sun, and condemn us for our warlike actions. But they won’t have anything.”

The President nodded, seemingly unconvinced. He looked up and saw General Samson deep in a discussion with a new officer that had entered the videoconference picture. The discussion they were having out of mike range appeared to be getting rather heated. “Problem, General Samson?” he asked. Samson looked at the camera, then jabbed his finger at the newcomer beside him. “General?”

“Maybe a potential problem,” Terrill Samson said. “Stand by one.” The President and his staff allowed Samson to confer with his staff for a couple of minutes. Samson was obviously struggling to retain control of his anger. Finally, he faced the camera once again and explained, “Sir, it seems that a rescue mission is already under way — in fact, the Vampire crew has already been recovered, alive.”

“What?” almost everyone in the Situation Room exclaimed.

“We didn’t authorize any rescue mission,” Vice President Busick said. “General Samson, I’ve had to put up with shenanigans from you boys in Dreamland for years. Is it happening again, even with Brad Elliott gone? Was this one of your patented stealth sneak attacks?”

“God, I hope not,” Venti murmured in exasperation. “What’s going on, Earthmover?”

“Easy, folks, easy,” the President said, keeping his hands folded before him, seemingly unflustered by this news. “A few minutes ago, you were going to recommend such a mission — now you’re upset because you all didn’t get to push the ‘go’ button. Continue, General Samson.”

General Samson took a deep breath and ran it down for the National Security Council staff. “Exactly as we were planning, the Intelligence Support Agency members who’d been taken to a base outside Kiev obtained use of a Ukrainian helicopter, penetrated Russian airspace, and located Dewey and Deverill using their personal microtransceivers,” Samson said.

“My God, that’s incredible,” Robert Goff exclaimed. “Amazing. Who organized this, General? You?”

“No, sir — my staff officers and the commanders on-scene,” Samson replied. “There is a complication, however. The Russian Federation Air Force is bearing down on them. They…” He paused, then said under his breath, “Genesis to Briggs … conference in McLanahan … conference in Luger … everyone, stand by.”

“General, am I to understand that you are actually talking to your men in the middle of some sort of combat rescue mission over Russia that is happening right now?” the President asked incredulously. “You are making some sort of global conference call and listening to what’s going on without a radio in your hand, a microphone to your lips, or a speaker?”

Samson had to pull himself away from eavesdropping on the firefight half a world away to respond to his commander-in-chief: “Yes … yes, sir. Part of my unit’s security infrastructure is a satellite tracking and communications system that is … is implanted into every member of my organization.”

“Implanted?”

A subcutaneous satellite transceiver,” Samson explained. “We monitor all personnel constantly, year-round, worldwide. We can listen in on their conversations, talk to them, locate them, even record vital signs.”

“Extraordinary,” Secretary of Defense Goff breathed. “I’ve heard of such devices, but I never believed they would ever be used in my lifetime.”

“Never mind the gee-whiz stuff — what in hell’s happening out there?” Busick interjected hotly. “And I still want to know why the National Security Council wasn’t apprised of this operation? Who the hell has the balls to put a mission like this in motion without getting permission first?”

“Sir, firstly, I take full responsibility for whatever’s happening out there,” Samson said. “Those are my people and my aircraft. No one else is responsible.”

“I see plenty of heads rolling here — but the first one will be yours, General Samson. Count on it. Now what in hell is happening?”

Not since he had been a seventeen-year-old enlistee doing ditch-digging jobs in a Civil Engineering unit in Thailand during the Vietnam War — literally digging ditches, trenches, latrines, and garbage pits — had Terrill Samson ever felt so helpless and clueless. Back then, it had been because he was a know-nothing airman. This time, it was because of Patrick McLanahan and David Luger. McLanahan and Luger had gone behind his back and executed this goat-fuck mission without one word to their superior officer. It was betrayal of the worst kind. Samson felt humiliated, castrated by his own people.

McLanahan wasn’t a genius, a legend, a hero — he was a back-stabbing traitor.

