No, perhaps not. You’re tired, Sergei Ivanovitch, he told himself. You’re dreaming. Putting strange interpretations on things you heard hours ago. Stick to what you know — air combat — and let the diplomats worry about the other things going on around this place.
He leaned closer to the paper, shutting away the uncertainties by remembering the show they’d put on for him.
Kim had no sooner finished speaking when he’d turned and nodded to a nearby North Korean Air Force colonel, who’d simply raised his hand overhead and shown a clenched fist.
A klaxon had blared from the hangar roof high overhead and Borodin had jumped. He’d had to stifle the urge to run for an aircraft — the old reflexes were still there from his days in the air defense forces, Voyska PVO. Instead he’d turned to watch men pour from doors in the walls. He’d picked one man in a flight suit out of the mass and tracked him as he ran over to a MiG — no a Jian-7, he corrected himself, not quite the same thing.
The North Korean pilot had bounded up the ladder like a gazelle as ground crew circled the aircraft, moving equipment and performing last-minute checks. Then a howling roar as the first jet engine fired up. The noise had bounced off the walls and hurt Borodin’s ears.
He’d felt air moving and looked up to see huge ventilation fans pumping fresh air into the hangar. More noise. The pilot he’d been concentrating on had just started his engine. Most of the exhaust seemed to be directed into a vent or pipe directly behind the aircraft. More tunnels in the rock, Borodin thought. Mother of God, these people were like moles.
As the first interceptor rolled off its chocks toward the main hangar doors, a North Korean Air Force colonel had pointed wordlessly to a huge clock directly over them. Obviously started the moment the alert began, it had shown just a little more than two and a half minutes elapsed time. Even considering the simpler systems and controls on the MiG-21/Jian-7, that was still a good time, well within Soviet training norms.
The exit doors, however, had still been closed. For a moment Borodin had half-wondered if they planned to show him an interceptor smashing head-on into reinforced steel. But then, as the Jian-7’s nose wheel crossed a yellow line painted on the floor, he’d heard a loud, ringing alarm above the howling jet engines and watched in amazement as the hangar doors snapped open, tons of metal moving in seconds. The jet had shot through, followed by another and another, until the entire battalion of aircraft had been scrambled. The entire exercise had taken nine minutes and fifteen seconds.
Borodin thought that was a damned good time. Even assuming that he’d been shown a hand-picked group of pilots and ground staff, it was clear that the weekly practice alerts carried out by the North Koreans paid off in professionalism and speed.
The colonel nodded to himself. Yes, mix the pilots he’d seen today with the newer MiG-23s he knew were operating out of other bases, add the even more advanced planes his country was shipping soon, and you’d have a damned good air force. An air force capable of handling almost any mission it was given.
Borodin remembered Kim Jong-Il’s cold, challenging stare. The final liberation he had said. Could he have been serious? What was it General Petrov had said about the North Koreans? Something about Pyongyang being almost inside the Soviet Union’s nets. Borodin began to wonder if it might not be more accurate to turn that phrase around.
CHAPTER 5
Night Flyers
Captain Tony Christopher, USAF, stood outside the squadron building watching the sun set beyond the flight line. One hand held his gray helmet and oxygen mask. The other held a thick stack of papers — flight plans, bomb range restrictions, maps, and divert fields — all the stuff that training missions are made of. He wished again that the F-16 had a bigger cockpit. He always had a tough time squeezing his six-foot frame plus assorted paperwork into the plane.
He squinted into the bright, orangish-red light thrown off by sun as it dipped toward the Yellow Sea. Where in God’s name was his wingman?
Suddenly hands landed heavily on either shoulder. Tony started a bit but kept his voice calm. “Hi, Hooter.”
“Shit, Saint, you’re no fun. I did that to you yesterday and you jumped three feet.” His wingman, First Lieutenant John “Hooter” Gresham, came around to stand beside him.
“Yeah, well my nerves are all worn-out and I need what’s left for this mission. You’ve got four ninety-four.”
“I know.” Hooter looked smug. ‘As your friendly training records officer, I make it a point to keep fully informed.” Every pilot in the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron did more than just play fighter jock full-time. Each also wore another “hat,” doing all the other administrative work needed to keep the squadron flying and combat-ready. Hooter’s second hat kept him busy making sure that every pilot complied with the rigorous training schedule set down by Air Force regulations.
Hooter snapped his fingers. “Say, that reminds me. Speaking in my official capacity, I need to know when you want to schedule your next chemical warfare flight.”
Tony groaned. “C’mon, Hooter. Cut me some slack. I just did it a couple of months ago!”
Hooter grinned. “Nice try, revered boss and flight leader. But you and I both know that a new period started July first. And you’ve gotta fill in the square once every six months.”
Every pilot Tony knew hated chemical warfare training. Trying to fly a plane while wearing the special protective gear it required was like wrestling a giant octopus in a Turkish steam bath.
“Okay, okay. But can I at least wait till it cools off some? That rubber suit is hell. Just let me worry about this hop for right now.”
“You got it.”
This was going to be a night ground-attack training mission, and although the F-16 can fly and fight at night, it does not have sophisticated sensors like the Air Force’s dedicated attack aircraft. To see their target, Tony and Hooter were going to have to coordinate their efforts: one plane would drop flares while the other made the attack run. Simple, until you remembered that each pilot would be flying at four hundred knots, so close to the ground that an unintentional twitch could turn both F-16s and their highly educated pilots into a short-lived fireball and a shallow crater.
They needed teamwork to fly and teamwork to fight. Tony studied his sandy-haired wingman out of the corner of his eye. When you wear the same clothes, have the same job, and talk about the same things, you do not lose your individuality. Differences become more apparent, not less. And there were differences. It was as if somebody in the Air Force personnel office had decided to try teaming opposites as an experiment.
Tony was the quieter of the two. There is no such thing as an introverted fighter pilot, but his unhurried movements and restrained speech contrasted sharply with Hooter’s ebullient manner. Anyone watching the two of them together would notice the wingman in almost constant motion, his boundless energy seemingly uncontainable.
Tony was vastly more experienced than Hooter, which may have explained some of the difference. After the Air Force Academy, Tony had moved directly into the F-16 and had been with the aircraft from the beginning. After his initial tour he had attended Fighter Weapons School, at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Unlike Red Flag, which teaches air combat, Fighter Weapons School teaches how to employ effectively all types of ordnance. Only the best pilots qualify for admission.
The men who graduate from that difficult course teach the rest of their squadrons what they know, which is how to best apply the Falcon’s impressive firepower against any kind of target. Additionally, it was an important ticket to be punched on the way to higher rank and more important assignments.