Flight of the Old Dog Read online

  The President glanced at his watch again, seeing his rest time slipping away. “What you’re proposing, General—it could stir up a mess of trouble if word were to leak out. You know how close we are to signing that arms-reduction treaty.”

  “There will be nothing to leak, sir,” Curtis said. “I can handle it through my office only. It will consist only of collection and analysis of data on the Kavaznya site, and a compilation of possible options. There will be no military mobilization, no generation of forces, no funding.”

  The President stood without replying, lost in thought. Everyone in the room jumped to their feet. The President headed for the door, and General Curtis opened it for him.

  “Authorized,” he said simply as he walked past the four-star general. He stopped and glared at Curtis. “If it leaks, if it damages the negotiations in progress, you’ll answer for it. You have my guarantee …”

  General Curtis caught up to Marshall Brent as they walked toward the underground garage of the White House.

  “Drop you somewhere, Mr. Secretary?” Curtis asked, falling into step beside Brent.

  Brent hesitated a moment, frowning at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Then, he nodded with a resigned shrug.

  “Thanks, General,” he replied. “I’m heading out to Andrews to catch the diplomatic shuttle to New York.” Curtis, his aide, and Brent climbed into an Army-green Lincoln Continental and headed out into the raw Washington weather. As the driver maneuvered onto the Beltway, Curtis signaled his aide to secure the thick glass separating the driver from his passengers.

  “Rough week, eh, General?”

  “I’ve had worse … and better,” Curtis replied.

  “Do you really believe they have this … laser of yours?”

  “I may be an old stubborn pack-mule, Mr. Secretary,” Curtis said, unbuttoning his jacket, “but I listen. Our intelligence sources have been saying for ten years that the Soviets are on the verge of developing the capability to track and hit satellites with lasers. That complex at Kavaznya could easily be the culmination of all that research. I have a feeling in these old bones that some young hotshot in the Pentagon is going to come running to me in the next few days with something from that RC-135’s data transmission that says the Russians have something big going on over there.”

  “I find it hard to believe,” Brent said, “that the Russians would actually conduct such an attack. The Russians may be a lot of things, but they are not reckless.”

  “Reckless … no. But if they thought they could get away with it, they might just take the chance,” Curtis said. “Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time they fired on one of our recon planes.”

  “You’re saying they’ve fired on us before.”

  “Hell, yes,” Curtis said, laughing. “Those sons-of-bitches have brass balls sometimes. They lock onto an RC-135 with fire-control radars, like they’re gonna launch a missile at it. They shoot bullets across the aircraft’s nose, fly with overlapping wingtips. They even alter their radio navigation beacons to transmit false navigational information to aircraft near their shores, hoping to get a reconnaissance plane to fly into a restricted area. That’s why our boys aren’t allowed to use outside navigational aids. They transmit false messages or orders on high-frequency radio all the time, or interfere with real messages, or just plain jam the frequencies.”

  “But what do we do about it?”

  “Ignore them, mostly,” Curtis said. “As long as we follow the rules and no one gets hurt, we just let them make asses outta themselves. We lodge formal complaints, but they file counter-complaints just as fast and twice as wild as anything they’ve ever done. After a while, it burns itself out.”

  “But that Korea Air Lines flight flies near …”

  “See that? You just can’t trust ‘em. Sometimes they get serious.” Curtis was silent for a moment.

  “But that didn’t happen with our RC-135,” he continued. “No matter how had the shit hit the fan, the guys aboard her would’ve stayed cool. If they were under direct attack, or even believed they might soon be under attack, they would have flushed their data.”

  “Flushed it?”

  “As they collect data on Soviet radar and other electromagnetic signals, it’s coded and stored in a buffer—a computer storage space. If there’s a hint of anything going wrong—airplane problems, attack, equipment problems—the buffer can be transmitted to a Defense Department satellite within seconds. They hit one button and it’s gone, all of it. Most operators now have a hair trigger on that button: one engine coughs a bit and the data’s gone. The buffer transmits itself periodically after a complicated error-checking routine done between the plane and the satellite.

