Warrior Class

Over the Baltic Sea

From the outside, it resembled a normal Boeing DC-10 Model 30F, with no windows and with big cargo doors instead of passenger doors. Customs inspectors in Aberdeen, Scotland, two days earlier had found only a cavernous empty cargo hold, with a few dozen passenger seats on rolling pallets bolted to the forward part of the compartment, along with portable lavatories. This particular DC-10 had some unusual cargo-handling equipment installed inside — some sort of outsized equipment in the back of the cargo compartment, along with large doors underneath — but its American FAA Form 337 airframe modification sheets and logbook entries were in perfect order.

After stopping in Scotland for two days, during which time workers began loading the plane with cargo, the crew had filed a flight plan direct to Al-Manamah, Bahrain, with sixty thousand four hundred and fifty pounds of oil drilling parts and equipment. Again, the forms were all in order, and the cargo carefully inspected by both United Kingdom Inland Revenue officials, as well as shipment supervisors representing the Bahraini company receiving the parts, and the German insurance company that had written the shipment insurance policy for the four thousand mile flight. It was now obvious why they needed this particular plane and its unusual gear — some of the parts, including oil well pipe, manifolds, and valves, were massive, far too large to fit through the side cargo door. The parts had simply been hoisted aboard the plane through the cargo doors on the bottom. After a three-hour weather delay and another hour coordinating a new international flight plan across the ten countries they would overfly on their nine-hour flight, they finally got under way shortly before sunset.

But as soon as the flight was airborne, the twenty technicians and engineers aboard the aircraft got to work. The oil-drilling equipment that resembled massive cast-iron pieces were easily and quickly disassembled — they were actually composed of lightweight steel sheeting over polystyrene foam. Pump manifolds became control consoles; oil-drilling valves became test equipment and toolboxes; and oil-drilling pipe became pieces of two unusually shaped missiles.

The missiles had a curly-sided triangular cross-section, rather than a conventional round torpedo shape, with the bottom side slightly broader in an aerodynamic “lifting body” fuselage design. They had no conventional wings or control surfaces such as tail feathers or fins. When the missiles’ flight control systems were tested after assembly, the missiles’ skin actually seemed to undulate and ripple, like the scales of a swimming fish. The missiles’ engine inlets and exhausts were narrow slits both atop and at the weapon’s tail. Tiny sensor arrays covered the outside, looking in all directions. Each missile weighed about three thousand five hundred pounds. They were slid inside a pressure-sealed chamber over the curious cargo doors on the bottom of the aircraft fuselage.

By the time the missiles were in place, the DC-10 was over northern Belarus, fifty miles west of the city of Vitebsk. The technicians still inside the aft part of the cargo compartment donned helmets, parkas, gloves, and oxygen masks, and signaled on intercom that they were ready for the next step. The mission commander nodded, took a sip of Pepsi from a large squeeze bottle, keyed a microphone button, waited for the secure satellite transceiver link to lock in, then: “Hey, Archangel, this is Mad Dog.”

“Go ahead, Mad Dog.”

“We’re all ready to go. Say the word.”

“Do it.”

“Got it. Buzz me if you change your mind.”

“Very well. Good luck.”

“Don’t need it, but thanks. Later.” He turned to the aircraft intercom: “Okay, guys, countdown is under way, T minus two minutes and counting,” Doctor Jon Masters reported. “Final prelaunch checks complete, running pregyro spin-up checks, awaiting RLG alignment in forty-two seconds. Stand by for launch chamber depressurization.”

Jon Masters was happiest in his lab or on a computer design system, but he enjoyed actually going out and firing a few of his babies off every now and then. In his early thirties, with boyish good looks bordering on impish, Jon Masters was the Bill Gates of the military hardware and weapon contractors. He had earned his PhD about the same time most kids were learning to drive a car, and he had helped NASA build a worldwide tracking and data system and had been made chairman of a small high-tech weapons firm in California by the time most young men were getting their first real job. A few years later, he was firmly in control of his company and known the world over as an innovative inventor and designer. Sky Masters Inc. developed hundreds of different strategic and tactical military systems — everything from miniature satellite reconnaissance and communications systems, to high-tech aircraft, sensors, and air-launched weapons.

His most lucrative contracts had always been the top-secret stuff — satellites launched specifically for a classified mission, stealth warplanes, and Buck Rogers-like high-tech weapons. His company actually manufactured few of his designs — he found it much more profitable to license the designs to other high-tech firms. But this project was different. He’d personally supervised every aspect of this mission. This was the ultimate request, and the ultimate challenge — he wasn’t going to let anyone down. Jon Masters had a long enough string of successes working for classified top-secret projects that he could afford to be cocky, but he knew that if it could go wrong, it might go wrong, and he could never be positively sure until the mission was over.

The countdown went smoothly and swiftly. It took less than thirty seconds to spin up and align the RLG, or ring laser gyro, which provided super-accurate attitude and heading information to both missiles’ autopilots and navigation computers. Once the RLG was aligned, the chamber in which the missiles sat was depressurized, and the final data download began. Launch aircraft position, airspeed, altitude, and heading, along with target coordinates and last-second enemy antiaircraft intelligence information, was dumped to the missiles’ onboard computers, checked, then rechecked by computer in a matter of seconds. One more self-test was accomplished, the launch aircraft began a shallow climb, the cargo doors on the bottom of the fuselage were opened, and both missiles were ejected one by one into the slipstream.

The missiles were only in the air for a few minutes when an alert sounded. “Grant Two reporting a flight-control malfunction,” one of the technicians reported. “Looks like the entire left-side adaptive wing actuators are out.”

“Did you try a recall order?”

“It responded in the affirmative, then started reporting off-track,” the tech replied. “It’s trying to make its way back to us, but it can’t steer.”

“Cripes,” Masters exclaimed under his breath. “And that was the best one in the fleet. Did we get a data dump yet?”

“Yes, sir. Grant Two sent a complete data dump as soon as the malfunction occurred, and I requested and received another one. Blytheville acknowledged the fault and data dump, too.” The missiles always collected engine, systems, environmental, attitude, and computer data for the last thirty minutes of flight, like a flight data recorder did on an airliner, and it uploaded that information via satellite back to the launch aircraft and to Sky Masters Inc.’s headquarters in Blytheville, Arkansas. The upload came regularly throughout the flight, just before reaching their target, and whenever there was a glitch.

Jon Masters reached over to a red switch cover, opened it, inserted a key into a lock, turned it, and then pressed a button. Ten miles away, the second missile exploded. “Eighteen million down the tubes,” he muttered. There was no such thing as insurance for an experimental missile — especially one being used illegally. “How’s Grant One?”

“Straight and true, on course, all systems in the green.” Jon nodded. Well, he thought ruefully, that’s why we launch two at a time, even with the best systems — and he had the best systems around. Just ask him.

Grant One (Jon Masters always named his devices after U.S. presidents) continued its flight, descending smoothly from thirty-nine thousand feet under battery power only, heading east. Several minutes after launch, with its battery power halfway depleted, it automatically started its turbojet engine, but kept the power-off glide going until reaching five thousand feet above the western Russian lowlands. The engine throttled up as it began to level off, then reported one last status check to its mothership. Jon responded with a final “go-ahead” order.

The missile accelerated to four hundred and eighty knots airspeed and descended to one thousand feet above ground level as it cruised north of Moscow, skirting the long-range air defense and air traffic control radars ringing the city. Every twelve seconds, it updated its inertial guidance system with a fix from the Global Positioning System navigational satellites, but after only a forty-five-minute low-level flight, its navigational error was less than sixteen feet.

Twenty-five miles northeast of Moscow, it turned south, descended to five hundred feet above the earth, and accelerated to five hundred and forty nautical miles per hour as it approached the air defenses ringing Zhukovsky Flight Test Center near Bykovo. It had already been programmed with a course that would take it around major known cultural features such as tall transmission towers or buildings, but the missile also used a comb-size millimeter-wave radar to alert it of any unknown obstacles in its path. The radar was sensitive enough to detect the high lead and sulfur content of the smoke coming out of some factory chimneys in its path and easily circumnavigated them as if they were obstructions.

The missile turned on its imaging infrared sensors seventy seconds prior to target, then uplinked the images via satellite to Jon Masters aboard the DC-10 launch aircraft. The image showed the base in fine detail, with reds, pinks, purples, and oranges forming enough contrast to see buildings. A white box surrounded the computer’s best guess as the intended target. From ten miles away, it was hard to tell if the box was on the right building, but in less than a minute, he’d find out.

It was off, but not by too much. The navigation system had drifted off a few dozen yards, and the white box was centered on an adjacent hangar. Jon entered commands into the computer, froze the image in computer memory, then used a trackball and rolled a crosshair cursor over the proper target impact point — a spot three-quarters of the way across the roofline — and commanded the missile to hit that exact spot. He then made sure the terminal maneuver was programmed as a PUP — Pull Up, Push Over, in which a few seconds before impact the missile would climb a few hundred feet and then plunge itself down onto the target point. Several air defense radars in the area had detected the missile — rather, they had detected something out there — but the missile’s stealth characteristics made it impossible to get a solid lock on it.

The last few seconds of the missile’s three hundred mile flight were the most spectacular. Eight seconds before impact, Grant One made its steep climb. The imaging infrared picture stayed locked on target. Then, just before the missile reached a thousand feet above ground, it did an even steeper dive. Jon caught a glimpse of the roof of the Metyor Aerospace building for just a few seconds before the missile hit.

