comment that had struck him with the most impact during those days of shock and pain was a quote he had seen in a magazine in a waiting room: “We are all voyagers between two eternities.”
Out of one eternity and into another. That’s right. That’s the truth of it. Scheer sat relaxed, his eyes roaming the instrument panel.
Layton Robert Smith III, riding Scheer’s wing, was an unhappy man. He shouldn’t be here. He had been in the United States Air Force for nine years, nine peaceful, delightful years, cruising without sweat or strain toward the magic twenty. Eleven years from now he planned to retire from the blue suits and get a job flying corporate moguls in biz jets. Weekends in Aspen, nights in New York and San Fran, occasional hops to the Bahamas, he could handle it. Fly the plane when the paycheck man wanted to go, then kick back. His mistake had been volunteering to fly an F-22 from Germany to these idiots at Chita. Praise God, if he lived through this he was going to get NEVER VOLUNTEER tattooed on his ass. In Chita, that damned Cassidy had shanghaied him, called Germany, said he needed Smith III “on his team.”
And Colonel Blimp in Germany had said yesst Layton Robert Smith III was scared, angry, and very much a fish out of water. He stared at his master armament switch, which was on. Holy shit!
The Japanese were going to try to kill Smith III. The prospect made his blood feel like ice water pulsing through his temples.
He should have told Cassidy to stick it up his ass sideways. Now he knew that. What would Cassidy have done? Court-martial him for refusing to join the Russian air force? Hell, there was nothing Cassidy could do, Smith told himself now as he lawyered the case, then wondered why he hadn’t thought of that two hours ago. Maybe he should just turn around, boogie on back to Chita. Look at this dust, would you! You don’t see shit like this floating over the good ol” US of A. Or even in Germany. What the hell kind of country is this where you fly through dirt?
Smith III told himself he should quit worrying about the injustice of it all and concentrate on staying alive.
Jiro Kimura adjusted his infrared goggles. They were attached to his helmet above his oxygen mask, and they were too heavy. He would have to hold the helmet in place with his left hand while he pulled G’s, or helmet, goggles and all, would pull his head down to his chest. Maybe he wouldn’t have to pull any Go’s. Perhaps the colonel was right about the radar. At least he had a plan. Jiro looked at his watch. Shizuko was teaching at the kindergarten this morning. She was there now, telling stories to the children, singing songs, comforting the ones who needed a hug. He had been so very lucky in his marriage. Shizuko was the perfect woman, without fault. She was the female half of him. He loved her and missed her terribly. With the goggles on, Jiro Kimura scanned the dusty sky. He suspected he would have only seconds to see the Americans and react — and not many seconds at that. The forecasters had been wrong about this dust. There seemed to be no end to it. He checked his watch again. Yes, it was time. Jiro gave a hand signal to his wingman, then pulled the power back and began a descent.
“Call the Japanese and Russian ambassadors,” President David Herbert Hood told the national security adviser, Jack Innes. “Ask them to come to the White House again as soon as possible.” It was one o’clock in the morning in Washington. Innes didn’t ask questions. He got up from the table and went to a telephone in the back of the White House war room.
Hood turned to General Tuck, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “It’s time for us to get in the middle. Congress has been loath to get involved. Things have changed. We’ve got to step between these people before they trigger something no one can stop.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want to get on television later this morning, when the sun comes up, talk to the nation and to the Japanese and Russian leadership.” The secretary of state asked, “Sir, shouldn’t we get the congressional leadership over here first, get their input?”
“They can stand behind me when I talk to the nation. Putting out fires is my job, not theirs. And let’s raise U.s. forces to Defense Condition One.”
“Whom are we going to fight?” General Tuck asked. “Anybody who doesn’t like the gospel I’m going to read to them.”
Bob Cassidy was breathing faster now, although he didn’t notice it. As the minutes ticked by, he was sorely tempted to use the radar. What if the satellites couldn’t pick the Zeros out of this goo? Maybe the Zeros’ Athena gear wouldn’t work. “Taco, talk to me.”
