Chains of Command

by Dale Brown

  The two general officers and their aides had seen Mace’s F-111G dodge enemy fighters and missiles, had watched in horror as it began its missile run, then watched it turn away from its launch point without the nuclear explosion they all feared. “Sir, the F-111G crew is calling,” the radar controller said to the two-star general in charge of the task force. “He says the pilot is injured and he has aircraft damage.”

  “Give them a southwest vector clear of known triple-A sites and tell them to climb to ten thousand five hundred feet,” Air Force brigadier general Tyler Layton of the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command replied. “He’ll get chewed alive by triple-A if he stays at five thousand feet.” The short, rather stocky and barrel-chested officer had been listening to the GUARD channel and had heard the call. Layton normally looked very boyish when surrounded by his taller, more powerful-looking colleagues from the Army, especially when a smile came to his lips as it often did, but right now his gentle, friendly features were etched with concern. There was no doubt this Aardvark crewdog had to get down now. Layton, the former commander of Eighth Air Force, in charge of all SAC bomber units in the eastern half of the United States, was an old B-52 and F-111G bomber pilot and was familiar with the tactics and procedures used by the supersonic fighter-bombers. He knew navigators didn’t have very much stick time, so he was going to need all the help he could get.

  “I’ll send them over to the frontier, over Seventh Corps,” Layton said to his task force commander, Army major general Bruce Eyers of U.S. Central Command. Eyers was the former chief of intelligence for U.S. Central Command, assigned to the Pentagon specifically to mastermind Operation Desert Fire. “We’ll have to have Seventh watch out for him and cover their six,” said Layton. The U.S. Army VII Corps in northern Saudi Arabia—they called it a “Corps” but in fact it had only about twenty thousand troops, about division size, scattered across a seven-hundred-mile frontier—were responsible for Coalition ground-based air defense. “Thank God the crew didn’t launch the SRAM. We got to them in time.”

  “But they should have launched,” Eyers said angrily. Eyers was an experienced airborne infantry officer and knew little about the world of aviation, but he did know about success and failure—from Vietnam to Grenada, he was familiar with both. Given a set of tools to work with, he expected nothing less than perfection and performance. Operation Desert Fire was his creation; it was he who pitched the idea to Schwarzkopf, Powell, and then SECDEF Cheney himself, and it was he who was given the honor of overall on-scene command of the operation by Schwarzkopf. Eyers was fifty-one years old, five feet ten, 220 pounds, with short dark hair, dark eyes, broad shoulders, and a “fireplug” build. He was a West Point graduate who was very political, with substantial aspirations for higher promotion. Rumor was he was good at conceptualizing, but not good with details or managerial skills. Still, he was popular with senior NATO commanders as an “idea man” but very poor with field work.

  In less than an hour after execution, Eyers had seen his perfectly planned mission unravel. The order terminating Desert Fire was received in the AWACS plane, but not in the F-111G bomber. Only the President, through the Pentagon, could direct the employment of nuclear weapons, and that was true for halts as well as execution orders. That message was not relayed to the crew until very, very late, well after the appointed launch time. Still, for some reason, the crew did not or could not launch the Short-Range Attack Missile. Now he had a crippled plane on his hands with nukes on board—and the mission was not accomplished. One by one, the Air Force was screwing up. “You said the launch time had come and gone—the crew should have launched,” Eyers said to Layton.

  “I radioed to them to stop launch.”

  “But even you said they shouldn’t respond to that call,” Eyers said in exasperation. “The crewman, whoever the hell he is, verified it himself. The recall didn’t reach them until after launch time, so what happened? Why didn’t they cook it off?”

  Layton sat staring at the console in front of him, not believing what he was hearing. Slowly, with deep suspicion burning in his eyes, he turned to Eyers. “You mean you wanted that nuke to go?”

