Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (36 page)

 
          
“Well,”
Elliott said, “we’re cleared—but to where? How? For how long?”

 
          
“They’ll
try to contact us—somehow,” Ormack said. “We’re monitoring all the SAC Command
Post frequencies, SATCOM, all the emergency frequencies, and the SAC Emergency
Action Alpha monitor periods on high-frequency radio. Maybe they haven’t
decided what to do yet.” “Well, I’ve decided,” Elliott said, rubbing at the
pain spreading in his right calf. “We’ve got to land this beast tonight. If
they don’t tell us where, we’ll pick the place. Tonapah, Indian
Springs—wherever we need to go.” Over the ship’s interphone, he said, “Crew,
we’ve received notification from Center that our call sign is now Dog Zero-One
Fox.”

           
McLanahan said: “Any word on what
we’re supposed to do?”

 
          
“Not
yet,” Elliott said. “Just keep monitoring your assigned frequencies. We should
hear something soon.”

 
          
“Can
someone take HF for a while?” Luger said. “The static is driving me nuts.”

 
          
“I’ll
take it,” McLanahan said, reached across and took the high- altitude general
aviation chart that Luger was using to copy the high- frequency radio messages
on. He glanced at his watch. “Three more minutes until Alpha monitor.” He
switched his interphone panel waver switch to the HF setting and winced as he
turned the switch on. He fumbled for the volume knob. “Sorry I volunteered. You
got three-eleven, remember. Here’s the log I made up.”

 
          
Luger
looked over the mountain of radio messages on the UHF alternate SAC command post
frequency. “Just routine messages,” he said. “What are we looking for?”

 
          
“Anything,”
McLanahan said. “A clue. Something unusual.”

 
          
“Can’t
they just say, ‘Hey you guys, set A-B-C in the SATCOM’?”

           
“Then everyone who hears the
message sets it in their printers. It’s not secure anymore.”

           
“Or, ‘Hey, Dog, land at Tonopah’?
Oh, never mind. Same reason.”

           
“Real smart boy,” McLanahan said.
“Alpha monitor period.” He shut off all the radio switches except HF and
pressed the headset pads closer to his head to hear better the Strategic Air
Command emergency action message broadcasts. Alpha monitor was the primary time
period for worldwide Strategic Air Command messages over the high-frequency
radio spectrum.

 
          
“How’s
the fuel look, John?” Elliott asked Ormack.

 
          
“Still
about seven hours at this throttle setting,” Ormack said, checking his homemade
flight plan filled out on the back of a piece of cardboard. “We can still fly
across the country twice if we need to.”

 
          
“My
butt won’t hang in there that long,” Elliott said.

 
          
“How
about your leg?”

 
          
“Still
smarts,” Elliott said, gently touching his calf.

 
          
Ormack
reached into a flight publications holder behind his seat and pulled out the
North America IFR supplement. “I’ve got the frequency for McClellan Global
Command Control,” he told Elliott. “I’ll give them a call, tell them we’re
exiting the ADIZ.” Over the interphone he asked, “Anyone using the HF?”

 
          
“The
Muck’s copying a message,” Luger replied. He glanced over at McLanahan, who was
intently listening to the static-charged radio message, occasionally tapping a
pencil on the characters he was transcribing.

 
          
“Let
me know when he’s finished,” Ormack said. “Any problem with keeping up with our
position?”

 
          
“No,
sir.”

 
          
“I’ll
need some more endurance figures in a minute. I’ll probably need an ETA to a
fix somewhere when I call McClellan.”

 
          
“Ask
and ye shall receive,” Luger said, and looked over again at McLanahan, who had
just switched his interphone knobs to their normal positions.

 
          
“HF
is yours, Colonel,” Luger said. “Nav clearing off to the sextant. Hey, Muck, I
gotta take a sun shot. You wanna do the honors or count me down?”

 
          
“I’ve
done the last three shots on the sextant,” he said. “Gimme the watch.” As Luger
got up to head to the upper deck to take the sextant positions, McLanahan
grabbed his arm. “Anything unusual about any of these HF messages you copied,
Dave?” He tapped his pencil on the long lines of numbers and letters, together
with the time of transmission and the call sign of the command post that made
the transmission.

