by Dale Brown
“Get back here!” the pilot of the A-5K shouted furiously on the radio. “I have no more heat-seekers. You have to engage!”
“Zero-Nine is lost-wingman, no contact with the terrain, ” the JS-7 shouted. “I do not have a TV camera to watch for terrain. I will re-acquire. Stand by “EGT is back below redline, ” McLanahan said. “Try a restart.” Cobb pushed the fuel cutoff T-handle back in to reopen the fuel lines, selected the “Engine Status” menu on his left MFD, selected “Restart, ” and advanced the number-one throttle when directed by the computer. It was a mistake. As soon as the engine began spooling up, the bright-red “Fire” light came on. The computer immediately began shutdown procedures, and this time Cobb manually activated the fuel cutoff T-handle himself and hit the number-one engine’s fire extinguisher system to make sure the fire was out. The “Fire” light extinguished immediately, and all other systems remained normal. “Must be hydraulic fuel leaking into the engine or a serious fuel leak, ” Cobb said. “Looks like we finish this mission on three engines.” He put the B-2’s infrared scanner image on his right MFD and resumed his usual position, staring straight ahead, unmoving. “Where are those fighters?”
“One still on our tail; he’s dropped back to eight miles, and he hasn’t taken another shot yet, ” McLanahan said. “The other guy broke off to our five o’clock position and went high-he might be setting up for a high gun pass or a home-on-jam missile shot if they got a missile that’ll do it. All trackbreakers are still active.” He quickly switched to the data-link channel for the SLAM missiles, but the screen on the left side of his SMFD was blank. “Shit, looks like we lost contact with the missiles when the power dropped out. I’ll try to reacquire it . . “What do we do when we reach Mount Apo?”
“Fly around it… and pray, ” McLanahan said. “It’s our only hope of losing these jokers.” McLanahan expanded his SMFD display back to its normal God’s-eye display-and then he saw 46over to Cobb. “Turn right to onetwo-zero and climb to nine thousand seven hundred feet. Fly right over the peak of Mount Apo.”
“Nine thousand feet!” Cobb said. “We’ll be exposed! Half the Chinese fleet will be able to see us!”
“But we’ll have some help if we make it on time, ” McLanahan said. “Do it.” Cobb pulled back on the control stick and maintained as steep a climb as the stricken bomber could manage. The Black Knight barely held two hundred and fifty knots as Cobb put the nose right on the infrared image of the radar dome atop Mount Apo and headed straight for it. … The B-2 momentarily disappeared from the narrow fieldof-view image on the low-light TV screen, and the pilot of the Chinese A-5K fighter-bomber hurriedly expanded his screen and searched frantically for the intruder. He was surprised to see it climbing, not descending-in fact, it had passed two thousand meters already and was still climbing. He was also heading right for the radar site on Mount Apo. What was he trying to do? Kamikaze himself onto the radar site? Launch another missile? Eject? Nothing made sense. But one thing was certain-high and slow, it was an easy kill now. He pushed up his throttles to min afterburner-he was getting low on fuel, but that certainly didn’t matter now-and began to close to cannon range. At about ten kilometers’ range, he activated his laser rangefinder. Immediately his fire-control computer began computing lead angles and aimpoints for his two 23-millimeter cannons in each wing root; unfortunately he had only one hundred rounds in each gun, so he had time for only two one-second bursts. But that would be all that was needed here. The B-2 was trailing black smoke from its leftmost engine, and the crew was obviously trying to trade airspeed for altitude in preparation for ejection or self-destruction. They were not going to get the chance. The huge B-2 made a sudden right turn at a very steep angle-possibly a last-ditch effort to evade destruction. The A-5 pilot simply pulled his nose around tighter, leading the bomber’s turn, and put his aiming reticle back on the target. The TV camera clearly showed the Mount Apo radar site not twenty meters below the B-2-he had turned a fraction of a second before plowing into the radar dome. The pilot was indeed skillful, but that was not going to save him. He closed to within one kilometer, squeezed his gun trigger, and let the first one-second burst rake the B-2s ungainly fuselage. And at that moment it seemed as if the entire universe erupted into flames. Two Tomahawk cruise missiles had actually flown over the two aircraft and had hit the captured Mount Apo radar site, just a few hundred feet away from the Chinese fighter. The explosion tossed the Chinese fighter-bomber nearly a half-mile sideways in the air, blinding the pilot and sending him crashing into the lush green valley below. The explosion on the Mount Apo radar site rattled the B-2, but compared to the pounding they had taken when the Chinese PL-2 missile hit, it was minor. Cobb lowered the big bomber’s nose once again, trying to build up his waning airspeed and regain full control. And at that instant a horrifying sight filled his forward-looking infrared scanner scene on his right MFD-the sight of a large Chinese vessel, only miles ahead of them. They had turned east too far, and now they were exposed to the entire southern