by Dale Brown
“You heard me,” Eyers said, the smile disappearing. “We’re going in with the Ukrainians to bomb Novorossiysk, Krasnodar, and Rostov-na-Donu, but after they finish having their little fun pretending that they’re actually contributing something to this war, we’ll take your RF-111s up along the Ukrainian border, up into Russia, launch a SRAM or two on the Russian bastard Velichko’s underground bunker at Domodedovo, and split for Lithuania. The Lithuanians are going to cover your retreat. We take out this base and the underground command center, and the air war is over for the damned Russians. The President wants to teach the fucking Russians a lesson, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
“We’ve been ordered to launch a nuclear strike against Russia?” Furness asked in complete disbelief. “Are you sure? We’ll start World War Three.”
“I see you’ve been spreading your pacifist bullshit along with screwing her, eh, Mace?” Eyers said with a laugh. “Yeah, we’ve known about you two since you arrived at Plattsburgh, Mace, you and your drug-dealing biker buddies. If you survive this mission, Mace, I’ll still see your ass hauled into prison for twenty years for associations with known international drug traffickers. I’m sure we can even trace your smuggling activities to right here in Turkey—I knew there had to be a reason why you had so many consecutive assignments here.…
“The President’s going to push this war to the next logical step, troops, and he wants us to spearhead the attack,” Eyers continued. “He gave the big prize to me.” He turned to Daren Mace, gave him a disgusted chuckle, and said, “Now we’ll see what you’re really made out of, boy. And just for laughs, guess who’s going to be your aircraft commander? How about Major Furness?”
“You can’t do that, General,” Layton insisted in protest.
“Excuse me, General,” Colonel Lafferty interjected, “but I’ll decide who crews these sorties. As senior wing officer, I should be the one who pilots that—”
“It’s already been decided,” Eyers said with a sneer, “and I don’t want to hear shit from any of you. Furness is a flight instructor and training flight commander—hell, Lafferty, she gives you check rides, for Christ’s sake. Furness is the best pilot, Mace is the most senior weapons officer. End of story. Lafferty, you’ll command the backup SRAM shooter, and you’ll pick the best four RF-111s you got to fly with you as SEAD antiradar escorts. The rest of the wing will be participating in the air strikes with the Ukrainians. I’ve got all your charts, your flight plans, your communications documents, and your intelligence material, and the RF-111s with your SRAM-B missiles should be arriving within the hour.”
Eyers turned to Mace, reached into his blouse pocket, extracted a red plastic sheath, and gave it to him. “Just to make sure, Colonel, I got you a copy of the executive order authorizing this mission. You’ll find the precise procedures for terminating your mission—no more second-guessing, no more chickening out because you think somebody screwed up. If you don’t launch the missile, it’ll be because you screwed up, you chickened out, or you were killed. I suggest you do your duty this time—if you have the guts. I’d hate to see the pretty major there splattered across some Russian peat bog because you weren’t man enough to get the job done. Now get out of my sight and get to work. You are dismissed.”
FORTY
Batman Air Base, Turkey, Several Hours Later
Mace and Furness were preflighting their RF-111G Vampire in preparation for launching that evening. They were in a large semiunderground concrete shelter, but the large steel and concrete blast doors covering the hangar were partially open. The aircraft had just come from the United States, and it had been completely inspected and checked in a very short period of time. The internal bomb bay held the two AGM-131 SRAMs (Short-Range Attack Missiles), and the two crewmen were inspecting the weapon right now.
“I’ve seen these things for years now,” Furness commented as they crawled in under the bomb doors with a flashlight and inspection mirror, “but it seems—different this time. It’s like this thing is alive.”
They inspected the general condition of the weapon. The missile was rather small, with a triangular cross section and three stubby moving fins in the rear—the two missiles fit comfortably in the bomb bay with just a few inches on each side and about one inch between them. It had a soft rubbery outer layer that burned off as it flew through the air at over Mach-three to protect it and to absorb radar energy, making it “stealthier” than earlier models. The nosecap of the missile was hard composite material that covered a radar altimeter for arming and detonating the weapon. There was an inspection access door on the bottom of the missile, and they checked the missile settings together.
