by Dale Brown
The problem was soon obvious: Could the air-defense network in North America be reactivated quickly and effectively enough to stop a modern threat? Cranking up the Air Defense Command system was only practiced twice a year, and even so it seemed like a lost and arcane art. Patrick had no idea how to go about ordering an ADC reactivation—and he doubted if it could be effective enough to stop a massive Russian attack against the United States such as the one they were seeing develop right now.
“What do you want me to do, Muck?” David Luger asked.
“You need to get your surveillance and intelligence data over to Air Force as soon as possible,” Patrick replied, “because when I hit SECDEF with my concerns, they’re going to want proof.”
“Patrick…Muck, what in hell do you think is going on?” Luger asked. He sounded more scared than Patrick had heard him sound in a long time. Despite his traumatic recent history, David Luger was one of the most unflappable—many called it “emotionless”—persons he knew. Luger possessed a well-trained scientific mind. Everything could be explained, even forecast, by using the proper mixture of research, reasoning, and theory. He never worried about anything, because his finely tuned brain started working on a problem the moment it presented itself. But for any man, especially someone like Dave Luger, the reality of what he knew and the thought of what could happen were finally too much for him to contemplate rationally and analytically.
“Dave…”
“I’m looking at the pictures and the analysis, Muck, and I can’t fucking believe what I’m seeing!”
“Dave, keep it together, buddy,” Patrick said evenly. “I need you one hundred and ten percent on this.”
“What in hell can we do?”
“The first thing we need to do is turn on all the air-defense infrastructure in North America, and do it immediately,” Patrick said. “Next we need to begin twenty-four/seven surveillance of Yakutsk and all the other bases where bombers have been appearing. I need eyes inside those bases, especially Yakutsk. The tankers are the key, and it looks to me like Yakutsk is turning into tanker city. I’m going to talk to the Air Force and get them to crank up the readiness posture, but we need to take a look inside those Russian bases immediately, and the Air Battle Force is the best-positioned unit to get in there. It would take a week just to convince the CIA that what we’re looking at is real.”
“I’ve already received permission to forward-deploy Hal and Chris to the region,” Dave said. “We’re going to send them to Shemya—five hours one way by tilt-jet, but it’s the best we can do unless we get some support from U.S. Special Operations Command or the Air Force.”
“Do whatever you can to get the mout there, as fast as you can,” Patrick said. “If you can get in contact with someone at the Pentagon, maybe SECDEF’s office directly, we might be able to implement it.”
“What is General Houser going to do with the pictures we got from the NIRTSats?”
“Nothing, until he’s told to do something with them,” Patrick responded. “That’s why it has to come from the top down, and higher than Eighth Air Force or Air Combat Command—Houser might even be able to shrug off STRATCOM. Get moving, Dave, and let me know if you make any progress.”
“Will do, Muck,” Luger said, and disconnected the secure transmission.
Patrick began another secure telephone call to the secretary of defense’s office, then hung up the phone before the encrypted connection could go through. Although he had met and briefed the SECDEF, Robert Goff, on more than one occasion, their encounters had been mostly negative—Patrick was usually being reprimanded for some action he undertook with less than full authority. He was losing friends and allies fast, and a phone call to SECDEF’s office, in violation of a direct order issued just a few minutes ago in the presence of the rest of the Air Intelligence Agency staff, was not going to win him any more. But this had to be done.
Instead he initiated a secure call to the commander of the Air Warning Center of the North American Aerospace Defense Command at its command-and-control center at Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, Colorado, deep inside the underground military base. The Air Warning Center, or AWC, was responsible for monitoring the periphery of the United States, Canada, and parts of Central America and the Caribbean for unidentified aircraft—including cruise missiles—and passing information to the Cheyenne Mountain Command Center. The Air Warning Center controlled the ground-based radars operated by NORADand also collected data from ground, sea, and airborne military-fighter control radars; other surveillance systems, such as ground-and ship-based radar balloons; Homeland Security radar systems; and civil air-traffic-control radars. Patrick’s 966th Information Warfare Wing routinely passed information to AWC on the status of military forces in Russia and on events around the world, which might give AWC a heads-up in adjusting its surveillance to counter enemy incursions.
