by Dale Brown
One by one the group commanders and key members of the Wing staff hurried into the battle staff room. When Daren Mace entered the room, his first look was at the main projection screen, which had the words DEFCON FOUR TIMELINES at the top and a series of times penciled in. “DEFCON schedules? We changing the Bravo exercise?”
“No exercise, Daren,” Cole said to his new MG. “This is the real thing. A shooting war has broken out in Europe, and LOOKING GLASS and the NEACAP are airborne.”
“They’re— Ho-ly shit. “ He hurried into his seat at the conference table and opened up his own binder of checklists. The first thing he did was call Alena Porter. “Captain, I need you over here in the command post on the double. The exercise is over, and we have an A-Hour.” Mace heard a slight intake of breath on the other end. Porter was sharp: she would know what an A-Hour was and she would hustle. “Make sure the sergeant stays put and near the phone—we’re starting a recall. Hurry.” It took about ten minutes for Porter to dash over to the command post with a briefcase full of slides and transparencies, fill in the spaces from the main DEFCON time schedule slide, and get an update on the status of the Wing aircraft from Maintenance Control to complete the slides.
“Okay, Daren, you’re in the hot seat now,” General Cole said. “We need to put the brakes on the Bravo exercise, generate six bomber airframes and four tankers for SIOP missions, and begin predeployment ops.” SIOP, or Single Integrated Operations Plan, was the nuclear warfighting “master plan” that would be executed by the White House and Pentagon in case of war, coordinating attacks against thousands of targets by hundreds of weapon systems—bombers, land-based missiles, and sea-launched missiles—over several weeks. “What have we got?”
Mace stood up, took the slides prepared for him by Captain Porter, and put them on the overhead projector. “I feel pretty certain we can meet the twelve-hour time limit for sorties one through four,” Mace said confidently. “Alpha Flight’s planes, which were in tactical deployment configuration, can be reconfigured for SIOP rather quickly—they have fuel, tanks, racks, expendables, all that stuff ready to go. Fortunately, Charlie Flight’s bombers were not uploaded with training ordnance when the message came down, so those bombers should take less time to generate.”
“We’ll need to get Bravo Flight back on the ground as fast as we can,” Cole said. “Will it be a problem downloading their training stores while you’re uploading the … special weapons on Alpha Flight?” Another euphemism—the military, even the men and women trained to handle nuclear weapons, hardly ever called them “nuclear weapons”—they were usually called “special” or “unconventional” weapons.
“If the weather holds up, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Mace said. “If we get that snowstorm later today or tonight, our weapons handlers will be under the gun. We may have to do all loading and preflight actions in hangars and then tow them to their parking spots.”
Major Laughlin stepped right in front of General Cole: “Sir, message from NEACAP—we’re going to DEFCON Three.”
“Jesus,” Cole exclaimed as Laughlin put up the DEFCON Three slides and updated all of the Wing’s schedule times—the group commanders could see Laughlin’s fingers trembling as he put the slides on the projector. DEFCON Three was a medium-threat war-readiness level, not far from all-out nuclear war. “What the hell is going on?”
“Sir, Russia is bombing the Ukraine and Romania,” Laughlin said. “I heard it on the news. Massive waves of bombers are attacking several military bases in the Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova. Initial reports suggest that the Russians used low-yield nuclear devices against some Ukrainian air bases.” Voices fell silent, and every head turned toward Laughlin and Cole. “Sir, STRATCOM is directing all units near the coastline to disperse their fleets as much as possible, to protect them in case of a preemptive attack.”
“I know, I know,” Cole said, flipping his binder to the DEFCON Three checklists. DEFCON Three was usually issued when a major conflict began overseas in which the United States or its allies could possibly be affected or involved—or in case nuclear weapons were employed against any nation. The speed at which the U.S. military had moved from total peacetime to DEFCON Three indicated the seriousness of the emergency—it was not unreasonable to assume the worst, that all of Eastern Europe could be at war in the next few hours. Whereas DEFCON Four directed only the Alpha-alert bombers—the first six planes—to be loaded and placed on round-the-clock alert, the DEFCON Three message would direct Cole’s entire fleet of Vampire bombers and Stratotanker tankers be made ready for war. Security, crew integrity, safety, nuclear surety, federalization of the Reserve force—it was going to be a nightmare.