“Twenty-kiloton yield,” Mace recited. The missile was set for its lowest yield—the highest setting was a full 170 kilotons. “Primary fuzing is an air burst at five thousand feet, with a backup ground burst option. Dual motor burn for a high-altitude climb at Mach-three, then an inertially-guided ballistic flight path to impact.”
“Checks,” Furness said. She stuck the inspection mirror up between the missiles and shined the flashlight up on the right side of the missile. “Warhead safing plug’s been removed.” She checked the second missile, then handed the mirror and flashlight to Mace, who double-checked both weapons. “Man, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said; then she turned to Mace, realizing what she just said. “And you almost did it. That’s what you were carrying back over Iraq when you rendezvoused with me—nuclear bombs.”
“I was carrying two of these things,” Mace said uneasily. “They were X-models, modified for only a five-kiloton ground burst, no backup fusing option. But yes, I was going to launch one on a bunker south of Baghdad.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because the order was rescinded. They just didn’t tell us officially, but I knew it had been,” Mace replied. He told her about Operation Desert Fire, how the Scud missile attack on Israel was mistaken for a biological-chemical attack, how his mission was executed. “It was obviously a screw-up—Coalition planes everywhere, hundreds of them right over ground zero. I would’ve fragged all of them. I withheld the launch—kept the doors closed until the missiles timed out. Eyers was in charge. He didn’t plan it properly, and sold the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President a bill of goods. General Layton was the air boss. He knew there was a problem, knew that the execution order had to be terminated. When the coded terminate order didn’t come through, he tried to terminate me by broadcasting in the clear. I listened, and I terminated. I got nailed for it.”
“But you did as you were ordered to do.”
“Not in Eyers’ twisted mind,” Mace said. “I disobeyed a lawful order. Only General Layton kept me out of prison.”
Furness fell silent for a moment, stung by the enormity of what he had experienced—but there was still one last unanswered question. “Would you have done it?” she asked him. “Would you have launched? If there was no terminate call, no friendlies in the area—would you have done it?”
“Rebecca, I think that’s a question every crewdog has to answer for themself.”
“I need to know, Daren,” she said. She reached out to touch the gray missile hanging before her, but pulled her hand away as if she could feel the radioactivity pulsing within its fuselage. “I need to know … because I’ve never had to face it. I wonder if I can.”
“Yes, you can,” he said firmly.
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re here, and you’re wearing the uniform, and you’re under this bomber preflighting these weapons,” Mace said. “Everyone here on this base can do it. If they can’t do it, they end up basket cases like Lynn Ogden or sniveling cowards like Ted Little—or dead like Paula Norton and Curt Aldridge. You’re here because you and Mark Fogelman had the skill and the drive to make it. I hate to talk like this about the dead, Rebecca, but you’re here and they’re not because you’re better than they were, pure and simple. If Mark didn’t get his wake-up call when
you got nailed by those F-16s, if he didn’t pick up his books and get his briefings and screw his head on straight while he was in the hospital back in Plattsburgh, you’d be dead or injured or grounded and someone else would be flying this mission. Crewdogs don’t make it because they don’t have the mental capacity, the skill, or the courage to kill.”
She didn’t know what to say, but took his hand and squeezed it to show her thanks. “Plus,” Mace added, “you can do it because you got me.”
His joke finally broke the tension, the unmovable fear burning in her head. She rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, please—give me a break.”
“This is my baby, Rebecca. This beast and I are one. If it can be done, we will do it.”
When they exited the bomb bay and finished their preflight inspections, they noticed Colonel Pavlo Tychina standing in the partially open doorway; a security guard was blocking his path. Both Furness and Mace stepped out of the hangar to greet him.
“I shake the hands of all brave crews before an attack,” Tychina said. He motioned to the Vampire behind Mace and Furness. Unlike the Charlie-Flight aircraft, the four Bravo-Flight bombers carried external fuel tanks on the number-two and seven nonswiveling pylons, as well as AGM-88 HARMs on stations three, four, five, and six, and AIM-9P Sidewinder missiles on stations three and six—and, of course, the first two Vampires carried SRAMs in the bomb bay. “Extra fuel tanks on an eight-hundred-mile round-trip mission, Major Furness? I not know this.”