Chinese invasion fleet. “Holy shit, we gotta get out of here!” Cobb shouted. “As long as we’re here, let’s start the party, ” McLanahan said dryly. As Cobb continued his tight right descending turn, McLanahan quickly programmed his last two SLAM missiles on the fleet ahead of them, ran through the release checklist, and launched the missiles at the Chinese warships. “Missile one away. . . launcher rotating . . .” At that moment, warning lights illuminated on the forward instrument panel. “Damn, we just lost the primary hydraulic system-but I think the launcher still moved to launch position. .. missile two away. Closing bomb doors electrically.” Cobb was busily running through emergency-procedure menu items on his MFDs. “I switched to the auxiliary hydraulic system, ” he told McLanahan. “Autopilot’s off, flight-control computers switched to secondary mode. No more automatic terrain following or jinking for us-a full-scale flight-control deflection will kill our entire hydraulic system. We’ve got fuel leaks on the left wing as well, and I think we’re losing cabin pressurization. He shot us up pretty bad.” But at least they were still flying, Cobb thought, and they were still fightin…. and they were still under attack. “Bandit at our four o’clock position, range ten miles, turning right and coming around behind us, ” McLanahan shouted. “Descend as low as you can… “I’m going, I’m going… hell, if we descend too much we won’t be able to climb back up.” Cobb was straining on the control stick, since the auxiliary hydraulic system provided only 70 percent of the primary system’s power, and the flightcontrol system was no longer assisting. “I’m having trouble controlling, Patrick. If that bozo attacks, we’ve had it. I can’t maneuver… I can barely hold it as it is. Tighten your shoulder straps again. Get ready to jump out if he attacks . “He’s got to find us first, Henry, ” Patrick said as he pulled his shoulder straps as tight as he could stand it. “Range seven miles… turning on our six… keep descending, Henry. We’re still jamming… maybe he won’t be able to see us… five miles and closing…” The Black Knight bomber began to rumble, and the nose began to oscillate as Cobb fought to hold it steady. “Get ready to go, Patrick. It’s still flying, but I don’t know how. “Just hang in there, Henry-” But McLanahan watched the SMFD as the fighter icon closed mercilessly-the Chinese fighter was coming in for the kill, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. … The JS-7 pilot was more experienced in air-to-air engagements than his former leader-A-5 pilots did more groundattack training than dog-fighting-and he knew, judging by the B-2’s slow airspeed and erratic flight path, that he was in danger of crashing at any moment anyway. The A-5 pilot-he did not even know the man’s name-rushed his shots, not closing in enough for the inherently poor PL-2 missiles to get a solid lock-on. A boresight missile launch was the best way to go-the PL-2 missile was especially prone to decoys, so if the seeker head was bypassed it was more deadly. He switched the attack system to “Boresight” and kept his power high, closing the distance rapidly. A boresight launch made the missile nothing more than a big, powerful bul
let-far more deadly than his 23-millimeter cannon, but with the same effective range. It had to be led on target just like a gun, but that was easy in this case, since the B-2 wasn’t maneuvering and seemed virtually incapable of doing so. He had no laser rangefinder, no TV camera, and no usable radar to judge distance, but when he could see the ghostly shape of the American B-2 highlighted against the faint glow of the sky, he knew he was close enough… His radar warning receiver suddenly screamed to life. There were no warning beeps, no search radar, no hint of the approach of any fighter-just an enemy fighter symbol superimposed on the center circle of his threat scope, meaning that it was already within lethal range. He was distracted away from the B-2 for only a split second after deciding he was going to attack instead of taking evasive action, but that split second was all that was needed-the B-2 made a gentle 30-degree bank turn to the west, and it took several seconds of frantic searching to reacquire it again in the darkness of the forests of Mindanao below. The boresight launch was spoiled. With a fighter somewhere on him, there was no time to line up another boresight launch. The JS-7 immediately switched to seeker guidance and received a lock-on indication with a few seconds . … but he never got to fire the missile. Two AIM-I30 Scorpion missiles from Major Kelvin Carter’s Megafortress bomber ripped into the Chinese fighter, slicing it into three pieces and flinging it across the Padada River valley below. “Keep it coming to the right, Horse, ” Major Kelvin Carter told Cobb and McLanahan. “We’ll take it over central Mindanao and try to escape to the northeast. Is this Horse OneSix?”
“Affirm, Diamond One-Three, ” Cobb replied on the scrambled tactical frequency, recognizing Carter’s voice. “Thanks for clearing our tail.”
“No problem. We got you on the FLIR, and you’re trailing smoke from your number one. What’s your situation?”
“Lost number one, lost our primary hydraulics, lost part of our left flight controls, losing fuel out the left wing, ” Cobb replied. “We’re going to need a tanker in about thirty minutes.”
