Plan of Attack

by Dale Brown

  “Your husband might agree.”

  “Jeez, Dave, has it been that long since we’ve spoken? I ditched what’s-his-name two years ago,” Leah said. “Best thing that ever happened to my career. Men might need loyal, sacrificing wives to get promoted, but women need a good long game on the golf course, and to be able to stay up late, smoke expensive cigars, and bullshit with the politicians and contractors. Once I figured that out, I got my second and third stars with no problem.”

  “In that case I think I’d like to come out for a visit and play a few rounds,” Luger suggested.

  “I have a feeling you’re going to be busy here real soon,” Leah said, “but I’ll keep the light on for you, Texas. Stop by anytime, big boy. I’m clear.”

  When the connection was terminated, David Luger sat quietly, thinking.

  Rebecca Furness broke the silence a few moments later. “Sounds like you two were an item, David. So you were the nerdy bookworm at the Zoo who helped all the hard-charging type-A upperclassmen pass the hard-science classes so they wouldn’t get kicked out?”

  Luger ignored the comment and turned to Hal Briggs. “Hal, I want to position a few of your guys out in eastern Russia as quickly as possible—Shemya, perhaps?”

  “Somewhere close to those Russian bomber bases in Siberia?”

  “Exactly.”

  “No problem,” Briggs said. “Weather’s improving up there. I’ll start working on getting plenty of special-ops tanker and combat search-and-rescue support—five minutes after takeoff, we’re in no-man’s-land. How many troops are we talking about?”

  “Everyone you have available,” Luger said. “If we find that base, I want to be able to take it down right away.”

  Furness looked at Luger with an exasperated expression as Briggs stepped over to his console in the BATMAN. “Didn’t you hear what your girlfriend said, David?” she asked. “I know you like and respect Patrick, but he’s way overstepped his authority, and he’s asking you to do the same. Be smart. Don’t do it.”

  “Rebecca, I want a couple Megafortresses available to link up with Hal’s ground forces,” Luger said. “Get together with him and plan a cover operation with whatever forces he manages to link up with over there.”

  Furness shook her head. “It’s your career, General. You Dreamland guys will just never learn, will you?”

  The Kremlin, Moscow, Russian Federation

  Days Later

  General Nikolai Stepashin strode quickly into Anatoliy Gryzlov’s office and waited as discreetly as possible just inside the large double doors. Gryzlov was in a meeting with his team of economic advisers; obviously it was not a pleasant meeting at all. When Stepashin finally caught the president’s eye, the chief of staff of the Russian Federation’s armed forces and chief of military intelligence raised a red-covered folder; Gryzlov adjourned the meeting moments later.

  “Practically all of the Central Asian republics of the Commonwealth are threatening to withhold wheat and rice shipments in protest against the attack on Bukhara,” Gryzlov shouted, lighting a cigarette and plopping down disgustedly into his chair. “Ukraine and Belarus might follow suit.”

  “We made it perfectly clear to all of them that we bombed an American CIA base—we were hunting down those responsible for the attack on our forces in Turkmenistan,” Stepashin said.

  “I made it clear to them, but they insisted that any CIA operations in their countries have been fully sanctioned by Moscow—technically true—and that no operations of any kind have been mounted by Americans from those bases in Commonwealth nations,” Gryzlov said. “God, I hate dealing with bureaucrats and politicians! The economic council is panicking, the foreign ministers are panicking—everything is spinning out of control.” He paused, then looked at Stepashin carefully through eyes squinting with the sting of the pungent smoke from his Turkish cigarette. “What is it now?”

  “We’ve detected two new visual-reconnaissance satellite constellations, launched within just the past few days,” he said. “Probably American. They did not come from one of their government ground-launch sites at Vandenberg, Shemya, or Patrick Air Force Base; they were either launched by a relocatable sea platform or air-launched. Low Earth orbit, small, some radar emissions, deeply encrypted datalinks. One satellite overhead every twenty-five minutes in each orbit.”

  Gryzlov’s face fell. “The target tracks…?”

