Like a line of ants along a crack in a sidewalk, there was a steady stream of forklift trucks, tractor-trailers, flatbed trucks, and “mules” carrying supplies from the aircraft to the inspection and distribution warehouses. Every few minutes, another cargo plane would arrive on one of the Andersen AFB’s twin parallel runways, taxi off to a waiting area, then be met by a “Follow-Me” truck which would direct it to another parking spot. Empty cargo planes that had crews with duty day hours remaining went to a refueling pit on the south side of the base and were immediately marshaled to the end of the runway for takeoff; planes that were not due to take off until later were directed to waiting areas along the northeast side of the base, at the edge of the steep cliffs of Pati Point. West of the north ramp, near the north end of the east runway, were the parking spots for the aerial refueling tankers. These were perhaps the most important aircraft on Guam. The KC-135 Stratotanker, KC-10 Extender, and KC-130 Hercules tankers provided the only means for most of the Air Battle Force’s aircraft to conduct strike operations from Guam-indeed, most of the aircraft there could not have arrived without the tankers supplying them fuel. Tankers were airborne almost continually in support of flight operations, and several tankers were on “strip alert” status to respond to emergency requests of fuel. The tankers also acted as cargo aircraft themselves-one KC-10 tanker could deploy all of the support personnel, equipment, and spare parts for six F-16 fighters from Hawaii to Guam, and refuel those six planes, all on the same trip. Directly ahead of the hangars were the parking spots for the air-defense fighters. Only half of the Air Battle Force’s twenty F- 155 and fifteen F- 1 6s were parked there, because the rest were either flying escort missions with the “ferret” bombers or were on air-defense alert on the south parking apron. Four F-15s and six F-16s were fueled, armed, and ready to respond should the Chinese attempt an air raid on Andersen Air Force Base itself. The complement included four F-23 Advance Tactical Fighters, deployed for the first time out of the fifty states. A few of the F- 145 stranded from the stricken aircraft carrier USS Ranger were also parked there. Each fighter carried relatively few weapons, only two radar guided and two heat-seeking missiles total: the most prominent store on each fighter was the huge seven-hundred-gallon centerline fuel tank. When flying from Guam, where alternate landing bases were hundreds of miles apart, fuel was a very precious commodity. The incredible offensive power of these fighters was severely limited by fuel availability-if one aerial refueling tanker failed to launch or could not transfer fuel, it could take dozens of fighters out of the battle. Cobb and McLanahan waited near a group of soldiers until a civilian contractor-hired “Guam Bomb” jeepney bus, its body rusting and its broken leaf springs squeaking with every movement, trundled by, then stepped on board-the bus was so full it looked as if the fat native Chamorro driver had to sit sideways to let riders on. The sea of men and machines on Guam was simply amazing-it seemed every patch of sandy lawn, every square foot of concrete or asphalt, every empty space was occupied by a vehicle or aircraft. Lines were everywhere-lines to the chow hall, lines to maintenance or radio trucks, lines in front of water trucks. Traffic crisscrossed the streets and access roads, ignoring security-police whistles and traffic guards-being a pedestrian on the flight line was a definite health risk. The cloying, stupefying smells of burning jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, sweat, mildew-and, yes, fear-were everywhere. The noise was deafening and inescapable-even with earplugs or ear protectors, the screams of jet engines, auxiliary power carts, honking horns, yelling men and women, and public address speakers could not be reduced. The bus had no windows, so those without ear protectors stuck fingers in their ears to blot out the din of the parking ramp. McLanahan had never felt so insignificant. He had participated in lots of aircraft generation exercises, when his unit’s fleet of bombers and tankers was fueled and armed in preparation for a strategic war, but this was at least twenty times greater in magnitude than he had ever seen before. Even during Air Battle Force generation exercises at Ellsworth Air Force Base-which, even in these few days since arriving on Guam, seemed a billion miles away and years ago-things seemed to go in a smooth, orderly fashion: here, it was like some kind of controlled riot, or like the world’s largest exhibition hall with thousands of participants milling around from building to aircraft and back again. Parked south of the air-defense fighters and on the other side of base operations were the support aircraft. They had one E-3C Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System radar plane, one EC- 1 35L radio relay plane, and one Rc- 1 35X reconnaissance plane parked there; an E-3 and another EC135 were already airborne, participating in intelligence and “ferret” flights near the Philippines-obviously Masters’ NIRTSats were still down. There were also three EF-1 11A Raven electronic countermeasure aircraft, two Navy EA-6 electronic warfare aircraft, another U-2R spy plane like the one that was shot down near the Philippines, and a Navy E-2 Hawkeye radar plane from the Ranger. A few small “liaison” jets and supply helicopters were parked in front of base