“We … we have another aircraft flying as air support for the Intelligence Support Agency operatives,” Samson said, putting as much strength and authority in his voice as he could, even though he realized it had all but completely drained away. “The support aircraft is one of mine, too. Colonel Furness of the One-Eleventh Bomb Squadron and General Patrick McLanahan, my deputy, are flying the backup EB-1C Vampire bomber. They apparently heard about the shootdown, reversed course, returned to Russian airspace, and are now engaging the Russian attackers …”

“My God!” someone gasped — Samson couldn’t tell who it was.

“Two Russian helicopter gunships have already been shot down … no, wait, now one Russian jet fighter has been shot down,” Samson reported, still listening to the action being played literally in his head through the subcutaneous satellite transceiver. “The Ukrainian helicopter with the other two Vampire crew members on board is airborne and almost back into Ukrainian airspace. Two more gunships are in the area, and one or more fighters. The Vampire is reengaging all of them.”

“A bomber … hunting down fighters?” Secretary of State Kercheval exclaimed. “How can they do that?”

“I still want to know, who in hell gave the order for them to be shooting down Russians?” Busick thundered. It was a rhetorical statement — aimed not at General Samson, not at Secretary of Defense Goff, but right at the President of the United States.

But President Thorn wasn’t going to be drawn into a conflict with anyone, not even his friend and closest advisor — and perhaps also his biggest critic. He rested his head in his left hand, tapping on the corner of his mouth with his index finger, studying the videoteleconference screen with Terrill Samson’s anxious, animated face looking back at him. It was as if he was watching someone watch a video replay of a bad car accident, or a bullfight, something potentially violent-you felt like asking, “What’s going on?” every five seconds.

Finally, the President picked up the phone beside him and said to the White House communications officer: “Get me President Sen’kov of the Russian Federation on the line.” It took only a few moments until someone in the Russian president’s office answered. “This is President Thorn. I am in the White House with members of my national security staff.”

“This is President Sen’kov,” the voice of the Russian translator said. “I am in my residence surrounded by generals and defense ministers who believe we are under attack by the United States. You are calling about the illegal violation of Russian sovereign airspace near the Russia-Ukraine border, I assume? Is this some sort of prelude to war, Mr. President? What is the meaning of this?”

“I’d be happy to explain,” Thorn said. “The United States was conducting an intelligence operation inside Russia, near Moscow.”

The men in the Situation Room looked stunned. Sen’kov must’ve been equally stunned at that revelation, because it took him several long moments to respond: “Please repeat, Mr. President.”

“I said, the United States was conducting an intelligence mission near Moscow,” Thorn repeated, as calmly as if he were describing a rare painting or a Mozart opera. “We were trying to rescue an agent that was spying on one of your military installations. We inserted a special operations team inside your country, and we used a long-range stealth aircraft to cover the team in case it was discovered.”

“Mr. President!” Lester Busick retorted. “What are you doing? You can’t reveal that information to the Russians?”

Thorn hit the microphone kill-switch on the telephone. “Les, don’t you think the Russians already know all this?” he asked. He released the switch: “As you know, President Sen’kov, the special ops team made it out, but your military forces shot down the stealth bomber. Some of our special operations forces and another stealth aircraft went in to try to rescue the crew of the first stealth aircraft before your forces could imprison them.”

“One moment, please, Mr. President,” the translator said. The men in the Situation Room could only imagine what was going on in the minds of the Russian president and military advisors. The translator finally said, “President Sen’kov thanks you for your candor, Mr. President, but he still demands that the United States take full responsibility for what your forces have done.”

“I fully intend to,” Thorn said. “Allow me to continue: At the present moment, our respective forces are engaging one another in an air battle. Three of your helicopters and one fighter have already been shot down. But I do not wish for the battle to go on. I am hereby ordering the crew of the stealth aircraft to disengage if you order your defensive forces to let them go.

