by Dale Brown
“I’ll have to take this up with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” the President said. “When can I talk to them?”
“We should be connected any minute now, sir,” Lifter replied.
The President was silent for a moment; then: “What about mobilizing the Reserve forces? What kind of force mix do we get from that?”
Tarentum had anticipated such a question, and flipped a page in the previously ignored folder to show the President. It was a well-known fact that the Commander in Chief was a firm believer in the cost-cutting advantages of the Reserves, and a primary focus of his administration had been to enhance the viability of the Reserve forces. “There is one B-1B squadron in South Dakota, four B-52 squadrons in New York and Washington state, one F-15E squadron in North Carolina, and four F-111 squadrons in New Mexico and New York, all in the Enhanced Reverse Program,” Tarentum replied. “These units are primarily conventional squadrons—the one RF-111 unit up in upstate New York is a reconnaissance and Wild Weasel-type unit—but they are all fully certified for nuclear duties.” He paused, watching the First Lady out of the corner of an eye, and added, “They also have the largest percentages of women serving in the tactical air squadrons—thirty percent of the crewmembers in these combat units are women.”
That got the Steel Magnolia’s attention like nothing else. As outspoken as the President was on the value of the Reserves and National Guard, she was equally vocal about putting women in combat. Her reaction was understated, but Tarentum could see her eyes flicker in sheer delight. This was precisely what she wanted, and she made her wishes known by simply placing her hand atop her husband’s, a secret, quiet sign—known to everyone in the White House—that she wanted the order given.
“I think this would be a good opportunity to see our women combat soldiers in action,” the President declared. “Besides, I don’t want to stir things up too much—it’s possible that the Russian attack was all a big mistake, and I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I think the Cold War is heating up all over again. Ten bomber squadrons is plenty—no subs or MX missiles for now. Get General Freeman on the phone and let’s get to it. And I want a report on when we can set this thing down—the sooner the better.” He had lapsed into calling NEACAP, the most sophisticated aircraft on earth, “this thing,” just like his wife referred to it and all the apparatus of the office of the President of the United States with which she was decidedly uncomfortable.
“Maybe we should go somewhere as if this was a scheduled visit,” the First Lady suggested. “Perhaps down to talk to President Carter in Georgia, or Walter Mondale in Minnesota? Perhaps we can pick up Air Force One in Georgia and fly back to Washington in it, so the press and the public will see us flying in it rather than the … the Doomsday Plane.”
“Good idea, honey,” the President said. “Can you see if we can arrange that, General? Let’s go see Jimmy. Mike, how about getting the office on the phone and twisting some arms here? And some coffee and juice would be nice. What’s the kitchen like on this thing, anyway?”
The meeting over, stewards and secretaries swarming into the conference room, General Tarentum carefully collected up all the classified briefing folders on the conference table and dismissed his staff. Just as he feared, the threat wasn’t being taken seriously. What could possibly become World War III was happening right now in Europe, and the President of the United States’ response was to mobilize only one-fifth of America’s strategic fighting forces, then he was off to see Jimmy Carter, of all people, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Times had certainly changed, all right.
TWENTY-ONE
394th Air Battle Wing Headquarters, Plattsburgh AFB, NY That Same Time
“Very impressive,” General Cole said half-aloud as Colonel Lafferty, the wing vice commander, entered the office. Cole ran one hand across his black-haired flattop and handed the report he was reading over to Lafferty with the other. “It’s the preliminary Air Combat Command readiness report from Maintenance Group.”
“What? So soon?” But Lafferty’s skeptical expression turned into one of surprise, then grudging admiration as he scanned the report. Lafferty was not the easiest man in the world to impress. A Naval Academy graduate who transferred to the Air Force after Navy flight assignment drawdowns went into effect following Vietnam, Lafferty looked like a typical fighter jock, with a large expensive Rolex, rolled-up sleeves on his flight suit, visible dog tags, and non-military-issue aviator sunglasses on top of his head. He loved fighters and flyers, but wasn’t overwhelmed by either until both proved themselves to him. “Well, all right—the new guy aces out the other groups his first day on the job. Mace must’ve really lit a fire under Razzano’s behind.”
