Iron Wolf (22 page)

R
EMOTE
O
PERATIONS
C
ONTROL
C
ENTER,

I
RON
W
OLF
S
QUADRON,

33
RD
A
IR
B
ASE,
P
OWIDZ,
P
OLAND

A
FEW DAYS LATER

Brad McLanahan opened the door into the large building and stepped aside, allowing Nadia Rozek to go in first. “Welcome to the Rock,” he intoned dramatically. “The Remote Operations Control Center—the nerve center for the Iron Wolf Squadron's aviation component.”

She walked inside and stopped, fascinated and slightly daunted all at the same time.

Less than a week ago, this part of Powidz Air Base had been just an empty clearing in the woods behind the control tower. Then Scion's site engineering team swept in, rapidly assembling sections of this modular building as they were ferried in by Sky Masters cargo planes. In little more than twenty-four hours, they had the basic shell up, slotting together sections of prefabricated exterior wall, flooring, and finally, a roof. Once that was done, other teams went to work on the interior—rapidly installing piping and electrical wiring, putting in partitions, and then rigging and connecting fiber-optic cables and computers. More flights brought in generators to provide clean, reliable power for all the electronics crammed into this new building. A maze of satellite dishes and antennas now crowded its flat roof.

Nadia swung around in a complete circle, transfixed. It was almost as though some sorcerer had waved his wand, summoning an army of magical creatures to build an entire palace overnight. Everywhere she looked, she had the impression of clean, cool, perfectly lit modernity—without any of the clutter or jumble of equipment she would have expected in any ordinary military structure erected so quickly. Wide corridors led to separate sections of the building, all carefully laid out with an eye to efficiency and ease of movement.
Muted pastels quickly and easily identified the different functions assigned to each part of the building.

“Let me give you the fifty-cent tour,” Brad said with a grin.

She followed him through the building, more and more impressed by Scion's organizational and logistical skills. The new Iron Wolf Squadron already had a ready room, with comfortable chairs for the aircraft crews and a large built-in video display for mission planning and briefing. A small canteen offered a selection of drinks and packaged meals for anyone on duty at odd hours. A maintenance office included stocks of computer and electronic components, along with workbenches and tools for on-site repairs.

Most impressive of all, though, were the dozen or so remote-piloting stations. Set in separate, soundproofed bays, each resembled an aircraft cockpit—complete with seats for the pilot and systems operators, screens to show real-time images transmitted from the drones and other remotely piloted aircraft, joysticks, throttle controls, systems readouts, and multifunction displays.

“We can't give our pilots the sense of motion they'd get in an actual XF-111, say, or in a full-up simulator,” Brad explained. “But we've compensated some for that by making sure that the control layouts in each remote station track the real cockpits as closely as possible.”

“So each piloting station can only control a single specific type of drone or plane?” Nadia asked.

Brad shook his head. “Nope. Everything's basically modular and plug-and-play. Working all-out, we can reconfigure any station to control a new aircraft or drone in about thirty to forty-five minutes. In a pinch, we can just do a software swap-out so that you could fly an MQ-55 Coyote from a station configured like an XF-111 cockpit, but it's easier and safer and more efficient to remotely fly an aircraft if all the controls and readouts are right where a crew expects them to be.”

“This is incredible,” Nadia said, still drinking it all in.

“The equipment sure is,” Brad agreed. A quick frown flitted across his face and then vanished, almost before she noticed it.

“And when will you put this operations center to its first test?” she asked, wondering what was bothering the young American.

He checked his watch. “In about an hour. We're going to be running the squadron's first simulated deep-penetration raid against a hypothetical Russian target.”

“Flying those first XF-111s you have received?” Nadia asked.

“For real?” Brad shook his head. “Not this time. This will be strictly a computer simulation.” He looked at her. “Want to ride along—virtually, anyway? I'll be controlling and monitoring the raid from a workstation that should give you a really good bird's-eye view of the whole mission as it unfolds.”

