Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

  The General Secretary straightened papers in his briefcase. “Overseas?”

  “The United States. Deep cover operation on an American military-research base.”

  The General Secretary paused, glanced at Cherkhov, then shook his head. “It sounds like a major escalation. Ten people on one base?”

  Kalinin tried to control his irritation. The General Secretary, it seemed, had already decided in the negative but wanted to pump his KGB chief for information before saying no. “In one city, actually,” Kalinin pushed on. “Perhaps two or three on the base itself, one or two on a separate research center nearby.”

  “This perhaps refers to Dreamland?” General Cherkov asked. “More activity there?”

  “It is Dreamland,” Kalinin admitted. The old man was well- informed. The crafty Chief-of-StafFs small but highly efficient cadre of internal investigators were still very much hard at work spying on the KGB for the General Secretary. “We have received information on a new American project that I believe should be of great interest to us.”

  “Obviously,” the General Secretary deadpanned. “Ten new operatives in one area at one time is a lot. Is there a danger of discovery?”

  “There is always that chance, sir. But this project is so important I feel the additional manpower is absolutely vital.”

  “Wasn’t your young pilot assigned to Dreamland?” Cherkov asked. “The deep-cover agent that you managed to help transfer from their Strategic Air Command?”

  “Major Andrei Maraklov, yes. And he is the one who has reported on a new American project that I must track very closely.”

  “And this project?”

  Kalinin hesitated—he didn’t expect to be grilled like this. As reported to him so far, the new project was so unusual that he didn’t fully understand it; it was going to be very difficult explaining it to the General Secretary. This was another change from practices of ten years ago—back then, the government was so large and, more to the point, so bureaucratically compartmentalized that sending ten or even fifty new agents to the United States was relatively easy. Now all personnel movement, even covert or so-called diplomatic transfers, were approved in advance.

  “I’m talking about a project begun by the same research center we obtained the short takeoff and landing data from,” Kalinin said. “Maraklov has been assigned to a project studying . . . thought-controlled fighter aircraft—”

  "Thought-controlled aircraft?” The General Secretary quickly looked down at the small stack of papers on his desk— apparently stifling his skepticism.

  “Maraklov reports they’ve had significant success with this project,” Kalinin said, stiffening. “I feel it is very important . .

  The General Secretary shook his head. “I am sorry, but ten men for such a project is too much. I can authorize two in the Los Angeles consulate, and this must be coordinated with the foreign minister.”

  “But, sir, I was going to use two men as handlers for Maraklov. The handlers are very important. Maraklov’s movements are carefully monitored and more than one contact is essential. If I only have two new men and use them as handlers I will not have any for inside duties at the research center. I—”

  “I have another meeting, Kalinin,” the General Secretary said, snapping shut his briefcase. “I am scheduled to be in Los Angeles in one month. It will not look well if a large-scale deep-cover ring is discovered. I can’t risk that. Two men only, Kalinin. If more information on this project comes in, I may reconsider. Now I must go.”

  As the General Secretary moved around his desk to leave, Kalinin quickly stepped toward him, not blocking his way but obviously wanting to hold his attention a moment longer. “Sir, I assure you, this is most urgent.”

  The General Secretary looked directly at his KGB chief. He was shorter than Kalinin by several centimeters and at least twenty years older; Kalinin had a full head of dark brown hair, the General Secretary was bald except for graying temples. The older man was solidly built and only recently giving way to fat; Kalinin was lean, as athletic as a career bureaucrat from Leningrad could manage.

  Yet as they stood face-to-face, the General Secretary exuded a power that was considerably more than physical. He had a presence, an aura, an intensity that had all but mesmerized heads of government around the world. His eyes were especially effective in seizing and transfixing.

  “Vladimir, the KGB has been well supported by this government. I have given you my support. I did so even when the Politburo believed I had made a wrong decision in appointing you to head the KGB. I believed the KGB needed a strong young leader for the future, and I chose you. I know that you look to something greater than merely the head of the world’s largest intelligence organization—perhaps minister of defense or even General Secretary. Your ambitions are your own affair. But do not accuse me, Vladimir. I do what is in the best interest of our country and this government, including the KGB.”

