Grief has defected so cleverly the Russian military does not even know his plane was not destroyed. The Israelis instantly create a fake crash site at sea including some small burned pieces of the Foxbat.
Grief has brought to Israel a priceless fighter jet and his vast personal knowledge of Russian aircraft and air force plans.
Grief advises the Israelis he wants to go to the U.S. Beyond the immensely valuable assets of his jet and himself he knows Israel is about to need major American assistance.
Zac Zemeckis, NASA flight controller and former fighter pilot and test pilot, is in Israel on holidays with his girlfriend, Laura Woodsworth when Grief defects. He is swiftly drawn into the analysis of the plane and pilot at one of the CIA’s most secret bases in America.
Zac, lost an eye because of a bird hit some years earlier and has been grounded from flying military aircraft. With the aid of a sympathetic general and recognition that there is a history of one-eyed pilots of fighter jets he is cleared to fly again.
Laura, a lunar geologist, dreams of becoming an astronaut. She lacks the training to pilot but she could be a spacewalker conducting experiments.
The war, to begin at sunset on Yom Kippur according to a spy, starts earlier in the day.
The Americans put the MiG 25 in a giant C-5 supply plane and take it to Area 51 in the desert near Las Vegas where it is taken apart and then re-assembled.
In the U.S.S.R. Svetlana Gromova, the first female cosmonaut, is tapped to be a member of a three cosmonaut team to link up with an Apollo spacecraft. She is famous for walking on the moon!
Irina Moldova, a Soviet nuclear physicist, is working on a nuclear engine to power spaceships. Success would be a leap forward in space travel. It would be “light and efficient”. Yet problems abound.
American pilots are excited to fly the MiG-25. Flying at Mach 3 it can go higher than any other fighter jet reaching 120,000 feet. Grief provides invaluable information on how to fly the plane.
There are underlying currents. As always in espionage secrets and deceptions abound. Who can be trusted?
Intrigues proceed at several levels.
This is a book which deserves a Hollywood ending with fighter jets and stalwart men and a few capable women. I appreciated that the body count was not as high as I expected. I expect real Hollywood will make a movie of the book and add more bodies to make it more thrilling and I doubt I will attend.
Hadfield is an excellent writer. He drives the narrative. His characters are plausible. Hehas a deft mix of information and human interaction. I have no background to understand the technical details of war. Hadfield was convincing in his descriptions. I was reminded of the early Tom Clancy novels. Reading his bio on the inside back cover is humbling. He has already had a remarkable life.
