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  “We’ve received no response from your contact. You have authorization to fly by those helos, attempt once more to make contact yourselves. Instruct them to turn around—but do not engage unless fired upon, over.”

  “Roger that, Igloo Base. If they fail to comply, we’d like authorization to engage, over.”

  “Understood, Siren. Just let ’em know we’re here first.”

  “Roger that, Igloo Base, descending to intercept those helos. Ghost Hawk, you ready?”

  “Oh, yeah, Siren.”

  “Just follow me. This’ll be . . . interesting.”

  With that, she broke from her hover, jamming the stick forward and diving, the Pratt & Whitney engine thundering behind her with a force that crept into her gut, energized her, made her feel powerful beyond measure.

  There was no darkness. Infrared peeled back the night to reveal the helicopters, flying in two clusters about three choppers abreast, spread far enough apart to be engaged individually.

  Halverson took her bird straight down toward the lead three helos, diving directly in front of them, just fifty meters ahead.

  She could only imagine the looks on those Russian pilots’ faces as their radars went wild, their canopies lit up, and they were suddenly buffeted by her jet wash—

  Only to be hit again two seconds later by Boyd’s exhaust.

  Screaming toward the mottled carpet of snow and trees below, Halverson pulled up and banked right, while instructing Boyd to bank left. They both came up, then suddenly went back to hover mode, floating there at one thousand feet, on either side of the column of Ka-29s as they advanced.

  “Russian helos, this is Joint Strike Force Fighter Siren, do you copy, over?

  Halverson’s pulse raced.

  “Here they come,” said Boyd.

  Tactical data links transmitted every reading from the instruments onboard their fighters back to Igloo Base and to every JSF tactical and strategic command post on the planet via the satellite links. At any time, any operations XO could tap in to her cockpit to see what she was doing.

  That Mr. Network-Centric Big Brother was always watching did unnerve Halverson, and there had been lots of talk among pilots of deliberately switching off certain systems at certain times. Since the war had broken out, the concept of network-centric operations (NCO) had proven a first step at dissipating some instances of the “fog of war,” in which communication breakdowns and poor information handling resulted in heavy losses. However, when misinformation did get into the system, it flowed like a virus and was hard to stop.

  For now, though, the information coming at Halverson was pretty damned obvious and accurate. The Russians had no intentions of stopping.

  “Russian helos, this is Joint Strike Force Fighter Siren. You have crossed into Canadian airspace and are instructed to turn back, over.”

  Halverson waited a moment, then repeated the same instructions in Russian. Her language skills weren’t great, but her pronunciation was clear enough for them to understand—if they were willing to listen.

  She also wondered about the Canadian response. They had adamantly maintained their neutrality in the war, though it wasn’t beyond imagination that they might court the Russians for some “diplomatic” purpose.

  For all Halverson knew, these helos could be en route to a southern location at the invitation of the Canadian government; if that were the case, it would have been nice to inform the JSF of their little visit.

  But what kind of drinking party were the Canadians throwing that required the Russians to come in forty helos? If crates of vodka and droves of loose women weren’t on the list, Halverson doubted they would attend.

  “Igloo Base, this is Siren, over.”

  “Go ahead, Siren.”

  “We buzzed the helos and are hovering at one thousand as they approach. No response to our requests, over.”

  “Roger that, Siren. Just maintain—”

  “Siren!” cried Boyd. “Rockets incoming. Jesus—”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Halverson caught the flash of a bright light, and just as she throttled up—

  More unguided rockets fired from the lead choppers tore through her wake.

  “Siren, this is Ghost Hawk! Jesus, damn it, I’m hit! I’m hit! Got a fire. Electrical failures. Damage to left wing. I saw the radar warning, and I just didn’t believe it! Losing control!”

  “Eject! Eject!”

  Halverson climbed over the swarm of choppers to look down upon the scene, spotting Boyd’s fighter beginning to drop like a rock, nose tipping down.

