by Dale Brown
The passenger in the front seat of the California National Guard Humvee turned off the radio as the vehicle approached the Elkhorn Boulevard gate of McClellan Air Force Base in the north part of the city of Sacramento. Three more Humvees followed. The gate was a madhouse as security guards scrambled to keep track of the vehicles streaming in and out. The four Humvees took their place in a long line of military and civilian trucks trying to enter the base. Under the press of traffic, the security guards began waving all military vehicles through with cursory checks of ID cards, and the Humvees entered without difficulty.
One of them split off and headed east on the base, stopping at the security headquarters and the central communications facility, then going around the west side of the base to the power transformer farm near Roseville Road. The others headed north around the runways toward the hangars on the northwest side. Again, one split off, dropping off four soldiers in full-camouflage battle-dress uniforms and combat gear at strategic locations on the access roads leading to the hangars. There was virtually no security anywhere on the base except for the southeast side, where air rescue and relief activities were beginning to gear up in response to the rupture of the dam and the anticipated flooding of the city of Sacramento.
Gregory Townsend and eighteen of his soldiers dismounted from the remaining vehicles and ran to the edge of the security fence around the four target hangars. When all his units were in position, Townsend issued the order to go. Explosions destroyed the base’s central communications facility, and more explosions at the power transformer farm on Roseville Road cut off power to most of the base. This did not affect power inside the target hangars, but it deactivated the security systems surrounding them, slowing down any response from elsewhere on the base. Then he blew open the security gates and headed for the hangars.
There were eight of them, but Townsend had targeted only the four on the west side and assigned four soldiers to each hangar. On his signal, they entered the hangars simultaneously by blowing open the outer doors, then rushing inside, neutralizing the Air Force guards, and mopping up the remaining armed resistance.
The guards in the hangars had managed to sound the alarm, but the base’s central communications system and security-police headquarters never received it. Still, Townsend knew that before long someone would realize they were missing a scheduled security report or check-in, and there’d be some form of response. But with the frantic preparations for coping with the flood rapidly approaching Sacramento, he calculated he had at least an hour’s leeway. His men could easily deal with any roving or curious security-police unit that happened by in the meantime, and an hour was all he needed. His men set to work on their final objective.
The complex on the northwest side of McClellan Air Force Base had changed hands many times over the years. Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, the area had been used to decontaminate spy planes that were flown over American, French, Russian, and Chinese aboveground nuclear-weapons explosions. In more recent years, flight-test squadrons built and tested new air weapon systems there, such as the 4,700-pound GBU-28 “bunker-buster” bomb used to try to kill Saddam Hussein as he hid in his deep underground shelters in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
In addition to the classified weapon and flight-test work done there, the complex had another secret activity: It contained a small but full-scale nuclear reactor, which produced gamma rays used for NDI, or nondestructive inspection, of military aircraft. Although magnetic eddy current fields, X rays, lasers, radar, and plain old eyeballs were still useful in detecting cracks and fatigue in aircraft structures, they weren’t reliable or adequate for the new crop of composite “stealth” aircraft, so gamma-ray inspections were developed to check these planes without having to disassemble them first. Fifteen years ago, McClellan Air Force Base had been the first aircraft-maintenance depot in the world to use gamma rays for aircraft NDI, and it was still the main nuclear NDI facility in the free world.
And the latest clients ready for their annual nuclear NDI inspection were sitting right there before Gregory Townsend and his soldiers: four F-117A Night Hawk stealth fighter-bombers. All four of these odd-looking planes, with their multifaceted, pyramid-shaped fuselages, short pointed wings, and thin, highly swept tails, were Gulf War veterans, each having performed more than thirty missions in the heart of stiff Iraqi air defenses without a single casualty. Although they could carry only five thousand pounds of ordnance-usually two two-thousand-pound laser-guided bombs-and were more than fifteen years old, they were still in good condition. And because they were virtually invisible on radar and invulnerable to most modern air defense systems, they were four of the deadliest warplanes on earth…
… and they now belonged to Gregory Townsend.
