Arctic Storm Rising Dale Brown (literature books to read TXT) 📖

ordinary background noise in the electromagnetic spectrum. But harder wasn’t the same thing as impossible.

Deep in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

That Same Time

Alexei Petrov followed Bondarovich into the aircraft shelter at a run. Inside, the hanging lanterns used to provide illuminationswayed crazily in swirling currents of freezing air. Distorted shadows danced across the fabric walls and hard-packed snowfloor. Wind-whipped ice crystals spattered against the parked PAK-DA bomber’s wing and fuselage.

Petrov stared up at the shelter’s roof and swore. More of the camouflage cloth panels had ripped loose. Still attached atone end, they flailed wildly in the blizzard. Straps that had tied the panels to overhead aluminum trusses whipped back andforth from the loose side of each panel. He grabbed Bondarovich’s shoulder and pointed upward, screaming into the other man’sear to be heard over the shrieking wind. “Get your men! All of them! Bunin, too! If we don’t tie those damned panels backin place, this fucking storm will tear the whole shelter to pieces!” He shoved the ex-Spetsnaz soldier back toward the outside.“Move, damn it!”

The other man nodded anxiously. He turned and plunged back into the maelstrom outside.

Petrov scrambled up a ladder and out onto the PAK-DA bomber’s wing. His boots might damage a few sections of the plane’s advanced, radar-absorbent skin, but that was nothing compared to what would happen if the shelter came apart around it. Even an hour or two of exposure to subzero temperatures, hundred-kilometer winds, and blowing snow and ice could render the aircraft completely unflyable. Frantically, he grabbed for one end of a strap as it snapped through the air, and missed.

Again and again, he tried to get a hold on one of the flailing straps and failed. His face darkened in fury. To come so closeto changing the world forever and then to be defeated by a wind-whipped piece of cloth? How his father must be laughing athim, he thought grimly. Laughing at him out of the icy depths of hell.

Twenty-Eight

Over the Brooks Range, Northern Alaska

A Short Time Later

Connor “Doc” McFadden eyed the green diamond in the center of his HUD. It marked the radar-designated position of the Tu-142reconnaissance aircraft they were heading toward at high speed. Glowing numbers next to the diamond showed the range countingdown fast. They were now only about forty nautical miles apart, less than two minutes out at their present closure rate. Timeto slow that down a little, he thought, especially since the sky over this part of the mountains was a wall-to-wall winterstorm front marked by masses of dark cumulonimbus clouds soaring tens of thousands of feet above the ground. Getting any kindof visual lock on that big Russian turboprop was going to be tough in the present circumstances—and it would be impossibleif they blitzed right past each other at twelve hundred–plus knots.

“Casino Two, Lead,” he radioed to Cat Parilla. The lieutenant’s F-22 was positioned a few hundred yards off his right wingand about a thousand feet higher. Sometimes he could see her aircraft visually. Sometimes he couldn’t. Visibility droppedto near zero whenever they punched through one of the towering cloud masses. “Let’s rein it in some, to avoid an overshoot.”

“Copy that,” his wingman replied. “Getting to be kind of a rough ride up here, anyway.” Strong turbulence and winds were pummeling the two fighters, subjecting them to sudden jolts and buffets, especially insidethe clouds.

“Yeah, I hear you, Cat,” McFadden agreed. “Easing off, now.” He pulled back on his throttles, simultaneously banking leftand right in a flat scissors to shake off even more airspeed. Alerted by the data link connecting their two Raptors, Parillafollowed his maneuvers. Gradually, both F-22s slowed their headlong rush, dropping from more than 900 knots to around 450.

McFadden checked the diamond icon in his HUD again. It hadn’t budged an inch to either side. That Tu-142 was still flyingstraight on, showing absolutely no sign of turning back out of U.S. airspace. And by now, those Russians must know they wereabout to be intercepted by a pair of American jets. Their APG-77s had been locked on to the slower turboprop for several minutes,giving its crew plenty of time to realize they were being painted by radar. One more thing was certain. Wherever those hypotheticalSu-35 escorts were, they certainly weren’t hiding in that recon plane’s radar shadow. At this range, any Russian fightersthere would have stood out like deer caught in a pair of high-beam headlights.

It was high time he and Cat announced themselves, McFadden decided. He changed frequencies to the guard channel. “RussianTu-142 military aircraft, this is one of the American F-22 fighters headed your way. You are deep inside our airspace andviolating international law. Turn back now. Repeat, withdraw now. Radio your intention to comply with this order immediately,over.” He clicked off his mike and listened. For a few seconds, there was only the hiss of static.

“Russian Tu-142, you are violating—” McFadden started again, now allowing a distinctly hostile edge to creep into his voice.

“American F-22, this is the Russian Tu-142,” the other plane suddenly replied. “We regret that we are unable to comply with your request. We are only conducting a peaceful search for a missing aircraft—one of our polar research UAVs which may have strayed accidentally into this area. We have no hostile intent. Repeat, this is a peaceful search mission.”

McFadden scowled under his oxygen mask. Son of a bitch! These clowns were trying to play games. He stabbed his mike buttonagain. “Listen up, pal, I’m not ‘requesting’ a damned thing. You will turn around immediately and get the hell out of U.S.airspace as quickly as you entered it. Understood?”

 

Five thousand meters below and twenty kilometers ahead of the four-engine Tu-142, Major Vadim Kuryokhin shrugged his shoulders.There had never been any real chance that the Americans would let Zinchuk and his crew probe so deeply into their nationalterritory without interference. Or that they would buy the ridiculous cover story about some missing drone. This was goingto come down to a duel of pilot skill . . .