  “Boyd, get out of there!”

  He was at about one hundred and fifty knots when a tiny flash erupted, and the canopy tumbled away. Then the ejection seat fired, and out came Boyd, with approximately eight hundred feet between himself and the ground below.

  Halverson wished she had time to see if he was okay, but the rage inside—awakened by the audacity of these Russians—launched her into action. She wheeled around, brought the jet into another hover, pivoted toward the helos.

  Speed and maneuver. Speed and maneuver . . .

  She had missile lock. There was no thinking it over or calling to base for authorization. And there were no second thoughts.

  The two wingtip-mounted AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles exploded away from her jet, using a passive IR target acquisition system to home in on infrared emissions. They each raced toward a chopper in the lead group, leaving glowing white tendrils of smoke in their wake.

  “Igloo Base, this is Siren. Ghost Hawk has ejected! Can’t see if he’s on the ground yet! I’ve engaged the helos, over!”

  “Roger that, Siren.”

  Twin booms shone in her display, the fireballs expanding then plummeting toward the icy deck.

  Two Ka-29s down.

  Thirty-five? Thirty-six to go?

  She’d exhaust everything she had, she didn’t care.

  But first she had to find Boyd, see if he made it, and if he did, be sure those bastards weren’t trying to finish the job.

  His beacon shone in one of her displays, as the choppers below scattered like bees being swatted, spreading out, gaining altitude, while a few pilots descended even lower.

  Two of the choppers banked hard, coming around to engage her as she hovered above them.

  Rockets flashed from their underwing pods. She rolled to her left, even as she engaged her four-barreled GAU-22/A gun mounted in a teardrop pod along the jet’s aft center pylon, the four barrels bound in one spinning cylinder.

  Armor-piercing discarding sabot with tracer rounds leapt out ahead of her fighter at a rate of forty-two hundred per minute, chewing into the first chopper’s canopy amid a flurry of sparks and the laser-like streaks drawn by the tracers.

  She shifted fire to the next helo, more rounds drumming along its side as the pilot attempted to evade.

  The first chopper began to fall away, out of control, smoke pouring from the shattered cockpit. And suddenly, the second one joined the first, rolling away, trailing more smoke.

  She carried only two hundred and twenty rounds of ammo for the gun despite its cyclic rate of fire, and she had already blown through half. Damn it. The cost of being trigger-happy.

  There were two more Sidewinders in her internal bays, along with two AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons for hitting hardened surface targets. She also had a pair of five-hundred-pound JDAM bombs under the wings, but they wouldn’t help unless those helos put down. Finally, she had a pair of laser-guided training rounds they were supposed to use in a couple of days.

  Boyd’s fighter had crashed just ahead, the flames still soaring skyward; he had drifted downwind about a half kilometer farther south.

  “Ghost Hawk, this is Siren, you copy, over?”

  No response.

  “Igloo Base, this is Siren. No contact from Ghost Hawk on the ground. Four choppers engaged and destroyed, over.”

  “Roger that, Siren. You’re ordered to return to base, over.”

  “Negative, Iglo
o Base. I’m not leaving until I can confirm if Ghost Hawk made it or not, over.”

  “Stand by, Siren . . .”

  Well, she’d stand by, all right, but not without unleashing her last two Sidewinders.

  The helos, now much more spread apart, maintained their southerly course, a speckled field of potential targets glowing on her display.

  “Here you go,” she whispered. “Eat this.”

  Dinner was, in fact, served, a late-night course of explosives delivered with blinding efficiency.

  The bay doors swung open, and the rockets spat from the warplane’s belly, arrowing through the night.

  She throttled up once more, dove, and came in for a final run with guns—

  Even as the two Sidewinders slammed into their targets, sending debris and flaming bodies hurtling outward in all directions.

