Plan of Attack pm-12 Page 31

  “Sir, I’m not asking for a leadership position — let Zoltrane and Griffin keep on doing what they know best,” Patrick said. “But put me back in the field where I belong — here, in charge of the Air Battle Force.”

  “Why should I do that, General?” Goff asked.

  “Sir, neither General Zoltrane nor the two surviving bomb-wing commanders have any experience with the Megafortresses based out here at Battle Mountain. Generals Furness, Luger, and myself, along with Colonels Mace and Cheshire, are the only ones capable of employing the weapon systems here. On the other hand, all of us have experience leading B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers into combat.”

  “McLanahan, I don’t have time for this. Put it in writing and submit it to—”

  “Sir,” General Venti said with a firmness that surprised the secretary of defense. He turned away from the camera, speaking directly to Goff as privately as he could in front of a camera. “Whatever you think of Patrick McLanahan, sir, may I remind you that he predicted exactly what has happened,” Venti said. “He saw the signs and wasn’t afraid to make the call. We all saw the same data, but we never allowed ourselves to believe it would happen.”

  “So what, General?”

  “At the very least, sir, McLanahan deserves a listen,” Venti said. “We’re threatening to put the guy in prison — I wouldn’t have blamed him if he went home, packed up his family, and hightailed it up to Lake Tahoe. But he didn’t. He made it to Battle Mountain, got into a flight suit, and put a plan together to deal with this emergency.”

  Venti was right, Goff thought, but he wasn’t ready to admit it. He turned to the chief of naval operations. “Admiral Andover?”

  “I’ve made my opinions known already, sir — McLanahan is a menace and should not even be in a military uniform, let alone being considered to lead a military unit into combat,” Andover responded. “Sir, give me a few days and I’ll brief a combined-forces operation—”

  “How many Russian targets can the fleet hold at risk without using nuclear weapons, Admiral?” Goff asked. “A couple dozen? A couple hundred — as long as the shooters can safely move within a few hundred miles of the shore? And how much time do you think we have?”

  “We’ve got as much time as we need, sir — and we sure as hell have enough time to consider options other than sending Patrick McLanahan. And I damned well know that the U.S. Navy can put many more targets at risk than one Reserve unit can. And if a nuclear strike is necessary, the Navy can exercise that option, too — McLanahan can’t.”

  “Sir, Battle Mountain’s planes, the Megafortresses, are some of the most high-tech aircraft left in our arsenal,” Venti went on. “They are designed for SEAD — suppression of enemy air defenses — and antiballistic-missile defense, but they also pack a considerable precision standoff attack capability. Although the unit itself is not operational and all of its aircraft are considered experimental, McLanahan’s Air Battle Force and Furness’s One-eleventh Attack Wing of the Nevada Air National Guard have proven themselves in combat many times, from United Korea to Libya to Central Asia to western Russia.” He shrugged and added, “And no one else in the Air Force except General Terrill Samson knows much, if anything, about them — and Samson is apparently one of the casualties at Offutt.”

  Goff shook his head. He expected Venti, an Air Force general, to support his fellow blue-suiters. Most Joint Chiefs chairmen had biases toward their own services. “And I’m supposed to forget the fact that he disregards directives and busts the chain of command to suit himself?” Goff asked. He rubbed his eyes in exasperation. “Richard, McLanahan is a good guy, but I just can’t trust him. He’s the definition of ‘loose cannon.’ The president doesn’t trust him. Even Gryzlov wants his head on a plate. Why on earth should I allow him back in uniform? Damn it, General, I sure as hell shouldn’t allow him back at Battle Mountain, with access to all those fancy high-tech aircraft and weapons — God knows what he might do, or what he might be doing right now!”

  Venti took a deep breath, ready to argue — but he couldn’t. He found himself nodding agreement. “Sir, at least consider this: It’ll take Zoltrane and Griffin a few hours to get up to speed and report in — and they won’t have a plan ready until they can assemble their own battle staffs and pull packages off the shelf. Until we assess the status of the ICBM and bomber fleets, the only other option is the sea-launched nukes. Long before we have a plan, the subs will be in position — and the Russians know this.”

