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  “I have a feeling it’ll be soon, my friend. I’ve been getting calls from half the J-staff, a bunch of calls from Space Command-you had to be the next caller. Let me guess-you want some air time on some satellites of mine. “Now how the hell did you know that?”

  “Every time I build a new toy, you want it, that’s how I know it.”

  “That’s why you’re out there, you stupid bastard. You’re supposed to be developing toys for us to play with, not polishing your three stars. Stop whining.”

  “I’m not, believe me.” Elliott chuckled. “I assume you want to use the new Masters NIRTSats, the ones that can downlink radar, infrared, and visual imagery all in one pass in real-time both to the ground stations and aircraft. Right?” “You’re not telepathic are you?” Curtis joked. “They tell me you can receive satellite images on your B-2 bomber as well as your B-52 Megafortress?”

  “We flight-test PACER SKY at the Strategic Warfare Center in a couple weeks, ” Elliott said, “but ground tests have gone really well. Let me guess some more: you want pictures of a certain area, but don’t want to use DSP or LACROSSE satellites because you don’t want certain Superpower countries to know you’re interested. Am I close?” “Frightfully close, ” Curtis said. “We’re watching a Chinese naval buildup in the South China Sea. We think they might be getting ready to plug away at either the Spratlys or the Philippines. If we send a DSP or KH-series bird over the area, we risk discovery.”

  “The Philippines? You mean the Chinese might try an invasion?”

  “Well, let’s hope not, ” Curtis said. “The President is a big fan of President Mikaso’s. We’ve been expecting something like this for years, ever since we realized there was a good possibility we were going to get kicked out of the Philippines-now it might actually happen. We’ve got our pants pretty much down around the ankles as far as Southeast Asia goes right now. What with the buildup in the Persian Gulf and the closing of a bunch of bases overseas, we’ve got zilch out there… “Well, if you need the pictures, you got ‘em, ” Elliott said, running his hand across the top of his hair. “We can transmit the digitized data to J-2, or Jon Masters can set up one of his terminals right on your desk there-providing you don’t keep stretching your secretary out over it all the time.”

  “My secretary is a fifty-year-old Marine Corps gunnery sergeant that could grind us both down into little nubs, you old lech.” Curtis laughed. “No, transmit it to J-2 and J-3 out here at the Pentagon soonest. They’ll give you a call and tell you exactly what they want. “I know what you want, sir, ” Elliott said. “Hey, don’t be so sure, big shot, ” Curtis said. “Man, some guys-they get on the fast track, tool around the White House for a few months, and it goes right to their heads. And stop calling me sir. You’d have four stars, too, if you’d climb up out of that black hole you’ve built for yourself out there and join the real world again.”

