Fortunes of War

by Stephen Coonts

  One hundred and twenty miles from Svobodny, Chernov’s ECM picked up the chirp of a Japanese search radar. He was probably too far out for the operator to receive an echo, which was good. Chernov turned ninety degrees to the left and began flying a circle with a 120-mile radius, with Svobodny at the center. The GPS made it easy.

  Yan Chernov concentrated on searching the afternoon sky and listening intently to the ECM. Not another aircraft in sight. That was certainly not surprising. Acquiring another aircraft visually was difficult at best beyond a few miles. At the speeds at which modern aircraft flew, when you finally saw it, you might not even have enough time to avoid it. And in combat, the performance envelope of air-to-air missiles was so large that if you saw the enemy, either you or the other pilot had made a serious mistake, perhaps a fatal one. Still, Chernov kept his eyes moving back and forth, searching the sky in sectors, level with the horizon, above it, and below it. He was alone, which was not the way modern fighters are designed to fight. The radar that his GCI controller normally used was off the air. Perhaps it had been damaged by a Japanese beam-riding missile. Perhaps the power company had turned off the electricity. Maybe the GCI people had piled into trucks and fled west to escape the Japanese. No one was answering the telephone there, so who knew? Perhaps it didn’t matter much one way or the other. And this was an old plane, an obsolete fighter. Once, not many years ago, the Sukhoi-27 had been the best fighter in the world, bar none. But after the collapse of communism in ‘91, development of new fighters in the new Russia dried up from lack of money. The nation couldn’t even afford to buy fuel for the fighters it had; everything was tired, worn, not properly cared for. Amazingly, Japan had plenty of planes that performed equal to or better than this one. As Russia rusted, the Japanese built a highly capable aircraft industry. And here Chernov was, in an obsolete, worn-out plane that hadn’t flown — according to the logbook — in nine months and three days, hunting Japanese planes with his naked eyes. Out here asking for some Japanese fighter pilot to kill him quick. Begging for it. Kill me, kill me, kill me … According to an intel officer hiding in the city of Svobodny whom he had spoken to on the telephone that morning, the Japanese were flying supplies in from Khabarovsk and bases in Japan. He thought he saw a plane, and he changed his heading to check. No. Dirt on the canopy. He checked his fuel, checked the GPS … He wasn’t going to be able to stay out here for very long, not if he expected to get back to base flying this airplane.

  He was coming up on the Bureya River when he saw it, a speck running high and conning. The guy must be 36,000 or 38,000 feet, headed northwest. Chernov turned to let the other plane pass off his right wing on a reciprocal heading. If it was a Japanese transport — and all the planes in these skies just now were Japanese — it must be going to Svobodny. Right heading, right altitude … If it was a transport going to Svobodny, there were fighters. The Russian major glanced at his ECM, listened intently. Not a peep, not a chirp or click. Well, damnit, there must be fighters, not using their radars. They must be below the transport, below the conning layer, and too small to be visible at this distance. Thank God he had his radar off, or they would have picked up the emissions and be setting a trap right this minute. His heart was pounding. Sweat stung his eyes, ran down his neck … He checked his switches — missiles selected, stations armed, master arm on. The transport was still eight or ten miles away when it went by Chernov’s right wingtip. He laid the Sukhoi into a sixty-degree angle of bank and stuffed the nose down while he lit the afterburners, shoved the throttles on through to stage four. The heavy jet slid through the sonic barrier and accelerated quickly: Mach 1.5, 1.7 … 1.9. Passing Mach 2 he raised the nose into a climb, kept the turn in. The AA-10 was a fire-and-forget missile with active radar homing. When its radar came on, the Japanese were going to get a heady surprise. So was Chernov if the Japanese had a couple of fighters fifteen miles in trail behind the transport. He looked left, then right, scanning the sky hurriedly. The sky looked empty. Which meant nothing. They could be there. The transport was just a dot, a flyspeck in the great va/s, still well above him and conning beautifully. About ten miles, he figured, but he couldn’t afford to turn on the radar to verify that. He was closing from fifteen degrees right of dead astern. He centered the dot in the gunsight, squeezed off a missile. It shot forward off the rail trailing smoke. He lowered the nose, aimed a little left, and fired a second missile. A hard right turn, fifteen degrees of heading change, and a third missile was in the air. Total elapsed time, about six seconds. If there were Japanese fighters there, the missiles would find them. The third missile had just disappeared into the haze when the ECM squealed in his ears. The AA light was flashing, and a red light on the instrument panel just below his gunsight: “Missile!”

