He took his time with the Reds. Let us pray that He can save Russia one more time.”
Several minutes later Kalugin asked, “Are you a believer?”
“I believe in Russia, sir. So does God.”
“You are in charge. Fight them. Give me some victories.”
“I will use what we have,” Stolypin said sourly, “which is very little. If you expect a furious battle that can be filmed for a television spectacle, you had better get someone else, someone who can make an army from street rabble with a snap of his fingers.”
Kalugin was thinking about nuclear weapons. When he came out of his reverie, he heard Stolypin saying, “Political posturing is not part of a soldier’s job.”
Kalugin handed the old marshal an envelope. “Your appointment as chief of staff is in here. I signed it before you arrived. Go to headquarters and take charge. Mobilize our resources, fill the ranks, requisition the guns, clothes, food, fuel, all of it. Do whatever you have to do. Any decrees that you need, draft them and send them to me. Together, we are going to save Russia.”
Stolypin reached for the envelope and opened it.
“It is a tragedy that Samsonov is not here,” the old soldier said gravely as he read the papers. “He was the most brilliant soldier Russia has produced since Georgi Zhukov.”
“I am placing the details in your capable hands, Marshal Stolypin.”
“I have given you the same advice that Samsonov would. I wish to God he were here now.”
“We will feel his loss keenly,” said Kalugin as he walked with Sto-lypin toward the door.
The sky was growing light in the northeast as Jiro Kimura and three wingmen climbed to 34,000 feet on their way to bomb and strafe the airfield at Khabarovsk, at the great bend of the Amur River. Khabarovsk was a rail, highway, and electrical power nerve center, the strategic key to the far eastern sector. When they held Khabarovsk, the Japanese would own the Russian far east, and not before. The troops were within forty miles now, coming up the railroad and highways from Vladivostok.
For the past two days, Jiro and his squadron mates had flown close air support for the advancing troops, bombing, rocketing, and strafing knots of Russian troops that were preparing positions to delay the Japanese advance. This morning, however, the general had sent this flight to Khabarovsk.
It was going to be a perfect morning. Not a cloud anywhere. To the northeast the rising sun revealed the pure deep blue of the sky and the va/s of the endless green Siberian landscape. From 34,000 feet none of man’s engineering projects were visible as the low-angle sunlight flooded the land in starkly contrasting light and shadow. When the sun got a little higher, all one would see from horizon to horizon would be green land under an endless blue sky.
Jiro was flying three or four flights a day, every day. The previous afternoon his plane had needed unexpected maintenance, and he had fallen asleep in the briefing room, after lying down on the floor with his flight gear as a pillow. He was constantly exhausted and always on the verge of sleep.
Some of his comrades were disappointed that the Russians had suddenly withdrawn their airplanes. Jiro had eleven kills when the Russians vanished from the sky, ceding air superiority. One still had to stay alert for possible enemy aircraft, of course, but they just weren’t there.
Although the Russians on the ground felt free to shoot like wild men with everything they had, they rarely hit anyone. The Japanese planes stayed out of the light AAA envelope except when actually delivering ordnance. Rear-quarter heat-seekers would also have been a problem if they stayed near the ground for very long, so they didn’t.
The Japanese had lost only two Zeroes at this stage of the war. One pilot crashed and died while making an approach to Vladivostok as evening fog rolled in. Another had a total electrical failure and lost his wingmen while he busied himself in the cockpit pulling circuit breakers and trying to reset alternators. He and his flight had been on their way to Nikolayevsk, at the mouth of the Amur, when the failure occurred. The luckless pilot never found the city or the base. He crashed in the boondocks a hundred miles northwest of Nikolayevsk when his fuel was exhausted. Fortunately a satellite picked up the plane’s battery-powered emergency beeper after the pilot ejected, and a helicopter rescued him the next day.
