Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (21 page)

 
          
The
radar scope was blank. The ridge was less than one mile off the nose . . .
eight seconds before impact . . .

 
          
The
radar altimeter indicated less than a hundred feet as the Old Dog ballooned
over the ridge, at near minimum low-level safe airspeed. The automatic flight
control system immediately commanded nose-down as the ridge line dropped behind
them, but McLanahan didn't start to breathe again until they had regained the
two hundred knots lost in the emergency climb and were safely clear of terrain.

 
          
“Clear
of terrain for fifteen miles,” McLanahan reported.

 
          
“Ground
position freeze,” Colonel Anderson said over the interphone. The digital
readouts and radar images froze on the screen. McLanahan sat back in the Old
Dog's ejection seat, wiping sweat from his forehead and palms, and took a gulp
of Tab.

 
          
“What
the hell was all that, McLanahan?”
Anderson
shouted over the interphone. McLanahan
backed the volume of the interphone panel down a notch in anticipation of yet
another yelling match. Harold Briggs, sitting in the newly installed
navigator's seat beside McLanahan, slid off his headset.

 
          
“What
was what, sir?”

 
          
“All
those calls, goddammit! Terrain this, terrain that. That's not your job.”

 
          
“What
do you mean, it's not my job. My
first
responsibility is to keep the plane out of the dirt.”

 
          
Harold
Briggs made an obscene gesture directed at
Anderson
. He felt fairly safe doing so, because
Anderson and Ormack were in a B-52 simulator some two hundred miles away and
were tied electronically into the computer simulation aboard the Old Dog. At
the same time, Wendy Tork was at a research computer terminal twenty miles from
Anderson
, participating in the same exercise, and
Campos
and
Pereira
were sitting at a fire control test bench
elsewhere at Dreamland, also linked to the computer controlling the test.
Briggs and McLanahan were inside the Old Dog itself, still in its hangar at
Groom
Lake
, watching and responding to the
computer-generated battle scenario.

 
          
“There’s
a multimillion dollar computer that can do that faster, easier, and better than
you ever can, McLanahan,”
Anderson
said. “Why do you need to call out terrain elevation when if I wanted
that useless piece of information I can just call it up on the screen? And I
can see the damned radar altimeter blinking. I don't want you garbaging up the
radios with all that stuff.”

 
          
“I
was calling to your attention, sir,” McLanahan said over the voice/ data link,
“the fact that we were fifty feet lower than the goddamned set clearance when
we still had seven hundred feet to climb. If the system was working right, we
should have started the climb three miles earlier to
cross
that ridge line
at
two hundred feet. As it was, we barely had enough airspeed to cross the ridge
at a hundred feet, and then we ballooned over it another thousand feet and
almost hit initial buffet to a stall. The radar altimeter should
never
be blinking, and sure as hell not
so close to a mountain.”

 
          
Anderson
had no reply to that, but someone else
chimed in:

 
          
“Excuse
me, Captain,”
Campos
interjected, his voice sounding hollow and metallic over the secure
voice-data transmission line, “but please understand the situation here. Right
now you have two attackers off the nose, just within radar range. You must
spend less time in mapping mode and much, much more time in TTG mode. The
Scorpions
can be launched off threat
detection signals from the receiver unit, but without range, elevation and
tracking data the chances of a hit at long range are slim. We’re relying on
using the main radar to guide the
Scorpions.
”

 
          
“Besides,”
Lieutenant Colonel Ormack added from Edwards, “this is only a practice run. The
elevation data in this simulation isn’t plotted as accurately as the
operational cartridge. There’s bound to be some belly- scrapers. We’re trying
to nail down
procedures
,
McLanahan—and until we get to the target area, your procedure is to help guide
the defensive missiles. Let the computers keep us out of the dirt.”

 
          
McLanahan
rubbed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

 
          
“This
is such bullshit,” he said to Briggs.

 
          
“Hang
in there, buddy. You’re really running this show, and they all know it.”

 
          
“Like
hell,” McLanahan said. “I’m a passenger. Extraneous material.” “You mean ‘dead
weight,’ ” Briggs said.

 
          
“Thanks
for the clarification.”

 
          
“Okay,”
Anderson
radioed over to the widely separated crew.
“We’ll back up five minutes and do the leg over again. This time, McLanahan,
find the damn fighters before they find us.”

 
          
McLanahan
called up the prerecorded flight plan and waypoint readouts and watched as the
present position coordinates slowly scrolled back to the beginning of the
low-level navigation leg.

