Eagle Station

Beneath his oxygen mask, Grigoryev scowled. This was getting ridiculous. Every time their radars seemed to get a grip on the enemy, the elusive American stealth aircraft somehow shook loose and vanished off their screens. “Keep on it, Alexey,” he ordered.

In response to his radioed reports, Moscow was vectoring the other two MiG-31s in to join the pursuit — but they were still hundreds of kilometers away. For all the help they could offer in this deadly aerial game of hide-and-seek, they might as well be sitting back on the runway at Kansk-Dalniy.

His two fighters should try to catch the Scion plane in a pincer move, he decided — separating and then closing in on any new radar contact from different directions. Stealth technology wasn’t a cloak of invisibility after all. So as the American pilot dodged away from one incoming MiG, the other Russian interceptor might find itself in a position to see it, lock on, and fire missiles.

Grigoryev clicked his mike. “Phantom Four, this is Three. Steer northeast for a minute and then come back in to the west. Let’s see if we can—”

“New contact at two o’clock!” Balandin’s startled call from the rear cockpit cut in.

Again a targeting diamond flashed onto Grigoryev’s HUD, this time in the upper right-hand corner. The Scion stealth aircraft had come up off the deck and was now a couple of thousand meters above them, he realized in surprise. Why? Climbing higher like this only made it easier for their radars to detect it and lock on. Unless—

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

The sudden shrill warning from their threat-warning sensors overrode conscious thought. Red threat icons speckled the upper right quadrant of his HUD.

“Missile attack!” Balandin yelled. “Multiple small bogies!” And then, “We’re being jammed! The radar display’s nothing but fucking green static!”

Reacting fast on trained instinct, Grigoryev yanked his stick hard left, hurling the big fighter into a high-G turn to the west. “Rudensky! Break left! Break left!”

Behind him, Balandin frantically jabbed at his multifunction displays to activate their countermeasures systems. Automated chaff dispensers fired, tossing cartridges into the air behind their MiG-31. They exploded, spewing thousands of Mylar strips across the sky to create false radar blooms that might lure away radar-guided missiles. A rippling curtain of decoy flares streamed out from under their fuselage, each momentarily brighter than the sun.

Straining against five times the force of gravity, Grigoryev suddenly saw two small gray blurs streak over his cockpit canopy. More enemy missiles! But these were coming from the wrong direction! From the southwest, not the northeast. Somehow the Americans had tricked them into turning directly into their real missile attack!

Desperately, he craned his head around — just in time to see Rudensky’s MiG-31 vanish in a blinding explosion. Trailing pieces of debris and wreathed in smoke and flames, the shattered aircraft tumbled toward the earth.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

“Christ!” Grigoryev yanked his stick back to the right… and a massive fireball exploded off their left wing.

The shock wave slammed the MiG-31 sideways. Red caution and warning lights lit up across the cockpit. His left engine was on fire! Desperately he punched controls — ordering the engine to shut down, cutting off the fuel flowing toward the flames, and triggering fire extinguishers.

Several of the red lights dimmed. The fire warning alarms went out.

Slowly, Grigoryev regained control over his tumbling fighter, sluggishly pulling it all the way through a complete 360-degree turn. With just one engine left, the huge, twin-tailed MiG wallowed through the air like a pig in deep mud.

“Our radar is back online,” Balandin said suddenly over the intercom. “New radar contact! Twelve o’clock low! At thirty kilometers! I have a lock!”

This time Grigoryev saw the enemy aircraft with his own eyes. Outlined against the vast green marshland below them, its black batwing shape was plainly visible. Without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger on his control stick — commanding his computer to fire the two-missile salvo he’d readied earlier.

One of the two R-37M radar-guided missiles dropped from under the MiG’s right wing and ignited. Riding a plume of fire and smoke, the huge four-meter-long missile slashed across the sky at six times the speed of sound. The second R-37 had been riddled by pieces of shrapnel when the American Sidewinder heat-seeker blew up. It detached, but its damaged rocket motor failed to light and it fell harmlessly toward the ground.