  Not liking her current angle, she drove the stick left, banking hard, the fighter riding the cold air as though racing on rails. She came back around, diving once more, and squeezed the trigger, targeting another chopper from behind until its engine flared and died.

  Then she ceased fire, lined up on the next bird and squeezed the trigger, more rounds streaking away.

  But in a few seconds, the gun went dead, out of ammo, and the chopper was still flying.

  “JSF fighter plane, this is American Eagle, over.”

  Halverson gasped. She knew that call sign but could hardly believe it. The President of the United States was on the radio.

  “American Eagle, this is Siren, go ahead, over.”

  “Major, what am I looking at here?”

  “Sir, those blips on the screen are approximately thirty to thirty-five Russian Ka-29 troop transport helos on a southerly heading. I’ve taken out seven of them, damaged an eighth, but I’ve exhausted my ammo. They fired upon us first, sir. I lost my wingman, who ejected, and I want to fly over the crash site and see if he made it.”

  “Can you do that without losing your bird?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you’ve got my permission. Major, you’re looking at them. What do you think they’re up to?”

  “Sir, I honestly have no idea. But I’d recommend calling the Canadians to get some people up here ASAP.”

  “Roger that, Major. Good work. I hope your wingman made it.”

  “Thank you, sir, Siren out.”

  She shuddered as she realized she had just had a conversation with the president! Damn, whatever was happening had to be huge.

  With a hard blink, she brought herself back to the moment. The enemy helos passed over the crash site and continued on as she descended behind them, homing in on Boyd’s beacon.

  She slowed as she got on top of the signal, spotted one chute, tangled and whipping in the breeze, still attached to the ejection seat. She wheeled around once more and slowed to a complete hover, keeping a wary eye on the radar while searching for Boyd and his chute.

  “Ghost Hawk, this is Siren, over.”

  Come on, Jake. Be there . . .

  FOURTEEN

  After President Becerra finished speaking with that fighter pilot up in the Northwest Territories, he took a video call from the Canadian prime minister, Robert Emerson. He’d met Emerson on several occasions, an elder statesman who was about as low-key and conservative as they came.

  Which was why Becerra was taken aback by Emerson’s immediate hostility. “Just what the hell is going on up there, Mr. President!”

  “I don’t have all the details yet. What I do know is that thirty to forty Russian helos are moving south toward Yellowknife. They fired on two of our fighters training up there. In the meantime, they knocked out a couple of our satellites over the Arctic, and I’ve lost contact with one of my subs up there.”

  “I warned you what would happen if this war came to Canada.”

  “Prime Minister, it’s not a coincidence that they’re moving toward Alberta. I told you this day would come,” Becerra reminded him.

  “And I told you they wouldn’t dare,” Emerson snapped.

  “Four years ago, on the day the Saudis and Iranians exchanged nuclear weapons, Canada became the home of the world’s largest oil reserve.”

  “Our bitumen is still more expensive to produce, and the Russians have exploited the European markets far better than we have.”

  “But they know we’re not entirely dependent upon them anymore. And they know what will happen if we’re allowed to continue exploiting this reserve.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Prime Minister, how long did you think the Russians would let you control the supply? If this is the prelude to a major invasion, then you’ve got a very important decision to make. But I’ll say this: it is in the best interests of the United States to have you in charge of those reserves. If the Russians attempt to take that power from you, I’ll have no choice but to send in my troops. Join us,” Becerra urged.

  “We can’t support this war. We don’t believe in it. Our economy cannot suffer that kind of blow.”

  “Then watch from the sidelines, as you have been. But when the time comes, don’t stop us. Turning on each other is exactly what the Russians want us to do. It’s exactly what they tried to do between us and the Euros.”

  “If I allow you on my soil, they’ll consider that aiding and abetting.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  Emerson sighed explosively. The Prime Minister raked fingers through his thinning white hair. “Mr. President, please keep me informed the minute you know more.”

  “Of course. And if you want to mobilize your military for a training exercise, I’m sure no one would stop you.”

