Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (45 page)

           
“Safely asleep in the trunk,
Ambassador O’Day,” the man replied. “He put up quite a struggle before we could
subdue him. He will awaken in a few minutes.” The driver eased off the main
avenue toward a hotel parking lot where the car could be partially obscured,
but not appear too conspicuously isolated. He parked the car and immediately
began removing the uniform.

           
“What are you going to do with us?”

           
“Nothing,” the driver said.
Underneath the blue uniform, he wore a T-shirt with palm trees on it, khaki
shorts, and white tennis socks; he replaced the spit-shined shoes with tennis
shoes. He looked like a tourist from any number of Asian or European countries.
Gripping the .45 in his right hand, he glanced nervously at his watch, leaned
through the dividing window between the compartments, and said, “I know your
embassy tracks all its vehicles by microtransmitter, so I will not stay any
longer. I have a message from Second Vice President General Samar ...”

           
“
Samar
!” O’Day exclaimed. “Is he still alive? Is
he in hiding . . .?”
Samar
had disappeared the day Mikaso had been
killed. It had been assumed
Samar
was
dead, too.

           
“Silence,” the man said; then,
realizing he might have sounded too demanding, added, “Please.” Then, “General
Samar requests help from your government to relieve
Davao
on the
island
of
Mindanao
. He is resisting the Chinese invaders but
cannot hold on for much longer—Puerto Princesa and Zamboanga have fallen, and
Cotabato and
Davao
will be next . . .”

           
“If
Samar
wants help,” O’Day told the man, “he had
better stop playing hide-and-seek and take control of the government. The
non-Communist citizens will follow him, but everyone thinks he’s dead . . .”

           
“He may be dead if you do not help,”
the agent said. “We need more than just. . .”

           
“Silence. I have stayed too long
already. Listen carefully. General Samar says that the
Ranger
carrier battle group will be attacked by Chinese air forces
from Zamboanga if they attempt to enter the
Celebes Sea
.”

           
“What?
How in hell do you know that . . . ?”

           
“General Samar is on
Mindanao
, organizing his people and his resistance
forces. He is carefully monitoring the Chinese military’s movements and
communications, and he concludes that on the first of October—Revolution Day—
Admiral Yin Po L’un’s forces will attack any foreign military forces that
attempt to pass near
Mindanao
.”

           
“But that’s crazy,” O’Day’s aide said.
“The Chinese wouldn’t be stupid enough to attack an American carrier . .

           
“I will not debate you. The General
has risked his life to bring this information to you—in exchange, he officially
requests military and humanitarian aid from the
United States
. Please help. Contact him at this number
immediately. Do not alert your embassy by radio or telephone; there are spies
everywhere.” The man reached down and hit the button to unlock the trunk. “Your
guard will awaken in ten to fifteen minutes; he will release you then. Do not
attempt to follow me. Please help my people.”

           
The man raised the dividing glass
screen, stepped out of the car, and ran as fast as he could away from the
hotel; they saw him throw the gun into a ditch before he ran out of sight.

Andersen Air Force Base,
Guam

30 September 1994
,
2331 hours local (
29
September, 0931
Washington
time)

           
They had kept the landing lights off
until seconds before touchdown. The only lights on around the entire base were
the runway-end identifier lights and blue taxiway lights—all “ball park” lights
on the parking ramps, exterior fights, and streetlights near the runway were
out. Looking from the cockpit, the entire northern part of the
island
of
Guam
appeared as dark and as deserted as the
thousands of miles of ocean they had just crossed.

           
The aircraft, as black as the
tropical night sky from which it descended, used the runway closest to the
parking area and did not touch down until nearly halfway down the two-mile-
long runway at Andersen Air Force Base so it would spend as little time as
possible exposed to view while taxiing. At the end of the runway, it taxied
rapidly across the wide north ramp to a row of large hangars and pulled
straight into the first one. The hangar doors were closed behind it seconds
later as the engines were shut down. Security patrols began an immediate sweep
of the area, using dogs and light-intensifying night-vision equipment to search
for intruders.

           
The interior of the huge hangar
brightly illuminated the sleek, bat-shaped outline of the B-2 Black Knight
stealth bomber. Maintenance crews checked the aircraft and immediately began
opening inspection and access panels. A few moments later the belly hatch swung
open and three men climbed down the access ladder.

