Remizov shrugged. “I had a good teacher.” This time his smile was more genuine. “I served under your father as a junior pilot, Colonel.” He shook his head admiringly. “The general was one tough son of a bitch, that’s for sure. Without mercy for fuckups. But we were sharp as razors by the time he finished with us.” His eyes narrowed as he quoted from memory, “‘Train hard. Plan thoroughly. Act fast. Those are the keys to victory.’”

Petrov hid a grimace. Would he never escape his father’s shadow? Even now, years after the old man’s final heart attack finished him, devoted acolytes of Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General Vladimir Petrov, seemed to turn up wherever he went. It was maddening, even if understandable. As a young lieutenant, the older Petrov had won his spurs and his medals as a “volunteer” flying secret combat missions against the Americans over North Vietnam and then again against the Israelis during the October War in 1973. Credited with several kills, he was renowned as the top-scoring Russian fighter pilot since the Korean War. In later years, he’d risen rapidly in rank, leading ever-larger frontline Air Force units equipped with the best aircraft. If his heart hadn’t given out, the famous Major General Petrov could easily have someday commanded all of Russia’s aerospace forces.

In sharp contrast, Alexei Petrov knew with some bitterness that his own career, though marked by praise, promotion, and medals for peacetime flying exploits, would never match that of his father. At his age, this assignment to lead the PAK-DA stealth bomber flight test program represented his last real chance to shine. But once he finished vetting the new aircraft and its systems, he would undoubtedly be shunted off to a desk and relative obscurity somewhere inside the Ministry of Defense bureaucracy. After that, he could look forward to wasting years dealing with dull reports before finally being put out to pasture on a wholly inadequate state pension.

Oblivion and poverty—not exactly attractive prospects, he thought coldly as he made his farewell to Remizov and left the vast Tupolev factory. Which made it much easier to contemplate taking a very different path in life. And imagining how the course of action he was now considering would have horrified his father—always so rigidly attentive to his duty—made it even more appealing.

A couple of hours outside Kazan, Petrov swung his IRBIS touring motorbike off the crowded highway and onto a narrow, tree-lined road. He opened the throttle, smoothly accelerating as the track curved back to the west. The sensation of speed as trees flashed past, more blurs than distinct shapes, was exhilarating. Through openings in the woods on his right, he caught glimpses of an enormous stretch of dark blue water, the vast Cheboksary Reservoir created by damming the Volga River. Off on the left, wheat and barley fields surrounded small farming villages. Apart from a couple of old tractors trundling across the fields and faded clothes drying outside rundown cottages, there were few signs of people.