Shadow Command Read online

  Shadow Command

  Dale Brown

  This novel is dedicated to all who make the often difficult decision to do one simple thing: Go For It. When you see it happen, it’s more exhilarating than a space launch, and twice as powerful.

  Contents

  Cast of Characters

  Weapons and Acronyms

  Real-World News Excerpts

  Prologue

  “Stand by…ready…ready…begin climb, now,” the ground controller…

  Chapter One

  “Okay, suckers, c’mon and poke your head out—just a little…

  Chapter Two

  The command module was the center of activity aboard Armstrong…

  Chapter Three

  “No bread, no peace! No bread, no peace!” the protesters…

  Chapter Four

  “Joining us live from Armstrong Space Station, orbiting two hundred…

  Chapter Five

  “It’s ten times more boring than playing video games,” Wayne…

  Chapter Six

  “Two minutes to re-entry initiation, crew,” Major Jim Terranova announced.

  Chapter Seven

  “McLanahan here, secure.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Frankly, Brit, I don’t care what the Russians say,” Senate…

  Chapter Nine

  “Here’s the latest, guys, so listen up,” the SEAL team…

  Chapter Ten

  The city of Mashhad—“City of Martyrs” in English—in northeastern Iran…

  Epilogue

  The young boy cast a fishing line into Lake Mojave…

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Books by Dale Brown

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  AMERICANS:

  JOSEPH GARDNER, President of the United States

  KEN T. PHOENIX, Vice President

  CONRAD F. CARLYLE, President’s National Security Adviser

  MILLER H. TURNER, Secretary of Defense

  GERALD VISTA, Director of National Intelligence

  WALTER KORDUS, White House Chief of Staff

  STACY ANNE BARBEAU, senior U.S. senator from Louisiana, Senate majority leader; Colleen Morna, her aide

  GENERAL TAYLOR J. BAIN, USMC, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  GENERAL CHARLES A. HUFFMAN, Air Force chief of staff

  AIR FORCE GENERAL BRADFORD CANNON, commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM)

  ARMY GENERAL KENNETH LEPERS, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)

  MAJOR GENERAL HAROLD BACKMAN, commander of the Fourteenth Air Force; also commander of Joint Functional Component Command-Space (JFCC-S) of U.S. Strategic Command

  LIEUTENANT GENERAL PATRICK MCLANAHAN, commander of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center (HAWC), Elliott AFB, Nevada

  BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID LUGER, deputy commander of HAWC

  COLONEL MARTIN TEHAMA, incoming commander of HAWC

  MAJOR GENERAL REBECCA FURNESS, commander of the First Air Battle Force (air operations), Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base (ARB), Nevada

  BRIGADIER GENERAL DAREN MACE, Air Battle Force operations officer, 111th Bomb Wing commander, and EB-1C mission commander

  MAJOR WAYNE MACOMBER, deputy commander (ground operations) of the First Air Battle Force, Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, Nevada

  MARINE CORPS MASTER SERGEANT CHRIS WOHL, NCOIC, First Air Battle Force

  U.S. ARMY NATIONAL GUARD CAPTAIN CHARLIE TURLOCK, CID pilot

  CAPTAIN Hunter “Boomer” NOBLE, XR-A9 Black Stallion spacecraft commander, Elliott Air Force Base, Groom Lake

  U.S. NAVY LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LISETTE “FRENCHY” MOULAIN, XR-A9 spacecraft commander

  U.S. MARINE CORPS MAJOR JIM TERRANOVA, XR-A9 mission commander

  ANN PAGE, PH.D., former U.S. senator, astronaut, and space weapon engineer

  AIR FORCE MASTER SERGEANT VALERIE “SEEKER” LUKAS, Armstrong Space Station sensor operator

  IRANIANS:

  GENERAL HESARAK AL-KAN BUZHAZI, leader of the Persian military coup

  AZAR ASSIYEH QAGEV, heir presumptive of the Peacock Throne of Persia

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL PARVIZ NAJAR AND MAJOR MARA SAIDI, Azar Qagev’s aides-de-camp

  COLONEL MOSTAFA RAHMATI, commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, Tehran-Mehrabad Airport

  MAJOR QOLOM HADDAD, leader of Buzhazi’s personal security team

  MASOUD NOSHAHR, Lord High Chancellor of the Qagev royal court and marshal of the court’s council of war

  AYATOLLAH HASSAN MOHTAZ, supreme leader in exile of the Islamic Republic of Iran

  RUSSIANS:

  LEONID ZEVITIN, president of the Russian Federation

  PETER ORLEV, president’s chief of staff

  ALEXANDRA HEDROV, minister of foreign affairs

  IGOR TRUZNYEV, chief of the Federal Security Bureau

  ANATOLI VLASOV, secretary of the Russian security council

  MIKHAIL OSTENKOV, minister of national defense

  GENERAL KUZMA FURZYENKO, Russian chief of the general staff

  GENERAL NIKOLAI OSTANKO, chief of staff of the Russian army

  GENERAL ANDREI DARZOV, chief of staff of the Russian air force

  WOLFGANG ZYPRIES, German laser engineer working with the Russian air force

  WEAPONS AND ACRONYMS

  9K89—small Russian surface-to-surface missile

  ARB—Air Reserve Base

  ATO—air tasking order

  BDU-58 Meteor—precision-guided vehicle designed to protect payloads from the heat of re-entry through the atmosphere; can carry approximately 4,000 pounds

