Contents ( 55)
- In Memoriam
- Epigraph
- Cast of Characters
- Americans
- Russians
- Canadian
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Weapons and Acronyms
- Weapons
- Acronyms
- About the Author
- Also by Dale Brown
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
Making a decision, Jaffe picked up one of the RC-135’s secure communications handsets. “Air Operations Center, this is the IIO aboard Exult One-Five. We’ve just picked up indications of at least three and possibly more Russian aircraft operating three hundred and fifty–plus nautical miles due north of Umiat. Be advised that we believe these aircraft include at least one air refueling tanker and two multirole combat fighters, probably Su-27s or Su-35s.”
611th Air Operations Center, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska
That Same Time
The Third Wing’s commander, U.S. Air Force Colonel Leonard Huber, listened closely to the report relayed from the RC-135V ELINT plane. He didn’t like the idea of Russian fighters operating so far north, out on his flank. His defenses were mostly oriented to detect and intercept combat aircraft sortieing from Moscow’s air bases on the Chukchi and Kamchatka peninsulas. But fully refueled Su-27s or Su-35s coming south out of the Beaufort Sea would be in a great position to slide past his command’s defenses without being detected.
He studied the board. Third Wing didn’t have many aircraft up right now, just an E-3 Sentry AWACS plane with the call sign Anvil Four-Five over the Seward Peninsula and the RC-135 west of Fairbanks. The colonel swung to his operations officer. “Contact Anvil and tell them to shift eastward toward Fairbanks. I want airborne radar coverage of that corridor across the Brooks Range in case our Russian comrades are trying something sneaky.”
“Yes, sir.”
Huber turned back to the board. His jaw tightened. “And I want all four of the F-22s we’ve got on ready alert in the air,” he said firmly. “Send one pair to escort the E-3 and assign the other two Raptors to bird-dog Exult One-Five.”
“You think the Russians might be planning to bushwhack them?” his ops officer asked.
Huber shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But if they are, I’m not interested in making things easy for them.” His eyes narrowed. “Because I do know that if we lose those AEW and ELINT aircraft, we’d be suddenly blind and deaf—which strikes me as a real good way to end up getting our asses kicked if Moscow’s got bigger and nastier plans today.”
Twenty-Seven
Russian Reconnaissance Group, over the Beaufort Sea
A Short Time Later
Colonel Iosif Zinchuk peered ahead through the Tu-142’s cockpit windows, straining to see clearly through a dim, gray half-light. Ahead of his big patrol plane, the clouds were thickening, as were the torrents of snow and sleet now driven almost straight across the icebound sea by shrieking, gale-force winds. The closer they came to the coast, the worse this storm got. He gripped his steering yoke tight, making constant, small adjustments to keep the Tu-142 from veering suddenly off course or slamming a wing or propeller blade into the jagged surface not far below them. Every muscle in his arms, shoulders, and face felt on fire with the strain involved in this prolonged, low-altitude flight.
“Colonel, that American AWACS plane is moving,” Sukachov reported again over the intercom. “Both the strength and bearing of its radar emissions have changed.”