After several long, excruciating minutes, he was put through to the AWC Charlie-crew commander, Lieutenant Colonel Susan Paige. “It’s nice to finally talk with you, General McLanahan,” she said after the secure connection was made and verified. “We’ve received the regular information updates from the Nine-sixty-sixth, and we’re very impressed with the quality of work coming from your office. I’d like to—”
“Colonel Paige, I have information provided me by Air Battle Force that shows that Russia may commence a strategic air attack against the United States at any time,” Patrick said. “I’m recommending that NORAD implement full air-defense measures immediately, including a full recall and activation of all northern interceptor units and round-the-clock activation of North Warning and OTH-B. It’s vital that—”
“Who gave you this information, General? Who is this Air Battle Force?” Patrick knew she was stalling for time—she would be hitting a hot key on her computer that would be tracing and recording this call and perhaps notifying the senior controller at the Command and Operations Center of Patrick’s information—or of a crank phone call. After Patrick briefly explained, Paige said, “General McLanahan, you need to take this information to Air Intelligence Agency and have General Houser message—”
“I’ve already done that. General Houser won’t act on it. I need to speak directly with General Lombardi so he can decide if he wants to increase the air-defense posture.” General Lombardi was the commander of NORAD and the man who could activate all of the defense systems around North America with one order.
“Maybe you should speak with Air Force or STRATCOM about—”
This was getting him nowhere. “Colonel Paige, this is extremely urgent, or I wouldn’t have called the NORAD commander’s office directly,” Patrick interjected. “I’m having General Luger of the Air Battle Force transmit his overhead imagery to you and to STRATCOM, but I’m calling to advise you that I believe that a Russian combat air operation is in progress, perhaps an all-out attack against the United States using long-range bombers and cruise missiles.”
“Is this for real, McLanahan?” Paige asked. “This isn’t how AIA issues alerts to NORAD. You should—”
“This alert is from the Nine-sixty-sixth Wing, Colonel Paige, not from AIA,” Patrick said. “The information has not been cleared by General Houser. But I decided to contact you directly because I feel there is danger of imminent attack, and when I briefed General Houser a short time ago, he indicated he wasn’t going to act on the information. I decided to take a chance and contact you directly. I am now going to try to contact the secretary of defense and give him this same information. McLanahan, Nine-sixty-sixth Wing, clear.” Before Paige could say anything more, Patrick hung up.
He had done everything he could with NORAD, Patrick thought. It was up to them if they wanted to act on the information. But even if she didn’t believe him, she would certainly sound the alarm—and an alarm from someplace like NORAD traveled up very, very quickly.
Patrick was on hold with the deputy chief of staff of Air and Space Operations—the highest person he could reach at the office o
f the Air Force chief of staff in the Pentagon—when someone knocked on his door and then entered without being invited in. It was Trevor Griffin. Patrick was about to admonish him when he noticed his stony expression. “I’m on the phone with the Pentagon, Tagger.”
“I know, Patrick,” Griffin said. “The boss knows, too.” Patrick nodded and waved for Griffin to sit, but he didn’t put the phone down. Griffin held up his secure cellular phone, which had a long list of SMS messages already on it. “Cheyenne Mountain called a few moments ago, and just now the chief’s office called. Everybody wants to know what’s going on. All hell is breaking loose. The boss wants you in the battle-staff area, pronto.” He paused for a moment, then said with a serious expression, “Sir, what are you doing? You’re out of control. You gotta stop this.”
“You’ve seen the pictures and looked over my data, Tagger,” Patrick said. “You know as well as I do how serious this is.”
