A sharp ping sounded in his headset. His secure satellite communications system had just received an urgent message. Moscow was demanding a situation update. A twisted smile tugged sharply at one side of Petrov’s lean face. For a brief moment, he was actually tempted to reply, if only to see how much further he could exploit Zhdanov’s misplaced trust in him. But then he shrugged. Why bother? The president and his advisers would learn the horrifying truth soon enough.

Or at least part of it, he thought with eerily detached amusement. Like the malignant tumor inexorably gnawing away at his brain, the full truth of what he planned was something he intended to reserve for himself. For the time being, anyway.

Ignoring Moscow’s increasingly frantic and repeated signals, Petrov flew on—racing north across the polar ice cap toward a darkening mass of storm clouds.

Over Central Russia

A Short Time Later

A pair of multirole, two-seater Su-30 fighters sped across the forest canopy at high speed. Their NO11M Bars pulse Doppler phased array radars were radiating in both air-to-air and air-to-ground modes. They had been urgently vectored to this area—the site of the missing PAK-DA’s midair refueling rendezvous. It was the last place anyone could confirm seeing the stealth bomber prototype and its Su-57 fighter escorts.

Aboard the lead fighter, Major Valentin Yakunin scanned the night sky ahead of them and periodically checked his radar displays. He was searching for any sign of an air contact, no matter how faint or fleeting. So far, he had seen absolutely nothing. Which made sense, he thought disgustedly, because there was nothing to see. Considering how many hours had passed since the PAK-DA refueled over this uninhabited wilderness, this was the very definition of a wild goose chase. By now, the prototype stealth bomber could be thousands of kilometers away in any one of a dozen different directions. Moscow was clutching at straws.

“Are you getting anything significant back there, Ivan?” he asked his weapons officer.

In the Su-30’s rear seat, Captain Ivan Saltikov had his head down to monitor his own instruments and displays. He was focused on returns from their ground-to-air radar and on the green-tinged thermal images captured by their forward-looking infrared sensor pod. “Not yet,” he admitted. “So far, I’ve detected trees and more trees. Plus, a lot of trees. Oh, and some more trees.”

“Well, make sure you don’t miss the forest,” Yakunin said dryly. “I understand there’s supposed to be a very large one somewhere around here.” A quick check of their navigation system showed that they were now more than fifty kilometers east of the stealth bomber’s last reported position.

Suddenly, Saltikov snapped, “Hold on! I’ve got something, Major! I’m picking up a signal over the emergency channel.” Quickly, he pushed a toggle on one of his panels to feed the incoming transmission to their shared intercom channel.

Through his headset, Yakunin heard a shrill, staccato series of beeps. The sequence faded briefly and then started up again, repeating the same tone pattern. “Christ, that’s an emergency locator beacon!” he realized. Like their Western counterparts and most civilian airplanes, all Russian military aircraft carried a transmitter designed to activate automatically in the event of a crash.