Furness was a bit confused by his question. “We’ve got the legs to go all the way, sir,” she replied, “but a little extra gas never hurt.”
“Ah. Yes, of course.”
But Pavlo Tychina still seemed confused. “It’s more like two thousand miles on the sortie, sir, not eight hundred,” Mace added. “We’ll need the extra gas in case we need to use ’burners.”
“Two thousand miles, Colonel?” Tychina asked. “I not understand.”
Furness and Mace finally got the message: “Sir, the mission against the bunker complex? Domodedovo? Near Moscow?”
“I know Domodedovo,” Tychina said, his puzzlement slowly turning into anger, “but I not know about mission. You have a mission to attack Domodedovo?”
“Oh my God,” Mace muttered, “you don’t know about the air-strike, Colonel Tychina? Rebecca, we should fill him in right away.”
“No shit.” Furness waved to the shelter guard, telling him that Tychina was authorized to accompany her, and after he was searched and left his helmet bag and equipment with the guard, she took Tychina over to the bomb bay. Tychina’s eyes grew wide as he peered at the missiles nestled in the bomb bay.
“These are bombs?” he asked. “Very strange bombs. Antirunway weapons, perhaps?”
Furness hesitated for a moment, then led Tychina and Mace back out of the hangar and away from the guard post, out of earshot of everyone. “No, sir, they’re nuclear cruise missiles,” she told him. “We have a new additional mission, Colonel—after leading your strikers against your three targets, Bravo Flight is going to launch a nuclear attack against Domodedovo Air Base, near Moscow. Russian president Velichko is supposed to be holed up in the underground bunker there. Those missiles will destroy the bunker and Velichko.”
Tychina’s eyes grew wide behind his sterile gauze face mask. “No! Is it true what you say?”
“It’s true, sir,” Furness said. “I … I assumed the Ukrainians knew about this. I think General Panchenko should be informed of this right away.”
“I don’t think anyone else in NATO knows about it except General Eyers,” Mace said. “He’s the one who planned it.”
“Eyers?” Tychina retorted. “Bruce Eyers is big bullshit. I no like him. Why your government not tell Ukrayina about this secret mission?”
“I don’t know,” Furness replied. “Maybe because Ukrayina doesn’t have the capability of delivering this kind of weapon.”
“What you mean?” Tychina asked. “My men, we can do anything, fly anywhere. You only fly four Vampire planes into Russia? You have no escorts, fighter escorts? We escort.”
“No air patrols,” Mace said. “We go in with antiradar weapons and our Sidewinders only. No fighters can keep up with us.”
“What you saying? I can keep up with you, Colonel Daren. My MiG-23s, they can escort you into Russia.”
“Your fighters don’t have the legs—er, they don’t have the fuel reserves, sir,” Furness said. “We researched it. It’s impossible.”
“And you can’t fly terrain-following altitudes,” Mace added. “We’ll be down at three hundred feet or below the entire flight.”
“Anything you can do, I can do,” Tychina said. “You fly low, I fly low. You fly to Moscow, I fly to Moscow. I escort you.”
“Sir, there’s only six hours to launch,” Furness said. “You can’t reconfigure your fighters in time.”
“You say nee, nee, I say tuk,” Tychina said. “I do it. You come off-target at Rostov-na-Donu, I find you, I rendezvous.”
Furness and Mace looked at each other. Furness said, “If he can do it, Daren …”
“I can get him a chart and a threat map during the weather and final mission briefings,” Mace said. “If his MiGs have IRSTS, they can track us without us using lights or radios.”
“I go now. I report secret mission to General Panchenko, and I fix planes. I see you.” The young colonel picked up his flight gear and trotted away, flagging down a maintenance truck and hopping a ride back to headquarters.
“Well, well,” Daren Mace said to Furness as they watched Tychina race off. “Maybe the Iron Maiden isn’t quite as hard as I thought. In fact, that was a very unauthorized thing to do.”
“Hey, we’ve been given a mission to do and I’m going to do it.” Furness shrugged. “Now, I don’t know why the Ukrainians weren’t told about our mission, but if Colonel Tychina can get us some fighter escorts, at least part of the way into Russia, I’ll take it. I’m following orders, but I’m also looking out for my butt. And yours.”
