and they’ll do it again. Any aircraft, any person aboard — dead, if they don’t follow procedures. We are expected, so we’re not a total surprise for them, but this hasn’t been coordinated in advance, so all the security forces will be high-strung.
“Once we break out of this anchor, I want everyone three miles in trail and stacked up five hundred feet,
“What area is he talking about, Rodeo?” Rebecca asked.
“I’m talking about the area we’re about to fly into,” Patrick replied. “You’ll find out soon enough. Remember what I said — you follow the controller’s instructions exactly, or they’ll blow you out of the sky. These guys are ultraserious.
“Once we’re lined up and on the approach, you’ll set one hundred ten point eight in the ILS and set an inbound course that I’ll give to you later,” Patrick went on. “That’ll be your approach for landing. It’ll be a four- degree glideslope.
“Important: do not raise your landing gear if you need to miss the approach. Flying anywhere near this base in a configuration that looks like you may be able to drop a bomb will be considered a hostile act. If you lose more than two engines and you can’t do a go-around with your gear down, crash-land on the dry lake bed. Bottom line: don’t make any sudden moves. The troops defending our destination have real itchy trigger fingers.
“Couple more important things: Os,
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Good. Make sure your weapons are safe and locked, but if you can’t get a good safe and lock, don’t worry about it.
“Now, when we arrive at the base, you’ll be directed where to taxi. They will leave no doubt where you should go. It’s hard to see the taxiways, so follow the leader carefully. Stay as close to the plane in front of you as you safely can. Do your before-engine shutdown checklists while taxiing — you’ll have lots of time to do it. I’ll guide you through the things I want you to do. Don’t acknowledge any transmissions unless it’s an emergency or unless you really get confused, and I’ll warn you now, try not to get confused while you’re down there.”
“Too late, General,” said one crew member Patrick couldn’t identify. “I’m confused already.”
“We’ll be directed straight into hangars,” Patrick said, ignoring the flippancy. “Taxi directly inside. Maintain taxi speed — don’t creep into the hangar. The door in front of you will be partially closed. Shut down the engines as soon as you stop. The hangar doors will be closing behind you, so don’t run engines up or scavenge oil or anything like that. Don’t worry about the weapons, the bomb doors, INS alignments, preserving the maintenance data or the bomb-nav computer data, or anything else but shutting your gear off. Open the entry hatch as soon as the plane stops. Security guards will be up to escort you out. Step on out, follow the guards, and do what they tell you. Any questions?”
“Sounds like you’ve been watching a lot of
The formation spent nearly another hour in the anchor while Patrick got on the secure voice SATCOM and coordinated their arrival. Now they had barely enough fuel to make it to Nellis Air Force Base with legal fuel reserves, and that base was only sixty miles away. They couldn’t legally land back at Reno even if they wanted to without an emergency air refueling. They were indeed committed to their decision.
If any air traffic control agencies were surprised about their flying into the world’s most restricted airspace, they kept their comments to themselves. But they heard the same warnings from all the civil controllers several times; one controller violated Furness and ordered her to contact Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center upon landing, even giving her the telephone number. Furness replied with a curt “We don’t need no stinkin’ vectors, Center,” and ignored all other directives.
The approach was completely routine, if flying into a hornet’s nest could be considered routine. If they still had their electronic countermeasures gear on, their threat-warning receivers would be alive with surface-to-air missile tracking radars and height finders, including Hawk and Patriot antiaircraft systems. As they got closer, Furness and Seaver could see several missile emplacements. The Patriot launchers weren’t pointed directly at them — they didn’t need to be — but the I-Hawk and British-built Rapier missile batteries tracked them all the way. It was like looking right down the barrels of a triple-barreled shotgun. They were aimed at an immense dry lake bed, with hard-baked sand stretching as far as they could see. Majestic multicolored mountains ringed the valley, some still with snow at the highest peaks.
The scenery was magnificent — and they would have enjoyed it more if they weren’t so afraid of messing up and getting shot down by their fellow Americans.
As they followed the glideslope down and got closer to touchdown, more and more details became obvious. The runway emerged from the dry lake like a mirage. Several vehicles were parked on the dry lake — a disconcerting mixture of fire trucks and Avenger mobile antiaircraft weapon systems, as if their soon-to-be hosts were eager to both hurt them and help them.
At one point in the approach, Patrick said, “We’ve got traffic at our three o’clock, boys.” Rinc leaned forward in his seat and saw an F-22 Raptor fighter just off the right wingtip. He knew that the F-22 with its thrust-vectoring nozzles could turn and shoot its 20-millimeter cannon right from where it was, without having to maneuver or line up behind the Bone. He saw no missiles, but he remembered that the F-22 carried its missiles internally. He strained a look in his rearview mirror and saw another F-22 fighter sitting off the third Bone’s wingtip. It was very impressive to get such a welcome, but it was even more impressive when you considered that the F-22 was in production only and wasn’t scheduled to become operational for almost five years. This place had
The runway felt concrete-hard but sandy as Rinc touched down. He stayed off the brakes completely until he saw several armored vehicles arrayed before him nine thousand feet down the runway, blocking it and showing him where to turn off. Patrick had the after-landing and before-shutdown checklists ready to go. Security vehicles, all with roof-mounted machine guns — some with grenade launchers or antiarmor missile launchers at the ready — lined the taxiways. Yep, there was no doubt where they were supposed to go — just taxi in between all the security vehicles with the guns pointed at them.
They were taxiing right at the Bone’s twenty-knot taxi speed limit, but it seemed much faster because of the lack of any outside references — it was as if they were in a dune buggy speeding across the desert. “Bitchin’ place you got here, General,” Rinc said. “Lots of room to stretch out. Good hunting and fishing?”
“You may find out, Major,” Patrick said.
“So this is Groom Lake, right?” Rinc asked. “The supersecret military base. Looks pretty ordinary to me. I’ve seen the four-meter Spot recon photos in the mission planning software too — it looks like Plant 42 at Palmdale. How many folks do you think are taking our pictures from those hills right now?”
“None,” Patrick said. “Our security guys rounded up all the trespassers before we came in. The closest UFO watcher was eight miles away, and we got him. We let them come close to the base once in a while so we can learn their ingress routes, which makes it easier to find them and shut them down when we need to. There were a few satellite overflights we had to avoid too — one Russian, one Chinese.”
