signature at the bottom was that of President Aleksandr Kalugin. “And your identity papers. Proving you’re General Esenin.”
“Alas, you have only my honest face for a reference.”
“Oh, come on! A letter that may or may not be genuine, a uniform you could acquire anywhere? Do I look like a fool?”
“We also have weapons, Captain. As you see, I am armed and so are my men. If you will be so kind as to observe, they have your sailors under their guns as we speak.”
The soldiers were pointing their weapons at the sailors, who were busy securing the loose ends of the lines. “All personnel at this base are subject to my authority, including you and your men,” General Esenin concluded.
“I didn’t know there were any personnel here.”
“There are now.”
Saratov handed the letter back. He leaned forward, with his elbows on the edge of the combing.
“I congratulate you on your victory in Japan, Captain. You have done very well.”
Saratov nodded.
“By order of President Kalugin, you have been promoted to captain first class.”
“My men are owed five or six months’ pay. Can you pay them?
Most of them have families to support.”
“Alas, no one will be mailing letters from Trojan Island.”
Saratov turned his head so that the general could not see his disgust. “How long will it take to ready your boat for sea?”
“The periscope…, if there is another in the stores here, that will take several days. The radar is out of action. We have several cracked batteries. If the people here have the parts and tools and food and fuel and torpedoes, perhaps a week.”
The general nodded abruptly. “We will repair your boat as speedily as possible, refuel and reprovision it; then you and your crew will take me and a special warfare team back to Tokyo.”
Saratov tried not to smile. “You look amused, Captain.”
“Let’s be honest, “General.” This boat will never get into Tokyo Bay a second time.”
“I know it will be difficult.”
Saratov snorted. “For reasons we can only speculate about, the Japanese left the door open the first time. We grossly embarrassed them. I assume you know the Asian mind? They lost a great deal of face. They will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that we do not succeed in embarrassing them again. By now they have welded the door shut.”
“No doubt you are correct, but I have my orders from President Kalugin. You have your orders from me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just so that we understand each other, Captain, let me state the situation more plainly: this boat is going back to Tokyo Bay. If you do not wish to take it there under my orders, we will give you a quick funeral and your executive officer will have his chance at glory.”
Saratov bit his lip to keep his face under control. Esenin glanced his way and smiled.
“You find me distasteful, Captain. A common reaction. I have an abrasive personality, and I apologize.” His smile widened. “Then again, perhaps distasteful is an understatement. Perhaps, Saratov, like so many others before you, you wish to watch me die. Who knows, you may get lucky.”
Esenin flashed white teeth.
Saratov tried to keep his face deadpan. “I hope you are a tough man,” he told Esenin. “When they weren’t expecting us, the Japanese almost killed us. Next time, they’ll be ready. Dying in one of these steel sewer pipes won’t be pleasant. There is just no good way to do it. You can be crushed when the boat goes too deep and implodes, maybe die slowly of asphyxiation when the air goes bad. If we get stuck on the bottom, unable to surface, you’ll probably wish to God you had drowned.”
Esenin’s smile was gone.
“We might die together, Saratov,” he said. “Or perhaps I shall watch you die. We will see how the game goes.”
The general climbed down the rungs welded to the sail to the deck. He paused and looked up at Saratov. “You have five days and nights to get ready disfor sea. Make the most of them.”
The next day Bob Cassidy took off leading a flight of four. He had slept for exactly two hours. According to the people at Space Command in Colorado Springs, two Zeros had their engines running at Zeya, five hundred miles east. Ready or not, the Americans could wait no longer.
This morning Paul Scheer flew on Cassidy’s wing. The second section consisted of Dick Gvelich and Foy Sauce.
Cassidy swung into a gentle climbing turn to allow the three fighters following him to catch up. Joined together in a tight formation, the four F-22’s kept climbing in a circle over the field. They entered a solid overcast layer at eight thousand feet and didn’t leave it until they passed twenty thousand.
In the clear on top, they spread out so that they could safely devote some time to the computer displays in their cockpits. The first order of business was checking out the electronics.
The F-22 acquired its information about distant targets from its own onboard radar, from data link from other airplanes, or via satellite from the computers at Space Command in Colorado Springs. In addition, the planes contained sensors that detected any electronic emissions from the enemy, as well as infrared sensors exquisitely sensitive to heat. The information from all these sources was compiled by the main tactical computer and presented to the pilot on a tactical situation display.
The airplanes shared data among themselves by the use of data-link laser beams, which were automatically aimed based on the relative position of the planes as derived from infrared sensors. Each plane fired a laser beam at the other and updated the derived errors in nanoseconds, allowing the computers to fix the relative position of both planes to within an inch. In clouds or bad weather, the data-link transfer was conducted via a focused, super- high-frequency radio beam.
Each pilot knew exactly where the others were because his computer, the brain of the airplane, presented the tactical situation in a three-dimensional holographic display on the MFD, or multifunction display, in the center of the instrument panel. On his left, another MFD presented information about the engines, fuel state, and weapons. On his right, a third MFD depicted God’s view, the planes as they would look from directly overhead while flying over a map of the earth.
The pilot selected the presentations and functions he wanted by manipulating a cursor control on the right or inboard throttle with his left hand. The aircraft’s control stick, on the side of the cockpit under his right hand, was also festooned with buttons, so without moving his hands from stick and throttles, the pilot could choose among a wide variety of options that in earlier generations of fighters would have required lifting an arm and mechanically throwing a switch or pushing a button.
The current state of the art in fighter planes, the F-22 Raptor was a computer that flew, capable of a top speed of about Mach 2.5 and maneuvering at over 9 Go’s. The semi-stealthy design was intended to enable the pilot to detect the enemy before he was himself detected. Alas, the Athena capability of the Zero gave it the edge. In modern war any pretense of airborne chivalry had been completely jettisoned:
the pilot who shot first and escaped before the victim’s friends could do anything about it would be the victor.
Level at thirty thousand feet, the Raptors accelerated in basic engine to supercruise at Mach 1.3. The pilots flipped a switch to turn on the chameleon skin of their planes. The planes faded from view as their skin color changed electronically to blend them into the summer sky.
As briefed, Scheer turned left five degrees and held the heading until the gap between him and the leader had widened to five miles, then he turned back to parallel Cassidy’s course. The second section moved right and spread out in a similar manner. With his four planes spread over twenty miles of sky, Cassidy hoped to optimize his chances of getting one plane into Sidewinder range on any Zero they chanced to meet. If one plane was detected, the others could circle in behind the attacking Zero while it was engaged with its intended victim. That was the plan, anyway, carefully explained and diagramed.
As the cloud deck under them feathered out, the land below became visible under scattered cumulus clouds
