Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (55 page)

 
          
“But.
. . but how . . . ?”

 
          
“How?
Your mom never told you the facts of life?”

 
          
“No,
dammit... I thought you couldn’t have a baby after the accident because of
trauma to your follicles or something... I thought we had to do all that in
vitro fertilization stuff, do the test tubes and the echography and follicle
punctures ...”

 
          
“Well,
either it was an immaculate conception or the doctors were wrong about the old
lady’s plumbing, because we got pregnant the old-fashioned way—without Synarel
sprays or Pergonal shots or micromanipulation,” Wendy said proudly. “You’re
going to be a daddy after all—that is, as long as you come back to me.”

 
          
“Of
course I’ll be back, Wendy,” Patrick said. “Even if I have to walk. If I’ve got
any skill, if I’ve got any luck, if I’ve got any brains at all, I’ll use them
all to come back to you.”

 
          
They
embraced again, tighter than ever before; and even amid the sounds of external
power carts and shouting soldiers and missiles and weapons being uploaded and
all the other sounds of war in that hangar, for a brief instant in time, there
were only the two of them, together forever. . . .

 
          
Takeoff
was shortly after darkness set in on
Guam
. After
the area was cleared for any unidentified aircraft or vessels, Air Vehicle Oil
launched from Andersen’s north-south runway, instantly 500 feet above the ocean
as it left the runway because the end of the runway was on a tall cliff on
Guam
’s northernmost tip. McLanahan couldn’t help
but think of the last time he had taken a B-2 bomber into combat from
Guam
—they almost hadn’t made it. But that was a
lifetime ago, it seemed.

 
          
The
launch brought the same thrill of fear into Tony Jamieson’s heart. He
remembered all too well their mission against the Chinese navy and air force
over the
Philippines
.

 
          
And
this mission was even more insane. They had planned it less, and all the
planning had been done by McLanahan—a damned
civilian,
no less!—along with his computers and his buddies at Sky
Masters, Inc. The enemy was more numerous, better equipped, better prepared,
and they were on their home turf, defending their homeland. But Jamieson had
agreed to do it—he couldn’t back out now. He had to prove to himself that he
really did have the right stuff to fly into combat.

 
          
Just
two hours after takeoff, over the Philippine Sea between Luzon and the Batan
Islands, they rendezvoused with a KC-135 tanker that had taken off before them,
and they topped off their tanks—it was the loneliest feeling in the world to
see that KC-135 leave. They began a step-climb to 48,000 feet, saving as much
fuel as possible. Both crew members could see the lights of
Manila
about 300 miles to the south; 300 miles
north were the lights of
Taipei
, and off the B-2 A’s curved beak nose on the horizon were the lights of
Victoria
and
Macao
. They altered course slightly to avoid
overflying
Hong Kong
...

 
          
..
. but went feet-dry over the city of
Zhelang
,
Guangdong
Province
, in the People’s Republic of
China
. They were overflying
China
on their way to strike
Iran
.

 
          
“I
don’t friggin’ believe this,” Jamieson said, “but we’re doing it. We’ve just
violated
China
’s airspace with an armed strategic bomber.”

 
          
The
huge naval and air base at
Guangzhou
was the biggest concern right now. They had picked up strong radar and
air defense signals from more than 300 miles out, shortly after completing
their aerial refueling.
Guangzhou
was alive with air defense systems— most older, ex-Soviet systems, like
the Vietnam-era SA-2 long-range “flying telephone pole” missile;
China
was flying late-evening air patrols as
well. The majority of Chinese air interceptors on patrol showed on the threat
scope as MiG-2 Is, with a few more modern Sukhoi-27s in the mix. “Well, the
Chinese air force is certainly awake tonight,” Jamieson commented. “Training
day, I hope.”

 
          
Just
then, one of the Chinese-built Xian J-7 fighters, copies of the Russian MiG-21,
swept its radar beam across the B-2 A stealth bomber—and the green triangle
representing its search radar changed to yellow. Shit, that MiG-21 locked onto
us!” Jamieson called out. “He’s at
eight o’clock
, twenty miles! ”

 
          
“If
we get intercepted, our best plan is an emergency descent, then deviate
southwest across
Laos
or
Burma
,” McLanahan said, repeating their hastily planned escape procedures.
“Range to the Laotian border is about five hundred miles. Radar coverage is
almost nonexistent to the southwest.”

 
          
“If
he gets an eyeball on us, we’ll be lucky to make it five minutes, let alone
five hundred miles,” Jamieson muttered. But thankfully, the fighter’s radar
broke lock a few moments later, and he did not reacquire. “God, that was
close.”