While several of his soldiers began to refuel the planes and brought over ground power “start carts,” Townsend and three of his other men, all trained combat pilots, stepped up the special access ladders designed for the F-117 stealth fighters, opened up the cockpit canopies, and got to work preflighting their aircraft. The preflight checks went quickly. Because the Night Hawks’ cockpits were so cramped and uncomfortable, they were designed from the outset to be highly automated, relegating the human on board to being a system monitor rather than a pilot.
Besides, these pilots were not concerned about getting the planes ready to go to war. They simply had to make sure they had enough gas to fly a few hundred miles to an isolated airstrip in southwestern Nevada, where more fuel was waiting. A thousand miles at a time, and the aircraft would eventually end up in South America, where eager international arms merchants and foreign countries were waiting to start the bidding on the auction of the century.
On a signal from Townsend, all four F-117 engines were started inside the hangars themselves, in preparation for taxiing. There was no concern about the exhaust damage-it didn’t matter what the hangars looked like after they left-and none of them bothered with flight-control or engine checks. The F-117 Night Hawk stealth fighter was inherently unstable in all flight axes-there was no such thing as “dead-sticking” an F-117 to an emergency landing. The aircraft needed at least one flight-control computer and one engine to fly. If it lost more than that, the pilot had a single option: eject. But a foreign government such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, or China would still pay hundreds of millions of dollars for an F-117 stealth fighter even with only one engine or one flight-control computer.
“Report ready to taxi,” Townsend ordered. When the other three pilots reported, the four hangar doors were manually opened. Guards stationed themselves in front of the hangars and along the taxi route, prepared to repel any security forces that might come along. Each was armed with an M-16 assault rifle fitted with an M-206 grenade launcher for fighting off heavy response vehicles or trucks. “Release brakes now,” Townsend ordered.
At that moment, the pilot of the number four F-117 moving from the westernmost hangar saw a blur of motion off to his right. A soldier in full combat gear and helmet appeared out of nowhere directly in front of his hangar, carrying what looked like two large duffel bags. He dropped both bags on the tarmac, then reached down with his left hand and threw one of them under the nose gear of the aircraft. “Nein!” the pilot shouted. “What are you doing? Clear the way!”
Then the pilot looked again and realized that these were not duffel bags being thrown under his wheels-they were bodies! Soldiers’ bodies. This… this stranger was throwing bodies under the wheels to prevent him from taxiing! “Warning! Intruder alert!” he called. “I am stopped! I can’t move!”
“Unit four, go to full power!” ordered Townsend, who could not see what was happening from his cockpit. “Taxi immediately! All other units taxi at maximum speed!”
The number four pilot shoved his throttles up to full military power, trying to taxi over the bodies of his dead comrades. But the intruder had disappeared under the nose of the F-117 and seconds later the pilot felt four hard bangs. The aircraft shuddered and dropped. Before the pilot’s stunned e
yes the intruder reappeared, one of the dead soldiers’ sidearms in his hands. He had shot out several of the tires.
The pilot pulled the throttles to idle, opened his canopy, and jumped out of the plane. He watched as the intruder calmly walked over to the number three aircraft. Then he crouched down to get the M-16 assault rifle slung across the body of the soldier under his left main gear, checked it, loaded a fresh magazine, and fired from a range of fifteen meters. There was no way he could miss-yet the man did not go down. He turned around to look at the pilot even as the shots struck him, then continued on his way.
It was him, the pilot realized. The Tin Man. He was alive! He had been killed in the dam explosion but he was alive!
The Tin Man reached the number three F-117 and fired several rounds into the left main landing-gear wheel. The outside tire popped, but the inner tire kept the plane moving. As the plane’s pilot watched in astonishment, he saw the helmeted figure leap fifteen meters across his windshield and land on his left wing.