The radar in the missile’s nose gave the exact distance to impact, and at the proper moment, the computer ignited a small armored rocket device in the missile’s nose that shot a five-hundred-and-fifty-pound high-explosive shaped-charge warhead through the thick concrete and steel-sheathed roof, allowing most of the rest of the missile to pass through. Once inside, the main charge detonated: a two-thousand-pound high-explosive incendiary warhead, which created a massive three-thousand-degree fireball inside the secure section of the Metyor IIG research hangar. The force of the blast, combined with exploding fuel and natural gas lines, added enough energy to the blast to rip the entire hangar open like a popped balloon. Everything inside the hangar and within five hundred yards of the blast was instantly roasted to ash.

Jon Masters whooped and cheered like a kid at a rodeo when his screen went blank — he knew his missile had scored a direct hit. “Hey, Archangel,” he said to nobody, still reveling in his long-distance victory, “come take a look at this mess. Man, what a day.” He clicked on his intercom. “Good kill, guys,” he announced. “Grant Two bit the dust, but Grant One made us proud. Come on up and take a look at the video if you’d like, then let’s put our little models back together — we’ve got three hours to make this plane look like just another trash-hauler carrying oil-drilling parts again before we land.”

Radohir, Bulgaria

“Halt! Stop! Astanavieevat’sya!” yelled the Bulgarian military officer in as many foreign languages as he could think of, running at top speed toward the engineer’s trailer, the AK-74 assault rifle held high over his head. “Stop, in the name of the law!”

Pavel Gregorievich Kazakov, wearing a long black leather coat — which discreetly covered a Kevlar bulletproof vest underneath — and black fur cap, looked up from the rolls of blueprints and engineering specs, saw the angry officer running toward them waving the rifle, and rolled his eyes in exasperation. He was standing with a group of aides and engineers on the back porch of the mobile engineer’s headquarters trailer, which had been transported to southwestern Bulgaria, just thirty-five miles west of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia and less than fifty miles from the Macedonian border. “Now what?” he shouted angrily.

“He’s got a gun, sir,” one of the engineers said nervously.

“What is with these Interior Ministry assholes?” Kazakov muttered. He nodded to one of his bodyguards standing a few feet away. “Doesn’t he realize how dangerous it is to be carrying a weapon like that? Someone could get hurt. Or he could be mistaken for a terrorist and shot by mistake.”

The bodyguard smiled, pulled out a German MP5K submachine gun with an eight-inch Sionics suppressor fitted, and leveled it at the approaching officer, keeping it low and out of sight. “Gatoviy, rookavadetel,” he said in a low voice as he clicked the selector switch from the S setting to the three-shot setting. The eyes of some of the engineers and assistants standing nearby widened in fear — Is he really going to shoot that soldier? they thought. He looked agitated, and he was carrying a gun, but he certainly wasn’t threatening.

Kazakov thought about giving the order, then shook his head. “Nyet. Zhdat, “ he said, with an exasperated voice. His bodyguard took his finger off the trigger but kept the muzzle leveled at the officer. As long as the Bulgarian officer had the rifle in his hand he was a potential threat, so the bodyguard did not lower his own weapon, but kept careful watch as the officer approached the group. “He has made so much noise, half of Bulgaria has already heard him. Plenty of time to take care of him later, if the need arises.” The officer shouted several angry words in Bulgarian at the group, jabbing toward the mountains and the nearby dam with the rifle. “Don’t these Interior Ministry officers speak Russian anymore? What in hell is he saying?”

“He is Captain Todor Metodiev. He is not from the Interior Ministry, but from the Labor Corps of the Bulgarian Army, sir,” a translator said.

“The Labor Corps? What’s that?”

“A sort of engineer branch of the army, but also used in civil work projects,” one of his aides replied.

“Another damned bureaucrat with a uniform and a gun,” Kazakov said disgustedly. “What does he want … as if I don’t already know?”

“He wants us to stop work immediately, dismantle all of the equipment, remove all construction materials from the mountainside, and move our operation back to Sofia,” the translator said. “He says we do not have the proper documentation for this operation.”

“Remove everything from the mountain!” Kazakov exclaimed. “We have over three thousand kilos of dynamite and at least a kilometer of Primacord up there! Can’t he see I have loaders, tractors, earthmovers, and dump trucks lined up five kilometers down the road — the road I had to build, to comply with yet more Bulgarian laws — ready to move earth? Is he crazy? We have all the proper documentation already! We are drowning in documentation!”

Metodiev kept on talking all through Kazakov’s retort and the translation. “He says we do not have a required permit from the Labor Corps. They are in charge of the reconstruction project on the dam. He says the demolition can create serious damage to the dam and the river itself if there are mudslides or shifting earth. In the interest of safety, he demands we remove all materials from the mountain immediately or he will send in Labor Corps troops to do it for us and then bill us for the labor.”

“Bill us, eh?” Kazakov sneered. “Wonder how much his bill is to leave us alone right now?”

This was a common occurrence throughout the business world, but especially so here in Bulgaria — the official shakedown. Graft and corruption were commonplace in business all over the world, but Bulgarians seemed to be the masters at it; every two-bit bureaucrat, military, or paramilitary officer had stopped by his many construction sites in the past few months, carrying yet another official-looking edict or notice, then unabashedly putting his hand out — some of them actually doing just that, putting their hands out — expecting payola right on the spot.

To Pavel Kazakov, payola was a normal, routine part of doing business — he even included it in his budgets. Generally, the closer he was to Russia, the less developed the region, or the more Russian the influences in the region, the lower the payola. Ten to twenty percent was a good figure to use in Russia, the Transcaucasus, most of South and Central America, the Middle East, and Africa; twenty to thirty percent in eastern and southern Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and Asia; forty percent in western Europe; and forty to fifty percent in North America. That was one reason he didn’t do much business in the West — payoff expenses were always high, and the local Mafia organizations were generally better organized, better protected, and deadlier if crossed. His reputation was also better — meaning, more feared — in eastern Europe and western Asia.

But there was a protocol to follow, too. In most of the rest of the world, payments were made only to the head of the labor union, or to the city or county engineer, police chief, inspectors, compliance officers, tax assessors, or the local army barracks commander. In Bulgaria, everyone had their hand out. The main guy was supposed to keep only a cut of the payoff, maybe twenty or thirty percent, and use the rest to grease the palms of his chief subordinates, immediate bosses, and anyone with whom he wanted to curry favor. Payola was meant to be shared — that’s how the institutions of graft and corruption survived and flourished. Many times, the bosses neglected to do that, thinking that because they were the boss, they were too powerful for anyone to retaliate against.

Pavel was all too happy to give payoffs in order to get a project done, as long as everyone else understood and played by the rules. He also enjoyed giving lessons on proper payola management.

“Tell him to leave the paperwork for us, and we will complete it and turn it in to his superior officer,” Kazakov said, mentally dismissing the officer.

“He says he has been ordered to collect the paperwork now, or he will order his men onto the mountain to arrest us and dismantle and confiscate all of our equipment.”

Kazakov closed his eyes against a growing headache. “For the love of God…” He paused for several long moments, his eyes closed tightly, resting against the chart table; then: “How many men does he have with him?”

“About fifty, sir. All heavily armed.”

Too many for his security staff, Kazakov thought — next time, he vowed to bring more men. He sighed, then said, “Very well. Have him and his men report to the senior site foreman at Trailer Seventeen. I will radio ahead and authorize Mr. Lechenov to give Captain Metodiev his ‘paperwork.’ Get out of here.”

As the Bulgarian army officer departed, Kazakov’s aide stepped up to him and asked quietly, “Trailer Seventeen is—”

“I know.” He watched as the Bulgarian officer gathered his men together and started marching them up the dirt access road into the forest. About a dozen Bulgarian soldiers armed with automatic weapons stayed behind — it appeared that they were guarding the trailer until their commander returned. “Peasants,” Kazakov spat. “Let’s get back to work.” But their work was interrupted by a satellite phone call. Kazakov picked it up himself — only a handful of persons had access to the number. “Shto?”

“They know,” a voice said. “The Americans, the president, everyone knows.”

“Stop talking in riddles,” Kazakov said. He recognized the person talking as Colonel-General Valeriy Zhurbenko, the chief of staff of the Russian Federation’s armed forces and Kazakov’s unofficial liaison to the Kremlin. He motioned for his aides to dismiss the engineers from the trailer. Once they were hustled out, Kazakov said, “This is a secure line, General. Speak so I can understand you.”

“Metyor was bugged,” Zhurbenko said. “The Americans rescued a spy last night that was taping conversations inside the facility.”

Kazakov got to his feet, stunned. “How do you know this?”

“Because the American president said so to Sen’kov,” Zhurbenko replied incredulously. “The American president admitted to him that they were operating a spy at Metyor, admitted sending in an exfiltration team, and — you will not believe it — sending in a stealth aircraft, a stealth supersonic bomber, to cover the operation!”

“What?” Kazakov exploded. “Me Americans flew a stealth bomber over Russia? Last night?”

“Not just one—two stealth bombers!” Zhurbenko said. “One aircraft was shot down near the Ukraine border. The Americans apparently flew a second one through Russia to protect the forces that went in to rescue the first bomber’s crew members. And the American president mentioned to Sen’kov that they had heard information on the bugs that an aircraft from Metyor was involved in the attack at Kukes.”

“Unbelievable,” Kazakov said. “Well, this means our operation may need to be stepped up a bit more.”

“Stepped up? You mean canceled, don’t you?”

