But after his father’s death, Pavel had realized several things. First, their government had let them all down. That was intolerable. But most important, Pavel had let his father down. Gregor Kazakov had had national respect because he had earned it — even from his son?
Nah, that was all bullshit, Pavel Kazakov reassured himself. The government had liked Colonel Kazakov because he was a damned mindless military automaton who accepted every chickenshit job and every useless and mostly suicidal mission without a word of complaint. Why? Because he hadn’t known any better. He’d been a brainwashed military monkey who had had precisely one original thought in his whole military career — the invasion of Pristina Airport in 1999. The Russian people had liked him because they had damn few heroes these days and he’d been the handy one. He’d represented not one true inspirational virtue. Gregor Kazakov had been a uniformed buffoon who had died serving a brainlessly bankrupt and inept government doing a thankless, objectiveless, useless peacekeeping mission in a crappy part of the world. He’d deserved to die a horrible, bloody death.
Yet Pavel Kazakov found it useful to invoke the old man’s name as he addressed a small group of technicians and support workers in the now closed-off main hangar complex, standing before the amazing Metyor-179 stealth aircraft:
“My friends, the work you have done in the past several weeks has been extraordinary. I know my father, Colonel Gregor Kazakov, would have been proud to know each and every last one of you. You are true Russian patriots, true heroes to our fatherland.
“We have meticulously planned this mission, gathered the best intelligence, prepared and tested the best equipment, and trained many long hours for this moment. The result of your hard work is right here before you. You are the champions. It has been a privilege for me to work beside you to make this mission a reality. I have one final word to all of you: thank you, and good hunting. For Gregor Kazakov and for Russia, attack!” The group of about one hundred engineers, technicians, support crews, and administrators broke out into furious applause and cheers.
Maybe the old fart did have some purpose in his life, Pavel thought.
Ion Stoica, the chief test pilot at Metyor Aerospace, and his systems officer, a Russian ex-fighter pilot named Gennadi Yegorov, quickly boarded the Metyor-179 stealth fighter-bomber and performed their power-off, power-on, and before-engine start checklists. The interior of the aircraft hangar was then darkened, the doors rolled open, the aircraft was towed outside, and the engines started. All of the checklists took just a few minutes, because they were all computerized — the crew members had only a few checklists that they themselves had to perform to verify the computer’s integrity.
Now they sat to wait for the signal to depart.
Zhukovsky Air Base east of Moscow was an active Russian Air Force military airfield, with several squadrons of Tu-95 Bear and Tu-22M Backfire heavy bombers located there, along with several types of trainers, transports, and other support aircraft. Maintaining secrecy at such a base was not difficult, although it was by far a top-secret facility. The airfield lights were always extinguished before any aircraft launch at night to hide the type and number of aircraft departing — a standard Soviet-era tactic, even in peacetime. Although the main base complex was close by on the north side of the runway, and a small housing area a few kilometers to the southeast, the runway itself was fairly isolated. No one could see the runway complex at night except the control tower personnel and security patrols that ringed the runways during every launch to keep away prying eyes.
About three hours before sunset, two Tu-22 Backfire bombers began to taxi toward the active runway on a scheduled training mission from the main secure parking ramp, east of the Metyor facility. Backfire bombers always did all missions in pairs, from takeoff to touchdown, and so both bombers taxied into position at the end of the runway, staggered so their wingtips were less than fifty feet from one another. Behind them on the hold line was an old Ilyushin-14 twin-piston transport plane, nicknamed Veedyorka, “The Bucket.” Even though the plane was almost fifty years old, it was a rather common sight on most Russian airfields, shuttling parts and mail on short hops from base to base throughout the Commonwealth. It seemed quite comical to see one of Russia’s most advanced aircraft, the Backfire, sharing a runway with one of Russia’s most low-tech birds.
After extending their variable-geometry wings to full takeoff extension, the Backfire bombers began their takeoff roll. The leader plugged in full afterburner and released brakes, shooting a plume of fire and clouds of thick black smoke behind him. Exactly six seconds later, the wingman plugged in his afterburners, and ten seconds after his leader, released brakes and shot down the runway after his leader. The clouds of black smoke in their wakes seemed to make the night even darker, despite the bright afterburner plume they trailed. When they reached midfield, not yet airborne but close to rotate speed, the I1-14 Bucket taxied forward to the end of the runway. It was required to wait two minutes after the Backfires departed because the wingtip vortices of the two departing supersonic Backfires could easily flip the old transport over.
It never made it to takeoff position. Something happened. The tower controllers noticed a bright spark on the right engine, followed by a flash of fire on the ground, followed a few seconds later by a tremendous explosion as the right engine exploded. The right-wing fuel tank ruptured, sending hundreds of gallons of avgas pouring onto the ramp. The transport was ablaze in less than twenty seconds. The tower controllers immediately hit the emergency alarm, which activated the lights at that spot on the runway and called out the base fire department. Security and rescue crews began to respond immediately.
In the sudden confusion, no one on base noticed when a thin, black, almost invisible aircraft taxied out along a midfield taxiway near the Metyor Aerospace facility, pulled onto the active runway, and began its takeoff roll. The smoke from the departing Backfire bombers partially obscured it, but anyone else who might have noticed it depart in the confusion of the fire at the other end of the runway would’ve thought it was a third Backfire bomber. They may or may not have noticed that the third aircraft used only minimum afterburner power, no taxi lights, no anticollision lights, and no position lights during its takeoff run. Since it started its rolling takeoff run near midfield, it needed every remaining foot of Zhukovsky’s fifteen thousand-foot-long runway before it left the ground, but once airborne, it climbed faster than the Backfires and quickly disappeared into the dark.
Unlike other aircraft flying so close to Moscow’s airspace, the Metyor-179 stealth bomber did not use its transponder, the transmitter that alerted air traffic control of its position, altitude, and airspeed; neither did Stoica and Yegorov contact anyone on their radios, or check in with air traffic control or air defense command headquarters. Once its long, spindly landing gear was up, the Mt-179 virtually disappeared.
The Mt-179 Tyenee’s flight control computer, coupled with air data and fuel sensors, leveled the stealth bomber at twenty-eight thousand feet — from now on, the computer would automatically adjust altitude based on best range fuel bum and aircraft gross weight, step-climbing as the aircraft got lighter, achieving the perfect balance between the power needed to climb and the faster airspeeds and lower fuel bum at higher altitude. It didn’t have to worry about deconflicting itself with other aircraft, staying out of restricted airspace, or getting permission to cross national boundaries: its collision-avoidance system detected and displayed the location of any other transponder-equipped aircraft so it could avoid them in time; and because no radars on the ground could detect the aircraft, it was free to fly any course and any altitude the crew chose. Stoica had to make a couple of precautionary turns in Moscow’s airspace to remain clear of some commercial air traffic that might get too close, and a few times they did get a solid “chirp” on their radar detectors., strong enough to know they might have been detected — no stealth system was 100 percent effective — but otherwise they proceeded on a direct “great circle” course to their initial point. There was not enough air traffic around Kiev, Bucharest, or Sofia, the three largest cities on their flight path, to worry about deviations.