Atop the engine inlets were blow-in doors, which provided additional inlet air to compensate for the reduced airflow through the large main inlets caused by the radar-absorbing mesh screen covering them. Before the pilot’s eyes, the Tin Man dropped the empty pistol into one of the open blow-in doors on the left engine. Sucked into the engine, it shredded the first-stage compressor blades in a matter of seconds, and the disintegrating remnants shot out in all directions, puncturing fuel and hydraulic lines and blasting apart the entire engine and part of the left fuselage.
The number one and two F-117’s were taxiing away fast. The Tin Man sped down the right wing of the stricken number three, jumped onto the ground, ran toward the taxiing fighters, then leaped as soon as his thrusters were recharged. He landed right on the canopy of number two, but with nothing to grasp and the groundspeed building up rapidly, he beat on the glass canopy panels. His left fist broke through a side panel with ease. The glass of the forward panels was much thicker and stronger, but several crushing blows broke it too. He reached in, shattered the heads-up display atop the instrument panel, then grabbed for the pilot. “He is on my aircraft!” the pilot shrieked into his radio, evading the grasping arm.
Unable to reach the pilot to disable him, the Tin Man grabbed the overhead curtain ejection handle on the ACES II ejection seat, then hit his thrusters to blow himself clear of the plane. The pilot shot up through the broken canopy on a column of fire from the rockets in his ejection seat. He was blasted 150 feet into the night sky. His parachute fully deployed, but there was time only for one swing under it before he hit the taxiway. The plane continued straight ahead. But starting the ejection sequence had automatically cut off fuel and power to the engines, so it rolled forward until it hit a blast fence on the north side of the main runway and came to a stop.
The Tin Man got back to his feet, scanning the area with his infrared visor. It was too late to reach Townsend in the number one F-117. By the time the thrusters were fully charged, Townsend had already lifted off into the night sky. The one he really wanted had escaped.
“Well, General McLanahan,” he heard in his helmet radio, which was set to monitor the emergency UHF channel. “Yours was a valiant effort. But one plane will still make my buyers very happy. Good night, and enjoy what is left of your city.”
But astoundingly there was one last chance. A UH-1 Huey helicopter with CA NATIONAL GUARD markings touched down on the apron directly in front of the security hangars where the F-117’s had been parked. It had arrived as planned to pick up a few chosen members of Townsend’s assault team, and the soldiers ran to board it. The Tin Man shot across the runways, and as the fully loaded helicopter was lifting off, he jumped up and grabbed on to the right skid, then the belly cargo hook, straddled the skids, and held on for the ride. The pilot didn’t even notice the additional weight because the aircraft was already wallowing from its heavy load as it lifted into the sky.
The Huey headed almost directly east, climbing to eleven thousand feet as it cleared the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It took all the Tin Man’s strength and concentration to hold on in the frigid night air whistling around him at 120 miles an hour. Two hours later, the helicopter swooped across steep, rocky crags and flew low through a high-desert valley. An airfield came into view. It was surrounded by what appeared to be abandoned military hangars and industrial structures. As the helicopter moved low over a group of wooden buildings, the Tin Man dropped free, using his thrusters to break his fall.
The place had a weird look to it; it was like stepping into an abandoned city. The hangars were large enough to hold the biggest military or commercial aircraft, but they were empty and falling apart. He saw the twisted, rusted hulks of what might once have been an oil refinery or large factory. The ground was covered with cactus, tumbleweeds, and thick dust. There was a long unlit runway ahead, and a very large aircraft-parking ramp lit by blue taxiway lights. The only other lights were on a lone building on the northern edge of the ramp, which had a rotating airport beacon and several radio antennas on top, a few scraggly trees in front, and a fuel truck parked nearby. The Tin Man headed for it.
A sign indicated that the building was a general-aviation fixed-base operator-an FBO-called Tonopah Flying Service. He knew there was a Tonopah, Nevada, a small desert town in the southwestern part of the state, midway between Reno and Las Vegas. This had to be it, and from the look of it, he guessed the airport must once have been a military base.