  “If the RC-135 crew knew they were under attack, we would’ve gotten the rest of their data and an attack or distress code. Even a momentary threat signal from anywhere, especially with that plane so close to shore, would’ve caused them to flush their data. But they didn’t. They never knew what hit them.”

  “A sneak attack?” Brent suggested. “A fighter could have shot at them without their knowing it, couldn’t it?”

  Curtis nodded. “At night, a passive infrared missile attack—sure. But it’s unlikely. Those RC-135s can monitor hundreds of communications frequencies, especially Soviet Command frequencies. If the crew intercepted any air-to-ground or ground-to-air radio transmissions ordering a fighter to attack, they would have flushed their data, turned tail and run. No Soviet fighter makes a move like that unless it receives an order from the Kremlin itself—unless, of course, the intruder plane actually makes an attack. The Korean Air Lines attack was preceded by two hours of communications, all of which were monitored as far away as Japan. No. Our guys never knew what killed them.”

  Both men were silent for a long time—Brent searching for an explanation, Curtis simply hopping mad.

  “So what can we do about it?” Brent asked.

  “There ain’t shit we can do about it,” Curtis said, sighing. “Unless the Russians try to do something stupid, something really flagrant. If they have a new toy over there, they’ve had their little fun with it. But if they play with it some more, our young President may go over and kick their little butts for them.”

  “Something flagrant,” Brent said, thinking to himself.

  “That’s what I like about our boy President,” Curtis said, his voice growing suddenly exuberant. “He’s a politician and a half, but you can rile him. Just like his of football quarterback days—he’s all finesse, pretty moves, bobbing and weavin’, until he’s behind by a touchdown and a field goal. Then he starts throwin’ the bomb, goin’ for the score.”

  Brent looked at Curtis and shook his head. “God help us,” he said. “if he goes all the way.”

  THE UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK

  “This emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council is hereby called to order,” Ian McCaan, the United Nations Secretary-General and ambassador from Ireland, announced. It was almost eleven P.M. in New York. Most of the fifteen delegates and their aides and secretaries held steaming cups of coffee or tea. A few wore angry, tired faces. A few looked anxiously at, it was certain, the two principals for which this meeting was called—Gregory Adams, the ambassador from the United States, and Dmitri Karmarov, the Soviet ambassador.

  “Let the record show,” McCaan continued, his Irish brogue thick despite two decades spent in the United Sates, “that this meeting was urgently requested by the government of the United States of America under Provision Nine, unprovoked and excessive use of military force against an unarmed vessel or aircraft near territorial boundaries. The charge of violation of Provision Nine is hereby submitted. The United States delegation has asked that this meeting be closed to all but Security council members, although confidential audio transcripts of this emergency meeting will be made available to all member nations. Ambassador Adams, please proceed with specifications of the charge.”

  Gregory Adams adjusted his microphone and looked around the table at the other fourteen delegates. This was not a receptive audience. The Russian ambassador looked completely bored. The other delegates looked equally uninterested, and now Adams began to question the wisdom of calling an emergency meeting under these circumstances. Adjusting the dark horn-rimmed glasses that he wore to make himself look older, he cleared his throat and began:

  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General. On the night of November thirteenth, two nights ago, an unarmed American RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft was making a routine patrol of the eastern shore of the Kamchatka peninsula of the Soviet Union. The aircraft had been on a peaceful training mission—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Adams,” Dmitri Karmarov interrupted, holding his translator earpiece closer to his left ear. He smiled and said in English, “The interpreter has told me that the RC-135 was on a training mission. I wish to be clear on this point—is that the same as a spy mission, sir?”

  “American aircraft of all types fly near shores all over the world for a variety of reasons, Ambassador,” Adams replied. “This particular RC-135 was on a training and routine survey mission, collecting signal coverage data for satellite navigation units for civil and military use.”

