DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE! they heard from the threat warning receiver—an enemy radar had just locked on to them. It was the Turkish frigate’s air search radar Yegorov started a shallow turn away from the ship, careful not to turn too suddenly so as to break the laser’s aim. Yegorov wondered about the warning, but soon dismissed it. The frigate might be trying to lock on to the bomb, he thought—the Kh-73 one-thousand- kilogram bomb probably had ten limes the radar cross-section of the Metyor-179 stealth fighter right now. No problem. The bomb was tracking perfectly.
Ten seconds to impact. “Laser on!” Yegorov shouted. He immediately received another “data good” signal from the bomb. Nothing could stop it now....
“Contact!” Duane Deverill shouted. “Annie, come thirty left now!” He keyed the voice command button on his target tracking joystick and ordered, “Attack target two with two Anacondas!”
“Attack command two Anacondas, stop attack... bomb doors open, missile one away... launcher rotating, stop attack ... missile two away.. . doors closed, launcher rotating, ” the computer replied, and it fired two AIM-152 Anaconda long- range air-to-air missiles from twenty-three miles aw;ay. The missile’s first-stage motors accelerated the big weapon to twice the speed of sound, and then the missile’s scramjet engine kicked in, accelerating it well past five times the speed of sound in seconds. Traveling at a speed of oer a mile per second, the Anaconda missile closed the gap in moments.
Steered by its own onboard radar, the missile arrived at a point in space just two hundred feet above the tanker Ustinov. then detonated—at the exact moment the Kh-73 laser-guided bomb arrived at the exact spot. There was a massive fireball above the tanker, like a gigantic flashbulb popping in the night, that froze every thing within a mile in the strobelike glare. The Anaconda missile’s sixty-three pound warhead split the big Kh-73 into several pieces before it exploded, so the size of the fireball wasn’t enough to do much damage to the tanker except cook some paint and blow out every window not already destroyed on its superstructure.
“Any aircraft on this frequency, any aircraft on this frequency, this is Aces One-Niner,” Deverill radioed on 243.0 megahertz, the international UHF emergency frequency, as he studied his supcrcockpit display. “I have an unidentified aircraft one-seven miles northwest of Eregli at thirty-one thousand feet, heading south in a slow right turn.” He was aboard an HB-1C Megafortress Two bomber, flying high over the Black Sea about thirty miles north of the Turkish naval base at Eregli. He had been scanning the area with the Megafortress’s laser radar all evening, but had detected nothing until seconds before the bomb came hurtling down from the sky toward the Russian tanker “Just a friendly advisory. Thought someone would like to know.”
“Aces One-Niner, this is Stalker One-Zero, we read you loud and clear,” David Luger replied. Luger was aboard the Sky Masters Inc.’s DC-10 launch and-eontrol aircraft, orbiting not far from the EB-1C Megafortress at a different altitude. He, too, had been scanning the skies with a laser radar mounted aboard the DC-10, and he had detected the unidentified aircraft and the falling bomb at the same instant. “You might want to contact Eregli approach on two-seven-five-point-three. Thanks, guys.”
“You’re welcome—whoever you are,” the Megafortress’s aircraft commander, Annie Dewey, replied. She found it impossible to hold back a tear and keep her voice from cracking. “Have a nice flight.”
“You too. Aces One-Niner,” David said. Annie heard his voice soften for the first time, and it was a voice filled with promise, and good wishes, and peace. “Have a nice life, you guys.”
Dev reached over and touched Annie’s gloved hand resting on the throttles. She looked over at him and smiled, and he smiled back. “We will,” Annie replied. “Thanks. Be careful out there.”
David Luger switched over from the emergency frequency with a touch of sadness, but no regrets. He knew it would probably be the last time he’d ever talk to Annie. But she had made a life with Duane Deverill, and it was hers to hold on to and build if she wanted it. His destiny lay elsewhere.