“Patrick, it’s all speculation,” Griffin said. “It’s a few buildings erected on bases that haven’t been used in a few years, a bunch of tired old Backfire bombers—nothing earth-shattering about that. What are you—?”
“Air Battle Force got new images, Tagger—you saw them yourself,” Patrick said. “Yakutsk is wall-to-wall tankers now—dozens of them. Aginskoye, Bratsk, Blagoveshchensk, Ulan-Ude—the Blackjacks and Backfires are massing everywhere. As fast as they’ve appeared, I think they’re going to disappear just as fast—all headed this way.”
“Patrick, no one believes that,” Griffin said. “No one believes that the Russians would be crazy enough to attack North America. It’s gotta be something else—if there is anything at all.”
“The target’s not Europe. All the bombers and tankers are in Siberia,” Patrick said. “Unless they’re going after China or Japan, I think the target is the United States.”
“Why? Why would they attack the U.S.?”
“Gryzlov—he wants revenge for my attack on Engels, and he wants to kill ten thousand enemy soldiers for every one Russian soldier we kill,” Patrick said. “The guy’s crazy, he’s in charge, and he wants payback.”
“Patrick, this is nuts,” Griffin breathed. “How in the world are you going to convince anyone of this? They all think that you…well, that you…”
“That I’m trying to stir up shit, that I’m trying to get back at the guys that took away my command and sent me here,” Patrick said. “I know what they think. But there’s only one thing that matters: We do everything we can to protect the United States of America.” Patrick noticed Griffin’s exasperated expression. “Yeah, I know, I sound like some goody-goody comic-book hero, but that’s what I believe.”
Patrick heard a series of clicks and a rainburst signal on the phone, and then a voice said, “General McLanahan? Stand by for the chief.” A moment later: “Kuzner here, secure.”
“General Kuzner, this is General McLanahan, Nine-sixty-sixth Information Warfare Wing, secure. I have a possible situation that requires your immediate attention, sir.”
“McLanahan, do you have any idea the shit storm you’ve caused over here?” Charles Kuzner, the Air Force chief of staff, responded angrily. “The NORAD Command Center issued a red alert to the Joint Staff Operations Center, telling us that one of the AIA wing commanders warned them that the United States was under attack by Russian bombers. Did that warning come from you?”
“Yes, sir, it did.”
“For Christ’s sake, McLanahan…where’s General Houser? Does he even know about any of this?”
“I briefed General Houser and the AIA staff on the findings from two recent satellite-constellation overflights just minutes ago, sir. He indicated to me that I didn’t have enough actionable information. I disagreed, and I felt that my information needed immediate attention, so I called Air Battle Force and asked them to draw up a plan for ground reconnaissance. It—”
“Air Battle Force?” Kuzner retorted. “You’re with Air Intelligence Agency, McLanahan, not Air Battle Force! We pulled you out of there specifically to keep shit like this from happening!”
“Sir, I feel that the information I had needed immediate attention, but I wasn’t going to get it from AIA,” Patrick went on. “The only recourse I had was Air Battle Force.”
“How about Eighth Air—” And then Kuzner stopped—because he knew about Patrick’s history with Terrill Samson. He didn’t need to mention Air Combat Command either—Thomas Muskoka wasn’t a fan of Patrick’s either.
“I was informed by General Luger of new data that strongly suggested a massive bomber and tanker mobilization in the Russian far east,” Patrick went on. “His new information confirmed my suspicions. At that point I contacted NORAD and gave them the warning, then contacted Air Force. I—”
“Hold on,” Kuzner said, and the line went silent. He came back a few moments later. “CJCS wants a briefing later today. You’re going to give it to him. Let’s see if he believes you—because I sure as hell don’t. You report to a videoconference center, hook into the Pentagon comm center, and stand by until they send you over to the Gold Room.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff Conference Room was nicknamed the “Gold Room” because of its décor and because of all the “brass” inside. “I’m calling the Eighth Air Force staff to meet up with Strategic Command at Offutt to discuss the situation. If you’re one second late, mister, I’ll personally go out there and kick your ass all the way back to Washington. Kuzner, clear.” And the connection went dead.