  “Southern and central Siberia—right over the temporary Tupolev-22M bases.”

  “Damn!” he shouted, slamming his chair’s armrest so hard that his cigarette went flying out of his hand in a shower of sparks. “How in hell did they zero in on those bases so quickly?”

  “It was a risk using the redesigned -22Ms for the raid on Bukhara,” Stepashin said. “It turned out to be a good test of the new birds and the new air-launched weapon, but it raised a lot of questions with the Americans. They’re keeping a close eye on our bombers now—and having the refurbished Tupolev-22Ms do such a good job over Bukhara obviously drew their attention.” Gryzlov remained silent, fuming, so Stepashin went on. “We detected the new satellites quickly and were able to hide the planes well, so I don’t think we have been compromised yet. The Americans will perhaps notice increased activity at bases that have not been in use for a long time, but they will not be able to deduce much more than that. And I don’t think they got a good overhead look at Yakutsk—they were concentrating more on the bases in the west and along the Mongolian-Manchurian border.”

  “We will have to step up our preparations,” Gryzlov said. “The modified bombers need to be completed as soon as possible and then dispersed to their secret operating bases.”

  “The bomber retrofit is proceeding well ahead of schedule,” Stepashin assured him. “As soon as the satellite coverage goes away—these new satellites are small, not very maneuverable, and their orbits will decay very soon—we can disperse the Tupolev-22Ms and their weapons to their operating locations. I’m sorry the Americans seem to be zeroing in on the reactivated bases so quickly, but we knew they would be discovered sooner or later.”

  “I, too, am sorry they apparently have been discovered,” Gryzlov said, “but at this point I don’t care. I’m tired of trying to suck up to the Americans on arms-control issues. The Americans unilaterally abrogate the Anti–Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build their ‘Star Wars’ missile-defense system; then they expect us to hurry up and conform to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty nuclear-weapon limits so they can impose further arms reductions on us. In the meantime they continue to leap ahead of us in conventional-weapons technology. We cannot compete with the United States. The only way to maintain our position as a world power is to increase, not decrease, our military capabilities.”

  Gryzlov lit another cigarette, then stubbed it out angrily after taking only one puff. “And that attack on Engels Air Base by those American robot planes—that was the last straw!” he fumed. “McLanahan actually dared to mount a preemptive attack against an active Russian air base! That is completely unacceptable! And the spineless American president, Thorn, actually had the audacity to deny he authorized the attack, and at the same time he rewards McLanahan by allowing him to keep his stars! He should be in prison—or dangling at the end of a noose—for what he did!

  “The Americans want only one thing—complete domination over the entire planet,” Gryzlov said. “Well, I will not allow that to happen. I am going to show how weak and defenseless the United States really is….”

  3

  Air Intelligence Agency,

  Lackland Air Force Base, Texas

  The next day

  We haven’t been successful yet in locating the exact origin of those three Backfire bombers that attacked Bukhara,” Patrick McLanahan reported. He was doing the daily morning briefing of the battle staff at Air Intelligence Agency headquarters. Seated beside him was Colonel Trevor Griffin. “The Russians are keeping their entire fleet of long-range bombers out of sight. However, we have recent imagery t
hat might give us some clues.”

  Griffin hit the slide button. “On this orbit we’re examining six bases in particular, all active or former Russian long-range-bomber bases in the south and far east: Omsk, Novosibirsk, Bratsk, Aginskoye, Blagoveshchensk, and Vladivostok,” Patrick said. “Vladivostok is the only base known to be operating the Tupolev-95 Bear bomber, primarily in a maritime-reconnaissance role. The last known inventory of Bears at Vladivostok is eighteen, but in the past couple days we’ve counted as many as thirty-nine. And as you can see, they’re not the Tupolev-142M or -MR maritime-reconnaissance planes. You can tell in these photos that the planes highlighted have no magnetic-anomaly devices on their vertical tail fins, and they have the large ‘Clam Pipe’ bombing radar under the nose. Only six of the thirty-nine Bears at Vladivostok have MAD stingers—the rest are strategic bombers.

