by Dale Brown
Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered the construction of an airfield on Shemya in 1943 to enable the staging of air raids on Japanese positions on Adak and Kiska Islands; Shemya was chosen because it was relatively flat and was not bothered as much by fog as were most of the other Aleutians. By 1945 Shemya housed over eleven hundred soldiers, seamen, and airmen, plus a fleet of B-24 bombers and P-51 fighters. Its tremendous strategic importance as the guardian of America’s northern flank was in direct inverse proportion to the level of morale of its troops, who endured years of stark isolation, lack of resources, the worst living conditions of any base in the American military, no promotions, and severe psychological depression. It was without a doubt America’s version of a Soviet-style gulag.
After the end of the Korean War, Shemya’s importance steadily declined, as radar and eventually satellites took over the important job of watching the Arctic skies for any signs of attackers or intruders. At the end of the Cold War, with the Russian threat all but eliminated, the Air Force station was closed and put into caretaker status, with just a handful of civilian technicians on hand to service the massive COBRA DANE ballistic-missile tracking radar, nicknamed “Big Alice,” and other intelligence-gathering systems. The island became a massive dumping ground for all of the Aleutians, since it was far easier to dump even expensive equipment than it was to haul it back to the States. Shemya became “The Rock” once more.
But since the advent of President Thomas Thorn’s “Fortress America” initiative — eliminating overseas military commitments and building up the defense of the North American continent — Shemya, fifteen hundred miles west of Anchorage on the western tip of the Aleutian Island chain, was busier and more important than ever. Already vital as an emergency-abort base for transpolar and Far East airline and military flights and as a location of ballistic-missile tracking radars and other intelligence-gathering facilities, Eareckson Air Force Base, formerly just an air station but now advanced to full air-base status, was the location of the Aerospace Defense Command’s long-range XBR, or X-band radar, and the In-Flight Interceptor Communications System, which provided ultraprecise steering information to ground-based interceptor missiles fired from silos in Alaska and North Dakota.
Eareckson Air Force Base was now in an almost constant state of upgrade and new construction. Nearly two thousand men and women were based there in modern concrete dormitories, connected by underground tunnels and interspersed with comfortable, albeit subterranean, offices, computer rooms, laboratories, and other amenities. The runway facilities could now handle any aircraft in the world up to a million pounds gross weight and could land a suitably equipped aircraft in almost any weather, including the frequent and usually unexpected near-hurricane-force windstorms that were as much a part of life on Shemya as were Russian blue foxes, the cold, and the loneliness. Every aircraft that arrived in Shemya was housed in its own hydronically heated hangar — sometimes in better facilities than at its home base.
Along with the construction workers and engineers assembling the new missile-defense network, Shemya was host to many other government and military organizations — and that included the Air Battle Force. It was not the first time they had been there: Rebecca Furness’s 111th Bombardment Wing, from where all of the Air Battle Force’s B-1 bombers originated, had been deployed there during the War of Reunification, to prevent an outbreak of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. Shemya’s strategic location against Russia, China, and all of Far East Asia — especially now that all bases in Korea and Japan were closed to permanent American military forces — made the little island the stepping-off point for most military operations in the North Pacific theater.
Hal decided not to take the tunnel to the ready room out on the flight line — and almost instantly regretted it. Although nights were fairly short in early spring, the changing seasons meant changing weather. In the short walk to the ready room, Hal experienced almost every possible climatic change: It went from cold and frosty to horizontal snow and stinging ice to horizontal freezing rain to windy but clear in a matter of a couple minutes. Once he had to brace himself against a light pole to keep from being knocked off his feet by an errant blast of wind.
There was one consolation: Hal was able to see a rare Aleutian sunrise, the first one he’d ever seen. The golden light illuminated the nearby islands and turned the sea from dark and forbidding to an unbelievable crystal blue. He was almost breathless with amazement — until another gush of icy wind brought his attention back to the here and now.