“He fired Razzano,” Cole said. “Sent him to me for reassignment. Made Lieutenant Porter his exec instead—even promoted her to captain.”
“Shaking things up in the old office? Housecleaning?” Lafferty shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, it’s his prerogative. Razzano was on autopilot anyway, waiting for a reassignment, and Mace is a crewdog—he’ll cut the ground-pounders out and put in junior officers or other crewdogs every time. But I was afraid he’d do his ex-Marine head-busting routine.” He scanned the report, then: “Boy doesn’t pull any punches, either—he’s saying we’re only slightly better than minimally mission-capable. You going to upchannel this?”
“With the boss coming, I have no choice.” Cole sighed. “If my MG says it may take over seventy-two hours to generate the force for SIOP or for a max-rate deployment, I have to go along with it. But he’s got a plan to compensate. He’s moving eight Vampires into the shelters—says he’s going to put them into preload status right away.”
“We’re going to preload eight bombers?” Lafferty asked, astonished. “Jesus, spare us from the old retread SAC guys. That means we’re going to start flying with external tanks again?”
“Afraid so. With eight planes in preload status, that means he’ll need to keep at least ten, maybe twelve planes with tanks on the line.”
“God—wintertime with external tanks.” Lafferty moaned. “Remember all the problems we had? Frozen feed lines, crew chiefs pounding on tank pylons with wheel chocks to unstick frozen valves, incompatible mountings, upload tractor breakdowns …”
“Yeah, and remember the last Bravo exercise we had, where we had to cut the deployment exercise short by two days because three of our tankers went off-station and we couldn’t get enough external tanks on our planes?” Cole asked. “We’ve been kidding ourselves, Jim—we call ourselves mission-capable a lot of times when in reality we couldn’t get half this wing overseas in the required amount of time. If Colonel Mace wants to take on the challenge of maintaining one-third to one-half of our bomber fleet in preload status, let him. We’ll give him until the end of the second quarter to see if he can do it without breaking the bank or causing his entire Group to resign.”
“Well, I’m going to miss flying with slick wings,” Lafferty said. “Flying with externals is a real disappointment. What do you want to do with Razzano?”
“I have no earthly idea,” Cole said. “I’ve got a call in to check on his assignment to Seymour-Johnson, but no word yet. You got any special projects you need handled?”
“Right off, he can collect and process all these readiness reports,” Lafferty said. “We should—”
There was a knock on Cole’s door, and before Cole could respond, Major Thomas Pierce burst into the office. “Excuse me, sir …”
“Something wrong, Tom?”
“Something’s happening in the Ukraine again, sir,” Pierce said, going over to Cole’s television and turning the channel to CNN. “About five minutes ago, all the network stations just interrupted their normal broadcasts. About thirty seconds ago, we got an all-stations standby poll from NEACAP. STRATCOM is advising—”
“What? NEACAP? The President is airborne … ?”
Pierce nodded, his fac
e taut and grim. NEACAP, or National Emergency Airborne Command Post, was the high-tech Boeing 747 reserved for the President and others in the military chain of command in case of war. Except for annual exercises, it had not been used in many years. Normally all four of the nation’s E-4B NEACAP planes were stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, but one had been moved to Andrews Air Force Base and placed on alert weeks ago when the conflict in Europe started to heat up. “Jesus … this is some serious shit.”
Just then, Cole’s executive officer stuck his head in the door as well; after checking that no uncleared persons were in the office, he said, “Sir, Command Post called. An A-Hour has just been declared.”
“A what?” Cole demanded, shooting to his feet. “What in the hell is going on? You two, follow me.” He rushed out the door, shouting to his executive officer, “Captain, call in the entire staff to the battle staff conference room on the double,” as he headed out of the office and downstairs to the underground command post. What the fuck had happened over there? Had Velichko finally gone off the deep end? The declaration of an A-Hour, or Alert Hour, confirmed their worst fears after learning that the President had abandoned the capital: the A-Hour was an order relayed from the President of the United States through his specified commanders to prepare for a nuclear war.
