“I brought bad news, then,” Wendy McLanahan said. “Terrill Samson called from Offutt. He’s been relieved of duty as commander of Combined Task Force Three.”
“Oh, shit,” Patrick exclaimed. “How did that happen?”
“One word—CINCSTRATCOM. Henry Danforth,” Elliott said. “He’s a younger but stupider clone of George Balboa. He doesn’t know how to handle the heavy bomber fleet and doesn’t trust Samson or anyone else to run the fleet for him, because he’s afraid the Air Force would kick ass and overshadow the carriers and Navy air.”
“He got into an argument with CINCSTRATCOM over releasing some of the B-ls and B-2s for conventional missions,” Wendy said. “I guess the argument got too personal.”
“He probably asked for Major-General Collier to replace him, Samson’s vice at Barksdale,” Elliott guessed. “Collier’s a good guy, but he hasn’t run a wing in almost ten years. Samson’s the bomber guy. I think we’re aced out completely.”
“At least Earthmover was in there trying to get STRATCOM steered in the right direction,” Patrick McLanahan said. “The bombers don’t belong in the nuclear mission now—probably not ever. If the shit really hits the fan and we have to go nuclear, the subs and ICBMs are the best weapons then—we should be using the bombers for non-nuclear strikes deep into China. But with the B-52s retired and the B-ls and B-2s stuck on nuclear alert, there’s no long-range aircraft to be used for non-nuclear strikes.”
“So we’re out of it,” Elliott summarized with an exasperated sigh. “We busted our nuts and risked our necks out here for nothing. Man, what else could go wrong today? ”
Just then, a gentleman with a dark suit and tie—definitely the last outfit one would expect to see on the tropical island of Guam in late June—walked into Elliott’s room. “Mr. and Mrs. McLanahan? General Elliott?”
“Wrong room,” Elliott said immediately. “Get out.”
“I’m McLanahan,” Patrick said.
The man immediately placed an envelope into his hands, then walked over and did the same to Wendy and Brad Elliott. “Order to appear,” the man said.
“What in hell is this?”
“Federal court in Washington, five days from now,” the guy said. “Have a nice evening.” He walked out.
“Balboa’s for real, all right,” Patrick McLanahan said as he opened the summons. “The list of charges against us is two friggin’ pages long.”
“I’ll get these over to the Sky Masters attorneys and get the paperwork started on this,” Wendy said, taking the summons and giving Elliott a kiss on the cheek and her husband a kiss on the lips. “Don’t you boys worry about this. Brad, get some sleep, please.”
“I will, babe,” Elliott said, giving her a reassuring smile. She left McLanahan and Elliott alone. The ex-three-star general nodded toward the door. “Shit. I always thought I’d buy the farm in the cockpit of a B- 52 after just saving the world from thermonuclear meltdown. Instead, I’ll go down in a fucking federal courtroom with a bunch of lawyers sucking my guts out through my ass with a straw. ”
“I know how you feel, Brad,” McLanahan said. He took a chair beside his friend’s bed, folded his hands on his knees, and stared at the floor, looking as if he were at confession or praying. “I’m sorry about what I said the other day, Brad. ...”
“Forget it, Mack.”
“I’m serious. I’m really sorry.” He paused, then went on in a quiet voice. “You know, all I wanted to do was fly. All I ever wanted to be was a flyer. Jon Masters is great, and he’s fun and exciting to work with, and the money is great, and it’s good to be working with Wendy in a low-stress environment, but the truth is, I don’t want to be a corporate executive weenie. Wendy likes that stuff, but I’m strangling to death. Jon fixates on the bottom line, the profits and the publicity and the prestige he gets when he goes for another big defense contract. I don’t look at it that way.”