  “What? Leave Dreamland and miss the opportunity for some first-class, four-star abuse? No way.” Elliott gave his old friend a loud laugh and hung up. U.S. AIR FORCE STRATEGIC WARFARE CENTER ELLSWORTH AFB, SOUTH DAKOTA “Room, ten-HUT!” Two hundred men and women in olive drab flight suits moved smartly to their feet as Air Force Brigadier General Calvin Jarrel and his staff entered the auditorium briefing room. The scene could have been right out of Patton except for the ten-foot-square electronic liquid-crystal screen onstage with the Strategic Air Command emblem in full color, showing an armored fist clutching an olive branch and three lightning bolts. Otherwise it looked like the setting for countless other combat-mission briefings from years past-except these men and women, all SAC warriors, weren’t going to war… at least not yet. It was easy to mistake General Cal Jarrel for just another one of the four hundred or so crew dogs at the Air Force Strategic Warfare Center, and that was just fine with him. Jarrel was an unimposing five foot eleven, one-hundred-sixty-pound man, with boyish brown hair and brown eyes hidden behind standard-issue aluminum-framed aviator’s spectacles. Many of those close to the General thought that he was uncomfortable with the trappings of a general officer, and everyone on the base agreed that at the very least he was the most visible one-star anyone had ever known. On the flight line or on the indoor track in the base gym, he could be seen jogging early each morning with a crowd of several dozen staffers and visitors, which was how he kept his slight frame lean and trim despite an ever-increasing amount of time flying a desk instead of a B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Excalibur, or F-1 11 G Super ‘Vark bomber. He was married to an environmental-law attorney from Georgia and was the harried father of two teenage boys. Like many of the men and women in the Strategic Air Command of the mid-1990s, Jarrel appeared studious, introspective, unobtrusive, and soft-spoken-unlike their hotshot fighter-pilot colleagues, it was as if they understood that the awesome responsibility of carrying two-thirds of the nation’s nuclear deterrent force was something that was not to be advertised or bragged about. Certainly, the critics thought, SAC’s twenty thousand aircrew members had little to boast about and nothing to look forward to for the next century-the fifty B-2s and one hundred rail-garrisoned Peacekeeper ICBMs planned to be operational by then might very well be the only nuclear-armed weapons in SAC’s inventory. Virtually all of the B-52s, B-1B bombers, cruise missiles, and reconnaissance aircraft were rumored to be headed for conventionally armed tactical-support roles, in the inactive reserves-or, worse, in the boneyard. It was a winding-down period for SAC, which created questions about readiness, training, and motivation. That’s where Jarrel’s Strategic Warfare Center School, and the Air Battle Force, came in. “Seats, ” General Cal Jarrel said in a loud voice as he made his way to the stage. The aircrew members in the room took their seats and restlessly murmured comments among themselves as Jarrel stepped up to the podium. He was there to give the welcoming speech to a new crop of aircrew members that were to begin an intensive three-week course on strategic air combat-SAC’s “graduate school” on how to fly and fight. As was the case for the past year since becoming director of the Strategic Warfare Center, he had to convince each and every one of these men and women of the importance of what they were about to learn-and, in a very real sense, to convince the rest of the country and perhaps himself as well. Lieutenant Colonel McLanahan listened to General Jarrel’s comments, sitting on the edge of his auditorium seat. All around him were stealth bomber crews, who, like him, were there to attend the Strategic Warfare Center school. When General Jarrel acknowledged the B-2 crews in his opening remarks, a ripple of applause-and a few Bronx cheers-passed over the crowd for the B-2 crews. This is where I belong, McLanahan thought: in a flight suit, getting briefed with these other crew dogs. He had, he realized, been isolated at Dreamland far too long. Sure, he was one of the most dedicated and successful aircrew members and weapon-systems project managers in the entire military. But where had that gotten him? Flying a battle-scarred B-52 fully renovated with modern hardware deep into Soviet airspace to knock out Russia’s state-of-the-art armaments? It should have been the most rewarding mission in his career. Instead it had landed him at HAWC, where he’d been ever since. But flying was in his blood. McLanahan knew the score-because of the highly classified nature of his work he’d probably never get beyond 0-6 (Colonel), or if he was lucky, 0-7 (Brigadier-General). But at least they were letting him fly a dream plane. The only problem was he couldn’t tell anyone about it. His cover story was that he was “observing” the school for the Pentagon. Still . . . he was here. And the real excitement was coming. . General Jarrel was well into his talk. “SAC is being tasked with much more than delivering nuclear weapons-we are being tasked with providing many different elements of support for a wide variety of conflict scenarios, ” Jarrel went on, speaking without a script and from his heart as well as from the numerous times he’d given this speech. “The way we do it is through the Air Battle Force, ” Jarrel continued. “From this moment on, you are not members of any bomb squadron, or fighter squadron, or airlift group-you are members of the First Air Battle Wing
. You will learn to fly and fight as a team. Each of you will have knowledge of not only his or her own capabilities, but those of your colleagues. The Air Battle Force marks the beginning of the first truly integrated strike force-several different weapon systems, several different tactical missions, training, deploying, and fighting together as one. “Because the Air Battle Force concept is new and not yet fully operational, we have to disband each task force class and return you to your home units. When you leave this Center, you will still belong to the Air Battle Force, and you are expected to continue your studies and perfect your combat skills from within your own units. If a crisis should develop, you can be brought back here to be placed back within the Air Battle Force system, ready to form the Second or Third Air Battle Wings. Eventually, Air Battle Wings will be formed on a fulltime basis for extended tours.” Jarrel talked for several more minutes, giving the history of the Strategic Warfare Center’s mission, which since 1989 had conducted strategic combat training exercises through sorties that were spread over three thousand miles of low- and highaltitude military training routes over nine Midwestern states. When he had finished, he said, “All right, ladies and gentlemen, get out there and show us how a strategic battle can be fought by America’s best and brightest!” The auditorium erupted in cheers, and somewhere in the middle of the crowd, Patrick McLanahan was cheering the loudest. Late one night a couple of days after General Jarrel’s Strategic Warfare Training Program was under way, Brigadier General John Ormack, who had come with Cobb, McLanahan, the EB-52 and B-2 bombers, and the rest of the support crew from HAWC, found Patrick McLanahan sitting in the cockpit of his Black Knight. External power and air had been hooked up, and McLanahan was reclining in the mission commander’s seat with a computer-generated chart of the Strategic Training Range Complex on the three-by-two-foot Super Multi Function Display before him. Patrick had a headset on and was issuing commands to the B-2’s sophisticated voice-recognition computer; he was so engrossed in his work-or so deep in daydream, Ormack couldn’t quite tell which-that the HAWC vice commander was able to spend a few moments watching his junior chief officer from just behind the pilot’s seat. The guy had always been like this, Ormack remembered-a little spacy, quiet, introverted, always preferring to work alone even though it was a genuine pleasure being around him and he seemed to enjoy working with others. He had the ability to tune out all sound and activity around him and to focus all his attention and brainpower on the matter at hand, whether that was a mission-planning chart, a bomb run at Mach one and a hundred feet off the ground, or a Voltron cartoon on television. But ever since arriving here at Ellsworth, McLanahan had become even more hardworking, even more focused, even more tuned out-to everything else but the task at hand, which was completing the curriculum at the Strategic Warfare Center and the Air Battle Force with the highest possible grade. Even though McLanahan himself was not being “graded” because the HAWC crews were not official participants, he was slamming away at the session as if he were a young captain getting ready to meet a promotion board. It was hard to tell if Patrick was working this hard because he enjoyed it or because he was trying to prove to himself and others that he could still do the job. . But that was Patrick McLanahan. Ormack stepped over the center console and into the leftside pilot’s seat. McLanahan noticed him, straightened himself up in his seat, and slid the headsets off. “Hey, sir, ” McLanahan greeted him. “What brings you here this evening?” “Looking for you, ” Ormack said. He motioned to the SMFD. “Route study?”

