“I confirm that your landing gear is down, Shadow One,” one of the Su-34 pilots radioed.

“Copy that,” Petrov replied tightly.

“Two hundred meters, descending at ten meters per second. You’re coming in a little hot. Airspeed is three hundred ten kph.” The Su-34s were sticking to the bomber’s flanks as if they were glued there, gliding down out of the sky beside it as though they planned to land, too.

Petrov blinked away a droplet of sweat. The double strand of runway lights seemed to be rushing at him like a runaway freight train. Reacting instantly, he reduced his throttles and heaved back on the stick to raise the bomber’s nose a degree or two. His rigid neck and shoulder muscles felt as though they were on fire.

“One hundred meters, down at eight meters per second. Angle of attack looks good, Shadow One. Split drag rudders full open. Airspeed two-ninety kph,” he heard a chase plane report through his headset.

And then they were over the runway itself. Parallel white bars painted along the concrete strip loomed up and then vanished beneath the cockpit, growing ever bigger as the PAK-DA lost altitude. Abruptly, the heavy bomber dropped the last couple of meters and touched down with a sharp jolt. Instantly, the Su-34 chase planes on either side hit their afterburners and climbed away at high speed.

Petrov chopped back on his throttles to reverse thrust and then braked hard to shed their remaining speed. With its turbofan engines howling, the big aircraft rolled down the runway. Slowing fast, the PAK-DA prototype came to a complete stop about fifteen hundred meters from its touchdown point. Through the cockpit canopy, he could see flashing red and white lights as several emergency vehicles converged on their stationary bomber.

With a sigh, he shut down their engines and sat back.

Beside him, Bunin stripped off his flight helmet. The younger man’s thick mop of hair was soaked with sweat. His teeth gleamed briefly in the darkness. “That was some seriously shit-hot flying, Colonel,” he said in unfeigned admiration. “I think you just saved the whole stealth bomber program—not to mention a twenty-billion-ruble experimental aircraft. Oh, and our lives, too, for whatever they’re worth. I suspect our masters in Moscow are going to be very, very happy with you.”

Wordlessly, Petrov nodded. Inside, he smiled. Without realizing it, his copilot had just managed to put his finger on the whole point of tonight’s little exercise.

Seven

Mercury City Tower, Moscow, Russia

The Next Day

Mercury City Tower’s glowing, bronze-tinted reflective glass made it stand out among the five other ultramodern skyscrapers that formed Moscow’s International Business Center. Slanting, steplike recesses along one side of the building gave the nearly 340-meter-high tower a unique, tapered look that only added to its apparent height. And inside its reinforced concrete-and-steel exterior, high-end restaurants, stores selling luxury goods, business offices, and opulent apartments filled the seventy-five floors soaring above the ground.

Two hundred meters and forty-four stories above street level, the corporate headquarters for one of Russia’s largest and most successful industrial and financial conglomerates, Severnaya Zvezda Stolitsa, or North Star Capital, occupied three full floors. In theory, North Star was a shareholder-owned corporation. In practice, it was completely controlled by its chairman and CEO, Dmitri Grishin.