Those types of books are where I learnt about kneecap back in the late 80s/early 90s as a kid, which is why I didn’t know it had been renamed post Cold War.

They obviously don’t discuss it for obvious reasons but given the options I’d say east then either north or south, Canada is nearer and air fields with sufficient length to be able to land (and is in NATO) which is why it’d be my guess at least to start with, loiter over an unpopulated area and at least the likelihood is reduced of been near a detonation is reduced, the continental US simply has too many targets, though with modern warheads been lower yield they’d likely be OK orbiting unpopulated areas out west I guess.