strategic air-breathing forces, and about half of all American nuclear-capable forces, especially land-based missiles and bombers, would be destroyed.”
“That’s
“Sir, my report is done, and I conclude that not only is this attack feasible but it is
“McLanahan, you have gone too far this time!”
“Hold it, General Houser,” Robert Goff said. “General McLanahan, I’ve let you have your say, which is more than I should have done, but I think your past record gives you the right to be heard. I know you to sometimes overstep your authority, but I believe you do it for good and true reasons — in your own mind, at least. I don’t see any reason to sound the alarm based on a computerized tarot-card reading, but I’m going to do my due diligence here and give you much more of the benefit of the doubt than I think you deserve at this particular time.
“I want you to upchannel that report right away. I want to let everyone take a look at it and offer opinions.”
“Sir, I don’t think there’s time for that—”
“Too bad, General,” Goff said heatedly. “That’s a direct result of your attitude and the way you conduct yourself and your units. You’ve stepped out of line so much that no one trusts you.
“General Houser, I want McLanahan’s report evaluated and passed along as expeditiously as possible from your office. I already know how you feel about McLanahan’s analysis — put it in writing, then send the report on up the chain to my office.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s the best I’m going to do for you now, Patrick,” Goff said, “so that report had better be able to stand on its own, because I don’t think you’ll be around to argue or defend it. Charges and specifications have been brought against you. Because of your rank and outstanding service to your country and to the Air Force, it is within my authority to set aside these charges and avoid a court-martial in exchange for voluntary separation from military duty, to avoid any embarrassment to yourself and your family as well as to the service. How do you respond?”
“I will not resign my commission, sir,” Patrick responded. Houser looked shocked, before breaking out into a satisfied grin. “I do request that I be allowed to travel to see my family instead of being confined to quarters, since my family is in Sacramento and did not accompany me to San Antonio.”
“General Houser?”
“No objection, sir,” Houser replied.
“Very well,” Goff said. “General McLanahan, you are hereby relieved of duty. The charges and specifications filed against you by General Houser remain; however, you retain all the privileges of your rank and are free to move about freely within the United States on your own recognizance. You will submit yourself to any hearings or proceedings as directed by the court-martial’s presiding officer. That is all.”
The video teleconference ended. Houser stood, then snatched the report from Patrick’s hand. “I’ll read it over, then give it to General Samson while we’re on our way to Offutt to meet with STRATCOM, Air Combat Command, and NORAD,” he said. “But I don’t give it a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing the light of day. This is a childish tactic to discredit me and General Samson and focus attention on yourself. Everyone’s going to see this report for what it is: a worthless, pointless piece of crap.
“You can fly your little plane back to Sacramento and take a little vacation. Enjoy yourself — because you’ll be in prison before you know it. It was nice to know you, Muck. Too bad Brad Elliott twisted your brain into knots. See ya around, nav.”
Start countermeasures point, crew,” the crew navigator of the lead Tupolev-95 Bear bomber announced.
“Acknowledged,” the electronic-warfare officer responded. “My jammers are still in standby mode. All frequencies are clear. I expect to start picking up the North Warning long-range radars in twenty minutes,” the EWO added.
Josef Leborov, the aircraft commander, shook his head in surprise and checked his watch and flight plan just to be sure what he heard was correct. It seemed like only minutes ago that the EWO had first given a status report. “Acknowledged,” he responded. “Crew, station check. Prepare for ingress procedures.” He took a last sip and secured his canteen in his flight bag, hoping like hell he’d have another chance to drink from it. He flipped to the “Start Countermeasures” page in his checklist. “SCM check, Yuri,” he ordered.
The checklist was long. It directed them to extinguish all external lights; turn off transponders and any other radios that automatically transmitted a signal, such as the formation distance-measuring equipment and air- refueling rendezvous beacons; make sure radio switches were configured so no one would accidentally transmit on an outside frequency; turn down all interior instrument and cabin lights; and reduce cabin pressurization so any piercing of the fuselage would not produce an explosive decompression. Even the smallest, tiniest lights still left on in the cockpit seemed like searchlights in the ink-black sky, and he found himself checking each light switch two and three times, then finally pulling the circuit breakers to make sure he could not accidentally turn them on. He had done this checklist so many times in training missions and simulators, but it took on a whole new level of importance now.
He had no sooner finished the checklist a few minutes later when he heard a buzzing sound in his headset, and sweat spontaneously popped onto his forehead and the back of his neck, chilling him instantly. “Threat warning, India-Juliett band!” the EWO shouted. “F-16 Falcon interceptor!”
“Low-level-descent checklist!” Leborov shouted, and simultaneously pushed the nose over and pulled the throttles of his four Kuznetsov turboprop engines back to keep the airspeed below red line. “Copilot, notify the formation, evasive action, proceed to opposed ingress routes immediately.” In order to ensure that the maximum number of planes made it past the defenses, the four six-ship formations would break apart and go in single-ship, following slightly different routes — some planes were separated by only one or two degrees of track, less than a hundred meters’ altitude, or less than a minute’s time. Borodev’s voice was as excited and high-pitched as a woman’s as he got on the radio to notify the rest of their package that enemy fighters were inbound.
That would be the last transmission to his comrades until they all met back at base…or in hell.
An F-16! They hadn’t expected an F-16 up here for another hour at least. He adjusted the propeller pitch of the rearmost propellers to increase drag so he could increase his descent rate. “Has he seen us yet?” It was a stupid question — they had to assume that the American fighter had them. They also had to assume that there was more than one fighter out there — the American Air Force almost always traveled in two-plane formations. Fortunately, the F-16’s radar did not have a true look-down/shoot-down capability, so they had a chance if they could make it to low level. The radar clutter of the Arctic Ocean and then the ruggedness of northern Canada would hide them very effectively.
“I don’t think so, sir,” the EWO responded. “His radar is still in long-range scan, and his track has not changed. He’s heading northeast, across but away from us. He might lose track in a couple of minutes.”
But then again, Leborov thought, if he did what he was supposed to do and establish a patrol orbit, along the most probable inbound path for bombers from Russia to take — like the one they were on right now — he was bound to find them. They were quickly running out of time. “Any word from our support package, copilot?” Leborov asked.
“Negative,” Borodev responded woodenly. “No idea where they are.”
“Are we on time?”
“About two minutes early,” the navigator responded. “Good tailwinds.”
“Good tailwinds, my ass — two minutes is all the time that F-16 needs to sound the alert.” Shit, thought Leborov. Soon the entire American and Canadian air forces would be howling after them. Mission and radio security was one thing, but shouldn’t they know where the rest of their strike package was? “Okay, we can’t stay up here