 
          
But
it wasn’t over yet. Several minutes later, another fighter— this one a
Russian-built Sukhoi-27, a much more up-to-date fighter- bomber—started
sweeping the area, searching for the B-2A bomber—and seconds later, it too
showed a lock-on. “The Su-27’s got us,” McLanahan said. “
Seven o’clock
, fifteen miles.”

 
          
“What
in hell’s going on?” Jamieson asked. “Recheck your switches.” But after quickly
scanning the status page of the computer readouts, they could find nothing out
of place—they were in COMBAT mode, with all stealth and defensive systems on
and functioning. “That’s two in a row. Are we hanging something?”

 
          
“That’s
got to be it,” McLanahan said. “Try a turn to the left.” Sure enough, as soon
as they turned into the fighter, the yellow target-tracking radar turned to a
green search radar, and the fighter began sweeping the skies in other
directions, trying to lock on. The closest he got was ten miles, well outside
visual range even with night-vision optics.

 
          
“I
was afraid of that,” Jamieson said. “Field maintenance in a B-2A bomber is not
like any other plane. The maintenance crews have to be specially trained, and
the plane has to be checked to make sure its stealth characteristics weren’t
altered. One fastener not screwed in all the way, one seam not in perfect
alignment, one ding in the skin, can destroy the stealth characteristics and
increase the radar cross-section two or three times.” Jamieson turned to
McLanahan. “We got a decision to make, bub. The Chinese generally are known to
have shitty military stuff, but their standard line aircraft got a lock-on and
closed within missile range—twice.
Iran
’s got top- of-the-line stuff; so do
India
and
Pakistan
.
Burma
’s our last safe chance to get out.”

 
          
McLanahan
knew that they had no choice—the mission was in serious jeopardy. “All right,”
he said, “I have to agree. I think we can still make it, but the risk is too
much. We’ll execute the
Burma
escape route; once we’re clear of Chinese
radar coverage, I’ll flash a message to Andersen to schedule a tanker.” In the
back of his head was Wendy’s surprise message, too—he was going to be a father.
He couldn’t risk his first child growing up without him.

 
          
As
McLanahan composed their status and abort message for satellite relay, they
continued on for another hour until they were well clear of the Chinese air
defense region near
Chengdu
, where it was safe to temporarily deactivate the AN/VUQ-13 BEADS
“cloaking device,” get a GPS satellite navigation fix, and activate the encoded
satellite transceiver. Just as McLanahan was ready to send his message, a
priority message came in:

 
          
“Shit,”
McLanahan said. “
Iran
is attacking the
United Arab Emirates
and
Oman
!”

 
          
“What?”

           
“Bomber attacks on three bases in
the UAE and two bases in Oman,” McLanahan read. “
Iran
is shutting down any Gulf Cooperative
Council base that might threaten the carrier
Khomeini
while its stationed in the
Gulf
of
Oman
. Extensive Iranian fighter coverage throughout
the region, including near the
Abraham
Lincoln
battle group ... no U.S. or GCC air defense units were able to
respond. The attack came out of nowhere.”

 
          
“We’ll
get plastered,” Jamieson said. “If
Iran
presses the attack, we could lose every
usable air and naval base east of the
Red Sea
.
We’d ...” He knew . . . they
both
knew, what this meant—they couldn’t abort their mission now. Their B-2A bomber
was the only allied strike aircraft in the Gulf region ready to fight back, the
only one that could shut off the Iranian surge. “What’s our ETE to the area,
MC?”

 
          
“About
three hours,” McLanahan responded.

 
          
“Well,
we won’t be in time to help in the first series of attacks, but we can sure as
hell do some damage in the second,” Jamieson said. “Let’s get cloaked up again
and get back on the blue line— we’ve got an aircraft carrier to knock out.”

 
          
Once
past
Chengdu
, all Chinese air defense activity dropped
off markedly. They deactivated BEADS to get more target and status updates via
satellite, activating the system once again as they neared
Lhasa
in southern
China
, then again as they approached
Kathmandu
in
Nepal
.

 
          
As
they came closer to
India
, they studied the updated threat charts
closely. “I think it’s too risky,” McLanahan said finally. “The original plan
had us crossing northern
India
and
Pakistan
, which is the shortest track, but the radar
coverage is too thick there—the border skirmishes between
India
and
Pakistan
over the
Punjab
and
Kashmir
have that area too heavily fortified. Our
best bet would be to extend farther north and go through
Afghanistan
north of
Kabul
, then south to Chah Bahar.”

           
“What’s that do to our fuel status?”
Jamieson asked.

 
          
“It’ll
add another hour to our flight time,” McLanahan said. “If we assume that all
our divert bases on the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey are unavailable because of
Iran’s attacks, that means we either hit a tanker right away over the Arabian
Sea on the outbound leg, or we splash down—Diego Garcia goes away as an
alternate. No other safe alternates are available. ”