“With all due respect, Mr. President,” Sen’kov said through the translator, “the Russian people would not care to see its forces merely surrender with a hostile enemy force flying overhead. They are and always will be determined to fight to the last man to defend their homeland.”

“Mr. President, I will order my forces to disengage, but I will also tell them that they are free to defend themselves if they are attacked,” Thorn said. “I feel guile certain my aircrews can survive and make it out of your country, but I don’t wish for them to hurt any more Russians. I strongly urge you to accept my suggestion and order your forces to disengage.” Thorn kept the line open and said to the videoteleconference screen, “General Samson, order the Vampire to disengage immediately. It may open fire only if fired upon first.”

A moment later: “Order received and acknowledged, sir,” Samson responded. “Vampire is proceeding direct to the Ukrainian border at maximum speed and at low altitude.”

“I’ve issued my orders, and they have been acknowledged, Mr. Sen’kov,” President Thorn said. “Let’s stop this right now, shall we?”

“This is an insult. This is unacceptable.” The translator’s voice was monotoned and even, although they could very clearly hear the Russian president shouting at the top of his lungs in the background. “You commit an act of war upon the Russian people, and you expect us to just turn our backs and walk away?”

“I am prepared to offer you one hundred million dollars in reparations for the damage and expense my forces have caused,” Thorn went on. The mouths of every man in the Situation Room dropped open in surprise. “In addition, I offer five million dollars for every Russian killed by my forces during the operation, plus a public admission of guilt and a public apology, broadcast on international television.”

“Mr. President, what in the world …?” Busick sputtered. “You can’t do that!”

“I’m going to do it,” Thorn said. “I promise, upon my mother’s name, I’ll do it this afternoon, in Russian prime time.”

“A public apology? A public admission of guilt? No conditions?”

“No conditions,” Thorn said. “I have authorized my forces to stop all hostile actions — they are authorized only to defend themselves now. In any case, I will make my apology and explanation this morning, ten A.M. Washington time, and I will announce the reparation payment. If the Russians will tell me how many of their men were killed by my forces, I’ll announce that payment as well. My only wish right now is that no more lives are put in jeopardy.”

“You … you will admit all, Mr. President?” Sen’kov asked.

“Everything.”

“Such as what kind of aircraft were involved in this intelligence operation?”

“Certainly,” Thorn replied. “The rescue from near Moscow was accomplished by an MV-22 tilt-rotor special operations aircraft called a Pave Hammer. It carries a crew of six, several machine guns and air-to-air missiles on a retractable launcher, and defensive transmitters and expendables. The crew belong to a unit of the Intelligence Support Agency, a directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency set up to perform missions such as this.

“The cover aircraft were EB-1C stealth bombers called Vampires, which are highly modified B-1 bombers designed to penetrate heavily defended airspace and attack a wide variety of—”

“You dared to send nuclear-capable B-1 bombers over the Russian Federation? How dare you? This is tantamount to war!”

“They were simply the best aircraft available to protect our rescue aircraft,” Thorn said matter-of-factly. “You are not foolish enough really to believe our aircraft would be carrying nuclear weapons, are you?”

“I do not know what to believe!” Sen’kov’s translator said over the obviously agitated voice of the Russian president. “You announce this as casually as if you had sent me a birthday present! Are you mad? Are you insane?”

“Think what you like, Mr. President,” Thorn said. “Allow me to continue. The Vampires belong to the One-Eleventh Bomb Squadron, a unit of the Nevada Air National Guard, currently based at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. The Vampires were carrying a mixture of air-to-air, air-to-ground, and antiradar weapons — I don’t know the exact combination, but I’ll get that information for you if you wish. Their primary mission is the suppression of enemy air defenses and antiballistic missile defense. Their mission was to recover an agent who was spying on Russian military bases near Moscow. The personnel that were rescued by the MV-22 commandeered a Ukrainian helicopter at a base near Kiev, which is what they used to travel back into Russia to extract the downed air-crewmen.”