Patrick got up from his desk and put on his Class A uniform jacket. “This is probably the second command I’ve given up in less than a month—it’s gotta be some sort of record. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Dave Luger before I left Air Battle Force, Tagger: Pay attention to what your head and your heart tell you, not what some bureaucrat tells you.”
“I will, Patrick,” Griffin said, “but you’re not going to lose this command.”
“I think this time you’re wrong, Tagger,” Patrick said. He opened his wall safe and extracted a red folder marked TOP SECRET. Griffin knew what it was—and he wished Patrick would put it back in the safe where it belonged. “My last recommendation: Get your ground-recon plan to Kuzner ASAP and press him on it. Get in contact with Dave Luger and Hal Briggs at Air Battle Force for help. They have gadgets and weapons you won’t believe.”
“We’ll plan this thing together, sir,” Griffin said. “I’ll go with you to the battle-staff area.”
“Negative. I want you to get your ground-ops plan forwarded to Air Force right away. I want to see it kicked off in eight hours.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of it.” He stuck out a hand. “You haven’t been here long, Patrick, but I already know I’d follow you to hell and back if you asked me to go.” Patrick smiled, shook Griffin’s hand, nodded, and left to report to the battle-staff area for the videoconference.
Gary Houser showed up moments after Patrick did. Patrick stood at attention as Houser stormed over to him. “I’m getting on a plane in a few hours to report to Strategic Command headquarters to explain what the hell happened here today,” Houser said angrily. “My boss and his senior staff, the entire Strategic Command senior staff, half the senior staff from NORAD, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and undoubtedly the secretary of defense will be grilling me on what you did today. What am I supposed to tell them? I think you’ve flipped out or something. Is that what you think I should tell them?” He stepped toward Patrick until he was almost nose to nose with him. “I just have one question for you, General McLanahan,” Houser said. “What in hell do you want?”
“Want, sir?”
“What do you want, McLanahan?” Houser barked, standing just inches from Patrick, leaning down to snarl directly into his face. “Do you really want to be in the Air Force, or do you want to go out in a blaze of glory? Do you want to serve your country, or do you just want to soothe your own bruised and battered ego? Do you want to destroy the careers of those around you, or are you crazy enough to believe that what you’r
e doing here is the right thing?”
“Sir…” And then Patrick stopped and locked his eyes on his two-star commander. Houser’s eyes blazed, and a jaw muscle twitched. “Gary, I’m getting sick and tired of putting up with your bullshit.”
“What in hell did you just say?” Houser shouted.
“I said, I’m not going to put up with your bullshit anymore,” Patrick repeated. “I gave you information on what could possibly be a major attack against the United States, and all you can do is blow me off. I contacted NORAD and the Pentagon because you’re too full of yourself to do it.”
“Get the hell out of here, McLanahan, before I—”
“I’ve been ordered by General Kuzner to brief the Joint Chiefs on the alert I issued NORAD,” Patrick said. “I’m staying. You’re not going to have a chance to weasel out of this.”
“Weasel out…?”
“I’m going to give my information to the JCS, Gary, and then you can tell them why you chose to ignore it.”
Houser shook his head. “You’ve gone off the deep end, McLanahan,” he said. “I always knew you were a loner and a little strange, but now I know you’ve just completely lost it. Your career is over, my friend. Not only have you disobeyed a lawful order, but you have some sort of delusional problem that makes you a danger to the United States in any sort of command position.
“As soon as this briefing is over, pal, you’re relieved of duty as Nine-sixty-sixth commander. I will prefer charges against you for disobeying a direct order and for insubordination. You will report to your quarters and await the convening of a court-martial. And if I can, I’ll make sure you spend the last remaining years of your career in a military prison camp.”