  “A little mission planning with the PACER SKY processor, ” McLanahan said. “I fed the STRC attack route through the system to see what it might come up with, and it turns out if we attack this target here from the west instead of from the northeast, the MUTES in Powder River MOA site won’t see us for an extra twenty-one seconds. We’ve got to gain sixty seconds after the Baker bomb site to get the extra time to get around to the west, so we’ll lose a few points on timing, but if this works we’ll gain even more points on bomber defense.” He shook his head as he flipped through the computer-generated graphics on the big screen. “The rest of the crews in the Air Battle Force would kill me if they knew I had something like PACER SKY doing my mission planning.” “That reminds me, ” Ormack said. “General Elliott got a tasking for NIRTSat time for a Joint Chiefs surveillance operation. Something to do with what’s going on in the Philippines. You might get tapped to show your stuff for the J-staff.”

  “Fine. I’ll water their eyes. “The guard said you’ve been up here for three hours working on this, ” Ormack said. “You spent three hours just to save twenty seconds on one bomb run?” “Twenty seconds-and maybe I take down a target without getting ‘shot’ at.” He motioned to the SMFD and issued a command, which caused the scene to go into motion. A B-2 symbol on the bottom of the screen began reading along an undulating ribbon over low hills and dry valleys. Dead ahead was a small pyramid symbol of a target complex-small “signposts’ on the ribbon marked off seconds and miles to go to weapon release. Off to the right of the screen, a yellow dome suddenly appeared. “There’s the threat site at one o’clock, but this hillock blocks me out from the west-whoever surveyed the site for positioning this MUTES site obviously didn’t think crews would deviate this far west.” The computerized mission “preview” continued as the yellow dome began to grow, eventually engulfing the B-2 bomber icon and turning red. McLanahan pointed to a countdown readout. “Bingo-I release weapons ten seconds after I come under lethal range of the MUTES site. If I carry antiradar missiles, I can pick him off right now, or I just turn westbound around the hillock to escape. Ormack nodded in fascination at the presentation, but he was more interested in studying McLanahan than watching the computer. “There’s quite a party at the 0-Club, Patrick, ” he said. “This is your last night of partying before the weekend, and a lot of your old cronies from Ford Air Force Base asked about you. Why don’t you knock off and join us?” McLanahan shrugged and began reconfiguring the SMFD for another replay. “Crew rest starts in about an hour . “One beer won’t hurt. I’ll buy.” McLanahan hesitated, then glanced at Ormack and shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir… “Something wrong, Patrick? Something you’re not telling me?”