  Yan Chernov slammed the stick sideways and pulled. The plane flicked over on its side and he laid the G on. A target decoy was automatically kicked out by the countermeasures gear. Five … six…, seven G. A missile flashed over his right wing and detonated. A miss. The Missile warning light went out, but the ECM continued to chirp and flash direction lights. The Japanese were on the air now. Ten years ago nothing on the planet could turn with a Su-27. It could still out-turn missiles, so Yan Chernov was still alive. He came out of burner, retarded the throttles as quickly as he dared — he certainly didn’t want to flame out just now — and let the G bleed off his airspeed. He got the nose up to the horizon. A Japanese fighter overshot above him. There might be two of them … His skin felt like ice as he slammed the stick right and rolled hard to reverse his turn. The ECM was singing. The Japanese pilot was turning left, beginning to roll back upright. Chernov pulled with all his might to raise the nose. As the enemy fighter streaked across from right to left, Chernov had his thumb on the 30-mm cannon, which vomited out a river of fire. The finger of God. The flaming river of shells passed through the wing of the Japanese fighter. Chernov rolled upside down, pulled as he lit his burners. There had to be someone else out there: the ECM was chirping madly. The earth filled the windscreen. Going straight down, accelerating … Only 23,000 feet, fool. He rolled the plane and scanned quickly. Nothing. Now the ECM was silent. He began to pull. Pull pull pull at seven G’s, fight to stay conscious. … The sweat stung his eyes, and his vision began to gray. He was screaming now, watching the yellow earth rushing up at him, trying to stay conscious. He was going to make it. Yes!

  Relax the stick, drop to a hundred feet or two, just above the earth, and let the old girl accelerate. The ECM stayed silent. He twisted his head, looked behind. Right. Left. Nothing. Two planes falling way off the right. On fire — one of them large enough to appear as a black dot against the yellow cirrus layer.

  When Yan Chernov taxied into the hard stand at Zeya, his flight suit and gear were soaked. The sweat was still running off him in rivulets, even though he had the canopy open. On the instrument panel, the needle on the G meter that recorded the maximum G pulled that flight rested on 9. Nine G’s with only a stomach-and-legs G suit. The wings might have come off under that much overstress. He would have to have the mechanics carefully inspect the plane. Chernov waited until the linemen had the chocks in place, then secured the engines. “Water,” he said. The senior NCO passed up a bottle. “How did it go, Major?” one of the junior pilots asked after he finished drinking. There were four of them standing there, gazing at the empty missile racks and the gun port with the tape shot away. “I got two, I think. Maybe three. One of them almost took my scalp.”

  “Very good.”

  “Luck. Pure luck. They just happened to come along, and I just happened to see them before they saw me.” He shook his head, filled with wonder that he was still alive. “They are good?”

  “Good enough.” He tossed his helmet down, then climbed down from the cockpit. When he was on the ground, he drank more of the water. “Do you have another plane ready?”

  “Yes, Major,” said the senior NCO. “Two?”

  “Just one, sir. We hope to get three more flyable tonight by ca
nnibalizing parts from the down birds. And the fueling takes forever.”

  “Any word from Moscow?”

  “No, sir. They haven’t called.”

  “We will fly the planes west in the morning, as many as we have fuel for. As many as we can get started.”

  Damn Moscow. With almost no fuel, no spare parts, little food, one-third of the mechanics the squadron was supposed to have, and an inoperative GCI site, he couldn’t do much more, even if Kalugin wrote the order in blood. He was being realistic. He had flown a stupid solo mission, almost gotten killed, affected the course of the war not at all, and now it was time to face facts: Russia was defenseless. “I’ll bet Zambia has a better air force than we have,” one of the junior officers muttered. Chernov took off his flight gear and sat down by a main tire with the water bottle and waved them away. “Let me rest awhile.”