 
          
“No,
the usual number of characters, no special order or anything. Of course, we
can’t decode the messages.”

 
          
“Something
in the messages . . . Dave, did the message say ‘fox’ or ‘foxtrot’?”

           
“What? Oh, the phonetic spelling for
the ‘Fs,’ you mean?” He thought for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right. ‘Fox’! Not
‘foxtrot’! But it’s the same thing, right?”

 
          
“Maybe,
maybe not.” McLanahan pulled the mike closer. “Angelina? Any luck?”

 
          
Angelina
made an obscene gesture at the row of buttons on the SATCOM printer, which were
used to set the address enable codes into the printer-receiver. “My finger’s
getting numb setting codes.”

 
          
“I
think I might have something,” McLanahan said. “We just got HF traffic. They’re
using ‘fox’ in their messages instead of ‘foxtrot.’ It’s the same as that
strange suffix on our call sign.”

 
          
“
‘Fox’? Sure, why not? I’ve tried dozens of other codes.” In the gunner’s
compartment, Angelina set the address enable switch on the SATCOM printer to
DISENABLE. She then set the address code windows to ‘F-O-X’ and changed the
address switch to ENABLE. “Nothing,” she said.

 
          
“Try
those characters backwards,” McLanahan told her. “That has to be the key.”

 
          
Angelina
entered ‘X-O-F’ into the printer address code and switched the receiver to
‘ENABLE.’ Instantly, the SATCOM printer rumbled to life. “It worked!”

 
          
“Great,”
Elliott said. “Read out any messages you get as soon as possible.”

 
          
“Just
a stream message with our call sign in it so far,” Angelina said. “I’ll get an
acknowledgment message out right away.” She unstowed the SATCOM keyboard and
began to type out an acknowledgment message. Fifteen minutes later she keyed
the mike again.

 
          
“Message,
General,” she announced.

 
          
“Go
ahead.”

 
          
“It
reads, ‘Orbit at SHARK intersection for recovery at Boeing Auxiliary Eleven at
zero-eight-hundred hours Zulu. Insure weapons safe for recovery. JCS.’ That’s
it. I got the codes for the satellite navigation system, too. I’ll pass down
the GPS code to the nav in a minute.”

 
          
“Well,
that’s it,” Elliott said. “We’ll have this beast down on the tarmac in a few
hours.” He turned to Ormack. “Sure was nice getting behind these controls
again, John. I’m just sorry about the circumstances.”

 
          
Elliott
stared out the windowscreen and watched the Old Dog’s nose as it veered into
the sun. The pain continued to throb in his right leg as he thought about the
two
Excaliburs
headed toward
Russia
.

 
          
“Disconnect,
seven-seven.”

           
The boom operator hit a trigger on
his control stick, and the nozzle of the KC-10
Extender's
refueling boom popped out of the receptacle, a small
white cloud of JP-4 jet fuel vapor streaming away in the slipstream of the B-1B
Excalibur
below. The boomer pulled on
the stick, and the boom moved quickly away from the black shape hovering below
his panoramic window beneath his toes. He hit another switch, and the boom
motored up and automatically stowed itself under the modified McDon-
nell-Douglas DC-lO’s tail.

 
          
“Clear
One-Three to the wing,” the pilot aboard the B-l requested.

 
          
“Clear
to the right wing, One-Three,” the lead B-l replied. The B-l that had just
completed its refueling slowed, dipped its right wing, and slid out of view of
the KC-10 boom operator. Just as he cruised out of view, the boom operator got
another glimpse of the pylon full of missiles slung under the
Excalibur's
wings.

 
          
“Refueling
complete,” the boom operator radioed to the copilot. He swiveled his headphone
microphone away from his lips and wiped sweat from his face and neck. Refueling
a B-l was always hard—even though they were steady platforms, their dark NATO
camouflage made it hard to find their open receptacles, even during the
daytime.