Nadia nodded eagerly. “Absolutely.” She gestured at the nearest remote-control cockpit. “I will look forward to seeing your fellow pilots show what they can do, even if it is only against make-believe Russians. I'm sure it will be most impressive.”

Again, Brad got that odd, worried look in his eyes. Then he forced a smile, a crooked one this time. “Impressive? Well, maybe. We can hope so, anyway.” His smile turned a little more genuine. “But one thing's for sure, I expect this mission to be educational as hell.”

An hour later, Brad walked straight to the front of the ready room and took his place at the lectern. One quick glance at the laptop on the lectern showed that the text and visuals for his full mission brief were keyed in and ready to be projected on the big wall display. Somehow, though, he had the not-so-funny feeling that he wasn't going to need much of it.

The other XF-111 pilots, along with their assigned weapons systems officers, lounged carelessly in their seats. A couple of them sat up straighter, at least trying to seem interested in what he was going to say. But most seemed to have decided to go for an air of casual detachment, shading on outright boredom. They all wore a mix of civilian clothing—jeans, khaki slacks, polo and button-down shirts, and even a few leather flight jackets with their old squadron patches still displayed.

For about the thousandth time, Brad wondered if his father really
knew what he was doing in pitching him straight into the middle of this bunch. The other Iron Wolf aviators might respect what they'd heard about his experience in the air and in Earth orbit, but there was no hiding the fact that he was at least ten years younger and several hundred flight hours short compared to the rest of them. From his time as a teenage cadet in the Civil Air Patrol, he knew enough about squadron dynamics to realize he was still the FNG, the fucking new guy, here.

Nadia Rozek knocked on the open door of the ready room. She wore camouflage battle dress with her dark green Special Forces beret clipped to her shoulder. “May I come in?” she asked. “I hope I am not too late?”

“Not at all,” Brad told her, inwardly regretting not having suggested that she go straight to the simulator control station. What was likely to be embarrassing was only going to be worse when it happened in front of her. He glanced around the room. “I think most of you have already met Captain Nadia Rozek, one of the squadron's Polish liaison officers, right?”

Heads nodded and most of the pilots murmured greetings as she made her way to a chair near the front. She drew a number of closer looks, even from some of the other women. Suddenly Brad realized it wasn't exactly Nadia's slender, wiry figure they were admiring—delightful though it was. No, it was her uniform that caught their attention and even their envy.

Interesting. He filed that thought away for further consideration later.

Right now, though, he'd better start the briefing before the other members of the squadron got even more bored or more restless than they were already pretending to be.

“The target for today's exercise has been carefully selected,” Brad said. He hit the enter key to bring up his first graphic.

That drew a laugh.

He glanced at the display and grinned. It was the picture of a bottle of Talisker Single Malt Scotch. “Oh, geez, sorry about that. I must have picked up Mark's Christmas wish list by accident.”

Darrow grinned back. The ex-RAF officer's ability to consume large quantities of hard liquor without apparent ill effect was already the stuff of which nightmares were made for those who'd agreed to go bar-hopping with him.

“Now, here's your real simulated target,” Brad said. He brought up a satellite image, showing two large runway complexes joined together. “Lipetsk Air Base, roughly fifty nautical miles north of Voronezh. This is the Russian equivalent of Nellis Air Force Base, back in the States. Lipetsk is home to more fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons than any other single airfield complex in Russia. It's also the headquarters of the Fourth Center of Combat Application and Conversion of Frontline Aviation—Russia's Top Gun air combat school. We have several fixed targets at the base, primarily their command center, fuel depot, and radar complex.”

There were murmurs from the Iron Wolf pilots.

“Jesus, kid, getting a little ambitious, aren't you?” Bill Sievert asked. Sievert was a hard-nosed former F-15E Strike Eagle driver and high up on the list of those Brad mentally cataloged as “not especially in awe of General McLanahan's fair-haired boy.” “Hell, why don't you pick something more doable, like say . . . some supersecret Russkie missile complex buried a bazillion meters deep in reinforced concrete way out in the back of East Bumfuckistan.”

