by Dale Brown
“And you haven’t given us one shred of evidence or even any plausible conjecture that the bomber that struck Bukhara is some sort of supersecret refurbished Backfire,” Houser said. “No one has been able to recover the missile that went off course—the Russians are all over the impact area, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever get a look at it. We have scoured the intercepts and technical literature coming out of every lab and every aircraft-manufacturing bureau in Russia, and there’s not one mention of any programs to upgrade the Backfire fleet. If it exists, it’s under a level of secrecy and compartmentalization that hasn’t been seen in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union.” He shook his head. “So let’s get down to the bottom line, General: You still don’t know where those Backfires came from, is that it?”
“Sir, my guess is that the bombers came from Bratsk,” Patrick responded.
“And how did you deduce that?”
“By the number of nonmilitary flights coming in and out of Bratsk,” Patrick said. “The Russians have made a big deal out of hiding all their Backfire bombers from satellite view of every base, but the number of Aeroflot flights going into Bratsk has increased almost threefold since the raid on Bukhara. The number of government and civil flights going into Bratsk has increased from an average of twenty per day to an average of sixty-three per day since the raid. Bratsk is a major city on the Trans-Siberian Railway and is a major oil-transshipment point, but its air traffic has remained fairly constant for the past few years—except for the past few days, when all of a sudden its civil air traffic spiked.”
“That’s it?” Nowland asked. “That’s all the evidence you have? No sign of Backfire bombers being loaded…no bombs, no men and equipment on the field, no signs of increased military activity? Just a few more planes per day taking off and landing there?”
“Sir, these additional flights going into a base that hasn’t seen much activity in years could be significant,” Patrick said. “It simply raises more questions—and it warrants a look around with HUMINT resources.”
“More spy missions inside Russia, is that it?” Houser asked derisively. “McLanahan, you have a lot to learn about the Air Intelligence Agency. We’re not the CIA, and we’re not a bunch of James Bonds ready to get an assignment to spy on the bad guys. We collect information necessary to build war plans and to defend Air Force assets. We collect information from other intelligence sources, including HUMINT data from other government agencies. The Air Force is not in the business of sending out spies, and sure as hell not inside Russia in peacetime.”
“Sir, Colonel Griffin has drawn up a plan that would help us verify our theories on the numbers and capabilities of Russia’s Backfires and other long-range aviation forces,” Patrick said. “We can send operatives in to three suspected Russian bases—Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Bratsk, launched from Kazakhstan—and verify the existence of modified Backfire bombers. Our other priority is a covert intelligence-gathering mission to Yakutsk, launched from the Sea of Okhotsk.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, McLanahan?” Houser said. “It’s out of the question.”
“Sir, I think we’ve exhausted all of our signal and overhead-imagery data resources, and all we have to show for it are more unanswered questions,” Patrick said. “The only way to discard or verify any of our data is to get guys on the ground to go in and take a look.”
“General Houser, I’ve led Air Force and CIA teams all over the world collecting intel for the Air Force, and I’ve assisted the Intelligence Support Agency on several missions as well,” Trevor Griffin added. “These missions would not be easy, but they’re doable, and in a very short time frame. At least it’s worth a check to find out if any other agencies have field operatives in those areas. If so, we can combine forces and—”
Gary Houser held up a hand, closing his eyes and shaking his head to emphasize his weariness of this argument. “I understand the reason you feel you need to send operatives in, Colonel, but what I’m telling you is that in the current political climate, the national command authority is not likely to approve an operation like this,” Houser said. “Placing eight recon satellites over the heart of Russia rattled nerves and created enough animosity to last an entire generation—exactly the thing we’re trying to avoid here. Sending in ground operatives after sending those satellites over the same area would invite disaster as well as heighten tensions even more. You know that the Russians will be on guard for such a move. Anyone not passing the most rigorous security screening will be detained on the spot. Or did you think your operatives would just be able to hide in barns and ditches while they make their way to their objectives?”