 
          
But
these two B-ls were different—very different. Their dark gray coloring was
gone, replaced by dull jet-black surfaces. Even with the electrofluorescent
aiming grid on the
Excalibur''s
nose,
the boomer had been very reluctant to extend the nozzle into that dark,
shapeless void. He knew he had only about a six-foot margin for error before he
stuck the nozzle into the bomber’s radome—or, worse, through its windscreen.
Even though he had been a boom operator for fifteen years and six feet was a
lot of free space to work with, there was always the possibility of error. Two
planes flying twelve feet away from each other, traveling at almost three
hundred and eighty miles an hour—well, it was easy to screw up.

 
          
The
copilot was giving the offload report to the two bombers: “Kelly One-Two
flight, you received a total of one hundred and seventy thousand pounds, about
equally divided. Clear to tactical frequency. Clear us for a right climbing
turn.”

 
          
The
lead B-l aircraft commander, Colonel Bruce Canaday, checked his left window.
“See One-Three out there, Bill?” Canady’s copilot checked his right window. At
that moment, the second B-l slipped into fingertip position about twenty feet
from his leader’s right wingtip, its position lights and anticollision beacon
popping on.

 
          
“Got
him. He’s in fingertip.”

 
          
“Gascap
flight, clear for a right climbing turn. Thanks for the gas.”

 
          
“Gascap
flight copies. Good luck, you guys.” Canady watched as the huge KC-10 tankers
banked to the right and flew above and out of sight of the B-ls.

 
          
“Kelly
flight, post-refueling checks,” Canady radioed to his wingman.

 
          
“Two,”
came the reply.

 
          
“Ed,
got the post-refueling message ready?” Canady asked his offensive systems
operator. The radar navigator had just finished composing the coded message for
transmission via AFSATCOM, notifying the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they had
received their last scheduled refueling before approaching the continent of
Asia
.

 
          
“Ready
to go.”

 
          
“Send
it. Did we get our hourly ‘go’ message?”

 
          
“Received
the last one five minutes ago,” the navigator replied. “I’m expecting the first
fail-safe message any minute.”

 
          
Just
then his Air Force Satellite Communications printer clattered to life. The
navigator transcribed the phonetically coded message into a codebook, then
passed it to the defensive systems operator, the DSO, across the narrow aisle
from him.

 
          
Together,
the officers carefully decoded the tnessage, then rechecked it.

 
          
“We
got it,” the navigator said. “Cleared tp proceed on course to the second
fail-safe point. We can expect the Strike’ message within the hour.”

 
          
“Confirmed,”
the defensive systems officer added.

 
          
Canady
didn’t reply. He did a quick station check of his instrument panel, then was
silent.

 
          
“I’m
still betting we get terminated,” the copilot said.

 
          
“I’m
hoping so,” Canady said. He switched to interplane radio. “One-two flight,
cleared to route formation when post-AR checks are complete.”

 
          
“Post-AR
checks complete, moving to route.” The second
Excalibur
banked slightly right, moving out to approximately a
half-mile beside his leader. It was much less strenuous on the pilot to move
away from the leader then stay in close formation for long periods of time.

 
          
“Confirm
receipt of Golf, Tango, Sierra, Oscar, Pappa,” the navigator radioed to the
wingman’s nav, checking to be sure the other aircraft had received and decoded
the same ‘go’ message.

 
          
“Copied
and confirmed,” from the second nav.

 
          
“Status,
One-Three?”

 
          
“One-Three
is in the green,” from the second
Excalibur.

 
          
“One-Two
is in the green too,” Canady replied. Both bombers were one hundred percent
ready—no malfunctions, no abnormal readings, no fuel shortages. The mission
would be canceled if either bomber had a serious malfunction.

 
          
“Copy.”
To the crew Canady said: “Two good bombers, guys. So far we’re a go. Nav, I’m
ready to do a TFR check whenever you are.”

 
          
“Rog.”
The nav opened his checklist to the INFLIGHT TERRAINFOLLOWING RADAR SYSTEM
CHECK section, running the automatic terrain-following autopilot self-test.

 
          
As
the two pilots and the navigator began the systems check, the defensive systems
operator began another electronic countermeasures equipment check while
listening to the high-frequency radio. As he flipped through transmitters and
receivers, running self-tests on the mostly automatic equipment, an “S” symbol
blinked on at the top of his computergenerated threat receiver scope.

