Rogozin stared back at him. “I’m not sure we can hope to do that,” he said carefully. “Colonel Petrov had enough fuel on board to reach any possible landing site in several million square kilometers of North American wilderness. We simply don’t have any evidence yet that would help us narrow that down significantly.”

“That may not be quite true,” another voice interrupted.

Startled, both Zhdanov and Rogozin swung around toward another of the several men seated around the table. On the principle that the less said the better when their leader was getting bad news, Kokorin, Yumashev, and the rest of the Russian president’s senior military and civilian advisers had kept their mouths shut over the past several minutes. But now, Aleksandr Ivashin, the head of the GRU, had evidently decided it was worth the risk to join the discussion.

Zhdanov’s eyes narrowed. That meant Ivashin had something up his sleeve, something he was confident would make him look good. Cautious by nature and training, the spymaster was not a fool. “You’ve picked up Petrov’s trail?” he guessed.

“Part of it, perhaps,” Ivashin said calmly. “Maybe enough to help General Rogozin’s pilots refine their search parameters.”

“Go on.”

Ivashin indicated the computer console at his place. Through it he had secure communications links to the GRU’s Moscow headquarters. “One of our deep-cover illegals in northern Alaska has reported in,” he said. “According to this agent, one of the American air surveillance radars briefly picked up a faint, unidentified contact very close to the Alaska coast on the night Petrov disappeared. It was still flying south when it disappeared a short time later.”

“Where would that take him?” Zhdanov demanded.

Responding to Ivashin’s commands, the map display zoomed in to show the area between Prudhoe Bay and the western edge of Canada’s Yukon Territory in the north and a little American town called Beaver and Ni’iinlii Njik, a Canadian national park, in the south. The enclosed region was still enormous, encompassing more than two hundred thousand square kilometers—mostly comprised of rugged mountains and uninhabited wilderness, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The head of the GRU pointed at the map. “Somewhere in there, possibly. Obviously, we can’t be sure of that, but, assuming what the Americans picked up on their radar was, in fact, our stolen stealth bomber, this area seems the logical place to start looking.”

Zhdanov sucked in his cheeks. “Is your agent reliable?”

“Completely reliable,” Ivashin assured him. “We successfully infiltrated this particular illegal into Alaska years ago. And over that time, our agent has built up a very substantial network of useful information sources, including some inside the American military, local civilian government, and important regional private industries. The intelligence we’ve obtained has always proved to be accurate and extremely valuable.”

Zhdanov nodded. He turned back to Rogozin. “Your opinion, Yvgeny?”

The Air Force commander studied the display very closely for a few moments more. He looked at Ivashin. “What is the Americans’ own evaluation of this short radar trace? Do you know?”