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The other man who had flown the plane compared it to a lighter, longer F/A-18; one of the engineers who’d been in the backseat thought it closer to an ancient F-104 Starfighter that could maneuver like an A-10A Warthog. Howe had flown the F/A-18 only once (it was a Navy plane) and had never sat in the cockpit of the Starfighter, which was retired long before he had joined the service. He’d also never flown an A-10A. His main comparison was therefore the heavily modified F-16 that he’d used to familiarize himself with the Berkut before strapping himself inside; the S-37/B was slightly faster and so twisty that it was easy for the plane to get ahead of the pilot during high-g maneuvers, becoming essentially uncontrollable. The nose of the plane had a tendency to shoot up during a hard turn, and despite all of the engineering it remained at least theoretically possible to jam the Berkut so tightly at high speed that the divergent forces of lift, gravity, and momentum would snap off the forward winglets.

  Master those forces, however, and the plane form had a great deal of potential. The Russians were trying to sell their version, somewhat tamed down, as a multitasking fighter-bomber. As a ground-pounder the plane carried more armor — a lot more armor — which not only increased its survivability but took just enough of the maneuverability away to make it safer to fly.

  Though much less fun.

  Howe wasn’t particularly concerned with the fun factor or even his version’s ultramaneuverability as he took off from Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. As the crow flew, he was roughly eight hundred miles from his destination, but he wasn’t a crow and he wasn’t going in a straight line. After a refuel over the Sea of Japan and a rendezvous with a pair of flight groups providing cover in case anyone was tracking him, Howe would tuck toward the waves and begin his weave over the border of Russia and down into North Korea. His flight path led through a poorly covered defense zone, well north of a cluster of radar units that would be scanning for an American intrusion. Flying along the northern border of the country, he would have to watch for Chinese as well as Korean air patrols, but this ought to be relatively easy, as neither country was in the habit of flying many nighttime sorties in the vicinity. Once past the border town of Hyesan, he would cut southwest through Yanggang Province for about fifty miles before zagging through the hills and landing at the air base.

  Ten minutes before he touched down, Howe would make a transmission in Russian indicating that he was experiencing engine problems. The SF team on the ground would hear the broadcast and relay a go/no-go via the satellite communications system to a mission coordinator orbiting far off the coast in an RC-135.

  There were three options, the call to be made by the ground team, which by now should be ringing the airfield and observing the nearby camp where the scientist was staying.

  The first plan, and the preferred option, had Howe landing and taxiing to the far end of the runway. The scientist would be waiting. Howe would help him aboard and then take off. They would fly out to the Sea of Japan, where he would meet a refueling jet. The Special Forces troops, meanwhile, would proceed back to a landing area near where they had parachuted; a pair of Ospreys would sneak through the radar-free corridor and pick them up two nights later. This was the preferred plan, and they would use it if the scientist left the camp where he was staying and went to the airport, as he had agreed to do via coded e-mail.

  Option two called for the Special Forces unit to attack the camp, locate the scientist, and proceed with him to the airfield. Howe would take off with the scientist; the SF team would then either make their way to the place they’d been dropped or go via a second route to the coast.

  Option three also called for an attack on the camp but involved a rescue package of MC-130s landing at the air base after Howe took off. In that case Howe would peel off west, covered by the escorts that came north with the cargo craft, and head to a South Korean base.

  In the pilot’s opinion, the choice was only between one and three: Shoot up anything on the ground and there was no way they were going to sneak out of North Korea.

  The Berkut would be visible on radar for about two minutes before he landed and after he took off, but in his opinion the real hassle was his fuel management, which was going to be tighter than tight. The refueling option at the base had been discarded because the scientist warned there was no source of jet fuel there.