“Very interesting, Mr. President,” Sen’kov said. Robert Goff could easily envision Sen’kov’s advisors hurriedly writing all this information down. It was an intelligence bonanza, and it was being supplied direct from the horse’s mouth — the President of the United States! “And the purpose of this spying?”

“To determine the extent of Russian involvement in the recent attack in Kukes, Albania, where several hundred men, women, and children were ruthlessly murdered in an air raid,” Thorn replied hotly.

“Russian involvement?” Sen’kov retorted. “That’s ridiculous, Mr. Thorn. Investigators from NATO and the United Nations, including members of your own FBI, have no evidence of who might have caused that devastation. Rival drug lords, Macedonian mercenaries punishing Albanian gunrunners for cross-border raids, even rival Muslim sects have been blamed. But Russia had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

“The United States has information that a Russian stealth bomber launched from Zhukovsky Flight Test Center committed those attacks. I’ll be sure to tell the world that, Mr. President.”

There was silence at the other end for a very, very long time. Finally, the translator said, “You will be spreading lies to cover up your culpability in this entire affair.”

“I will tell the truth, President Sen’kov — the entire truth,” Thorn said pointedly. “I’ll admit we were spying on you, and I’ll admit we flew aircraft into Russian airspace illegally. I will publicly offer the reparation payment, and I will also offer compensation to the families of any Russians that were killed during the operation, once you verify what that number is.” It was a clever tactic: in order to increase the award, the Russians would have to admit that many Russians had been killed — which wouldn’t look too good for Russia’s military. “I’ll then present the information recovered by the agent, which I am told not only proves that the attack originated in Russia, but was sanctioned by the Russian government.”

“Lies! All lies!”

“Mr. President, I am prepared to admit to everything,” Thorn shot back. “I will tell the world the honest truth. I’ll present photographs, details of the aircraft, where they came from, and exactly what they did. I will plead guilty to ordering an illegal overflight and undeclared hostile military action against the Russian Federation. I will then play the recordings the agent obtained during the surveillance. The world will believe me, President Sen’kov. I guarantee it.”

It was an unbelievable, stunning tactic. The others in the Situation Room were shocked into silence, afraid to move or even breathe. Could this work …?

“Mr. Thorn,” the translator said in his usual toneless voice, after another lengthy pause, “we feel a public statement is unnecessarily belligerent and inflammatory to the Russian people, and we demand you refrain from such a propagandist spectacle. We accept your offer of reparation payment of one hundred million dollars. The Russian government expects it to be paid forthwith. Your admission of guilt is sufficient and a matter of record.

“President Sen’kov has ordered all defensive forces to cease their attacks but to closely monitor all foreign aircraft for any sign of hostilities, and they have been ordered to respond immediately with overwhelming force should any foreign aircraft initiate hostile actions,” the translator went on. “The Russian government considers this matter closed, with a final admonition: if the United States spreads any information about this incident or any related incidents whatsoever, Russia will use any and all measures to force the United States to deal with the consequences.”

And the connection was terminated.

The members of the National Security Council looked at each other in stunned silence. Finally, Secretary of Defense Goff said under his breath, “Did … did what I think just happened really happen? Did the president of Russia just let an armed American stealth warplane fly through his country?”

“Sure — for one hundred million dollars,” Vice President Busick retorted. “Pretty sweet deal for him.” He turned to the President, who was sitting quietly, even serenely, at the conference table. “The money wasn’t necessary, Mr. President. The Vampire was almost out of Russia anyway. The first Vampire crew was safe—”

“The money was nothing but a token of good faith — or call it a bribe,” the President said. “Sen’kov knew we had won anyway — he had to save face in front of his generals, and a hundred million bucks goes a long way toward doing just that. Plus, he realizes now we had the goods on him. The incident is over, and everyone wants it that way. Let’s all go home.” He stood and headed for the door. But before he departed, he turned back toward the videoteleconference screen and said, “General Samson?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I want a full report on this incident from you and from General McLanahan as soon as he returns from his trip through Russia. I assume he will actually come back this time?”