  Eyers looked at him as if he were a moron. “No, I want a long protracted ground war so we can get our asses kicked all over the place. Of course I wanted it to go. Launch it and the war’s over in an hour. Done, finis. Nice and tidy. God knows if we’d done it in ’Nam, the gooks wouldn’t have piled up our body count the way they did. In Libya, we should have done the same thing. We still have Qhadaffi to fucking deal with. And now, thanks to your fly-boys, we still have Saddam.”

  Layton swallowed hard, thinking: this is the problem with some of these honchos. They’re so self-absorbed in the military, they forget about the real world. Eyers probably modeled himself after the Robert Duvall character in Apocalypse Now. Worse, the guy was in his military. It sent a shiver down his spine.

  “Have you considered,” Eyers was now asking smugly, “that perhaps our President wanted to launch the missile? That that’s why the termination order came after launch time? He really wanted it to go, but had to place a termination on record so he could defend himself later? Think about it.”

  Layton did. And concluded that Eyers was nuts. Operation Desert Fire was executed only because they believed Israel had been hit by chemical weapons. When that report proved to be false, the termination message was sent. Bruce Eyers, not the President, wanted to launch the nuclear missiles.

  “The point remains, the recall message was received after the launch time. The damn bomber crew should have launched.”

  For Layton, the question was moot right now—his problem was to get Mace and Parsons safely on the ground. “Sir, I think we should recover that -111 first, then worry about the whys later,” Layton said.

  “You’ve made your point, Layton,” Eyers said. “We’ll find out how they screwed up later.”

  Obviously Eyers’ mind was made up and the court-martials were already in the mail, Layton thought.

  “All right, General, where are you going to set them down?”

  “Bandanah would be perfect. Only forty miles from the border, about an hour flying time for the F-111G. We could scramble a tanker and fighter escort from King Khalid Military City and—”

  “Bandanah doesn’t exist,” Eyers snapped. “And I don’t want any other aircraft joining on that -111.”

  “Bandanah does exist, only not officially,” Layton said. “We know it’s a special-ops staging base for gunship crews penetrating into Iraq and setting up forward refueling bases in the desert. It’s only a highway, but it’s wide enough, lighted, and isolated enough in case there’s a … crash.”

  “Can the crew bring that plane back or not?” Eyers asked impatiently. “If not, we’ll send it out over the Red Sea and ditch it.”

  “I’ll talk to the crew,” Layton said. “I think the navigator is flying the jet.”

  Eyers’ eyes opened wide in shock at that news.

  “If that’s true,” Layton said, “he’ll have real problems bringing it in.”

  “You mean navigators aren’t trained in flying those things? They have a stick and throttles, but they can’t fly it … ?”

  “About as well as a tank commander can drive an M1A1,” Layton replied. “They can start it up and buzz around in good conditions, but they aren’t trained to drive it in combat or emergency conditions. But we’ve got experienced crews on these planes, so we might just bring it back in one piece.” Eyers waved his hand impatiently, telling Layton to just get on with it. “And,” said Layton, “I’m ordering an F-111 escort and a KC-135 tanker to refuel the bomber.”

  “Disapproved,” Eyers said. “It’ll draw too much attention to the mission. With your flaky nav flying the thing, he’s likely to hit someone.”

  “More fuel gives us more options,” Layton explained. “It may be that they can’t refuel, but we have to try.”

  “All right, Layton,” Eyers relented. “Just try to keep this quiet
, all right? Don’t screw it up. I’ll call CENTCOM and advise them of what you want to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Layton said, thankful that Eyers finally wanted out of this business. With his precious “final solution” mission in shambles, he was looking for ways to cover his ass, forgetting that he still had men and machines to return safely. He said to his radio operator, “Okay, Lieutenant Cassenelli, let’s bring that rascal home:

  “I want a KC-135 from refueling orbit HOLLYWOOD to set up a point-parallel rendezvous with Breakdance.” A point-parallel rendezvous was the standard join-up procedure for aircraft coming from different directions; the tanker would offset itself a few miles off the receiver’s nose, then turn in front of the receiver, putting the receiver a mile or two behind the tanker and ready for hookup.

  “A whole lot of receivers coming off targets aren’t going to like losing their tanker,” Cassenelli pointed out.