Jiro retarded his throttles and began his letdown eighty miles from Khabarovsk. The four war planes drifted apart into a combat spread. Jiro and his wingman, Sasai, were ahead and to the right, Ota and Miura behind and to the left. Ota dropped farther back so that he could swing right and follow the first flight if the ground topography required it.
The shadows on the ground were still dark, impenetrable. Jiro looked at his watch. In eight minutes they would arrive at the target, come out of the rising sun. It would be a splendid tactic, if the sun rose on schedule.
He swung farther east to give God another minute or two with the sun.
“Blue Leader, this is Control.” The radio was scrambled, of course, and gave a beep before and after the words.
Jiro pushed his mike button, waited for the beep, then said, “Control, Blue Leader, go ahead.”
“We believe a plane has just taken off from your target. It is headed three zero zero degrees, ten miles northwest, climbing. Please intercept.”
“Wilco.”
Jiro looked around at Sasai. He pointed toward Ota, then jerked his thumb. Sasai nodded vigorously, then slipped aft and away.
Jiro turned left, advanced his throttles, and pulled his machine into a slight climb. He settled on a course of 275, which should allow him to intercept. Now he pushed buttons on the computer display in front of him. When he was satisfied, he tickled the radar. It swept once. There was the plane. Thirty-four nautical miles away, interception course 278 degrees. He turned to that heading and reset his armament panel. He had been set up to strafe, then shoot rockets. Now he armed the two heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles that the Zero always carried, one on each wingtip. He tripped the radar sweep again. Thirty-one miles. The enemy plane was accelerating nicely, headed almost straight away from Jiro, who was now committed to a stern-quarter approach. He eyed his fuel gauges, then pushed the throttle farther forward. The Zero slid through the sonic barrier without a buffet or bump. With the throttles all the way forward, but without using his afterburners, the Zero quickly accelerated to Mach 1.3. Jiro decided to risk another sweep. Twenty-four miles. He was at ten thousand feet now, so he leveled there. He wanted the other plane above him, against the dark background of the western sky. Far below, out to the left, he could see a faint ribbon of light wandering off to the northwest. That would be the Amur River, flowing southeast to Khabarovsk. On the far side was Manchuria. From Khabarovsk, the river flowed northeast to the Sea of Okhotsk. It was always frozen solid in winter. He was still fifteen miles from the bogey when he first saw it, a spot of silver reflecting the rising sun, against the dark of the fading night. It’s a big plane, he thought. A transport!
He checked his ECM panel as the implications of that fact sunk in. The panel was dark. Because you never really trust an electronic device, Jiro turned in his seat and looked carefully about him, concentrating on the rear quadrants. Empty sky, everywhere. A transport — defenseless. He heard Ota tell Control that he was attacking the primary target, and he heard Control acknowledge. Jiro closed quickly on the transport from dead astern. When it was no more than four miles ahead, Jiro retarded his throttles. The gap between the planes continued to close as he coasted up on it. The bogey was a four-engine transport, very similar to an old Boeing 707, with the engines in pods on the wings, climbing at full power, just now it was passing through fifteen thousand feet.
Jiro stabilized a few hundred yards aft, directly behind, well below the transport’s wash. He sat looking at it for what seemed like a long, long time, unsure of what to do. Actually the time was less than a minute, but it seemed longer to Jiro. He slid out to the right, so he could see the side of the plane and the tail, illuminated by the rising sun. Then he dropped back into trail. Finally he keyed the mike. After the beep, he spoke. The hoarseness of his voice surprised him. “Control, Blue Leader.”
“Go ahead, Blue Leader.”
“This bogey you wanted investigated. It’s an airliner — four-engines, silver. Lots of windows. Aeroflot markings.”
“Wait.”
Silence, broken only by Jiro sucking on his oxygen, with the background hum of the engines. He eased up and under the transport; the roar of the Russian’s engines became audible. He could just feel a bit of the rumble of the air disturbed by the big plane’s passage, its wash. He dropped down a bit; the ride smoothed and the Russian’s
