“Yes, ma’am.” Baker picked up her direct line to the FAA’s Air Route Traffic Control Center and relayed the colonel’s question to one of the controllers on duty. On its face, the suggestion wasn’t unreasonable. About an hour ago, the Russians had abruptly closed all the transpolar routes through their airspace. As a result, ARTCCs across the Northern Hemisphere were scrambling to divert dozens of civilian passenger jets and cargo planes to alternate routes. It was just possible that they’d lost track of one in all the confusion.

After a brief conversation, Baker hung up. She swiveled to Reyes. “Negative on that, ma’am. Anchorage says all the flights they were monitoring are accounted for. No civilian aircraft have been cleared through that sector.”

Reyes tapped her foot on the tiled floor while she ran through her options. Although there weren’t any aircraft currently on patrol, Third Wing did have two F-22 Raptor fighters on alert status. But even if this was a genuine bogey and not just some kind of equipment- or weather-related glitch, its last confirmed position was more than five hundred nautical miles from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. That was very near the outside edge of a Raptor’s subsonic combat range. Plus, by the time any F-22s arrived on scene, whatever the Barter Island radar had detected would be long gone. There was also one more significant factor to consider. “What’s our latest read on the weather?” she asked.

“Horrible,” Baker told her. “The Barter Island station reports strong winds from the north at forty knots, gusting to sixty, with a solid cloud layer down to less than five hundred feet. Conditions are worsening fast, with blowing snow and sleet. Visibility on the ground is only around fifty or sixty feet right now. And the storm front that’s whacking them is headed straight our way.”

Reyes shivered, suddenly very glad her command post was deep underground and centrally heated. She came to a decision and shook her head. “Right, I’ll buck this one up to Wing for their final call, but my recommendation will be that we let this bogey go. Given the weather conditions and the extreme range, there’s almost no chance of making a successful or safe intercept.”

Eighteen

Deep in the Brooks Mountain Range, Northern Alaska

That Same Time

Buffeted by the storm howling down from the Arctic Ocean, the PAK-DA stealth bomber streaked onward through a swirling torrent of wind-driven snow and ice. Colonel Alexei Petrov fought to keep his heavy aircraft under control, reacting almost instinctively to powerful gusts and unexpected pockets of severe turbulence that tugged and tore at the edges of its wing. Through his canopy, he caught only fleeting glimpses of the rugged, mountainous maze he was navigating. Sheer limestone cliffs and steep, boulder-strewn slopes towered above him on all sides, rising higher and higher until they vanished in a thick, gray layer of low-hanging cloud.

The steering cue on his HUD slid sharply to the right. Immediately, he yanked his stick in that direction. The bomber banked sharply, narrowly avoiding a cliff face that appeared suddenly out of the darkness and then just as abruptly disappeared astern, cloaked by falling snow.