Eagle Station

“Caution, multiple airborne L-band and X-band passive phased-array radars detected at five o’clock,” their computer reported suddenly. “Estimated range is one hundred and eighty miles. Detection probability at this altitude is currently nil.”

Nadia leaned forward in her right-hand seat. She pulled up a menu on her threat-warning display, watching while the computer compared the signatures of those radar emissions against its database. “The radar signatures match the Zaslon-M system,” she told him.

Brad nodded tightly. Zaslon-Ms were the powerful radars carried by Russia’s upgraded MiG-31BM interceptors. And their pre-mission intelligence brief had identified the Foxhound regiment stationed at Kansk-Dalniy as the most serious potential threat in this area. “Those guys are hellishly quick off the mark.”

“Too quick,” Nadia said quietly.

Normally it took more time to prep modern fighter aircraft for a combat sortie. Which meant the Russians had those planes armed up and ready to fly long before they’d tangled with those helicopters near the LZ. Brad grimaced. “You ever get the uncomfortable feeling that the bad guys are reading our minds?”

“Marshal Leonov is not a fool,” Nadia agreed. She checked her threat-warning display again. By tracking small changes in the enemy radars’ observed bearing and signal strength, her computer could estimate the heading and speed of those still-distant MiG-31 fighters. “I count four MiGs coming our way,” she reported. “Probable speed is eight hundred knots. They’re supersonic.”

“Okay, that is definitely not good,” Brad admitted. He rolled back left to steady up heading due north again. If nothing changed, those Russian fighter jets were going to be right on top of them in thirty minutes or less. Staying low in all this ground clutter would significantly decrease the range at which the enemy’s phased-array radars could detect and track their stealthy Rustler — maybe even down to ten or fifteen miles. But it wouldn’t make them completely invisible, not on radar, not against infrared search and track systems, and certainly not against the Mark I eyeball. The XCV-70’s black radar-absorbent coating made excellent camouflage at night. In daylight it would stand out like a sore thumb.

“Then what can we do?” Nadia asked after he ran through his reasoning with her.

“Well, when I was a kid, the first rule of hide-and-seek was never to be where the other guy figured you’d be,” Brad said with a quick, slashing grin. He toggled a control on his stick. “DTF disengaged.”

He pulled back slightly and to the left. They climbed to a thousand feet and rolled into a turn to the northwest, then leveled off. Ahead through the canopy, the broad blue curve of the Yenisei River stretched across the horizon. “I figure it’s high time we shook the dust off those big new engines of ours,” he said, advancing his throttles all the way forward. “Let’s take this baby supersonic.”

The roar of their turbofan engines deepened and grew louder. Their airspeed rose, climbing steadily past 500 knots, beyond Mach 1, and up to 750 knots. As they accelerated, forested hills and valleys seemed to leap toward them, rushing past and below on either side of the cockpit. Only a couple of minutes later, they streaked back over the Yenisei — crossing the mile-wide river in less than five seconds.

“We are burning a lot of fuel,” Nadia warned, studying her system readouts.

Brad nodded. Running their low-bypass Affinity engines at supersonic speeds increased the XCV-70’s fuel consumption by around 50 percent. That was a hell of a lot more efficient than older jet engines that had to go to afterburner to hit supersonic speeds… but it was still a heavy drain on their reserves.

Based on the mission flight plan he’d worked out before they took off from Yellowknife, he could only kick the Rustler above Mach 1 for twenty-five to thirty minutes, tops. Since their fuel consumption on the high-altitude flight into Russia had been lower than predicted, he thought he could eke out another couple of minutes of supersonic flight if necessary. But pushing much beyond those limits increased the chances that their fuel tanks would run dry somewhere over the Arctic. And since a crash landing out on the polar ice was practically the textbook definition of a “non-survivable aviation event,” that seemed like a really bad idea.

“We’ll stay supersonic just long enough to put us out pretty far ahead and off to the west of our predicted track,” Brad promised. “With luck, that’ll fox those MiG-31 pilots. For a while, anyway.”