“Canceled? There is no way in hell I’m going to cancel this operation now!” Kazakov retorted. “I’ve already laid one hundred and sixty-three miles of support and utility structures through some of the shiftiest countryside in all of the Balkans. I’ll be ready to start laying pipe in another two months in Bulgaria, and I can start in Macedonia soon as well. I’ve got foundries in seven countries ready to ship five hundred and fifty miles of pipe starting next month and extending over the next seven to nine months! I’m right on schedule, Colonel-General. There is no way I can survive if the schedule is delayed even one month, let alone canceled! I’ve written a quarter of a billion dollars in checks already, and I haven’t laid one centimeter of pipe or shipped one liter of crude yet! I cannot afford to waste one dollar or one hour.”

“We are not just under suspicion or surveillance, Kazakov — we are under attack!” Zhurbenko said. “Do you understand? The Americans flew into Russia and were virtually unopposed! We cannot stop them.”

“Stop them? From doing what?” Kazakov asked. “They sloppily executed a routine rescue mission. They lost a stealth warplane — that cost them dearly, believe me. Nothing that was done affects our plans. ‘Me only thing I’m waiting for, Colonel-General, is a commitment from the Russian Army to move when it must.”

“It takes time to move the numbers necessary,” Zhurbenko said. “Colonel-General Toporov said he has mobilized the first three brigades and can insert the first airborne battalion at any time—”

“One battalion? That’s not enough. That’s not nearly enough!” Kazakov said. “When the time comes, I need an entire airborne brigade off the ground and on its way. When the invitation comes to allow Russian troops into place, I don’t want a lousy battalion — I want at least a brigade of men on the ground, followed quickly by armor and air defenses, and set up within three days. Anything else would be a waste of our time.”

“That is impossible.”

“You have no idea about the opportunity that has presented itself here, Colonel-General,” Kazakov snapped. “The American fiasco has only bolstered our plan. Why hasn’t news of this been broadcast around the world? Why haven’t we exposed the Americans’ hostile mission?”

“President Sen’kov thought that if the American president went on international television and told the world why he launched the operation,” Zhurbenko explained, “that it would embarrass Moscow even more than Washington.”

“And well it should,” Kazakov said. “But the American president didn’t go on television, did he? He made a deal with Sen’kov to help him, to keep him from losing face. That was his fatal mistake. Roust all of your contacts in the media and give them all the details of the operation. Everything. When it is exposed and the American president tries to deny what happened, world support of the United States will crumble.

“And then,” Kazakov went on happily, motioning to his chief engineer and his assistant, “when the stealth warplane strikes again in another part of eastern Europe, the world condemnation of the United States will continue to strengthen. Get on it right now, Zhurbenko. And tell that idiot Toporov to get off his fat ass and kick his senior officers into mobilizing those occupying forces, or he will suddenly find himself taking a little nap — on the bottom of the Caspian Sea.”

Kazakov terminated the call to Zhurbenko with an angry push of a button. Damn cowards, he thought. The country is collapsing all around them, and all they can think of is playing it safe. Are the Americans playing it safe? Just when they thought the new president, Thorn, was going to be a baby in a carriage, he orders two stealth bombers to overfly Russia. Very gutsy move.

He dialed his secure phone once again, calling his airfield in Romania. “Doctor, I want the cover taken off our roadster. Get it ready to cruise.” There was a noticeable pause, and Kazakov thought he detected a sharp intake of breath. “Pyotr, is something wrong?”

“The … er, the boys already had the roadster out, sir.”

Kazakov nearly dropped the phone in surprise. “Shto?” he asked breathlessly. “Nu ni mudi, Doctor.”

“No, I’m not kidding,” Fursenko said. “Some damage from the last … er, drive was repaired. They planned a local test drive to check the repairs—”

“You can talk plainly, Doctor. I cannot. Tell me what in hell happened.”

“Stoica and Yegorov heard about an air defense emergency on the Russia-Ukraine border. They launched and secretly followed the Russian air defense radar controllers’ vectors. They said they were checking the stealth characteristics while carrying weapon pylons. That’s what they told me..

“What happened, Doctor?”

“They got into a dogfight,” Fursenko said. “A dogfight with what they think was an American stealth bomber — a stealth bomber that fired two missiles at them.”

“What? You’re kidding! You are fucking kidding!” No reply, just labored, excited breathing. “Are they all right? Did they make it back?”

“They are fine. The plane is fine. They came out of it well. They hit it. They said they hit it. It got away, but they were victorious!”

“How dare they … how… why in hell did they …?” The engineers and aides in the trailer couldn’t help but stare at Kazakov now — their boss was bug-eyed and his voice had risen two octaves with excitement. “I will be back there as quickly as I can. I want to see our two boys when I get there. If they move, if they are even in the damned bathroom when I get back, they are dead. Was there any damage to the roadster?”

“Minor damage, but from a previous flight,” Fursenko explained. “We need to make some design changes to the missile launch tubes in the wings — the wings are being damaged by missile exhaust. Some more titanium for strengthening, perhaps some more powerful gas generators…”

“Fine. Get what you need at ‘home’ and see to it immediately.”

“‘Home?” Fursenko paused again, confusion and panic in his voice. “You mean, Metyor? Back at Zhukovsky?”

“Of course that’s what 1…” Kazakov stopped, his throat turning dry once again. “What is it now, Doctor?”

“You haven’t heard about Zhukovsky?”

“I am in the middle of nowhere in fucking Bulgaria, Doctor. Spit it out.”

“My — I mean, our — I mean, your facility was destroyed last night,” Fursenko said in a voice so shaky he could hardly make himself understood.

“What?”

“The military says it was a natural gas leak,” Fursenko explained. “The natural gas explosion apparently mixed with some jet fuel or other petroleum products and incinerated the entire building. Nothing is left. Nothing. Nothing within seven hundred meters of the building is left.”

“Natural … gas … explosion … ni pizdi!” Kazakov shouted. “Don’t bullshit me! There has to be an explanation, a real explanation!”

“Sir, six men were killed inside the facility. Dmitri Rochardov, Andrei—”

“I don’t give a shit about a couple janitors and night watchmen!” Kazakov shouted. “I want you back there immediately. Find the best forensics experts you can. I want that blast site sealed off and covered, I want every living being that sets foot inside that facility screened and approved by me personally, and I want every piece of debris and ash examined with a microscope. Natural gas explosion, my ass — that was the work of a saboteur, or a military strike. I want to know what kind of explosion it was, and I want to see evidence — no speculation, no guesses, no hypothesis. I don’t care if the investigators are out there until winter — I want to know exactly what happened, and I want to know immediately!” And he disconnected the call with an angry stab.

For a brief instant, he felt things were beginning to spin out of control. He had these feelings often, and his instincts always served him well — he knew when to get in, when to push, when to back off, and when to get the hell out. The voice told him to get the hell out. The American air force and military spy agencies had stumbled across his operation. It was simply too incredible to believe the absolute bad luck. The voice said, “Get out. Rum Run before it’s too late.”

Pavel looked around himself. The problem was, he was moving too fast to just stop abruptly. He had already spent a quarter of a billion dollars to get the project started. He was going to pony up another quarter of a billion out of his own personal fortune. Investors and lenders in two dozen countries around the world were lining up ready to help him raise another one and three quarter billion dollars to build the entire line. Word travels fast.

Problem was, he was going to pay another quarter of a billion dollars in loan interest, bribes, and dividends to all these investors in the next year or so before any oil revenues started to come in. He was deep into it. Some of these investors were the world’s biggest arms dealers, drug dealers, industrialists, generalissimos, and government finance ministers. They had been promised a hefty return on their investment, and they would not be happy at all to hear that the project was off, even if they got their principal back.

But the more recent development, his ace in the hole — this encounter with the American aircraft. The Americans had at first torn up the Russian air defenses as if they never existed. But then his stealth fighter happened on it, and was victorious. Stoica and Yegorov were typical fighter pilots, cocky and arrogant — everything was a victory for them — but Fursenko would never lie to him. If he said his boys were victorious, they were.

That meant the Metyor-179 had gone up against the West’s most fearsome weapons — first the NATO AWACS radar plane, and now an American stealth bomber with air-to-air weapons — and had prevailed. It was undefeated in battle. it had flown right into the midst of NATO, American, and Russian air defense weapon systems, and was untouched.

That was the reason why he decided to continue. For the first time in his life, he ignored the little voice in his head. It was still telling him to get out, cut your losses and run, but he tuned it out. The Tyenee stealth fighter-bomber was the key. That was his ticket to victory. He had to keep the business side tight, and hope Stoica and Yegorov could handle NATO and the incompetent Americans.

Keep it tight. Deal with the business end like always.

“Sir?” one of Kazakov’s aides interrupted hesitantly. “Those Bulgarian soldiers are waiting at Trailer Seventeen. They are complaining there’s no foreman there.”

Kazakov shook his head. Damned cowards. Sometimes it took a little courage to get something done.

He walked over to a metal case sitting on the desk, unlocked it, and opened the lid. Inside was a series of switches and a large red guarded switch. He flicked three of the switches, then turned a key, which illuminated red lights on the panel.

“Uh … sir? You’ve armed the explosives panel.”

“I know that.”

“Those Bulgarian soldiers. They are up there. They—”

“Shut up,” Kazakov spat. He opened the red safety switch guard and pressed a button. It suddenly seemed as if the ground was a carpet being shaken from two kilometers away — the earth rolled and shook like an earthquake, with its epicenter right under their feet.

High up on the mountains above them, thousands of acres of forests suddenly disappeared in a cloud of flying dirt and debris. Nine square kilometers of the mountain was instantly leveled in a huge notch cut out of the mountains, as if a huge ice cream scoop had swooped in and taken a huge chunk out of the earth in one quick motion.

