Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (40 page)

           
“He said he was unable to
authenticate, sir,” Falls said. “Fire inside their crew compartment and
communications center, injuries. The senior controller seems to be the one in command.”

 
          
“Senior
controller? Communications center? Sounds like an AWACS or EC-135—but it’s an
Edwards call sign?” Sands picked up the microphone.

 
          
“Genesis,
this is Icepack. Over.” He bent toward the speaker.

 
          
“Go
ahead, Icepack. Urgently need strip alert support.”

 
          
Sands
searched his memory. “I recognize that voice. Where?” He keyed the microphone.
“Genesis, say type of aircraft and souls on board.”

 
          
“Unable,
Icepack.”

 
          
“Son
of a bitch,” Sands said half-aloud. “What’s going on? Damn . . . that voice.”
He thought quickly . . . “Get hold of
Anchorage
Center
, find out where this guy came from.”

 
          
“Already
did that, Colonel,” the NCO told him. “Nothing. No squawk. Not even radar
contact. He’s been outside the ADIZ until now.”

 
          
“Then
screw him,” Sands said. “This sounds too fishy. We due for an air defense test
or something?” Falls shook his head. Sands grimmaced and keyed the microphone.
“Genesis, strip alert support is not authorized without proper authorization.
Unless you identify yourself, you’ll have to swim back.”

 
          
Elliott
looked preoccupied as Ormack said, “What do we do now, we’ve only got—”

 
          
“Sands!”
Elliott suddenly blurted out. “Eddie Sands! That sorry son of a bitch. They
stuck his ass in Shemya.” Elliott keyed his microphone.

 
          
“We
are unable to authenticate . . .
scum-maggot.
”

 
          
Sands
paled as if he had seen a ghost. Slowly he brought the microphone to his lips.

 
          
Falls
glared at his wing commander as if he had been slapped in the face. Sands
angrily jammed the mike button down. “Say again, Genesis.”

 
          
“You
heard me, slime-worm,” Elliott shot back. “Unable to authenticate.”

 
          
To
Falls’ immense surprise, a hint of a smile began to creep across Sands’ face.

 
          
“Genesis,”
Sands said carefully, the smile still working its way across the pudgy face of
the Shemya wing commander. “Once more. Is this for real?”

           
“Affirmative . . . dirt bag.”

           
Aboard the
Megafortress,
Ormack looked befuddled. “What . . . ?”

           
“He’ll have the tanker airborne in
five minutes,” Elliott told Ormack, relaxing in his ejection seat. “Crew,
prepare for refueling.”

           
Sands dropped the microphone into
Falls’ lap.

           
“Has the strip alert crew called
in?”

           
“No, sir, I expect them any—”

           
“Call the vice commander,” Sands
said, zipping up his parka. “Tell him he’s got the store. Put me on the strip
alert flight orders. Notify Reynolds that I’m coming aboard for his emergency
refueling.”

 
          
Faster
than any of his men had ever seen the pudgy commander move, Sands was out the
door. Falls’ partner looked baffled as the full-bird colonel sped down the
hallway and into the subzero cold outside. “What the hell?”

           
“Don’t ask me, Bill,” Falls said.

           
“What about the old standard
operating procedures?”

           
Falls thought a moment. “We follow
them, even if the colonel doesn’t. Notify the interceptor squadron on alert.
Tell them the KC-10 is taking off in support of emergency refueling, but that
the aircraft they’ll be rendezvousing with is unidentified. The unidentified
aircraft is not considered hostile but it has refused or is somehow unable to
establish contact with any civilian or military agency.”

 
          
“Got
it.” The NCO picked up the phone and dialed as rapidly as he could.

           
McLanahan was announcing: “
Eleven o’clock
, seventy miles.” Over the newly assigned
UHF command post frequency they were using as the air refueling frequency, he
said, “Icepack one-oh-one, Genesis has radar contact at seventy miles at your
two o’clock
position.”

 
          
The
pilot of Icepack 101, the KC-10 tanker from Shemya, looked to Colonel Sands,
who was sitting in the IP jumpseat between himself and his KC-lO’s copilot.

 
          
“A
new voice,” the pilot, Joe Reynolds remarked. “Sounds like a nav if I ever
heard one. I thought there was only one survivor on board?”

           
“Radar contact at seventy miles?”
Sands echoed. “Maybe not as helpless as they said they were.”

           
“Do we keep on going?” Reynolds
asked.

           
“We keep on going,” Sands told him.
“I recognize a voice on board.”

           
“Precontract check complete,” Ormack
said aboard the Old Dog. “All external lights are off right now.”

 
          
“Good,”
Elliott said.

           
Just then Wendy Tork reported, “I’ve
got search radar contact at eleven o’clock.’’

 
          
“That’s
the tanker,” McLanahan said. Wendy checked the oscilloscopelike frequency
pattern on the frequency video display.

 
          
“Confirmed,”
she said.

