Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 by Dale Brown

Author:Dale Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Yakutsk, Siberia, Russian Federation

Several hours later

There was no sweeter sight in the entire world than when you broke out of a thick, angry overcast and saw the landing strip, especially through sheets of almost frozen rain pelting the windscreen. The pilot of the Russian Federation air force’s Ilyushin-78 aerial-refueling tanker breathed a sigh of relief that he was sure could be heard throughout his large, noisy aircraft. “Kalyosa, nizhniy,” he ordered, and the copilot grasped the large landing-gear lever, squeezed the unlock trigger, and lowered the lever. “Flaps to thirty. Ignition switches on.” He reduced power and aimed for the end of the runway as the copilot flipped his plastic-covered checklist pages to the “Aborted Landing” section, ready to read to the pilot in case a go-around was required. But it didn’t look as if it would be needed. The winds were right down the runway, and although the rain was falling pretty hard, restricting visibility, he had this landing nailed. “Unit Three-four-four, field in sight.”

“Unit Four-four, cleared to land, winds three-five-zero at eighteen gusting to twenty-two knots.” The pilot looked through the whipping rain and saw the steady green light from the tower cab, a visual indication that he was cleared to land.

“Acknowledged, cleared to land,” the pilot repeated. The young, easily excitable copilot looked immensely relieved—this had been one hell of a past couple days. It wasn’t just the attack against the United States that made it so amazing—the pilot still wasn’t convinced that that had been a wise move, but he had to give General Gryzlov credit for daring to twist the tiger’s tail like that.

No, not just to twist the tiger’s tail—to rip off the tiger’s legs and beat him with them!

What was really astonishing was the rapid and generational transformation of the Russian military, especially its air forces. No longer would Russia’s military strength rest with its ground and naval forces. The air forces had metamorphosed from a mere transportation-and-support group to a global, rapid-response, precision-striking force. Never before had the air forces been decisive in any battle—this was the first complete victory, and certainly not the last.

Yakutsk Air Base was the prototype of that incredible transformation. In the past, Russia had relied on enormous aircraft and many immense bases located throughout its vast territory to fuel its strike aircraft. Most of the bases east of the Urals had been abandoned, since most military leaders thought that the wastelands of Siberia represented more of an obstacle to be avoided or overflown rather than a target of conquest.

No longer. Aerial-refueling tankers ruled Siberia, and tankers led the way in this war against America and would lead the way for decades to come. With the fleet of late-model tankers Russia was developing, like this Ilyishin-78, the entire globe was truly within reach. There were a few bombers and fighters stationed at Yakutsk, as at every other Russian military base with enough concrete to park one, but here tankers ruled.

With Yakutsk’s tankers opening an air bridge between the

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