That drew more laughs.

Brad waited them out and then shook his head. “Sorry, Bill. But if the balloon really goes up, Poland's national command authority picks the targets—whether we like them or not. That's part of the process we're simulating today.”

“Swell,” Sievert growled. He sat back, glowering, in his chair.

“There's no denying this is a tough target,” Brad went on, starting a mental countdown. Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. “But, given the right mix of weapon load-outs and specific mission assignments, I think our XF-111 force can take Lipetsk's command and control and fighters out of action, at a reasonable cost in downed and damaged aircraft.”

Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.

He tapped through to another graphic. This one showed line drawings of nine XF-111s in top-down plan view. The nine aircraft were assigned to three flights labeled
IRON HOWL
,
IRON CLAW
, and
IRON FANG
—and the aircraft in each flight were shown carrying a mix of different weapons. The three SuperVarks in
HOWL
flight mostly carried special decoys and drones designed to blind and confuse enemy radars and knock out radio and cell-phone communication. The three XF-111s in the
CLAW
flight were heavily loaded with antiradiation missiles and AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missiles. And the final three, flying in
FANG
flight, were shown equipped largely with AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff guided missiles.

“As large as the payload capacity is on the SuperVark, it can never carry enough weapons to do the job,” Brad said. “So we'll form three strike packages of three aircraft, each with defensive, antiradar, and attack load-outs. You go in on different tracks, but form up just before you go tactical and make your attack runs together.”

Ten. Nine. Eight.

“This is a bunch of crap, McLanahan,” Sievert exploded. “Three aircraft going in together? What if the guy with the bombs goes down? What are the other two going to do? What if the guy carrying the MALDs goes down? The rest of the package can't do shit.”

“Why didn't you ask us to help you plan this, Brad?” Mark Darrow asked. “We could have given you some good advice and saved you a lot of work.”

“This is just a training mission,” Brad said. “I want to see how well you guys can fly the SuperVarks and run the systems. My plan was to switch crews in each aircraft to give everyone an opportunity to employ each weapon and practice the tactics. Later we can—”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Sievert exploded. “Cut the cutesy Boy Scout and Civil Air Patrol crap! You train like you'll fight, McLanahan, ever hear of that idea? Each plane should carry its own mix of attack and defensive weapons. And what do you need AMRAAMS for? We're going up against MiG-29s, Sukhoi-35s, and maybe even the Su-50. What do you expect us to do—dogfight with them? If
we're jumped, we go low, go fast, and hopefully SPEAR does its thing.”

“The SuperVark has an air-to-air capability—we should use it,” Brad said. “A beyond-visual-range shot could be the thing to get close enough to the target to—”

“Now you're a fighter expert as well as an attack expert, eh?” Sievert said. “McLanahan, as far as I'm concerned, your job is to get us the stuff we need—you let us do the planning and we'll kick some ass. We'll go after Lipetsk Air Base, but spare us all the overelaborate plans, okay? Every crew in this room knows what it takes to go in and hit a heavily defended target. You say the ‘simulated' Poles want us to hit this ‘simulated' Russian field and its hardened aircraft shelters? Fine. All you gotta do is give us the weapons and intel we ask you for, point us in the right direction, and then get the hell out of the way! We'll take it from there.”

Brad fought very hard to keep his face from showing any anger. This was what he'd expected to happen, after all—and this was probably the right time and the right place and the right way. He ran his eyes across the rest of the Iron Wolf crews. “Anybody else agree with Bill?”

A majority of the pilots and weapons officers in the room nodded, though not quite as large a majority as he had privately expected and feared. To his surprise, Mark Darrow was not among them. Instead, the former RAF pilot simply looked thoughtful.

“Okay,” Brad said simply, shrugging. “Let's see how it goes. You can all pick your own ordnance loads and flight plans.”