  “We did not see any planes at the other five bases,” Patrick went on as Griffin changed slides, “nor did we expect to see any—but, for inactive or closed bases, the five other bases showed a lot of activity. For instance, in Aginskoye, we see twelve brand-new and very large bombersize hangars built. At one time Aginskoye was one of the former Soviet Union’s main strategic-bomber bases in the south, housing dozens of Blinder, Backfire, and Bear bombers. But when the bomber forces were cut, Aginskoye was all but deserted, virtually overnight. Not anymore.

  “Here was the most interesting feature of this particular shot. Notice the southeast end of Aginskoye’s runway. This base always had a long runway, over ten thousand feet long, but it was only stressed to handle aircraft as large as the Bear bomber, which is around four hundred thousand pounds max takeoff weight. At most bases this means a reinforced-concrete runway of approximately four feet in depth. Let’s zoom in on the end of the runway.” Griffin entered commands into the keyboard, and the digital satellite image zoomed to a very high magnification, losing only a little of its original definition.

  “You’ll see some soldiers or guards climbing down the riprap supporting the edge of the runway. Note how high aboveground they are. We estimate about eight feet. That means this runway has been reinforced even more, perhaps double its original structure. The only plausible reason for reinforcing a runway like this is obviously to handle larger aircraft.

  “There are only two aircraft in the Russian military’s aircraft inventory larger than the Bear bomber—the Antonov-124 Condor heavy-lift transport, the largest aircraft in the world, and the Tupolev-160 Blackjack bomber. These hangars, gentlemen, don’t fit the Condor—they’re way too short in height and length. However, each hangar is dimensioned to fit two Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers perfectly. I believe what we have here are accommodations for as many as twenty-four Blackjack bombers.”

  “But aren’t there only forty Blackjack bombers in the entire Russian arsenal?” General Zoltrane asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Patrick replied. “Engels and Blagoveshchensk were the two known Blackjack-bomber bases in Russia. The last verified inventory of Blackjacks at Engels had their full complement—twenty-eight planes, most transferred from Belarus. Two were recently verified destroyed, and two more damaged. That’s at least twenty-four survivors. Blagoveshchensk had its full complement as well—twelve bombers, transferred from Ukraine and refurbished.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, McLanahan,” Major General Gary Houser said. “Those hangars at Aginskoye could be housing anything—other transports, supplies, even oil-pipeline equipment or derricks. You’re seeing a big building and assuming there’s a couple Blackjack bombers in it.”

  “The reinforced runway adds to my suspicions, sir,” Patrick responded. “Although it’s true that Aginskoye’s runway could have been reinforced to handle Condor transports, and the hangars could be storage buildings, their dimensions still leave room for doubt. It could be a coincidence, or they could be bomber hangars. The only way to verify it is to check it visually. We’re going to need some eyes on the ground to look it over.

  “Aginskoye is about a hundred miles from the Mongolian border, about two hundred miles’ driving distance by the most direct route, or nine hundred miles from the Sea of Japan.”

  Gary Houser turned away without further comments; no one else had anything to add.

  “Colonel Griffin has some suggestions to make in a moment; I have one more item to present,” Patrick said. “We were able to launch a second constellation over Russia, shortly after launching the first over southern Russia,” he went on.

  This time Houser made an expression of pure disgust, not trying to hide it at all.

  “The targets were higher-latitude military bases on the Russian Pacific coast, as well as bases farther in the southwest and in former Soviet republics.” Griffin changed PowerPoint slides. “Here is the former bomber base at Magadan. This base has always been the Russian equivalent of their far east tanker task force, but the number of Ilyushin-76 and Tupolev-16 tankers there is astounding—well over forty planes are now based there. The imagery also gave us a good look at the submarine base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka, which also has seen an increase in the number of Tupolev-95 strategic bombers in recent days. All in all, we’ve seen a three hundred percent increase in the number of strategic bombers and tankers in the Russian far east theater.

