Fursenko’s head was spinning, and he tried to keep himself upright and find the weapons power switch. He felt as if he was only moments away from passing out when he looked out the left side of the cockpit canopy and saw a flash of fire burst from just aft of the leading edge of the wing beside the fuselage. He knew precisely what it was. At that same moment, he felt a jolt and a rumble as the last Kh-73 laser-guided bomb fell free from the bomb bay.
He reached between his legs just as the burst of fire became an explosion, and the entire left wing separated from the fuselage. With his last ounce of strength, Fursenko pulled the ejection handle between his legs and fired himself out of the Metyor-179. The spinning, flaming remnants of his longtime pride and joy narrowly missed him as he plummeted toward the Black Sea. His man-seat separator snapped him free from his ejection seat, and his body began a ballistic arch through the air, decelerating as he fell. At exactly fourteen thousand feet above the water, his baro initiator shot his pilot chute out of his backpack, which pulled his main chute safely out of its pack. He was thankfully unconscious through the entire ride.
Once he hit the water, his life vest automatically inflated and infrared seawater-activated rescue lights illuminated, and he lay halftangled in the parachute riser cords, halfsubmerged as his parachute began to sink. Luckily, a Turkish Coast Guard patrol boat was just a few miles away, and he was picked up just moments before the parachute dragged his head below the surface.
The Metyor-179 splashed down about ten miles away, with Gennadi Yegorov still in the front pilot’s seat, trying to fly his bird down to a safe ditching in the Black Sea. The impact broke the stealth warplane — and Yegorov — into a thousand pieces and scattered them across the ocean.
Unguided, without even an initial beam to get it moving in the right direction, the second Kh-73 one-thousand-kilo bomb missed the tanker Ustinov by two hundred and fifty yards and exploded harmlessly in the sea.
EPILOGUE
The White House, Washington, D.C.
“The Russian and German governments vehemently demand an answer, sir,” Secretary of State Edward Kercheval said. “They keep on insisting we have information on this so-called Black Sea Alliance, and they claim we are secretly supporting them.”
President Thomas Thorn sat with his fingers folded on his chest, staring as usual into space, leaning back in his seat behind his desk in the Oval Office. “They have any proof of this?” the President asked absently.
“Several radio transmissions between Turkish and Ukrainian aircraft and an unidentified aircraft flying over the Black Sea in Turkish airspace, protected by aircraft that are part of this Black Sea Alliance,” Secretary Goff replied. “The transmissions were picked up by a Russian intelligence-gathering ship operating in the free navigation lane created by this Black Sea Alliance for international ships. The Russians claim the broadcasts were directing Alliance aircraft to an intercept with another unidentified aircraft.”
This second unidentified aircraft being the Russian stealth liter that was about to attack the tanker in the Turkish port,” President Thorn added.
“Yes, sir,” Goff said. “Of course, the Russians and the Germans claim they know nothing of this stealth fighter.”
“So no one is offering any ideas as to the identity of any of these unidentified aircraft,” Thorn went on, “except we had something to do with them?” Kercheval nodded. “Tell the German and Russian governments that we will cooperate in any way possible to help identify these aircraft and to find out exactly what happened last night near Eregli, but we maintain we have nothing to do with this incident or with the Black Sea Alliance.
“Furthermore, the United States does not recognize or oppose this Black Sea Alliance,” the President went on. “The United States remains an interested but completely neutral third-party observer in all foreign military alliances and treaties. We urge all governments and all alliances to come to peaceful settlements of arguments and conflicts, but the United States will not interfere with any nation’s foreign or domestic activities unless, in my opinion, it directly affects the peace and security of the United States of America. Deliver that message right away to the Russian and German governments and to the world media. I’ll make myself available for a press conference to discuss the statement later today. Have the Vice President’s office set it up for me.”
Kercheval departed, leaving the President alone with Robert Goff. The Secretary of Defense had a big, childlike grin on his face. Thorn pretended not to notice and went back to making notes and sending e-mail messages from his computer; but finally he said without looking up, “What are you grinning at, Robert?”
“Okay, spill it, Thomas,” Goff said. “What did you do?”
“Do?”
“That incident over the Black Sea? It’s got HAWC written all over it. That Turkish frigate said they detected a bomb dropped from what was apparently a stealth bomber — but it was shot out of the sky by a missile fired from another aircraft that never appeared on radar. Did you authorize HAWC to send in one of their Megafortress ABM bombers to patrol that area?”
“Directing military aircraft on combat operations, secret or otherwise, is your job, Robert. If you didn’t direct such a mission, it never happened.”
“Spoken like a real twenty-first-century president, Mr. President,” Goff said, beaming. “I’m proud of you.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So you actually assisted Martindale’s Night Stalkers?”
“Martindale’s who?”
“Stalkers — the call sign he used during that mission, the call sign the Black Sea Alliance aircraft used, and the call sign he once mentioned to me that he was going to use,” Goff said. “Was it just a coincidence that there happened to be a bunch of folks using ‘Stalkers’ call signs flying around last night?”
“Robert, I’m not in the mood for word games and puzzles right now,” the President said. “I’ve never heard the name ‘Night Stalkers’ before, and if there is such an organization, it was probably just a coincidence. But that’s not what’s important here.
“In case you haven’t noticed, nothing has really changed in that region, even after all this fuss about phantom bombs and missiles and strange call signs and radio messages. Russia and Germany still occupy most of the Balkan states, and they’re sending in a thousand troops a day as reinforcements against any more so-called terrorist actions against their peacekeeping forces. The rest of NATO has all but left the Balkans. This Black Sea Alliance is threatening to start a naval war in the Black Sea. World oil prices are skyrocketing in response to what’s happened with that tanker — the media thinks this Black Sea Alliance is really out to torpedo all Russian oil shipments. Russia may start escorting tankers across the Black Sea with warships, and then what’s this Black Sea Alliance going to do? And do we want American warships in the area?”
Goff looked on the young president as a proud father looks on his son who has just won a science fair ribbon. “Press conferences? Statements to the world media? Concern over what the media thinks? Analysis of world military events? Even considering sending American warships into harm’s way?” Goff asked with feigned surprise, beaming happily. “Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were giving a damn about foreign affairs, President Thomas Nathaniel Thorn.”
Thorn glanced at Goff, then gave him a barely perceptible smile. “Have you been keeping up with your meditation exercises, Robert?” he asked seriously.