Hal was hesitant to remove his balaclava to speak, but when he did, he found that it was warming up quickly outside now that the sun was up. All part of living and working in Alaska. As the old saying went, “If you don’t like the weather on Shemya, wait five minutes.” “Duty Officer,” Hal spoke into thin air, “get the door for me, will you?”
“Yes, Colonel Briggs,” the female computerized voice of the Duty Officer responded, and Hal felt the click of electronic locks disengaging as soon as he touched the door handle. The “Duty Officer” was a computerized all-around assistant, handling everything from routine radio messages to complex top-secret mission planning from Air Battle Force headquarters at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in Battle Mountain, Nevada. Relayed via satellite, the Duty Officer tracked the location and identity of every person assigned to Battle Mountain and instantly responded to requests, even if the person was far from the main base. As it did at Battle Mountain, the Duty Officer constantly monitored and operated all security systems wherever the Air Battle Force was deployed — personnel never carried pass cards or had to worry about passwords or codes. The Duty Officer knew who and where you were and made sure that if you weren’t cleared to enter a particular area — from an aircraft hangar to an individual file drawer — you didn’t get in.
Of course, Hal realized, it would’ve been far easier, faster, and more efficient for the Duty Officer to awaken him if there was something urgent happening — but getting the boss’s ass out of bed was a pleasure Sergeant Major Wohl obviously reserved for himself, no matter what the weather.
The ready room for the Air Battle Force was actually their aircraft hangar, where barracks, planning, storage, and communications rooms had been set up. Two MV-32 Pave Dasher tilt-jet aircraft waited inside. The MV-32 resembled the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor special-operations transport — with a big, boxy fuselage; stubby, high-mounted wings; large tail structure; and a drive-up cargo ramp — except the MV-32 was larger and used four turbojet engines, two on each wingtip and two on the tips of the horizontal stabilizer, in place of rotors. Like the MV-22, the Pave Dasher could take off and land vertically yet fly like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft, but the MV-32 could fly 50 percent faster than the -22 on just a little more fuel. The MV-32 was air-refuelable and had an infrared camera and radar for terrain-following flight and precision navigation and targeting. It could carry as many as eighteen combat troops and also carried two retractable and reloadable weapon pods on the landing-gear sponsons, along with a twenty-millimeter Minigun in a steerable nose turret with five hundred rounds of ammunition.
Hal Briggs threw his parka and hood onto a chair. “Someone get me coffee, and someone else talk to me,” he said, “or I’m about to get very cranky.”
“Some increased NORAD activity, sir,” Chris Wohl responded.
“We know that already, Top,” Hal said irritably. “That’s why we’re here. The general convinced NORAD to put fighters on patrol until they can push out the radar surveillance.”
“It’s something else, sir,” Wohl went on, handing Briggs a large mug of steaming coffee. “NORAD just issued a BEELINE report for sudden, unexplained radar outages along the North Warning System.”
That didn’t sound good. “Where are the fighters?”
“NORAD put one fighter from Eielson on patrol over the Arctic Ocean — his wingman should be airborne shortly,” Wohl responded. “AnAWACS radar plane and a couple F-15 interceptors from Elmendorf are on their
way now to fill in for the long-range radars that are out.”
“So at the present time, all the surveillance we have north of Alaska is one fighter?”
Wohl nodded. “Thought you’d need to know that right away, sir,” he said.
He did. Hal thought hard for a moment, then spoke into the air, “Briggs to Luger.”
“I was just going to give you a call, Hal,” Brigadier General David Luger, commanding the Air Battle Force, responded via the secure subcutaneous-transceiver system. “I got the message just now.”
“What do you think is going on?”
“Whatever it is, it’s not good,” Dave said. “What’s your status?”
“I just need to get the children out of bed and the planes rolled out, and we’re off,” Hal responded. “Fifteen minutes max.”