 
          
The
intermittent signal caught his eye, but he ignored it—the symbol did not
return, and it wasn’t accompanied by an audio warning tone. Probably a glitch
or a stray signal from the second B-l. He continued his checks.

 
          
A
few minutes later the “S” reappeared—this time with a fast, high- pitched
warning warble. The defensive systems officer put away his checklist and took
all of his electronic gear out of their “self-test” modes back into STANDBY.

 
          
“Pilot,”
the DSO called over the interphone, “where’s the wingman?”

 
          
The
pilots were beginning to check the second TFR channel. “On our wing,” the
copilot answered irritably. “We’re doing a TFR check. Can it—”

 
          
The
DSO flipped over to the interplane frequency on his radio panel. “One-Three,
say your position.”

 
          
“Route,”
came the terse reply.

           
“Behind us?”

           
“That’s where ‘route’ usually is.”

           
“Do you have us in sight?” asked the
DSO, his voice betraying excitement. He hesitated, then switched all of his
transmitters from STANDBY to TRANSMIT.

 
          
“Affirmative,”
the pilot of the second B-l replied.

           
“I see him too, Jeff.” That was from
the second
Excalibur’s
DSO.
Something
was out there . . .

           
“Pilot, defense has search radar,
twelve o’clock
, extreme range but closing slowly.”

           
“Roger.” Canady wasn’t too
concerned. The nearest land at
twelve o’clock
, other than pack ice, was six hundred miles
away. “Probably a glitch. Did you say closing, Jeff?”

 
          
“His
signal is getting stronger,” the DSO reported. “I can count a twelve-second antenna
sweep now. Moving just to the left of the nose.”

           
“Moving? Jeff, recycle your
equipment and see if it—”

           
“The other DSO sees it, too,
Colonel. Either we both got the same glitch, or it’s a—”

           
At that instant the computer
verified the signal, changing the symbol on the threat scope from “S” to a
batwing-like symbol with a circle inside it.

 
          
“Airborne early warning aircraft,
” the
DSO said. “Right off our nose.” “A
what?"

           
“A radar plane. Long-range airborne
surveillance.”

           
“Well, what the hell is it doing up
over the goddamned North Pole?” the copilot asked. “We’re thousands of miles
from any military base.”

           
“It’s locked onto us,” came from
the DSO. “He’s got us.”

           
“Maybe it’s one of ours,” the
copilot said. “It can’t be Russian—we’re only a hundred miles north of Barrow.
Maybe we should cruise toward him and take a look, or try to raise him on—”

 
          
“Like
hell.” Canady reached down to the center control console and flicked the
running lights on and off, signaling his wingman to rejoin him without using
the radios. His copilot watched his signal, then searched the sky out of his
right window. A moment later the second
Excalibur
bomber appeared out of the semi-darkness and rejoined on Canady’s right
wingtip, tucked in so close the copilot was sure their wingtips were
overlapping. “Two’s in,” the copilot said.

 
          
“Jeff,
could he have seen both planes?”

           
“Probably. Depends on his range, but
I’d say yes.”

           
“Those S.O.B.s found us. Out here a
thousand miles north of nowhere, we run smack into a surveillance plane . . .
well, we don’t have to let him get a visual identification on us.”

           
Canady pushed his stick right and
inched the throttle up. The copilot immediately checked that their wingman was
turning with them.

 
          
“He
must’ve anticipated you’d be turning,” the copilot said. “He’s right with us.”

 
          
“The
signal’s turning left toward us.” Canady moved the throttles up to full
military power.

 
          
“Approaching
Mach One,” from the copilot. “Wing sweep.” Canady pulled the wingsweep handle
aft, and the
Excaliburs
long,
graceful wings disappeared from view, sweeping back until they nearly merged
with the B-l’s dark, sleek fuselage.

 
          
“Are
we putting any distance bet wen him and us?” Canady asked.

 
          
“No,”
the DSO said. “He’s got the cutoff on us.”

 
          
“Mach
One,” the copilot reported. There was no difference in the feel of the plane;
only the airspeed and Mach indicator tapes told them they were flying faster
than the speed of sound. Canady’s copilot checked for the wingman out his
window.