  “So?”

  “Whatever the Russians will do next, sir, they’ll do it before the boomers get into launch position,” Venti said. “The sub bases in Washington State and Georgia, the remaining bomber bases, Europe, NATO, Washington, they’ll all be at risk — unless you believe that the Russians really will stop?”

  Goff’s eyes unconsciously widened. “Do you think this could be the prelude to a wider attack?”

  “I don’t know, sir — but right now we’re totally on the defensive until the subs get into launch position,” Venti said. “The Russians have the complete advantage of surprise and position. We can’t do much no matter where they move next. It could take us days or weeks to plan and organize a response by sea or a special-operations mission, and weeks to months to plan a ground offensive.” He took another deep breath. “I see two options right now, sir: Listen to McLanahan’s plan, or plan a strike using the subs in about forty-eight hours.”

  “A nuclear strike?” Goff asked.

  Venti nodded. “But I don’t think the president will authorize it,” he said. “Do you, sir?” Goff responded with silence. “Then I recommend we hear what McLanahan has to say.”

  One Hundred Fifty Kilometers Northeast

  of Shemya Island, Alaska

  That same time

  Stand by for final launch run, crew,” radioed the bombardier aboard the lead Tupolev-160 Blackjack bomber. “Final radar fix in progress, stand by for transfer-alignment maneuver. Radar to radiate…now.”

  The bombardier activated his radarscope, already preset to the proper range and tilt for the fastest and sharpest return — and there it was, right where he predicted it would be: the American island of Shemya, almost at the very end of the Aleutian Island chain. This little flat rock in the ocean was one of America’s most important surveillance outposts: Its COBRA DANE radar could monitor each and every Russian land-and sea-launched ballistic-missile test fired into the Pacific instrumented target range, and electronic listening posts collected broadcasts from Russian and Chinese military bases half a world away. It was also a linchpin in America’s new and highly illegal ballistic-missile defense system.

  In short, it was going away — right now.

  Although they had initiated their attacks on America’s bases in Alaska hours ago, it had taken this long to fly back across the Bering Sea to get into position to strike this last but no less important target. After this, it was an easy cruise back to the air-refueling track to rendezvous with the tankers operating out of Yakutsk, and then an easy ride home.

  The radar crosshairs were less than a hundred meters off the aimpoint — the COBRA DANE antenna itself — so the bombardier laid them back on, magnified the image to ensure they were on the right spot — the northernmost corner of the massive array — checked the aimpoint coordinates, and then pressed the RADAR FIX button. The precise radar fix, combined with GLONASS satellite-navigation signals, would help keep the Tu-160’s inertial navigator properly aligned. Thirty seconds later the navigation computer dumped velocity, heading, and position information to the four remaining Kh-15 nuclear missiles in the forward bomb bay.

  “Fix complete,” he reported. “Stand by for TAL maneuver. Left turn, thirty degrees of bank, ten seconds…now.” The pilot commanded the autopilot to accomplish the turn. The TAL, or transfer alignment maneuver, “exercised” the inertial-navigation system and allowed a known quantity of velocity readings to fine-tune it. “Hold heading for twelve seconds…. Good, now right turn, center up the heading bug. Re
maining on this heading. Three minutes to launch point. TAL complete, all remaining missiles reporting ready for launch. Confidence is high.”

  The Tu-160 was traveling at one thousand kilometers per hour at an altitude of one hundred meters above the Bering Sea. His course would take him about a hundred kilometers north of Shemya, out of range of any Patriot surface-to-air missiles the Americans may have placed there. The American naval base at Adak Island had been closed for a few years now, but there was no use taking chances; besides, they had plenty of fuel to make it back to the refueling anchor and to the first alternate landing site if they couldn’t make their refueling. They’d had training missions twice as long and many times more complex than this. But it was strange that the Americans didn’t place defensive weapon systems around their own bases. Obviously, they thought themselves invincible to attack — even way out here along the Aleutian Islands, where Shemya was half as close to Russia than it was to Juneau, the Alaskan capital.

