CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Tuesday, 9:30 P.M., Khabarovsk

"Rearview mirror says we've got company," pilot Matt Mazer told Squires.

The Striker had come to the cockpit three minutes before the jump to thank the Captain for his help. The radar screen clearly showed two MiG-like blips closing in at approximately seven hundred miles an hour.

"Be prepared to pop a gasket," Mazer said to copilot John Barylick.

"Yes, sir," said the rookie, who was cool but was working his chewing gum overtime.

The Air Force had cleverly equipped the 76T with an enlarged oil tank that was divided into two compartments: one that fed the plane, the other that could leak with the press of a button. The leaking oil was designed to give the plane a reason to turn around if they were spotted. They could go down at once, if necessary, to avoid being shot down or forced to a Russian airstrip-- or, this close to the coast, they could break away from the pursuit craft and make a run for home.

In either case, Squires knew that the 76T would be unlikely to be ferrying them back.

"What do you want to do, sir?" the Captain asked Squires.

"We'll jump," he said. "I'll let Op-Center know what's happened and let them figure a way out for us."

The Captain took another look at the radar screen. "In about ninety seconds, the MiGs will be close enough to see you."

"Then we'll jump fast," said Squires.

"I like your style, sir," the Captain said, saluting.

Jumpmaster Squires hurried back to the cabin. He decided not to tell Striker what had happened. Not yet. He needed his team to be focused on the job. Though he would be happy to storm hell itself with any of these soldiers at his side, a stray concern at the wrong time by any one of them could cost lives.

At the FBI Academy in Quantico, the Striker team had practiced many kinds of aerial assault, from night jumps to Stabo assaults with the team hanging from helicopter lines and landing simultaneously on church steeples, cliffsides, and even the tops of moving buses. Each member had the poise, stamina, and smarts necessary for the job. But those in-depth examinations by the doctors, the "chancre mechanics," were easy: soldiers were either fit to serve or they weren't. Despite the best efforts of Liz Gordon and her team of psychologists, the real question mark was always how they would hold up under the stress of an actual mission-- when there wasn't a fence made of two-by-fours to catch them in case they slid off the rooftop. When they knew that the rugged terrain wasn't the survival-training site at Camp Dawson, West Virginia, but the mountains of North Korea or the tundra of Siberia.

It wasn't for lack of respect or concern that Squires kept the information from them. It was to remove, as much as possible, another distraction from the successful execution of the mission.