operations-these were fast transport jets that flitted all across the Mariana Islands, carrying urgent supplies or staff officers from base to base. On the other side of the support planes was the “Christmas tree” parking area for the alert fighters and tankers, situated so they could quickly and easily take off in case of emergency. Barely visible across and in between the runways were the parking areas for the strike aircraft, surrounded by twelvefoot-high corrugated steel revetments to protect each other from damage should a bomb go off on one parking area. The smaller fighter-bombers-the F- 1 5E Strike Eagles, the F-4 Phantoms, and the F-1 1 1G bombers, along with a few Navy A-6 Intruder bombers, were in the infield parking spots between the parallel runways, while the “heavies”-the B-52, B- 1, and B-2 bombers-were on the west parking areas. Construction crews had built huge shelters for the three B-2 Black Knights to protect them as much as possible, not only from the elements-with their nonmetallic composite construction, the B-2s were more resilient to the harsh tropical climate and corroding effects of salt air than the other planesbut from the prying eyes of spy satellites and newsmen. Although the B-2 had been operational for some years and was no longer the oddity it first was when it was unveiled in 1989, it still attracted a lot of undue attention. Just beyond the aircraft parking areas to the west, McLanahan could just barely make out the Patriot air-defense-missile canisters poking just above the treeline, already erected and ready to fire in case of an air attack. Air defense of Andersen, as well as the Seventh Fleet combat groups, Okinawa, and the other island bases supporting the Philippines operation, was a very important consideration. The primary concern was attack from submarine-launched weapons. The Chinese Navy operated six Wuhan-class cruisemissile submarines that fired antiship missiles with ranges varying from twenty to one hundred nautical miles; these missiles were thought to have a secondary land-attack role by programming the missile’s autopilot to impact a selected set of geographical coordinates. Navy and Air Force radar planes were used to scan the skies around Andersen for any low-flying aircraft, while Navy ships and antisubmarine aircraft patrolled for signs of submarines. The Patriot missile was somewhat effective against low-flying cruise missiles, and even the F-16 fighters with their AIM-120C Scorpion missiles were fairly effective at chasing down subsonic cruise missiles. China also possessed four sea-launched ballistic nuclear missile submarines, all of which had been deployed into the Pacific and were thought to be a threat to all American forces. These submarines were being located and shadowed as best as could be expected-the diesel-powered submarines were hundreds of times quieter submerged than their nuclear-powered counterparts-but the feeling was that if the fight escalated to a nuclear exchange, the weapons being used in this battle would be quickly supplanted by the full strategic nuclear might of the United States anyway. The two B-2 crew members edged their way through the crush of bodies off the jeepney at the headquarters building and stepped inside, feeling the uncomfortable chill as the building’s heavy-duty air conditioning instantly turned the thin layer of sweat over their bodies to ice. McLanahan went immediately to the command post, waiting patiently as his ID was checked by the security guards and a metal detector was swept over his body-he had to unstrap his survival knife and keep it with the guards. He went and checked in at the room where the PACER SKY satellite system had been installed. “Patrick?” a surprised General Brad Elliott asked as the young navigator-bombardier walked in. Elliott checked his watch. “You’re early-about an hour and a half early.” The veteran aviator looked at McLanahan’s hardened, concerned, somewhat distracted eyes. “Couldn’t sleep, eh?” Patrick shook his head. “Henry either.”
“It always happens that way, I think, ” Elliott said. “The time you need sleep the most is when you can’t do it.” He regarded his younger colleague with an inquisitive expression; McLanahan seemed to pick up on the pause right away. “We got the order, didn’t we?” Patrick asked. “Couple hours ago, Elliott said. “They wanted to be sure the three Navy ships in the Philippine Sea could get into position; we just got the word that they reported ready. They may wait one more day to see if we get the NIRTSats back on-line, but the recon photos you got last night are pretty good quality so we might do it tonight.” Strangely, Patrick felt no fear, no apprehension, not even a trace of nervousness-his churning stomach and restless mind had kept him from sleep all afternoon, but now his body was quiet. It was as if he had already been told they were going to fly, that Elliott had somehow given him secondhand information. He nodded wordlessly to Elliott; then his eyes sought out the large high-definition monitor on which the NIRTSat reconnaissance data was usually displayed. “I can’t believe these are still down…”
“Yeah, well, nothing is ever guaranteed, as you know. Even the best stuff.” Patrick stepped over to a large chart on which was drawn the positions of the known Chinese warships that he, Cobb, and the dead U-2 pilot had photographed a few nights earlier. A second board had the intelligence section’s best guess as to how the ships were going to be deployed when the strike aircraft were set to go over the target. Elliott was amazed by the flyers