“I know you don’t,” Elliott said with a satisfied smile. “I know you, Patrick. Ever since the day I first met you, I was inside your head. I had you pegged.” He chuckled as he remembered the day, so long ago and so far away. “You with your flight suit unzipped, no scarf, your boots looking like you polished them with a Brillo pad. You’d just won your second Fairchild Trophy. You were hell on wheels, the hottest hand in the Air Force, Top Bomb. Any other crewdog would have traded the name and the trophies for a choice assignment. You could have worked for a dozen CINCs all over the world. You could have had a staff of twenty at the Pentagon. Two- and three-star generals were fighting each other to get to endorse your officer effectiveness reports. But you, standing in the hallway with your beer and your give-a-shit attitude—all you wanted was to climb aboard the B-52 and drop some more shack bombs. You told me so, and you’ve proved it a dozen times since. Why would I think you’d ever change?”
Patrick laughed as his thoughts interlinked with Elliott’s, through time and space, from the present to the past and back again over dozens of battles, through tragedy and triumph. “Hell, I think Ive got to change, General. I’m afraid I’ll get left behind—” And then he stopped abruptly, his cheeks flushing red under his longish blond hair.
“You were going to say ‘left behind like you,’-like me, right, Muck?” Elliott said. Patrick raised a pair of sad, apologetic blue eyes at his friend and mentor, to the man he had just betrayed with his thoughts. Elliott smiled reassuringly back. “Hey, Muck, it’s okay. I see myself in you, Patrick, but sure as shit, you’re not like me. I get things done by blasting ahead, by kicking ass and doing things my way and to hell with anyone that thinks they know better than me. You don’t do it that way. You plan, you train, you build, and you let the smart commanders and the smart decision-makers come to you. You’re smart, working with guys like Jon Masters—I can only stand the skinny dweeb for a few minutes a day and that’s it. We’re different, Muck. You’re the future of the Air Force, bud.”
“Some future,” McLanahan said. “In five days, we’ll be entering a plea in front of a federal judge on about twenty different charges. We could go to prison for ten years.”
“In five days, you’ll be a commanding officer in charge of the greatest strike force the planet has ever seen, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat,” Elliott corrected him proudly. “And after that, you’ll take your rightful place in the world. It won’t be behind a desk, and it won’t be in a federal prison. That’s my prediction.”
McLanahan smiled a cautious, hopeful smile, but Elliott extended a confident, reassuring hand, and the young bombardier took it warmly. “I like the way you think, sir,” he told him.
At that moment the door to the room opened, and a gentleman in a dark suit and tie, similar to the federal marshal’s, came in. McLanahan quickly stood, blocking the man’s path, and motioned for the man to step outside. “Excuse me, sir, but the general needs his rest and can’t be disturbed right now. ”
“Hold on, Muck,” Elliott said. “You don’t remember this gent, do you? Ambassador Kuo Han-min, meet Colonel Patrick McLanahan, my friend and colleague. ” The Asian gentleman smiled a very pleased and excited smile, bowed, and extended a hand. “Mack, meet Ambassador Kuo Han-min, ambassador to the United States from the newly independent Republic of China. You ran into each other outside the White House Oval Office, remember?” McLanahan’s expression told Kuo that he remembered, which pleased him even more.
“What are you doing here, Ambassador?” McLanahan asked as the ambassador took his hand and shook it. “How did you get on base? How did you know to find us here?”
“I told him, of course,” Elliott said. McLanahan turned a shocked grimace toward his ex-boss. “Hell, Muck, don’t act so damned shocked— you knew it all the time. I talked to Kuo before our patrols began over the Formosa Strait; Eve talked to him almost every day since. We’ve coordinated our moves as much as we could over the past month.” McLanahan could do nothing but nod—yes, he knew, or at least strongly suspected, that Brad Elliott was sharing informati
on with Taiwan all the time, not just before the initial patrol but ever since then.
“Very pleased to meet you, Colonel,” Kuo said with a warm, admiring smile. “You are a very great hero in my country. Many members of my government and my military wish to meet you and extend to you every courtesy and honor. ”
“I appreciate it, Mr. Ambassador,” McLanahan said, trying to stay polite despite his uneasy feeling that Brad Elliott was tiptoeing on the very thin line between cooperation between allies and treason. “Someday I’d like to visit Taiwan. I’ve never been there before.” His tired voice, however, signaled that it might be a very long time before he got the opportunity to visit anywhere but a rec room in a minimum-security prison facility.
