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He tapped keys and the screen glowed a bright red at him. NO DATA.

“Shit!”
McCann exclaimed. “Mark, this guy’s
an unknown. I mean we’ve got the ‘NO DATA’ caption. One of theirs?” His voice now had an edge to it. “He’s over a hundred miles off, but he’s coming our way. And … hell, he’s accelerating. 800 knots now.”

“Pass it on to Two-One …”

“They’ve got it …”

“Then give me a patch.”

“You got it.”

Selby got part of the tac display. He would only need it for a quick head-down reference. If this turned out to be a hot engagement, life would be conducted through the HUD and the helmet display, while McCann set up the fight.

“Two-One’s just confirmed there should be no drones within a radius of at least 250 miles,” McCann was saying, “and … oh shit … I’ve got two more inbound, chasing the other guy. What the hell? I’m checking these guys.” He soon had the answer. On the screen, familiar images had appeared. “Mark, buddy … I think we may have trouble. I’ve got
Flankers,
for Chrissakes.”

“What?
You’re joking …”

“Unless the chips in this baby have gone on furlough, what I’ve got are big juicy Su-27 Flankers, and they’re looking mean. Hold. I’ve got something coming in from Two-One. We don’t get involved, the man says, unless these guys turn for us. But we watch them, clear the decks for action, and go defensive. We also prepare for voice contact if this thing turns
really bad.” McCann tightened his harness and lowered his visor.

Selby acknowledged with a grunt, and prepared himself for an engagement against targets that for once would be firing back. He felt a cold, almost pleasurable tenseness. A picture of Kim Mannon came into his mind. He banished it. She had no place up here. His universe was now enclosed within this one patch of sky. There was some cloud, but far below. Mainly, there was emptiness, with the dark of the high sky above.

He preferred it that way. Even the subdued paintwork of the ASV would be a liability against cloud. But clouds could be helpful too: they hid you from sight, if not from radar. They also screwed up infrared missiles. Even so, he preferred to be in the open with the high bright sun above. It was a better decoy for an IR missile with your name on it, and with nothing but sea beneath you, visual acquisition of your aircraft would not be easy.

He checked all his weapons, and primed himself for possible combat. His head turned this way and that, eyes searching the sky.

In Goshawk Two-One, Flacht said to Hohendorf: “What do you think they’re up to?”

“We’ll soon find out, Wolfie. They must know we’re here. What’s the range?”

“Still over a hundred miles. They don’t seem to be coming nearer, but they’re still heading west.
Perhaps they can’t see us yet. The UK net must have them, but nothing’s come through from there. Do we send what we’ve got down the line?”

“The briefing said no communication whatsoever. Let’s play it that way. We’ll just watch them, and keep out of the way.”

“Missile!”
Flacht shouted suddenly. “They’ve launched at the first target. Another missile! My God, Axel. He’s
evaded!
He’s made it. And … we’re now in Victor 3. AARA Delta 8 is 110 miles…. Axel,” Flacht went on in a suddenly tight voice, “our second tanker—it’s somewhere in that area …”

“Find him and warn him!”

“We’ve got no coordinates, no call sign …”

“Find him, Wolfie. As for a call sign, you’ll just have to warn him as Victor K2 on voice contact. So
find him!”

“Searching.”

Hohendorf glanced at his fuel levels. All internal storage full and plenty still in the wing tanks. But the way things seemed to be developing, he might have to jettison those on the wings to maximise speed and manoeuvrability.

In the back, Flacht had been quartering the air-to-air refuelling area and putting the range of the radar to its full stretch. He was getting a better response than he’d hoped. Just under 150 miles had come up. If the tanker was indeed there, he’d find it. It should have arrived on station by now.

While the search was going on, the attack computer
had stored the last positions of the Flankers and placed radials at ten-mile intervals about them and was continuously updating. The Flankers would not know they were being tracked.

“I’ve got him!” Flacht said. An image had come on-screen. VICTOR K2, the caption said. “The tanker’s at 145 miles, bearing 270.” He checked his tac display. “Axel … that’s the new heading of the Flankers. They’re going after the tanker!”

“Warn him!”

