Wings Of Fire Page 19

  "The McLanahans-are they in danger?" Kelsey asked.

  Helen looked at Jon. He looked at Kelsey, wondering whether or not to answer. Most times, it was so difficult to remember that Kelsey Duffield was still a nine-year-old and not just a world-class, superintelligent, fully adult thinker. He always wanted to treat her as an adult, a peer-but most times he usually ended up treating her like a smart little sister. That time, Jon realized, was just about past.

  He told his caller that he would get back to them, hung up the phone, and then looked seriously at Kelsey. "Yes, Kelsey-the McLanahans are in terrible danger," he said. "In fact, Wendy McLanahan is missing, and General McLanahan's brother Paul is dead." Kelsey's eyes widened in fear, becoming shiny with tears, but she said nothing. "General McL-Patrick, is trying to force the Libyans to turn Wendy over to him."

  "What will he do?" Kelsey asked.

  "He is going to attack some key military targets inside Libya, places that are vital to Libya's defenses," Jon replied. "All he has to help him are two men, Hal Briggs and Chris Wohl, with Tin Man battle armor; some soldiers, one or two aircraft... and us. The Libyans have over one hundred thousand troops, a very big air force, and nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons."

  "What will you do?"

  "Patrick wants me to launch several Wolverine and FlightHawk missiles against targets in Libya," Jon replied. "Once the targets are destroyed, he'll be able to fly»in and attack more vital targets from the ground. He plans on at-

  'tacking more and more targets in Libya until the president of Libya turns over Wendy and the others. We'll launch two attack planes, twelve hours apart."

  "What if Wendy is dead?" Kelsey asked, her face drawn with fear.

  "I don't know," Jon replied. "I hope Patrick will come home. He has a little boy, you know-his name is Bradley. He hasn't seen Bradley in a long time."

  To Jon's complete surprise, Kelsey Duffield started to cry. It was the first time he had ever seen her display any emotions at all, let alone such utter sadness. But then another completely unexpected thing happened: Jon Masters reached over and hugged the little girl. For several long moments, the two stayed in each other's arms. Her weeping got more intense, deeper, and for a moment Jon didn't know if he could maintain his composure-before he realized that tears were running down his cheeks too. Helen put her arms around her husband, and they shared that terrible moment together-the first time in their short but close relationship that they shared anything more than business together.

  After a while, the little girl's weeping subsided but they stayed in their siblinglike embrace. Finally, Jon asked, "Are you going to be okay, Kelsey?"

  "I think so," Kelsey replied, sniffing. She was silent for a moment; then: "Jon?"

  "Yes?"

  She sniffed away a tear again, still holding Jon Masters tightly, and asked, "What warheads are you going to put on the cruise missiles?"

  "W ... what?"

  "What are you going to arm those Wolverines and FlightHawks with?" the sad little girl asked. Slowly but surely, Jon could hear the familiar business-like steel returning to her voice as she added, "I have some ideas that might help...."

  CHAPTER

  OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA,

  OFF THE COAST LIBYA

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON

  The flight had originated from Arkansas International Airport, Blytheville, Arkansas. The crew had filed an ordinary IFR flight plan with the FAA, with Bangor, Maine, as its destination and McDonnell Douglas DC-10 as its aircraft type. About twenty minutes before reaching Bangor, with unusually good weather all across the northeast United States, the crew descended below eighteen thousand feet, canceled its Instrument Flight Rules flight plan, and elected to proceed using Visual Flight Rules. The handoff was routine. Once the flight descended below three thousand feet it disappeared off radar, lost in the ground clutter of the White Mountains of eastern New Hampshire. As far as American air traffic controllers were concerned, it was a successful and completely routine trip. They did not check to see if the flight made it to Bangor, nor were they required to do so. •-» In fact, the aircraft never descended at all. The crew was

  able to electronically alter the Mode C altitude readout of its air traffic control radio transponder, making the controllers think it had descended for landing. The controllers never had a "skin paint," or hard radar return, on the aircraft-they were relying only on the transponder to get the aircraft's position. The aircraft actually stayed at thirtynine thousand feet, heading eastward on a great circle route to take it over the north Atlantic Ocean.

