Takirak nodded. “Yes, sir. We can put a range together out that way without much trouble.” He cocked an eyebrow. “If I may ask, exactly how much time are you planning to spend on weapons training?”

“As much time as it takes to qualify every man in this unit as a marksman or above,” Flynn said simply. “We both know the odds are probably about a million to one that we’re ever going to come face-to-face with any Russian Spetsnaz commandos up here. But if we do draw that short straw, I want to make damned sure our guys come out the other end alive. And that our enemies end up dead.” Aware that he sounded a little overzealous, he shrugged. “Plus, shooting live ammo is a hell of a lot of fun. And a really good way to break up the monotony.”

“Amen to that,” Takirak agreed appreciatively.

Six

Over the Chkalov State Flight Test Center, Southern Russia

A Few Days Later

Several thousand meters above the winding trace of the Volga River, three Russian aircraft slid southeast through a moonless night sky. Two were twin-tailed Su-34 fighter-bombers assigned as chase planes to the third, much-larger plane—the manta ray–shaped PAK-DA stealth bomber prototype. Weeks of rigorous tests had validated the experimental aircraft’s flight characteristics and confirmed that its stealth features made detection and tracking by radar and infrared sensors extremely difficult. Now the program had moved on to check out the bomber’s advanced navigation, attack, and defense systems.

Inside the PAK-DA’s relatively spacious cockpit, Colonel Alexei Petrov tweaked his stick slightly to the left. Responding immediately to his control inputs, the bomber rolled into a gentle turn. The Su-34s flying a thousand meters off each wingtip matched his maneuver perfectly. Infrared sensors fed their images directly to the face shield of his flight helmet—turning the inky darkness into a green-tinted version of full daylight.

He smiled under his oxygen mask. Flying at night like this made it more difficult for any foreign intelligence agents stationed near the Chkalov Test Center to track this new aircraft. It also offered an excellent opportunity to evaluate the sensors and software that Tupolev’s engineers touted as providing unparalleled situational awareness to the bomber’s crew. So far, he had to agree. A quick press of a switch on his stick allowed him to toggle rapidly between any of the cameras mounted around the PAK-DA’s nose and wing—giving him the equivalent of a full, 360-degree view. And all without the need to actually turn his head or lose sight of any of the vital flight information provided by his HUD, his heads-up display.

Seated next to him in the right-hand seat, Petrov’s copilot, Major Oleg Bunin, checked one of his large multifunction displays. It showed a detailed, digitized map of the terrain ahead of them. Variously shaped icons glowed across the map. One blinked green. “Coming up on the target evaluation range in two minutes.” Bunin, stockier and slightly taller than his commander, tapped the screen with a gloved finger. “The range is locked in to our navigation system.”