THE RANSOM OF BLACK STEALTH ONE

The newest from Ing (The Big Lifters, 1988; Blood of Eagles, 1987)--this one about a pretty student from Brown University and a disillusioned spy pilot who find techno-thrills--and romance--in the skies in a stolen plane with adjustable camouflage. It's a nifty idea. Cover a Stealth-type, radar-invisible airplane with computer-controlled pixels so it can blend into the background and become invisible to eye or camera as well as radar. Another nifty idea: trick the Soviets into thinking that they can bribe a test pilot with millions of dollars in order to get their hands on the doubly invisible bird in remotest Mexico--but then switch for a less stupendous plane that they will think is the latest and hottest gadget in the world (only it isn't). Well, that's the CIA's idea, and you know the CIA. The Stealth-y swindle starts to go sour early on. Years before, Dar Weston, the CIA man behind the anti-Soviet plan, first betrayed and then believed that he had exploded his prot‚g‚ Kyle Corbett for reasons known only to himself. But Kyle missed the bomb and went into hiding--and now, when everyone believes him to be dead, he's kidnapped Weston's pretty, brainy niece Petra Leigh and hijacked the fabulous airplane. One thing the sneaky bird cannot do, however, is fly fast, so it's a long, long trip from the airport in Elmira, New York, to Mexico--with many refueling stops giving Petra and Kyle a lot of time to lose their antagonism and discover a mutual interest in computers and aeronautics. They also find that the electronic disguise mechanism works like a charm, as they evade everything from Learjets to Harriers. A slightly bumpy flight. The swooping technoplot runs into irritating patches of mole-spy turbulence, but the hijacker is a likable enough chap, and the chase scenes are fun.