by Dale Brown
gunners were blindly sweeping the sky with their guns. The
airspace over the two remaining DF-3 sites was shimmering
with thousands of rounds of artillery shells.
"I got no choice, guys," Elliott said, and he broke off the
bomb run by turning hard right. "We can't go through that
mess."
"Continue your right turn fifty more degrees," Wendy said.
"Let's get a few of these J-8s off our tail while we wait for
those gunners to run out of arnmo." As soon as Elliott rolled
out of his hard right turn, Wendy let one, then two Sidewinders
fly, and both shots were rewarded with bright flashes and flick-
ering streaks of light across the night sky.
"I'm centering up," Elliott shouted, and he yanked the Me-
gafortress over into a hard right turn back toward the DF-3
sites. The blobs of tracers were still slicing through the sky,
forming an impenetrable curtain of deadly bullets all across
the target area. "C'mon, you bastards," Elliott cursed. "You
don't have that much ammo ... you're going to run out any
second--
As if on cue, one stream of tracers abruptly stopped. It was
only one ZSU-37-2 site, but it was enough. Patrick centered
his crosshairs on the second two DF-3 storage sheds, made
FATAL TERRAIN 463
sure the rotary launcher had positioned two more CBU-59
units in the bottom drop position, and made the release. The
terrific explosion that rocked the Megafortress told them the
second attack had been a success.
The two triple-A sites guarding the last DF-3 site swung
west toward them and began raking the sky around them, and
for a moment it seemed as if every antiaircraft artillery site in
front of them got a direct bead on them-but then the shooting
stopped. The triple-A sites had either run out of ammo, or they
had damaged their gun barrels by several minutes of almost
continuous shooting. Elliott centered the computer steering bug
on the last target ... just twenty more seconds, and they'd be
heading home.
The last twenty seconds seemed like twenty hours-but
soon the bomb doors rolled open, and McLanahan shouted,
"Bombs away! Doors coming!"
Brad Elliott ' saw a flash of white light off to his left, and
then his vision exploded into a blaze of stars and his bod felt
@ y
as if he had hit a brick wall.
"Brad's hit!" Nancy Cheshire screamed. The entire left
side of the cockpit appeared as if it had been shredded apart
by a giant tiger's claw. Cheshire grabbed the control stick, then
experimentally juggled the throttles. But the flight-control
computer had already determined that the number one engine
had been destroyed, and the computer immediately had shut
off fuel to the engine, activated the fire-extinguishing system,
and isolated electrical and hydraulic power. "I lost number
one-it's shut down!" she called out. "I still got the airplane!
Sing out back there!"
"Offense is okay!" Patrick responded. He looked over
through the thin haze of smoke and saw Wendy leaning over
in her seat. Her console looked as if a grenade had exploded
inside it, and the windblast from the shattered left cockpit win-
dows was blowing a vortex of smoke and debris back over
Wendy McLanahan. "Jesus! Wendy!"
"I'm all right, I'm all right," they heard over interphone.
... I just got a face full of smoke."
"Hang on, Wendy!"
"No! Patrick, stay strapped in!" Wendy cried out. "I'm
going to stay down here to stay out of the smoke."
"What do you got back there, guys?" Cheshire asked, the
panic rising in her voice.
464 DALE BROWN
"It looks like we got squat," Patrick responded. "The
DSO's station is toast, and my stuff is in reset." He concen-
trated on the red flashing indications on his right-side instru-
ment panel: "The last Striker missile is showing an overternp
condition, but I can't shut it down and I can't jettison it until
my equipment comes back up. I'll try to restart it."
"We got a major problem up here, kids," Nancy Cheshire
said, quickly scanning the instruments. Most of the electronic
instruments were blank; she concentrated on the auxiliary and
backup gauges. "We lost number one, we're on emergency
hydraulic power, and we got one generator left. All I got right
now is the damned whiskey compass. Brad . . . Brad looks real
bad. I think he's.. . "
"Go ahead and say it ... you thought I was dead," Brad
Elliott said. Slowly, painfully, with help from Nancy Cheshire,
he hauled himself upright in his seat, and Cheshire locked his
inertial reel in place.
"Brad!" Patrick shouted. "Are you all right?"
"Hell no," Elliott said, coughing to clear his throat of a
mass of blood. "But they can't kill me that easy." His voice
was barely a whisper over the thunderous roar of the jet blast
coming through the shredded fuselage.
"We're gonna make it, Brad," Cheshire said on interphone.
"Hang on."
Elliott scanned the nearly blank instrument panel and chuck-
led, the laughter quickly changing into a full-body convulsion.
"I highly doubt it," he gasped, after the convulsions stopped.
"Nance, give me a right turn back to the east," Patrick said.
"We'll try to get as close to the Yellow Sea or the Bo Hai as
we can get. Hal and Chris are standing by on Okinawa with
Madcap Magician and the Taiwanese air force-they might be
able to pick us up."