Martin Cole had something else to worry about. As commander of the 134th Fighter Squadron at Burlington International Airport, Cole’s F-16 fighters were already shadowing Russian Tupolev-22M Backfire bombers out of Cuba that were flying up and down the Atlantic coast. He hadn’t thought too much about those sleek, deadly behemoths—until now. Although Plattsburgh was about two hundred miles from the coast and almost three hundred miles from where those Backfire bombers were traveling, it was possible for those surveillance planes to pinpoint each and every one of Cole’s planes—and if they were carrying nuclear cruise missiles, they could destroy all of Plattsburgh’s planes in one shot.
“All right.” Cole sighed. “This may screw up your day, Daren, but those Bravo Flight planes won’t be coming back for a while. Jim,” he said, turning to Operations Group commander McGuire, “those crews don’t have the OCCULT EAGLE orbit-area charts with them, but I want the Bravo Flight crews that are airborne into those orbit areas, at the right altitudes.”
“Excuse me, sir, but I need those bombers on the ground,” Mace said. He pointed to the updated slide put up on the screen. Instead of only 4 planes in twelve hours and 6 planes within twenty-four hours, now the first 6 bombers had to be ready within eighteen hours, the first 12 bombers ready within thirty-six hours, and the entire fleet at Plattsburgh ready to go to war within three days. Everything was speeded up by 50 percent, and they hadn’t even started to move one weapon yet. “Look at those timelines for DEFCON Three. I needed those planes on the ground three hours ago.”
“Daren, it can’t happen,” Cole insisted irritably.
“Dammit, General, this DEFCON Three status won’t last long,” Mace said. “It’s a political thing—they’re trying to scare Russia into stopping the fighting. We should at least stay with the DEFCON Four timelines and—”
“Colonel, listen to me, we are at war!” Cole snapped angrily, pounding the table with his fist. The battle staff, the entire command center, fell silent. Cole’s angry gaze bored into every man’s face in the room before affixing on Mace. “The Russians actually nuked the fucking Ukraine, dammit—they dropped a goddamned nuclear bomb. We could be next, Colonel Mace. This is not some Tom Clancy fantasy. We can’t second-guess them.”
“Then you have no choice but to inform Fifth Air Battle Force that we can’t make the timelines,” Mace interjected.
Cole’s face reddened and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “What did you say … ?”
“Sir, we’d have a tough time generating all our aircraft to full SIOP readiness in three days in peacetime, with all our planes on the ground ready to go,” Mace explained. “We cannot do it in time with planes and weapons scattered all over the ramp.”
“Colonel, I am the one who will determine whether we can or cannot make our deadlines, not you,” Cole retorted. “I’ll inform General Layton of any delays. But DEFCON Three says preserve any combat-ready assets to the maximum extent possible, and I’m thinking of those damned Backfire bombers out there—if they’re carrying cruise missiles, bringing those bombers back to Plattsburgh would be a tactical mistake. I’ve got to think about the survival of my forces. Request to land the four Thunder bombers denied. Every two aircraft generated under DEFCON Three will be launched under positive control into the airborne alert orbit areas as soon as p
ossible.”
“We can’t call Boston Center to change their flight plans,” Lafferty said, “unless they declare an air defense emergency. We’ll have to send them VFR, without a flight plan.”
“Then do it,” Cole said. “Give them the computer sequence point, and have them keep in touch by HF radio or SATCOM. We’re going to need a weather briefing for the OCCULT EAGLE orbit area. If the weather goes to shit, we’ll have to lie to the FAA that World War Three has just started. Until then, get those four Thunder planes into the orbit area any way you can.”