           
As Major Henry Cobb, Lieutenant
Colonel Patrick McLanahan, and Brigadier General John Ormack emerged from the
huge black bomber, General Elliott, General Stone, Jon Masters, and Colonel
Fusco were there to greet them. “Good to see you guys,” Elliott said, shaking
each of their hands and handing each of them a beer.

           
“We’re damned glad to be here,” Cobb
exclaimed. “My butt is wondering if my legs have been cut off.” All three
aviators looked completely exhausted and thoroughly rumpled, but their smiles
were genuine as Elliott made introductions all around.

           
The formalities of every military
flight still had to be accomplished, so Elliott and the others waited patiently
as Cobb and McLanahan completed their postflight walk- around inspection of the
bomber and sat down with several aircraft-maintenance technicians to explain
the few glitches found during flight. Afterward they were taken to a conference
room at the command post, where sandwiches, more beer, and several other
members of Stone’s staff were waiting to greet them.

           
“I must say, this is a pretty
impressive showing,” Rat Stone said after the three crew members were settled
down. “Deploying a B-2 from
South Dakota
to
Guam
with only three hours’ notice, then flying
nonstop all the way. So what’s it like to spend nearly seventeen hours straight
in a stealth bomber?”

           
“The first ten aren’t too bad, sir,”
Ormack replied with a tired grin. “Henry made the takeoff and the first two
refuelings, but I was too wired to sleep. We switched just past
Hawaii
. When we got out of radio range of
Hawaii
, it was absolute murder to stay awake until
the next refueling—near
Wake Island
,
as it so happens. The last four hours were the worst—too keyed up to sleep, too
tired to concentrate, having to make those timing orbits so we wouldn’t land
too early and get our pictures taken by the Chinese spy satellites. I’m too old
for these butt-busting missions.”

           
“Well, you did good,” Elliott said.
“You landed right on time—the Chinese bird should be passing overhead right
about now. Unless there’s a sub out there we haven’t found yet, we may have
pulled this off—deploying a stealth bomber seven thousand miles in total
secrecy. How’s the bomber look?”

           
“Everything’s in the green,”
McLanahan said. “We brought spares for most of the critical components, and we
have the computerized blueprints on the PACER SKY mod installation.” He turned
to Jon Masters and said, “The system was working like a charm, Doctor Masters.
We were able to monitor some of the
Ranger
battle group clear as day. The NIRTSats found a few Chinese ships operating in
the
Celebes
, but I don’t think there’s going to be a
problem with them as long as we stay clear of them.”

           
“That’s exactly what we intend to
do,” Stone said. “We got a cryptic but urgent report from the State Department
that the Chinese Navy might try something against the fleet if we move into the
Celebes Sea, so except for the RC-135 overflight—and he’s been instructed to
stay at extreme sensor range from any Chinese vessels—we’re staying well away.”

           
“Well, the RC was still a few hours
from on-station, but he should have the Chinese ships’ position from the NIRT-
Sat—he shouldn’t have any problem staying out of the way. I recorded the
NIRTSat transmissions, and we can download it from the memory banks right
away.” McLanahan stifled a big yawn, finished the rest of his beer, then added,
“Rather,
you
can. I’ve got to get
some sleep.”

Aboard the RC-135X radar
reconnaissance plane Over the Celebes Sea, southern Philippines Saturday, 1
October 1994, 0121 hours local (30 September, 1221 Eastern time)

           
From thirty thousand feet, the radar
aboard the RC-135X radar reconnaissance aircraft could pick out the dense
clusters of islands, atolls, and coral reefs of the Sulu Archipelago. At the
very tip of the peninsula was the area that most of the ten radar operators on
the RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft were concentrating on.

           
In the center of the converted
Boeing 707 airliner was the command station, where Colonel Rachel Blanchard and
her deputy, Captain Samuel Fruntz, sat poring over a stack of four-color
charts. “Look at this,” Fruntz remarked, pointing at the tip of the Zamboanga
peninsula. “Not very subtle, are they? A whole line of vessels stretching from
the
North
Balabac
Strait
to Zamboanga.” He compared the image to
another chart. “Checks right on with that NIRTSat printout we received from
Andersen. That PACER SKY satellite is far out.”

