Over the radio Ges was getting impatient. Soon their target was going to be coming overhead. He gave the MiG pilot one last go and, when he failed to engage the umbilical, he ordered the next MiG to take his place.
The turbulence was roughening. The third MiG bounced in and out of range, dropping and climbing and banging into the receptor without latching onto it.
“Shit, shit.” Ges was getting worried. The clock was ticking.
Yefgenii couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Get the fuck out of there and let me get this fuel.”
For the most part, on the ground, Yefgenii played the role he’d been given. He accepted his status, he surrendered to his exile, he mingled with mild manners among lesser men, but not now, not in the air, not on the brink of combat. His voice was the voice of Ivan the Terrible, and every man flying alongside him knew who he was, what he’d done, what he was capable of.
Ges transmitted, “White 3, disengage. White 4 for refuel.”
Yefgenii powered into position behind the tanker. The wake turbulence bounced his MiG but it was nothing he couldn’t handle and he snagged the fuel line and pretty soon disengaged with full tanks.
Ges ordered, “White 2, try again.”
The refuelled MiGs flew alongside the tanker as the other two took turns trying to engage the umbilical. They were running low on fuel and, if they didn’t get more very soon, they’d not only be unable to climb into combat with Ges and Yefgenii, they’d be unable to make it home at all.
Yefgenii and Ges were watching the clock. Yefgenii transmitted, “Let’s get into this.”
Ges didn’t hesitate. “White 2 and 3, refuel and follow as soon as you’re able.”
They began the climb to their ceiling. Yefgenii’s eyes were trained upward. Nagurskoye Radar had done its best to estimate the contact’s position but it was impossible to be precise given that the MiGs were beyond radar and their target could be as much as 6,000 metres above them.
Yefgenii and Ges had their minds fixed on the prospect of battle and they barely heard the first transmission from their comrades. The other two MiGs now lay far behind; not even the tanker was visible, but the first had abandoned his attempt to refuel and was on an emergency recovery to Graham Bell.
“Shit,” said Ges. Yefgenii said nothing.
Their comrades’ chance of making it back was slim, with only the frozen sea wide and deadly below. A few minutes later the fourth MiG flamed out still struggling to engage the umbilical. They heard his mayday, quiet and remote, the signal breaking up: a man wouldn’t survive long on the ice, if he survived the impact at all.
Ges didn’t say anything this time.
Yefgenii kept his gaze upward, searching the patch of sky overhead. “Contact, twelve o’clock high.”
“I don’t see it.”
A minute cross of black metal soared across the high dome, spinning a cotton-thin trail The enormous wingspan, almost double the aircraft’s length, made its identity unmistakable.
“I’m visual. Contact is a U-2.”
The CIA operated U-2 Spy Planes deep inside Soviet airspace, conducting reconnaissance of military installations from an altitude well above the ceiling of every enemy aircraft and missile system in existence. This one must’ve been returning to a base somewhere in Greenland or Canada, or even Alaska. The U-2 had the range and was aloof to enemy attack.
Ges said, “Shit, we’re never going to catch him.”
Yefgenii said, “Either you want to get this fucker or you don’t.”
Ges searched the sky above. The sunlight was endless, there was nothing else he could see. Nevertheless he transmitted to Nagurskoye, “Nova, White 1, we’re visual with contact, repeat we are visual, contact is a U-2, repeat U-2, requesting permission to fire.”
Nothing came back. They were out of range.
The MiGs continued over the white wilderness. The U-2 soared a full 10 kilometres above them, but at their own operating height, the MiGs could match it for speed. Yefgenii kept his eyes on the tiny black cross with its gossamer contrail and Ges kept his on the fuel gauge.
Time stretched. They were crossing the white ridge that capped the Pole. Yefgenii’s back had seized. His calves tingled, he couldn’t feel his feet on the rudders. The two men said nothing to each other the whole way. Deep into evening, the sky shone blue as noon. Yefgenii’s eyes strained to keep the enemy in view. A headache tensed in his forehead and probed down into his temples.
Ges didn’t even ask him if could still see the U-2. If he lost it, he’d say so; they would turn back. But Yefgenii didn’t say a thing. The pain in his back made his eyes water. His focus was so strained even the film of tears made a difference, blinking the aircraft into visibility, blinking it back into a blur.
By now they were only 100 kilometres from the Pole. Their compasses were swinging. Yefgenii let out a gasp of relief. “He’s letting down. He thinks he’s safe.”
Ges felt his mouth go dry.
Yefgenii armed his missiles. His head was pounding, his eyes were sore.
They sat behind the U-2 as it drifted down through 15,000 metres. At last it was under the MiGs’ ceiling.
Then, for the first time, Ges saw the target. It was floating down a few kilometres straight ahead. Yeremin had placed them in its six o’clock position the whole time, had kept them invisible every step of the way.
“I’m visual,” Ges said. “Engaging.”
Yefgenii didn’t argue. Ges was the leader. It was his prerogative to take the kill.
The two MiGs bore down on the tail of the U-2. From the belly of Ges’s fuselage a missile dropped and lit like a sparkler. It streaked ahead but something went wrong, and it corkscrewed down, trailing a helix of white smoke.
At once the U-2 began to climb again. He knew he was under attack. His ascent wasn’t fast but the MiGs were near their ceiling; they were sluggish in the climb, being left behind.
“Shit,” said Ges. “Shit.”
Yefgenii pulled back his stick. His nose struggled up. An approaching stall buffeted the wings. He kept trying to keep the nose up, fighting the buffet, trying to point the aircraft at the diminishing form of the U-2. He held steady till the last second, and then he released a missile. It streaked upward, a second sun that ascended on a plume of white smoke. Fire flashed and they saw the black shape of the enemy distort into a mash of body and wing, trailing soot. The broken plane plummeted toward the ice with Ges calling, “You got him! You got him!” and in Yefgenii’s vision the shapes blurred and skipped and his head throbbed.
No parachute bloomed. The broken plane tumbled down in fragments, disappearing long before impact like a shattered lifeboat sinking under the ocean.
At once the MiGs turned back. They headed for Nagurskoye rather than Graham Bell; it was only a matter of kilometres closer, but every second counted, every gram of fuel.
Yefgenii peered at the fuel gauge. He was counting down. “What you got, Ges?”
“Maybe enough, maybe not. You?”
“Same.”
They said nothing more. They flew on. The sun blazed, endless, glinting on their visors and on the buckles of their harnesses. Empty ice lay blank below.
Ges dialed the frequency and started transmitting. “Nova from White Leader, come in. Come in, Nova.”
Their engines roared, their fuel burned.
“Nova, do you copy?”
Yefgenii could see shapes far, far ahead, but they were a blur. He wasn’t sure if they were reflections, or a mirage.