"The other bodies, how did they die?" the General wanted to know.
"When the vehicle burned, the soldiers' hand grenades cooked off, with the obvious results. Except for the sergeant here, there is no telling how they died. So far as we can tell, no weapons were taken. All the rifles were there, but some items are unaccounted for: a map case and some other minor things. Possibly they were blown clear of the vehicle by the explosions and fell into the sea, but I doubt this."
"Conclusions?"
"Comrade General, there is not a great deal to go on, but I surmise that the patrol visited the farmhouse, 'liberated' this bottle of vodka, probably shot and killed the two people who lived there, and burned the house. The daughter is missing. We are searching the area for her body. At some time after this happened, the patrol was surprised and killed by an armed party which then tried to make their deaths look like a vehicle accident. We should assume that there is at least one band of resistance fighters at large."
"I disagree," the KGB colonel announced. "Not all the enemy troops have been accounted for. I think that your 'resistance fighters' are probably NATO personnel who escaped when we took Keflavik. They ambushed our troops, then murdered the farm people in the hope of stirring the local population against us."
General Andreyev shared a furtive look with his major of field police. It had been a KGB lieutenant commanding the patrol. The chekisti had insisted that some of their people accompany the roving patrols. Just what he needed, the General thought. Bad enough that his crack paratroopers were consigned to garrison duty-always destructive to unit morale and discipline-but now they were jailers, too, and in some cases commanded by jailers. So the arrogant young KGB officer-he'd never met a humble one-had thought to have himself some fun. Where was the daughter? The answer to this mystery certainly lay with her. But the mystery wasn't the important thing, was it?
"I think we should interrogate the local inhabitants to see what they know," the KGB officer announced.
"There are no 'local inhabitants,' Comrade," the major answered. "Look at your map. This is an isolated farm. The nearest neighbor is seven kilometers away."
"But-"
"Who killed these unfortunates, and why, is unimportant. We have armed enemies out there," Andreyev said. "This is a military matter, not something for our colleagues in the KGB. I'll have a helicopter search the area around the farm. If we find this resistance group, or whatever it is, we will deal with it as with any band of armed enemies. You may interrogate any prisoners we manage to capture, Comrade Colonel. Also, for the moment any KGB officer who accompanies our security patrols will be an observer, not a commander. We cannot risk your men in combat situations for which they have not been fully trained. So. Let me talk to my operations officer to see how we will handle the search. Comrades, you did well to bring this to our attention. Dismissed." The chekist wanted to stay, but KGB or not, he was only a colonel, and the General was exercising his legitimate prerogatives as commander on the scene.
An hour later, a Mi-24 attack helicopter lifted off to check the area around the burned farm.
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND
"Again?" Toland asked.
"Not a bank holiday, Commander," the group captain replied. "Two regiments of Backfires departed their bases twenty minutes ago. If we want to catch their tankers, we must move smartly."
Within minutes, two EA-6B Prowlers, designed to find and jam enemy radar and radio signals, were climbing to altitude on a northwest heading. Known with backhanded affection as the Queer, the EA-6B's most striking characteristic was its canopies, inlaid with real gold to protect sensitive onboard instruments against electromagnetic radiation. As the planes climbed, their pilots and electronics officers were already working in their gilt cages.
Two hours later they spotted their prey, radioed back the signal bearings-and four Tomcats rolled down the runway of Stornoway.
Cruising at an altitude of thirty-six thousand feet the Tomcats flew racetrack-shaped patterns north and south of the predicted course for the Soviet tankers. Their powerful search/missile-guidance radars were shut down. Instead, they swept the skies with a built-in TV camera that could identify aircraft as far as forty miles away. Conditions were ideal, a clear sky with only a few high cirrus clouds; the fighters left no contrails that might warn another aircraft of their presence. The pilots curved their fighters around the sky, their eyes shifting out to check the horizon, then in to check engine instruments, a cycle repeated every ten seconds.
"Well, lookie here..." the squadron commander said to his weapons operator. The flight officer in the Tomcat's back seat centered the TV camera on the aircraft.
"Looks like a Badger to me."
"I don't suppose he's alone. Let's wait."
"Roge."
The bomber was over forty miles off. Soon two more appeared, along with something smaller.
"That's a fighter. So, they have fighter escorts this far out, eh? I count a total of... six targets." The weapons operator tightened up his shoulder straps, then activated his missile controls. "All weapons armed and ready. Fighters first?"
"Fighters first, light 'em up," the pilot agreed. He toggled up his radio. "Two, this is Lead, we have four tankers and a pair of fighters on a course of about zero-eight-five, forty miles west of my position. We are engaging now. Come on in. Over."
"Roger that. On the way, Lead. Out." Two brought his interceptor into a tight turn and advanced his throttles to the stops.
The leader's radar activated. They now had two fighters and four tankers identified. The first two Phoenixes would be targeted on the fighters.
"Shoot!"
The two missiles dropped clear of their shackle points and ignited, leading the Tomcat to the targets.
The Russian tankers had detected the fighter's AWG-9 radar and were already trying to evade. Their escorting fighters went to full power and activated their own missile-guidance radars, only to find that they were still outside missile range to the attacking fighters. Both switched on their jamming pods and began to jink their aircraft up and down as they closed in hope of launching their own missiles. They couldn't run away, there wasn't enough fuel for that, and their mission was to keep the fighters off the tankers.
The Phoenix missiles burned through the air at Mach 5, closing the distance to their targets in just under a minute. One Soviet pilot never saw the missile, and was blotted from the sky in a ball of red and black. The other did, and threw his stick over, a second before the missile exploded. It nearly missed, but fragments tore into the fighter's port wing. The pilot struggled to regain control as he fell from the sky.
Behind the fighters, the tankers split up, two heading north, the other pair south. The lead Tomcat took the northern pair and killed both with his remaining two Phoenixes. His wingman racing up from the north fired two missiles, hitting with one, and missing with the other, as the missile was confused by the Badger's jamming gear. The Tomcat continued to close, and fired another missile. By this time he was close enough to track the bird visually. The AIM-54 missile ran straight and true, exploding only ten feet from the Badger's tail. Hot fragments ripped into the converted bomber and detonated the remaining fumes in its refueling tanks. The Soviet bomber disappeared in a thundering orange flash.