“Preapproved, four seven. You are cleared for straight-in on Runway 18 left. Temperature one-one-three, wind four knots from two-six-two. No other traffic in the area.”
“Thank you, Andrews Control. I will also require a remote parking space.”
“Also preapproved, four seven. When you are on the ground, I will direct you.”
McKenna and Munoz descended from the tower, pushed through the ground-level door onto the tarmac, and winced as the heat hit them.
“Hell, compadre, I might as well have stayed in Tucson all my life.”
“Chasing señoritas?”
“It is my dedicated vocation.”
McKenna slid behind the wheel of a golf cart painted air force blue and topped with a white, fringed sunshade.
“Does this Russian outrank me?” Munoz asked.
“By a couple grades.”
“I’ll ride in back.”
Munoz scrambled into one of the two narrow seats on the back of the cart.
They watched as the MiG-29 came in, gear and flaps extended. Reminiscent of a twin-ruddered Eagle. It was a smooth landing and a short runout. The airplane turned around and came back toward them. Half a mile away, it turned off the strip, rolled for a hundred yards, turned 180 degrees, and braked to a stop. The whine of its engines died away, and McKenna turned the key on the electric cart and pulled away from the hangar.
“He doesn’t want anyone taking a close look at that thing, does he, Snake Eyes?”
“Can’t say as I blame him. We don’t often park one of our top fighters on a Soviet air base. We’re going to station an air cop in a pickup for him. And he demanded that he be allowed to refuel it himself.”
“Paranoid SOB,” Munoz said.
McKenna stopped the cart twenty yards from the Fulcrum and watched as the pilot left his helmet in the cockpit, slid out of it, and worked his way to the ground, stabbing his toes into steps behind spring-loaded doors. He closed the canopy, bent to pick up a valise he had tossed out, then approached the cart in a stiff-legged walk.
McKenna and Munoz got out and saluted. The Soviet colonel returned the salute, then shook their hands when they were offered.
“Colonel Volontov, I’m Colonel Kevin McKenna. Kevin, if you prefer. This is Tony Munoz.”
Volontov had a handsome, somewhat angular face, and he smiled easily enough, but there was some rigidity in his eyes. “My superiors say we are being friendly, so, yes, let us try first names. Mine is Pyotr.”
McKenna grinned at him. “Good deal, Pyotr. You want to shed that pressure suit? Before you reach boiling point?”
“I will do it here,” he said and started unzipping zippers. He stripped to underwear, opened his small valise, and found a jumpsuit affair to don, then topped it with a service cap.
A blue Chevy pickup pulled up, and the air policeman driving opened his window. “Colonel McKenna, I was to report to you.”
“See that aircraft, Airman? This is as close as you get to it. And no one else on this base, no matter the rank, gets any closer than you are now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have any trouble with anyone, beep me.”
McKenna turned back to Volontov. “Is that satisfactory, Pyotr?”
“Quite satisfactory, Col… Kevin.”
Munoz climbed into the back of the cart. “How about a drink, Pyotr?”
The man smiled again, his eyes a little softer. “That would be welcome.”
On the ride back down the runway toward the dining hall, McKenna said, “You had a hell of a flight. Thirty-seven hundred miles.”
“Yes. It required two in-flight refuelings.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Late this afternoon.”
McKenna grinned. Volontov wasn’t going to reveal his time aloft or his speed, but McKenna figured it took him about two-and-a-half hours at around Mach 2.
The Soviet pilot openly examined the base as they left the runway and followed a ragged asphalt road. There wasn’t much to be seen in the open. A Honey Bee on a flatbed was en route to a launch pad.
“You are one of the MakoShark pilots, Kevin?” Volontov asked.
“I’ll have to respond ‘classified,’” McKenna said.
“Of course,” the pilot said. “I must admit to some envy. I have been attempting to transfer to our Rocket Forces for some years.”
“Someday, you get some time off, maybe we can arrange a ride in one of the Makos,” McKenna offered.
“I would like that.”
The dining hall was deserted, the off-duty personnel crowding the rec room. Rather than accept the available entrees from the cafeteria line, Munoz chased down a mess sergeant and had him grill three large T-bones. He introduced Volontov to Bloody Mary.
Volontov pulled the celery stalk out of his oversized glass. “What is this?”
“Don’t worry, Pete. It’s got vodka in it.”
After a tentative, short sip, Volontov said, “And so it does.”
Over dinner, they all got to know each other. McKenna briefed the Soviet wing commander on the data that Pearson had been accumulating, and Volontov provided the details of his single flight over the oil fields.
McKenna said, “Our people don’t really think they’re pumping oil up there, you know?”
“General Sheremetevo seems to have his doubts, also. He has said that the Germans imported twice as much oil from the rodina, the motherland, last year as they have in the past. I should think that Soviet oil imports would diminish with the discovery of new sources.”
McKenna made a mental note of that item to pass on to Pearson. “That’s a point, Pyotr.”
They were working on large chunks of warm apple pie when Lynn Marie Hagger entered the dining room to pick up a mug of coffee from the cafeteria line. When she spotted them, she walked over to the table.
McKenna noted Volontov’s appraisal of her slim figure, heart-shaped face, and silky dark hair. She was dressed in a flight suit. His blue eyes lightened and the corners of his mouth lifted a trifle.
Haggar spoke to McKenna as the men stood up. “Am I interrupting anything, Colonel?”
“I think we’ve covered it, Lynn. Would you like to join us?”
“I have an hour until flight time.”
“Have a seat,” McKenna said, then introduced her. “Colonel Pyotr Volontov, Major Lynn Haggar. Pyotr’s a wing commander, Lynn.”
“It is nice to meet you, Major Haggar.”
“Make it Lynn, would you?”
Volontov nodded toward the pilot’s wings embroidered over her left breast pocket. “You are a pilot, Lynn?”
She was sitting with her right side to Volontov, so he had not seen the left shoulder patch, a silver blue, blocky “1” on a black background, a miniature satellite and orbital line circling it. Haggar looked to McKenna for guidance in her response.
He said, “Lynn’s in my squadron, Pyotr. She flies the Mako.”
Volontov smiled widely, revealing good, even teeth. “I am impressed. A cosmonaut.”
“When I get tired of McKenna,” Munoz said, “I’m gonna be Lynn’s systems officer. She needs the benefit of my experience.”
McKenna noted that Munoz left the “weapons” off the “systems officer” tag. The Arizonian could be subtle when he wanted to be.
Haggar smiled at him. “Tony, your experience is primarily with hot food and spicy women. Why would I need it?”
“What more is there?”
Even Volontov laughed at that.
Haggar asked him, “Do you have many women flying in your wing, Pyotr?”
“None, I’m afraid. And none in any unit of the PVO Strany. The generals at Stavko are reluctant to place women in combat roles.”
“The generals at Stavko are not alone,” Haggar said to him, but she gave the dirty look to McKenna.