Kazakov nodded to his bodyguard, then pointed out the window at the dozen Bulgarian soldiers who had stayed behind to watch over Kazakov. The bodyguard smiled, then walked out of the trailer. The soldiers were looking up at the tremendous explosion that had engulfed their comrades, frozen in shock and fear, wondering what to do. The bodyguard simply lined up behind them, set his MP5 submachine gun to full auto, and mowed them down. He waved, and a huge front-loader moved in, scooped up the bodies, then trundled down the access road to carry them up the mountain and dump them within the carnage.

Kazakov gave his aide a warning glance as he calmly shut off the arming panel and closed and locked the lid. “Clumsy Bulgarians,” he said, as his other engineers and technicians rushed into the trailer. “Those idiots must have set off some of the charges and brought half the mountain down upon themselves. How unfortunate.” The engineers stared open-mouthed at their superior and wisely kept silent. A moment later, as Kazakov was about to leave, his walkie-talkie beeped. “What is it now?”

“This is Milos up on the north ridge,” one of the project engineers radioed. “There’s a problem. That explosion appears to have caused a large fracture in the dam. It might give way completely. I sent a man down to the village below the dam and to Sofia to warn them.”

“Fine, fine,” Kazakov said. “Another example of fine Bulgarian workmanship.” He threw the walkie-talkie on the desk in the engineer’s office and headed out to board his private helicopter. How about that? he thought — maybe that Bulgarian Labor Corps officer did know what he was talking about after all.

High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Elliott AFB, Nevada

The C-141 Starlifter transport plane arrived from Ankara, Turkey, shortly after sunset. Like most inbound flights, it was told to taxi directly inside a hangar to unload its cargo and passengers under cover. But there was a very different reason for this plane to do so — it would have seemed strange for spy satellites to take pictures of a welcome-home party.

Every assigned person and employee of Elliott Air Force Base, almost two thousand in all, were on hand, and they gave Captain Annie Dewey, Major Duane Deverill, Lieutenant-Colonel Hal Briggs, and Master Sergeant Chris Wohl a thunderous round of applause and cheers as they emerged from the crew door of the Starlifter. First to greet them was Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson, along with Brigadier-General Patrick McLanahan and Colonel Rebecca Furness. Furness and McLanahan had arrived the night before to a more muted but equally happy reception by the base personnel.

The jubilant crowd surged forward, all wanting to reach out, touch, and congratulate the victorious airmen who had successfully completed their first assigned covert combat mission. Even though they had lost a plane and the Intelligence Support Agency team had lost two men, the agent they’d been sent in to get had been recovered safely, and most important, their fellow Dreamlanders were all safe. That was cause for celebration.

“Welcome back, everyone, welcome back,” General Samson said. “Thank God you’re all right.” He shook hands with each one of them, then turned to the crowd and raised his hands to silence them. “Folks, listen up,” he said. “Before we congratulate these men and women from Aces High and from Dreamland on a job well done, let’s first bow our heads and ask the Lord to welcome the two ISA commandos into his home. We thank them for their supreme sacrifice.”

After a short pause with bowed heads, during which the hangar was as silent as a church, Samson said to the newcomers, “I’m sorry to have to do this, but you’re going to have to do your celebrating as you make your way to another intelligence, operational, and maintenance debrief.”

Can’t we even take a couple hours to relax, maybe take a shower, sir?” Annie Dewey asked. She kept on scanning the crowd, looking for someone. “I don’t think anyone could stand to be in the same room with me for more than sixty seconds.”

“I know you’ve had nonstop debriefs in two continents already,” Rebecca said. “But we need to get the information down so we can formulate even more questions to ask you in the future. You guys know the drill. Every flight is a research test flight. Welcome back. Good work.”

“You may spend the rest of your careers debriefing,” Patrick said, as he shook hands with every one of them. “We’ll have food and drinks for you inside, and I promise we’ll make it as brief as any military debriefing can be.”

Annie Dewey wasn’t satisfied with just a handshake — when she got to Patrick and Rebecca, she gave each one of them an unabashed kiss on the lips. “You guys saved our butts,” she said. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“Thank Hal and Chris — they’re the ones who really deserve it.”

“Keep those two away from us, sir,” Master Sergeant Wohl said in his typical gruff voice. “I can’t be in the same building with them anymore without one of them thanking me, touching me, admiring me, or offering to do something for me. It’s making me ill.” He endured another kiss from Annie to punctuate his complaint.

“Spoken like a true American hero, Sarge,” Briggs quipped.

Annie scanned the crowd again. “Where’s David?” she asked in a low voice.

“Getting ready for the operational debrief, I imagine,” Patrick said. “You’ll see him inside.”

“C’mon, pilot, let’s go,” Duane Deverill said, clasping Annie by the waist and arm from behind as if leading her in a tango through the crowded hangar. “Let’s get the bleep-bleep debriefs over with so we can celebrate keeping our asses for a few days longer!” Annie could do nothing else but let Deverill carry her along through the throng of well-wishers.

The debriefings went smoothly and quickly. Both Annie and Dev knew the real work was ahead of them, so they tried to relax, be as helpful as possible, and as clear and concise as their patience and level of weariness would possibly allow. Each aircraft continuously burst-transmitted encoded data via satellite back to Dreamland during every sortie, so there was no lack of hard information; but the aircrews’ testimony was necessary to match the raw numbers with the operators input and perspective. It would be even more valuable when it came time to begin designing new and better systems to avoid any deficiencies encountered during the mission. As long as humans flew war machines, they would always need as much, perhaps more, data from the humans as they did from the machines themselves.

After many hours of wave after wave of engineers coming into the conference room to ask questions, Annie realized that it was over — and that David Luger had never shown up. She collected her notes and checklists and took a last sip of water, crestfallen.

“What’s up, AC?” Dev asked. He was still as pumped up and animated as he had been when he got off the C-141—he had the strength and stamina of a cheetah. “You look down. Tired?”

“A little,” she said evasively.

“What can I do to cheer you up?” Dev asked. He began to gently massage her, starting from behind her ears and moving down her neck to her shoulders. “I must warn you, my hands are licensed.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true — I’m a licensed doctor of chiropractic and a licensed massage therapist,” Dev said. “You think there’s any money in being an Air National Guard B-1 radar navigator? I work singles’ resorts six months out of the year, make ten times what I do in the Guard, and I get to put my hands on beautiful women all day long. It’s a great racket.”

Annie felt her body tense up when Dev first touched her, but after only a few seconds, it was obvious that he did indeed have very skilled hands. He seemed to know precisely where to rub hard and where and when to do it softly. In moments, her body was relaxing in the grasp of Deverill’s warm, powerful hands. “That feels so good, Dev.”

“Thank you,” he said softly. He continued to caress her, now expertly working the myriad of knots out of her spine and back muscles. The tension was rinsing away under his fingers like a torch to ice. “I know I’ve said it already, but I want to say it again: thank you for digging me out of the snow and rescuing me.”

“You would’ve done the same for me — only better, I hope,” Annie said. “Thank you for supporting my decisions, as half-assed as they were. I know you didn’t agree with all of them, but you backed me up anyway. It meant a lot.”

“You’re the aircraft commander — it’s my responsibility to back you up and offer my opinion, and your responsibility to make the decisions,” Dev said. “You did everything you were supposed to do, and more. You saved my life and the lives of many others. You should be proud of yourself. I am very proud of you.” She felt his lips on the back of her neck, and the touch sent high-voltage electric currents throughout her body.

“Did you know,” he said, suddenly breaking the mood change between them, “that the muscles of the body build up huge quantities of lactic acid during periods of stress and fatigue — a by-product of anaerobic respiration, where the muscles bum glucose in the absence of oxygen? Lactic acid causes fatigue and can even cause cramps and muscle deterioration. The acids will eventually work their way out over time, but a properly done massage helps the lactic acid move out quicker.”

“Is that why it feels sooo damn good?” Annie cooed.

“Exactly.”

“Mmn. Well, it does,” she said. She let him continue his work. Normally she was extraordinarily ticklish, but he was even able to massage her sides and ribs without her reacting at all. His hands moved down to the base of her spine, almost to her buttocks, but there was no way she was going to let him stop. “So tell me, Dev — why did you feel the need to tell me the technical reasons for a massage? Do you think I’ll respond better if it’s done in a more scientific atmosphere? Once a test pilot, always a test pilot?”

“It’s working, isn’t it?” he responded. When he felt her body stiffen in protest, he added quickly, “No, no, that’s not why. Only kidding.” She gave him a humorous sneer, but relaxed and let him continue. “Maybe I told you the technical theory behind massages to distract you from the fact that I’m touching you — and loving every last second of it.”

Annie turned away from him, ending the massage therapy, and gave him a weak smile. “Thanks, partner,” she said. “I appreciate the massage — and the thought.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” he said. He took her hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes. “Annie, wait a minute. I gotta get this out before I explode.”

“Dev, now’s not the time—”

“Yes, it is. I’m crazy about you. I have been for a long time, ever since you joined the unit. We’ve gone out a few times, but you’ve always treated it as either a casual meeting with a superior officer talking business, or palling around with your older brother. Beyond that, you’ve been too busy to notice me. You’re acting like our one-and-only night together was wrong, that I should be ashamed of what we did.

“I’m putting you on notice, Annie, that I’m not going to do that anymore. One thing I learned from this ordeal that I didn’t tell the debriefers tonight is that life is too short. If you want something, you’d better go for it now, because tomorrow you might find yourself facedown in snow unconscious after ejecting from a supersonic bomber over hostile territory.” Annie laughed in spite of herself — if it hadn’t actually happened to them, she would really think it was funny.