  “They can get another strip-alert tanker from King Khalid Military City to cover,” Layton said. He didn’t know that for sure, but the Strategic Air Command had sent half of its entire fleet of aerial refueling tankers to the Kuwaiti theater of operations, and he knew that standby tankers were available. Even so, Layton added, “Try to find one that won’t have too many receivers scheduled with it—but get one. If the crew needs confirmation, refer them to General Eyers immediately.

  “Then I want an F-111 from Tabuk scrambled immediately to join on Breakdance for emergency recovery … nope, cancel that last.” There were no F-111s at Tabuk—the closest base was Incirlik to the north, but it would have to fly through heavily defended west Iraq to rendezvous with Breakdance. The other F-111 base was Taif to the south, but it would take several hours for a plane to get that far north.

  “We could get an F-15 from Tabuk to join on him,” Cassenelli suggested.

  “If we need to, we will,” Layton said, “but to get Breakdance back safely I’d like a more similar aircraft, and one with a second set of eyes to look our guy over. Pull up the ATO for Tabuk.”

  The second monitor on console fourteen showed the computerized version of the ATO, or air tasking order, the “game plan” for the entire Coalition air armada in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations. Broken up into three eight-hour blocks, the ATO showed what each and every aircraft would be doing—what time and from where it would launch, when and where it would refuel, what targets it would hit and when, which poststrike refueling it would make and where, and its approximate recovery time. Only with a computerized ATO, and with well-disciplined crews, could the Coalition ever hope to get two-thousand-plus combat sorties per day—half of which were armed aircraft striking targets in Iraq or Kuwait—off and safely home again.

  Tabuk Air Base, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, was home to mostly allied air defense units guarding the northern part of the Red Sea and the southern portion of the Suez Canal, as well as keeping an eye on one of Iraq’s few allies in the region, Jordan, should they or the Iraqis try to open a second front into Saudi Arabia or stage an attack on Israel. Tabuk had USAF F-15 fighters, Royal Air Force Tornado Gr.Mk 1 fighter-bombers, Royal Saudi Air Force F-5E fighters, and U.S. Navy HH-60 rescue and assault helicopters—Tabuk was the Navy’s main abort base for planes that couldn’t land on the carriers in the Red Sea. By checking the ATO, Layton found that the F-15s were scheduled for air patrols all day, escorting the British Tornado bombers on attack missions. The F-15s were scheduled for “hot turns”—land from a sortie, rearm, refuel, and take off again, all within ten to twenty minutes and with the pilots never leaving the cockpit.

  “I think we got something, George,” Layton told his radar operator. “Several Tornados are coming off targets at Al Asad, Al Taqaddum, H2, H3, and H4 airfields in western Iraq right now.” The British Tornado was very similar to the F-111G bomber—both had started out as fighters (the British still had an air interceptor version, the F.Mk 3, in service in the Gulf); both had two engines and two crewmembers; they were of similar size and weight; and both had variable geometry “swing wings” and similar flight control and high-lift surfaces such as all-moving tailplanes, spoilers, flaps, and slats. Could this really work … ? “Can you call up these Tornados on the radar and find out where they are?”

  Cassenelli punched in the sortie numbers from the ATO and asked the computer to locate the aircraft—there were hundreds of aircraft on the screen right now, all with data blocks showing their sortie number and flight data, and finding one particular aircraft manually would have been impossible. Seconds later he had his answer: “Got ’em, sir. Coming off targets now, at Breakdance’s three o’clock position, sixty-one miles, climbing to one-five thousand feet. The ATO shows four flights of four, but I see only three flights. They’re scheduled to tank at track Hollywood.”

  “Shit, this may work,” Layton said. “Put in a call to those Tornados and ask them to divert toward Breakdance.”

  “Might be difficult, sir,” Cassenelli said. “Those Tornados will need to refuel first, and there’s”—he counted aircraft on the ATO scheduled to refuel in Hollywood aerial refueling track—”at least fifty planes scheduled to tank in the next hour. If they do their refueling, they’ll be far behind Breakdance, and they’ll have to hustle to catch up. I don’t think you can afford to make Breakdance wait.”

