“You don’t understand, Senator—this attack doesn’t involve any American military forces,” the President said. “I haven’t authorized any air attacks against China.”
“But whoever’s done it really did a good job,” Freeman added. “Initial estimates say that up to one-tenth of the Chinese invasion force that had amassed in southern Fujian province near Xiamen was destroyed or crippled—that could be as much as fifteen, twenty thousand troops and thousands of vehicles. Components of four infantry divisions have been badly hit.”
“Four divisions?” Secretary of Defense Chastain remarked. “It must’ve taken three or four heavy bomb wings to do that kind of damage.
“You’re joking, right?” Senator Barbara Finegold asked, searching the President’s and each of his advisors’ faces carefully for any signs of playacting. “You’re telling me that someone—you don’t know who—has just killed as many as twenty thousand men, and you don’t know who it was?”
“That’s right, Senator,” the President replied with a sly smile. “But whoever it is, they probably deserve a medal . . . unless they plunge us into global thermonuclear war in the next few minutes.”
“Jesus Christ...” Joseph Crane gasped. “You seem pretty damn casual about this, Mr. Martindale! ”
“There’s not a damn thing I can do about what’s happening out there, Mr. Crane,” the President said, with his sly grin again. The only sign of concern on his face were the two silver locks of hair curling down over his forehead, but both Crane and Finegold were too stunned to notice. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re going to start monitoring this situation.” The President and his advisors did not wait until the members of Congress recovered from their surprise before he stepped quickly out of the Oval Office to his private study.
OVER SOUTH-CENTRAL CHINA
THAT SAME TIME
David Luger counted no fewer than twenty Chinese fighters buzzing in their area—it was a miracle the EB-52 Megafortress did not collide with them.
Luger and the crew of the Megafortress were skimming less than 200 feet above the southwest side of the high, steep Tienmu Mountains. The area was dotted with dozens of small mining towns, and it took a lot of course changes to stay away from them as they headed northbound. McLanahan and Elliott would have liked their overall cruising altitude to be much lower—some of the Chinese fighter patrols were going down as low as 10,000 feet to look for the Megafortress—but that was impossible in this area. The valley floors were 500 to 1,000 feet above sea level, but would rise to 5,000, 6,000, even 7,000 feet in less than ten miles. The EB-52 was operating at peak efficiency, but even lightly loaded it could not climb more than 3,000 feet per minute without ballooning over a ridge.
Finally, even after all their aggressive maneuvering, there was no place for them to hide. Northeast of the city of Jingdezhen were ten small- to medium-size mining towns; to the west was the Poyang Lake flood-plain, along with a Chinese fighter base at Anqing, just fifty miles to the northwest. “Crew, I’m going to take us between two of those mining towns to the north,” Patrick McLanahan said. “We can’t go any farther west. High terrain is east and northeast; min safe altitude is five thousand feet on this leg, then six thousand one hundred on the next leg. We’re five minutes to the release point. I’m setting five-hundred-foot clearance plane for this leg so we don’t balloon over these upcoming ridges.”
It was a good plan of action, but the odds were turning against them.
As soon as the Megafortress climbed to establish the new clearance plane settings, a large S symbol appeared on Luger’s threat display, which immediately went from blue to yellow and then briefly to red. Luger activated the Megafortress’s trackbreakers, designed to “walk” a targettracking or height-finder radar away from a solid lock with the bomber, but not before the radar got a good two- or three-second track on the bomber. “Search radar, eleven o’clock, momentary height-finder lock- on—ah, shit, that’s why, they got a repeater radar off at one o’clock, up on a mountain peak,” Luger shouted. “I think they got us. Trackbreakers are active. They’ll keep the height-finder shut down, but we can expect company. ”
“Looks like we might have to attack a target of opportunity here,” McLanahan said. He quickly expanded his God’s-eye picture on his supercockpit display, then touched the icon for the Anqing fighter base. Anqing North was a small but active airfield that sat almost directly on a marshy tributary of the Chang Jiang River and right at the base of a 2,500-foot peak. The base had two medium-length runways, forming a T, and was laid out in typical fashion: the main base was located on the west, the housing area to the south, and the flight operations area to the northeast. McLanahan zoomed into the flight operations area of the base, which automatically called up recent NIRTSat photoradar satellite reconnaissance data from the EB-52’s downloaded satellite data memory banks.