  “One more thing, Mr. President. If the Russians are coming in by helicopter, they had to have used carriers or some other ships.”

  “That’s why I’m trying to reestablish contact with my submarine. They might be able to confirm that.”

  “Meaning your submarine was operating illegally in our waters.”

  “Let’s not go there. The debate whether the Northwest Passage waters are international or Canadian is irrelevant right now. There are only four words that are important to us: the Russians are coming.”

  “Mr. President,” called Chief of Staff Hellenberg from across the aisle. “Sorry to interrupt you, but General Kennedy is on the line.” Hellenberg’s expression said it all.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, I have to go, but myself or a member of my staff will update you as soon as we know more.”

  With that, Becerra, ended the call and switched to the other video line. “You don’t look happy, General.”

  “No, sir. It seems we’re backed into a corner on this one. We’ve attempted several different scenarios, but at this point, the ANGELS satellite has attached itself to the ISS. No communication at all from the crew inside. We suspect that the Russians have already killed the Japanese and Brazilian crew members. The ISS will be within range of one of our kinetic energy platforms in approximately fifteen minutes. The Russians could destroy that platform,” she pointed out. Unnecessarily.

  “Understood.”

  “All I need is authorization from you.”

  Becerra rubbed the corners of his eyes, took a deep breath. “You have it, General. Take out the station.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll connect you in to the platform’s cameras.”

  Hellenberg came over and stood behind Becerra. “I’m sorry, Mr. President.”

  “For what?”

  “For this difficult decision you’ve had to make.”

  “It’s cut-and-dried now, Mark.”

  Voices of the ANGELS satellite controllers sounded in the background as an image of the ISS, floating over the blue globe of Earth, dominated the screen. They had a spectacular view of the station and listened as one controller, in a cool, even voice finished his sentence with the words, “. . . and detonate . . .”

  A small flash came from the underside of the station, followed by a much larger, more orange explosion haloed in white-hot
specks.

  The station’s long, rectangular arrays, perhaps its most prominent and memorable feature, suddenly broke away and began tumbling end over end, as the rest of the laboratories and connecting modules began their own strangely graceful ballet, moving with underwater slowness in the vacuum of space.

  General Kennedy returned to the screen. “Sir, the threat has been eliminated. Now I suggest we turn our attention to the next one.”

  “Those helos up in Canada.”

  “That’s right. But sir, we count more than sixty heavy Russian transport aircraft with fighter escorts lifting off from every air base along the east coast of the country. Could be one or more brigades, with accompanying vehicles. We believe they’ll put down just north of Alberta.”

  “Let’s get some fighters up there to stop them.”

  “There are far too many aircraft, and many of our units in Alaska have been deployed to Europe. The squadrons we do have are already in the air.”

  Becerra held back a curse. “Kapalkin has been working on this one for a long time, carefully weakening us, spreading us out too far.”

  “Well, as we like to say, Mr. President, the balloon is going up. At the very least, we’d like to get boys from the Tenth Mountain up there, along with some Marines from Pendleton. And we have a Stryker Brigade in Alaska we’ll bring down, along with another one we’ll bring up from Fort Lewis, so long as you can work out a deal with the prime minister.”

  “What about air strikes?”

  “They’ll have limited effect, because if we’re right, the Russians will be attempting to seize key infrastructure, pipelines, refineries, and so on, intact. We can’t risk damaging those facilities, so for the most part, we’ll be on the ground, with close air support at our shoulders. We’ll need to hold back on the bombers and kinetic energy weapons as our very last resorts.”

  “I think the prime minster would agree.”

  She smiled crookedly. “Mr. President, I also have to point out that the Russians could cut off their noses to spite their faces.”

  “You mean if they can’t control the Alberta reserves—”

  “They’ll destroy them. In fact, if those inbound Russian aircraft were bombers, we’d assume that’s the mission. Still could be.”