Battle Born (65 page)

At that moment, they heard a high-pitched
DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE
warning tone. “Missile launch! Chaff out! Engage TERFLW, break right!” Rebecca immediately engaged the terrain-following system, and the Megafortress started a thirty-thousand-foot-per-minute dive for the ground. At the same time, Rebecca started a hard right turn and pushed the throttles to military power. She stepped the clearance plane right down to two hundred feet to get below the SA-6’
minimum altitude capability. The towed emitter immediately started sending out both jamming signals and tiny fins that enlarged its radar cross section to ten times the size of the Megafortress itself.

They felt a shudder run the length of the Megafortress, then quiet. “Shit, that was close,” Paul said. “They got the towed emitter. I’m reeling out number two.”

Suddenly, just as the cockpit got quiet again when the SA-6’s radars went down, it seemed as if the ground all around them illuminated in pinpricks of light. “Triple-A!” Paul shouted. “Climb! Any way out to the left?”

“More triple-A out this way!” Rebecca shouted. There was no way to turn to get around them—everywhere they looked, another stream of lights arced up to meet them. The only way to go was straight up. Rebecca paddled off the terrain-following system, shoved the throttles to max afterburner, swept the wings forward to thirty-six degrees, and pulled the nose skyward. “Fortress One is defensive, climbing to get away from triple-A around us!”

Just then it felt as if they hit a stretch of gravel road racing down the freeway at eighty miles an hour. For a brief instant, the vibration was so bad that Rebecca couldn’t see the instrument panel. She leveled off at fifteen thousand feet. The rumbling subsided but didn’t stop. “I’m hit! I’m hit!” Rebecca radioed. “I’m not accelerating . . . Shit, I just lost my number one engine! Fire lights on! Shutting number one down!”

“Fly the airplane, Rebecca, just fly the airplane,” she heard Nancy Cheshire’s voice say. “I’m on your gauges. Get your nose up . . . there you go. Let me check your systems. Scottie, back me up.” After a few moments, Nancy said, “Okay, it looks like you got hit in the left wing. You’ve still got a hot exhaust, so you still might
have a fire back there. You’re losing fuel from your left wing, and I think that flutter might be from some damaged flaps, so it looks like you’re stuck with thirty-four-degree wing sweep for now. I’ve initiated fuel transfer out of the left wing to the forward intermediate and forward fuselage tanks; you’re going to have to use manual CG management, but we’ll help you watch the center of gravity. We will . . .” There was another radar warning, another SA-6 at their three o’clock position. “Left turn to one-six-zero, Rebecca, let’s get away from that SA-6 that just popped up! Use afterburners if you need to.”

“C’mon, Long Dong, fire up one of those things and let ’em have it!” Rinc shouted. John Long activated the laser radar, and the positions of the mobile 27-millimeter and 57-millimeter guns around Fortress One appeared. Rinc turned toward the nest of antiaircraft artillery while John selected three of the road-mobile artillery units, with the mobile SA-6 launcher as the final impact target, and launched one Wolverine missile. Less than a minute later two antiaircraft artillery units were destroyed, pierced through and through with deadly molten copper, and a mobile SA-6 surface-to-air missile launcher was burning fiercely.

“You’re out of there, Rebecca,” Patrick ordered. “Fly heading zero-eight-five, climb to one-niner thousand, vectors to the
Grand Island.
We’ll have you orbit inside his SAM coverage until we get a tanker out here to pump you up and assess the damage.”

“I’m rejoining on her,” Rinc said.

“Negative. We need you back on patrol, Rinc . . .”

“I said,
I’m rejoining on her
!” he shouted. “We don’t leave our wingmen. I don’t care if the whole fucking Korean peninsula goes up in flames—I’m not leaving her.”

A few minutes later Rinc eased his Megafortress
bomber in tight to Rebecca’s left wing. “How does it look?” she radioed. “I still feel a vibration. Feels like it’s coming from that side. Roll control is sluggish too.”

“It looks like shit, Go-Fast,” John Long said, studying the bomber through a set of night-vision goggles. “A spoiler looks like it’s partially up or bent up, and you have a section of flap sticking through the wing gap seal. You might want to consider landing at a longer runway than Adak—you’ll be doing a thirty-four-degree wing sweep no-flap no-slat approach with three engines.”