“Victor K2, Victor K2,” Flacht began urgently. “You have inbound hostiles. I repeat. Inbound hostiles at flight level two zero zero and climbing. Bearing zero niner zero. Hostiles are two, repeat, two Flankers. Victor K2, Victor K2 … this is Goshawk Two-One. You have inbound hostiles …” Flacht repeated the entire message.

Answer! Answer!
he begged in his mind.

Every second counted. Weren’t they awake out there?

There was a silence that seemed to stretch for centuries. In Flacht’s anxious mind, that silence seemed to fill the entire sky.

Then at last: “Goshawk Two-One … we read inbound …
hostiles?”
The voice, disbelieving, was a woman’s; with an American accent.

Flacht was astonished. With unconsciously greater urgency, he spoke to the tanker: “Victor K2, Victor K2. Yes, hostiles!
Get the hell out of there!
My God,” he added to Hohendorf. “A woman.”

Hohendorf had himself been surprised by the female voice, but women were getting into some areas of military flying now. There were all-female transport crews in the US, but he had never heard of any on the K2s that served the November One aircraft. She was perhaps the navigator, or even the copilot. As far as he knew, there were no female K2 captains.

He felt sickened. If the Flankers decided to take out the tanker there would be nothing he could do to prevent it. His orders forbade him to fire on them, and the Goshawk pair were still too far away to be able to place themselves between the Flankers and the tanker.

The Su-27s had as yet made no overt hostile move towards either the tanker or the Tornadoes. The only attack had been upon the aircraft for which there was still no identification data. Certainly nothing identified it as belonging to the NATO alliance. And if it belonged to the Eastern Bloc, then it was none of their business. But the aircraft had been fired upon, and was still racing towards the tanker. Why?

“Watch your step …”

Jason’s words echoed in his head. The Flankers had attacked one of their own aircraft. He could hardly take retaliatory action for that. But what if they attacked the tanker?

“Wolfie,” he began to Flacht, “give November One a data link view of the situation.”

“We’re not supposed to get in touch …”

“I don’t think this was the kind of scenario the boss meant. Do it, Wolfie.”

Flacht made the link between both aircraft, and November One.

“They do not acknowledge,” he announced after a brief pause.

“What?”

“And the Flankers are formatting on the tanker,” he added.

As if to confirm, the female voice was back. “We … we have a hostile on each wing. They seem to be just looking us over.”

She sounded worried, and she had every right to be, Hohendorf thought grimly. The K2 was virtually a flying petrol station. One hit and it would go up like a small volcano. He tried not to think of the four crew in there.

“Are you still linked to November One, Wolfie?”

“They’re getting everything. They must be. There is no indication of a loss of contact. The Flankers are pulling back,” Flacht went on sharply. “Perhaps they’ll be going home now.” He sounded relieved. Then he was shouting, horror in his voice. “Oh my God …
they’ve launched. They’ve launched at the tanker!”

“Goshawk!”
the woman screamed, then contact ended. A brilliant glow flared in the cold blue distance.

*   *   *

“Bastards!”
McCann yelled from the back seat of Goshawk Three-One. In his mask, his voice sounded unearthly. “C’mon, Mark! Let’s get the murdering sons of bitches. Mark!
C’mon, goddammit!”

“We don’t have the lead, Elmer Lee. Calm yourself.”

“Goddammit. What is Hohendorf waiting for?”

“Do you want to go to war over a tanker?”

“There were four people in there, one of them a woman.”

“There were a lot more people in the Korean airliner. The world did not go to war then.”

“Are you telling me …”

“I’m telling you,” Selby interrupted firmly, “to wait for the pair leader’s instructions. I’m as shocked and angry as you are. Let’s just keep ourselves calm, shall we?”

Then Hohendorf’s voice, cold from a seemingly total lack of emotion, said in the phones: “Goshawk Three-One … if attacked, jettison tanks and engage.”

“Now you’re talking!” McCann crowed.

“Shut up, McCann!” Selby said, then went on to Hohendorf: “Roger, Two-One. If attacked, jettison and engage.”

Hohendorf had used an open channel, and Selby knew why. If the Flankers were monitoring, they would know what was in store. There was still time to avoid a fight. He was enraged by the unprovoked
attack upon the tanker and all his gut reactions cried out for revenge. But he knew Hohendorf was correct in holding fire.

