“All this sounds too staged,” Luger said. “Just like that attack on Kukes. A small hot spot that quickly spreads into a major wildfire, and the Russians and the Germans ready and eager on such short notice to push right in.”
“You think there is a puppetmaster at work here? A Russian puppetmaster, to be exact?”
“A Russian puppetmaster with a stealth fighter-bomber,” Luger said. “I’ll lay odds that the Russian stealth fighter has struck again. The Russian—” Luger froze, his words jamming in his throat until all he could exclaim was “Oh, my God …”
“What is it, David?”
“Roman, the spy that was rescued in Russia was working at a facility at Zhukovsky Air Base run by the Metyor Aerospace firm.”
“So you said.”
“Don’t you get it, Roman? Don’t you remember what Metyor used to be?”
“I do not know this. Who—?” Then he stopped, and Luger heard a sharp intake of air even over the scrambled line. “Good God … you mean, Fisikous? Mayor is Fisikous? Are you telling me …?”
“The stealth fighter that launched from Zhukovsky, the one suspected of attacking Kukes — it’s the Fisikous-179,” Luger shouted. “It has to be! There’s no other stealth fighter-bomber that can fly those missions in all of Europe!”
“But the stealth aircraft were destroyed in that attack on Fisikous.”
“They weren’t destroyed, Roman. I took the Fi-170 Tuman! Me and General McLanahan.”
“Neprada!”
“It’s true. He was leading a rescue mission, him and Colonel Briggs, when the CIA discovered I was at Fisikous. But Russia was on its way to destroying Lithuania and rebuilding the Soviet Union, and we had to act. We took the Fisikous-170 and flew it out of there. We flew it to Scotland and dismantled it. But the United States never set out to destroy the facility — they were looking for me. The facility itself was almost untouched.”
“Incredible … unbelievable!” Smoliy breathed. “So it must be the second model, the Fisikous-179.”
“We took the curled-wing flying prototype model, so it must be the forward-swept-wing model,” Luger said. “We started working on an aircraft that had just as great an air-to-air capability as it did an air-to-ground bombing capability. We hadn’t even rolled it out yet — it was still years from its first flight.”
“Maybe whoever bought Fisikous finished the Fi-179 and is now flying it,” Smoliy surmised.
“Fursenko,” Luger said. “Pyotr Fursenko. He was the director of the facility. I think the spy had him on tape, along with Pavel Kazakov.”
“Kazakov? The drug dealer? That scum runs Fisikous?”
“He runs Metyor Aerospace,” Luger said. “And he runs several other companies, too.”
“Tak. He runs construction companies, shipping, banking, petroleum, exporting, mining—”
“Petroleum? I remember something about him building a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.”
“Yes. That was completed a year or so ago. He pumps almost a million barrels a day from the Caspian and ships it through Azerbaijan and Georgia. Ukraine buys much of it. He—” And then Smoliy stopped and gasped again. “And I heard he wanted to build another pipeline, a huge one, from the Black Sea to Western Europe, to bypass the bottlenecks in the Bosporus Straits and Turkey’s high transit tariffs.”
“Western Europe from the Black Sea,” Luger mused. “That means through Bulgaria—”
“And Macedonia and Albania,” Smoliy said incredulously. “It can’t be,” Luger said. “It can’t be that simple.”
“The word was that Kazakov did not build the pipeline because of the war in Kosovo, the unstable relations between Albania and the West, and the West’s increasing intervention in Macedonia — perhaps even Macedonia to join NATO,” Smoliy said. “But with Thorn wishing to disengage from NATO, and Russia wanting to secure its position in the Balkans, the opportunity presents itself to get the pipeline built….”
“With the help of the Russian army,” Luger said. “Russian ‘peacekeepers’ swarm into the Balkans and secure the region, and Kazakov is free to build the pipeline. And if any governments balk, they find a city or maybe even their national capital under attack.”
“Under attack by a stealth aircraft — unseen, silent, and untraceable,” Smoliy said. “Russia can claim complete ignorance of the attacks, and Western spy satellites have no idea where to look for the stealth aircraft or have any idea where it will strike again.”
“It must have struck in Turkey,” Luger said. “That’s why the Turks are packing up and going home — their country is under attack.”
“There was nothing in the news about an attack on Turkey,” Smoliy said. “But I cannot find out anymore.”
“I think I can,” Luger said. “It might be a problem getting out of here, but I’ll try.”
“Are you a prisoner there?”
“No,” Luger said, “but I’m not free to go, either.”
“Says who, David?” Smoliy asked. “The same people who want to court-martial you? They send you to a hospital because you might be going insane? If you are, they will confine you for the rest of your life, but if you are not, they will court-martial you? What loyalty do you have for these men?”
“Good point,” David said. “But I’ll need to get plugged back into the information network at Dreamland.”
“And I know just the person to set that up for you,” Smoliy said. “Be patient. We will be in touch shortly.”
Dozens of trucks rolled up onto Nellis Air Force Base’s main parking ramp, and crews from many nations were helping load pallets of supplies into two Turkish C-135 military cargo planes. At the same time, crews were busily preflighting the Turkish F-16 fighters, preparing them for immediate takeoff. Crews were also loading weapons aboard the F-16s — all of the Turkish fighters that were fully capable of carrying air-to-air weapons were armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles plus ammunition for the internal guns. The cargo planes were going to have fighter escorts all the way home. All the men and women worked quickly, purposefully, some even feverishly …
… as if they were preparing for war.
Inside, the mass departure briefing had just concluded, and the crews were splitting up into individual flights. The Turks worked swiftly, speaking only Turkish, not willing even to attempt to slow their pace long enough to translate their thoughts into English. American crews simply helped out where they could and stayed out of the way. This time, it was not their fight. Their commander-in-chief said so. Their allies, their fellow air warriors, were going home to prepare to fight the unseen, invisible enemy on their own.
Colonel-General Roman Smoliy, commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, stepped to the door of one of the briefing rooms as the flight briefing finished. Major-General Erdal Sivarek, chief of staff of the Turkish Air Force, was packing up his papers, preparing to depart. “I need to speak with you, sir,” Smoliy said in English.
Sivarek looked at the big Ukrainian. “I am sorry, Colonel-General, but I do not have time.”
“I received a briefing about the incident over the Black Sea,” Smoliy said. “I have information you must hear and I have a proposal—”
“What incident over the Black Sea?” Sivarek asked. “I know of no such incident. I must go.”
“General, I know you lost an F-16 fighter earlier today while it was on a training exercise over the Black Sea,” Smoliy said. “I know your pilots and your ground radar controllers never saw whatever downed your plane. But because you have some of your country’s best fighter pilots here, your government has ordered all of your forces returned to Turkey immediately and to make preparations for war, although you do not know against whom yet — Kurds, Russians, Greeks, Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Martians.”