Plan of Attack

AGM-165 Longhorn TV-and IIR-guided attack missile, 200-pound TN warhead, MMW radar guidance, 60-mile range, 2,000 pounds each

AIM-120 Scorpion AMRAAM air-to-air missile, 50-pound warhead, 35 miles max range, triple-mode active radar, passive radar, or infrared, max speed Mach 3, 350 pounds each

AIM-154 Anaconda long-range radar-guided air-to-air missile, 50-pound TN warhead, 150-mile max range, ramjet engine, active-passive radar/IR guidance, max speed Mach 5, weight 6,000 pounds

AGM-177 Wolverine cruise missile, turbojet powered, max 50-mile range, 3 weapon bays, IIR or MMW radar terminal guidance, 2,000 pounds

AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), range 15 to 40 miles depending on release altitude, 1,500 pounds, unpowered glide weapon, carries 200 antipersonnel/antivehicle bomblets, 10 BLU-108/B antiarmor submunitions, or 500-pound high explosive; EB-52, B-2, or EB-1C can carry 8 on rotary launcher

ABM-3 Lancelot air-launched anti-ballistic-missile weapon, 200-mile range, plasma-yield or conventional warheads, 3,000-pound launch weight

Russian:

AS-17 “Krypton” (Kh-31P) medium-range air-launched antiradar missile, max 120-mile range, speed in excess of Mach 3, 225-pound blast/fragmentation warhead; carried by Tu-22M Backfire bombers

AS-X-19 “Koala” (Kh-90) long-range air-launched attack missile, ramjet powered, max range 1,800 miles, speed in excess of Mach 8, 1-kiloton nuclear warhead with delayed trigger fuze and armored nose cap, designed for destroying deep underground or armored facilities; two carried by Tu-95 Bear bombers

AS-16 “Kickback” (Kh-15) inertially guided supersonic attack missile, 90-mile range, max speed Mach 2, 300- pound high-explosive warhead or 1-kiloton nuclear warhead; Tu-160 bomber can carry 24 internally on rotary launcher

Prologue

Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, Nevada

June 2004

SA-17 target-detection radar, twelve o’clock, fifty miles, no problem, well below detection threshold…oh, wow, a newcomer, SA-12 surveillance radar, one o’clock, eighty-five miles,” the reconnaissance technician reported. The guy looked all of nineteen years old and sounded even younger. He could’ve been commenting on the appearance of aliens in a video game — he was neither excited nor surprised, just gleefully energized. “SA-12 datalink signals being transmitted…still not locked on, but he knows we’re out here. He — Wait, radar’s down. He shut it off in a big hurry.”

“Well, well — the Russkies sneaked an SA-12 into the theater,” Major General Patrick McLanahan remarked. He was well accustomed to the youthful expressions and seemingly laid-back style of his soldiers, and he tried not to impart his own “red alert” mentality on them. The forty-seven-year-old two-star Air Force general typed in commands on his computer terminal, calling up any additional information on this new contact. “Possibly a full SA- 12 battery — six transporter-erector-launchers plus five loader-launchers tied into a surveillance radar vehicle, sector-scanning radar vehicle, and command post. He’s pretty far outside Ashkhabad — it’s obviously not intended to protect Russian forces in the capital. It’s a clear violation.”

“They’re moving the heavy guns a little farther east every day,” Air Force Colonel Daren Mace remarked. The fifty-one-year-old Air Force veteran watched as the large, full-color tactical display updated itself with the location and identification of the new Russian surface-to-air missile unit. The SA-12, similar in performance to the American Patriot antiaircraft system, was one of the Russian Federation’s most advanced surface-to-air missile systems, capable of destroying large aircraft out as far as sixty miles. “You’d think they didn’t want us out there watching them or something.” He made a few inputs on his own keyboard. “The task force has been updated with the new intel, and we’ve sent warnings to all the United Nations participants,” he went on. “The Russians are threatening past the sixtieth meridian now with the SA-12, sir. If they keep this up, they’ll have surface-to-air missile coverage over Mary itself in just a few days.”

Patrick nodded. The Republic of Turkmenistan had been cut in half since the Taliban invasion last year, with the Turkmen government and military virtually exiled to the city of Mary in the east and the Army of the Russian Federation in control of the capital city of Ashkhabad in the west. The United Nations Security Council had ordered all parties to stand fast until peacekeeping forces could be moved into the country to try to sort everything out, and to everyone’s surprise the resolution passed without a veto from Russia. Now it appeared that the Russians were violating the order and moving steadily eastward, taking steps to control the skies first and then slowly taking more and more of the countryside. “I’ll go to Eighth Air Force again and make sure they know that the Russians haven’t stopped pushing east.”

“Think that’ll do any good, sir?” Daren asked. “We’ve painted a pretty clear picture of the Russians moving east across Turkmenistan, in violation of the Security Council’s resolution. The SA-12 is a lot more than a tactical defensive weapon — one battery can shut off two hundred thousand cubic miles of airspace.”

“Our job is to surveille, monitor, analyze, and report — not attack,” Patrick said with a hint of weariness in his voice as he keyed in commands to submit a report to Eighth Air Force’s senior duty controller. Eighth Air Force, located in Shreveport, Louisiana, was the Air Force major command in charge of all of America’s heavy bomber forces. “I’m taking it upon myself to have the assets in place in case we’re asked to respond. I have a feeling I’m lucky to continue to be doing that.” Daren Mace said nothing — he knew that the general was definitely correct.

Patrick, Daren, and their technical crew were conducting an aerial surveillance and reconnaissance mission over central Turkmenistan, a former Soviet Central Asian republic — but they were safe and secure in the BATMAN, or Battle Management Center, at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in north-central Nevada. The aircraft flying over Turkmenistan was a QB-1C Vampire III, a highly modified unmanned B-1 bomber loaded with electronic surveillance and monitoring equipment. Eavesdropping equipment allowed Patrick to intercept signals from a wide variety of sources, and the bomber’s laser radar, or LADAR, allowed them to take incredibly detailed images of ground and air targets from long range.

Along with defensive weapons — six AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs) on external fuselage hardpoints — the Vampire bomber carried two StealthHawk UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles) on a special rotary launcher in its center bomb bay. Resembling wide, fat, winged surfboards, the StealthHawk drones carried small but powerful precision-guided missiles and cluster munitions to attack hostile ground targets. The StealthHawks could be retrieved, refueled, and rearmed inside the Vampire, allowing each drone to attack dozens of targets while the mother ship stayed well out of range of antiaircraft threats.

Patrick punched the radio channel command, entered a password, waited a few moments until the secure channels synchronized, then spoke, “Fortress, this is Avenger, secure.”

“Avenger, Fortress is secure,” the Eighth Air Force senior controller on duty responded.

“How are you tonight, Taylor?”

“Just fine, General,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Taylor Viner replied. Taylor Rose Viner was a young and talented aerospace engineer and command pilot that Patrick had tried for years to recruit to Dreamland, the top- secret weapon center in Nevada, but the mother of twin boys had opted for a halfway normal family life as one of the shift commanders in charge of Eighth Air Force’s command center. “Go ahead, sir.”

“We’ve detected a new SAM site in central Turkmenistan, an SA-12 less than forty miles outside the city of Mary,” Patrick said. “It’s not a threat to task-force aircraft right now, but that’s only because we’re stealthier than