  CIC—Combat Information Center

  coonass—a person of Cajun ethnicity

  E-4B—National Airborne Operations Center

  E-6B Mercury—U.S. Navy airborne communications and command post aircraft

  EB-1D—B-1 Lancer bomber modified as an unmanned long-range supersonic attack plane

  ETE—estimated time en route

  FAA Part 91—regulations governing private pilots and aircraft

  FSB—Russian Federal Security Bureau, follow-on to the KGB

  HAWC—High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center

  ICD—implantable cardioverter-defibrillator

  Ilyushin—Russian inflight refueling tanker aircraft

  MiG—Mikoyan-Gureyvich, Russian military aircraft maker

  OSO—offensive systems officer

  RQ-4 Global Hawk—high-altitude long-range unmanned reconnaissance aircraft

  SAR—synthetic aperture radar; also search and rescue

  Skybolt—space-based anti-ballistic missile laser

  SPEAR—Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction network intrusion defense system

  sun-synchronous—an Earth orbit on which a satellite passes over the same spot at the same time of day

  Tupolev—twin-engine Russian jet bomber

  USAFE—U.S. Air Forces in Europe

  VFR—Visual Flight Rules

  Vomit Comet—aircraft used to fly parabolic flights to simulate weightlessness

  XAGM-279A SkySTREAK (Scramjet Tactical Rapid Employment Attack, or “Streaker”)—air-launched hypersonic attack missile, 4,000 pounds, 12 feet long, 24 inches in diameter; uses a solid rocket motor to boost the missile to Mach 3, then switches to a JP-7 jet fuel and compressed atmospheric oxygen scramjet to cruise at Mach 10; inertial and precision GPS navigation; satellite datalink operator mid-course reprogramming; ballistic flight profile max range 600 miles; after accelerating to Mach 10, releases precision-guided warhead with millimeter-wave radar and imaging infrared terminal guidance with auto-ta
rget discrimination or satellite datalink remote operator target selection; no warhead; two can be carried aboard EB-1C Vampire bomber in aft bomb bay; four carried internally or four externally by EB-52 Megafortress; four carried internally by B-2 stealth bomber

  XR-A9—single-stage to orbit “Black Stallion” spaceplane

  REAL-WORLD NEWS EXCERPTS

  STRATFOR MORNING INTELLIGENCE BRIEF, 18 JANUARY 2007—1216 GMT—CHINA, UNITED STATES—U.S. intelligence agencies believe China destroyed the aging Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite in a successful anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test Jan. 11, China Daily reported Jan. 18, citing an article to appear in the Jan. 22 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology. U.S. intelligence agencies are still attempting to verify the ASAT test, which would signify that China has a major new military capability…

  …The new cloud of debris orbiting the Earth is an indication of things to come should two space-faring nations face off in a conflict. Especially in the case of the United States, space-based assets have become too essential an operational tool to be ignored any longer in times of war.

  STRATFOR DAILY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY, 3 APRIL 2007—U.S./IRAN: U.S. attacks against Iran would not lead to a decisive military defeat of Tehran and would be a political mistake, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said. He added that it is possible for the United States to damage Iran’s military, but not to win a conflict outright.

  STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE BRIEF, 7 SEPTEMBER 2007—Cooperation between the Russian Federal Security Service and Iran’s Interior Ministry will enhance Iran’s border security, First Deputy Director-General of Russian Federal Security and Border Services Viktor Shlyakhtin said, according to an IRNA report. Shlyakhtin is in Iran to inspect Iranian-Russian projects in areas of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province that border Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  RED OCTOBER: RUSSIA, IRAN, AND IRAQ—STRATFOR Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 17 September 2007—Copyright © Strategic Forecasting Inc.—…The Americans need the Russians not to provide fighter aircraft, modern command-and-control systems, or any of the other war-making systems that the Russians have been developing. Above all else, they want the Russians not to provide the Iranians any nuclear-linked technology.

  Therefore, it is no accident that the Iranians claimed over the weekend that the Russians told them they would do precisely that.

  …[Russian president Vladimir] Putin can align with the Iranians and place the United States in a far more complex situation than it otherwise would be in. He could achieve this by supporting Syria, arming militias in Lebanon, or even causing significant problems in Afghanistan, where Russia retains a degree of influence in the North…

  STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY, 25 OCTOBER 2007, © STRATFOR INC.—During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Oct. 16 visit to Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked him to order Russian experts to help Iran figure out how Israel jammed Syrian radars prior to the Sept. 6 air raid, a Stratfor source in Hezbollah said. Iran wants to rectify the problem associated with the failure of Syrian radars because Iran uses similar equipment, the source added.