  Russia had proved this day how very wrong the Americans were. America was not invincible. In fact, this attack was unbelievably easy. They had detected just two American fighters during their entire two-hour attack run into Alaska, and the fighters had zoomed right over them without locking on even for a second. True, the electromagnetic pulses created by the multiple nuclear detonations around Fairbanks had helped degrade their radar. But launching only two fighters for the entire state of Alaska? Didn’t the United States have any love or respect for their forty-ninth state? Did they think so little of this big, beautiful, mineral-rich place that they chose not to defend it with every weapon system in their arsenal? Heading outbound toward Shemya was even easier, as if the Americans never even tried to look for them. Could they really be this completely disorganized?

  The bombardier took a few radar sweeps of the ocean, scanning for American warships. Nothing straight ahead, just a few small vessels, probably fishing or patrol vessels — nothing with the size to suggest they had the surface-to-air missile capacity to threaten a Tupolev-160. “This is lead. You see that surface target at eleven o’clock, fifty kilometers?” the bombardier radioed.

  “I see it,” the bombardier aboard the number-two Tu-160 responded. “Less than twenty-five meters long, I’d say. Shaped like a trawler. No threat.”

  “We’ll keep our distance anyway,” the lead bombardier responded. But he did not alter his flight-plan routing. They would be at least five kilometers north of the sea target at their closest point — well out of range of Stinger or other shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons, which were not very much of a threat to a Tupolev-160 anyway. “Two minutes to launch.”

  “Acknowledged. Search-radar contact only — no targeting radars.”

  “EWO?” the pilot radioed to the electronic-warfare officer. “Check those radar contacts.”

  “Search radars only,” the electronic-warfare officer aboard the lead Tu-160 reported after double-checking his readouts. “Echo-band air-traffic control radar from Shemya, X-ray band phased array search radar also from Shemya — the COBRA DANE long-range radar — and F-band search radar from just offshore, probably a surface-search radar from that trawler. No height finders.”

  “One minute to missile launch.”

  The pilot’s voice sounded much more apprehensive. “Where’s that trawler?” he asked.

  “Eleven o’clock, thirty-two kilometers.”

  “And you say it’s painting us with radar?”

  “Search radar only, pilot,” the EWO responded.

  “Can he see us?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then let’s deviate around him,” the pilot said. “Bombardier, give me a vector.”

  “Negative. Less than forty seconds to launch. Deviating might put us outside the footprint. Hold heading.”

  “If that trawler lights us up with a height finder, I want him blown out of the water,” the pilot ordered.

  “With a one-kiloton nuclear warhead? You want to nuke a little fishing boat with a ten-million-ruble nuclear missile?”

  “Have number two target that trawler — he’s got four missiles to spare. That’s an order.”

  “Roger.” On the interplane radio, the bombardier relayed the order from the flight commander. The number-two Blackjack’s bombardier laid his radar crosshairs on the radar return, hit a button to engage the moving-target designation mode, waited thirty seconds for the crosshairs to drift off, then placed them back on the target. The attack computers automatically calculated the trawler’s speed — less than ten knots — and computed a set of target coordinates for where the trawler would be at the end of the missile’s very short flight time.

  Not that it mattered much: A one-kiloton nuclear warhead would create an eight-cubic-kilometer hole in the ocean that would suck millions of kilos of seawater into it within seconds, crushing anything inside that was not already vaporized in the blast. The missile could miss by several kilometers and still destroy the little trawler.

  “Stand by for missile launch,” the lead bombardier reported. “Missile counting down…Doors coming open…Missile one away…Launcher rotating…Missile two away…Doors coming closed…All missiles away.”

  At this range it would take just over one minute for the first missile to hit. “Double-check curtain seals,” the pilot ordered. The pilots made sure that the silver-and-lead-lined anti — flash blindness curtains covering the cockpit windows were closed and securely fastened in place. “Crew, sunglasses secure, dark helmet visors down, interior lights full bright.” They turned the inside lights full bright so they could see their instruments through all the eye protection and to constrict their irises as much as possible. “Autopilot is off, climbing to one thousand meters. Prepare for—”

  Just then the bombardier radioed, “Lost contact with missile one…Missile two still on track…Thirty seconds to second missile impact…twenty…Stand by for shock wave from first missile detonation…ten…Shit, I lost contact with the second missile…. Shock wave impact, now.” There was nothing. “Stand by for shock wave from missile two….”