  His mind was still going a thousand miles an hour, replaying the missile shots and the Japanese fighter slashing across in front of his gun. The emotional highs and lows — amazing! He would never have believed that he could feel so much elation, then, five seconds later, so much terror. He was wrung out, like a sponge squeezed to millimeter thickness in a hydraulic press. Five minutes later one of the NCOS came for him from the dispersal shack. “Sir, Moscow is on the line. Someone very senior.”

  “How senior?”

  “He says he’s a general, sir. I never heard of him.”

  Chernov walked across the ramp and entered the dispersal building, a single room with a naked bulb in the ceiling — not burning, of course; the only light came from the dirty windows. A large potbellied wood-stove stood in the center of the room. The four or five enlisted men in the room fell silent when Chernov walked in and reached for the phone. “Major Chernov, sir.”

  “Major, this is General Kokovtsov, aide to Marshal Stolypin.”

  “In Moscow?”

  “Headquarters.”

  “I’ve been trying to telephone regional headquarters and Moscow since the Japanese invaded. You arc the first senior officer I’ve spoken to.”

  The desk soldier had other things on his mind. “I asked to speak to the commanding officer. Are you in command of the base?”

  “Apparently so, General.”

  “A fighter base should have a brigadier general in command.”

  “Our general retired four years ago and was never replaced. Two of our squadrons were transferred three years ago and took their airplanes with them. The other squadron was decommissioned: The people left, but the airplanes stayed, parked in revetments. My squadron, the Five hundred fifty-sixth, is the last.”

  “And you are a ma right-brace or?”

  “That is correct, sir. Major Chernov. We used to have a colonel. This spring, he and some of the other officers took several vehicles and left. We haven’t seen them since. They said they were going to Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal. To find work. The colonel had relatives in Moscow, I believe. He talked of the city often, so he may have gone there.”

  “He had orders?”

  “He deserted!”

  “Call it what you like.”

  “Desertion.”

  “The colonel drove out of here in broad daylight. The others too. They were owed over eighteen months’ pay. They hadn’t seen a ruble in six months.”

  Silence from Moscow. Finally, the general said, “Why are you still there?”

  “My wife left me five years ago, General. I’m alone. This place is as good as any other.”

  “You are loyal.”

  “To what? What I am is stupid. The government owes me almost two years’ pay. I haven’t been paid anything since the colonel was, nine months ago. Neither have these enlisted men. We’re selling small arms and ammunition on the black market to get money for food. When we don’t have any money, we ask for credit. When we can’t get credit, we steal. But enough of this social chitchat — what did you call me to talk about?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Believe me, so am I.”

  “Marshal Stolypin wants you to harass the Japanese. Just that. Launch a few sections a day, try to shoot down a transport or two, force them to maximum effort to protect their resources.”

  “I thought Stolypin retired years ago. Samsonov is—“

  “Samsonov is dead. Stolypin has come out of retirement to lead us against the Japanese.”

  “Maybe he can work a miracle.”

  “Don’t be insubordinate, Major.”

  “I’m trying, sir.”

  “So what have you done, if anything, to fight the war?”

  “I went up awhile ago. One plane. They shot at me; I shot at them.”

  “One sortie?” he asked, disbelief apparent in his voice. “Three today. We flew six yesterday, four the day before.”

  “Only thirteen?”

  The jerk! Chernov had dealt with asshole superiors all his adult life. He kept his voice absolutely calm, without even a trace of emotion. “We can launch one more sortie this evening. We have fuel for perhaps eight more; then we’re done.”

  “We’ll have fuel delivered.”

  “The electricity has been off here for a month. No one has paid the power company, so they shut it off. We have to pump the fuel from the tanks to the planes by hand, which takes a lot of time and effort.”

  “President Kalugin has signed a decree. The electricity will be turned back on.”