The command post at Plattsburgh had remained virtually the same as it was when it was all but abandoned in 1990, after the FB-111A bombers were removed from the base; except in recent weeks when events had started really heating up, it was used only occasionally for alert exercises. The wing commander and his staff members used a CypherLock keypad to gain entry through the outer door, which was locked behind them. They were now inside a small enclosed hallway, called an entrapment area, where the officer in charge of the command post could see them as their identification was checked one by one by an armed security guard. Inside, they went through a small office area and then into the communications center, where two command post technicians and one officer manned a complex of several radios, covering many bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing them to communicate by voice or data to anywhere in the world. One wall was covered with an aircraft-status board, showing the location, crew complement, and status of every wing aircraft, both at Plattsburgh and at Burlington International Airport.
Cole was about to hurry into the battle staff area, from where he could receive reports and watch the news on banks of television monitors, but at that moment a warbling deedledeedledeedle alerting sound came over the loudspeaker, and a shadowy voice, probably a controller from the Pentagon speaking on the microwave link judging by the clarity of the voice, announced, “I say again, I say again, SKYBIRD, SKYBIRD, message follows: two, Bravo, Tango, India, seven, one, seven, Lima …” The cryptic message, read out as numbers or as phonetic characters, continued on for a total of exactly thirty-seven alphanumerics, then repeated once again. On one of the readbacks, the controller’s nervous voice cracked with the tension, and he had to issue a “Correction, character twenty, Whiskey, reading on beginning with character twenty-one, Uniform, five, five …” until the message was reread successfully.
“What have you got, Harlan?” Cole asked Major Harlan Laughlin, the command post senior controller.
“Message from the Pentagon, National Military Command Center,” Laughlin replied. “We’re officially in DEFCON Four. Strategic Command is generating the bombers for SIOP operations.”
Cole sucked in his breath as the tension crept across his neck and forehead like hot air from a bonfire. Defense Configuration Four officially placed selected portions of the Air Force’s B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer, B-2 Black Knight stealth bombers, and other tactical aircraft, including the RF-111G Vampire, into Strategic Command—they were back into the strategic nuclear warfighting business, known as the SIOP, or the Single Integrated Operations Plan, the computerized “playbook” for World War III.
As an experienced Air Force commander and former Pentagon officer, Cole was very familiar with DEFCON Four—that was a low-threat war footing, the readiness level at which they had operated from the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the end of 1991. During the Cold War, DEFCON Four was considered “normal,” with hundreds of bombers and thousands of nuclear-armed missiles poised to strike at the first sign of a large-scale attack. Now, after years at DEFCON Five, which was total peacetime readiness, DEFCON Four suddenly felt like the beginning of the end of the world.
“STRATCOM and Air Combat Command issued verified repeat messages,” Laughlin continued. “STRATCOM issued a Posture Two message just now. LOOKING GLASS is airborne.” To further define the actions each unit was to take, STRATCOM messages would direct various “postures,” or levels of readiness. Postures were numbered opposite of DEFCONs—while DEFCON One was all-out war, Posture One was the lowest readiness level; and since Strategic Command, with its huge and powerful deterrent arsenal of long-range nuclear weapons, wanted its forces ready for anything, they usually set a posture level one step higher than the military as a whole.
“Have we established connectivity with LOOKING GLASS?” Cole asked. Strategic Command had its own airborne command post, an EC-135 communications aircraft known as LOOKING GLASS because its sophisticated communications abilities allowed it to “mirror” the actions of the STRATCOM underground command center in Omaha and control all of its nuclear forces—it could even launch land-based nuclear missiles by remote control, once given the proper coded orders from the President of the United States. LOOKING GLASS, which carried a general officer, a battle staff of eight, and a very sophisticated communications suite, would take command of the strategic forces as soon as it entered its orbit area over the central United States, within secure radio range of the ICBM missile silos in Montana, Wyoming, Missouri, and North and South Dakota.