Although the raw reconnaissance images did not identify each particular building, Patrick McLanahan knew enough about the layout of a military air base to identify what he needed to know: the mass aircraft parking area, where over fifty J-6, J-7, and J-8 fighters were parked and fueled in preparation for a mission, was concentrated in one spot, in front of a very large building in the north-central portion of the flight operations sector of the base; and the big building housed the fighter wing headquarters, flying squadron headquarters, and the wing command post and communication center. McLanahan immediately programmed one Striker missile for the center of the mass parking ramp, and one missile for the center of the headquarters building.
“Stand by for pylon Striker launch, crew,” he called out. He hit the voice-command switch: “Launch one pylon Striker missile on new target zulu.”
WARNING, STRIKER LAUNCH COMMIT ORDER.
“Commit Striker launch,” McLanahan repeated.
WARNING, STRIKER missile launch, the attack computer responded, and the Striker missile in the left-wing weapons pod ignited its first-stage rocket motor and blasted skyward. It unfolded its large fins seconds after launch, reaching 10,000 feet in just a few seconds. It glided efficiently for about fifteen miles, dropping down to about 6,000 feet, before firing its second-stage rocket motor and climbing back up to 15,000 feet, when it began its powered ballistic dive onto its target. “Second Striker pylon missile launch coming up, crew,” McLanahan said. “Pilot, give me a slight climb up to six thousand feet so we can get a good datalink signal.”
The first Striker missiles terminal guidance sensor activated just eleven seconds prior to impact, and McLanahan switched to low-light TV mode. It showed the lights of the city of Anqing to the south and the smaller blotches of light a few miles north. As the missile closed in, McLanahan could start to make out the air base itself—the missile was guiding in perfectly. He could then see sparkles of light around the base—antiaircraft artillery fire. The missile continued its deadly plunge. McLanahan s fingers nestled on the steering-control trackball, but he never had to touch it—because the Striker missile plowed directly on target, right in the middle of the parking ramp. He could barely make out the outlines of a half-dozen blunt-nosed jets and a fuel truck just seconds before the 2,000 pound high-explosive missile hit. McLanahan switched to the second Striker missile just as its terminal guidance sensor activated. Good, the second missile appeared to be going right on target.
“Baudits, close in, nine o'clock!” Luger shouted. At the same instant, a loud, fast-pitched deedledeedledeedle tone and a verbal “MISSILE LAUNCH! ” warning sounded in their headsets. “Break left!” A Chinese Sukhoi-27 fighter leading a flight of two J-8 fighters had used the information from Anqing’s brief search radar lock on the EB-52 Megafortress to guide themselves within range of its Infrared Search and Track sensor, so it could close within missile range without using its attack radar— only the Megafortress’s passive infrared threat warning system had seen them coming. The Chinese fighters launched their heat-seeking missiles at optimum range, less than four miles away.
Brad Elliott yanked the
Megafortresss control stick hard left until the bomber rolled right into a full ninety-degree bank, then he pulled until he heard fibersteel screeching in protest. Luger was pumping decoys and flares out the right-side ejectors. Elliott ignored the stall warning horn, ignored Nancy Cheshire’s screams that they were going to stall, ignored the initial buffet, the point at which disturbed airflow over the wings starts pounding on the trailing edges of the wings.
The Megafortress could lose 300 knots of airspeed and be for all intents out of control—but Elliott knew, from over ten years’ experience in this creation of his, exactly what the point of no return was. It was the departure break, the point at which the turbulent airflow over the wing that was causing all the pounding and shaking suddenly starts to break free of the wing completely, and lift rapidly bleeds off. The Megafortress’s crew were crushed down into their ejection seats as Elliott pulled to tighten the turn, but seconds later they felt light in their seats as the bomber started to drop out from under them. The Megafortress would stop flying in less than two seconds—time to roll wings level. At that point, the Megafortress was turning at four Gs, sixty degrees per second, as fast as or even faster than the Chinese fighters could ever turn. The Megafortress flew out of the lethal cone of five PL-2 missiles . . .