“Good. Stand by.” There was a slight pause. Then Luger said, “Civilian approach controllers just issued a ‘pending’ notification to NORAD — an unidentified target heading east, altitude unknown, groundspeed five hundred and forty knots.”
“A plane at low altitude going point-seven-two Mach over Alaska?” Briggs remarked. “Either it’s Santa Claus on a training flight — or it’s trouble.”
“It’s trouble,” Luger said. “I’ll see if the Navy can get any look-down eyes out there. Get your guys airborne. Disperse them someplace nearby. Adak?”
“The bad guys are the other way, Dave,” Hal said. “The Coast Guard said we can use their hangar on Attu Island, so that’s where we’ll go.” Attu Island, about fifty miles west of Shemya, was the largest and rockiest of the Near Islands, and the westernmost of the American Aleutians. It also had the worst weather in the Aleutians — if it wasn’t having driving rain or snow with hurricane-force winds, it was blanketed in thick, cold fog. The U.S. Coast Guard maintained a small search-and-rescue, maritime patrol, communications, and ground navigation facility there, with just twenty people manning the small site — they welcomed visitors and encouraged all services to use their facilities. “They usually have plenty of fuel and provisions, too. We’ve made a few resupply flights for them just since we arrived.”
“Good. Disperse there and keep in touch.”
“You think Shemya could be a target?”
“No, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe — and that big old radar out there plus all the ballistic-missile defense stuff sure are pretty inviting targets,” Dave said.
“Rog,” Hal said. He turned to Wohl and twirled his index finger in the air, telling the master sergeant to get his men ready to fly. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure,” Dave said. “I’m not authorized to fly my bombers….” He thought for a moment, then added, “But no one said I couldn’t fuel them and hoist them to the surface, just for a systems-test run. Maybe I’ll see how fast my guys can get them upstairs.” Unlike any other air base in the world, Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base was built twelve stories underground in an abandoned national alternate military command center first built in the 1950s. The facility was originally constructed to house an entire fighter-bomber air wing and over five thousand men and women and protect them from all but a direct hit by a one-megaton nuclear device. Aircraft were raised up to the surface on eight large elevators located at the end of the airfield’s twelve-thousand-foot-long runway and at the mass parking ramp.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Hal said. “We’ll report in when we’re safe on Attu.”
“Roger that.”
“Any word from the general?” Even though Patrick McLanahan had been gone for several weeks now, everyone still referred to him as “the general.”
“He’s not at AIA headquarters anymore,” Dave said. “He may be heading back to Sacramento. I think he may have gotten spanked for going around Houser and Samson about what the Russians are doing.”
“I have to admit, it’s quite a stretch to see a bunch of tankers at one base in Siberia and conclude that the Russians are going to bomb the United States,” Hal said. “But that’s the general. He’s a smart guy and one hell of a leader, but he does tend to lead with his chin sometimes.”
“Hal, it scared the hell out of me when I saw all those bombers and tankers at those bases — and now with that BEELINE report about the North Warning System radars down, I’m more scared than ever,” Dave Luger said. “We’ll know what happens this morning. In the meantime I want to make sure our unit is safe.”
“We’re on our way, boss,” Hal said. “We’ll report when we’re on alert on Attu. Briggs out.”
* * *
Back at Battle Mountain, Luger thought about the situation for a moment, then spoke, “Duty Officer, set condition Alpha-Foxtrot-one for the Air Battle Force Alpha alert team, and set condition Echo-Foxtrot-two for all other aircraft. Then get me Colonel Shrike at Elliott Air Force Base.”
“Roger, General Luger, set condition Alpha-Foxtrot-one for the Alpha team and Echo-Foxtrot-two for all other aircraft,” the Duty Officer responded. “Please stand by for counterorder.”
“Furness to Luger,” Rebecca Furness radioed excitedly a few moments later. “I didn’t hear an ‘exercise’ classification. What’s going on?”