“Dev—”

“It’s Colonel Luger, isn’t it?” Deverill asked. Annie looked into his eyes and nodded. “Pardon me, Annie, but that guy is a little weird, don’t you think? I mean, I’ve known workaholics before in my time, but he’s got them all beat. It’s like he’s possessed or something.” He could tell she was rejecting his observations — but he could also tell that she knew his observations were correct. “Where is he tonight, Annie? If he’s your man, why isn’t he here with you? Everyone else turned out for our arrival — where was Luger?” She couldn’t answer him, because she didn’t know, and didn’t understand.

“I’m not going to bad-mouth the guy, and I’m not going to say anything else, except this: I want you, Annie,” Deverill said. “I think we have something together. I want to find out. I think you do, too. And if Colonel Luger wants you, he has a funny way of showing it. You deserve a lot more than that. I can give it to you. Can he?” He gave her a kiss on the forehead, a soft, lingering kiss, as warm as his hands. “I’m not going to make you decide now, Annie,” he added sincerely. “But I also have to remind you: I get what I want. I think you want something more, too.” He then departed, leaving her a smile and a light touch on her cheek. “I’ll call you.

Annie stood by herself for several long moments without moving, trying but failing to sort out all of the conflicting emotions racing through her head and her heart. There was a decision to be made, questions to be answered. She apparently wasn’t going to get any answers tonight, because the man she loved wasn’t with her to offer them. Annie considered using the subcutaneous transceiver to call him, and then decided against it. She picked up her helmet bag and headed for the dormitories and some well-deserved and much-needed rest.

A pair of sad, tortured eyes from across the hallway watched as they both departed.

In an adjacent debriefing room, Major-General Roman Smoliy, the commander of the aviation forces of the Republic of Ukraine, had finished all of his debriefing notes and was leaving, when he noticed the lights on in the debriefing room across the hallway, across from the one where Dewey and Deverill had debriefed their sortie. He peeked inside and, to his surprise, saw Colonel David Luger sitting by himself. His arms were straight down at their sides, his head was bowed, his feet were flat on the floor.

Smoliy recognized that posture-it was the posture demanded of prisoners when allowed to sit and rest in their seats.

“Colonel Luger?”

David snapped his head upright, then placed his arms on the table, palms flat and facing down. Another prisoner posture, called seated attention. Luger quickly snapped out of it, turning to look to see who it was. When he recognized Smoliy, his eyes grew dark, and he got to his feet, his body language challenging and defensive at the same time. “What are you doing here, General?”

“I was allowed to conduct a debriefing of Colonel Briggs, Master Sergeant Wohl, Major Weston, and the others involved in the mission who landed at Borispol,” Smoliy replied. “I will conduct an analysis of Russian air defenses and the effectiveness of your stealth technology on the different weapon and sensor systems.” He nodded quizzically at Luger. “May I ask what you are doing here?”

“No, you may not.”

“Why were you not at the reception, or why did you not participate in the operational debriefing?” Smoliy asked.

“None of your business.”

Smoliy nodded. “Very well. I am not your commanding officer — I cannot compel you to answer.”

“Damn straight.”

“It is your choice.” Smoliy looked carefully at Luger, then added, “Zdyes ooyeezhzhayoo seechyas. You may leave now.”

Luger’s eyes did an extraordinary transformation — instantly turning meek and passive, then moments later blazing with white-hot anger, then instantly passive again. It was as if Luger had momentarily gone back to the hellhole in which he had been imprisoned in Lithuania years before, responding robotlike to commands from his brutal, sadistic overseers; then wanting momentarily to fight back; and then almost at the same moment slipping into a passive, protective, detached fog; then angry, almost homicidal. All in the blink of an eye. “Idi k yobanay matiri,” he spat.

Luger tried to walk past Smoliy on his way out, but the big Ukrainian general put his hand out to stop him. “You are no longer a prisoner, Colonel,” he said. “You are a free man, an American. You are a colonel and an engineer in the United States Air Force.” Luger’s eyes blazed into his. “And I am no longer your enemy. I am no longer your tormentor. I do not deserve for you to make remarks about my mother like that.”

“You will always be the sick motherfucker that took advantage of a helpless, tortured human being at Fisikous,” Luger shot back. “I’d kill you if I could.”

“I know what you are feeling, Colonel—”

“Like hell you do!”

“I know,” Smoliy said. “Seeing you again all these years after Fisikous reminded me of the heartless, cruel shit I was back then. I have thought of nothing else since the moment we met, Colonel, nothing! Thinking of the way I twisted your life in that place tortures my sleep every night.” He studied Luger for a moment, then added, “As it has done for you, too, I see. And because of it, you could not bear even to speak with Captain Dewey and Major Deverill, because the thought of you interrogating a fellow prisoner of the Russians was abhorrent to you. No matter that it would be in a different time, a different place, and a completely different manner — it would be an interrogation, and that you could never do.”

“Idi v zhopu, Smoliy! Kiss my ass!” Luger cried in both Russian and English, and he pushed the big Ukrainian out of his way and stormed off.

Headquarters, High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Elliott AFB, Nevada

“Come in, guys,” Lieutenant General Terrill Samson said, as Patrick McLanahan and David Luger appeared at his doorway. It was early the next morning. All three senior officers were in the office earlier than usual; Patrick and David had found the e-mail message to come see Samson as soon as they got in that morning. The mood was rather somber — Terrill Samson definitely had something on his mind.

Then the two junior officers got the line they had been dreading: “Shut the door.” It was a closed-door meeting. Oh, shit.

After Patrick did so, he and Luger were motioned to chairs, and Samson took his seat behind his desk. The seat of power, the position of authority, Patrick thought. Samson had other, more casual chairs in the office — he could have sat next to his officers, signaling a friendlier discussion on more equal levels. The signs were not looking good at all.

Patrick did not have to wait long for the hammer to fall, either: “General McLanahan, Colonel Luger, I want your requests for retirement on my desk by close of business today,” Samson said simply.

“What?” Luger exclaimed.

“May I ask why, sir?” Patrick asked immediately.

“Because otherwise I’ll be forced to bring you up on charges of insubordination, issuing an illegal order, unauthorized use of government property, unauthorized release of lethal weapons, unauthorized overflight of foreign airspace, and conduct unbecoming an officer. I’ll also charge Colonel Furness with the same charges, so you’ll take her down with you. Colonel Luger will be charged with disobeying a direct lawful order, insubordination, dereliction of duty, and conduct unbecoming an officer. All offenses, if found guilty, carry a maximum sentence of fifteen years’ confinement, forfeit of all pay and benefits, demotion, loss of retirement benefits, and dishonorable discharge. I’d like to avoid all that, so I’m asking for your resignations.”

“Are you notifying us of this action, or are we permitted to discuss this with you first?” Luger asked.

“You got something to say, Colonel, say it. But it won’t change my mind. I thought about this ever since that Russian sortie. This is the best option for you, this organization, and me. To spare HAWC from any more adverse attention, I want you two to take it. Billions of dollars and hundreds of important programs are in jeopardy. But go ahead. Speak freely.”

“I gave the orders to turn around and fly that cover sortie, sir,” Patrick said. “And David’s job was to keep me informed and feed me information on the tactical situation. Colonels Luger or Furness don’t deserve to be charged with any violations. You can’t convict them of anything if they obeyed a lawful order.”

“I specifically ordered Colonel Luger to tell you to make sure you came back on your return routing unless ordered to go somewhere else,” Samson said. “Luger not only did not relay that order, but he assisted you in providing data for your illegal strike. I won’t tolerate that kind of insubordination.

“As for Colonel Furness — it doesn’t matter if she obeyed your orders, and you know it,” Samson went on angrily. “She was the aircraft commander. The decision was hers to comply with your orders or not. She could have legally refused and faced her own court-martial — and I predict she would have been found not guilty of any charges. But you gave an unauthorized order, she knew it was unauthorized, and she followed it. She’ll face the same charges.”

“But if I resign, she won’t face any charges?”

“That’s my prerogative,” Samson said. “I can give her an administrative reprimand. It’ll stay in her personnel records for a year. If she keeps her nose clean, her record automatically gets expunged. She can also request retirement, and I’ll see she gets it. After all she’s done for you, General, she doesn’t deserve a dishonorable discharge.”

“Sir, General McLanahan and Colonel Furness were on a fully authorized mission,” Luger pointed out.

“That’s right — I was the backup plane on the mission, sir,” Patrick said. “I already had full authority to proceed.”

“Negative,” Samson said. “The idea of a backup ship is to pick the best one aircraft to fly the mission, not to send two aircraft into hostile airspace.”

“I’ll argue that it’s exactly what I did,” Patrick said. “Annie and Dev had been shot down. I’ll argue that it was my responsibility to continue the mission for which I was briefed —“

“Your mission was to assist Madcap Magician in extracting Siren,” Samson said, his voice showing the irritation of having to argue with his normally respectful, introspective deputy. “That mission was accomplished by Vampire One, before they were shot down. You weren’t authorized to conduct any other operations over Russia.”

“The ‘other operation over Russia’ was to help save Annie and Dev,” Patrick said, his voice showing a slightly incredulous edge. “I was notified of the incident, and I immediately responded to render any assistance necessary.”

“And what about the attack at Zhukovsky? Are you going to tell me that was part of the operation?”

Patrick’s face went blank. “What attack on Zhukovsky?”

“There was a huge explosion at Zhukovsky Flight Test Center right around the time you reentered Russian airspace,” Samson said. “One target was singled out — Metyor Aerospace’s research-and-development facility. The authorities said it was a natural gas explosion. CIA obtained some information from the Russians investigating the incident. The building was hit with a high-explosive incendiary device, at least a two-thousand-pounder — about what you’d use in an air-launched cruise missile. Even more — the roof was punched in with a shaped-charge penetrator explosion before the main explosion. Sounds like a cruise missile attack to me. Care to tell me about that?”