"Muck, we're six hundred goddamn miles from the Yellow
Sea, we're surrounded by fighters, and we're all shot to hell,"
Brad Elliott said. "I got a better idea-we jump out."
"No way," Cheshire said.
"You're a sweetie, and I've always had the hots for you,
co," Elliott said, "but you all know this is the only option.
When those fighters come back, they'll blow us to pieces. I'd
rather not be on board when that happens, thank you very
much."
FATAL TER RAI N 465
"We made it before, Brad," Patrick said. "We can make
it again."
"We're in the middle of Inner Mongolia, hundreds of miles
from help, and we're down to emergency everything," Elliott
said. "We got no choi--
Suddenly, the Megafortress buckled under them and slew
nearly sideways. Cheshire straightened the plane out only by
using both hands on the control stick. "We got hit, number
four's on fire!" she shouted. This time, the computer did not
shut down the engine automatically. Cheshire jammed the
number, four throttle to idle, then to cuToFF, then pulled the
yellow fire T handle to cut off fuel to the engine and activate
its fire extinguisher. "Still got a fire on number four!" Chesh-
ire shouted. "It won't go out! It won't go out!" 'Mere was a
bright flash of light and another violent explosion jerked the
bomber nearly upside down. "Fire! Fire!" Cheshire shouted.
"Eject! Eject! Eject!" Brad Elliott shouted.
Patrick look
ed over at Wendy. She returned his glance-
but that was all the hesitation she allowed herself. She jammed
her fanny back into the seat, straightened her back, pushed the
back of her helmet into the sculpted headrest, tucked her chin
down, crossed her hands, and pulled the ejection ring between
her legs. Her shoulder harness automatically tightened, snap-
ping her shoulders and spine back into the proper position; the
overhead hatch blew off, and she was gone in a blinding cloud
of white smoke. Patrick pulled his handle as soon as he saw
she was gone.
Cheshire looked over at Brad Elliott-and hesitated. "Go!"
she shouted at him. She grabbed the control stick. "I got the
plane! Go! Eject!"
To Nancy Cheshire's complete astonishment, Brad Elliott
reached down beside his ejection seat-and pulled the red
manual man-seat separator knob, then reached up and twisted
the center of his five-point harness clasp on his chest. His
parachute shoulder straps and lap belt fell away with a clatter.
He had detached his parachute from his ejection seat and then
opened up the clasp to his parachute harness! He would never
survive an ejection now! "Brad, what in hell ... ?
Brad Elliott reached over and grasped his control stick and
the throttles. "I got the plane now, Nancy," he said. "Get out
of here. "
"Brad, goddammit, don't do this!"
466 DALE BROWN
"I said, eject!" Elliott shouted.
Nancy Cheshire's eyes were wide with fear, locked onto his
with a questioning stare ... but somewhere in Brad Elliott's
reassuring eyes, she found the answer. She touched his right
hand in thanks, nodded, then assumed the proper ejection po-
sition in her seat and fired her ejection-seat catapult.
"Finally, I get some peace and quiet around here," Brad
Elliott said half aloud.
He didn't need an attack computer or even a compass to do
what he needed to do now. Off in the distance, he could see
flashes of light from another heavy barrage of antiaircraft
fire-it was coming from the last Dong Feng-5 intercontinental
nuclear ballistic missile site, the one that hadn't yet been de-
stroyed. He steered his beautiful creation, his EB-52 Mega-
fortress, right at the tracers.
The fire was still burning brightly on the right wing; he had
no instruments, no weapons, no jammers or countermeasures.
But the Megafortress was still flying. In Brad Elliott's mind,
it would always be still flying.
Ten minutes and two fighter attacks later, it was still flying.
It was still flying, as fast and as deadly as the day, more than
ten years ago, he'd rolled onto his first bomb run over Dream-
land in the Nevada desert, when he nosed the giant bird over
and down, aiming it directly for the door of the last Chinese
DF-5 ICBM missile silo. The Megafortress did not protest, did
not try to fly out of the crash dive, did not give any ground
proximity warning. It was as if it knew that this is what it was
supposed to do, what was finally expected of it.
"Patrick! Wendy!
"Here!" Patrick shouted. Nancy Cheshire limped over to
the voice, and soon found Patrick and Wendy McLanahan.
Thankfully, both appeared unhurt. "You okay, Nance?" Pat-
rick asked.
"I think I broke my damned ankle," Cheshire replied.
"Wendy? You okay?"
"I'm fine," she replied. Patrick had her lying flat on her
back, using their parachutes as a sleeping bag to keep her
comfortable. They both had plastic hip flasks of water out and
were sipping from them. "My back's sore, but I'm okay."
She touched her belly. "I think we're all fine."
FATAL TER RA I N 467
"Did you find BradT , Patrick asked Cheshire. No reply.
"Nance? Did Brad make it out?"