“If you’re still hooked up to the network, they’ll be alerted and someone will be waiting for you, ” Carter reminded him. The Dreamland aircraft that could receive and transmit NIRTSat data were constantly being monitored by the Air Battle Force officers back on Guam-the computers would automatically upload a status report to a NIRTSat as it passed overhead every fifteen minutes, and the satellite would relay the aircraft reports to General Stone on Guam. “We’ll stay with youwe’re out of air-to-surface stuff anyway. “What’s the status of the strike package?” McLanahan asked. “We lost two BUFFs and one Black Knight going in, not counting you guys, ” Carter said, “and that was before we dropped one damned weapon on the assault force invading Davao. The real fight should be starting… right about now. EMERGENCY CONFERENCE ROOM CAMP DAVID PRESIDENTIAL RETREAT, MARYLAND SUNDAY, 9 OCTOBER 1994, 1323 HOURS LOCAL (MONDAY, 10 OCTOBER 1994, 0223 HOURS PHILIPPINES TIME) resident Lloyd Emerson Taylor sat with hands folded Funder his chin, staring at a spot atop his desk. He was still wearing his brown leather Air Force-issue flight jacket over casual slacks and a red flannel shirt, the same things he had put on the day before. He had taken Marine Corps One to Camp David yesterday at six P.M., arriving just before sunset. After his arrival, he wordlessly kissed his wife, Jean, good-bye, then proceeded directly to the Emergency Conference Room, seated himself at that desk and, almost literally, had not moved since. Members of the National Security Council and key members of Congress had been filing in and out of the Emergency Conference Room all day-he all but ignored them. Military communications technicians were manning phones and headsets nearby, but the President had only two phones on his desk: one direct to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, where General Curtis and Secretary of Defense Preston had been since the President had signed the executive order authorizing the mission against the Chinese; the other was direct to the White House Communica tions Center, where calls from overseas could be immediately transferred to him. There was also a series of reports transmitted to him via secure teletype from General Curtis-including some casualty reports. Those he dreaded most of all. The news crushed him, especially the word that a B-2 had been lost. He resisted the urge to wad up the teletype paper instead laying it flat on top of the growing stack of urgent reports from Curtis, then returned to his stoic position at the desk. But the more he thought about the reports that had just come in, the more he realized it was the loss of the B-2 that bothered him the most. Yes, it was horrible that they’d lost six B-52 crew members, and the F-14 Tomcat aviators, and the sailors from the USS Ranger. But he’d always thought of the B-2 as. . . almost invincible. For the kind of money and research that had gone into those planes, they should have been. And yet, as he more than anyone knew, nothing was ever certain in life. Nothing. Paul Cesare had been keeping the President’s coffee mug filled and hot all this time, even though the President had only taken two or three sips in nearly twenty-four hours; now, he replaced the thick, white Navy galley mug of coffee with a mug of chicken soup. “Eat something, Mr. President, ” Cesare said. “Get up and stretch . Taylor considered it, but the ringing of the White House phone glued him to the desk. Cesare picked it up, listened, then handed it right to the President. “Sir, it’s the Chinese Foreign Minister on the line from Beijing.” Taylor would have loved to tell Zhou to piss off backwards, or tell him that, yes, we won’t bomb your ships anymore-hell, he wasn’t sure what he would tell Zhou. Instead, he motioned to Secretary of State Danahall to take the phone. They had already discussed in great detail exactly what was going to be said-now was the moment to start the drama. The President turned to a separate no-voice phone to listen in while Danahall cleared his throat and said, “Secretary Danahall speaking.”
“Mr. Secretary, this is Zhou Ti Yanbing, ” the Chinese For eign Minister announced himself. “I thank you for taking my call, sir.” “Do you have a message for us?”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary, ” Zhou said. “Premier Cheung wishes to officially protest the unwarranted and brutal attack on the People’s Republic of China’s fleet in the southern Philippines. Premier Cheung demands to know if a state of war has been declared and whether Article Four of the Brussels Conference is hereby implemented.” Article Four dealt with the formal declaration of hostilities between nations, setting in motion all the legal and diplomatic formalities of war. Taylor couldn’t believe it. He listened with a growing sense of fury and frustration. God, how he’d love to tell Zhou and Cheung to go to hell. Better yet, to bomb them back into the Stone Age. With that one nuclear explosion they had set off the most maddening and aggravating chain of events in his administration. And now the fuckers were demanding that the United States follow the letter of the law. The audacity. . He shook his head and took a deep breath. Even going on twenty-four hours without sleep, he knew, as much as he’d rather not, that rules had to be obeyed, protocol observed, words exchanged. He nodded for Secretary Danahall to continue… Danahall took a deep breath and said calmly, “Please advise Premier Cheung that the government of the United States desires no direct communication with the government of the People’s Republic of China except to receive an offer of an immediate cease-fire and guaranteed promise to halt all military operations in the Philippines. Any official notification this government has with your government will be through the United Nations.”