. . . but not away from the sixth deadly missile. One of the six Pen Lung-2 missiles was fooled by the hot, noisy decoy gliders, missed by several dozen yards, and exploded as its fuzing timer battery ran out—but the fast-turning EB-52 flew right into the exploding missile’s lethal radius. Its shaped-charge high-explosive warhead blew a continuous rod of steel into the left rear side of the cockpit, decompressing the cabin and hitting Dave Luger with small pieces of shrapnel and fibersteel.
The cabin was already partially depressurized, but the sudden breach of the cabin seemed to have sucked the air out of every one of the crew members. But Dave Luger still found enough air in his lungs to scream aloud. “Shit!” he swore, holding his head with his left hand. A piece of shrapnel had ripped through the bulkhead and ricocheted off his instrument console before cutting painfully into his left thigh and left fore-arm and pinging off his helmet near his left temple. Luger looked down in surprise at the dark bloody gashes that had appeared as suddenly as a stroke of lightning. He felt no pain—yet. It was almost humorous for him to think that he had just been injured—again—flying a Megafortress mission. “Cripes, Muck,” he said to McLanahan, as his partner turned to him in horror. “I think I just got nailed again.”
McLanahan was out of his seat in a second, leaving the second Striker missile on its own. The second Striker, with no guidance inputs, relied solely on its own GPS satellite updates and its onboard nav computers and flew itself to its preprogrammed target coordinates, hitting sixty-eight feet north of the center of the Anqing fighter base’s headquarters building. The 2,000-pound high-explosive missile leveled half of the three- story concrete building in a blinding flash of fire and a powerful earth-shattering blast.
“This is bull, Muck,” Luger was saying. “How come I always get injured on one of these things? When is it going to be your turn? I always ...” But then he looked down and saw that three long, angry red rips like huge tiger’s claws arced across McLanahan’s left shoulder and side across his back. “Jeez, Muck, you got hit too, dammit.” A surge of energy coursed through Luger, and he helped his longtime friend and partner back into his own seat and helped him strap back in. McLanahan was already looking woozy, and Luger helped him reattach his oxygen mask, secured up to his face, and made sure he was on 100-percent oxygen.
“Stay with me, Patrick,” Luger said, cross-cockpit. McLanahan nodded wearily, as Luger strapped himself back in and made sure his oxygen was on and 100 percent too.
“Where are the fighters, guys?” Nancy Cheshire shouted on interphone. The Megafortress was still mushy, right at the edge of the stall. Elliott and Cheshire could do nothing but keep the wings level, the nose below the horizon, and wait for the airspeed to come back—they hoped that would happen before they ran out of altitude. Cheshire shouted, “How are we on the cumulogranite, Muck?” No immediately reply. “You guys okay back there?”
“We’re both hit, dammit,” Luger responded.
“What?” Both Elliott and Cheshire snapped their heads around to look. “You guys okay?”
“Clear of terrain ahead, head westbound only—very high terrain north, south, and east,” McLanahan shouted by way of response, his voice strained. “You’re cleared down to three thousand feet in this area if you need it. When you can, give me a heading of three-four-zero. We’re okay.”
“Turns are a no-no right now,” Cheshire said. “They don’t sound very good. I’ll go check them over. You got it, General?”
“I got the plane, Nance,” Elliott acknowledged. They transferred controls with a positive shake of the control stick. Cheshire stepped out of her seat and crawled under the aft instrument console to check on both navigators.
“You’re both bleeding like stuck pigs,” Cheshire said as she examined their wounds. She looked across and saw small, jagged shrapnel holes in the fuselage. “Pilot, better check the instruments—we might have taken some damage.”
“I got my hands full as it is, co,” Elliott said.
“Dave took a crack in his head and a couple in the leg and arm,” Cheshire reported on interphone. “Muck got a bunch in the back, left side, and left shoulder. You guys are going to have some cool scars to show your grandkids. Your seat-attachment shoulder harness is cut, Patrick— if we get in trouble, and if you get the time, think about using one of the downward-ejecting seats.”
“Thanks, Nance,” McLanahan said. “I’ll keep it in mind. But as long as we’re sucking dirt here, I’ll stay in this seat.”
