“Sorry, but your big plan’s a bust, Colonel,” he said quietly. “It’s not going to happen.” He slid into the copilot’s seat next to Petrov and strapped himself in.

The Russian snorted, watching him through narrowed eyes. “What? You imagine you can somehow hack into this aircraft’s computer systems?” He sneered. “Please, take all the time you wish.”

Flynn grinned back at him, feeling suddenly fully alive and in control. “Computer hacking is for subtle, clever guys.” Then he reached down and grabbed the yellow-and-black-tape-wrapped ejection seat handle between his legs. “But I’m not that subtle or clever. Do svidaniya, Colonel.”

He yanked the ejection handle just as Petrov screamed in sudden, horrified comprehension.

Everything after that happened in milliseconds. First, tiny explosive charges shattered the canopy over Flynn’s head. And then the rocket motor below his seat ignited, lobbing him out of the stealth bomber and away into the frigid slipstream with tremendous force. Petrov’s distorted face shrank into a tiny dot, while the cockpit’s computer control panels—smashed by the shock wave—shattered, shorted out, and went dark.

Slowly, with Petrov still strapped into his seat and screaming in helpless terror, the fatally damaged PAK-DA bomber rolled over on one wing and then, completely out of control, whirled end over end down out of the sky. Seconds later, it smashed into a jagged, saw-toothed ridge and blew up with a flash that lit the night sky for miles around.

Flynn, knocked out by the bone-jolting shock of a rough, low-altitude ejection, clawed his way up out of nothingness just in time to see the parachute above him snap open. He looked down and saw the ground rushing up at him at high speed. “Ah, hell—”

Then all he felt was an enormous, shattering impact. The whole world around him went black. Still tumbling downward, Nick Flynn fell endlessly into the darkness.

Epilogue

Restricted Wing, Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas

Some Days Later

Captain Nick Flynn resisted looking at the wall clock for what seemed the thousandth time in just the past couple of hours. Frantically, he wriggled his back against the pillows, trying again to scratch an itch somewhere inside the bulky upper body cast they’d put him in while his badly broken shoulder healed. No joy. He sighed.

He’d gone far beyond being ordinarily bored at being stuck alone in this hospital room. In fact, Flynn had now moved on to the next stage of boredom, a stage he privately referred to as the “So help me God, the first chance I get I’m going to grab someone’s weapon and shoot my way out of this fricking place” phase. Although that was mostly a joke, he couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that no one planned to let him out of this isolated wing any time soon.

The only people Flynn saw regularly were doctors and nurses . . . and the armed guards posted outside his door. He’d had to do a lot of arguing even to get a rundown on what had happened after he’d ejected from the Russian aircraft. Fortunately for him, PFC Hynes, who should have his sergeant’s stripes back now as a reward, had reacted instantly to the sight of his commander vanishing into an enemy bomber by ordering the Ka-60 helicopter crew to “follow that plane!” And while falling farther and farther behind the speeding PAK-DA, they’d still been close enough to see Flynn’s ejection seat parachute open, and retrieve him before he froze to death. After that, the helicopter had returned to the battlefield at the spur hill, picked up the wounded and other survivors, and then made it safely through the tail end of the blizzard to Fairbanks. Thankfully, Floyd Leffert, Rafe Sanchez, and Tor Pedersen were expected to recover fully from their injuries. One of the four badly wounded Spetsnaz commandos hadn’t been so lucky, but the other three were still alive—and apparently the subject of a lot of heated diplomatic negotiations between Moscow and Washington, D.C. The same thing went for the two captured Russian pilots and their Ka-60 helicopter.