 
          
McLanahan
flipped on a switch marked BEACON on his radar control panel, checking that the
radar manual tuning frequency remained on the preset “doghouse” beacon
frequency range. The tiny dot representing the tanker on his radar changed into
a line of six tiny rectangles in a one-two- three dot pattern. “I’ve got his
beacon.” He switched to interplane. “One- oh-one, contact on your beacon.
Beacon to standby.”

 
          
The
six-dot pattern disappeared. “Go back to operate.” The pattern reappeared.

 
          
“Positive
ID, our
eleven o’clock
,
sixty-five miles.”

 
          
“Check
on air-to-air TACAN,” the copilot aboard Icepack 101 acknowledged. The mileage
on the air-to-air TACAN receiver, which gave the distance between the two
aircraft, slowly clicked down.

 
          
“What
do you hope to find, sir?” Reynolds asked the wing commander alongside him.

 
          
“I
don’t know,” Sands told him, “but I wouldn’t want to miss whatever it is.”

 
          
“But
who are these guys? They don’t sound like they’re in trouble to me—“

           
Sands shook his head. “They sound like
they’re in trouble, but not like they’ve told us. We had to launch—but we don’t
have to rendezvous with them.”

 
          
“Then
what—”

 
          
“I’m
up here to investigate, Joe. Gather information. But I’d be breaking a dozen
rules if I allowed this aircraft to join with an unidentified aircraft. If we’d
refused to launch they’d have disappeared forever. No, we’ll head toward them.
But instead of turning we’re going to buzz right past this joker.”

 
          
“And
then?”

 
          
“And
then we’ll let the Nineteenth escort them back to Shemya.”

 
          
“The
interceptors? Are they up there?”

 
          
“If
I know Falls it’s the first thing he did after we took off,” Sands said.

 
          
“But
what about their gas? They said fifteen minutes.”

 
          
“It’s
been fifteen minutes right about now,” Sands said, checking his watch. “Do
those guys sound like they’re about to fall into the ocean? Someone’s screwing
with us, Joe. Nobody does that with me. We’ll lead these guys back to the base,
then find out what the hell’s going on.”

           
“Inside sixty miles,” McLanahan
reported, switching his radar back into search-while-track mode.

 
          
“Copy,”
Elliott said. “Ready, Wendy? Angelina?”

 
          
“Ready,”
Angelina said.

 
          
“All
set, General,” Wendy told him, “but I don’t see the other ones yet.”

 
          
“Believe
me, they’re coming,” Elliott said. “Hit ’em with just a little at first. When
he switches over, blot ’em out.”

 
          
“Will
do.”

 
          
“Sixty
miles,” McLanahan called out to the tanker. Part of his transmission was
interrupted by a high-pitched squeal.

 
          
Sands
winced and fumbled for his volume control knob.

 
          
“Genesis,
you have a loud squeal on your radio,” Ashley, the KC-lO’s copilot, called out.

 
          
“Copy,”
McLanahan replied. His transmission was almost completely blotted out by noise.
“Switching radios.” McLanahan waited a few moments, then said, “How do you copy
now, Icepack?”

 
          
The
noise was almost unbearable. “Genesis, this is Icepack. Your radios seem to be
malfunctioning. Do you have FM or VHF capability?” “Roger,” Elliott said.
“Switching to VHF now.” On interphone he said, “Okay, Wendy. Shut ’em out.”

 
          
Wendy
smiled and flicked a transmitter switch to MAX, carefully checking the
frequency video display.

 
          
“This
is Icepack on VHF air refueling freq,” Ashley said. “How copy?”

           
“Too high, General,” Wendy said,
studying the new VHF frequency range on her video display. “Lower. To at least
one-twenty megahertz.”

           
“Icepack, take it over to
one-one-two point one-five,” Elliott said. Sands, aboard the KC-10, looked
curiously at Ashley who along with Reynolds shared his confusion. Ashley
switched frequencies.

           
“How do you copy, Genesis?”

 
          
“Loud
and clear, Icepack,” Elliott said. Over interphone he said, “Okay, I got him,
Wendy. Take ’em all down.”

 
          
“Will
do, General.”

 
          
“
Range
,
Patrick
?”

 
          
“Fifty-five
miles, General,” McLanahan told him. “And I’ve got additional radar contact at
twelve o’clock
, eighty miles, fast-moving. You were
right.”

 
          
“He’s
only following SOP,” Ormack said.

 
          
“He’s
still a snake,” Elliott said. “He was a snake at the Academy, and he’s still
one. Patrick, I’ve got it.”

 
          
“Go
get ’em, General.”

 
          
“Icepack,
this is Genesis,” Elliott said over the new VHF frequency.

           
“Go ahead, Genesis.”

 
          
“The
name is Elliott, Eddie,” the general began, staring into the twilight. “We’re
at fifty-five miles at your
one o’clock
. You launched without proper
authentication, leaving me to believe that you have no intention of
rendezvousing with us. You’re going to turn the opposite direction, or fly past
us. Either way, it’d be a mistake.”