Arctic Storm Rising

“Colonel, that American AWACS plane is moving,” Sukachov reported again over the intercom. “Both the strength and bearing of its radar emissions have changed.”

“Moving where?” Zinchuk snapped.

“Due east from its previous position,” the Tu-142’s defense systems operator said.

Zinchuk frowned. “Heading back to its base?”

“No, sir,” Sukachov told him. “The E-3’s course would take it more southeast if that were the case. This looks like a change in deployment instead.”

“Is that usual?”

Sukachov hesitated and then admitted, “I’m afraid not, Colonel. In fact, it’s a definite departure from the standard operational patterns we’ve observed in the past.”

“Which could indicate that the Americans are onto us,” Zinchuk guessed.

“That is a possibility,” the other man said. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “If their AWACS plane continues eastward on its present heading, it will be in a position to detect us once we cross the coast and have to climb over the mountains.”

Zinchuk fought down the urge to rattle off a string of violent, profane curses. Doing so might make him feel better, but hearing their commander lose control of his temper would only unnerve the rest of the Tu-142’s eleven-man crew. As it was, several days of long, difficult patrols across the polar ice cap had already put them all on edge.

He winced. Had this hazardous, borderline insane flight just above the ice been for nothing? “How could the Americans know what we’re doing?” he demanded angrily. “Were we spotted by that fixed radar site at Barter Island?” On their present course, they were drawing ever closer to the American FPS-117 long-range array just off the Alaska mainland.

“No, sir,” Sukachov promised. “At this altitude, we’re still well below its horizon.”

Impatiently, Zinchuk forced himself to set aside the question of how the Americans apparently knew what they were doing. That was something for intelligence officers in Moscow to sort out later — once he and his crew returned and were debriefed. Maybe their plane had been spotted by an American spy satellite in orbit, as hard as that seemed to believe. Or maybe the CIA had its own spies inside the Ministry of Defense. What mattered now was that he do whatever was necessary to press onward with this risky reconnaissance mission… and to preserve whatever was left of their most important tactical surprise.

He glanced out the left side of the Tu-142’s cockpit. There, about a kilometer off his wing, he could just barely make out the needle-nosed profile of one of the two Su-35s assigned to escort him deep into the American interior. Between the fighter’s winter camouflage and blinding flurries of snow howling across the windswept ice, it was incredibly difficult to spot. Unfortunately, he knew, visual detection and radar detection were two very different things. Su-35s were incredibly agile combat aircraft, but they were not stealth fighters.

Nevertheless, Zinchuk thought, there were still a few tricks he could play to confuse the enemy’s radar picture. He keyed his mike. “Bodyguard Lead, this is Prospector. Close in on my aircraft. Tuck yourselves in as tight as you can, right behind each wing.”

“Prospector, Bodyguard,” he heard Major Kuryokhin reply. “Copy that. Moving into your shadow now.”

Zinchuk concentrated on holding the big reconnaissance plane straight and level while the two much-smaller jet fighters carefully maneuvered into position — closing on the Tu-142 until they were flying only a couple of dozen meters away on each side. With luck and skill, their smaller radar signatures would blend with that of the much-larger aircraft, presenting the Americans with what should appear on their screens as only a single bogey.

Several minutes later, Zinchuk heard Lieutenant Gorsheniov, the Tu-142’s navigator, call out over the intercom, “Feet dry!” They had just crossed the Alaska coast and were now back over land.

With a touch of weary cynicism, the colonel considered how little practical difference there was between the sea’s ice-covered expanses and the snow-and-ice-layered frozen tundra stretching ahead of them. Colliding with either surface — solid land or solid water — meant sudden death. Slowly, he pulled back on the yoke, bringing the Tu-142’s nose up a few degrees to begin a steady climb to higher altitude. The northernmost slopes of the rugged mountains making up the Brooks Range were only sixty kilometers away.