North Cape

A quick scan of the radar panels indicated that there had been no unusual air activity recorded in the nine minutes he had been below forty thousand feet. But deep in the valley as he had been, his radar was shadowed by the hills to the east. He considered a moment, then pulled the nose up sharply and cut in afterburners. He came out of the shallow valley, clearing the hills like a rocket. In less than thirty seconds he had passed sixty thousand feet and switched the engines to ramjet. The sudden explosion of thrust kicked him back into the acceleration couch. The pressure suit accommodated itself to the change caused by the sudden acceleration while the PCMS adjusted stimulant flows. Off to the east, the surveillance radar had two Chinese Migs spotted, heading for the broad valley. As he climbed, the Chinese pilots, now far below, pulled up sharply, caught by his surprise exit. They chased him upward for a short while, but by the time they reached_ sixty thousand feet he was leveling off at 120,000. Teleman caught the flicker of air-to-air missiles reaching for him as the Chinese aircraft tried a last frantic measure to bring him down. But there was never a chance. There would be, he knew, some soul-searching at their intelligence headquarters later on — if the pilots were believed. There would certainly be no radar sightings to confirm their story and the Thoughts of Mao would provide no sensible answers. Teleman grinned to himself as the A-17 pulled out of the climb and settled into a searchand-photograph flight mode, then turned to the monitoring console to run through the information the sensors had so far picked up. As the data, reduced to language forms and equations, streamed across the screen, he found more information than he had hoped for. The laser topographical radar had managed to build a thorough map of the war area. Also spotted were several Soviet and Red Chinese missile installations that he suspected were previously unknown to U. S. Intelligence. Near the town of Lepsinsk on the Kazakh SSR side, a cleared site with camouflaged bunkers betrayed a VTOL fighter airdrome.. That meant that the Soviets had moved their air operations closer to the border than had been suspected. The vertical takeoff and landing fighters were limited in operating range, but they were Mach 2.1 fighters and could react and be over the selected target or engagement in a lot less time than conventional jet aircraft. By moving them into the area around Lepsinsk, the Soviets could meet the threat of the heavy Chinese airbase at Nordach, located well into the jut of the Sinkiang border, from which they could bring fighter bombers within striking distance of Alma Alta.

The IR sensors had located vehicle weapon parks on both sides of the border, including a number of heavy artillery sites, well dug in and virtually invulnerable to counterartillery attacks. Both sides had prepared well, Teleman thought, and obviously for a number of years. Much of the fighting on the plateau would have to be done by infantry troops supported by aircraft. It, was still short of o800, local time, only forty minutes after local sunrise. Except for probing patrol actions, the bulk of the day's fighting was probably still to come.

The action earlier in which the two Soviet troop carriers had been knocked out would furnish ample evidence that a shooting war was actually going on. That revelation would make quite a stir in the United Nations, particularly to certain neighboring and nervous countries. The more sophisticated nonvisual sensor data would be pored over eagerly by the attaches of many nations. But the dangerous information, the data that really counted, lay safely in the atmosphere-sampling tanks. Either gas or bacteriological agents, it would make no difference. Either would be enough to bring world condemnation of the Red Chinese, even by nations friendly to her. It was doubtful if their usual pattern of denial would avail them in this instance. The doubt would be there, and there would be calls for an international monitoring team. And the evidence could not be hidden. Teleman was well pleased with the morning's work. And so would Washington be.