 
          
“You
want to see what a collision with the ground looks like, Hal?” McLanahan said.
“Just keep watching the scope.”

 
          
“I
saw,” a voice behind them said. McLanahan whirled around to see General Elliott
sitting in the back of the navigator’s compartment, taking notes and listening
to the interphone conversations from the instructor nav’s station.

 
          
“Hello,
General Nightmare,” McLanahan said. “How are we doing? I think we suck
big-time.”

 
          
“Patrick,”
the general said, “I don’t want to undermine
Anderson
’s authority—he’s a great pilot and a
genuine asset to the project—but follow your own instincts, your own training.
Everyone but you is trusting all this gadgetry with their lives because they
don’t know any better. Both Anderson and Ormack could see the terrain warning
signals in the cockpit and they both ignored them. Keep an eye out for the
terrain and for fighters as you see fit.”

 
          
The
general paused, looking around the tiny compartment measuring his words, then
said, “I’ve watched your work, Patrick. You seem to know when the fighters are
near before the warning receivers do. You switch in TTG mode before Wendy tells
you there are fighters, and you switch into mapping mode and call terrain just
in time to avoid a mountain.”

 
          
“Well,
thanks for the encouragement, General,” McLanahan said. “My sixth sense or
whatever the hell it is tells me to bail out of this project before Colonel
Disaster plows us into downtown
Las Vegas
.”

 
          
“You’ll
be doing it some other time, Patrick,” the general said. “Or maybe not at all.”
Elliott flipped the interphone switch. “Colonel Anderson, this is General
Elliott. The rest of today’s session is canceled. I need to speak to everyone
back at the mission center as soon as possible.”

 
          
“Yes,
sir,”
Anderson
said. “Colonel Ormack and myself will be
back in two hours. I expect everyone in the mission center when we arrive.”
Everyone else acknowledged
Anderson
’s instructions, and the data/voice link went dead.

 
          
“What’s
up, General?” Briggs asked. He looked worried and pale in the dim red lights of
the downstairs compartment. McLanahan, for some reason, was suddenly very calm,
serene. General Elliott seemed to notice the change, and he frowned a bit
before continuing.

 
          
“You’ve
been shelved, Patrick,” Elliott said. “I’ve been informed that the Old Dog
project has been ordered to stand down.”

 
          
“That
means . . .”

 
          
“Unfortunately,
it doesn’t mean going home,” Elliott said. “I’ve managed to get your temporary
duty extended here at Dreamland. I can’t do the same for the civilians,
unfortunately, so it’s going to be real quiet around here. But—well, let’s call
it a slowdown. They don’t have the same all-fired need for the Old Dog’s data
as before. We’ll keep busy, I assure you.”

 
          
McLanahan
looked skeptical. “Sorry, my friend,” Elliott said, “can’t explain it better
than that. Let’s go and get a cold one while Anderson and the others zoom
back.”

 
          
“I
heard
that
” Briggs said happily.

 
          
“I
meant McLanahan,” Elliott said. The three climbed out of the Old Dog’s
fibersteel belly. Outside, an army of workmen were surrounding the

 
          
Old
Dog with engine inlet covers and defueling equipment, and weapons dollies were
being pushed over to the
Megafortress
.

 
          
Elliott
stood and watched for a moment as the workmen completed the task of plugging up
and taking apart the Old Dog. He then led the group quickly out of the
building.

 
          
A
lone figure huddled against a steel
mast on the wildly-heaving deck of a hundred-foot fishing vessel bobbing in the
rough North Pacific seas. The man, wearing layers of fur-lined jackets under
his oilskins, braced himself and tried to chop ice from a large winch bolted
onto the mast. His mitten-clad hands were covered with freezing rain and ice;
only the thick leather thong on the handle kept the rubber mallet he was using
from spinning off into the icy sea.

 
          
A
wall of water crashed against the gunwale and showered the deck. Bits of
instantly frozen water penetrated the face mask he wore and cut into his
cheeks. He no longer worried about slipping on the pitching deck, unless his
boots somehow came off—he was anchored by a quarter-inch of ice to the steel
deck.

 
          
A
deep howl penetrated the roar of the wind and waves around him. He took a
better grip on the winch with his mittened right hand and reluctantly turned
his eyes seaward. The sting of the wind shot a rod of pain deep into his
eyeballs. He squinted against the icy gusts and searched the horizon, trying to
follow the howl which was rising in intensity.