  Once the transponder was turned off, the aircraft became invisible-because it was not really a DC-10, but a modified U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bomber nicknamed the EB-52 Megafortress, owned and operated by Sky Masters Inc. as a government research and testing aircraft, designed as a stealth technologies demonstration aircraft. Its skin and major structural components were made of composite fibersteel, not metal, covered with radar-absorbent materials; instead of a large cruciform radar-hungry tail, its control surfaces were smaller, swept backward, and radically tilted in a low V-shape to minimize radar reflections. Even though the aircraft weighed nearly half a million pounds and its wingspan was longer than the Wright Brothers' first airplane flight, it had the radar cross-section of a bird.

  A few hours later, the Megafortress rendezvoused with a real Sky Masters Inc. DC-10 aircraft that was modified for aerial refueling. Within half an hour, the B-52 was fully topped off with fuel. With the DC-10 in loose formation, the B-52 made its way across the north Atlantic, using bursts of its Laser Radar system to be sure it was well out of visual range of other aircraft. The DC-10 was on a standard over-water flight plan, en route to Glasgow, Scotland. About an hour prior to landing, the B-52 again hooked up and filled its tanks from the DC-10. The big converted airliner headed immediately for landing in Scotland-it was now dangerously low on fuel, even though a conventional DC-10 can make the trip across to Europe easily with plenty of fuel reserves. Its stealth wingman had nearly sucked it dry.

  The EB-52 continued right across Europe, overflying

  countries without clearance. The reason was simple: No conventional radars could see it, so no one knew it was up there. It flew across a dozen western and central European nations without a hint of its presence. Even in crowded airspace, it was able to keep its distance so no other aircraft could see it, changing altitudes or maneuvering far enough away to keep out of sight.

  John "Bud" Franken, Commander, U.S. Navy, Retired, thoroughly enjoyed the danger of what they were doing. As the aircraft commander aboard the Sky Masters test bed aircraft, he had seen his company's planes do some amazing things-but even when the EB-52 was doing nothing but flying straight and level nearly seven miles above the Earth, it was still amazing. Franken was a former U.S. Navy test pilot and test squadron commander, and he had flown in every Navy aircraft design, both operational and ones that never made it past "black" status, over the past twenty years-but he was truly awestruck by the EB-52.

  In his soul he would always be a Navy fighter pilot, but his heart now belonged to the experimental EB-52 Megafortress.

  His mission commander, sitting in the right seat across the wide cockpit, was as young as Franken was old, as operationally inexperienced as the pilot was combat-tested. Twenty-five-year-old Lindsey Reeves was simply a natural-born systems wizard. It didn't matter if the system was a complex, high-tech flying battleship like the EB-52 Megafortress or her pride and joy-a 1956 Aston-Martin DB4 GT Sanction I convertible, which she restored herself, including rebuilding the engine-she could look at it, experiment with it for a few minutes, and instantly figure out how it worked. Sky Masters Inc.'s worldwide team of headhunters had recruited her at the age of sixteen at a county science fair in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, where she had won the competition by modifying a radio receiver to pick up Global Positioning Satellite navigation signals-at a time when GPS was still a classified military program. -
<
br />   Franken was a systems guy too-you had to be to fly the

  'Megafortress. It was so different from all other aircraft that it was best to let the computers do the flying, watch the computers like a hawk, and be ready to take over if they rolled over and died. But Lindsey was from another dimension when it came to machines. She wasn't much of a flier-she got airsick at the slightest hint of turbulence and used almost every non-narcotic airsickness remedy known, from wristbands to ginger tablets, to help her get through it. But when it was time to go into action, she was ready-usually.

  "Three minutes to low-level entry point," Lindsey reported. She had two overhead air vents blowing cold air on her face, plus she was breathing pure oxygen to try to settle her stomach. "All birds reporting ready."

  "Then try to relax a little, Lindsey," Franken suggested. 'Take off the gloves and loosen your fingers." Lindsey always wore gloves-she said it was easier to find them that way in case she needed something to throw up in. "You're too tense."