  Howe checked his fuel state against the matrix and notes he’d prepared on his flight board. He seemed to be doing slightly better than anticipated, consuming less fuel than he’d used getting across the United States. The specially built GE engines were considerably more efficient than the Russian Saturn Al-31Fs, standard equipment on the Su-27. (Contrary to published reports, the Sukhoi’s power plants were used rather than Aviadvigatel D30-F6s from the MiG-31 Foxhound.) Still, there was no confusing the Berkut with the F/A-22V, which could fly halfway around the world and back on a tank of gas. The plane’s thin wings might help maneuvering, but they left little space for jet fuel. The fuselage on the American plane was actually a little bigger than the Russian model and added a bit more capacity, but the plane’s ferry range only topped two thousand miles with a good tailwind. So refueling was a necessity.

  Howe’s tanker was an ancient beast, a military version of Boeing’s venerable 707 that lumbered ahead, director lights glowing like the sign on a 7-Eleven as Howe ambled in for a Big Gulp. The Berkut’s fly-by-wire yoke-like the F-16 and F/A-22, it was a sidestick, mounted at the side of the pilot’s seat-sat easy in his hand as he moved into position behind the flying gas station. A pair of F-15s checked in over the horizon, playing their role in the elaborate game of cat and mouse concocted to keep Howe’s mission from being known.

  “Ivan One, you read us?”

  “Roger that, Rogue Flight.”

  “Juice up and let’s have at it,” said the F-15 pilot.

  Under other circumstances, the jocks might have exchanged some good-natured banter, but the normally loquacious Eagle pilots were under instructions to keep radio traffic to a minimum. The situation in Korea had the Eagles’ unit at its highest alert, and even though the men didn’t know what Howe’s mission was, they surely guessed at his destination.

  Even with all that, the flight leader couldn’t resist a whistle when he spotted Howe’s plane in the last rays of sunlight as he climbed through thirty thousand feet.

  “At you,” said Howe, initiating the mock encounter. He put the plane on its wing as the F-15s crisscrossed above him, one pursuing while the other orbited west. The brief tangle was over inside of two minutes — about as long as a real furball might have lasted. The two F-15s rocketed back and forth as Howe hit the deck outside of easy radar coverage. Within a few minutes they were headed toward Misawa Air Base. Their radio calls now referred to three flights, as would the landing instructions.

  A flight of F/A-22s made a radio call to an AWACS. Orbiting to the south of Howe’s course about seventy-five miles from the Korean coast, the interceptors were both decoys and emergency guard dogs: They and an AWACS plane operating to the east would watch for North Korean fighter action and would sprint to Howe’s aid if necessary.

  Howe, meanwhile, had nosed down below one hundred feet, clipping along close enough to sniff the foam from the waves. He checked his fuel — still doing good — checked the rest of his instruments, studied the radar warning receiver or RWR, reviewed his course. Everything was in the green.

  Nothing to do now but fly into the gathering darkness. And so he did.

  * * *

  Thirty-two minutes later Howe slid over the Russian coast, ducking past the blunt fingers of an early-warning radar and pushing into North Korean territory. While most of the North Korean radar system was aimed at Seoul and the coast, there were radars and some SAMs here and they couldn’t be ignored. Howe’s course had been painstakingly worked out to run through the gaps, but he had to fly very low, hiding the sharp corners of his aircraft in the clutter of radar returns thrown off by the ground. While Howe’s plane carried electronic countermeasures th
at could confuse the radars, using the jammers would be like turning a flashlight on in a darkened room: The Koreans would know he was there. And so he threaded a crooked needle as he flew, staying low and near mountainsides. The need to follow a precise course and the danger that he was in were a blessing in a way: They focused his thoughts entirely on his ship and what was around him. While immensely fatiguing, in another way the sheer concentration and immersion in what he was doing relaxed him. His muscles moved in an unconscious way, his eyes gathering data without conscious thought, his body and soul funneled into the moment. Waypoint after waypoint, Howe moved inextricably toward his goal. Nothing outside of the tense cocoon of his plane and the surrounding defenses disturbed him; the world consisted only of the Berkut and the people who would destroy it if they could.

