happens because a whole society screws itself up to it — it isn’t just the fault of the politicians at the top. That society will quit only when the vast majority believes their cause is hopeless.”
“So the F-22 outfit is supposed to help convince them. Show them the error of their ways.”
“I want you to nibble at ‘em, worry ‘em, shoot down a Zero occasionally, target their air transports, convince the Japanese that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”
“Sir, the Japanese have active ECM that makes their plane invisible. Athena. They will blow us from the sky unless we use the satellites to find the Zeros and point them out to us.”
“The White House says no.”
“I am not taking Americans to Russia to be slaughtered. Without Sky Eye, there is no way. I want no part of it.”
Stanford Tuck helped himself to another spoonful of soup, then put the spoon down beside the bowl. “You’ve been in the military for twenty-some years, Cassidy. There’s not much I could tell you about this business that you don’t already know. I will try to get authorization to use the satellites.”
“I’ll be lucky to bring half of them home.”
“I’ll do the best I can. That’s all I can promise.”
“Those who do come home — can we get back into the Armed Forces?”
“I’ll get a letter to that effect from the president. I’m sure he’ll sign it.”
“Good.”
Then Tuck added softly, “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Colonel?”
“I know one of the Zero pilots pretty well, General.”
Stanford Tuck glanced at Eatherly, then cleared his throat. “After spending a year in Japan, I’d be surprised if you didn’t know several,” he said. “I hate to press you like this, but time is running out. Can you do this job?”
“I can do it, General. My comment about the Zero pilot is personal. The job you are offering is professional, in the best interests of the United States. I know the difference. I just pray to God my friend lives through all this.”
“I understand.” Tuck’s head moved a tenth of an inch. It was a tiny bow, Cassidy noted, startled. “Colonel Eatherly will help you get the ball rolling,” the general said. “Let’s see what we can make happen.”
“Yes, sir,” Cassidy managed to say as Stanford Tuck stuck out his hand to shake. Tuck held his hand firmly and looked him in the eye. “Check six, Colonel. And remember what the Good Book says: When you’re in the valley, fear no evil.”
6
Other first people in Siberia to discover something amiss were the radar operators at the Vladivostok airport, a facility the military shared with the occasional civil transports that had flown the length of Siberia or over the Pole. There weren’t many of those anymore. Fuel was expensive, money to maintain aircraft in short supply, and the navigation aids in the middle of the continent were not regularly maintained. Anything or anyone that really had to get to Vladivostok came by rail or sea. Still, the radars that searched the oceans to the east and south were in working order and operators were on duty, even at two o’clock in the morning, near the end of another short summer night. In Russia change occurred because the government agency responsible ceased paying the bills and, to survive, the people who had lived on that trickle of money wandered on to something else. Money to make the radars work still dribbled in occasionally from Moscow. The task of safeguarding Mother Russia was too sacred for any politician to touch.
The only operator actually watching the screens was also perusing a card game that the other members of the watch section were playing. conOccasionally, he remembered to glance at the screens. It was on one of these periscope sweeps that he saw the blip, to the south. Three minutes later, when the blip was still there, and closer, he called the supervisor to look. The supervisor put down his cards reluctantly. There were no aircraft scheduled to arrive from that direction — there were no aircraft at all scheduled to arrive in Vladivostok until the next afternoon — and repeated queries on the radio went unanswered. As the blip got closer, it separated into many smaller blips, apparently a flight of aircraft. The radar supervisor called the air defense watch officer on the other side of the base and reported the inbound flight, which would penetrate Russian airspace in about twelve minutes if it maintained the same COURSE and speed. Two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters were in the usual alert status, which meant each was fully fueled and armed with four AA-10 Alamo missiles and a belt of shells for its 30-mm cannon. The ground crews were asleep in a nearby hut. The pilots, wearing flight suits, were playing chess in another nearby shack. Usually at this time of night, the alert pilots would be asleep, but these two had attended a wedding dinner earlier in the evening and weren’t sleepy. When the duty officer telephoned, ordering a scramble, they dropped everything and ran for their planes as they shouted to awaken the ground crews. One of the pilots opened the door to the ground crew’s shack and turned on the light. At the aircraft, the pilots donned their flight gear as the ground crewmen came stumbling across the mat. The Sukhois rolled onto the runway eight minutes later, lit their afterburners, and accelerated. The mighty roar washed over the sleepy base like thunder. After a modest run, the wheels lifted from the concrete and the pilots sucked up gear and flaps. With the afterburners still engaged, the two fighters moved closer together. The pilots then pulled into a steep climb and punched up through the overcast as the leader checked in with the ground control intercept (Gci) controller, who was the same man who had seen the incoming blips, for what was originally one blip had now separated into five, sometimes six, individual targets. The supervisor and most of the watch section were now gathered behind him, watching the scope over his shoulder. The blips were doing about 250 knots. Probably turboprop aircraft. But whose? Why were so many aircraft coming from the southeast?
Why hadn’t Moscow transmitted a copy of their flight plans?
The tops of the lower layer of stratus clouds were at fifteen thousand feet tonight. Another cloud layer far above blocked out most of the glow of the high-latitude sky. As they climbed above the lower layer of stratus clouds, the Sukhoi pilots eased their throttles back out of burner and spread out into a loose combat formation. They then killed their wingtip lights, so only the dim formation lights on the sides of the planes enlivened the darkness. When the fighters were level at twenty thousand feet, the GCI controller turned them to a course to intercept the large formation heading toward Vladivostok.
The leader’s attention was inside his cockpit. Although the Su-27 had a HUD, the pilot wasn’t using it. Even if he had been, he would probably have died anyway. He concentrated on flying his aircraft on instruments, and on adjusting the gain and brightness of his radar screen. The task took several seconds. As he examined the scope, he glanced at his electronic countermeasures panel, which was silent. Yes, the switches were on. A shout on the radio. He automatically raised his gaze, scanned outside. At eleven o’clock, slightly high, a bright light…, brilliant! missile!
The thought registered on his brain and automatically he slammed the stick sideways to roll left, away from his wingman, and pulled. The responsive fighter flicked over obediently into 220 degrees of bank. The missile arrived a second and a half after the pilot first spotted the exhaust plume: The fighter’s nose had come down no more than conten degrees. The missile missed the Sukhoi by about six inches. The proximity fuse detonated the warhead immediately under the cockpit area. The shrapnel punched hundreds of holes in the belly of the plane. In less than a second, fuel from punctured fuel lines sprayed into the engine compartment, starting a fire. A half second later, the aircraft exploded, killing the pilot instantly. The wingman had instinctively rolled right — away from his leader — when he spotted the inbound missile. He also shouted into his radio mike, which was contained within his oxygen mask. It was this warning that the leader heard. The wingman only rolled about seventy degrees, however, so he could keep the oncoming missile in sight. Still he laid on six Go’s. He saw the missile streak in out of the corner of his eye and saw the flash as it detonated under the leader’s plane. The flash temporarily blinded him. Blinking mightily, he slammed the stick back left and pulled while he looked to see if his leader had successfully avoided the missile. He keyed his radio mike, opened his mouth to call. The wingman never saw the second missile, which impacted his plane in the area of the left wing root and detonated. The explosion severed the wing spar, so the wing collapsed. The hot metal of the warhead ignited fuel spewing under pressure from the ruptured wing tank. Then all the fuel still in the wing exploded. The sequence was over in a few thousandths of a second. The pilot died without even knowing there had been a second missile. The blossoming fireballs from the two Sukhois were visible