  “Navigation information!” Karmarov’s sixty-one-year-old face fairly cracked with suppressed laughter. He made an exaggerated point of hiding his face and choking down a chuckle. “Navigation information … very well, Mr. Adams. I apologize for the interruption.” Another stifled laugh. The rest of the delegates, although not suppressing any laughter, clearly did not believe for one moment Adams’ excuse for the RC- 135’s mission. Its capabilities were well known.

  “That aircraft,” Adams said, much louder this time, “was destroyed. Suddenly, without warning and without provocation.” Adams looked at the faces
of the other delegates, but found nothing in their blank expressions. “This poses a threat to air traffic for all of us, gentlemen. It was. not over Soviet airspace—”

  “Incorrect, Ambassador Adams,” Karmarov said. “I have a report from our air defense radar tracking station at Kommandorskiy Island and Ossora Airbase on Ust-Kamchatka. They report the RC-l35 aircraft came within thirty-three miles of our shore …’

  “Thirty-three miles,” Adams retorted, “is hardly over Soviet airspace.”

  “Not according to the International Civil Aeronautics Organization,” Karmarov said. “Article Seventeen, Chapter one-thirty-one, establishes a one-hundred-and-twenty-mile-wide Air Defense Identification Zone around countries that have borders on open ocean. Flight is prohibited in the Zone without permission from the country controlling that Zone. I believe I can safely assume that your RC-135 did not have permission to enter that area …

  “Flight is not prohibited in an Air Defense Zone,” Adams said. He referred to a folder his aide passed to him. “According to paragraph one-thirty-seven of the ICAO regulations, Ambassador, aircraft entering an ADIZ without permission or proper identification risk engagement of a country’s sea or air defense forces for the express purpose of positive aircraft identification and precise position, altitude, airspeed, and heading verification only. They can proceed through the area as long as they do not pose a threat to air traffic or national security. They are certainly not to be fired on.”

  “An American military jet the size of the one that intruded into our airspace is most definitely a threat to our security, sir,” Karmarov said. “The Article specifies that, if the intruding aircraft is military and has the capability of carrying long-range air-to-air or air-to-ground weapons, it may be turned away from land, challenged, forced to land, or fired on.” Karmarov pointed a finger directly at Adams. “It was you who risked disaster, not us.”

  “The RC-135 has no capability of carrying weapons.”

  “Positive identification of the aircraft was never made until your government contacted us, sir,” Karmarov said. “It followed an unusual flight path for a spy plane—not the usual course. Considering the sensitive nature of our activities in that area, I believe the Soviet government acted with considerable restraint.”

  “Restraint!” Adams said. He contorted his face to display the maximum in indignation. “You destroyed that aircraft. You fired on it without warning, without any consideration of any of the lives on board. You murdered twelve innocent men and women. An unarmed aircraft carrying out a peaceful mission!”

  “I caution you to keep your wild accusations in check, Mr. Adams,” Karmarov said, louder this time. “We deny any involvement with the missing aircraft except to warn that aircraft out of Soviet airspace. We did not know the exact identity of the aircraft until your Department of Defense notified us of the disaster. We immediately initiated an air and sea search for the aircraft. We do not know what happened to your spy plane. Do not put the blame for your unfortunate disaster on the hands of the innocent Soviet people.”

  “The RC-135 aircraft reported unusual radar emissions tracking it, just before it was attacked,” Adams said. “The crew believed it was target-tracking redar signals from a ground radar installation preparing to attack.”

  “Show us the data, then,” Karmarov said. “You say it was a hostile radar. We say we had nothing but surveillance radars on the aircraft. Show us the data that you say exist, Ambassador Adams. Confront the accused with the evidence—if you can.”

  “Mr. Adams?” McCaan said, peering over his podium to the American delegate’s seat. “Can you at this time provide the Council with this information?”

  “The crucial information is being collected for presentation, Mr. Secretary-General.”

  “You mean decoded, deciphered, edited, and altered,” Heinrich Braunmueller, the East German ambassador, said wryly. “Intelligence data takes time to be made presentable.”

