Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (42 page)

 
          
“Major
Kestrel, another target just busted the arrival routing,” one of the
surveillance technicians said as he approached the group. “SD wants you back up
on headsets.”

 
          
“On
my way,” Kestrel said, popping one more antacid before leading Hardcastle and
Vincenti back to the Weapons Controller section of the AWACS radar plane. He
reached his seat, slapped on his headset, and turned to his Senior Director:
“What do we have, Todd?”

 
          
“A
private 727 on the Acton Two Arrival with a lost flight plan,” the Senior
Director reported. “Departed San Antonio International about an hour ago—that’s
been confirmed by the tower crew.”

 
          
“Can’t
let him into DFW without a flight plan,” Kestrel said emphatically. “Why the
hell didn’t ATC kick him out and tell him to return to
San Antonio
?” He knew that was a rhetorical question
that his Senior Director couldn’t answer, so he flipped his communications
panel to his discrete Dallas Approach channel: “Dallas West Approach, Tiger
Airborne Control.”

 
          
“This
is Dallas West Regional, go ahead.”

 
          
“Yes,
sir, that private 727, radar ID 35T90, doesn’t have a flight plan for Dallas-Fort
Worth International. Landing is prohibited without an IFR flight plan
coordinated through me. Landing at DFW, Love, or
Alliance
is not authorized.”

 
          
“Stand
by one, I’ll give you to my military operations desk.” Kestrel was put on hold
for about a minute, and then he had to explain the situation all over again to
the Dallas TRACON military operations officer again, who responded, “We’ve been
losing lots of flight plans, Tiger. The system is jammed. We’d lose five
percent of the flight plans on a normal full-up day—now, with every plane in
the sky filing a flight plan, we can’t keep up.”

 
          
“I
understand your problem, Approach, but let’s deal with this guy first,” Kestrel
interjected. “Reroute the guy either to one of the satellite airports or back
to
San
Antonio
—he
can’t land at DFW,
Alliance
, or Love.”

 
          
“I
thought the procedure stated that you military types would visually identify
any aircraft that was not on a flight plan or that was not following his
clearance.”

 
          
“That’s
correct,” Kestrel said. “If he tries to fly toward the primary airport in Class
B airspace without a flight plan, without a clearance, or if he’s not following
his clearance, he will be intercepted.”

 
          
“So
why not just intercept this guy, visually check him out; then make the decision
to let him land?”

 
          
“Sir,
that’s not the purpose of the procedure,” Kestrel said patiently. “The purpose
of an intercept is not to visually identify him, but to
shoot him down
as far away from the primary airport and from
populated areas, if that becomes necessary.”

 
          
“Why
do you want to shoot him down, for God’s sake?” “I don’t
want
to shoot him down,” Kestrel said. He looked at Hardcastle, who
was listening in on the conversation with an expression of absolute disbelief
on his face. Sir, the aircraft does
not
have a proper flight plan in the system—that’s a violation, and it makes him a
suspected terrorist. He’s approaching a high-volume primary airport in Class B
airspace, one of the airports designated as a high-value asset by the federal
government. He’s supposed to be on the Acton Two arrival, but I have him three
miles east of HULEN intersection and one thousand feet low.”

 
          
“Is
he on a vector?”

 
          
I
don’t know, sir,” Kestrel said, ready to tear his hair out in utter
frustration. He turned to his Senior Director, who nodded his head “yes” at the
question. “My senior director says he is on a vector, Approach, but that
doesn’t matter. All I know is that he doesn’t have a flight plan, he’s not on a
published standard arrival routing, and he’s not on a published approach
procedure. I’m asking you to divert him to a satellite airport or back to his
departure airport.” There was a slight but maddening pause, then: “Okay, Tiger
Control, I . . . sir, it’s really busy here, and I’m not quite sure what the
problem is . . .”

 
          
“I’m
trying to explain it to you, if you’d just listen to me.” “I didn’t catch that
last, Tiger,” the supervisor said in a detached, bureaucratic way that told
everyone listening in that he heard what Kestrel said but was ignoring him. “If
you think you’ve got a terrorist situation, perhaps I’d better turn you over to
the chief of security operations or the deputy director. Stand by one.”

 
          
Hardcastle
keyed his headset mike button: “Dallas Approach, this is Admiral Ian Hardcastle
speaking. I’m the Special Assistant to the President for Air Defense
Operations.” Kestrel was shaking his head at Hardcastle, silently asking him
not to get into it, but it was too late now. “I’m in charge of this
antiterrorist operation. I’m ordering you to divert this suspect aircraft away
from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport until his identity can be verified. Do you
understand me?”

 
          
“Who
is this again?”

           
“This is Admiral Hardcastle, Special
Assistant to the President.”

 
          
“President
of.. . the United States? Is that what you’re saying?”

 
          
Hardcastle’s
back stiffened angrily, his cheek muscles quivering. He grasped his headset
mike, pulled it closer to his lips, and shouted, ‘The name’s
Hardcastle,
sir. I am the man who is
going to make your life
miserable
if
you don’t comply with my instructions.”

 
          
“Ah
. . . right
—Mister
Hardcastle.” It
was obvious by the controller’s voice that he wasn’t accustomed to being
threatened and he was done talking. “I’m turning you over to the deputy
facility director—you can make your requests and your threats to him. Stand by,
please.” And the line went dead, replaced by soothing mood music.

