"No, sir," Ryan admitted.

"Then this is the best information we have, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mr President, if it's true."

"You say that you have no firm evidence to confirm it?"

"Correct, Mr President."

"But you have no hard information to contradict it, either, do you?"

"Sir, we have reasons -"

"Answer my question!"

Ryan's right hand compressed into a tight, white fist. "No, Mr President, nothing hard."

"And for the past few years he's given us good, reliable information?"

"Yes, sir."

"So, based on the record of Mr Kadishev, this is the best available information?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you. I suggest, Dr Ryan, that you try to develop additional information. When you get it, I'll listen to it." The line clicked off.

Jack stood slowly. His legs were stiff and sore from the stress of the moment. He took one step to the window and lit a cigarette. "I blew it," he told the world. "Oh, Christ, I've blown it "

"Not your fault, Jack," Goodley offered.

Jack spun around. "That'll look real good on my fucking tombstone, won't it? "It wasn't his fault" the fucking world blew up!"

"Come on, Jack, it's not that bad."

"Think so? Did you hear their voices?"

The Soviet carrier Kuznetzov didn't launch aircraft in the manner of U.S. carriers. Rather, it had a ski-jump bow configuration. The first MiG-29 raced forward from its starting point and went up the angled ramp and into the air. This manner of takeoff was hard on pilots and aircraft, but it worked. Another aircraft followed, and both turned to head east. They'd barely gotten to altitude when the flight leader noted a buzz in his headphones.

"Sounds like an emergency beeper on the guard frequency," he said to his wingman. "Sounds like one of ours."

"Da, east-south-east. It is one of ours. Who do you suppose it is?"

"I have no idea." The flight leader passed this information on to Kuznetzov, and received instructions to investigate.

"This is Falcon-Two," the Hawkeye reported. "We have two inbounds from the Russkie carrier, fast movers, bearing three-one-five and two-five-zero miles from Stick."

Captain Richards looked at the tactical display. "Spade, this is Stick. Close and warn them off."

"Roger," Jackson replied. He'd just topped his fuel tanks off. Jackson could stay up for another three hours or so, and he still carried six missiles.

" 'Warn them off?' " Lieutenant Walter asked.

"Shredder, I don't know what's going on, either." Jackson brought the stick around. Sanchez did the same, again splitting out to a wide interval.

The two pairs of aircraft flew on reciprocal courses at a closing speed of just under a thousand miles an hour. Four minutes later, both Tomcats went active on their radars. Ordinarily that would have alerted the Russians to the fact that American fighters were in the area, and that the area might not be totally healthy. But the new American radars were stealthy, and were not picked up.

It turned out that this didn't matter. A few seconds later, the Russians activated their own radar systems.