“We’re already getting Kadena cleared for recovery,” Patrick radioed. “Twelve thousand feet usable. It’s supposed to be closed to attack aircraft, but I don’t give a shit—we’re landing there anyway. If we have to, we’ll—”

“Hey—do you guys see what I see?” Nancy Cheshire radioed. “What are those tanks doing down there?”

“Holy shit—it looks like they’re turning around!” Dave Luger aboard Fortress Two said gleefully. “Those Chinese tanks are heading north again! Genesis, you see this? Are you seeing this?”

“That’s a big roger, Fortress Two,” Terrill Samson said happily. “I’m on the phone to Washington right now. I see them pulling back all across northern Korea.”

“The mobile search radars are down too,” John Long verified. “Looks like they pulled in their claws. Man, this is incredible. They . . . wait. I’ve got a fighter radar up . . . India-band ‘Flash Dance’ radar . . . Shit! They’re MiG-31 Foxhounds! Two of ’em!” The Russian-designed MiG-31 Foxhound was one of the fastest and most deadly interceptors in the world, designed from the outset to destroy low-flying supersonic bombers and cruise missiles. “The war
seems to be over—but it looks like someone forgot to tell the fighters!”

HIGH TECHNOLOGY AEROSPACE
WEAPONS CENTER, GROOM LAKE, NEVADA
THAT SAME TIME

S
ir, what do you mean, no one can get hold of the Korean leadership?” Lieutenant General Terrill Samson thundered. “You mean we can’t talk to anyone in the Korean military chain of command?”

“Terrill, we can’t talk to anyone in a leadership position in Korea at all,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Balboa said. “All communications have been cut off to their command center—they sealed it up tight, full EMP, nuclear and bio-chem protection. And when we contact the Blue House or someone in the capital, everyone’s mum. No one will talk to us.”

“Sir, it’s confirmed—the Chinese are pulling out of Korea,” Samson said. “We need confirmation from President Kwon that he has his finger off the red button and that he’s not going to try any more retaliatory strikes against Chinese forces as they’re retreating.”

“We’re trying our best, General,” Balboa said. “I suggest you get your people out of there fast. If the Chinese see you up there, they’re likely to think you’re part of a Korean counterstrike. You’d better . . . Stand by one.” The line went quiet for several long moments; then: “More shit hitting the fan, General. President Kwon and Vice President Pak were found dead in the president’s office.”

“What?”

“Looks like some kind of murder-suicide thing,” Balboa said. “And it looks like the execution codes for
Korea’s nuclear missiles may have been compromised. Aides found the code briefcase open, the president’s decoding card filled out, and the right execution card retrieved from the briefcase. They checked the phone log and found that Pak called the Osan command center shortly before the MCRC went off the air.”

“That means that whoever’s in charge at the Osan command center has one-half of the execution codes,” Samson said. “If the minister of defense is at Osan too, then he has the other half—and they can launch fully prearmed nuclear weapons anytime they want.”

“Looks like the balloon’s going up any minute, General,” Balboa said grimly. “Are your people in place over the peninsula?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, let’s hope to God your plan works and they can stop any missiles Kim wants to cook off,” Balboa said. “I better notify the President. Balboa out.”

Terrill Samson hung up the phone, deep in thought. What in hell was going on out there? Would Minister of National Defense Kim actually launch a nuclear attack against China?

Well, Samson thought, I wonder if anyone tried the direct approach. If only hard-wired communications were going through, why not try a simple phone call? The Osan Master Control and Reporting Center used to be a joint American and Korean facility, so I must have the phone number for it somewhere. He started a computer phone directory search, and sure enough found the number. The Defense Satellite Network number did not work—that was pure digital, vulnerable to EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, the damaging surge of energy during a nuclear blast—but when he tried the commercial number, a man answered in Korean.

“I want to speak with the senior controller,” Samson said.

The same man switched from Korean to English without hesitation: “Who is this? How did you get this number?”

“This is Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, United States Air Force, calling from Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada. I want to talk with the senior controller on duty right away.”

“Communications are restricted. The facility is under full combat conditions.”

“I know. I have spoken with Washington and with Seoul. You have sealed off the Master Control and Reporting Center even though the Chinese forces are pulling back. I want to know why.”

“Pulling back?” the man said with obvious surprise. “The Chinese are pulling back?”

