Things had been somewhat disorganized during the first several hours of a the full nighttime nuclear alert generation—that was situation- normal in any unit Roma had ever been in—but by midmorning things appeared to be humming along pretty well. By the time Roma returned to his office in the squadron building, his entire staff—including everyone recalled from leave—was busy. Everyone had been assigned an alert sortie. Most were not scheduled to start generating their alert line for several hours, so they were busy running simulator sessions, running mobility line duties, running errands for the Wing staff, or helping the maintenance crews to bring a plane up to preload status.
Roma’s E-mail mailbox had more than two dozen new messages in it in just the last thirty minutes, so he turned on the TV in his office to get the latest news and sat down to start reading and returning messages. The news seemed to be a jumble of confusion, very much like the situation at Ellsworth Air Force Base as five thousand men and women were trying to get twenty planes ready to fly off and unleash nuclear devastation on the People’s Republic of China.
Little else was known about the nuclear disaster in Japan except what had been reported hours ago: the American aircraft carrier USS Independence, all eighty thousand tons of it, including approximately 5,200 officers and enlisted men and women, had disappeared when what eyewitnesses called a small nuclear explosion erupted in the late-morning hours in the Gulf of Sagami, about sixty miles south of Tokyo.
Roma couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
The disastrous news didn’t stop there. Two escort frigates and a 50,000-ton replenishment ship carrying 150,000 barrels of fuel oil cruising near the carrier had capsized in the explosion, and all hands were feared lost—460 more men and women presumed dead. Two guided- missile cruiser escorts had been substantially damaged in the explosion, with hundreds more dead or injured. Several other vessels, civilian and commercial, in the vicinity of the explosion had also been lost. The force of the blast was estimated to be equivalent to 10,000 tons of TNT.
The Japanese prime minister, Kazumi Nagai, immediately blamed the accident on the United States, saying that the Independence had been carrying nuclear weapons and that one of the warheads had gone off when a C-2 Greyhound cargo aircraft made a crash landing. U.S. President Kevin Martindale went on national radio and TV immediately, reporting the accident and denying that the Independence or any U.S. warships near Japan were carrying nuclear weapons, but his denials seemed to be falling on deaf ears throughout the world.
The Japanese Diet, under heavy pressure by Nagai, immediately ordered all American military bases in Japan sealed and all U.S. vessels, military or civilian military contract, to remain in port until they could be inspected by Japanese nuclear officials and Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers. Again, Japan was the site of a nuclear explosion, and accusing eyes were on America. South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand immediately followed Japan’s precautionary move—no U.S. warships or civilian ships contracted by the U.S. military could enter their territorial waters, and they could not leave, until they were inspected and certified that they carried no nuclear weapons.
The People’s Republic of China went one step further, restricting all U.S. warships from coming within a hundred miles of its shores or they would consider it an act of war. They knew that the Independence had been bound for the Formosa Strait, and they surmised that the United States was using the attacks on the two frigates Duncan and James Daniel as a pretext to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on China. All U.S. warships already within the one-hundred-mile buffer zone had twenty-four hours to get out, or they would be attacked without warning. China then revealed the position and even the identification of four U.S. submarines in the Formosa Strait and South China Sea, including two ballistic missile attack subs, and estimated that perhaps as many as ten more were in the vicinity, ready to wage war on the Peoples Republic of China.
In hours, virtually the entire Pacific Ocean was off-limits to the U.S. Navy.
Joe Roma knew all of this was bullshit. First, he knew from intelligence reports that all nuclear weapons had been removed from all Navy warships except some ballistic missile subs, just as they had been removed from American bombers, since 1991—and nothing that he had been briefed lately caused him to believe that the recent incidents with China had altered that policy. It was possible that the President had changed his mind and rearmed hundreds of capital warships around the world in less than a month, but Roma thought it very unlikely.