“Not yet, sir. May not be up for another thirty minutes. We still have full connectivity with all headquarters, and LOOKING GLASS is not expected to take command of the force.” This did not make Cole any happier about these circumstances. The commander of Strategic Command could take control of all of America’s nuclear forces at any time from LOOKING GLASS, but the communications networks were not as secure or as reliable. STRATCOM Headquarters in Omaha would retain control until an attack was actually underway.
“Let’s get moving with the checklists,” Cole said grimly as he headed for the battle staff conference room. Major Harlan Laughlin opened up a thick three-ring binder, then followed General Cole into the battle staff conference room. Cole waited until Laughlin had filled out the blank spaces on a series of overhead projection slides and put them up on a screen in the center of the main wall.
“The Posture Two message,” Laughlin began, “establishes an A-Hour, or alert reference hour, and sets the timeline for all other actions. According to the operations plan, the message directs the wing to generate the Alpha-alert combat-capable aircraft for nuclear strike missions.”
“My God,” Cole muttered. He knew, with all the conflicts and turmoil in Europe, that something like this was possible with Velichko in power, but he never truly believed it would really happen.
The alert was even more surprising because everyone, including Cole, assumed that the nation’s fleet of F-111G bombers had been out of the nuclear warfighting business—in fact, he had assumed that the world was out of the nuclear warfighting business. Although most F-111s are capable of delivering nuclear gravity bombs (only the EF-111A “Raven” electronic warfare aircraft is unarmed), and the F-111G could launch long-range air-to-ground nuclear missiles such as the AGM-131 Short Range Attack Missile and the AGM-86 and AGM-129 long-range cruise missiles, the Air Force Reserves’ RF-111G Vampire had been thought to have only a non-nuclear combat role—the B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers were thought to have taken over the long-range nuclear bombing mission. Now, with this fresh crisis, one of the first planes to be called upon to prepare for nuclear war was none other than a Reserve RF-111G!
General Cole was fully prep
ared to generate his machines for nuclear warfighting, but the prospect made him uneasy. The prospect of handling nuclear weapons, the required top secret documents and devices, and responding to nuclear strike orders issued from Strategic Command and the Pentagon instead of a theater commander, was not considered a Reservists duty—and yet they had been ordered to do it.
“Preplanned bomber sorties one through six and tanker sorties one-oh-one through one-oh-four will be gained immediately by STRATCOM upon generation,” Laughlin continued, “and will respond to Joint Chiefs of Staff or STRATCOM emergency action messages. The ops plan directs all other bomber and tanker sorties configured in preload status and available for accelerated generation. These follow-on sorties will not respond to STRATCOM or JCS emergency action messages, but unit commanders may be required to ensure the survival of nongenerated aircraft. This would be done by positioning these aircraft in OCCULT EAGLE or FIERY WILDERNESS airborne alert orbits. These will be accomplished by clear-text messages or by hand-delivered messages authenticated by date-time group.”
Laughlin put up slides depicting several large rectangular boxes off the east coast of the United States. OCCULT EAGLE and FIERY WILDERNESS were preplanned airborne alert missions in which nuclear-loaded aircraft were sent to safe orbit areas, far from potential targets, until sent on their grim missions or recalled after the emergency was over.
“Christ almighty,” Cole muttered, scratching his flattop. “This is turning out to be one really lousy day.” On a small bookstand on his desk in the battle staff room, Cole picked a binder labeled “Defcon” and opened it to “Defcon Four.” The binder had checklists that directed all of the battle staff’s initial actions to take when notified of a serious emergency—no major actions, especially something as serious as this, was ever left to memory. Cole turned to Lafferty and said, “Jim, start an Alpha recall immediately. Start running your checklists.” The recall would direct all available wing personnel to report to their duty stations, ready for deployment or for combat—as Reservists, the Alpha recall meant that they were all federalized as soon as they entered the base. “Thank God we got all of the bomber crews and most of the tanker crews on base already.” Cole continued to read and initiate items in his checklist as his staff filed in; then, one by one, he assigned tasks to his staff officers according to the checklists. Soon every telephone in the room was in use by the General’s staff.