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

“The only matter we still need to discuss is what to do about my military officers who plan and execute military operations in foreign countries without permission,” the President said grimly. “That kind of insubordinate, illegal bullshit needs to be dealt with right away, once and for all. I hope I’m making myself clear to everyone.”

Over southern Russia

The threat warning receiver was a wild, confusing mixture of signals, and Gennadi Yegorov was having a tough time sorting them out. “I can’t quite make out what all the fuss is about,” he said to Ion Stoica. They were both listening intently to Belgorod Radar Center, trying to coordinate the flight paths and defensive alignment of at least six Russian jet fighters and one SA-10 surface-to-air missile site. “I can’t tell if they haven’t found the intruder, or if they’ve found him but can’t lock onto him, or found him but aren’t authorized to attack.”

Stoica, piloting the Metyor-179 Tyenee stealth fighter-bomber, readjusted his grip on the control stick and worriedly shifted in his ejection seat. “I think we’re too late,” he said. “Whatever it was got away.”

“I’m not so sure,” Yegorov said. “I just heard another message about unidentified aircraft heading southwest.”

“Well, that’s right toward us,” Stoica said. “Let’s hope we get lucky. How’s the infrared sensor this morning?”

“Atleechna, “ Yegorov said. “Better than usual-must not be very much humidity in the air. Range is about sixteen kilometers.” He paused, listening to the busy, often confusing cacophony of radio transmissions, then said excitedly, “There! A traffic warning to another aircraft, unidentified intermittent radar target, ten kilometers south of Boriskova, heading westbound, altitude unknown.” Stoica banked hard left and headed for that spot. “Very indistinct radar fixes — he’s less than thirty miles from the air defense radar site at Belgorod, but they can’t lock him up.”

“It must be a stealth aircraft,” Stoica said. “Could it be an American stealth aircraft?”

“They can’t get a good fix on him — but the detection threshold is getting closer for us the farther we head northeast,” Yegorov warned his aircraft commander. “Thirty kilometers more and they’ll be able to see us.”

“Those weapon pylons are as bad as radar reflectors,” Stoica said.

“That answers our question — we wear pylons, and our stealthiness goes away,” Yegorov summarized. “I suggest we go home and bring Comrade Kazakov’s plane back to him before we dent a fender.”

“You say we have thirty kilometers before we need to turn south again — let’s take it,” Stoica said. “My dogfight antennae are going nuts. Whoever’s out there, he’s close.”

“Did I ever tell you what I think of your so-called dogfight antenn—” But Yegorov stopped before finishing — because a target had just appeared on the infrared search-and-track sensor. “Wait a minute … contact!” he crowed. “Eleven o’clock low, range unknown. Weak infrared return, but it does not correlate to any other radar targets.” He reached up and patted Stoica’s shoulder. “I’ll never bad-mouth your antennae again.”

“Congratulate me later — let’s first see if we can eyeball this guy,” Stoica said. He offset himself slightly south of the target.

“If we can see him on the IRSTS, he’s well within R-60 range,” Yegorov said. “I’m ready.”

“I’d like to get a visual on him first,” Stoica said. “I don’t want to waste any missiles on just a cargo plane.”

“We’re not on a mission, Ion — we’re joyriding over Ukraine and Russia aboard a five-hundred-million-ruble stealth fighter,” Yegorov told him. “We came here to see how close we can touch air defense radars with loaded pylons aboard. We know now — not very close at all. Let’s go home before we break something major.”

“We finally get a fix on this guy, something it looks like the rest of the Russian Air Force could not do, and you want to let him go and go back home?” Stoica said, with not a little humor in his voice. “What happened to the bloodthirsty aerial assassin I met dropping bombs on Afghan villages a few years back?”

“He makes too much money and is too afraid of having his nuts cut off by his gangster boss,” Yegorov said.