  “What happened, bombardier?” the pilot asked.

  “Unknown. I just lost contact…. Shock wave coming up, now.” Still nothing. “No detonation. I don’t understand it, pilot. I had two good missiles until just before detonation, and then nothing.”

  The pilot started pulling off the anti — flash blindness curtains from his cockpit windscreen. “I’m going to look for a mushroom cloud or signs of detonation. Copilot, shield your eyes.” The pilot gingerly opened his curtains a few centimeters. There was no sign of a nuclear explosion. “Nothing! What could have happened?”

  “Want me to launch the last two missiles at Shemya?”

  “We were supposed to save the last two for surface targets we’d encounter on our way back,” the pilot reminded him, “and then save any unexpended weapons for contingencies.” But Shemya was a very important target, he thought. “Have our wingman cancel his attack on that surface target and launch two missiles at Shemya — then we’ll both have two missiles remaining. That’s better than one plane having four left but being unable to launch.”

  “Acknowledged. Break. Two, this is lead, put a couple on Shemya. Our two missiles malfunctioned.”

  “Acknowledged. Changing to left-echelon formation.” Since his missiles would be flying south, the number-two Blackjack bomber crossed over to the lead bomber’s left side and prepared to launch two Kh-15 missiles at Shemya.

  “Zagavn’at!” the pilot swore aloud. “How could we fuck up that bad?”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong, pilot,” the bombardier said. “Who knows? Maybe the missile’s electronics got beat up too badly during the long low-level cruising. Maybe the fuze malfunctioned.”

  “Any air defenses on Shemya?”

  “None whatsoever,” the electronic-warfare officer responded, puzzled.

  “And even if there were, even a Patriot missile would have a hard time shooting down a Kh-15,” the bombardier say
s. “The Kh-15 flies faster and lower than the Patriot can—”

  “Uyobyvay!” the copilot suddenly swore. “What in hell was that?”

  The pilot saw it too — a streak of blue-yellow flashed by the windscreen, so fast that it seemed like a beam of light — except the streak left a thin, white, steamy contrail. “Was that a surface-to-air missile?”

  “I’m not picking up any uplink or height-finder radars,” the electronic-warfare officer said immediately. “Scope’s clear except for a surface-search radar at eleven o’clock, ten kilometers.”

  “That trawler is still painting us?”

  “It’s not a SAM radar, just a—”

  At that instant the crew felt a tremendous bang! reverberate through the aircraft — very quick and sharp, almost like clear-air turbulence. “Station check, crew!” the pilot ordered as he snapped his oxygen mask in place. “Everyone on oxygen.”

  “Offense in the green.”

  “Defense in the green.”

  “Copilot is in the — Wait, I’ve got a tank low-pressure warning in the fuselage number-two fuel tank,” the copilot reported as he continued scanning his instruments. “Pressure is down to ten kilopascals…. Fuel quantity is dropping, too. I’m initiating transfer to the main body and transferring wing main fuel to the outboards.”

  “Any other malfunctions?”

  “Negative, just the fuel pressure and—”

  At that moment there was another sharp bang! The air inside the cabin turned instantly cloudy, as if a thick fog had appeared out of nowhere. The pilot felt air gush out of his nostrils and mouth so loudly that he barked like a dog. “What was that? Station check again! Report!”

  “My God!” the electronic-warfare officer screamed. “Oh, my God…!”

  “What is it? Report!”

  “Igor…the bombardier…God, he’s been hit…Jesus, his entire body exploded!” the EWO screamed over the intercom. “I felt that second thud, and I looked over, and…oh, God, it looks like his body was blown in half from head to toe. Something came up from the bottom of the aircraft and blew Igor into pieces!”