  And then he was fifty miles from his destination, just under ten minutes from putting down.

  Howe checked the radio unit and broadcast the Russian message, which had been prerecorded on a special CD. Then he turned up the volume and double-checked that the radio was locked into the command frequency, ready to receive the signal on what to do.

  Chapter 19

  Dr. Park got up from the chair and went to the window, bending his head to look up at the sky past the nearby mountainside. A few faint stars glimmered in the darkness; he thought of the folktale about the cowherd and the weaver, the constellations separated by a father’s jealousy.

  Why was he here? The unit Dr. Park had been told he would help had not arrived; in fact, there were no more than a dozen men all told, if that. The camp seemed as forlorn as any Dr. Park had ever seen. The airfield a few miles away where the tests were supposed to be held was emptier still, abandoned for months if not years. The open hangar at the far end of the runway area held two small aircraft, the remains of a UAV project that until now Dr. Park had only heard rumors about, but the crews who cared for the planes, as well as the men who had developed them, were absent. The other buildings there were falling in on themselves.

  The buildings here were not much better. The rooms in his small bungalow smelled of mildew. A cook made meals only once a day; the rest of the time Dr. Park had to forage for food in the large kitchen in the administrative building, apparently as the others did. The few men he had contact with were young soldiers who answered questions with shrugs.

  Had he been sent here as punishment for Moscow?

  He did not think this could be so, for surely punishment would be more severe. It seemed more that he had simply been forgotten. He was free to wander back and forth and spend his hours playing one-man Ping-Pong against the folded side of a game table. A soldier or two was never far away — one had gone with him to the airfield the other day, and down the road for a walk the day before — but none ever stopped him.

  Most likely the situation was a product of the growing disarray in the country, the confusion between different branches and departments. Even in this isolated place Dr. Park saw it: A dignitary had arrived yesterday and yet received no official greeting; his car had swung in the gate and gone up to the main administration building, and if the man had even gotten out, let alone taken a tour of the place, Dr. Park did not know about it.

  Dr. Park decided he would take a walk. He began thinking of the folktale again, the cleverness of coming up with an earthly story to explain the movement of the heavens. Dr. Park had always been interested in the stars; he saw it as an extension of his interest in science and math. He had vaguely hoped that if he was successful in leaving for America, he would be able to pursue those interests somehow. Perhaps there was a space project he might be assigned to, or some department dealing with the study of the stars. But the failure in Moscow — his own failure, he knew — had sealed his fate. He would live out his days as an engineer for the state, as preordained.

  He walked around the perimeter of the camp, admiring the stars. Tomorrow he would find the camp director or someone else in authority and make inquiries, he decided. If he was not needed, perhaps it would be possible to visit his mother’s cousin in Dao; she was his last claim on family, though it was doubtful she even knew that he was there.

  Dr. Park took one last look at the stars before going back inside his hut. Now he thought about his grandmother when she had told him the folktale of the stars that could meet only once a year. He felt again her warm embrace, the only memory he had now of the day his mother and father died together.

  The memory lingered as he crossed the threshold of the hut. It stayed with him even as the thick blade of a hatchet smacked into the back corner of his skull, sending the life from his body.

  Chapter 20

  Tyler leaned across the rock, training the nightscope on the runway. The airfield was practically unguarded, with only two men watching the road at the south. It seemed to have been used as a storage area but had been abandoned sometime before. The army camp where their contact was living was two miles away. At one time a cross between an army base and a factory, it, too, seemed almost abandoned: There were skeleton posts around the perimeter, with no more than a dozen guards. A three-man team had already scouted it; they had a way in if their man didn’t show. Another team was sitting near the field itself, ready to intervene if the pilot needed help.

  The communications man tapped him. Tyler cupped his hand over his ear and then clicked into the circuit, talking into the miniature boom mike that extended near his collar.