  RUSSIA, IRAN: THE NEXT STEP IN THE DIPLOMATIC TANGO—STRATFOR Global Intelligence Brief, 30 October 2007, © 2007 Stratfor, Inc.—…Russia has a fine-tuned strategy of exploiting its Middle Eastern allies’ interests for its own political purposes. Iran is the perfect candidate. It is a powerful Islamic state that is locked into a showdown with the United States over its nuclear program and Iraq. Though Washington and Tehran are constantly battling in the public sphere with war rhetoric, they need to deal with each other for the sake of their strategic interests.

  Russia, meanwhile, has its own turf war with the United States that involves a range of hot issues, including National Missile Defense, renegotiating Cold War–era treaties, and Western interference in Russia’s periphery. By demonstrating that Moscow has some real sway over the Iranians, Russia gains a useful bargaining chip to use in its dealings with the United States…

  ALTAY OPTICAL-LASER SOURCEBOOK, 28 December 2007—The Scientific Research Institute of Precision Instrument Engineering [of the Russian Federation] has established a branch satellite tracking facility called the Altay Optical-Laser Center (AOLS) near the small Siberian town of Savvushka. The center consists of two sites, one of which is now operational and the other of which is intended to go into operation in or after 2010.

  The present site has a laser rangefinder for precision orbit determination, and, for the first time in Russia, a telescope (60 cm aperture) there has been equipped with an adaptive optics system for high-resolution imaging of satellites. The second site will be equipped with a 3.12-meter satellite-imaging telescope generally similar to the one the United States operates in Hawaii.

  …Successful implementation of the AOLS 3.12-meter system would allow satellites to be imaged with a resolution of 25 cm [9.8 inches] or better out to a range of 1,000 km [621 miles].

  PROLOGUE

  Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  OVER EASTERN SIBERIA

  FEBRUARY 2009

  “Stand by…ready…ready…begin climb, now,” the ground controller radioed.

  “Acknowledged,” the pilot of the Russian Federation’s Mikoyan-Gurevich-31BM long-range interceptor responded. He gently eased back on his control stick and began feeding in power. The twin Tumanski R15-BD-300 engines, the most powerful engines ever put on a jet fighter, barked once as the afterburners ignited, then quickly roared to life as the engines’ fuel turbopumps caught up with the massive streams of air flooding inside, turning air and fuel into raw power and acceleration.

  The pilot’s eyes darted back and forth from the power gauges to the heads-up display, which showed two crossed needles with a circle in the middle, similar to an Instrument Landing System. He made gentle, almost imperceptible control inputs to keep the crossed needles centered in the circle. His inputs had to be tiny because the tiniest slip or skid now, with his nose almost forty degrees above the horizon and climbing, could result in a disruption of the smooth airflow into the engine intakes, causing a blowout or compressor stall. The MiG-31, known as “Foxhound” in the West, was not a forgiving machine—it regularly killed sloppy or inattentive crewmembers. Built for speed, it required precise handling at the outer edges of its impressive flight envelope.

  “Passing ten thousand meters…Mach two point five…fifteen thousand…forty degrees nose-high…airspeed dropping off slightly,” the pilot intoned. The MiG-31 was one of the few planes that could accelerate while in a steep climb, but for this test flight they were going to take it higher than its service ceiling of twenty thousand meters, and its performance dropped off significantly then. “Passing twenty K, airspeed below Mach two…passing twenty-two K…stand by…approaching release speed and altitude…”

  “Keep it centered, Yuri,” the MiG’s backseater said over intercom. The needles had drifted slightly to the edge of the circle. The circle represented their target tonight, transmitted to them not by the MiG-31’s powerful phased-array radar but by a network of space tracking radars around the Russian Federation and fed to them by a nearby data relay aircraft. They would never see their target and would probably never know if their mission was a success or failure.

  “It’s getting less responsive…harder to correct,” the pilot breathed. Both crewmembers were wearing space suits and full-face sealed helmets, like astronauts, and as the cabin altitude climbed, the pressure in the suit climbed to compensate, making it harder to move and breathe. “How…much…longer?”

  “Ten seconds…nine…eight…”

  “Come on, you old pig, climb,” the pilot grunted.

  “Five seconds…missile ready…tree, dva, adeen…pazhar! Launch!”

  The MiG-31 was at twenty-five thousand meters above Earth, one thousand kilometers per hour airspeed, with the nose fifty degree
s above the horizon, when the ship’s computer issued the launch command, and a single large missile was ejected clear of the fighter. Seconds after ejection, the missile’s first-stage rocket motor ignited, a tremendous plume of fire erupted from the nozzles, and the missile disappeared from view in the blink of an eye.

  Now it was time to fly for himself and not the mission, the pilot reminded himself. He brought back the throttles slowly, carefully, and at the same time started a slight left bank. The bank helped decrease lift and bleed off excessive speed, and would also help bring the nose down without subjecting the crew to negative G-forces. The pressure began to subside, making it a bit easier to breathe—or was it just because their part of the mission was…?