“I have heard of your legal troubles, my friend,” Kuo said. “It is very unfortunate that your bravery is not rewarded by your own government. I wish there was some way we could help.”
“Perhaps you could tell us about the attacks you staged against China, sir,” McLanahan suggested.
“Of course,” Kuo said. “The attacks were planned as preemptive strikes against the communications, headquarters, and fuel-storage facilities that might be used in an attack against Quemoy Tao, which our intelligence said would be the Communists’ first target.”
“Did you know the PRC had nuclear-armed surface-to-air missiles?”
Kuo shrugged. “Yes, Colonel, we knew,” he replied. “We know of many Communist nuclear weapon deployments, both tactical and strategic. Part of he strike against Xiamen was against their suspected nuclear-armed Hai Ying-2 and Ying Ji-6 land-based anti-ship missiles.”
“Nuclear anti-ship missiles?”
“The Communists have an extensive menu of tactical nuclear weapons, Colonel, similar to the American arsenal in the 1960s and 1970s,” Kuo said. “Their ships carry short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, and their subs use nuclear-tipped torpedoes and can lay nuclear-armed mines, similar to the Mk 57. They employed nuclear cruise missiles from their long-range bombers on their attacks on my country, and we believe they can launch medium-range ballistic missiles from their heavy bombers as well. The world has looked the other way for many decades, but we on Taiwan have lived under the shadow of a powerful nuclear adversary.”
“Shit,” McLanahan swore. “No one ever suspected they had a nuclear arsenal like that. Have you ever shared this information with the American government?”
“Always, but our information was disregarded as unreliable, biased, and unverifiable,” Kuo said. “I believe your government simply chose not to believe our information, that starting a war with China over its military hardware would mean financial and economic disaster to your country. Many other pieces of information were discarded by your government. We reported the actual size of the Communists’ amphibious assault fleet to your chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff directly, but your official published estimates did not reflect this. We reported the Communists’ advanced ballistic missile capabilities, including air- and sea-launched M-9 nuclear ballistic missiles, but that went unheeded as well. The Republic of Iran has far less military hardware than Communist China, and you sent your stealth bombers over there secretly to bomb their bases—but for some odd reason, your government refuses to punish China for its aggression.
“Our information is reliable,” Kuo went on, “and we expected the Communists to begin using these weapons against us at any time. We believed the Mao battle group and their attempted attack on Quemoy to be the first step. The attack on Quemoy by nuclear missiles fired by the carrier Mao Zedong that you stopped with your amazing EB-52 Megafortress was typical of the People’s Liberation Army. Since then, however, their tactics have become very confusing, very unconventional—not at all like the Peoples Liberation Army and its leadership. The attack on the Mao was obviously a complicated and well-orchestrated ruse.
“Your sub was caught in the immediate vicinity, and reports said the PLAN recovered pieces of torpedoes used by your navy,” McLanahan pointed out. “It could be a well-planned ruse—or it could have been an attack by your submarine.”
“Our submarine did not fire on the carrier,” Kuo insisted. “Yes, we were shadowing the carrier, but we did not attack. ”
“Can you prove it?”
“The Communists covered their tracks very effectively by sinking the submarine instead of capturing it,” Kuo said. “We cannot prove our contention—just as it is difficult for you to prove that your frigates were fired upon by underwater-launched rocket torpedoes. The faked attack against your frigates, in which you were involved? Pure genius, if I may say so. Setting off the underwater-launched rocket torpedoes at the same time a passenger ferry cruises near the area, a ferry equipped with radio emitters to make it appear like a warship? The sheer imagination of the plan must be applauded, do you not agree?”
“I agree,” McLanahan said. It was the only possible explanation, and one that he had suspected right from the start. “So this leaves us alone, isolated, and with China holding all the cards. They’ve got the world believing both Taiwan and the United States are trying to provoke a war— and in trying to defend themselves, they seem to be given tacit permission to use nuclear weapons.”