 
          
There
it was. It descended out of the racing clouds and horizontal sheets of freezing
rain like a giant bird of prey. It leveled off, seemingly only a few scant feet
above the icy foaming waters, and flew directly at the fishing vessel.

 
          
The
man let the mallet drop on its thong, reached into a pocket of the oilskin, and
withdrew a small walkie-talkie. He turned his face away from the wind and the
oncoming predator, bent down a bit, lifted his ski mask and keyed the
microphone.

 
          
“Bridge,
Marceaux. Here comes that Bear, full on the port beam.” The man heard a feeble
voice come over the radio, but couldn’t understand it.

           
No matter. They heard him. He
couldn’t stand another few seconds with his face uncovered anyway. He dropped
the radio back into his pocket, made sure the pocket cover Velcroed closed, and
turned to watch the plane.

 
          
It
was a Russian “Bear” bomber, one of several that had been dogging the fishing
vessel in the past few days. This one had the guts—or the poor judgment—to drop
below the scuzzy cloud cover and risk direct visual identification of the
vessel.

 
          
It
was truly an imposing sight, especially the turboprop engines. Two massive,
ungainly engines hung underneath each huge wing. Each engine had two large
four-bladed propellers, an unusual sight on so large an aircraft. The
propellers made the aircraft unusually quiet—its low whine did not get louder
as it approached. Even in the poor visibility, the large red stars under the
wings could easily be seen. This Bear had two radomes on the underside of its
fuselage, marking it as a highly modified Bear-F maritime reconnaissance
aircraft. Its other notable modification was the addition of two plyons, one on
each wing and each loaded with six AS-12 air-to-sea antiship missiles, direct
copies of the U.S. Navy’s
Harpoon
antiship
missiles.

 
          
The
bomber didn’t need that many, the seaman named Marceaux thought. Just one could
send this old tub to the bottom.

 
          
The
Bear flew right over the U.S.S.
Lawrence’s
bow—a violation of international maritime law and a direct warning to the ship.
Its size made it look much closer, but Marceaux estimated the bomber was at one
thousand feet above the ship, the internationally legislated minimum. Despite
the relatively quiet turboprops, the roar of the bomber passing overhead cut
through the howl of the storm. It seemed to drive the storm before it, adding
to its fury.

 
          
“
Cochon,
” Marceaux said, but the curse
was lost in the roar of the Bear’s engine. A moment later the bomber lumbered
skyward and disappeared again into the scuz. Marceaux waited until he was sure
the Bear was gone for good, then slowly and carefully made his way along the
icy deck toward the midships hatch and the welcoming warmth below.

 
          
Sheets
of ice dropped off Marceaux’s oilskin as he unbuttoned the jacket and stowed it
in a locker in the crew’s bunkroom. As he peeled off the fur jackets, the
ship’s chief petty officer passed by and tapped him on the shoulder.

 
          
“Intel,”
he said. “Before anything else.”

 
          
“
Zut!
I’m freezin’, Chief,” Marceaux
said. “I’ve been up there for—”

 
          
“Intel,
” the CPO said behind him. “On
the goddamned double.” Marceaux reluctantly bypassed the galley and the scent
of hot coffee and made his way to the ship’s hold.

 
          
The
Intelligence section of the disguised fishing vessel
Lawrence
was formerly the fish processing hold.
Indeed, the front one-fifth of the area still held some fish-slicing and
freezing equipment—all inoperable, in place for disguise purposes only. The
Intel section was now a mass of electronic sensors, radios, maps, computers,
and humorless men.

 
          
The
chief of the Intel section, Commander Markham, passed Marceaux in the doorway.
He carried a steaming cup of coffee.

 
          
“Well,
Marceaux?”

 
          
It
was obvious to
Markham
that Marceaux’s attention was elsewhere. He passed the cold seaman the
cup of coffee. Marceaux drained half of it in one gulp, his breath exhaling as
long wisps of steam.

 
          
“Now.
Fill me in, then fill out a hostile contact log.”

 
          
“
Mercy
, Commander,” Marceaux said.
“Bear-F, maritime antiship configuration, no numbers that I could make out. Two
radomes, one forward, one aft. Observation blisters in the middle and aft, but
I couldn’t tell if they were manned. K-7 camera door open on the belly.
Refueling probe, iced over badly. Useless, I’d say. Twelve total AS-12
missiles, six on each wing, maybe stations for two more on each pylon. Bomb bay
closed but not sealed. Ice all over the wings. The pilot had
tres grands bouettes,
I’d say.”