“I don’t know anything about it, sir.”

“I’ll inventory the weapons storage area, Patrick,” Samson warned him. “I’ll check every logbook entry, every millimeter of security tape, until I find out the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth, sir — I have no idea what happened at Zhukovsky,” Patrick said. “It wasn’t me. But I strongly resent your tone. It appears to me you’ve already decided I did it.”

“General, I don’t give a shit if you resent my tone or anything else,” Samson snapped. “You had the incredible, unmitigated gall to fly a warplane over Russia without authorization and clearance, kill Russian soldiers, and destroy Russian property. You almost got shot down. I could have lost two valuable crew members and another top-secret warplane over Russia. It was bad enough you went over my head and got the National Security Council to buy off on this mission—”

“Sir, I did not get anyone to ‘buy off’ on this mission,” Patrick said. “Yes, I transmitted my plan directly to SecDef without clearing it through you first, but you know I was going to consult with you on my first opportunity—”

“No, I don’t know that — and that’s the problem,” Samson interjected. “I absolutely do not believe you would have consulted with me if you thought you could get away with it otherwise. The proof of this was you returning to Russian airspace without clearance. You could have called and made your case at any time. But you flew for an hour in the wrong direction and never called. Neither did Colonel Furness. You didn’t call because you thought you might not get the answer you wanted. You didn’t pitch the mission to me because you thought I would have refused to allow it.”

“Would you?”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it, General?” Samson exploded. “You went ahead with it anyway. You conducted your own private little war.”

“Why are you doing this, sir?” Patrick asked. He was not pleading — it was a true query, asked honestly and sincerely. “We brought Dewey and Deverill home safely—”

“No, the President brought them home safely,” Samson argued. “The President was on the phone with Russian president Sen’kov for less than ten minutes and had him agreeing to allow the exfiltration to go ahead without interference. In fact, the President had gotten Sen’kov to agree not to shoot your asses down — he not only saved Dewey and Deverill, but he saved yours, Briggs’s, and Wohl’s butts as well. Pretty extraordinary, since you had already illegally shot down three Russian aircraft by then.”

“So you’ve already decided we’re guilty of court-martialable offenses?” Luger asked.

“You’ve decided that we’re guilty, so you’re asking us to resign rather than face charges?”

“It doesn’t matter at this point, Colonel — I believe you’re guilty of breaking faith with me, the men and women you serve with, the Air Force, and your country,” Samson said. “I have judged you guilty of that. I’m advising you of all this because I thought you both deserve an opportunity to accept retirement and avoid any blemishes on your records. I advise you to take the offer. Even if you win in a court-martial, you’ll never work here again, and I seriously doubt if there’s any command in the Air Force that will accept either one of you.”

Patrick got to his feet and took a step toward Samson’s desk. “Permission to speak freely, General?”

“This will be your last opportunity to do so.”

“What are you really afraid of, sir?” Patrick asked. “What did I do that is forcing you to give me a summary dismissal? Are you afraid I made you look bad in front of the President?”

“You definitely did that, General,” Samson said. “I was for damned sure the dumb-shit nigger general who can’t keep his hotshot troops in line. But you already cemented that thought into Washington’s head earlier with your one-man operation over China and with stealing the One-Eleventh’s bombers to work for your project here at Dreamland. It’s Brad Elliott’s wild-card reputation, shifted over to you by default. You’re Patrick McLanahan. You’re the technical wizard, the lone wolf. Everyone else around you are bit players in your one-man play to keep the world safe for democracy. My career was over the minute I was assigned here with you.

“Most of all, McLanahan, I’m afraid of what you’re becoming,” Samson went on. “I knew Brad Elliott. He was a friend, my teacher, and my mentor. But he changed into something to be feared in my Air Force — the rogue, the loose cannon. His way or no way. I got away from him as soon as I could, and I knew I made the right decision.”

“I was proud to work with him,” McLanahan said. “I was, too,” said Luger. “He saved my life. Twice.”

“But you both stayed too long, and you got corrupted by his twisted visions of good and evil, right and wrong, duty and vanity, responsibility and bigotry,” Samson said. “Sure, Brad got things done. Yes, he was a hero, to me and to a lot of folks. But he did it all wrong. He did it irresponsibly. He did it illegally. Your hero, Patrick, David, and mine, was wrong. Either you couldn’t see it, or you ignored it. Or maybe you liked it. You enjoyed the power and freedom this job gave you. ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ and there’s nothing like the power of a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton B-52 on an attack run. Is there?”

Samson stood up, leaned forward on his desk, and let his eyes bore into McLanahan’s. “The only way he could be stopped, Patrick, was to die. If you were allowed to keep on doing what you did over Russia, and you got to pin on three or four stars, or were selected to run the Department of Defense, or advise the President on national security policy, or even become president yourself — you’d be just as dangerous to world peace as Brad was.

“The only way to stop you, Patrick, is either for someone in authority to slap you down, hard, or die yourself. That’s the final outcome I’m trying to save you from: dying as an imperfect, desperate, schizophrenic man, like Brad Elliott. I have the authority as your commanding officer to do something before you corrupt the world with your brand of ambush-style warfighting. The buck is stopping here. I only wish someone had stopped Brad before he went over to the dark side.”

“Brad … Brad was none of those things, General Samson,” David Luger said, in a small, quivering voice. They did not hear him mutter something else beneath his breath, something in Russian.

“You say you knew him so well — I say that’s bullshit,” Patrick snapped. “You only think you knew him. I think all you really wanted was a nice, comfortable command, to wear your stars but not shake up the system too much. Brad Elliott did just the opposite. They gave him three stars and a command like no one else’s, even though he pissed off half of Washington on a regular basis. He created machines and aviators that had real courage and real determination. Even after they fired him, he still came back a hero. He’s saved the world a dozen times, sir. Is it my insubordination that makes you angry — or is it your own frustration at never having taken your bombers into battle?”

“I’m not frustrated about never being in battle, General,” Samson retorted, perhaps a little too vehemently. “No real soldier ever wants war, and they sure as hell don’t regret never going. It is enough for me to serve my country in whatever way I’m asked, whether it’s slopping tar on runways in Thailand in one-hundred-degree weather or leading the world’s greatest military research facility. I don’t go around creating wars to fight in.” That comment hit home with Patrick. He lowered his eyes and stepped back away from Samson’s desk.

“End of discussion,” Samson said. “The charges stand, General, Colonel. Submit your retirement requests by seventeen hundred hours or I prefer the charges to the judge advocate general.”

“Don’t wait until then, sir,” David Luger said. “I can give you my answer now: I’m not voluntarily resigning or retiring. I’ve been through too much in the past few years just to give it a away. If you want to penalize me, just do it.”

“I recommend you think about it some more,” Samson said sternly. “You have too much at stake to risk your retirement and honorable discharge. Your background and … other factors might not make you a popular or extremely sought-after candidate for a corporate or other government position.”

“Excuse me, General?” Luger asked, far more politely than Patrick would have. “Ty shto, ahuyel?”

“What was that? What did you just say, Luger?” Samson exploded. David did not reply, but seemed to wither under Samson’s booming voice and averted his eyes to the floor, his arms straight down at his sides. “I’ve been watching you for the past several weeks, Colonel Luger, and especially since that Ukrainian general showed up. You reported your former contact with that man and detailed some of your experiences with him in Lithuania, but then refused to take leave while the Ukrainian contingent was here. That was a big mistake in judgment that I believe has emotionally and psychologically unbalanced you.”

“What?” McLanahan retorted.

“You could be a danger to yourself and to HAWC,” Samson went on. “You’re obviously failing to recognize this, both of you. If you don’t retire, I’ll be forced to have you confined as a matter of national security as well as the safety of this facility.”

David Luger didn’t look stunned, or surprised, or angry, or even disappointed — he looked completely hollow. He stood motionless; his head bowed, his arms hanging limply at his sides, as if in complete surrender or emotional shutdown.

Patrick McLanahan exploded. “Hey, Dave, forget about all that! He’s full of shit,” he shouted. No reaction. He took David by the shoulders and shook him, gently at first, and then harder. “Dave. You okay, Texas?”

At that moment, Hal Briggs and two of his security officers entered the office. Every room at Dreamland was continually monitored with video and audio, and security units were trained to respond to even a hint of violence or a breach in security. One of the Security Force officers had his MP5K submachine gun drawn and at port arms; the other had his hand on the handgrip of his weapon but did not draw it. Briggs had his hand on his pearl-handled .45-caliber automatic pistol — the one that had once belonged to Lieutenant General Brad Elliott, his mentor — but had not drawn it either.

“Dave! Dave, are you all right?” McLanahan cried to his friend and partner. It appeared as if Luger was in a sernicatatonic state, unable to move or respond. “Jesus, Hal, it’s like his entire voluntary nervous system has shut down. Call the chopper and let’s get him airlifted to Las Vegas now.” Briggs and the second security officer safetied their weapons and quickly, firmly, took McLanahan and Luger out of Samson’s office, while the third man continued to cover the action with his drawn weapon.

As he was being hustled out, McLanahan turned to Samson and said, “We’re not finished here, Samson.”

“Seventeen hundred hours, General,” Samson responded. “On my desk. Or else.”

On the Albania-Macedonia border

Once one of the world’s greatest empires under Alexander the Great, the Republic of Macedonia had been in an almost constant state of occupation and combat for over two thousand years, brutally repressed and colonized by Rome, Byzantium, the Huns, the Visigoths, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Nazi Germany, and Serbia. It was not until the 1980 death of Yugoslavian strongman Josip Broz, known as Marshal Tito, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, that Macedonia was able to slip out of the grasp of regional overseers and declare itself an independent democratic republic.