 
          
“Damn
it, he cut us off,” Kestrel said. On intercom, he said to his senior director,
“Todd, divert Tango X-Ray-311 for an ID intercept on target ID 35T90. Classify
that target ID as ‘unknown.’ Transmit an alert to Tiger units 112, 113, 131,
and 132, but send a HOLD FIRE and have all units acknowledge.” Kestrel turned
to Hardcastle and said bitterly, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one, Admiral.
The shit’s starting to pile up real fast.”

 
          
Air Defense Battalion Master Information
and Coordination Central,
DFW
Airport

           
Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Witt was
breathing heavily from the run from the control tower to the access elevator
that took her up to the roof of terminal 2W. This was where her Master
Information and Coordination Central van was ! set up, as she hurried into the
van and stood between the battalion engagement officer, Captain Jim Connor, and
the battalion fire unit technician, Master Sergeant Mike Pierini, in the front
of the cab. “What do we got, Jim?”

 
          
“Tiger
Control just made this guy an UNKNOWN,” Connor replied, tapping the eraser
point of his pencil on his radarscreen. “No flight plan on him. Tiger is
scrambling two fighters, and they’ve alerted NAS Dallas and Carswell Patriot
batteries and HAWK units 131 and 132. We’ve acknowledged the HOLD FIRE order.”

 
          
Witt
relaxed and got her breathing under control. It was just another alert,
probably the fifteenth one since she set up operations here less than two days
ago. As it was during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the brass aboard the AWACS
radar planes flag everybody even marginally suspect as UNKNOWN during the first
few days of a conflict. When the friendly forces became more organized,
everyone got more comfortable, and procedures became better understood and more
routine, the numbers of alerts decreased, even to the point where engaging a
SCUD missile was considered routine. This was shaping up to be the same. Witt
checked the status readouts—yes, every Patriot, HAWK, and Avenger fire unit was
reporting “HOLD FIRE.” The unknown was still over thirty miles out, well within
range of Patriot and coming within range of HAWK batteries in a few minutes.
The Air Force fighters were airborne, and MICC had a solid track on them. No
crisis yet.

 
          
Witt
studied the battalion engagement officer’s radarscreen as the fighters
converged on the suspect airliner. The airspace for fifty miles around
Dallas-Fort Worth had been divided up into safe-fly corridors, which
corresponded to the FAA’s published STAR, or Standard Terminal Arrival,
procedures. The corridors were like gradually narrowing chutes beginning at
four radio navigation beacons surrounding DFW, angling down from the higher en
route altitudes to lower terminal and approach altitudes. If they were heading
toward DFW in a threatening way—a combination of high airspeed, low altitude,
not following airways, and no identification beacon meant “threatening” to the
Patriot fire control computers—any aircraft straying outside the safe-fly
corridors could legally be shot at by Patriot surface-to-air missiles. Inside
twenty miles to the airport, the corridors became narrow funnels, and within
two miles of the runway, the safe-fly zone was a thin tube only a few hundred
feet wide. Although Patriot missiles could hit a hostile plane anywhere along
its route of flight, even at very low altitude and close to the terminal
buildings, their assigned fire area was from twenty to fifty miles from DFW.
The HAWK missiles ; would engage between twenty and two miles from the termi- [
nal buildings, and the Avenger Stinger missiles and .50- caliber cannons would
engage inside two miles.

 
          
“I
don’t get it—what’s going on here?” Witt murmured. Until a few seconds ago,
this new unknown had been a reg- , ular inbound, a private Boeing 727 executive
corporate or charter job, squawking all its normal beacon codes and doing
generally normal things in a very confusing airspace system. Now, the Air Force
AWACS radar crew had made it an “unknown.”

 
          
“We
got a kill code of 0.75 from Patriot,” Sergeant Pierini called out. The Patriot
fire control computer was ] programmed with a set of hostile-aircraft flight
parame- ters—distance, speed, heading, altitude, flight path, location in or
away from the safe-fly zones, general tactical , situation—and every target was
assigned a hostile track code, or “kill code.” A score of 1.0 meant that
Patriot be- < lieved the hostile was going to strike either the Patriot site
or Patriot’s assigned protection zone. Next to the target’s
¹
kill
code was Patriot’s estimate of a successful kill if it launched on the hostile
track—right now, patriot’s confidence of a kill was 0.95. It was probably an
underestimate.

 
          
“Hold
fire, Sergeant,” Witt said. “The fighters are on him. Let them deal with this
sucker.”

 
          
“All
units acknowledging HOLD FIRE,” Pierini replied.

 
          
Aboard the F-16 ADF Fighter Tango X-Ray-311

           
The vertical and horizontal antenna
sweep indexers on the F-16 ADF’s AN/APG-66 radarscope continued to move, but a
small white box had appeared at the upper-left portion of his F-16 Fighter
Falcon ADF’s radarscreen. Captain Ron Himes, 111th Fighter Squadron “Texans,”
Ellington Field, Houston, Texas, clicked a button on his throttle, moving two
white lines called the target acquisition symbol onto the white box, then
pressing and releasing the button to lock the cursor onto the target. He
switched to medium PRF, or pulse-repetition frequency, to get a clearer look at
the target. The fire control computer displayed the unknown target’s flight
parameters—range thirty miles, speed three hundred knots, altitude five
thousand feet and descending. Himes clicked open his radio and reported, “Tango
X-Ray-311, judy,” indicating he had the target on radar and needed no further
intercept information.

 
          
“Roger,
311,” the weapons controller aboard the E-3C AWACS radar plane responded.
“Check nose cold, ID only. You’re cleared in the block angels six to eight.”