A new tenseness had come over him.
Christ,
he thought.
If it happens, this will be for real. There are men out there I’ve got to beat, if I want to continue living.

Kukarev had known despair when he discovered the Su-27s waiting for him. They had come from the direction of Bear Island, and he had known then that he’d been set up. His sense of bitterness and betrayal was complete. Only one person could have set him up. Sergei Stolybin. His friend.

The Su-27s had attacked immediately, but—although unarmed—the Krivak had been able to escape so far. Its countermeasures were intact, and its agility had made it able to evade the missiles, four of which had been expended uselessly by the Su-27s.

When Kukarev picked up both the NATO fighters and the tanker, he was confused. Were they also part of Sergei’s game? Briefly their presence gave him hope—until the destruction of the tanker. Sergei had closed all doors. Kukarev knew he was lost. Even if the NATO fighters avenged the tanker, he was himself finished. His evasive manoeuvres had eaten into his already small reserves of fuel. Without the tanker, he might as well eject and let the cold waters far below swallow him.

Sergei had won. But why? To what purpose? A
secret hatred? Some political expediency Kukarev couldn’t even guess at? Certainly Sergei was KGB, but he was a human being first. They were friends. They had known each other all their lives, even before the arrest of Kukarev’s father.

He beat at the controls in bewilderment. Sergei was his friend.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep …

“They’re tracking us!” Flacht said tightly to Hohendorf. “They’re going to engage!” Even as he spoke, he had begun jamming the tracking signals from the Su-27s. “They must be crazy!”

In the same instant, Hohendorf jettisoned the tanks and the Tornado, made even lighter, reefed into a hard left hand turn as he shoved the stick over and pulled it towards him. The warning beeps died and he reversed the turn, losing height swiftly.

When he had levelled out at 10,000 feet, the fifty mile distance from the Flanker that had chosen him as meat had increased to seventy. He did not worry about Three-One. The head-down display told him that Selby had made his break to the right and had gone high, also increasing his own distance. McCann would be setting up a Skyray launch even as Flacht now was.

The computers had said that the new ASV could turn close in with both the Su-27 and the MiG-29, but there was nothing like the real thing to prove or disprove computer predictions. With the stake
being your own life there was no need to push it if you could zap him at arm’s length.

“What have you got for me, Wolfie?”

“I’ve got him plotted, but we’re not transmitting. No point warning him.”

“He might be doing the same to us. I don’t believe those stories about their weak radar.”

“I don’t believe them either. Decoy him a little. Let’s fly straight for a few seconds. I’ll give him a quick flash, then we’ll be ready for launch.”

“All right …”

Beep-beep-beep-beep …

“Scheiss!
He’s fast, Wolfie!”

Bmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …!

“He’s launched!”
Flacht yelled. “I’m jamming, but break him, Axel!
Break him!”

Hohendorf slammed the throttles against the stops. The burners came on in a double explosion, and the ASV swept its wings and flung itself into a vertical climb.

“It’s following!” Flacht called, staring at his display. “I’m still jamming, but it’s ignoring it. No … it’s altered course slightly … now it’s back on … ughh!”

Flacht grunted as Hohendorf cut the throttles, and pulled on the stick. The ASV began spreading its wings even as it came tightly over onto its back and began plunging seawards. When it was vertical, Hohendorf quarter-rolled to the right and pulled at the stick again. As the G symbol on the HUD
counted upwards, he eased on the stick, and again slammed the throttles into combat burner. The wings began sweeping back and the Tornado continued to hurtle towards the sea at 90 degrees to its original heading.

“It’s wondering what’s happened,” Flacht was calling. “Sorting itself out … it’s coming! We’ve got seconds, Axel.
Do
something!”

Hohendorf said nothing. He was busy. The sea was getting closer.

“It’s nearly here!”
Flacht shouted, and hit the chaff dispenser.

As the cloud of metal strips billowed behind and to one side of the aircraft, Hohendorf cut the throttles and pulled hard on the stick. The Tornado began to spread its wings, brought its nose up and leaped skywards. Again the throttles went forward and again the wings moved themselves to full sweep as the speed built. The Tornado screamed towards the heavens. They had cleared the sea by fifty feet.