On the new secure interplane frequency, he radioed, “Stalkers, Stalkers, this is Stalker One, your bandit is now two-two-one degrees bull’s-eye, range three-one miles, level at angels three-one, turning right, possibly racctracking around for another pass.”
“Stalker Two-Two flight of three, roger,” the Turkish F-16 flight leader responded. “Converging on bandit at angels three-four”
“Stalker Three-One flight of two, acknowledged,” the Ukrainian MiG-29 flight leader responded. “We will converge on target at angels two-niner.”
“Stalkers, datalink on blue seven.”
“Two-Two flight, push blue seven.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Three-One flight, push blue seven.”
‘Two.” Each fighter pilot set the same laser frequency channel into their receivers, corresponding w ith the frequency that Luger, in the DC-10. was using to track the unidentified aircraft with the laser radar. Since none of their air-to-air radars could pinpoint a stealth aircraft, the laser radar on the DC-10, tuned to the only frequency that could track the aircraft—a fact known by the Metyor-179’s first chief designer, David Luger— was the only way to do it.
“Two-Two flight, tally-ho!” the Turkish flight lead called out.
“Three-One flight has contact,” the Ukrainians called a few moments later. “Three-One has the lead.”
“What happened?” Yegorov shouted. “We lost contact with the weapon! What is going on?”
“The weapon exploded before it hit the tanker,” Fursenko said. The infrared scanner was still locked on to the tanker Ustinov; Except for some minor damage, the tanker was still very much intact.
The attack had looked perfect until one or two seconds before impact—w hat could have happened? Yegorov wondered. Now the threat warning receiver was blaring constantly, with multiple lock-on signals—and there was no longer a bomb in the air, meaning the enemy radars were definitely locked on them. Yegorov furiously scanned his instruments. Everything looked perfectly normal—no speed brakes or flaps deployed, no engine malfunctions that might be highlighting their position. no warning or caution lights, no—
Wait, there was one caution light, but not on the “Warning and Caution” panel, but on the “Weapons” panel on the lower right side—the bomb doors were still open. “Fursenko, damn you!” Yegorov shouted, staring wide-eyed at the engineer in his rearview mirror. “The bomb doors are still open! Close them immediately!”
Fursenko looked down at his instrument panel, then up at Yegorov almost immediately. “I can’t,” he said in a calm, even, voice. “The hydraulic system B circuit breaker has popped, and it will not reset. I have no control over the doors.”
If Yegorov thought the scrawny pencil-necked scientist had it in him, he would've thought the old man was lying to him! “Disengage the hydraulic system B and motor the doors closed with the electric motor.”
“I tried that,” Fursenko said, still in that calm, even voice— the voice of someone who was resigned to his fate. “The door mechanism must be jammed—I cannot motor the doors closed. Maybe the Kh-73 dropping on partially opened doors caused it to malfunction and detonate early."
The bastard, he was doing this on purpose! He didn't believe for a second it was a malfunction! “Damn you, Fursenko, do you realize what you’re doing?" Yegorov shouted in utter fury. Whatever Fursenko had done to the bomb doors, Yegorov couldn’t undo them from the front seat. “You are signing our death warrants!"
“Why, Yegorov?" Fursenko asked. “Don’t you think your buddy Pavel Kazakov will understand when you tell him your bomb doors were jammed open?"
“Fuck you!" Yegorov shouted. He immediately started a turn back toward the tanker, then hit a switch on his weapons panel to override the backseater’s laser aiming control. “I advise you not to touch another switch or circuit breaker back there, Fursenko," he warned. “If we strike our intended target, Kazakov may l
et you live, even if he does discover it was sabotage.”
“You fool, look at that threat scope," Fursenko shouted. Yegorov had indeed been looking—it appeared as if the entire Turkish Air Force were after them. “Forget this bomb run—the Turks will be all over you in one minute, long before you can line up for another bomb run. Get us out of here while you still can!"
“No!” Yegorov shouted wildly. “This is my mission! Comrade Kazakov ordered me to take command and complete this mission, and that’s what I’ll do! No one is going to stop me!"