“All of them, as we speak. You didn’t know?” There was no response. “Who is the senior controller?” Samson racked his brain for a name. “Colonel Sung Hye-gu was on duty just after reunification—I would like to talk with him. Or General An, or General Kim, if they’re on duty. It’s urgent.”

“This is Colonel Sung,” the man said. “I remember you now, sir. You are the black general they call Earthmover. I did not recognize the name of your base.”

“Colonel, what is going on out there?”

“General Kim cannot speak,” the man said. A few moments later he added, “The Chinese are withdrawing? Full withdrawal?”

“As far as my reconnaissance assets tell me, yes—full withdrawal,” Samson said. “Do you require authentication? Do you need me to send you proof? Tell me what I need to do to convince you, Colonel.”

“Sir . . . General, Minister of National Defense Kim has ordered a full missile attack on China,” Colonel Sung said.

“A
what?
”

“A full nuclear and chemical attack,” Sung repeated. “Targets in China—including Beijing. He received full authorization from President Kwon—rather, from Vice President Pak . . .”

“President Kwon and Vice President Pak are
dead
, Colonel,” Samson said. “They think Pak forced Kwon to give him the execution code, then killed Kwon and himself. Kim’s attack is unnecessary, and it’s probably not legal—Kim may have engineered this just to lash out at China or grab the presidency for himself. He has got to stop this attack.”

“I . . . I do not know what to do,” Sung said.

“Listen to me, Colonel,” Samson said. “You must stop Minister Kim or General An from launching any more missiles against China. I have special aircraft in the vicinity, heavy stealth bombers that are armed with highly effective weapons that can destroy the MCRC. Their mission is to destroy any ballistic missiles launched by either Korea or China, but they can attack heavily defended ground targets as well. They successfully attacked the Chinese armored brigades and caused them to turn back.

“I have authorization to attack the Master Control and Reporting Center with any weapon in my control to try to stop any more missile launches. If I don’t get a response, Colonel, I will have no choice but to attack. You must try to stop Minister Kim any way you can. Do you understand?”

But the line had gone dead—Samson didn’t know how long he had been talking to no one.

What could he do? He had some of the world’s most potent weapons at his fingertips, but he was powerless. He could not do . . .

He couldn’t do anything . . . but the Megafor-tresses could.

Terrill Samson called up a digital map of Osan Air Base in Korea and studied it. It had been well over four years since he’d visited Osan, but he didn’t think it had changed that much.

It was in a remote corner of the base, far from the runway, far from Seventh Air Force headquarters. There were no other structures nearby except for a plain two-story military-drab building, surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence. Zooming in, he could see a lone tree about fifty yards in front of the building.

That was it. He had heard of the famous lone cherry tree, the rumors that it was the most heavily targeted tree in the world. They said the North Koreans had targeted ten thousand bombs, rockets, and missiles on that cherry tree—because a hundred feet below it, under layers of soil, rock, steel, and Kevlar armor and suspended on shock absorbers, was the Osan Master Control and Reporting Center, the military heart of Korea. Terrill Samson rolled a set of electronic cross hairs on that cherry tree and ordered the computer to mensurate its exact geographical coordinates and elevation.

Now there was going to be one more weapon targeted against that little tree.

ABOARD THE EB-1C MEGAFORTRESS BOMBERS
THAT SAME TIME

F
ortresses One and Three, you’ve got bandits at five o’clock, fifty miles, angels . . . shit, angels forty-five, speed seven hundred knots and closing fast. ‘Flash Dance’ radar . . . damn, it’s a pair of MiG-31s,” Dave Luger shouted. “Notch left, Fortress One. We’ll try to break that Foxhound’s pulse-Doppler radar lock . . .”

But before the two Megafortress bombers could even
begin to make any defensive maneuvers, they got a verbal “Rocket launch detection” warning through their intercom systems. “I’m picking up ballistic missile launches—from Korea!” John Long shouted. “Korea is launching missiles!”

“Rebecca . . . those fighters . . . I’m staying with you in case they—”

“Go after those missiles, Rinc! Nail those bitches!” Rebecca shouted. She knew she could not use afterburners for fear of igniting a fire in her engine compartments, and because she could not sweep her wings past thirty-four degrees, she would not have enough speed to make steep pursuit climbs. “I’m heading out to the
Grand Island
! I’ll be all right!”