  “One more observation was made in these latest images: up here, in the provincial capital of Yakutsk. Yakutsk is the largest northern city east of the Urals and the center of the Siberian oil and natural-gas industry. Air service is the life blood of this city, and we’d be accustomed to a lot of air traffic year-round. The orbit of the second string of satellites didn’t cover Yakutsk as well as we’d like, but we were able to get some pretty good oblique pictures—yet even in these shots, it’s obvious that air traffic into Yakutsk has more than tripled since official counts were made about a year ago.

  “Now, this could be a result of higher oil prices making Siberian crude more valuable, and hence a push to develop the Siberian fields, but this rate of increase has been surprising to all of our analysts,” Patrick summarized. “We’ve seen an overall increase in all types of air traffic, but most notably in military cargo and resupply flights. It’s hard to categorize accurately because Aeroflot does as many civil and government flights as it does military, but we regard the increase in air traffic into Yakutsk as significant. And since it coincides with the increases in military activity in other far east locations, we can conclude that the buildups in strategic air assets in the far east theater and the buildups in Yakutsk are related and not just coincidental. We feel that the Russians are engaged in some sort of massive high-tech buildup of strategic air-attack assets, including supersonic and subsonic bombers and air-refueling tankers. The recent attack by Backfire bombers in Turkmenistan could have been a test of some of these assets.

  “Most notably we feel that the Russians are building up Tupolev-22M Backfire bombers and Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers, in violation of Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty rules. The reason for this is obvious—conventional thinking has it that these aircraft are not threats to North America; the Backfires supposedly had insufficient range, and there were only six Blackjacks in the entire Russian arsenal with intercontinental range. The Nine-sixty-sixth feels that these conclusions are no longer valid. We feel that there may be as many as twenty to sixty Backfire bombers with intercontinental range and cruise-missile capability, and between twenty and perhaps thirty Blackjack bombers also with intercontinental range and cruise-missile capability, including nuclear-tipped weapons.

  “We don’t know precisely what these forces will beusedfor,” Patrick concluded, “but our guess is that these forces pose a significant threat to our Asian allies—and a direct and credible threat to the United States as well. We feel that these bombers, with the massive number of tankers in the theater as well, could easily reach targets all across North America, primarily above forty degrees north longitude and west of ninety-five degrees west longitude—only one-fourth of the United States, but within striking distan
ce of fifty percent of our land-based bombers, fifty percent of our ballistic-missile submarines not presently at sea, and one hundred percent of our land-based intercontinental missiles.”

  The battle-staff conference room rumbled with low murmurs and sounds of utter disbelief—but the loudest voice came from the head of the table. “Say again? What did you just say, McLanahan?” Houser asked incredulously. Before Patrick could answer, he went on, “You have got to be shitting me, General McLanahan! You’re telling me that you think the Russians are assembling a force of strategic bombers and intend to attack the United States of America?”

  “It may sound unbelievable, sir, but—”

  “It doesn’t sound unbelievable, McLanahan—it sounds completely asinine!” Houser retorted. “You ought to know better than most of the people in this room that the Russians haven’t had a credible long-range-bomber force in over thirty years.”

  “The Bear bombers are relics, McLanahan,” interjected Major General Ralph Nowland, the deputy commander of the Air Intelligence Agency. Nowland had been in AIA longer than almost anyone else and had convinced everyone else that he was the expert on any possible subject concerning the Russian military. “We’ve never received any credible evidence that the Russians are modernizing the Tupolev-22M Backfire as an intercontinental strike platform—the Russians have been yanking Backfires in favor of continued development of the MiG-29S and Sukhoi-35 fighter-bombers. And for good reason: The Fulcrum and Flankers have more capability, are far less costly to maintain and deploy, and have similar range and combat performance. As for the Blackjacks, there’s no evidence whatsoever in any documentation or imagery that proves they’ve been reactivated and their air-refueling capacity restored enough to give them true intercontinental capability. That’s an unsubstantiated rumor only.”