TWENTY-TWO
Over Central Vermont That Same Time
Soon it was just Furness and Kelly in the air refueling track. Zero-Five and Zero-Six were going to be delayed several more minutes, so Furness and Kelly hit the tanker one more time before the tanker had to depart, and they exited the air refueling track and headed over to the Montpelier radio navigation station, requested and received a safe altitude block, and set up an orbit pattern to wait.
Furness checked to see what Fogelman was up to, now that things had calmed down enough for them to take a breather and get caught up. He had the nav data page on the left MFD and the nav present position page on the right MFD. He stayed in the radarscope a long time, nudging the radar tracking handle onto a radar return and softly muttering to himself. When she checked the FIXMAG readout on the left Multi-Function Display, it read 12600 FT—over a two-nautical-mile difference between where the system thought it was and where Fogelman was trying to tell it where it was. “How’s your system looking, Mark?” Rebecca asked.
“Shitty,” he replied.
“You got a big buffer load in there,” she offered, referring to the large FIXMAG reading. “What are you trying a fix on—the Brookfield overpass?” The radar fixpoints near the Montpelier radio navigation station were well known to all Plattsburgh crewmembers, and the overpass was a good one to use—very easy to identify and aim on. But there were two overpasses that crossed the highway twenty miles south of the capital city of Vermont—and they were exactly two miles apart. If he was on the wrong one, and the system was good, that would be a reason why FIXMAG read twelve thousand feet. If he was on the right one, that meant that the inertial navigation system was off by two miles—bad enough so that it might be better to just start over and reinitialize. “Make sure you got the right overpass.”
“I got the right one, pilot,” Fogelman snapped. “Stop harping on me.” He moved the PRES POS CORR switch to IN, jiggled the tracking handle a few more times to refine his crosshair placement—Rebecca noted that he didn’t try to select another offset aimpoint to check his crosshair placement, which would have told him if he was on the right aimpoint or not—then hit the ENT FIX option-select switch on the left MFD.
On Rebecca’s right MFD, a message flashed on the screen about twenty seconds later that read PP REAS FAIL. The INS had rejected the fix because of the disparity between where it thought it was and where Fogelman decided it was. The INS itself thought it was navigating accurately. In three years of flying the RF-111G with its two INS systems, and especially after the GPS satellite navigation system was installed, Furness had never seen a fix rejected by the system that wasn’t due to operator error. “I think you picked the wrong—”
“The thing has gone to shit,” Fogelman complained. “I’ll jam this fix in, and if it spits it out I’ll reinitialize.”
“But don’t you think—”
But Fogelman wasn’t going to wait. He selected RDR PP on his right MFD to change the fix method, then entered OVR WHL—he was going to “jam” the fix, or tell the INS to accept his crosshair placement as perfect no matter what. He refined his crosshairs once again and took the fix.
Kiss that INS good-bye, Furness thought. An OVR WHL fix, or Override Wholevalue, updated the system present position but did not update the system velocities. Now the INS present position was off by at least two miles, and the INS velocities, which were obviously bad before the fix, were just as bad now and probably getting worse. She had never seen anyone take an override fix except in the simulator, mainly because the INS was always very good. Expect that puppy to roll over any minute now, she thought grimly. On the left Multi-Function Display, she saw that Fogelman had just about every possible sensor selected—both INS units, Doppler, TAS (True Air Speed computer), and GPS satellite navigation. The velocities from these sensors would all feed into INS number one through the computers, and eventually INS one would discover that it was out to lunch—then it would “kill” itself, or take itself off-line. That would happen in about …
“Thunder Zero-One, this is control, how do you hear?”
Furness keyed her mike. “Loud and clear. Go ahead.”