“Sir, I can have the Nine-sixty-sixth work up a plan of action and brief you and the staff on it in two days,” Griffin said. “We have the latest threat assessment, force deployments, topographical and cultural photos of all the target areas. Our staff is already working up ingress and egress options, lining up aircraft and vehicles, mapping out refueling drop points and—”
“I know what goes into planning these types of operations, Colonel,” Houser said. “You can have your staff do all the planning they care to do—just be sure you don’t make one move off the planning charts without my express permission. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Before we leave this subject, General McLanahan, I want to know about these two satellite constellations you got all this information from,” Houser went on pointedly. “I don’t recall authorizing them, and I don’t recall Strategic Command’s briefing the staff that they were going to launch such a mission. Perhaps you could enlighten us? Whose are they, and who authorized their insertion?”
All eyes were on him, but Patrick didn’t shrink from any of their gazes, especially Gary Houser’s. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “When my request for overhead-imagery support was denied by Eighth Air Force, in my capacity as Nine-sixty-sixth Information Warfare Wing commander, I requested support from the Air Battle Force commander, Brigadier General Luger, at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. I knew that the Air Battle Force had on-demand satellite-reconnaissance assets available. General Luger sent my request to Air Combat Command, who sent it on to the Air Force chief of staff, who sent it on to the joint staff operations office and to the National Security Council liaison office. The mission was approved by the NSC and promptly executed.”
“Why wasn’t I notified of this request?” Houser asked.
“Sir, you are the deputy commander for intelligence of all these agencies,” Patrick said. “I thought you would have been notified every step of the way.”
“I mean, why didn’t you notify me that you were going around my office for support on an Air Intelligence Agency tasking?” Houser asked angrily.
“You had already disapproved my request, sir.”
“And why did you not inform Eighth Air Force that you were going to go around them?” Houser asked. “Did you not receive the directive from General Zoltrane that all requests for operations originating in Eighth Air Force go through his office before going outside the command?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” Patrick responded. “But as I understand it, the Air Battle Force reports to Eighth Air Force. My request for support did not go outside the command until General Luger upchanneled it to Air Combat Command.”
“Didn’t you expect that General Luger would go outside the command to get permission to execute the mission?” Houser asked. Patrick did not reply. Houser nodded knowingly, then added, “Or were you hoping that he wouldn’t upchannel your request, but just go ahead and launch the mission without permission from his superiors?” Again Patrick did not respond. “Well, it’s good to see that someone in Brad Elliott’s old organization is obeying orders.
“General McLanahan, I am going to give you a direct order, so as not to create any confusion or misunderstanding,” Houser went on. “You will confine your work and your communications to Air Intelligence Agency units only. If you need information from agencies or sources outside
of AIA, you will forward the request to me or General Nowland first. Under no circumstances will you request information or pass information outside AIA without permission from my office. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Patrick replied simply. “May I ask why, sir?”
Heads snapped from Houser to Patrick and back to Houser in surprise at the question. Houser’s eyes blazed, but his voice was surprisingly calm. “It’s simple, General McLanahan—I don’t trust you anymore,” he said. “You see, while it is technically correct that you can request intelligence data from any source to create your work product, I’m afraid that you will be using a multitude of unorthodox or nonsecure sources and then not sharing the information with AIA, or not even notifying AIA that you have obtained this information. By doing this you compromise security and break the chain of custody of classified and extremely sensitive information.”
“I assure you, sir, that I would never—”
“I don’t need your assurances, General,” Houser interjected. “Around here assurances are made with actions, not words. You’ve been here only a short while, but you’ve already proven you can’t be trusted with following our procedures and directives. You give me no choice. My order stands. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. General, I’d like to see your plans for covert field action against the four targets you mentioned, but don’t count on having the operation approved anytime soon. General McLanahan, the information you’ve given us is interesting, but I don’t find enough specific information to support any ground-reconnaissance action. You still have not given the staff any information on where those Backfires came from, only guesses and speculation—and frankly, your ultimate conclusion is pretty far-fetched, bordering on irresponsible. We need to have a talk about your thought processes—maybe you’re not cut out to run the Air Intelligence Agency after all. We’ll see about that. In any case, I can’t present that conclusion to Eighth Air Force and expect anyone to take it seriously.”
