Treasure of Khan by Clive Cussler Page B

Nell, was not on a bombing mission at all. Flying casually alone at an altitude of nine thousand feet, the twin-engine aircraft was flying reconnaissance, probing the aerial resources of Russia that were rumored to have surfaced in Mongolia.
    With its easy conquest of Manchuria and successful advance into northern China, the Japanese had sharpened their sights on the important seaports and coal mines of Siberia to the north. Leery of the Japanese intent, the Russians had already bolstered their defensive forces in Siberia, and recently signed a defense pact with Mongolia that allowed for the deployment of troops and aircraft in that mostly barren country. Already the Japanese were busy gathering intelligence, testing and probing the defensive lines in preparation for an outright northern offensive that would be launched from Manchuria in mid-1939.
    The Nell had come up empty on its foray into eastern Mongolia, finding no sign of troop deployments or runway construction on behalf of Russian aircraft. If there was any Russian military activity in Mongolia, it would be much farther north, the Japanese pilot concluded. Below him was nothing but the occasional nomadic tribe, wandering the empty expanse of the Gobi Desert with their herd of camels.
    â€œNothing but sand out here,” the Nell’s copilot, a youthful lieutenant named Miyabe, said with a yawn. “I don’t know why the wing commander is excited over this real estate.”
    â€œAs a buffer to the more valuable territory to the north, I suspect,” Captain Nobuji Negishi replied. “I just hope we get repositioned to the front when the northern invasion occurs. We’re missing all the fun in Shanghai and Peking.”
    As Miyabe stared at the flat ground beneath the plane, a bright glint of sunlight briefly flashed out of the corner of his eye. Scanning across the horizon, he tracked the source of the light, squinting at what he saw.
    â€œSir, an aircraft ahead and slightly below us,” he said, pointing a gloved hand toward the object.
    Negishi peered ahead and quickly spotted the plane. It was the silver Fokker trimotor, flying northwest toward Ulaanbaatar.
    â€œShe’s crossing our path,” the Japanese pilot noted with a rise in his voice. “At last, a chance for battle.”
    â€œBut sir, that’s not a combat plane. I don’t think it is even a Chinese airplane,” Miyabe said, observing the markings on the Fokker. “Our orders are to engage only Chinese military aircraft.”
    â€œThe flight poses a risk,” Negishi explained away. “Besides, it will be good target practice, Lieutenant.” No one in the Japanese military was getting reprimanded for aggressive behavior in the Chinese theater, he well knew. As a bomber pilot, he would be afforded few opportunities to engage and destroy other aircraft in the skies. It was a rare chance for an easy kill and he wasn’t about to pass it by.
    â€œGunners at your stations,” he barked over the intercom. “Prepare for air-to-air action.”
    The five-man crew of the attack bomber were immediately energized as they manned their battle positions. Rather than play the quarry of smaller and quicker fighter aircraft, as was their lot in life, the bomber crew suddenly became the hunter. Captain Negishi mentally computed a dead-reckoning line of the trimotor’s path, then eased back on the throttles and banked the bomber in a wide slow turn to the right. The Fokker slipped by beneath them until Negishi eased out of the turn, which brought the bomber around and behind the silver trimotor.
    Negishi eased the throttles forward again as the Fokker loomed ahead. With a top speed of two hundred sixteen miles per hour, the Mitsubishi was nearly twice as fast as the Fokker and easily closed the gap.
    â€œReady with the forward guns,” Negishi ordered as the unarmed plane grew larger in the gunsights.
    But the trimotor was not going to pose