But independence was not without conflict. Macedonia had been a “melting pot” of many different ethnic and religious peoples for thousands of years, and now they all wanted a say in the direction and future of their newly independent republic. Those forces — Albanians, Greeks, Serbs, Slays, Turks, and Bulgars — all sought to drive the new nation apart and carve it up for themselves.

As a result, most of Macedonia’s borders were heavily armed and fortified, and the nation invested heavily in counterinsurgency and border patrol forces. Border skirmishes, especially between Muslim Albania and Orthodox Christian Macedonia, were so common and so brutal that almost since its first day of membership, United Nations peacekeepers had been sent to Macedonia to try to keep the peace and settle border claims between it and its neighbors. Macedonia had become a favorite route for Albanian gunrunners to ship weapons to Kosovo Liberation Army rebels, and there had been many border skirmishes between Macedonian Army forces and well-equipped smugglers.

The government of Macedonia vowed to vigorously defend its borders against any nation that tried to violate its sovereignty and neutrality, but it was a poor nation, with only a small conscript army, so it was forced to ask for outside help. The U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization was allowed to stage security, surveillance, and supply missions out of bases in Macedonia during the Kosovo conflict. In return, Macedonia was made a member of the “Partnership For Peace,” the group of prospective NATO members, was offered millions of dollars in military and economic aid by the West, and was being considered for full membership in the European Union and the World Trade Organization.

Some of the bloodiest battles between Albanian gunrunners and Macedonian police and border guards were near the town of Struga, on the northern shore of Lake Ohrid in the Vardar Valley of southwestern Macedonia. It was an easy, straight shot northward up the valley to the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo and the heart of central Europe, and southbound to Lake Ohrid and eventually to the Aegean Sea. The city of Ohrid, a few miles away, was known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans” because of its combination of Christian — Catholic, Episcopal, Orthodox — and Muslim holy sites, churches, mosques, monasteries, cathedrals, along with several castles and fortifications dating back to the rule of Alexander the Great.

After the attack on Kukes, tensions on the Macedonia — Albania border were at a fever level. Army of the Republic of Macedonia troops, in retaliation for Albanian cross-border raids and skirmishes, were suspected of setting off the two massive explosions at the carpet factory in Kukes, Albania, killing hundreds. The Albanian Army was looking for revenge. Sniper, guerrilla, and sabotage attacks along the border rose in frequency and intensity, threatening to set off a large-scale war. The tiny Army of the Republic of Macedonia boasted more modern weapons than its adversary to the west, supplied mostly by the United States in years past, but Albania had the tactical and numerical advantage. Albania enjoyed a three-to-one manpower advantage, a four-to-one artillery advantage, and a six-to-one armored personnel carrier advantage, and those forces overlooked the Macedonian forces from the mountains along the border.

That’s why it was hard for anyone to understand the reason why the Macedonian Army suddenly commenced an artillery barrage against several security outposts west of Struga. Just before midnight, eyewitnesses claimed that two self-propelled 70-millimeter artillery units opened fire on two Albanian observation posts — little more than wood and rock shacks — that overlooked Lake Ohrid.

The Albanian Army immediately returned fire. The border defense positions were not equipped with any Modern sensors or special equipment for artillery duels at night — no night vision, no counterfire radar — so it was rather amazing that the self-propelled artillery units that were suspected of opening fire first were hit and completely destroyed by the first volley of return fire. But the Albanians didn’t stop there. Once the SPAs were destroyed, the nearest Macedonian firebase was next, then the nearest main base, and finally the city of Struga itself For the next three hours, the Albanian Army pounded the city with artillery and rocket fire from eleven positions overlooking the city, some as far as eight miles away.

“Perfect,” Gennadi Yegorov, the weapons officer aboard the Metyor-179 stealth fighter-bomber, said. “The Albanians are reacting better than we anticipated.”

The plan was simple. Some of Pavel Kazakov’s men in Macedonia had stolen and driven the two artillery pieces — both mobile but not capable of firing a round — from an armory in Bitola. The self-propelled artillery pieces were undergoing maintenance and had had their gun barrels removed, so they looked like just another military vehicle as they rumbled down the highway. In only three hours, they made the drive west to Struga and waited.

Meanwhile, the Mt-179 launched from its secret base near Codlea. With the NATO AWACS aircraft out of the action — it had not yet been replaced until whoever had shot the first one down had been discovered — it was child’s play to make the flight from Codlea across Romania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, and Macedonia to Ohrid. The Mt-179 was loaded with four heat-seeking air-to-air missiles in its wing root launchers, along with four laser-guided missiles in its weapons bay. The Metyor-179 had a powerful imaging infrared and low-light TV sensor in a retractable pod in the nose, along with a laser target illuminator.

Once the dummy self-propelled artillery units were rolled into place and Kazakov’s men hightailed it for safety, the charade began. One quick twin launch on the observation posts from fifteen miles away, a two-minute three-sixty turn, and a second twin ripple launch on the SPAs to erase the evidence, and the stunt was complete. Kazakov’s operatives had placed infrared emitters on the artillery units and near the border observation posts to make it easier for Yegorov to find and attack the targets from maximum range.

“Eta 1’ehchi chim dva palltsa abassat. It was easier than pissing on two fingers,” Ion Stoica remarked, as they started to receive radio messages about the rapidly intensifying fighting between Albania and Macedonia. “That attack had no business working, you realize that? The same with our departure from Zbukovsky and the success of our attack on Kukes.”

“We were lucky,” Yegorov said. “It’s sheer paranoia. Besides, those two were ready to fight anyway — they have been for almost ten years. We just provided a little push to get them going.”

“So we’re contributing to the natural order and progression of political and cultural exchanges between fellow Balkan nations, eh?” Stoica asked, laughing. “I like that. We’re humanitarians, working to make the world a better place by allowing the natural harmony and rhythms of the region to develop.” Their second combat flight was even more successful than the first-and it provided the spark Kazakov needed to set the Balkans ablaze.

Instead of returning to Romania, Stoica and Yegorov flew across Bulgaria and the Black Sea, on their way to a Metyor-owned industrial facility and airstrip near Borapani, Republic of Georgia, the site of another Metyor pipeline. The return flight was smooth and uneventful. The Mt-179 was enjoying a brisk tailwind over the Black Sea that was pushing their ground speed to well over nine hundred kilometers an hour, even with the throttles pulled back to best-range economy power. At forty-one thousand feet, the sky was clear and the visibility unrestricted, with the stars shining so brightly that they appeared close enough to touch. There was a half moon on the rise, but it would be no factor — they would be on the ground long before anyone on the ground could see the aircraft with moonlight. Because of fuel considerations, they had already planned a steep, rapid descent at idle power through Georgian airspace instead of flying through Turkish coastal radar at low altitude, relying on the Tyenee’s stealth characteristics to keep it invisible.

Yegorov offered to watch the aircraft, and Stoica gratefully took a catnap while his weapons officer filled out his poststrike reports and recorded computer logs, with the autopilot handling the aircraft. The autopilot was set for constant-Mach hold, which adjusted aircraft altitude automatically as gross weight decreased so they could maintain the most fuel-efficient airspeed — the Mt-179 very gradually climbed as gross weight decreased, up to forty-five thousand feet, the aircraft’s maximum operating altitude, or a lower altitude set by the pilot.

But Stoica didn’t set the proper maximum altitude. If he had bothered to double-check his weather forecasts from his preflight briefing, he would have read that the forecast contrail level over the Black Sea for their return flight was just over forty-one thousand feet. Yegorov had no autopilot controls in the aft cockpit except for disconnect, and in any case he was too distracted to pay any attention. Visibility directly behind the Metyor-179 was poor from the cockpit anyway, so even if he had looked outside, he would not have noticed anyway …

… that the Mt-179 was drawing a long, thick white contrail across the night sky over the Black Sea. Illuminated by the moon, the condensation trail was bright enough to be seen for fifty miles across the clear, cold sky — bright enough to be spotted by a flight of two Republic of Turkey F-16s on a late-night air intercept training mission in the Samsun Military Operating Area off the northern coast of Turkey over the Black Sea.

The two Turkish fighters, both single-seat F-16C Block 50 models, were from the Fifth Main Jet Base, 151 Jet Filo, based at Merzifon about two hundred miles to the south. Because of weather, their training flight had been delayed several hours. For flight currency, both pilots had to complete a high-level- and low-altitude radar intercept, including flight time to and from the Military Operating Area and reserve fuel; they had to carry almost four hours’ worth of fuel, which meant they had to lug around two huge external fuel tanks, which really decreased the F-16s’ maneuverability and fun. One plane would fly out to the edge of the MOA at a particular altitude and then head inbound, and the other aircraft would try to find it and complete an intercept. The radar controllers at Merzifon monitored the intercepts and could provide some assistance, but since the purpose of the exercise was for the pilot to find the “enemy” himself, the pilots rarely asked for a vector from the ground radar controllers.

It was the last intercept of the night coming up, and after several hours of delays and nearly three hours of yanking and banking, all participants were ready to finish up and go home — their normal duty day was going to start just a few hours after landing, so the faster they finished, the more sleep time they’d get. Zodyak One, the flight leader, was the hunter, and his wingman, Zodyak Two, was the quarry. Zodyak Two was at thirty-nine thousand feet, preparing to simulate a high-speed penetration from high to low altitude, while Zodyak One was at normal patrol altitude of twenty-nine thousand feet. Their external lights were off; Zodyak One had his radar searching the sky below, while Zodyak Two as the attacker had his radar off.