“In that case let’s finish up this preflight and catch up with Pavlo,” Mace said. “I have a few ideas that might turn this whole stinking mission around for us.”
FORTY-ONE
Batman Air Base, Turkey, That Night
The launch began at nine P.M.
The Charlie Flight RF-111Gs launched first—they had more than enough gas for this mission—followed by the Bravo Flight Vampires, then the Sukhoi-17s and the Turkish F-16s. The F-16s would provide air coverage over the Black Sea, but would not cross into Russia. Finally launched were Mikoyan-Gurevich-23s, then MiG-27s, and lastly ten very strange-looking MiG-23s and Su-17s. Eight MiGs and two Su-17s were festooned with fuel tanks: one nine-hundred-pound standard centerline tank; one tank on each swiveling wing section, which would prevent the wings from being swept back past takeoff setting until the tanks were jettisoned; and one tank on each fixed-wing section, for an incredible total of five external fuel tanks—the external fuel load was equal to the plane’s total internal fuel load, effectively doubling the fighter’s range. Instead of six air-to-air missiles, the MiGs carried only three: one AA-7 radar-guided missile on the left-engine intake pylon and two AA-8 heat-seeking missiles on a double launcher on the right. The Sukhoi-17s were configured similarly, but with special stores on the two fuselage pylons instead of missiles.
The last surprise was at takeoff: these heavily laden aircraft used military power for takeoff, instead of fuel-gulping afterburner, with the help of four rocket packs attached to the rear fuselage to boost them off the ground. Even with the added boost, the fighters stayed at treetop level long after they left the runway so they could build up enough speed to safely raise the nose and climb without stalling. As soon as they were safely airborne and clear of any populated areas, the spent rocket packs were jettisoned; then, as soon as the strike force reached the Turkish coast of the Black Sea, the empty outboard tanks were jettisoned, and the planes could sweep their wings back to a more fuel-ef
ficient 45 degrees. The tanks that dropped into the sea were recovered by the Turkish Jandarma for reuse.
Another Russian A-50 Airborne Warning and Control radar plane was up that night patrolling the Black Sea region, and again the NATO air forces under General Panchenko were prepared. A small twenty-aircraft Ukrainian strike force was sent straight north at high speed, aiming for the Russian naval base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, along with six MiG-23s flying at high altitude on another anti-AWACS missile run from the west.
The Russian radar plane, which was orbiting over Nikolayev in southern Ukraine instead of over the Black Sea, immediately turned and headed farther north, vectoring in fighters from Simferopol and Krasnodar as it retreated. When the high-altitude MiGs fired their AA-9 missiles, the Russian AWACS shut down their radar, accelerated, and dispensed decoy chaff and flares.
At the same time, a Russian Antonov-12C four-engine turboprop plane accompanying the A-50 radar plane, carrying electronic jammers and other decoys and countermeasures, activated its powerful jammers, making it impossible for any radar transmitters, including the radars in the nose of the AA-9 missiles, to lock on …
… however, it also made it impossible for any other radars to operate normally as well, including the Russian fighter radars and ground-based radars. The An-12C shut down the early warning and intercept radars along the Crimea and at the naval base at Novorossiysk, leaving it wide open for attack. The naval facility was the headquarters for the Russian Fleet oiler and tanker fleets, and had many vital oil terminals and storage facilities as well as a long-range radar site and air defense missile facility. Being nearly surrounded by the Caucasus Mountains, it was naturally defended by steep ridges and high jagged coastal peaks, a cold, snowy Russian version of Rio de Janeiro.
Not one surface-to-air missile was fired as the Ukrainian attack force swept in. Flying up the coast of Turkey, then crossing into the republic of Georgia and following the Caucasus Mountains, they were completely undetected until just a few miles from Novorossiysk. The fixed SA-10 missile sites and long-range radar sites along the Black Sea coast were hit with dozens of cluster bomb packs and antipersonnel mines from the first group of MiG-27s and Sukhoi-17s, and dock and warehouse facilities and a few tankers in the naval shipyard area of the base were hit by TV- and laser-guided bombs. One MiG-23 flying a medium-altitude combat air patrol was hit by an infrared-guided anti-aircraft-artillery gun seconds before a direct hit by a TV-guided bomb from a MiG-27 took out the gun site.