“Okay.” Cheshire found the first-aid kit and slapped as many large bandages and compresses on the biggest gashes as she could. “You GIBs will live,” she said to the “Guys In Back.” McLanahan’s wounds looked the worst, but the blow to Luger’s head worried her the most—he would have to be checked carefully for signs of a concussion or other head trauma. “Just please advise us before you pass out, okay, Dave?”
“Anything for you, Nancy,” Luger replied. Cheshire gave Luger a wink and went quickly back to her seat and strapped in tightly.
“Where are those fighters?” Elliott asked.
“I’m going to do a radar sweep,” Luger said, fighting off a wave of dizziness and nausea every time he moved his head. “Radar coming on.” He activated the omnidirectional radar for a few seconds, then turned it back to standby. “Fighters are turning right to pursue, at five o’clock high, eight miles.”
“We’re coming to the river floodplain area,” McLanahan said. “Set for COLA altitude again. We’ve got four minutes until we get into any high terrain again.”
“The search radar is down,” Luger announced, “so they’ll have a tougher time finding us. We’ll—” Just then, the threat warning receiver bleeped again: “Fighters at six o’clock, coming inside six miles, I think they got a lock on us! Give me a hard turn to the right.”
“Can’t turn yet!” Cheshire shouted. “We’re still not above three hundred knots!”
“I need a right turn fast! ”
“Where are they?”
“Radar coming on . . .” Luger activated the attack radar, and immediately the warning tones sounded again: “Bandits, six o’clock, five miles! ” he shouted. He instinctively activated the Stinger tail airmine cannon . . . before realizing with shock, “Shit! No tail cannon rounds! Activating Scorpion missiles!” But before he could command a AIM-120 launch, the crew heard, “MISSILE LAUNCH, MISSILE LAUNCH!”
“Break right!” Luger shouted.
“We can’t!” Cheshire shouted back. “We got no airspeed! No airspeed!”
Luger ejected flares and decoy gliders again—but it was too late. The missiles were in the air, headed right for them . . .
. . . no, not for them! Seconds before they launched fro
m four miles behind the EB-52 Megafortress, the two Chinese J-8 fighters were hit by Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, fired by two Taiwanese F-16 fighters. The F-16s had broken off from the returning bombing pack to escort the EB- 52 Megafortress on its separate strike route. The F-16s could receive datalink information from the EB-52’s radar, so it knew where to look for the Chinese fighters; then, using their Falcon Eye infrared sensors, similar to the Sukhoi-27’s Infrared Search and Track sensor, the F-16s were able to sneak up on the Chinese fighters without being detected themselves.
The Chinese Sukhoi-27 was still alive, however, and now he was fighting mad. He broke off the attack on the Megafortress, wheeled, immediately pounced on the two F-16s, and fired two PL-2 missiles into one of the F-16s. The second F-16 was alone, trapped right in the crosshairs of the faster and equally nimble Su-27 . . .
No, not quite alone. “Attack radar on . . . commit Scorpion launch on air target X ray,” Luger ordered, and he fired two over-the-shoulder AIM-120 missiles at the Su-27. Moments before the Su-27 closed in for the kill, he was blasted apart by a double hit of Scorpion radar-guided missiles. “Splash one -27,” he announced.
“Thank you, Headbanger,” the Megafortress crew heard over the emergency UHF channel in heavily accented English. “Good luck, good hunting. ”
“The F-16 is heading home,” Luger said, as he studied his threat display. “But he’s three hundred miles off his flight plan. I don’t know if he’ll have the fuel to make it all the way back to Kai-Shan.”
“Yes, he will,” McLanahan said. He quickly composed a satellite transceiver message on his terminal. “I’ll send in Jon Masters’s tanker aircraft. They can do a low-level pickup emergency refueling over the coast.”
“Jon’s tanker ever do an emergency refueling before?” Elliott asked.
“Hell no,” McLanahan said. “I don’t think Jon’s tanker has ever refueled any other plane except a Megafortress and a couple others, and I know for sure that none of the Taiwanese pilots have refueled from Jon’s DC-10. But now’s a damned good time to learn. We don’t need the fuel right now—the Taiwanese F-16 does.”
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