           
Blanchard looked at her younger
deputy and rolled her eyes. Fruntz, Blanchard thought, was another “techie” who
believed that, whatever the newest technology was, it had to be better than any
of the “older” technology, even if the older technology was only a few years
old. Blanchard had been in the reconnaissance business for twelve years, mostly
as pilot or copilot flying EC- and RC-135 aircraft for the Strategic Air
Command—this was only her second tour as recce section commander—and she had
been dismayed at the new emphasis on space-based reconnaissance systems, or
“gadgets” as she called them. Even the latest high-tech satellites had serious
limitations that only well-equipped planes like the RC-135 or the newer EC-18s
could overcome.

           
Blanchard had flown or seen just
about every one of the sixty different iterations of the C-135 special
mission/reconnaissance/intelligence-gathering aircraft. The RC-135X, nicknamed
“Rivet Joint,” was the latest and best of the older RC-series aircraft; the
newer series was designated EC-18 and was a hundred times more cosmic than even
the RC- models. Rivet Joint had been designed to map out precise locations of
coastal enemy air-defense sites for targeting by Short-Range Attack Missiles or
cruise missiles that armored long-range bomber aircraft. By combining sensitive
radiation sensors with powerful radar and infrared images, one Rivet Joint
aircraft could update three thousand miles of coastal air-defense sites in one
day. Blanchard used to fly reconnaissance missions in conjunction with SR-71
Blackbird spy planes—the SR-71 would fly toward the Russian coastline until
Soviet air-defense missile-site radars activated, and then the RC-135 would
plot out all the locations of those missile sites. It was a deadly game of
cat-and-mouse that, thankfully, she had never lost.

           
“Hey, Sam,” Blanchard told her
younger partner. “Does that gadget’s data tell you what
kind
of ships those are?”

           
“No, but it—”

           
“Didn’t think so. Our radar can
identify
those ships— PACER SKY’s
printout just gives a position and velocity readout,” Blanchard said. “Without
ISAR identification data, we could only report those ships as a
possible
hostile, and that’s only based
on their formation, not their type.” She referred to a sheaf of computer
printouts he had received from the RC-135’s intensive-signal processors. “Here
it is: the largest ship in that string is a probable Hegu-class fast attack
missile craft. What good is satellite intelligence that only gives you half the
story?”

           
“Because we wouldn’t have to truck
three thousand miles to find out the Chinese are moving a big convoy into
Zamboanga,” Fruntz said.

           
Blanchard remained unimpressed.

           
Fruntz continued: “Look at this:
PACER SKY is telling us there might be defensive missile batteries set up on
the eastern shore of Jolo Island or Pata Island, in the middle of the Sulu
Archipelago. See that? That’s the kind of info we need before we drive into the
area.”

           
“Well, I guess it doesn’t make that
much difference, because we’re
still
going to drive into that area,” Blanchard said. “If there’s a SAM site or radar
on those islands, they’re not going to turn ’em on until we get closer.”

           
“It beats getting surprised,” Fruntz
insisted. “I’d rather be ready for a radar to come up than have the bejeezus
scared out of us.”

           
“I like surprises,” Blanchard said,
but then added quickly, “Sam, you go into these sorties expecting the shit to
hit the fan at any time. Too much information, and you start getting
complacent. You gotta be ready for
anything.
Expect the unexpected ...”

           
“Radar four reports surface
contact,” one of the radar operators suddenly called out. “Slow velocity ...
now showing ten knots, heading westbound.”

           
“There’s something that NIRTSat
thing didn’t find,” Blanchard snickered. “No matter how gee-whiz that satellite
is, thirty-minute-old data is still thirty-minute-old data— and it’s garbage to
us.” She turned to the radar operator and said, “I need a designation on that
last contact, Radar. Get on it.”

           
“Signal two shows primary search
radar on that surface contact,” another operator called out. “Showing C-band,
three-seventy PRF . . . calling it a Rice Screen air-search radar . . .”

           
“Radar four has an ISAR probable on
that return, calling it a EF4-class destroyer... now picking up escorts,
probably as many as four, within ten miles of EF4.” The ISAR, or Inverse
Synthetic Aperture Radar, mounted in the two prominent fairings on the underside
of the RC-135’s fuselage, could paint a nearly three-dimensional picture of a
ship and, by combining it with a computer data base of thousands of such radar
images, could usually match the radar image with a ship in its computer memory.
The larger the ship, the more accurate the match, and a destroyer-class vessel
was a very large radar return.