The threat warning receiver now showed two sets of enemy fighters—one set Turkish, the other Russian-made fighters, probably Ukrainians—bearing down on them. “We’re not going to make it!" Fursenko shouted. ‘Turn away! Turn back before they shoot us down!"
“No!” Yegorov shouted again. He armed his internal R-60 missiles. “No one is going to get me! No one! He flicked on the Metyor-179’s infrared scanner, lined up on the closest set of fighters coming in from the north, waited until he got a lock- on indication, opened fire with one missile per fighter, then turned back toward the tanker Ustinov. The aiming pipper had drifted off the tanker slightly, and he—
The master caution light snapped on. Yegorov checked the warning panel and saw two launcher hot lights on. Both internal launchers that he had just used were on fire. “I’m going to cut off power to the stores panel!” Fursenko shouted.
“No!” Yegorov shouted. “Keep power on until after bomb release.”
“We can't!” Fursenko shot back. “There's a serious short or fire in the wing launcher, and there’s no way to stop it unless we cut off all power to the weapons panel. If you allow that fire to continue, it could completely burn through the wing. I’m going to turn off weapons power before that wing fails and we are both killed!”
“I said, leave it on. you traitorous bastard!” Fursenko was reaching for the master weapons power switch when he heard a tremendous BANG! and felt a sharp stinging sensation in his I left shoulder. To his amazement, he realized that Yegorov had pulled out his survival pistol, reached back between the seats, and shot him! The bullet tore through his shoulder, bounced off the metal ejection-seat back, and lodged deep in his left lung. Fursenko tasted blood, and soon blood was pouring from his mouth and nostrils.
Fursenko’s head was spinning, and he tried to keep himself upright and find the weapons power switch. He felt as if he was only moments away from passing out when he looked out the left side of the cockpit canopy and saw a flash of fire burst from just aft of the leading edge of the wing beside the fuselage. He knew precisely what it was. At that same moment, he felt a jolt and a rumble as the last Kh-73 laser-guided bomb fell free from the bomb bay.
He reached between his legs just as the burst of fire became an explosion, and the entire left wing separated from the fuselage. With his last ounce of strength. Fursenko pulled the ejection handle between his legs and fired himself out of the Metyor-179, The spinning, flaming remnants of his longtime pride and joy narrowly missed him as he plummeted toward the Black Sea. His man-seat separator snapped him free from his ejection seat, and his body began a ballistic arch through the air, decelerating as he fell. At exactly fourteen thousand feet above the water, his baro initiator shot his pilot chute out of his backpack, which pulled his main chute safely out of its pack, He was thankfully unconscious through the entire ride.
Once he hit the water, his life vest automatically inflated and infrared seawater-activated rescue lights illuminated, and he lay halftangled in the parachute riser cords, halfsubmerged as his parachute began to sink. Luckily, a Turkish Coast Guard patrol boat was just a few miles away, and he was picked up just moments before the parachute dragged his head below the surface.
The Metyor-179 splashed down about ten miles away, with Gennadi Yegorov still in the front pilot’s seat, trying to fly his bird down to a safe ditching in the Black Sea. The impact broke the stealth warplane—and Yegorov—into a thousand pieces and scattered them across the ocean.
Unguided, without even an initial beam to get it moving in the right direction, the second Kh-73 one-thousand-kilo bomb missed the tanker Ustinov by two hundred and fifty yards and exploded harmlessly in the sea.
EPILOGUE
The White House, Washington, D.C.
The next day
“The Russian and German governments vehemently demand an answer, sir.” Secretary of State Edward Kercheval said. They keep on insisting we have information on this so-called Black Sea Alliance, and they claim we are secretly supporting them.”
President Thomas Thom sat with his fingers folded on his chest, staring as usual into space, leaning back in his seat behind his desk in the Oval Office. “They have any proof of this?” the President asked absently.