 
          
“Altitude?
Speed?”

 
          
“One
thousand feet right on the dot, although he flew right over the bow. Speed two
hundred knots but no flaps hanging. Low and slow.”

 
          
“He
radioed a warning,”
Markham
said. “Said we were too close to
Karanginsky
Island
.”

 
          
Marceaux
shrugged. “It is a warning he could back up.
Definiment.
”

 
          
“Those
AS-12s will drop into the sea if he tries to launch ’em,”
Markham
said, heading back to the Intel section’s
small galley for more coffee. “He might send some naval buddies out after us,
but I doubt it. This is the ugliest weather I’ve seen out here.”

 
          
“Is
he still out there, sir?” Marceaux asked.

 
          
“No.
He headed home in a hurry. Probably getting iced over pretty bad. Like you
said, he had to have king-sized balls to fly around in freezing rain like
that.”

 
          
“Think
he made us?”

 
          
“They
made us as an intel ship days ago,”
Markham
said, filling a mug. “But they’re nervous
about something. Risking a Bear like that . . . something’s going on . . .”

 
          
As
Marceaux refilled his mug from the pot,
Markham
wandered over to one of his signal
operator’s consoles. He studied several oscilloscopelike displays on the
console.

 
          
His
attention focused on a pair of ten-inch signal display scopes, manned by a
gray-haired Navy signalman.
Markham
looked over his shoulder, sipping his coffee. The two signals on the
man’s scopes, although much different from each other, were perfectly
synchronized—when one wave on the scope became active, the other did also. When
one stopped, the other stopped.

 
          
“Any
change, Garrity?”
Markham
asked the sensor operator. Garrity shook his head.

 
          
“They’re
linked, that’s for sure, sir,” Garrity replied. He handed
Markham
a computer printout, then pointed to the
left of his two main displays. “That’s complete computer
verification—frequencies, timing, the works—coded and ready to transmit.
Kavaznya is getting stronger. This one”—he pointed to the right
oscilloscope—“is still weak but in perfect sync.”

 
          
“Identification?”

 
          
Garrity
adjusted some controls on his board, then sat back.

 
          
“Wild,
wild guess,” he said. “A satellite data link.”

 
          
“A
satellite?”
Markham
whistled. “That radar at Kavaznya is
talking to a satellite?”

 
          
“Maybe
two satellites,” Garrity said. “Now this is really wild, I know, but I keep on
seeing an embedded data signal in the Kavaznya radar transmission. It’s
slightly out of sync with these two signals . . .”

 
          
“Meaning?”

 
          
“Meaning
these two, Kavaznya and this second—whatever it is—may be talking.” Garrity
rubbed at his eyes and went on. “Kavaznya is talking to something else, though.
Not a radar signal. A data signal.”

 
          
“What
kind of data?”
Markham
asked, trying to make some sense of what the operator was telling him.

 
          
“Hey,
I’m just guessing here,” Garrity said, shaking his head.

 
          
“Guess
some more.”

 
          
Garrity
rubbed once again at his eyes. Then: “Steering signals.” As
Markham
bent forward to study the signals, Garrity
pointed at his displays and explained: “Here and here. Kavaznya and Joe Blow
satellite. Simple transponder-type signals—interrogate and reply. That means
azimuth and elevation ...”

 
          
“Position
data,”
Markham
said.

 
          
“It
has to be,” Garrity said. “Kavaznya telling Joe Blow here where he is and vice
versa. But then Kavaznya sends this blurb out.”

 
          
Garrity
drew a circle on a sheet of notebook paper. He recreated the Kavaznya
oscilloscope signal as best he could. “Right here. I see it every now and
then.” He drew a squiggle almost parallel to the Kavaznya signal, but much
smaller and of a slightly different frequency, or shape.

 
          
“The
timing is the most critical difference,” Garrity explained. “The timing between
Kavaznya and the second party is clear, but Kavaznya tells someone else
something. And it’s not
just
position
data. I think it’s a steering signal.”

 
          
“Steering
what?”
Markham
asked.

 
          
“Don’t
know,” Garrity replied. “I’ve never seen anything like it—hell, I’m not even
sure if I
am
seeing it. A data signal
embedded in a radar emission?” He shook his head. “I’ve been on duty for
eighteen hours. I might be seeing beeps and buzzes in my dreams.”