“This guy shot down some fighters and helicopters,” Stoica reminded his backseater. “If you tell me you’re not the least bit curious about who he is, we’ll go home.” There was no reply. “Ha! I thought so. Hang on!” Stoica began a gentle left turn as the target began passing off their left side, beginning a tail chase to better line up on the target’s hot engine exhausts.

“Sleeshkam Pabol’she, “ Yegorov said, as he studied the infrared image. “He’s a big one. Four engines? I think he has four engines!”

“Four engines — he’s got to be a stealth bomber!” Stoica said. “It doesn’t explain who shot down the Russian aircraft, but this is a pretty big catch. We’ll deal with his escort after we take this big bastard down. What do you say, partner?”

“I’m with you,” Yegorov said excitedly. He entered commands into the weapon computers and immediately received a TARGET LOCK indication. “Two external R-60s ready and in range. Your trigger is hot.”

“Missiles away!” Stoica lifted the trigger guard off the control stick and squeezed the trigger. Two R-60 air-to-air missiles, one from each wing pylon, screamed off into space after their quarry less than five kilometers away….

As soon as the two R-60 missile motors ignited, a supercooled electronic eye in the tail of the EB-1C Vampire bomber detected them and issued a MISSILE LAUNCH warning, and at the same time automatically ejected decoys and activated the bomber’s electronic countermeasures system. “Missile launch! Break left! Now!” Patrick shouted.

The Vampire’s attack countermeasures systems were the most advanced in the world. Instead of simple chaff and flare decoy bundles, the Vampire ejected small cylindrical gliders that carried wide-spectrum electromagnetic transmitters that simulated the heat and radar signatures of a real plane. It also carried a towed transmitter array from which all the radar jamming signals were sent — in case the enemy launched home-on-jam weapons, the array would be destroyed, not the Vampire.

But the Metyor-179 was too close, and the decoys didn’t have time to power up to full illumination. While the first R-60 missile missed by a few dozen yards, the second R-60 did not. It briefly veered right after one of the decoys, then turned back left toward the Vampire. As it passed over the tail, its proximity fuse detected a near miss and detonated the seven-pound fragmentation warhead. The high-energy burst of shrapnel blew the upper half of the EB-1C’s vertical stabilizer completely away just above the horizontal stabilizer.

The explosion twisted the bomber around like a corkscrew, nearly flipping it completely inverted. Without a rudder, Rebecca had no roll or yaw stability. They were at the mercy of fate. If the plane recovered, they were saved — if not, their only chance would be to eject.

Somehow, it corkscrewed back to level flight. They had lost two thousand feet of altitude — Patrick found themselves just a thousand feet above ground. “Get the nose up, Rebecca,” he warned. “One thousand AGL.”

“I got it,” Furness said. She had almost no roll control at all, and she found herself muscling in more and more left stick. “Elevons feel like they’re stuck in a right turn. I think it’ll trim out … no, I can only trim part of it out. I’ve got limited pitch control, too. Dammit, check my instruments.”

“Rudder servo, elevon servo A, autopilot roll channels A and B, pitch servo A, secondary hydraulics, tail radar, tail warning receiver, and towed countermeasures arrays out,” Patrick said. “Looks like we got hit in the tail. Engines, electrical, primary hydraulics, and computers are okay. Can you hold it?”

“I think so,” Rebecca cried. “Where in hell did he come from?”

“First priority — get him off our tail,” Patrick shouted. “LADAR on!”The laser radar immediately located the enemy aircraft less than three miles away. He touched the enemy aircraft symbol on his supercockpit display. “Attack target.”

“Warning, attack command received, stop attack … doors coming open …” The forward bomb bay doors opened, and a single AIM-120 Scorpion AMRAAM missile was ejected into the slipstream. After stabilizing for a few seconds, its first-stage rocket motor ignited. It shot ahead of the Vampire bomber, then executed a wide, looping “over-the-shoulder” flight path toward the Metyor-179 stealth fighter.