“This is not an exercise, Rebecca,” Dave said. “I want all the Alpha-alert aircraft into Foxtrot-one.”
“Luger, I damned well shouldn’t have to remind you that we’re not authorized to fly our aircraft anywhere,” Rebecca said angrily. “You remember that little order from the secretary of defense, don’t you?”
“By the time the crews arrive and the planes are hoisted to the surface, I’ll have authorization,” Luger said.
“Then why not order an Echo generation for all aircraft?” Rebecca asked. “You ordered an Alpha launch for the Alpha force — that’s a survival launch for our aircraft with weapons aboard.” Even though the planes were decertified and declared non-mission ready, David Luger and Rebecca Furness had directed that the Air Battle Force’s Alpha force — composed of two EB-1C Vampire bombers, four EB-52 Megafortress bombers, and four KC-135R tankers — remain loaded with weapons, fueled, and ready to respond at short notice for combat operations. These planes could be airborne in less than an hour. The other planes were all in various stages of readiness, but in general the Bravo force could be ready in three to six hours, and the Charlie force could be ready in nine to twelve hours.
“Rebecca, something’s happening up in Alaska,” Dave said, “and after what we’ve seen in Siberia, that’s enough warning for me. I need you to countersign the order to launch the Alpha team right away.”
“You’re going to end up out on your ass even faster than McLanahan,” Rebecca said.
“Rebecca…”
“I want your word that you won’t launch any aircraft, even the tankers, without my counterorder,” Rebecca said. “Otherwise I’ll defer my countersignature to higher headquarters.”
“Agreed.” A moment later he heard the Duty Officer report, “General Luger, generation order verified by General Furness, A-hour established.” A moment: “Colonel Shrike is on the line, secure.”
“Put him on.”
“Shrike here, secure,” Colonel Andrew “Amos” Shrike was commander of Elliott Air Force Base at Groom Lake, Nevada, the supersecret weapon-and aircraft-testing facility north of Las Vegas.
“This is General Luger at Battle Mountain.”
“What do you need, General?” Shrike said testily. Shrike was a twenty-three-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He’d received an Air Force commission through the Officer Training Corps program after graduating from the University of Texas A&M in electrical engineering. Through hard work and sheer determination, he rose through the ranks all the way to full colonel, wrangling a pilot-training slot for himself at a time when the Air Force was RIFing (Reduction in Forces) pilots left and right. He was hand-selected by Terrill Samson to take over the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, with strict instructions not to turn it into a secret combat base — specifically, not to let McLanahan,
Luger, Furness, Mace, or Cheshire turn it into their private combat-operations center.
But on a personal level, Shrike resented the young, brash men and women like Luger who got promoted by doing outlandish, audacious things that Shrike himself would’ve been busted for in his early years. He had been taught that the way to get promoted was to follow orders and run a tight ship, not contravene orders and disregard the chain of command. Luger was ten years younger but was already a one-star general — in Shrike’s book that was pure crapola.
“I’d like my AL-52s fueled and ready to load the laser as soon as possible,” Luger said now. “I’m flying flight and technical crews down on a KC-135 in one hour.”
“I’d be happy to give them to you and get them the hell out of my hangars, General — as soon as I see some paperwork,” Shrike said. To call Andrew Shrike “anal” would be an understatement: He took a personal, direct interest in every aspect of all operations at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. Nothing happened there without his express knowledge and approval. “But since I haven’t seen or heard anything from you guys in weeks, it won’t happen. It’ll take you an entire day just to get authorization for your tanker to land here — and another week at least to get permission to launch those things out of here.”
David Luger could feel that familiar tension creeping into his brain and spinal cord — the feeling of dread, of abject fear, of impending pain — and he felt his body start to move into self-defense mode. He found he couldn’t speak, couldn’t react. He just looked straight ahead, feet planted firmly on the floor, arms becoming rigid….