  “Etha bleekah,” he said. It was a transliteration of 3mo 6u3ko, Russian for It’s nearby. While the odds against the radio signal being intercepted were practically nil, they had decided to use Russian code words unless there was a problem. The phrase was arbitrary, intended to tell the controller that everything was clear but that the Korean had not yet arrived.

  “Da,” responded the controller. Yes.

  Howe was on schedule. All they needed was their package.

  The communications man tapped him, then held up two fingers.

  Team Two had the Korean in sight.

  Tyler moved across the rise to a spot overlooking the road, careful not to stand upright where he would risk being silhouetted in the moonlight.

  The man was alone, riding a bike.

  He went back to the communications sergeant, who was handling the team’s twenty-pound radio, a modern version of the Raytheon AN/PSC-5(V). The radioman could select satellite, line-of-sight, UHF, and VHF frequencies.

  “Eh-ehta harasho,” Tyler said into the mike, stuttering as he tried to pronounce the words Это хорошо: It’s all right, we’re cool, let’s kick butt, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.

  He pulled off his headset, straining to hear the hum of a jet in the distance.

  Chapter 21

  Howe stood on the brakes as he touched down, the aircraft like a fully loaded tractor-trailer trying to grab the last spot in the Wal-Mart parking lot fresh off the Interstate. Short-landing characteristics were one thing; fitting yourself onto a postage stamp was something else again. The aircraft drifted to the right as he rode down the hard-packed runway; he pushed his whole body gently as he worked the stick, centering the aircraft with as much an act of will as muscle. Shadows flicked across his path; the g forces pinning him back to the seat suddenly eased, and one of the hangar buildings loomed on the left.

  And then he saw the battery-powered lights the Air Force special operators had set to mark the edge of the runway.

  He was in.

  In.

  Howe had just enough room and momentum to turn the S-37/B around at the end of the runway. As he did so, he popped the double canopy open and stared back at the shadows near the buildings. The lights told him that the air commandos and their Army brethren were all around him; all he had to do was sit and wait.

  He had a pistol in his survival vest. He reached for it, pulling it out: It was a Makarov, in keeping with his cover, bulky and somewhat awkward, especially compared to his service Beretta, but it was reassuring nonetheless. He put the gun into his lap, holding it there
, not wanting to scare the Korean off but not wanting to be caught unarmed either.

  Belatedly, Howe pushed the timer button on his wristwatch, counting down his idle time. The buzzer would ring after ten minutes, but he’d already decided he would wait now as long as it took.

  Four minutes had drained from the face of the clock when a figure appeared less than ten yards from the front of the plane. He had a gun in his hand; Howe involuntarily winced, bringing his own pistol up.

  “American?” shouted the figure.

  He ran to the side of the plane as Howe got out of the cockpit. The gun he held was a pistol — a revolver, Howe thought, from the shadow of the long barrel.

  “American?” the man repeated. The accent had the hip-hop sound of a native Asian speaker, where tonal variations played an important role in meaning. “American?”

  He pointed the pistol at Howe. Howe realized he was pointing back.

  They had not set a password: How many jets would be appearing at this base; how many lone men would just happen to be close to it?

  “American?” asked the man again.

  “Yeah,” said Howe.

  By now the Korean was looking for a handhold. Howe reached down and pulled the man onto the front winglet. The Korean threw a small bag into the backseat, then reached to climb in.

  “The bomb,” yelled Howe. “Is the bomb here?”

  “No bomb,” shouted the Korean.

  “Where is it?”

  The man said something, but between the sound of the jet engines beneath them and the man’s accent, it was impossible to understand.

  “Snap on your restraints,” said Howe. The Korean fumbled with the helmet; Howe pushed it over his ears, then made the connections. He checked the seat restraints and started back for his cockpit when he thought of something else.

  “Your gun,” he told the Korean, though there was no way the man could hear with the helmet on.