Normally the missile relied on the Vampire’s tail radar for initial guidance to its quarry. But with the aft-facing radar gone, the AIM-120 missile had only the last known position, heading, altitude, and speed of the target for guidance. As it approached the spot in space where the enemy aircraft should be, it activated its own onboard radar and started to search.

“We got him!” Stoica shouted. The sudden POP! of the R-60’s warhead exploding and the brief trail of fire and burning metal were unmistakable. “Stand by, I’m going to let him have a couple more. Here goes …” Just then, he saw a brief flash of light in the distance, like a fireworks rocket flying sideways. “What the hell was that?”

“It’s a missile! “Yegorov shouted. “Break tight! Get out Of here!”

Stoica did not hesitate. He threw the Mt-179 stealth fighter into a hard-right ninety-degree bank turn, shoved in full afterburner power, and pulled the control stick back to his belly. At the same instant, Yegorov ejected decoy chaff and flare bundles. The emergency maneuver worked. Without a reliable target position, the Scorpion’s onboard radar locked onto the largest target it could find on its way down — the cloud of fine tinsel-like chaff — and blew up harmlessly several hundred yards from the stealth fighter.

“He launched a missile at us!” Stoica shouted in utter shock. “That bastard launched a missile at us!”

“That’s either the biggest fighter I’ve ever seen,” Yegorov said, “or American stealth bombers now carry air-to-air missiles.”

“That bastard is dead!” Stoica shouted. He rolled left and activated the attack radar. This time, the enemy aircraft appeared on the screen immediately. “Not so stealthy anymore, are we? We did hurt you. Missiles aw”— But before he could squeeze the trigger to launch two more R-60s, another missile flew into the sky and arced back toward them. Stoica swore and executed a hard-left break as Yegorov ejected chaff and flares from the right-side ejectors. The second missile missed, but not by as much this time.

“Ion, let’s get the hell out of here!” Yegorov shouted. This son of a bitch can shoot back at us!”

“I’m not letting him go!”

“Ion, stop it! You already nailed the guy. He’s bugging out. Let him go before he gets off a lucky shot and nails us.”

“Pizda tib a radila!” Stoica swore in Russian. But he knew Yegorov was right. This guy, whoever it was, definitely had some teeth. Besides, one glance at his fuel gauges told him the other story: going into afterburner twice, plus carrying two external wing pylons, really sucked away the gas. He had enough fuel for one more shot — but he elected not to take it. Reluctantly, angrily, he turned left and headed south toward Romania.

“He’s bugging out,” Patrick said, as he studied the God’s-eye view on his supercockpit display. “He’s heading south … into Ukraine.”

“Dammit, General, this is the last thing we need,” Furness swore. “We’re on an unauthorized and probably illegal mission — and now we have battle damage, serious battle damage! I’m not even sure if we’ll be able to air-refuel this thing without a rudder and with only partial elevon control.”

“Wonder where he’s going?” Patrick mused. “If he was a Russian fighter, shouldn’t he be headed the other way?”

“Are you listening to me, McLanahan? We almost got shot down. You almost got us shot down.”

“We were told by General Samson that the Russians agreed to let us go,” Patrick told Furness. “All the other Russian aircraft returned to base — all except one, a fighter with very low radar cross-section. Now he’s heading south into Ukraine. What’s up with that?”

“You’re lucky to be alive, our tail is shot to hell, and all you can think of is where the guy that almost killed us is headed?”

“LADAR coming on,” Patrick said. He tracked the unknown aircraft for just a few minutes longer until it disappeared from his screen, just fifteen miles away. Definitely a stealth fighter, Patrick thought — the laser radar had a range of over fifty miles. “He’s still heading south. No change in heading. Maybe we should follow him, try to reacquire.”

“Why the hell not?” Rebecca asked sarcastically, the anger thick in her voice. “Our ass is grass if we go home now anyway.” Rebecca continued on course back home, and Patrick did not argue any further.