As if in reply, they all looked to the west as a bright flash
of light and a huge column of fire rose into the night sky. It
was not a nuclear mushroom cloud, but the geyser of fire and
the billowing cloud of smoke reflecting the flames of the ex-
ploding DF-5 ICBM sure resembled one. "My God!" Wendy
exclaimed. "That's where the DF-5 is, isn't it? Is Terrill Sam-
son still flying bombers out here? How did ... ?"
" Brad," Patrick breathed. He looked from the exploding DF-
5 to Nancy Cheshire. "He didn't make it out, did he?"
"He made it," Cheshire replied with a smile. "He made it ...
exactly where he wanted to go."
IN GENERAL, IN BATTLE ONE
ENDURES THROUGH STRENGTH AND
GAINS VICTORY THROUGH SPIRIT
WHEN THE HEART'S
FOUNDAT ';ON IS SOLID, A NEW
SURGE OF CH't WILL
BRING VICTORY."
-from 'Me Methods of
the Ssu-Ma,
Fourth century B.
Chinese military text
BRUNEI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, BANDAR SERI
BEGAWAN, THE SULTANATE OF BRUNEI
TUESDAY, I JULY 1997, 1200 HOURS LOCAL
(MONDAY, 30 JUNE, 2300 HOURS ET)
Oddly enough, the jets that pulled off to an isolated part of
Brunei International Airport and maneuvered beside each other
nose-to-tail were both Gulfstrearn IV long-range business j ets-
but one was in the red and white livery of the Chinese Civil
Aeronautical Administration, and the other was in the plain
white with blue trim of the United States Air Force. Guards
of the Sultan of Brunei's Gurkha Reserve Unit, the elite par-
amilitary palace guard, ringed the parking ramp, while armored
personnel carriers and heavily armed Humvees roamed the
area beyond.
The inner guards seemed oblivious to the noise of the Chi-
469
470 DALE BROWN
nese Gulfstrearn as it pulled into its assigned parking spot. It
did not shut down its engines. A set of stairs had been rolled
out and placed near the exit door on the port side of the Chi-
nese Gulfstream; the USAF Gulfstrearn had used an integral
airstair that extended from the plane itself, and the exit door
was already open and ready. Two lines of GRU commandos
quickly formed between both sets of stairs, and one guard
carrying an infantry rifle was stationed at the top of the stairs
of each plane.
The door of the Chinese Gulfstrearn opened, and a lone man
wearing a plain gray tunic appeared and stepped down the
stairs. At the same time, a lone individual in a plain dark
business suit walked down the USAF Gulfstream's airstair.
They walked across the ramp between the two lines of armed
GRU commandos and met in the center of the tarmac. They
regarded each other for a moment; then the American made a
slight, polite bow. The Chinese man smiled, made an evull
slighter nod, then extended a hand. The American shook it
hesitantly. No words were exchanged. Both men turned,
walked a few paces away, turned sideways in front of the GRU
commandos, then looked toward their respective aircraft.
At that, several individuals began emerging from both the
USAF and CAA jets and
stepped down the airstairs. Ten men
wearing blue and white polyester jogging suits and white run-
ning shoes emerged from the USAF jet; two women and one
man, wearing white baggy peasant's outfits and sandals,
stepped off the Chinese jet. In single file, the two columns of
individuals walked across the tarmac between the GRU com-
mandos. The men who came off the USAF jet walked more
and more quickly until they were virtually running up the air-
stairs into the Chinese jet, but the American man and two
women prisoners strode deliberately, proudly, toward the
USAF plane.
All except the last man of each side. As if by some unspo-
ken signal, the two men slowed, then paused as they passed
each other. The Chinese man straightened his shoulders, then
bowed to the other prisoner and said in English, "Good for-
tune to you, Colonel Patrick Shane McLanahan. Happy Reu-
nification. Day."
"Same to you, Admiral Sun Ji Guorning," Patrick Mc-
Lanahan said. They bowed to each other again. McLanahan
glared at Chinese Minister of Defense Chi Haotian, gave him
FATAL T ER RAI N 471
a smile, then said in a loud voice, "Happy Reunification Day,
Minister Chi." Chi Haotian's face was an expressionless,
stony mask as he turned and headed quickly back to his wait-
ing aircraft.
"Welcome home, Colonel McLanahan," the American in
the dark business suit, Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain,
said. He clasped McLanahan on the shoulder and steered him
toward the waiting Gulfstream.
"Whatever," McLanahan said tonelessly as he boarded the
Air Force C-20H Gulfstrearn for the long ride home. Gunnery
Sergeant Chris Wohl, on guard at the top of the airstairs with
an M-16 rifle with a M-206 grenade launcher attached, gave
Patrick a "way to go" smile and nod as they passed one an-
other. McLanahan did not return the sentiment.
Only when the wheels were up and they were heading east
on their way back to the United States did Patrick McLanahan
finally shed the tears of joy, and tears of sorrow, that had been
welling up in him for the past ten years.