  “No . . . nothing’s wrong.” Patrick hesitated, then issued voice commands to the computer to shut down the system. “I just. . . I don’t really feel part of them, you know?” “No, I don’t.”

  “These guys are the real crew dogs, the real aviators, ” Patrick said. “They’re young, they’re talented, they’re so cocky they think they can take on the whole world.”

  “Just like you were when I first met you, ” Ormack said with a laugh. “We used to think you had an attitude, but that was before we knew how good you really were.” He looked at McLanahan with a hint of concern. “You were pretty excited about coming to the Strategic Warfare Center, about getting back to the ‘real world’ . “But I’m not back, ” Patrick said. “I’m farther from them than I ever thought I’d be. I feel like I’ve abandoned them. I feel like I should be out there pulling a crew or running a bomb-nav shop, but instead I’m.. .” He shrugged again, then concluded, “Like I’m playing around with gadgets that probably won’t have anything to do with the ‘real world’. “That’s not what you’re down about, ” Ormack said. “I know you better than that. You’re down because you somehow don’t think you deserve what you’ve got. I see you around your buddies out there: they’re old captains or majors, and you’re a lieutenant colonel; they’re still on line crews, flying dawn patrols and red eyes and pulling alert, doing the same thing they did ten years ago, while you’re flying starships that most of those guys will never see in their careers, let alone flythey’re talking about their last bomb-competition mission or their last Operational Readiness Inspection, while your job is so classified that you can’t talk about it at all. You’re down because you can’t share what you have with them, so you hole yourself up in here thinking that maybe you don’t really have what it takes
to be a good crew dog. “Patrick, you’re where you are because you’re the best. You did more than be chosen for a job: you excelled, you never gave up, you survived, and you saved others. Then when we stuck you in Dreamland to keep you quiet, you didn’t just vegetate until completing your twenty years-you excelled again and made yourself invaluable to the organization. “You deserve what you have. You earned it. You should go out and enjoy it. And you should also buy your boss a beer before he drags your ass out of this cockpit. Now move it, Colonel.” NEAR PHU QUI ISLAND, IN THE SPRATLY ISLAND CHAIN SOUTH CHINA SEA THURSDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 1994, 2344 HOURS LOCAL The number-two task force of Admiral Yin Po L’un’s Spratly Island flotilla was again cruising within radar range of Phu Qui Island, the large rock and coral formation in the disputed neutral zone between the Philippine-occupied islands to the north and the Chinese-held islands to the south. Unlike the more powerful ten-ship task force that surrounded Admiral Yin’s flagship, this one had only four ships-two Hainan-class patrol boats, a Lienyun-class minesweeper, and a Huangfen-class fast attack missile craft, the Chagda, which acted as the command vessel for this faster, shallow-draft patrol group. Commander Chow Ti U, skipper of the Chagda, felt uneasy with his latest series of orders. It had been over three months since the attack on the Philippine oil-drilling barge, and the tension in the region had been escalating on a weekly basis. Now it was so thick one could cut it with a knife-and much of the heightened tensions could be directly attributed to the way Admiral Yin had handled the entire affair. Despite what was originally and officially reported, Yin had departed the area after attacking the oil barges; his contention that the seas were too rough to begin rescue operations did not sit well with anyone. When the weather cleared, it was found that Yin had steamed back to the Chinese side of the neutral zone, well away from Phu Qui Island-again, his contention that he was concerned about retaliatory attacks from Philippine warships did not explain why he did not offer to assist in rescue operations. Chow would never say so to anyone, but Yin’s actions could be characterized as unprofessional, exhibiting a total disregard for the rules of naval warfare, international law, and common decency between sailors. Chow felt that the Admiral had every right to confront the illegally placed oil-drilling rig, and he was well within his responsibilities when he returned fire-even such devastating return fire as he used. But to sim ply slink away from the area without offering any help or without radioing for help was very suspicious. Since then, while there’d been no skirmishes, there had been a few close calls. Everyone was on edge, looking, waiting, wondering. … Chow and his fellow Chinese crewmen privately felt it was only a matter of time before something else happened, and after witnessing the way Admiral Yin had handled the first skirmish, everyone was skittish about how he would proceed in an escalated conflict. “Range to Phu Qui Island, navigator, ” Chow called out. His crewmen were obviously keeping very close track themselves, for the answer was almost instantaneous: “Sir… we are presently twenty-five kilometers southwest of Phu Qui Island. We will be in radar range within minutes.”