Second, nuclear warheads do not go off by themselves, no matter how badly they are abused. Roma knew enough about the inner workings of a modern-day nuclear warhead to know that it would take much more than a crash landing to set it off, even one that had been prearmed and was ready to be released or launched—they had dozens of safety devices and delivery parameters that had to be met before a full nuclear yield could result. If one parameter or interlock was not satisfied, or if there was the slightest bit of damage to a weapon, it simply would not function. It was possible that an accident or internal failure could cause a large non-nuclear explosion, scattering radioactive debris, but a full yield from a damaged weapon, even if it had been prearmed, was virtually impossible.
Bottom line: the nuclear device had to have been set. The protests in Yokusuka Harbor before the Independence set sail would have provided the perfect opportunity for a terrorist to plant a device somewhere on the hull.
But for some reason no one was suggesting this might be the work of a terrorist. There were plenty of so-called experts on all of the networks, and almost all of them were blaming the United States for sloppy handling of nuclear weapons during a time of crisis caused by the United States flying stealth bombers all over Asia. The United States government, and President Kevin Martindale and his administration in particular, were being blamed for the deaths of nearly six thousand American soldiers, the loss of fifteen billion dollars’ worth of military hardware, the astronomical environmental disaster that was likely to occur in northeastern Japan and the northern Pacific Ocean, and for threatening the world with thermonuclear war.
While Roma had a “compose new message” window open on his computer answering other messages, he decided to drop a line to his old teacher and mentor, Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, commander of Eighth Air Force. No doubt Samson was at U.S. Strategic Command headquarters right now, in the huge underground command center that had formerly been the nucleus of the Strategic Air Command. It was a simple message, not demanding a reply: “What’s happening, boss?” along with his phone number and E-mail address. He then forged ahead with the pile of E-mail messages waiting for his response.
Roma was halfway through his list of E-mail messages when he was interrupted by a page. When he tried to return it, he was notified by an electronic voice that he needed a secure telephone to dial it. The only STU phone he knew of was in the command post, so he went over to the command post communications center and dialed the number.
“Samson. Go.”
Roma’s mouth went instantly dry. “General Samson? This is Joe Roma, returning your page.”
“Paisan! How the hell are you?” Terrill Samson asked excitedly. Their times together at the Strategic Warfare Center had always been relaxed and informal, more like a college campus or pro sports team rather than a strict military unit. And Terrill Samson had been like a pro football coach—unrelenting and harsh at practices, demanding and disciplined during the missions, but not afraid to share a cigar and a pitcher of beer or two after a successful game.
“I’m doing fine, sir.”
“Got your message,” Samson said. “I’m sure you’ve got to be knee- deep in the generation out there, right?”
“That’s an understatement, sir,” Roma said.
“You pulling a line?”
“Sortie one,” Roma replied. “The other lines are coming up slow but sure.”
“I thought you were the S-01 crew IOSO.” The S-01 crew Instructor O
ffensive Systems Officer was the number one bombardier of the best, most experienced crew on the base—that slot belonged to Joe Roma.
“They put me with E-05,” Roma said. “Great crew, but they got no experience with SIOP stuff. Hardly anyone does around here—the maintained, logistics, crewdogs, even some of the commanders.”
“That’s why we got you old warhorses pulling crews, paisan,” Samson said. “Something else on your mind, Joe? I’m a little busy.”
“Yeah,” Roma said, his mind reeling after what had to be the understatement of the century. He hesitated a moment, unsure whether or not he should bring this up, then decided, what the hell: “General, what in hell are we doing loading nukes? I’m not criticizing you or my orders, and you know I’ll do the job, but what’s out there that we can’t blow up with a GATS/GAM or conventional cruise missile?”
“Do I have to explain the whole concept of nuclear deterrence to you, paisan?” Samson asked, with only a hint of humor in his voice. “Just do everything by the book and you guys will be fine.”
“Sure, we’ll be fine, sir,” Roma said. “But the whole concept of using forty kilotons to destroy an entire city is silly, when all we need to do to stop the enemy is blow up a command post or comm center or runway. If the nukes did something that conventional bombs couldn’t do, I could understand what’s going on, but the nukes . . . well, hell, sir, you know what I’m talking about. We discussed this lots of times at the SWC.”
