 Mitchell Gant, once one of America s finest fighter pilots, is recruited by NATO, despite continuing bouts with battle shock (incurred in a harrowing mission in which he was captured by the Vietcong but rescued by US Air Force choppers), for a suicide mission - Soviet Russia has developed the ultimate fighter-bomber, the Firefox. A stealth warplane capable of sustained Mach Six speeds and possessing revolutionary thought-guided weaponry, the Firefox can tip the balance of international power, and the prototype s seat is form-fitted for just one pilot, Colonel Yuri Voskov - to whom Mitchell Gant is the only Western pilot with the identical physical build necessary for the special pressure suit worn. NATO contacts among Soviet dissidents smuggle Gant through Russia to the Red Air Force s testing facility in southern Ukraine, where he must steal the Firefox - and escape the wrath of the world s most powerful air-defense grid, and of a second Firefox prototype.