Moments later, the UH-1 Huey helicopter touched down on the ramp in front of the FBO building and Townsend’s terrorists dismounted. Within minutes, the Tin Man could hear shouts in German coming from inside-they were taking over the facility. He peered through a side window and was startled to see a terrified woman cowering in front of a man with a gun.
At the sound of a muted whistling out on the runway, the white runway edge lights snapped on. Then an F-117 Night Hawk stealth fighter swooped down, paralleling the long runway on a downwind leg. He switched to his infrared visor to watch as it touched down at the very edge of the runway, careened down it, and stopped just in time at the north end. Then it turned off on the taxiway, swerved around as soon as it had room to maneuver on the aircraft apron, and taxied right back onto the runway, now heading south. The fuel truck drove out in its direction.
The Tin Man’s first concern was the hostage, not the F-117. No one was in sight when he sneaked to the front of the building and looked through the glass door, which meant that the gunman had to have taken the hostage inside the office behind the short counter. He dashed inside, hit his thrusters, and jetted directly at the office door. It crashed in, and he discovered it had come right down on the terrorist himself, knocking the gun he was holding out of his hands. One punch from the gauntleted fist, and the man was out cold.
“You’re all right now,” the Tin Man said to the frightened woman. “But these are terrorists taking over the airfield. You’ve got to get out of here quietly and call for help. Is there a phone anywhere?”
She nodded. “There’s one behind the building,” she said, her voice quavering.
“Tell the police that the terrorists who stole the stealth fighters from the Air Force base in Sacramento are here, and they’re going to refuel and take off again. Then hide yourself until help comes.” When she left he grabbed the terrorist’s gun, peered out the door, and crept outside.
“Hurry up, damn you!” Townsend shouted.
“The pump on this truck is very slow, sir,” the soldier answered. The base obviously wasn’t used often, and the Jet-A truck even less.
Townsend cursed again. The guard he’d stationed inside the FBO had missed a second five-minute check-in-an ominous sign. A burst of fire, then an explosion, tore into the Huey. Gunfire erupted from the rear of the FBO building but was silenced moments later. “Disconnect!” Townsend shouted. “Prepare to repel attackers!” Silence. Where were his men? He looked toward the fuel truck and saw all four of them lying on the ground. My God-when had that
happened? Dammit, he hadn’t heard a thing and he was right here!
He had just put on his helmet and finished strapping himself into his seat when a voice came over the UHF guard emergency channel: “Townsend. Gregory Townsend. Can you hear me?”
Quickly Townsend checked his switches and skimmed through the checklist, but realized it would be suicidal to try to take off. He lowered the cockpit canopy. “The Tin Man, I presume? Very good of you to see me off, General McLanahan. My men reported that you had been killed by Major Reingruber.”
“Indeed. As you can see, I’m here. But I am not seeing you off. You are going nowhere, Townsend. It’s time you paid for all the death and destruction you’ve caused.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll pay for, General,” Townsend said. “I’ll make you the same deal I made before, only better: you and I as partners. With one phone call, General, I can wire ten million dollars into an offshore bank account in your name. Moreover, I’ll give you half of whatever we can negotiate for the sale of this aircraft. We should be able to split two hundred, perhaps three hundred million dollars. I make one phone call and it’s yours.”
The response was a burst of automatic gunfire. The left main landing-gear tires blew out. Then the nose-gear tires exploded and the aircraft’s nose wheel settled into the asphalt up to its hubs. “You may as well shut ‘em down and come on out, Townsend,” said the Tin Man. “You’re going to prison.”
With an angry yank, Townsend pulled the throttles to cutoff, threw open the canopy, unfastened his seat belts, and climbed out of the Night Hawk. He stood directly in front of the dark-clad figure, shaking with rage. “You miserable cretin!” he snapped. “You’ve just thrown away millions of dollars for us both.”