It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors, overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of the icy frontier—and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux.

    "Allah!"With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR.To offer the effects of this disaster, members of the Politburo and the KGB devise a brilliant plan of diplomatic trickery - a sequence of events designed to pit the NATO allies against each other - a distraction calculated to enable the Soviets to seize all the oil in the Persian Gulf.But as this spellbinding story of international intrigue and global politics nears its climax, the Soviets are faced with another prospect, one they hadn't planned on: a full-scale conflict in which nobody can win.

    It's another Cold War caper, featuring Eroica, the Major, and the return of the Major's old KGB rival, Mischa the Bear Cub. In "The Seventh Seal," Iron Klaus must stop an aggressive attempt by the Russians to close the West's lead in computer technology by stealing a top-secret item known only as The Black Box. His mission takes him to Liechtenstein to infiltrate a KGB front company. Into the middle of this operation inevitably waltzes Eroica, crashing a private event in a Liechtenstein castle, in disguise as an enchanting countess.

    

    The Fall of the House of Usher The murders in the Rue Morgue The Pit and the Pendulum The gold bug The mystery of Marie Roget The oblong box

    Former Navy flyer Stephen Coonts gives an excellent sense of the complexities of modern air raids and how nerve-wracking it is, even for the best airmen, to technically solve sudden problems over and over, knowing that even a twist of fate like a peasant wildly firing a rifle from a field could wipe out the crew. Grafton alternates between remorse over the fate of his unseen Vietnamese victims on the ground and a gung-ho "let's win this war" sentiment that lashes at both policymakers who select less-than-important targets for the dangerous missions and advocates for peace back in the States.

    

    Collects Squadron Supreme (1985 1st Series) #1-12, Captain America (1968-1996 1st Series) #314, and Squadron Supreme: Death of a Universe Graphic Novel (1989).