  “Terrific. War by decree.” Yan Chernov couldn’t help himself. He was losing his composure. Maybe it was adrenaline aftershock. “We want you to launch some sections to harass the enemy,” the general said from the safety of Moscow. “Don’t be too aggressive, you understand. Inflict just enough pain to annoy them. That is the order of Marshal Stolypin.”

  Chernov lost it completely. “You fool! We worked for four days to get six sorties out yesterday. Two sorties a day on a sustained basis is all we could possibly launch, even if World War Three is declared. My executive officer was killed this morning. We have no food, no fuel, no electricity, no spare parts, no GCI site, no intelligence support, no staff. … We have nothing! Have I made it clear? Do you comprehend?”

  “I am a general, Major. Watch your tongue.”

  “Get your head out of your ass, General. We can’t defend this base. We should be flying these planes west to save them. It’s just a matter of time before the Japanese attack. It’s a miracle they haven’t already. I can only assume you and Stolypin want the Japanese to attack us, because you are taking no steps to prevent it. When we’re dead, you idiots in Moscow won’t have to ever feed us or pay us or—” The headquarters general hung up before the major completed the last sentence. When Chernov realized the line was dead, he quit talking and slammed down the telephone. Everyone in the room was staring at him.

  “Everything that can fly goes west at dawn,” Chernov shouted, spit the flying from his lips. “Work everyone all night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chernov turned to face the junior officers who had trickled in while he was on the telephone. “Get the trucks we have left. Fuel them. Have the men load the tools and all the food we have. They may take their clothes. Nothing else. No furniture or televisions or any of that other crap.”

  He was roaring at the top of his lungs, unable to help himself. “We will drive west, all the way to Moscow. If we get there before the Japanese, we will drag the generals from their comfortable offices and hang them by the balls.”

  Yan Chernov stomped out to pee in the grass.

  Delivery of the Russian ultimatum to the Japanese was a chore that fell to Ambassador Stanley P. Hanratty. The Russian diplomats had all left Tokyo the day after the invasion, turning out the lights and locking the door of the embassy as they left. The U.s. government offered to assist the Russians diplomatically in the Japanese capital until relations were restored, an offer that Kalugin seized upon. Delivery of the ultimatum was Ambassador Hanratty’s first chore for the Russians. Of course, he and the U.s. government were privy to the contents o
f the note. Hanratty returned the following morning to the Japanese foreign ministry to receive the Japanese reply. “We find it difficult to believe, in this day and age,” the Japanese foreign minister said as he handed over the written reply, “that any government on the planet would threaten another with nuclear war. Still, in anticipation of just such an event, Japan has developed its own nuclear arsenal. Should Russia attempt to launch a first strike upon Japan, the Japanese government will, with profound regret, order a massive retaliatory strike upon Russia.”

  It was late in the day in Moscow when Kalugin received the Japanese answer from Danilov. He read the reply carefully, then handed the paper back without a word.

  12

  By working throughout the long evening and short night, the officers and enlisted men of Major Chernov’s squadron at the Zeya Air Base got six planes into flyable condition. The planes were ready a half hour before the true dawn. Chernov had the best one armed with cannon shells and four AA-10 missiles. Chernov had ordered five of his pilots, the five most senior, to fly to Chita, five hundred nautical miles west, well beyond range of the Zeros. Now he slapped them on the back, watched them strap in, start engines, and taxi. They took off one by one, white-hot exhausts accelerating faster and faster and faster. The roar of their engines filled the night with a deep, rolling thunder. The fighters kept their exterior lights off and did not bother to rendezvous. They retracted their wheels as they came out of burner and turned west. Still, it was several minutes before the roar of the last plane had faded. Yan Chernov stood beside the sixth plane and listened until even the background moan was gone and all he could hear were the insects chirping and singing, as they had done on this steppe every summer since the world was young. The senior warrant officer came over. They shook hands. “Roll the trucks now,” Chernov said. “Get the men to Chita, if possible. If not, go as far west as you can. The Japanese may attack at dawn, hoping to catch us sleeping.” He glanced at his watch. The night at these latitudes was only two hours long. “Do you really think so, Major?”