“You’re preaching to the choir here, my friend,” Samson said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Give me a few hours and I’ll put together a few B-l sorties that’ll stop the Chinese dead in their tracks,” Roma said confidently. “Load us up with some GBUs and some real defense-suppression stuff and tell us what the targets are, General—me and the boys will take them out for you. We don’t need the nukes.”
“The word came down from CINCSTRATCOM, not me,” Samson said, referring to Admiral Henry T. Danforth, commander in chief of U.S. Strategic Command. “The admiral said he wanted the bombers to go formal to the big dance.|
“Does he really intend to use the nukes, sir?” Roma asked.
“Hell, Joe, you know that all we need to do is prove to the bad guys that we might use them, demonstrate our resolve, and we’ve won,” Samson said. “The boss thinks that generating the bombers and sticking them back on alert will show the Chinese and everyone else that we mean business.”
It was the old Cold War schtick, Roma thought, and frankly, he thought he’d never hear the “party line” from Terrill Samson. Samson’s basic philosophy was very simple: give him an objective, and he’ll find a way to do it. Even if the White House had given Samson a vague order like “Stop China,” Samson would have found a way to do it—and without using nuclear weapons, which Roma knew Samson thought were barbaric at best and murderous at worst. “Loading nukes on the Beaks and Bones isn’t going to convince anyone of anything, sir, and you know it,” Roma argued.
“The word came from on high, paisan ” Samson said. “Too late to argue about it. They tell me ‘jump’—yada, yada, yada, you know the rest.”
“Pardon me for speaking out, sir, but if you want to send the Chinese a message—if you think, like I do, that the Chinese or some radical Japanese planted a backpack nuke on the Independence—then blasting through Chinese air defenses and destroying a couple missile bases will do the trick. They know full well that we won’t start a nuclear war, and we know that the Chinese don’t have the force structure to wage a nuclear war or stage a massive invasion.”
“Joe, I agree with you, but you’ve got to remember that the Independence and three other ships were blown up by a nuclear weapon, and we lost six thousand troops ” Samson said pointedly. “The Joint Chiefs think it was the Chinese, and if it was, it’ll be the second time in a month they’ve attacked American forces and the second time they used nuclear weapons. They’re obviously trying to force the U.S. out of Asia, and the President is not going to allow that. We’re lining up other options, but the President and Secretary of Defense definitely wanted the nuclear forces back on alert until we find out what bases we have available to us overseas and whether or not we can use the carriers.”
“Sir, I understand that the President wants revenge,” Roma said, “but no one out here on the line thinks he’s going to use nukes on anybody. It’s an exercise in futility” He paused, then: “General Samson, the recent skirmish against Iran, the attacks on the targets inside Iran and on that carrier—that was a stealth bomber attack, wasn’t it? You planned those attacks, didn’t you?” Samson didn’t answer right away, so Roma went on: “If so, sir, let’s do it again. Pick the targets in China that are the greatest threat to us or our allies, then send in the B-ls and B-2s. We’ll loudly kick ass for you, I guarantee it.”
There was what felt like a long, uncomfortable pause; then Samson said distractedly, “Stand by one, Joe,” and the line went quiet. Roma wished this conversation had never taken place—he was embarrassing himself in front of his mentor and superior officer. It sounded as if Joe Roma was squeamish about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, or going to war, which he definitely wasn’t. He also felt that perhaps he was being perceived as taking advantage of his access and friendship with Terrill Samson to voice his opinion, which he certainly didn’t need right now.
Suddenly, the line opened up again: “Paisan, you’re on the line right now with another fellow bomber puke. Joe Roma, say hello to Colonel Tony Jamieson, pilot type and ops group commander at Whiteman. Tiger Jamieson, meet Phone Colonel Joe Roma, navigator type, Stan-Eval chief at Ellsworth.” The two aviators exchanged confused “hellos.”