  Cassenelli checked the ATO for the roster of tankers at the refueling orbits in northern Saudi Arabia, clapped his hands excitedly, and said, “Wait, sir, I have the answer. Shamu Two-Two, a KC-10 with buddy pods. They’re supposed to exit the refueling track for a crew swap now, then climb to a higher altitude in the block. I can divert them to MARVEL to meet up with Breakdance. I’ll just send the Tornados over and have them hook up with Two-Two. If it gets close, they can even hook up together.”

  “Perfect.” Layton grinned. “Give them a call.” The KC-10 refueling tanker was a converted DC-10 airliner, configured for aerial refueling and cargo transport. Unlike the KC-135, the KC-10 could do two different types of refueling in one mission, but normally not both kinds at once. But with “buddy pods”—pods attached to the wingtips with refueling hoses and rogues—the KC-10 could do both types of refueling at one time, with a boom-type receiver on the boom and a probe-and-drogue receiver on each wingtip. It could refuel both the F-111G and the Tornado at the same time. “I’ll get on the horn to CENTAF and to Vice Marshall Wratten in Riyadh.” Wratten was in charge of all British air assets on the Arabian Peninsula; although General Horner of USAF’s Central Air Forces (CENTAF) was the Coalition’s overall air commander, it was proper and expeditious to give the British counterpart a “heads-up” before committing his forces to a mission.

  “Get the CO of Bandanah highway airstrip on the line and let me talk to him,” Layton continued. “Let’s get a mobile aircraft-recovery team heading out from Taif or Tabuk, preferably with an arrester cable crew. Everything on a secure scrambled channel—if it has to go unsecured, let me know right away.” He paused, then added, “And let’s get Admiral Mixson of the Red Sea naval task force on the carrier Kennedy on the line. We may need his help to recover the -111 and the weapons if we have to ditch Breakdance in the drink.”

  FIVE

  Over Northwestern Saudi Arabia A Few Minutes Later

  Air Force captain Rebecca C. Furness grasped a handhold and tried to pull herself out of the pilot’s seat in the cockpit of her KC-10 Extender tanker. “Jeez, my ass thinks my legs have been cut off. They’re like Jell-O.” She stepped over the wide center console, gave the new first lieutenant copilot a crewdog pat on the shoulder, slid between the pilot and copilot seats, and eased out of the cockpit. She felt wobbly and weak and tried to rub her legs to restore some circulation. She’d been sitting in that one seat, without a break, for eight hours.

  Captain Sam Marlowe, the oncoming pilot, passed Furness and said, “Trouble with your legs? Let me help you.” He gave her a wink, then reached down and ran a hand along her left leg. Marlowe, thirty-eight, with dark hair and a constant five o’clock shadow and one o
f two full crews on board, was rested and feeling cocky, which was always trouble.

  Rebecca Furness took the word “professional” seriously. But in the time she’d spent in the Air Force, she’d learned very quickly that for all the lip-service the brass gave about nondiscrimination and harassment, the reality was, women in service faced both almost every day. Grimly, she put up with it as part of the job, but that didn’t mean she had to put up with assholes like Marlowe who thought she’d be impressed with their fly-boy swaggering. The fact that they were in wartime was all the more appalling, but not surprising, to Furness.

  “Sam,” she oozed in her best, breathy voice.

  “Yeah, babe?” he asked, patting her thigh.

  Furness smiled, suddenly flicked her hand upwards, catching the tip of Marlowe’s nose. She twisted it hard. He yelped, his head jerked back, bumped into the flight engineer’s overhead pane, which startled his copilot, who was hand-flying the big jet, and the 590,000-pound tanker burled and shook as the copilot fought to regain control.

  The boom operator, a chief master sergeant in the tail section, who had more years in the Air Force than all of the cockpit crew put together, felt the jolt, but not before his coffee went all over his flight suit. “Hey, pilot, what the hell is going on up there?”