Fortunes of War by Stephen Coonts Page B

years, Cassidy. There’s not much I could tell you about this business that you don’t already know. I will try to get authorization to use the satellites.”
    â€œI’ll be lucky to bring half of them home.”
    â€œI’ll do the best I can. That’s all I can promise.”
    â€œThose who do come home—can we get back into the Armed Forces?”
    â€œI’ll get a letter to that effect from the president. I’m sure he’ll sign it.”
    â€œGood.”
    Then Tuck added softly, “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Colonel?”
    â€œI know one of the Zero pilots pretty well, General.”
    Stanford Tuck glanced at Eatherly, then cleared his throat. “After spending a year in Japan, I’d be surprised if you didn’t know several,” he said. “I hate to press you like this, but time is running out. Can you do this job?”
    â€œI can do it, General. My comment about the Zero pilot is personal. The job you are offering is professional, in the best interests of the United States. I know the difference. I just pray to God my friend lives through all this.”
    â€œI understand.” Tuck’s head moved a tenth of an inch. It was a tiny bow, Cassidy noted, startled.
    â€œColonel Eatherly will help you get the ball rolling,” the general said. “Let’s see what we can make happen.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Cassidy managed to say as Stanford Tuck stuck out his hand to shake.
    Tuck held his hand firmly and looked him in the eye. “Check six, Colonel. And remember what the Good Book says: When you’re in the valley, fear no evil.”

Chapter Six
    The first people in Siberia to discover something amiss were the radar operators at the Vladivostok airport, a facility the military shared with the occasional civil transports that had flown the length of Siberia or over the Pole. There weren’t many of those anymore. Fuel was expensive, money to maintain aircraft in short supply, and the navigation aids in the middle of the continent were not regularly maintained. Anything or anyone that really had to get to Vladivostok came by rail or sea. Still, the radars that searched the oceans to the east and south were in working order and operators were on duty, even at two o’clock in the morning, near the end of another short summer night.
    In Russia change occurred because the government agency responsible ceased paying the bills and, to survive, the people who had lived on that trickle of money wandered on to something else. Money to make the radars work still dribbled in occasionally from Moscow. The task of safeguarding Mother Russia was too sacred for any politician to touch.
    The only operator actually watching the screens was also perusing a card game that the other members of the watch section were playing. Occasionally, he remembered to glance at the screens. It was on one of these periscope sweeps that he saw the blip, to the south. Three minutes later, when the blip was still there, and closer, he called the supervisor to look. The supervisor put down his cards reluctantly.
    There were no aircraft scheduled to arrive from that direction—there were no aircraft at all scheduled to arrive in Vladivostok until the next afternoon—and repeated queries on the radio went unanswered. As the blip got closer, it separated into many smaller blips, apparently a flight of aircraft.
    The radar supervisor called the air defense watch officer on the other side of the base and reported the inbound flight, which would penetrate Russian airspace in about twelve minutes if it maintained the same course and speed.
    Two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters were in the usual alert status, whichmeant each was fully fueled and armed with four AA-10 Alamo missiles and a belt of shells for its 30-mm cannon. The ground crews were asleep in a nearby hut. The pilots, wearing flight suits, were playing chess in another nearby shack. Usually at