  “We’ll bring the data in, you can be sure of it,” Adams said. “It clearly shows a tracking radar, one strong enough to steer dozens of nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missiles to it.”

  “That is a wild, baseless accusation, sir,” Karmarov said once again, shaking his head in exasperation. “You’ll not get the Soviet Union to admit any culpability in this unfortunate accident.”

  “Tell the Council, Ambassador Karmarov,” Adams said, folding his hands in front of him. “What sort of activities do you pursue at Kavaznya? Why is it so important? Why is it so vital that you’d shoot down an unarmed survey aircraft in international airspace?”

  “You are beginning to become tiresome, Ambassador Adams,” Karmarov said. “I will repeat myself for the last time—we do not know what happened to your aircraft. Kavaznya is the site of an important research facility that I am not permitted, and this council is not entitled, to discuss. Further, your aircraft, by your own admission, was not in international airspace. It was intruding into a Soviet controlled defense zone. It, or, more precisely, the military leaders in your Pentagon that ordered those men and women into violating the airspace of another nation, were the guilty party, not the Soviet Union. The aircraft made no attempt to identify itself, ask for help, state its intentions, or file a flight plan. It was an unidentified aircraft—”

  “That you shot down!” Adams said, pointing his finger at Karmarov. He was ready to play one last card. “We know you are conducting research into particle-beam weapons, lasers, and other such devices, Ambassador. You may as well admit it. You decided to test your new toy on an unarmed American aircraft.”

  “And you are on a fishing expedition, Adams,” Karmarov said. He turned to Ian McCaan. “Mr. Secretary-General, the Soviet Union pleads innocent to the trumped-up charges levied against us by the United States. We demand that the United States shows its evidence against us immediately. If there is no evidence, as I suspect will be the case, or if the evidence is not found to be accurate, reliable, or in clear support of the charges against us, I demand all charges be dropped and a formal apology be delivered by both Ambassador Adams and the President of the United States.”

  “Ambassador Adams,” Ian McCaan said, “are you prepared to present your evidence supporting your charge?”

  Adams glared at Karmarov, then studied the faces of those around him. He saw only tiredness, confusion. “The United States will present its evidence to the Council by the end of the week, in a regular session of—”

  “Then the delegation from the United States has wasted our time,” Karmarov declared. “Ambassador Adams, I feel the need to remind you that an emergency meeting of this Council is not the proper forum for a political diatribe against the Soviet Union. Further, be prepared to confront the accused with evidence if you make such damaging charges. I will ask the Steering Committee of the United Nations to investigate this rash and irresponsible abuse of your privilege and see if charges of impropriety are not warranted against you. Mr. Secretary-General, I move for adjournment.”

  “Seconded,” Braunmueller said quickly.

  Even McCaan, a long-time supporter of the United States and a friend of Gregory Adams, looked irritated. The rest of the Security Council members were already departing, leaving trails of angry comments behind, when McCaan’s gavel tapped the stone.

  BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE,

  BOISSIER CITY, LOUISIANA

  Lieutenant-General Bradley Elliott, the honorary master of ceremonies, glanced at the typewritten winner’s name at the bottom of the five-by-seven card. His shock deepened. In his three years as honorary awards officer for the annual Strategic Air Command Bombing and Navigation Competition. he had never seen anything like it. One organization—one crew, in fact—had blown the doors off the competition as no other crew in history had. The oddsmakers and the crystal-ball gazers were not just wrong about this one—they weren’t even in the ballpark.

  General Elliott waited until the two stagehands were ready and the audience escorts had moved into position. He straightened his shoulders and smiled. These poor crewdogs, he said to himself. They wait months for the results of the SAC Bombing and Navigation competition, and whoever presents the awards teases them with sly innuendos and hints as to who won. And then, to increase their agony, the escorts walk through the aisles in the audience, stopping in front of a unit’s row just long enough for the victory cries to begin, then move on.