Luger checked the position and heading readouts and marked a fix point on his chart.""Relax,Chr(34)+ he says. Better said to the target-a target in goddamned Russia-and he than done. Less than an hour from low level, about two hours wants us to He glanced over at McLanahan. His partner had his arms wrapped around his body, his head awkwardly lying back on the headrest of his ejection seat. His snoring could be clearly heard over the roar of the Old Dog's eight turbofan engines.
"Amazing," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Absolutely fuckin' amazing."
"Ten minutes from horizon crossing," Luger announced.
McLanahan had just caught Luger's last announcement as he plugged into the defense instructor's interphone cord once again. He handed Wendy and Angelina two cans of water each and a green packet of freeze-dried food. "Leave one can out for now, and stick the rest in the pockets in the liner of your jackets. "He watched as both women unbuckled their parachute harnesses. They were now wearing life preservers, small green pouches on a harness on their waists, and had to unbuckle those to unzip their jackets and stuff the water and food into the jacket pockets.
Angelina's water and food rations stuck out in bulky bulges from her denim jacket. With McLanahan's help she refastened her parachute harness and slipped on the silver firefighting gloves she was using as flight gloves. Wendy had already given Angelina her thermal underwear tops and was drinking hot soup made in the cup downstairs. Angelina, however, still shivered in the chill of the Old Dog's upper cabin "Comfy?" McLanahan said to Angelina. "I hope you ladies don't have to go potty now.
Angelina turned on him. "Are we supposed to eat this stuff in a life raft bobbing in the North Pacific Ocean?What's the int?"
McLanahan looked at Wendy-that scenario had never occurred to her.
He cleared his throat and said quickly, "Nah. Down low level the aircraft shakes around a bit. Things tend to roll around. You don't want to have to unstrap to look for your water. "It was a lame excuse, but Angelina, noticing Wendy's thin-lipped expression, nodded and turned again to her equipment.
Wendy was staring blankly at her threat receiver display. "I wonder if we're kidding ourselves about what we're doing "The thought has crossed my mind," McLanahan asked. "It's impossible to be certain about that.
I think that… well.
you have to listen to your gut I keep seeing Hal Briggs trying to open that fence for us back at Dreamland, I wonder it' he's okay General Elliott came over the interphone. "Patrick, get strapped in. Time, Dave?"
"Two minutes to horizon passage," Luger reported.
McLanahan gave Wendy what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze on the arm, then turned and climbed downstairs back to his seat.
"Horizon passage," Luger announced, marking a fixpoint on the high-altitude airways chart he was using. "Two hundred J!and seventy miles to Kavaznya."
"Scope's clear," Wendy reported quietly, still thinking about what McLanahan had said. Her voice recovered its strength, though, as she brought her attention back to business. "We're still at extreme detection range. With our fibersteel body and anti-radar enhancements they might not get a radar return from us until we're about one hundred miles out. If then."
"Will you be able to tell if they can see us?" Elliott asked.
"I'll be able to see their transmission signal when it comes up," she replied. "I've got an idea from Seattle Center's radar and from the Shemya tanker and the fighters Colonel Sands chased us with what signal strength it takes to get a solid skin on us, so I can tell you when we're getting close to that. I can also see if they search or try to lock onto us with any height-finding or missile-guidance radars.
"And nothing so far?"
"Nothing. Not even search radar. But being so close to the horizon does strange things to electronic transmissions. They could've spotted us even before we crossed the plane of their horizon without my knowing, or they might not see us until we're well above the horizon.
It's hard to predict-radar bounces off the ionosphere in weird ways.
Like I said, they may already have detected us.
Elliott checked the I.F.F controls to make sure they were all off.
"Crew, double-check around your stations to be sure you're not transmitting on anything. Radars, radios, jammers, anything. Switch your wafer switches to INTERPHONE to keep from accidentally talking over the radios."
McLanahan double checked his interphone switches, also checked to make sure the circuit controlling the bomb bay walkway lights were off-if they had to open the bomb doors the walkway lights could easily give the bomber away at night.
"Offensive checks," McLanahan reported.
"How far are we from-" "Search radar at two o'clock," Wendy suddenly called out.
The announcement shook up McLanahan and Luger in the lower offensive crew compartment.
"Here we go," Luger said. He was bundled up with his jacket zipped up to his chin, collars pulled up. He had long ago cleared off his retractable work desk. Only the high-altitude chart remained.
"It feels so weird," McLanahan asked. "They can see us now. It feels a lot different."
"Yeah," Luger said, "Kind of a joy ride-until now."
"Two o'clock?" Elliott asked. "What's at two o'clock?Korf Airfield?
Anadyr?It can't be Ossora or Kavaznya-unless we're off course-they should be at twelve o'clock."
Wendy studied her frequency video. "It's a different frequency than a ground-based radar, and it's stronger than the radar should be so far away."
"Could it be the laser's tracking radar?"
No, this one has a very low frequency-an old system. I think this is an airborne search radar."
"Airborne?" Ormack said in surprise. "Maritime reconnaissance or some sort of patrol-" "Or a chance encounter," Elliott asked. "Let's wait to sec what-" He's got us," Wendy announced, studying the frequency shift and listening to the radar's real audio. "Change from a slow scan to lock-on. No height-finder or uplink-just a faster scan."
"Like station-keeping?" McLanahan asked. "Like a mapping radar switched to narrow sector?"
"That would explain it," Wendy asked. "He's transmitting on UHE "Can you get a frequency?" Elliott asked her.
"Only a wide frequency range. High UHE I can't tell if he's getting a response."
Let me try to get him on attack radar," McLanahan said.
"At least confirm if he's airborne.""Go ahead," Elliott asked. "No more than a few seconds, though.
McLanahan adjusted the antenna controls to point his large attack radar at two o'clock, set the range for a hundred miles, then greased the TRANSMIT button. After three full sweeps he turned the radar back to STANDBY "Looks like he's airborne, all right. Two o'clock, sixty miles. With my antenna tilt two degrees below level I'd estimate his altitude at thirty-three thousand feet-" And then came the challenge: "Unknown aircraft, two hundred and forty kilometers northeast of Ostrov Kornmandorskiye, respond. "Followed by another message, which sounded like the same request, this time in Russian.
"That's us," Luger confirmed. "About a hundred and thirty miles northeast of Beringa."
"Sounded like he was on GUARD channel," Ormack said.
monitoring the emergency U.H.F channel. "Do we answer him?"
"You're sure he's tracking us, Wendy?" Elliott asked.
"He can see us, all right, but I don't think he's tracking us.
Just following us with his radar. There's no guidance-type tracking signal."
"How far are we from the Alaska-Japan airway?" Luger checked his chart against the computer's present-position readout. "Just a few minutes ahead-" "Unknown aircraft, please respond. Pazhaloosta."
"Please?" General Elliott smiled. "Sounds like a kid. A polite kid."
Orinack looked at his pilot with surprise. "I didn't know you understood Russian."