Red Menace (Paperback or Softback)

A sadistic KGB assassin.

A dozen atomic bombs.

The world can only hope Col. Joel Knight’s mission succeeds.

Dateline: Norton Air Force Base, 14 July 1950—The Soviets protest AF pilot Col. Joel Knight’s nomination as the Aviation Attaché to Moscow. Joel faces a demotion or a forced resignation. Major General Garret “Red” McNeil offers Joel a temporary ‘piece of cake’ assignment with the CIA . . . a “flying job, pure and simple.”

Joel’s mission? Fly undercover to China as a WWII war veteran pilot-for-hire in a converted Navy Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon and extract a defecting Russian atomic scientist. If captured, Knight will be shot as a spy. Meanwhile in the Kremlin, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Beria plots to unleash A-bombs on U.S. and U.N. troops in Korea and blame China.

The CIA’s complicated evacuation plan backfires. A high-stakes getaway-turned-deadly endangers the lives of not one, but six Russian scientists, plus their CIA rescuers. A run-for-their-lives pursuit by the ruthless KGB plunges the fugitives into a nail-biting race against time in the Siberian wilderness. The against-all-odds mission subjects Joel’s skills as a leader and a pilot to the ultimate test. If Joel fails—all will die.

Knight joins forces with an unlikely ally—a secretive, Mongolian collective farm commissar. Joel discovers Soviet crews unloading a dozen atomic bombs at Magdagachi Air Base. When Joel steals a lumbering Antonov An-2 biplane and flies toward freedom, stormy skies fill with Russian MiG-9 jet fighters.

The clock counts down to a shocking climax. Will the three-way one-upmanship between the Soviets, the Mongolians, and the Americans result in a daring escape or death? Will Joel reach General Douglas MacArthur in time to convince the stubborn, five-star general to evacuate before Russian bombers launch their full-scale atomic attacks?

Coloradan Jeff Kildow grew up listening to his father's tales of the magnificent WWII aircraft he saw in the Army Air Corps. When Jeff's poor vision hijacked his dreams to become an Air Force pilot, he decided, "If I can't fly planes, I'll design them." Jeff Kildow, an Air Force veteran, combines history, his military experience, and thirty-plus years as an aerospace engineer with his life-long love of vintage airplanes and cars.