“You are not going to believe this, guys, but you both called me out of the clear blue sky, with no invitation or prompting from me or anyone, within five minutes of one another—and you both suggested the exact same damn thing,” Samson said, with obvious pride in his voice. “We’re busy loading nukes on both the Bones and Beaks, and two of the best heavy drivers in the business call to tell me I’m making a big mistake. Maybe I am.
“You asked about the attacks on Iran, Joe—Tony Jamieson was the AC on all of them, including the five-thousand-mile trek across Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani airspace.”
“You flew those missions, Colonel?” Roma asked incredulously. “I want to hear about all of the missions, sir. It’s exactly the kind of thing we’ve been preaching for years—the power of the long-range bombers, especially the B-2.”
“The Bone would have no problem doing exactly what I did, Roma,” Jamieson said. “We can cruise through Chinese airspace in anything we want—they don’t have the gear to detect us, let alone shoot us down. We damn well proved we can hit any target anywhere in the world, son— only problem is, the mission was classified, and when some little snippet of information leaks out, the President gets hammered for it. But yes, we sure as shit did it.”
“Who was your mission commander, sir?” Roma asked. “I’d like to talk with him, too.”
“You better ask the general about him,” Jamieson said, with a definite edge of sarcastic humor in his voice. “I don’t think I’m at liberty to discuss him. He was a good stick, knew his shit cold, but he scared the bejeezus out of me every time I stepped into the Beak with him.”
“Jamieson’s MC was a guy named McLanahan, Joe.”
“I knew a guy named McLanahan who won all those Fairchild Trophies in Bomb Comp a few years ago,” Roma said. “Kinda hard to forget that name. He won two Bomb Comps while flying B-52s, back when B-ls were the hot new jets to beat.”
“He’s the one,” Samson said. “He’s been working with me on another project, since the White House started getting all the heat about the B-2 raids over Iran. He flies a modified B-52 bomber that is unlike anything you have ever seen. When they grounded the B-2s, I talked the White House into sending a few of these modified B-52s over the Formosa Strait to keep an eye on the Chinese. The plan blew up in my face, although
McLanahan’s BUFFs did okay.”
“Sounds to me like the brass effectively grounded all the heavy bombers, sir,” Jamieson observed. “Loading the fleet up with nukes means they won’t be flying if war breaks out with the PRC.”
“Looks that way, Tiger,” Samson said.
“So now the brass doesn’t believe anything you say, and so if you went back to them and tried to convince them to quit using nukes and plan some long-range strikes with conventional munitions, they probably won’t listen to you,” Jamieson added bluntly. “So where does that leave us?”
“I don’t know if my opinion means squat in the Pentagon or the White House anymore,” Samson said resolutely, “but I’m going to try to put a halt to this nuclear nonsense and get back to the business we’ve been in for forty years now—carrying big-time heavy iron to the enemy. I want you two to put together some attack sorties for us so I can go back to the Pentagon and give them some alternatives.”
“Now you’re talking, General,” Jamieson said happily. “We can get on the network and have some Bone and Beak sorties drawn up right away. ”
“Absolutely,” Roma said excitedly “Til pull some preplanned packages off the shelf and update them with the current intel—and I know, if the plans are approved, that we can generate some non-nuclear planes a hell of a lot faster than the nuclear ones.”
“That’s for damned sure,” Jamieson agreed.
“Then get to it, boys,” Samson said. “Make us proud!”
OVER THE FORMOSA STRAIT. NEAR JUIDONGSHAN. FUJIAN PROVINCE, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
SUNDAY, 22 JUNE 1997. 0245 HOURS LOCAL (SATURDAY, 21 JUNE, 1345 HOURS ET)
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force radar controllers aboard the Ilyushin-76 Candid, an ex-Russian airborne radar plane, spotted the first rebel attack formation just minutes after the aircraft launched from bases at Taichung and Tainan on the island of Formosa. “Attention, attention,” the controller called out excitedly, “enemy aircraft attack formation detected, one hundred twenty miles east of Juidongshan.”
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