The man in the leather coat was stretched out in the middle of the Prospekt, his head distorted almost beyond recognition. Klavdia’s 7.62 x 54 hollow-point had done its usual number and stopped him dead. The traffic was gently steering around the body, slowing down to see what was happening. Russia, Evans reflected, was getting more like America every day.
The militiaman went over to the body very cautiously and looked. Then he waved Evans over. Hanging from the man’s jacket was a simple plunger switch, the type seen on lamps in every home. The man’s coat had folded back and they could see the vest underneath, loaded with sticks of explosive. Construction dynamite by the look of it. People were beginning to edge closer to look and the militiaman ordered them back sharply. Then, one of the onlookers recognized Klavdia and “its Kalugina” was whispered through the crowd. Being married to a national war-hero had its problems Evans thought.
“There is a telephone in the restaurant, militiaman. Please feel free to use it. The Federal Security Service will wish to investigate this. And enjoy your free slice.” It was a rule Evans had laid down for all his Pizza-Dacha restaurants. Any militiaman who came in wearing uniform was entitled to a free slice. It was a very low-cost way of ensuring that the militia would be on hand to deal with any trouble that arose. Yes, Russia was becoming more like America every day.
RB-5MC “Marisol”, over the Palestine coast, just south of Gaza.
They were on the last, and most important, leg of the flight now. They’d made their landfall just north of Beirut and run south from there. The first real information they’d picked up was around Yaffo, there were a lot of emitters that had tracked them but no hostile fire control radars had lit up. Still, Yaffo had been a lot busier than anybody had expected, Kozlowski had a hunch a second big base complex was going to be built there. Now they were running past the existing complex at Gaza. At 511 knots and 40,000 feet up, both Kozlowski and Marisol were uncomfortable, Kozlowski because the low speed and altitude put them at much greater risk, Marisol because her engines were optimized for the colder, thinner air higher up.
“More search radar emissions, Mike.” Xav Dravar was reporting from the Electronics Pit aft. “All are long-range search emissions, no target acquisition or fire control radars yet. There are a lot of search radars here though, including a couple we haven’t seen before. The Caffs have at least three new toys down there. I’m recording the signals for the brainiacs back home.”
“Mike, why in hell are we down here, we can do this job better from 60,000?”
“According to the ‘Rules of Engagement’ we are only allowed a single pass so we have to get as much information as possible in that pass. So the authors specified we fly low. Oh, by the way, we can’t change routes between missions, each recon flight had to follow the same path. Don’t say it, you can’t say anything I haven’t already thought. This whole situation is crazy.”
Marisol continued cruising south, soon she would make her turn and start to run along the Sinai coast before going home.
Missile Base Sirius, South of Gaza, Palestine Province, The Caliphate
Oberleutnant Hans Engstrom watched the aircraft approaching on his search radar scan. It had been tracked south ever since it had crossed The Caliphate coast in Lebanon Province. Now it was passing over Gaza. The initial identification had been an American recon aircraft but the flight path was all wrong. About 13,000 meters up and about 900 kilometers per hour. Too low and slow for one of the Americans. Or maybe not, it could be one of the old B-60s, the speed and altitude were about right for that. Just possibly a B-52. A few years ago it could have been a Navy A3D but they’d all gone now, they’d been replaced by the sleek Vigilantes. Perhaps it was time to have a look.
The battery was equipped with the latest version of the Chipanese-designed Hiryu surface-to-air missile. The missile itself was good enough but its guidance system was all too vulnerable to electronic countermeasures. The Chipanese had come up with a solution for that. Their Navy had always been advanced in its production and use of optical equipment, rangefinders, telescopes, binoculars. That background had been used to create an optical system that could track a target without using the fire control radar. The optics were coupled to television cameras so that the image they obtained was displayed on screen in the command van.
It was far from being a perfect system. It couldn’t be used at night, it couldn’t be used against very fast or high-flying targets and it wasn’t that accurate but this target was within its capabilities. Engstrom switched the system on, after a second or two it warmed up and an image appeared on the screen. Empty sky. The field of vision of the tracking head was very narrow and actually framing an aircraft in it first time was virtually impossible.
Nobody said life had to be easy. The optical tracking head was controlled by a stick, just like the control column on an aircraft. Engstrom panned around a bit then caught something and focused in on it. He’d been lucky, normally the optical head couldn’t scan fast enough to track one of the American aircraft but this one was moving slowly. Then he caught his breath. Delta wings, four engines. It was one of the American’s vaunted SAC RB-58s. Why in hell was it moving so slowly? He flipped another switch in the control console. Now the fire control radar was aligned with the optical tracking head, he had a radar fix even without turning the set on.
“Fire a missile. Shoot the Satan down.” The Mullah in the control center had the petulant expression of a sulking child. A very dangerous, sulking child. Engstrom thought as he looked at the display. It was a SAC bomber, from the people who had burned his country off the map. Engstrom’s family had come from Gutersloh, one of the cities the Americans had annihilated. There was nothing substantial left of Gutersloh or the people in it. The city itself was just ruins and a cobalt-blue circular lake. And the people? There were less than a dozen survivors of Gutersloh, none of them known to Engstrom. It wasn’t unusual of course, there were 200 other cities in Germany that looked exactly the same way. SAC had destroyed Germany so thoroughly, some people even tried to erase the name. The French never used it, they called Germany Nafoco. The Nameless Former Country. And it was SAC that was responsible.
“Wait, wait, they are still on the edge of our engagement zone, if we fire now they can evade us easily. If they carry on their present course, they’ll be in our no-escape zone very soon. So have patience.”
The Mullah stamped away, pacing the command post with his frustration. SAC’s bombers were an offense against divine will, they were the tools of Satan, they needed to be destroyed at every opportunity.
At the missile control console, Engstrom manipulated the control of his optical head very carefully. He had the system on maximum magnification now and the field of vision was very, very narrow. If he sneezed or twitched or breathed wrongly, he’d lose the picture and he wouldn’t be able to get it back. As it was, he had the silver bomber framed in the picture and the radar fire control system was slaved to it. Any second now, his finger went out to the switches that fired the missile. One armed the weapon, that had already been activated. It just needed one squeeze to fire.
RB-58C “Marisol”, over the Palestine coast, just south of Gaza.
“Still no target acquisition or fire control signatures Mike. A lot of general surveillance radars though. Two more lit up just a minute or so ago. There’s a whole scramble down in the port, our ESM system isn’t precise enough to split them apart. Probably the ships in the harbor, maybe even navigation radars for the harbor itself.”