  "I've never flown into... into combat before," she murmured.

  "The exercises we do back in the ranges are much more intense than we'll see here," Franken assured her. "You're a good crew dog, Linds. Relax and take it easy."

  "Okay," Lindsey said. But it was no use-a few moments later, she was holding a barf bag at the ready. She was nervous, Franken thought-usually within three minutes time-to-go, she was fine.

  "Give me the leg brief, Linds," Franken said.

  "I don't feel so good...."

  "The leg brief, me," he ordered sternly. "Right now."

  The voice got her attention, and the discipline and routine got her mind off her churning stomach. "First heading one-nine-five, leg time twelve minutes fifteen seconds, auto TF descent," Lindsey recited. "Level-off altitude two thousand feet... set and verified. The SA-10 site at SAM is our first threat. I've got only air traffic control search radars up now."

  At the initial point, Franken issued voice commands to

  the EB-52 Megafortress's flight computer, and the big aircraft responded-it started a ten-thousand-foot-per-minute descent, automatically retarding the throttles to keep the airspeed under the red line. All he had to do was monitor the computers, keep up with his ears as the cabin pressurization changed, and watch out for floating objects as the fast descent created some negative Gs, almost like being weightless. Franken kept an eye on Lindsey-if she was going to hurl, it would be now. But she was wearing her combat face now, and nothing would interfere with it-he hoped.

  The pilot's side of the instrument panel had three sixteen-color multifunction displays (MFDs) that showed the route of flight, flight instruments, engine instruments, and system status readouts; Franken could switch between the displays with simple voice commands. Three more MFDs in the center instrument panel had fuel, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, threat, and weapon status readouts, with conventional backup instruments and gauges underneath. The mission commander's instrument panel was dominated by a supercockpit display, a huge one-by-twofoot computer screen that showed a variety of information, all selected by the mission commander and controlled by voice commands or by a trackball on the right side. Two more MFDs on either side of the supercockpit display showed systems readouts and warning messages.

  Their course was depicted on Lindsey's display as a roadway, with the road as the computer-recommended altitude. Symbols showed known and detected threats and obstacles. Two large upside-down green cones either side of course represented the search radars in eastern Libya, with the "roadway" threading precisely between and underneath the edges of the cones; more cones represented Egyptian and naval search radars. Colored symbols all along the Libyan coastline represented the location of known antiaircraft threat sites, but so far none were active.

  "Our first threat is an SA-10 site, two o'cloak, forty miles," Lindsey reported. "We should be underneath it in

  'five minutes. We've got two Egyptian Roland sites at eleven o'clock-search radars only. We should be outside detection range. Egypt also has a Patriot site at extreme range, nine o'clock, fifty miles-we should be well clear. No fighters detected yet. LADAR coming on-our course is clear so far. We might have Libyan fighters at three o'clock, seventy miles-they're moving pretty fast, but they don't have radars on so we can't identify yet." Lindsey kept up a constant litany of reports and observations. Although Franken had all that information right in front of him as well, it was reassuring to hear Lindsey reciting it all-two pairs of eyes scanning the instruments was always better than one, especially when the action got hot and heavy.

  The computer-generated "road" started to rise up to meet the aircraft depiction on their navigation displays, so both crew members monitored the level-off carefully. They performed a fast terrain-following system check, verified that everything was working normally. They were over water right now, forty miles off the Libyan coast. The Libyan coastal air defense sites were all around them, but right now they were quiet-no radar emissions at all.

  "Want to step it down, Bud?" Lindsey asked.

  Franken studied the threat display. They knew the position of the nearest SA-10 site-it just wasn't transmitting yet. At two thousand feet, they were right at the edge of lethal coverage at this range. They could descend well below the missile's engagement envelope, but then risk being heard from the ground. Only government and military aircraft were allowed to fly at night over Libya, and a big plane like a B-52 flying low to the ground well away from an airport would certainly attract attention. "Let's leave it here for now," Franken replied. "We'll give it a few minutes and then-"

  Suddenly a female voice from the threat warning receiver spoke: "Caution, search radar in acquisition mode, nine o'clock, thirty-seven miles, Patriot SAM."

