loose route formation so he could perform their checklists without having to concentrate too much on formation flying.
“How you doing over there, General?” Rinc asked.
“Fine,” Patrick replied.
“Heard some heavy breathing on interphone. Thought you might lose some of your box lunch.”
“Not a chance,” Patrick responded. “I’ll be with you on the TERFLW checklist in a minute. Crew, I’ll be on secure SATCOM. I’d appreciate it if no one monitors that channel until I let you know. Copy?”
“Sure,” Rinc replied. “Monitor GUARD and interphone, report back up. I’m starting the TERFLW checklist.”
“O.”
“D.”
“Thanks,” Patrick said. “Copilot is clearing off to SECURE.”
Patrick set the referee’s SATCOM channel into the satellite communications thumbwheels, clicked his communications wafer switch to SECURE, then keyed the mike button: “Firebird, Firebird, Aces Two-One.”
“Two-One, this is Firebird.” Patrick instantly recognized Luger’s voice on the scrambled satellite communications channel. “Authenticate Foxtrot-Uniform.”
There was a moment’s pause while Patrick looked up the response in his AKAC-1553 code book for the familiar “F-U” challenge: “Two-One has ‘Tango.’ Is this Amarillo?”
“Sure is.” Dave Luger was from Amarillo, Texas, and Patrick, from California, usually never let him live it down. Only months of concentrated Russian brainwashing and years of working as a Soviet bomber design engineer in Lithuania, where he was known to the Central Intelligence Agency as an American defector code-named “Redtail Hawk,” had made Luger lose his thick Texas drawl.
“Then authenticate Alpha-Hotel, amigo,” Patrick said. The “A-H” was another endearing authentication used by parties known to each other.
“Firebird authenticates ‘India.’”
“Loud and clear,” Patrick said. Both parties were required to double-check authentication, even though they were on a discrete, secure satellite channel available only to them. “How’s it going, partner?”
“All bombers are away, the last of the squadron will be loaded up in a few hours, and we’ll be right behind them,” Dave said. “Be advised, bud: I was with the SOF during the launch, and I got a good look at your nosewheel. I think you got more than two cords cut — looked to me more like five or six. If you land with weapons onboard, be careful. I understand these guys wanted to max out PLS points, which they did, but they might have violated peacetime safety-of-flight rules by taking a broke bird into the air. I think they should have at least gotten a maintenance supervisor out there to look. Just so you know.”
“Copy that, Amarillo.” Patrick shook his head, hoping Seaver was eavesdropping.
“How did your takeoff feel, sir? Didn’t fill up a helmet bag, did you?”
“Felt just great,” Patrick said. “I forgot what a zoomer this baby is. I think I left part of my gut back on the runway. If I lose it, it’ll probably be low-level.”
“You mess up, you clean up, sir,” Luger reminded him. “That was quite the show your AC put on. I’ll bet the folks in those casinos got a great shot. You could see the windows rattling from the ground. Hey, listen, Muck. I got a call from the home drome.” The home drome in his case was Dreamland. “We’re getting ready to monitor the Chinese and North Koreans during the first day of Team Spirit bombing exercises in South Korea.”
“Everything okay so far?”
“Normal activity from the DPRK and China — not so normal for the ROK,” Dave said.
“How so?”
“I dunno. Just — busy. Everyone is supercharged. It sounds like it’s the big finale day of the exercise rather than the first supercautious ramp-up-slowly day.”
“Lots of high-powered visibility in this one,” Patrick pointed out. “Lots of VIPs, including Japan. Our cutie Vice Prez is out there too.” He hesitated for a moment, thinking hard. Something inside his head was saying the news from Luger had to be investigated. He didn’t know why, but it had to be checked out. No matter what other disasters were happening, he never went wrong when he listened to that tiny, almost drowned-out little voice in his head. Patrick keyed the mike: “What do we got overhead?”
“I’ll have to double-check,” Luger said. “Overhead” meant satellites. Through their contractors, Patrick had access to several kinds of sophisticated photo, communications, radar, and electromagnetic reconnaissance satellites, all of which could be steered over the Korean peninsula in a matter of hours if needed. Since Dreamland was not an active combat base — at least, not one that most of the rest of the government knew — Patrick and his staff did not get normal access to CIA and Defense Department satellite imagery, so they relied on their own. “You want to take an unofficial peek, Muck?”
“Let’s get a Carter and a Ford over the peninsula and start matching up origins and destinations of all that comm traffic,” Patrick said. The reconnaissance satellites designed, built, and launched by Sky Masters Inc., one of the Air Force’s smallest but more important contractors, were all named for American Presidents. The Carter series were communications eavesdropping satellites capable of detecting, tracing, and analyzing radio, TV, cellular, microwave, Internet, and satellite communications. The Ford series of satellites were millimeter-wave radar reconnaissance satellites, capable of detecting, pinpointing, and identifying objects as small as a car almost anywhere on earth — even underground, hidden in buildings, or under camouflage or underwater. All were inserted into low earth orbit so they needed very little power to send their signals back to earth. Launched by boosters carried on commercial airliners, a constellation of these small satellites, called NIRTSats (“Need it right this second” satellites) could be set up in a matter of hours.
“You got it, Muck,” Luger said. “I think we have a few assets in place right now we can tap into.”
“Good. I’ve got checklists to run, Amarillo. Talk at you soon.”
“Go kick some butt, D,” Luger said. “I’ll meet you at Tonopah. Firebird clear.”
Patrick flipped back to interphone. “Crew, D’s back up interphone. Clear to switch SATCOM to primary monitor channels.”
“We need to get going on these checklists, sir,” Seaver said. “We’re waiting on you.”
Yep, he was behind already. Things happened fast in the B-1B. “Sorry about that, gang. Got busy on SATCOM. I’m ready.”
“Let’s not be late, co,” Rinc said, taking a swig of orange juice and giving his guest copilot a mock disapproving scowl, then a friendly, easy smile. He was taking great delight in needling the one-star general sitting in his cockpit. “Let’s not be late.”
You are late.
The South Korean commandos relaxed and lowered the muzzles of their MP5Ks. The two groups approached each other. The South Korean team leader saluted the ranking officer. “Lieutenant An Sun-hun, team leader.”
The North Korean returned the salute. “Major Hong Song-ku, chief of security. Welcome to the People’s Army command center. Follow me.” Lieutenant An dispatched one squad to set explosives at several other key sites on base. What he didn’t tell his North Korean contact was that the commandos would also place electronic target markers on the CCF itself. In case their plan did not work, the CCF was going to be demolished with concentrated aerial and rocket bombardment until it was nothing more than a hole in the earth.
The upper two levels of the Command and Coordination Facility, which were mostly administrative offices, were virtually deserted. The ground-floor security desk was manned, with the five-ton vaultlike upper-access door secure, but the guards on duty did not register the least bit of surprise when the twelve South Korean commandos were escorted through.
The commandos quickly descended the staircase to the first subfloor level. This level housed the facility’s security forces — two full infantry companies, over two hundred specially trained and heavily armed soldiers. A security station at the bottom of the stairs was deserted too. On the other side of the security officer’s desk was another vault door, which led to the command center. On either side, angled away so there would be no cross fire