“Sir, if you’re not comfortable presenting my findings to Eighth Air Force or Air Combat Command, I’m prepared to do so,” Patrick said firmly.
“That’s not the way we run things here, General McLanahan.”
“Sir, you can’t just sit on the data we’ve collected. Your job is to collect information and present analysis to—”
“Don’t tell me my job, McLanahan!” Houser snapped. “Your job is to shut your damned mouth and do as you’re ordered! Is that clear?”
Patrick glared at Gary Houser for several seconds, then replied, “Yes, sir.”
“Colonel Griffin can take the rest of the staff reports. I may ask him to do so from now on,” Houser said angrily. “In the meantime you’re dismissed.” Patrick pushed his classified reports and photos on the table before him to Griffin, stood at attention, then departed. When he did, Houser said, “Colonel Griffin, plan on taking over the Nine-sixty-sixth shortly. McLanahan’s on his way out.”
Patrick ignored the surprised stares of his office staff as he hurried into his office and slammed the door shut. He hung up his Class A uniform jacket on the coatrack behind his door, poured himself a cup of coffee, dumped it out, grabbed a bottle of water instead, and nearly squished it as he tried to open the cap. He finally flung himself onto his chair and was on the phone moments later.
David Luger picked up the secure phone and could barely wait for the encryption circuits to lock in before speaking. “Patrick—”
“Houser ignored my report,” Patrick said heatedly. “He’s not going to send in any recon personnel.”
“Patrick, listen—”
“Dave, I’ve never been so damned frustrated in my whole life,” Patrick moaned angrily. “Houser threw me out of his battle-staff meeting. He’s probably going to throw me out of the Nine-sixty-sixth, if not the entire Air Force….”
“Patrick, listen to me,” Dave said. “We’ve been studying the imagery from the NIRTSats today, and—”
“Were you able to move the top constellation?” Patrick asked. “We need better images of Yakutsk. I have a feeling that’s going to be the key. We should keep an eye on Bratsk and Aginskoye, too, but all the activity up in—”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Patrick, so just listen!” Dave interjected. “We moved the second constellation like you asked, and the orbit dropped down to around eighty-eight miles, and it’s only going to be aloft for another few hours, but we finally got some good shots of Yakutsk, and—”
“Good job. What did you—”
“I’m trying to tell you, Muck It looks like half the Russian air force is parked there all of a sudden,” Dave said. “We counted sixteen Tu-16 Blinder tankers and—get this—twenty-four Ilyushin-78 tankers. They only have about thirty in the whole fleet!”
“My God,” Patrick said. “Ninety percent of the Russian tanker fleet is on one base, in the middle of nowhere in Siberia! Something’s going on. What about—”
“I’m getting to that, too, Muck,” Luger said breathlessly. “We spotted twenty-four Blackjacks at Blagoveshchensk. We haven’t verified if they’re all different airframes, but they’re sitting there being loaded with some kind of weapons we haven’t identified yet—probably cruise missiles.”
“We’ve got to alert Air Force.”
“That’s not all, Patrick. We counted at least twenty Backfires out in the open at Bratsk, Novosibirsk, and Aginskoye—that’s at least twenty bombers at each base. They’re being loaded, too. And they have huge fuel-drop tanks on their external hardpoints—they’ve got to be five or ten thousand pounds apiece, maybe larger. I mean, all these planes appeared out of nowhere! Twenty-four hours ago there was nothing—today, boom, the entire Russian bomber fleet is being readied for takeoff. And we’re only counting the ones we can see—there might be twice that number in shelters or hangars or dispersed to other bases we’re not watching. Where in heck did they all come from?”
“I’m sure they’ve been there for a long time, Dave—we just weren’t looking for them until now,” Patrick said. “Did you report this to anyone else yet?”