“Hoppy, Washington says they are at your twelve-thirty, three hundred miles. Space Command is having some difficulty, they say…, but they won’t say precisely what.”
Cassidy growled into his mask, shook his head to keep the sweat from his eyes. He checked his watch again. If the Zeros were transmitting with their radars, he should pick up the emissions. Maybe the Sentinel batteries had educated them. Perhaps the Zeros were running silent, as were the F-22’s. In that case, the advantage would go to the side with outside help. The satellites were Cassidy’s outside help, and just now they didn’t seem all that reliable. He played with the tac display, trying to coax a blip to appear on its screen. Nothing. “Two-fifty miles, Hoppy.”
“Can the satellites see us?”
“Wait one.”
If the satellites could see the F-22’s, Cassidy could safely divide his flight into sections, secure in the knowledge that the other three F-22’s would remain on his tac display even though the dust blocked out the laser data link between planes. Of course, the question remained: If the satellites could see the Zeros, why weren’t they appearing on the tactical displays?
And if the satellites were blind, the F-22’s had to stay together to ensure they didn’t shoot down one another. Was it or wasn’t it?
A minute passed, then another. The tension was excruciating. Unable to stand it any longer, Cassidy was about to fire a verbal rocket at Taco when he got a bogey symbol on his scope, way out there, 260 miles away. He put the icon on the symbol and clicked with the mouse. Zero. Quantity one plus. One thousand seventy-nine knots over the ground. Heading 244 degrees magnetic. Altitude four hundred, which meant forty thousand feet. Distance 257 miles … 256 … 255 … The numbers flipped over every 1.8 seconds. “Stick with me, gang,” he said into the radio, and turned left thirty degrees. He would go out to the north, then turn and come in from the side, shooting at optimum range as the F-22’s flew into the Zeros’ right-stern quarter. When he was ten miles or so to the north of the Zeros’ track, Cassidy turned back to his original course. The two formations rocketed toward each other. Please, God. We need to kill these guys. It’s a hell of a thing to ask you for other men’s deaths, but these guys are carrying nukes. If even one gets through, they could kill everyone at Chita. His formation was where it should be, spread out but not too much so — everyone in sight in the little six-mile visibility bowl. Cassidy wondered what his wingmen were thinking. Perhaps it was better that he didn’t know. Still only one plus on the quantity of Zeros. Damn the wizards and techno-fools!
Fifty miles…, forty…, thirty … At twenty, Cassidy spoke into the radio: “Okay, gang, get ready for a right turn-in behind these guys. Try for a Sidewinder lock. On my word, we will each fire one missile. Then we will continue to close and kill survivors.”
“Two, roger,” replied Dixie. “Three’s got it,” said Scheer. “Four,” Smith answered. Cassidy would not have brought Smith if Taco hadn’t been trying to get over a case of diarrhea; the idiot drank some water from the shower spigot. Joe Malan was fighting a sinus infection, the others were exhausted: Cassidy had kept planes in the air over the base every minute he could these past few weeks. Smith had no combat experience, none whatever. Still, he was the only person Cassidy had to put in a cockpit, so he had to fly. Life isn’t fair. “Turn … now!”
Cassidy laid his fighter into the turn. The Zeros continued on their 244-degree heading. After ninety degrees of turn, the Zeros were dead on his nose, ninety degrees off, five miles ahead, and two thousand feet above him, according to the tac display. Cassidy looked through the heads-up display and got a glimpse of one, then lost it. Damn this dust!
He got a rattle from his Sidewinder. It had locked on a heat source. Cassidy kept the turn in. His flight was sweeping in behind the Zeros. Through his HUD, he saw specks. Zeros. Two. Two?
were there other Zeros? Where were they?
“Let “em have it, gang.” Cassidy touched off a ‘winder. “There’s only two Japs in front of us. They’ve mousetrapped us.”
“Red Three, the Americans are behind us. I have them in…”
Colonel Nishimura made this broadcast over his encrypted radio, and fifteen miles behind him, twenty