  "The Egyptian Patriot got us," Lindsey said. "If the

  Libyans detect the Patriot system fired up, they'll fire up their own radars."

  "Stepping down," Franken said. He hit the voice command button on his control stick: "Set clearance plane to one thousand."

  "Clearance plane set one thousand feet, pitch mode auto TF," the flight control computer responded. Just then the computer reported, "Warning, Patriot SAM tracking, nine o 'clock, thirty-six miles . . . Patriot SAM acquisition mode . . . warning, Patriot SAM tracking, nine o 'clock, thirty-five miles..."

  "Dam it, he got us, he locked on," Lindsey reported. "Let's step it down to five hundred feet."

  "Caution, Patriot SAM acquisition mode..." But that brief lock-on, just three or four seconds, was all it took for the Libyan air defense sites to be alerted. "Caution, SA-10 SAM at ten o 'clock, thirty miles, acquisition mode.. . warning, SA-10 SAM height-finder at ten o'clock, thirty miles..."

  "Trackbreakers active," Lindsey verified. "Let's take it down to two hundred."

  "I didn't expect to be flying hard TF so far out," Franken said. "Here we go." He issued commands, and the big bomber rumbled down until it was two hundred feet above the Mediterranean Sea.

  "SA-10 SAM in acquisition mode," the computer reported.

  "He knows we're out here, but he can't find us ... yet," Franken said. "Linds, where are those fighters you saw earlier?"

  Reeves activated the laser radar for a few seconds. "They're on their way now," she said. "Three aircraft headed our way at six hundred thirty knots, twenty-nine thousand feet. Less than six minutes out. No identification

  "Not exactly burning up the program here, are we?" Franken deadpanned. "So much for the stealthy approach. We might end up fighting our way in." There was no re-

  sponse from Lindsey-and when Franken turned to find out why, he noticed Lindsey vomiting into her barf bag. He reached across and grasped her shoulder. "You okay, Linds?"

  Her eyes were wet with tears-obvious even in the dim red glow of the EB-52's cockpit. "I... I don't know," she said weakly. "I'm..."

  "I need you, Linds. I can't do this without you."

  "I'm so scared," she cried. "My stomach... I don't know if I can do this."

  "Lindsey..." H
e waited a few moments while she retched in her bag again; her trembling fingers dropped the bag somewhere on the center console. She was so rattled that she couldn't refasten her oxygen mask. "Lindsey, listen to me-"

  "Warning, airborne search radar in acquisition, three o'clock, forty-seven miles, MiG-25," the threat computer reported.

  "I... I can't do this," Lindsey sobbed. "I'm sorry, I can't-"

  "Listen to me, Lindsey-listen to me!" Franken shouted. "If we turn around, the Libyans will chase us all the way across the Mediterranean Sea. When we run out of missiles, they'll shoot us down. We might make it out-but our guys on the ground probably won't. We have to keep going. Do you understand?"

  "I don't know if I can."

  "You have to!" Franken said. "There are three guys on the ground who won't stand a chance unless we help. But I can't do this alone, not even with the computers." He grasped her shoulder tightly and shook it. "You've got to hang in there, Linds. Just think of this as a simulator ridea very, very intense simulator ride. Okay?"

  It didn't look good at all. Lindsey's head lolled back and forth, slowly at first, then faster, as if she was looking for something. She started to pull off her left flying glove. "Here," Franken said. "Go to town-and then let's get to work." He pulled off his right glove and passed it to her. She barely got it up to her face before the torrent quickly

  filled the black Nomex glove. Franken couldn't believe that tiny little stomach of hers still had anything left in it to regurgitate.

  Reeves was hunched down, her head almost between her knees, her hands holding on to the eyebrow panel for support, as if she was going to puke right on the deckFranken thought she might pass out. But to his relief, Lindsey pulled her oxygen mask up to her face, fumbled and finally snapped the bayonet clip in place, then took several deep breaths of pure oxygen. Her right hand disappeared onto the right console, and soon her supercockpit display started dancing as the displays changed with everincreasing speed.