“It just crossed my desk, Muck.”
“Can you transmit it to me?”
“It’s on the way.”
At that same moment, Patrick received a message on his computer with the image files. “I got them. Hold on.” Patrick punched in a telephone code for the battle-staff area. Colonel Griffin picked up the phone. “Tagger, I need to speak with General Houser right away. I’m e-mailing you photos just taken from the two NIRTSat constellations. The Russians are on the move.”
“I’ll try,” Griffin said, and he put the line on hold. But moments later he came back on: “The general said not now, Patrick. I’m looking at the images. I see lots of planes, Patrick, but these are raw images. We need analysis and verification before we can present it to the staff.”
“Tagger, these images were verified by the intel guys at Air Battle Force,” Patrick said. “The location and identification data have been verified. It’s real, Tagger. Houser has to look at them now.”
“Hold on.” But the wait was even shorter. “I’ll be right down, Patrick,” Griffin said. “The general wants me to go talk to you.”
“This can’t wait, Tagger. I’ll come up there.”
“Don’t, Patrick. Sit tight. I’ll be right there.” And he hung up.
Shit, Patrick thought, now I’ve succeeded in getting Trevor Griffin kicked out of the battle-staff meeting also. But this was too important to just sit on. “Houser won’t look at the imagery, Dave,” Patrick said to David Luger when he got him back on the line. He thought for a moment, then said, “I’m going to send a message to the secretary of defense’s office and let them know what’s happening. They’ll have to contact NORAD to activate the North Warning System, OTH-B, and put every fighter they can find on five-minute alert.” But at the same time as he said those words, he knew it was going to be an almost impossible job to convince anyone that the threat was
great enough to warrant activating one of the pillars of the Cold War: ADC.
Years earlier the continent of North America was defended by the Air Defense Command, or ADC, which was a joint U.S.-Canadian integrated system of military and civilian ground-based radars and military jet-fighter interceptors that stood poised to stop an attack by enemy bombers or cruise missiles. Its parent organization, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, still existed, but “aerospace defense” had been replaced with “air sovereignty,” which generally dealt with detecting and interdicting drug smugglers. Since the late 1980s, the threat that Russian bombers would launch cruise missiles against the United States had all but disappeared, while drug smugglers had virtual free rein over America’s skies, so any resources set up to detect and defend against obsolete Russian bombers was shifted to detect, track, and interdict smugglers.
Along with squadrons of jet fighters stationed in Alaska, Canada, and the northern United States, the ADC used a series of long- and short-range unmanned radar sites to detect unidentified aircraft. Called the North Warning System, this system replaced the 1950s-era Defense Early Warning, or DEW Line, consisting of manned radars in Alaska and Canada. The ultimate radar system was deployed in the late 1980s: Called OTH-B, or Over-the-Horizon-Backscatter radar, it could detect aircraft as far away as three thousand miles by bouncing radar energy off the ionosphere. In ideal conditions, OTH-B radar operators in Colorado could see Soviet bombers taking off from their Siberian bases. Along with the radar net, there were fighter interceptors on round-the-clock alert, ready to hunt down and destroy any unidentified aircraft. At one time there had been a dozen bases and many dozens of fighters on twenty-four-hour alert.
But as the threat diminished, so did readiness. OTH-B shifted from a full-time system to part-time only, and finally it was placed in “ready” mode, meaning it could be reactivated if needed. The North Warning System radars shifted to part-time mode as well, to reduce annual maintenance and operating costs. Finally, one by one, the fighter-interceptor squadrons were inactivated, disarmed, reassigned to drug-interdiction duties, or placed on “generation recall” status, meaning that the fighters could be placed on the line only after long days of preparation. No one cared: The Russians had only a handful of nearly obsolete bombers that were capable of launching ineffective, inaccurate, and unreliable cruise missiles; the Russian deterrent lay in its arsenal of land-and sea-launched ballistic missiles; the United States had even reactivated and modernized its anti-ballistic-missile defense system.