'There was nothing wrong with my radio, sir.'
'Silence, Papendreyov. Silence or I will have your wings here and now. 'The squadron leader circled the young pilot few times like a shark circling in for the kill. Papendreyov remained at rigid attention.
'Ice-and-snow-removal detail for forty-eight hours for that outburst, Flight Captain. Perhaps a few nights in the Siberian winds will cool down your hotheadedness. Pray I don't put you on that detail permanently.'
Papendreyov blurted out, 'I had the intruder, Squadron Leader. I saw the American B-52.I took a missile shot at it.'
'You what… T' Papendreyov still stood firmly at attention. 'I found the B-52 at three hundred meters above the ground, Squadron Leader. I pursued him down to seventy meters-' 'Sevenly meters?You took your interceptor to seventy meters?Without authorization?
Without-' 'I found him. I found him on radar but his jamming was too strong. So I locked onto him on the infrared search-and-track system.
I closed to within three kilometers of him.'
Vasholtov stifled his annoyance at the interruption. 'Go on.'
'I was then ordered back to base. I waited as long as I could. I fired just before obeying the order to return but I had lost track by then. They must have detected my radio trans-' You fired on the B-52?'
In forty years he had never heard of any man under his command actually firing on anything or anyone except target drones. 'Did you… hit it?'
'My first radar shot… yes, I believe I hit him,' Papendreyov said, wishing he hadn't sounded so unsure, so hesitant-now it sounded like he was lying.
radar is not used.'
'Not use radar 'You could have been killed,' Vasholtov asked. 'You could have crashed at any time. Flying at seventy meters at night in the mountains with the flight director radar down… you risked too much. This will have to be reported-' ' Let me go after him,' Papendreyov interrupted once again. 'I can find him again. He is using a tail-mounted radar that can be detected for forty kilometers.
He is only traveling five hundred, perhaps six hundred kilometers an hour… I can catch him. I can stay low enough for the infrared system to lock onto him. He cannot detect a fighter closing on him if Vasholtov was almost too flabbergasted to reply. Papendreyov had been down in the Kamchatka mountain range at night-he had only recently been certified for night duty-at seventy meters, about a thousand meters lower than he should have been, without using his radar. He had broken more rules in one hour than the entire squadron had done in months.
The Defense Force Commander would retire him for sure when they saw this report.
'You are lucky, very lucky,' Vasholtov said, 'to be alive.
Very, very lucky. The rules of engagement exist to protect stupid young hotheads like you. You broke at least four of them-not including the crime of ignoring a unit recall-order.
You are very close to a flight tribunal, Flight Captain. Very close.
' 'Punish me, then,' Papendreyov said defiantly 'Send me to y Ust-Meryna or Gorky. Take my wings. Just let me take one more crack at the Americans-' 'Enough. 'Vasholtov's tobacco-singed throat throbbed from all his yelling. 'You will report to the intelligence branch and give them a complete debriefing on your supposed contact with the American B-52.Then you will immediately report to your barracks. I'll have to decide what to do with you- give you to a flight tribunal or a criminal board.'
'Please, tovarisch, ' Papendreyov said, his sharp blue eyes now round and soft. 'I deserve punishment, Squadron Leader, severe punishment, but I also deserve to shoot down this intruder. I know where to find him and how to take him.
Please… ' 'Get out,' Vasholtov ordered, dropping into his rough wooden chair before he collapsed into it. 'Get out before I have your insubordinate hide arrested.'
Papendreyov's round eyes hardened and narrowed. He snapped to unbending attention, saluted, spun on a heel and left the office.
Papendreyov quickly returned to his barracks room as ordered-without stopping at the flight intelligence branch. He turned on the light to his desk and fished out a pen and paper.
As he wrote he picked up the telephone and dialed.
'Alert maintenance, crew sergeant speaking.'
'Starshiy Serzhant Bloiaki, this is Flight Captain Papendreyov. I am calling from the ready room. Is one- seven-one combat ready?'
'One-seven-one, sir?Your plane?The one you just returned-' 'Of course, my plane, sergeant. Is it ready?'
'Sir… we… it has been towed to recovery area B sir, but it hasn't-' 'Starshiy Serzhant Bloiaki, this is not like you,' Papendreyov asked. 'This is the worst time not to get the orders. My plane was to be immediately reconfigured with one four hundred decaliter centerline drop tank and four infrared missiles. It was to be ready on the hour.'
He paused, then said quietly, 'I'll have to tell squadron leader Vasholtov that my sortie will be delayed- 'That won't be necessary,' Bloiaki said quickly. 'One drop tank and four infrared missiles… they will be ready in fifteen minutes, sir.'
Papendreyov checked his watch.'it will be ready in ten minutes or we will both have a chat with Squadron Commander Vasholtov. I must refile my flight plan once more,' he said.finishing his hurried scribbling.
'I'll be out there right away.
He hung up the phone and went to his bureau, took one last long loving gaze at the photo of his wife and infant daughter then opened the top drawer. As he studied his wife's dark chestnut hair and his daughter's blonde curly locks he began stuffing his pockets with packets of freeze-dried survival food and dried beef. He quickly unzipped his flight suit and put on a second thermal shirt over his flameproof underwear, and replaced his lightweight flight boots with insulated flying boots. He touched the picture of his wife, then put on his flight jacket, gloves and fur hat and hurried toward the flightline.
He had left the hastily written note and last will an testament unsigned; there was no longer time even for that. No matter. His career was over the minute he stepped foot on the flightline. His life-period-would have been over as he taxied onto the main runway except that on account of the emergency declared over the entire eastern air-defense region the air traffic controllers allowed him to take off without a full verified flight plan. In an emergency, better to have the fighter airborne first, question their procedures later.
Papendreyov had known this, of course, and was airborne again within thirty minutes of landing from his first sortie.
It had only been an hour and a half since he had broken off the attack with the American B-52.The B-52, obviously wounded, was flying slow-at the most, he figured, it had gone some seven hundred fifty kilometers from ssora since he had fired his last missiles. His MiG-29
Fulcrum fighter could chase after it easily at three times the B-52's speed with fuel from the drop tank only, then spend two, three hours searching for the intruder.
Papendreyov gave his call sign to Ossora Intercept Contro which questioned him briefly about his absent flight-taskil code but quickly gave him vectors to the bomber's last know position, nearly five hundred kilometers ahead. The young Fulcrum pilot kept the throttles at max afterburner and began ten-degree climb at seven hundred kilometers per hour. With' minutes he was at twenty thousand meters, screaming nord east at seventeen hundred kilometers per hour, almost twice the speed of sound.
Quickly he was handed off to Korf Intercept Control, which had few updates on the bomber's position, but Papendreyc made his own estimate where the American B-52 would be The fuel in his centerline drop tank having exhausted itself lethan ten minutes after his takeoff, he made another calculation then jettisoned the tank, not having the luxury of considerit who or what might be underneath… he was high over the mountains, but they were still sparsely populated. He continued at maximum afterburner for five more minutes, then pulled his throttles to cruise power and set his autopilot.
He had fifty thousand liters of fuel remaining to find the American, and he was wasting two thousand liters per hour-just w hourju hoping to catch up. But Papendreyov wasn't worried. He knew, thanks to his subtle course corrections, that the nose of his Fulcrum was pointed right at the Americans' heart.
'We aren't going to make it,' Ormack felt obliged to report.
'We've got thirty minutes of fuel tops.'