“Thunder Zero-One …” There were a few seconds of hesitation; then: “Thunder Zero-One and Zero-Four, we need you to fly to and hold at destination number two-eight-nine, repeat, two-eight-nine. You will cancel IFR, squawk standby, and proceed to that destination. You will be given additional instructions later via AFSATCOM. Attempt to contact Thunder Zero-Two and Zero-Three on the command post or RBS frequencies and direct them to join you at destination two-eight-nine.” AFSATCOM, or Air Force Satellite Communications System, was a secure global communications network that transmitted coded messages via satellite from the Pentagon, Air Combat Command headquarters in Virginia, Strategic Command Headquarters in Nebraska, or any combat-unit command post, directly to tactical aircraft. In the 1980s when the FB-111A was pulling nuclear alert, AFSATCOM was the primary method that aircrews received their dreaded “go-to-war” messages. When the Strategic Air Command was stood down and the FB-111 became the F-111G in the new Air Combat Command, AFSATCOM was no longer used. The system still worked and crews still trained with it, but lately it was used to pass routine bombing-range scores and maintenance messages from the planes to the local command posts.
Without waiting on Fogelman, Furness called up the destination number on the left Multi-Function Display and checked its coordinates on her chart. The RF-111G Digital Computer Complex held 350 sets of coordinates, called data points or destinations, which could be a turnpoint, target, or radar offset aimpoint. Most local training missions used only the first two hundred data points; the other data points were never used except for unusual training missions, such as long cross-country flights, RED FLAG exercises in Nevada, or special test flights.
To her surprise, the coordinates weren’t on her map, and she had to pull out a standard civil aeronautical chart to find the spot—it was several hundred miles east, about a hundred miles out over the Atlantic Ocean, at an ADIZ entry point called FREEZ. Many times the RF-111G aircraft ran maritime strike and reconnaissance missions out over the ocean or Lake Ontario to practice overwater photo procedures or AGM-84 Harpoon antiship-missile strike procedures. The checkpoint they mentioned was in the middle of a large overwater warning area between Kennebunkport and Brunswick, Maine. When reentering U.S. airspace, aircraft had to enter at a specific spot at the proper time for positive identification purposes or else fighter-interceptors could be scrambled to visually identify the “intruder.”
This had to be part of the exercise—they flew many air defense exercises through the years, going supersonic down over the ocean and letting F-16 fighters from Burlington or Massachusetts try to find them. But why were they supposed to go out there, especially with live (albeit only ten-pound BDU-48 “beer can”) weapons aboard Zero-Four? Were they supposed to dump the weapons into the sea? If so, why didn’t they just tell them to do so?
“Control, Zero-One, stand by for authentication.” To Fogelman, Furness said, “Mark, get out the decoding documents and check this message.”
“What?” he asked, perplexed.
“The command post wants us to fly out over ocean,” she told him, explaining it all to him as if he hadn’t heard any of it. “I want to authenticate their instructions.”
“Jesus Christ…” Fogelman muttered as he removed his lap and shoulder belt so he could twist all t
he way around in his seat. The classified decoding documents were in a small canvas carrying bag that he had stuffed in the retractable lunch-box bucket behind the seat. You had to be a contortionist to reach it. The bag had enough decoding documents to last them for the rest of the month, including unlocking documents for nuclear weapons.
When he had finally retrieved the bag, he tossed it onto Furness’ lap while he strapped back in. She opened the encode/decode book to the proper day’s page, selected two characters, and found the proper response character. “Control, Thunder Zero-One, authenticate bravo-juliett.”
“Thunder control authenticates yankee.” It was the proper response.
“Holy shit,” Furness muttered on the interphone. “If this is some kind of a test, I don’t get it. They just ordered us to go VFR to an orbit point out over the Atlantic Ocean. We’re supposed to try to raise Zero-Two and Zero-Three while they’re in the low-level route and have them join on us.”
“I guess our low-level has been canceled,” Fogelman said. “Maybe they’re going to pass us some recon information for a maritime target. That’ll be cool—get target information from headquarters via AFSATCOM while the ‘war’ is going on. Near real-time stuff.”