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"Looks like we're still talking to the Scorpion missiles through our controls but I've no search video. All the terrain-following computers look okay, all the weapons controls are out but that's a moot point now… " "All right," Elliott said, trying to steady his voice. "Crew we've lost cabin pressurization. Wendy, Angelina, can you see that guy out there?"

"I've got his search radar shut down," Wendy replied. "I lost him right after he launched… " It was, of course, no longer just "a launch"-the Russian had hit one of their own, hurt him…

"Wendy, I'm okay," Luger said quickly, as though sensing her thoughts.

"You… you ladies nail him…"

"My scope's clear," Angelina asked. "We'll get him."

"Sure… they've taken their best shot and they couldn't flame us.

Sure Yuri Papendreyov angrily switched frequencies on his attack radar. The heavy jamming from the American B-52 attacker had begun precisely when he hit the missile-launch button on his control stick. The missile left the rail with a good steer TRACK indication but he lost it soon afterward. He saw primary or secondary explosions, saw no crash indications the jamming was continuing harder than ever. So he hat assume his AA-7s had missed, and that he had to start all over again-but this time closer to the mountains, at least, two hundred meters above the bomber with no radar and with two thousand kilograms less fuel.

He leveled off at the minimal sector altitude, throttled back to ninety percent and began a slow roll to the left to try to reacquire the B-52.

The auto-frequency shift mode of attack radar, which randomly changed frequencies to try to defeat the B-52's jamming, was all but useless.

The shift was too little, too late, and it always seemed to shift right into jammed band. Yuri changed the frequency all the way to lower end of the scale and swept the area for the bomb Who would have believed it?

he thought. A B-52 in middle of restricted Soviet airspace. A lone B-52, at that.

escort, no wave of cruise missiles preceding it, no multiple defenses, no B1, no FB-111 raid like the one on Libya Syria two years before.

One B-52.

Well, why not, Yuri said to himself as he began to search another twenty-degree quadrant. The plan was working very damn well so far.

The B-52 had obviously flown several thousand kilometers, drove right up the Kamchatka peninsula and dropped a bomb on just about the most important piece of land in the Soviet Union next to Red Square itself.

There… at the very bottom of his radar… j before another wave of interference flooded his scope, a cr with a circle around it appeared, then disappeared. Hos radar emissions. The B-52's own radar, the one that obviously was used to steer whatever weapon they had launched against him, had given them away.

He rolled further left on an intercept course. Switching attack radar to STANDBY to avoid giving himself awaywas useless, anyway, with the heavy jamming-he maneuvered to parallel the B-52's course. The radar emission from the B-52 was sporadic-they were looking for him, he was sure, but being careful not to transmit too long. Not careful enough, though. They transmitted on their radar long enou for him to compute their track.

He set the infrared search-and-track seeker to maximum depression and waited for the supercooled eye of the seeker to find the B-52-there was, he knew, the possibility of the seeker locking onto a warm building with the angle so low, but eight jet engines should be brighter than anything else in the sky or on the ground right now. He was already at the minimum safe altitude for the sector he was in, and without solid visual contact on the terrain, descending any lower would be suicide.

He increased throttle to ninety-five percent and waited. Soon, he was sure, the range would decrease to the point where the seeker would lock-on, and then he'd stay high and pick off the intruder…

When a few minutes later the infrared seeker locked onto a hot target there was no mistaking the size or intensity of the target. The infrared seeker had a longer range than the AA-6 missile, so, he realized, he would need to close in on the B-52 a bit more.

Yuri thought about using the attack radar once more to get a range-only estimate on the B-52, but that would give him away. If he was in range of a surveillance-radar site they could give him a range to the B-52, but for some reason he couldn't hear the station at Korf or Ossora.

Probably too low, too close to the mountains… if he couldn't hear them on the radio they surely couldn't see him on radar.

Yuri's track had been fairly constant for the last few moments, meaning that the B-52 was making no evasive maneuvers. He relaxed his grip on his control stick and throttles… maybe they didn't know he was behind them.

The B-52's tail radar hadn't been activated for several minutes.

He had to launch before they spotted him on that tail radar Suddenly he felt it-a slight shudder through the titanium body of his Fulcrum fighter. He scanned his engine instruments for a malfunction, but already suspected the cause-wake turbulence from the B-52's engines, he was closing quickly. He stared as hard as he could out the canopy of his Fulcrum but couldn't see it.

But that too was unnecessary A moment later a green light spewed on his weapon-control panel… his selected AA-6 heat-seeking missiles were tracking the target.

TMIA He released the safeties on the launch button on his control stick and A scratchy, faded message blared on both of his command radios.

"For all Ossora and Korf units, code yellow. Repe, code yellow.

Acknowledge immediately and comply.

His fingers didn't move from the missile launch button, but neither did it squeeze. A general forces recall…

"All Ossora units, code yellow. Acknowledge and comply.

He tried to force himself to make a decision. He had the B-52 in his sights, but if he transmitted on his radio, so close to the B-52, they might hear or detect his transmission and evade or reattack. The Korf interceptor units had all responded immediately to the recall instructions. All of the Ossora units had probably responded as well-all but him. His career was probably already in jeopardy. A young pilot commanding a long-range fighter, capable of reaching Japan or Alaska, who didn't respond immediately to recall instructions could easily end up attacking vegetables in a warehouse in some isolated Siberian base. Or worse.

"Vawl. "Papendreyov swore aloud, maintained track on the target, activated his command radio and said, "Element seven acknowledges.

Triangulate position immediately. Stand by. Closing on intruder."

"Element seven, comply immediately with instructions, came the voice once again. His number had been called in time-he was indeed the last one to rejoin at the navigation beacon over Ossora. His ticket to Ust-Melechenskiy three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle was probably already being processed…

Fat harebrained dogs, Yuri let loose, this time to himself. Enraged, he pressed the missile-launch button and began a climbing left turn toward Ossora… before realizing that the green I.R TRACK light had long extinguished. The two hundred thousand ruble missiles vanished into the darkness. Yuri proceeded to curse all his superiors, the flight commander, the ground controllers, the command post officers at everyone else he could think of on his way back to the rendezvous point. He wasn't worried about that icy base Siberia-he was worried about exactly how he'd wring the neck of the first person unlucky enough to get in his way General Elliott and Lieutenant Colonel Ormack, acting unison, forced the Old Dog lower and lower into the mountains.

The terrain-following computer was already set COLA, the lowest setting possible in the automatic mode, but with the threat of a Soviet fighter on their tail, even a hundred feet above the ground was like ten thousand. There were constant warning beeps as the automatic-climb commands were overridden by the two pilots, and the bomber's radar altimeter, measuring the exact distance between the bomber's belly and the ground, occasionally entered the double-digit area.