“After Taiwan, the South China Sea and Spratly Islands will fall to the Communists—as you have stated, Colonel, they will be allowed to defend their new conquests with nuclear weapons,” Kuo said grimly. “The entire world will be in danger if the Communists are allowed to control access to the South China Sea.” He paused, looking first at Elliott, then McLanahan. “We were praying for a miracle, that your amazing EB- 52 Megafortresses might be able to come to our defense once again.”
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of us getting those planes back into action,” Elliott said. “It would take a small army to move those Navy security policemen. And even then, we’d have no place to take them.”
McLanahan had been quiet for several long moments, but now he was looking at Kuo and Elliott, a glimmer of an idea in his eyes. “We can get them off Guam,” he said.
“You and what army, Muck?” Elliott asked.
“Getting past the marshals and Navy security is the easy part,” McLanahan said with a sly smile. “But if we fly the Megafortresses back to the States, they’ll be ground up into asphalt filler in a matter of days, and we’ll be in front of a federal court judge fighting for own freedom and the survival of our company. We need a base of operations. Sky Masters, Inc., has a support base on Saipan, and he has pretty good connections with the sultan of Brunei, who would probably be happier than hell to have the Megafortresses based in his country.”
“If you are able to get your aircraft off Guam with weapons and support personnel, I have a base you can use,” Ambassador Kuo said proudly. “We have skilled aircraft technicians, a good supply of fuel and ordnance, and very good security.”
“A base on Taiwan?” McLanahan asked. Kuo bowed in assent with great enthusiasm. “With all due respect, sir, Taiwan has been hit pretty hard. It might be too dangerous.”
“It would be, as you might say, the last place anyone would look for your EB-52 Megafortresses,” Ambassador Kuo said with an unabashed grin. “Please, Colonel McLanahan, let me explain. ...”
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, AGANA, GUAM
MONDAY, 23 JUNE 1997, 1901 HOURS LOCAL (SUNDAY, 22 JUNE. 0401 HOURS ET)
The “six-pack” crew truck pulled up to the first hangar on the north side of the aircraft parking apron, and was immediately surrounded by U.S. Marines in green-and-black battle dress uniforms carrying M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders. As Patrick and Wendy McLanahan, Brad Elliott, Nancy Cheshire, and Jon Masters stepped out of the big pickup truck and began unloading their gear, a Navy officer in a clean, neatly pressed white tropical uniform met up with them, accompanied by a security guard wearing black fatigues with “U.S. MARSHAL” in yellow across his chest.
“A little late to be out working, isn’t it, Mr. McLanahan?” the Navy offi
cer asked. He glared at Brad Elliott, obviously surprised to see him up and about. Elliott gave him his best mischievous grin in return.
“Not if we want to depart by tomorrow night,” Patrick replied. The rest of his crew tried to carry their gear past the Marine guards, but were stopped by a raised hand from the Navy officer. Patrick put his bags down at his side. “Is there a problem, Commander Willis?”
U.S. Navy Commander Eldon Willis pointed at the bags of flight gear, and the federal marshal and a Marine guard began searching them. Willis was the commander of security forces at Agana Naval Base on Guam, sent up to Andersen Air Force Base to personally supervise the security on the EB-52 Megafortresses ordered by Admiral George Balboa, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Willis took this assignment very seriously and knew that it might be a path to getting an assignment for the Chief of Naval Operations or even for Balboa. “I didn’t expect you out here tonight, Mr. McLanahan.” He turned to Elliott. “And I certainly did not expect you either, General. I hope you’re feeling better, sir.” He used the words “sir” and “General,” but it was obvious that Willis offered no sign of respect to the retired Air Force three-star.
“Peachy, Willis, just peachy,” Elliott said, with his maddening grin. Willis gave him a sneer along with a slight bow.
In the meantime, the guards finished their inspections. “Tech orders and checklists, Commander,” the marshal reported. “No flying gear.”
The Navy security officer nodded, disappointed that they hadn’t found anything a little more incriminating. “I hope you weren’t planning on running engines tonight,” Willis said.
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