The leader knew that the last intercept had to be a low-altitude one, so he was concentrating his search below him for his wingman. But it took just a few minutes for him to realize that his young wingman had snookered him, and he began to concentrate his search up high. It took him several radar sweeps to make contact before he finally locked the second F-16 up. “Orospu cocugu,” he swore to himself. “Trying to screw me up, eh?” He raised the nose of his F-16 and pushed the throttles to full military power, preparing himself to begin the chase. “Control, Zodyak One, radar contact, bogey bearing zero-two-zero bull’s-eye, range eight miles, descending from angels three-nine. I am…”

Then he saw it — a bright, fast-moving contrail, streaking eastward. It looked close enough to cause a midair collision with Zodyak Two — the guy was certainly well inside the MOA. “Knock it off! Knock it off!” the leader shouted. “Unknown aircraft in the MOA! One is level at base plus twelve.”

“Acknowledged,” Zodyak Two responded. “Level at base plus ten.”

“Control copies your knock-it-off call, Zodyak One,” the ground radar control responded. “We show no aircraft on radar, One. Say bogey airspeed and altitude.”

“Acknowledged.” The leader tried to lock his radar on the newcomer, but he could not get a radar lock-on. “Negative radar, I must have a bent radar,” he reported. “But I have a visual on his contrail. I estimate his altitude as angles four-two, heading eastbound.”

“Zodyak One, stand by.” The leader knew the controller would be on the phone to Air Force air defense headquarters. Moments later: “Zodyak flight, Control, if you can maintain visual contact, we’d like to get a look at him. Warning, we have no radar contact and cannot provide intercept vectors or safe separation. Say state.”

“Zodyak One has zero point seven hours fuel until bingo,” the flight leader said. “Dogru.”

“Zodyak Two has zero point six until bingo. Dogru too.”

“Roger. Zodyak Two, your leader is at your one o’clock, seven miles, base plus twelve. Turn right heading zero-four-five to join, maintain base plus ten. Negative radar contact on any other traffic. Zodyak flight of two is cleared MARSA tactical with unknown aircraft. Zodyak One, squawk normal. Zodyak Two, squawk normal and ident … radar contact, Zodyak Two, report when tied on and joined up with your leader, then squawk standby when within three miles.”

“Zodyak flight copies all,” the leader said. “Let’s push it up, Zodyak flight.”

“Two tied on radar. I’m in.”

Ion Stoica was jarred awake by the blare of the radar warning receiver and Gennadi Yegorov frantically shouting, “Bandit! Bandit! Twelve o’clock, range ten miles!”

“Bandit? What in hell …?” Stoica berated himself for falling asleep so deeply — he should have taken the speed pills to keep him alert. He first checked his engine, systems, and flight instruments — and noticed right away that their altitude was way too high. “Gennadi, dammit, we’re above forty-three thousand! We were briefed not to go above forty-one!”

“All I have is autopilot annunciators back here, Ion,” Yegorov retorted. “As far as I can tell, everything was fine. You set the autopilot, not me!”

Stoica knew he was right — Yegorov’s instruments would show only status and malfunctions, not settings. That was his job. They had obviously picked up another nearby aircraft who had seen them by an infrared scanner or by their contrails. He had to get away from him fast.

“X-band pulse-Doppler fire-control radar, twelve o’clock, six miles-shit, I think we picked up a Turkish F-16,” Yegorov said. He searched his rearview mirror. “Contrails! We’re making contrails!”

“Hang on!” Stoica pulled the throttles to idle, rolled the Mt-179 almost inverted, and started a steep left turning descent. He turned exactly ninety degrees to his original heading, which should blind a pulse-Doppler radar system. If the tailpipes could cool down and if they could spoof the radar, they could make a descending dash across the Black Sea and get away. It was their only chance. They could not outrun an F- 16; and this close to Turkey, the other aircraft probably had more fuel.

This was not good at all.

“He maneuvered as soon as we locked him up on radar,” the flight leader said on the command channel. “He must have a radar warning receiver. He’s trying to notch left, fly away from the Turkish coast and blank himself out.” He had already anticipated a left turn, and he simply turned with him. The F-16’s radar never broke lock.

“Zodyak Two has music,” the second F-16 reported. Jamming signals. Definitely a hostile aircraft.

“Control, Zodyak flight, our bandit has notched in response to our radar lock, and it now appears he’s attempting to jam our radars,” the flight leader reported. “We’re both dogru at this time.” The word meant “correct,” but in reality it meant, “We have no weapons at all. How about getting some help up here?”

“Roger, Zodyak flight, an air defense emergency has been declared,” the ground radar controller reported. “Cekic One-Zero-One flight of two is airborne, ETA ten minutes.”

“Roger,” the flight leader responded. The air defense strip alert birds got off the ground fast, but ten minutes was far too long. In ten minutes, this guy could be in Georgia or Russia. But they had him for now — there was no way they’d let him go without getting a look at him. “Zodyak flight will be bingo fuel in fifteen minutes, so we’ll stick with him until Cekic gets here.” He switched to the number-two radio and set the UHF GUARD channel. “Let’s give him a call and see if he’s in a cooperative mood tonight.”

“Bandit at our four o’clock, five miles … four miles,” Yegorov said. “I think he locked on. He’s pursuing. He’s … shit, he’s got a trailer. Bandit Two, three o’clock, twelve miles and closing. I think he—”

“Attention, attention, unknown rider, unknown rider,” they heard on the UHF GUARD channel, the international emergency frequency, “flying north off the Samsun three-five-zero degree radial, one hundred ten miles, this is the Republic of Turkey Air Force, please respond with your call sign, type, and destination, squawk normal and ident.”

“We’re outside his airspace!” Yegorov said. “He can’t bother us, can he? He can’t shoot us down out here! We’re in international airspace!”

“No, but if he gets a look at us and reports us, our cover will be blown,” Stoica replied grimly. Well, if he wants to get a look at us, by all means, let’s oblige him, he thought. “Get the R-60s powered up and ready for launch.”

“Wait a minute, Ion,” Yegorov said. “All we have are internal missiles. We shouldn’t launch them unless it’s an absolute emergency.”

“You want this Turkish prick to get a look at us?” Stoica asked angrily. “Give me the R-60s right now!”

Yegorov reluctantly powered up the weapon systems. They still had all four of their wingroot-launched R-60 heat-seeking missiles ready to go. “Missiles ready … muzzle shutter open. Bandit one is six o’clock, nine miles, bandit two four o’clock, seventeen miles. Give me a target.”

“Here we go.” Stoica pulled the Metyor-179 into a steep climb, went inverted, then rolled out aiming right for the lead F-16. In seconds, they had closed the distance between them. “Locked on!” Yegorov shouted. “Shoot!” He fired two R-60 missiles as soon as they were within range.

It all unfolded in the blink of an eye, so fast that the Turkish flight leader did not notice — the rapid change in altitude, the rapid decrease in relative speed and distance, followed suddenly by an even faster decrease in relative distance and two bright flashes of light. “Missile attack!” he shouted. “Evasive action! We’re under attack!” The flight leader immediately popped decoy chaff and flares — before realizing he didn’t have any chaff or flares — then shoved in full afterburner power, went to ninety degrees left bank, pulled on the control stick until he heard the stall-warning horn, then rolled out and yanked the throttle to idle.

It was a last-ditch defensive effort, hoping against hope that the missile would lock onto the afterburner plume and then lose track completely when he shut off the burner, and the Turkish F-16 flight leader knew it. He knew he was toast long before the R-60 missiles plowed into his tailpipe and exploded, blowing his fighter into a huge cloud of flying metal and flaming jet fuel.

“Control, Control, aman allahim, bombok, Zodyak One has been hit! Zodyak One has been hit by two missiles!” the young pilot aboard Zodyak Two screamed on the command channel. “I do not have a radar lock! I am completely defensive! Do you have radar contact on the bandit?”

“Negative, Zodyak Two, negative!” the ground radar controller responded. “Negative radar contact! Recommend vector heading one-niner-zero, descend to base plus zero, maximum speed. Get out of there now! Cekic flight is inbound, ETA eight minutes, base plus twenty.”

The wingman thought momentarily about avenging his leader: searching the skies with radar and eyeballs and with sheer luck, then finding the pic that had shot his friend and teacher down. But what he did was turn around back toward land and plug in full afterburner power. As much as he wanted to fight, he knew he had nothing but anger with which to do it, and that would do him no good at all.

“He’s turning! He’s bugging out!” Yegorov crowed. “Full afterburner power — running scared at Mach One. So long, great Turkish warrior.” But his celebration was short-lived, because he had fault indicator lights on both missile launch tubes, and they would not clear. The missiles’ rocket motors had obviously damaged the titanium launch tube shutters, leaving them partly open or jammed inside the tubes.

Stoica immediately turned eastbound once again, descending at idle power to keep his heat signature as low as possible and to try to hide in the radar clutter of the Black Sea until they were out of maximum radar detection range. “Don’t laugh too hard, Gennadi,” Stoica said. “That was very nearly us crashing to the Black Sea. Now we have to pray we have enough fuel to make it to base — we could end up at the bottom of the Black Sea if we’re not careful.”

They were very lucky — one engine flamed out shortly after landing, and they barely had enough fuel to taxi off the runway and to the parking ramp before ‘the second engine flamed out. The ground support crews had to frantically get a towbar and tug and pull the Metyor-179 into its hangar before anyone spotted the plane. The fuel. tanks were literally bone-dry.

The attack was a complete success-but neither Stoic nor Yegorov felt like celebrating anything except their own survival.