“Several radio transmissions between Turkish and Ukrainian aircraft and an unidentified aircraft flying over the Black Sea in Turkish airspace, protected by aircraft that are part of this Black Sea Alliance,” Secretary Goff replied. “The transmissions were picked up by a Russian intelligence-gathering ship operating in the free navigation lane created by this Black Sea Alliance for international ships. The Russians claim the broadcasts were directing Alliance aircraft to an intercept with another unidentified aircraft.”
“This second unidentified aircraft being the Russian stealth fighter that was about to attack the tanker in the Turkish port,” President Thom added.
“Yes, sir.” Goff said. “Of course, the Russians and the Germans claim they know nothing of this stealth fighter.”
“So no one is offering any ideas as to the identity of any of these unidentified aircraft,” Thom went on, “except we had something to do with them?" Kercheval nodded, “Tell the German and Russian governments that we will cooperate in any way possible to help identify these aircraft and to find out exactly what happened last night near Eregli, but we maintain we have nothing to do with this incident or with the Black Sea Alliance.
“Furthermore, the United States does not recognize or oppose this Black Sea Alliance.” the President went on. “The United States remains an interested but completely neutral third-party observer in all foreign military alliances and treaties. We urge all governments and all alliances to come to peaceful settlements of arguments and conflicts, but the United States will not interfere with any nation’s foreign or domestic activities unless, in my opinion, it directly affects the peace and security of the United States of America. Deliver that message right away to the Russian and German governments and to the world media. I’ll make myself available for a press conference to discuss the statement later today. Have the Vice President's office set it up for me.”
Kercheval departed, leaving the President alone with Robert Goff. The Secretary of Defense had a big, childlike grin on his face. Thom pretended not to notice and went back to making notes and sending e-mail messages from his computer: but finally he said without looking up, “What are you grinning at, Robert?”
“Okay, spill it, Thomas,” Goff said. “What did you do?”
“Do?”
“That incident over the Black Sea? It’s got HAWC written all over it. That Turkish frigate said they detected a bomb dropped from what was apparently a stealth bomber—but it was shot out of the sky by a missile fired from another aircraft that never appeared on radar. Did you authorize HAWC to send in one of their Megafortress ABM bombers to patrol that area?”
“Directing military aircraft on combat operations, secret or otherwise, is your job, Robert. If you didn’t direct such a mission, it never happened.”
“Spoken like a real twenty-first-century president, Mr. President,” Golf said, beaming. “I’m proud of you.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So you actually assisted Martindale's Night Stalkers?"
“Martindale's who?"
“Stalkers—the call sign he used during that mission, the call sign the Black Sea Alliance aircraft used, and the call sign he once mentioned to me t
hat he was going to use." Goff said. "Was it just a coincidence that there happened to be a bunch of folks using ‘Stalkers’ call signs flying around last night?"
“Robert. I'm not in the mood for word games and puzzles right now," the President said. “I’ve never heard the name ‘Night Stalkers’ before, and if there is such an organization, it was probably just a coincidence. But that's not what’s important here.
“In case you haven't noticed, nothing has really changed in that region, even after all this fuss about phantom bombs and missiles and strange call signs and radio messages. Russia and Germany still occupy most of the Balkan states, and they’re sending in a thousand troops a day as reinforcements against any more so-called terrorist actions against their peacekeeping forces. The rest of NATO has all but left the Balkans. This Black Sea Alliance is threatening to start a naval war in the Black Sea. World oil prices arc skyrocketing in response to what's happened with that tanker—the media thinks this Black Sea Alliance is really out to torpedo all Russian oil shipments. Russia may start escorting tankers across the Black Sea wath warships, and then what’s this Black Sea Alliance going to do? And do we want American warships in the area?"
Goff looked on the young president as a proud father looks on his son who has just won a science fair ribbon. “Press conferences? Statements to the world media? Concern over what the media thinks? Analysis of world military events? Even considering sending American warships into harm's way?" Goff asked with feigned surprise, beaming happily. “Why, if I didn’t know better. I'd say you were giving a damn about foreign affairs, President Thomas Nathaniel Thom."
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