  Kalinin saw the understated power in those blue eyes. After eight years in power, he was still considered by many to be the most influential man on the world scene. With glasnost now an important part of Soviet life, the General Secretary was much more visible in the eyes of the world. Kalinin realized confrontations at this time were pointless and even dangerous.

  But the man was getting older. Older and more cautious. Nearly every decision involved weighing how it would look in the eyes of the world. Kalinin didn’t much care about the eyes of the world—he cared about Russia, her security, based on her strength. The Soviet Union was not just another member of the world community—she was, or should be, its leader.

  The General Secretary studied the younger man’s eyes for a moment before moving toward the door. Cherkov, once the General Secretary’s mentor and now his submissive guard-dog, followed him out.

  The General Secretary might be, as some said, a visionary, Kalinin thought, but right now he was being dangerously short-sighted. Forget him this time, Kalinin told himself. This was a KGB project—it would remain a KGB project.

  And if there was any way for this strange new American technology to advance his own position in the government, then let it happen.

  CHAPTER1

  Air Force High Technology Advanced Weapons Center (HAWC)

  Wednesday, 10 June 1996, 0430 PDT (0730 EDT)

  Air FORCE Lieutenant Colonel Patrick S. McLanahan watched Captain Kenneth Francis James preparing to mount his “steed.” James’ tall, powerfully built frame was covered—a better term might have been “encased”—in a stiff* flight suit made of nylon and metallic thread. James had to carry around a small portable air conditioning unit to stay comfortable, and the suit was so stiff* that James had to be hoisted into his steed on a hydraulic lift. A small army of “squires”—military and civilian scientists and technicians, led by Doctor Alan Carmichael, the chief project engineer and Patrick’s civilian counterpart—followed James on his lift up toward his incredible steed.

  Both McLanahan’s and James’ aircraft were in a large open- ended hangar, used more to shield the two fighters from the ultra-magnified eyes of Soviet reconnaissance satellites than to protect against the weather. It was only four-thirty in the morning, but the temperature was already starting to climb; it was going to be a scorcher in the high Nevada desert test-site north of Las Vegas known as Dreamland.

  But Patrick wasn’t thinking about the heat. His eyes were on the sleek lines of the jet fighter before him.

  DreamStar . . .

  As McLanahan stood gazing at the fighter the senior noncommissioned officer of the DreamStar project, Air Force Master Sergeant Ray Butler, moved alongside him.

  “I know how you feel, sir,” Butler said in his deep, gravely voice, running a hand across his shaved head. “I get a shiver every time I see her.”

  She was a child of the first X-29 advanced technology demonstator aircraft built in the early and mid-1980s. Long, low, sleek and deadly, DreamStar was the only fighter aircraft anywhere with forward-swept wings, which spread gra
cefully from nearly abeam the cockpit back all the way to the tail. The forward-swept wings allowed air to stick to the aircraft’s control surfaces better, making it possible for the aircraft to make faster and wilder maneuvers than ever thought possible. She was so agile and so fast that it took three independent highspeed computers to control her.

  “Chief,” Patrick said as they began a walkaround inspection of the fighter, “there’s no question she’s one sexy piece of hardware. Very sexy.”

  Butler nodded. “Couldn’t put it better myself.”

  The cockpit seemed suspended in mid-air on the long, pointed forward fuselage high above the polished concrete floor of the satellite-bluff hangar. Beside the cockpit on each side of the fuselage were two auxiliary fins, canards, integral parts of the DreamStar’s advanced flight controls. When horizontal, the canards provided extra lift and allowed the fighter to fly at previously unbelievable flight attitudes; when moved nearly to the vertical, the canards let the fighter move in any direction without changing its flight path. DreamStar could climb or descend without moving its nose up or down, turn without banking, dart sideways in, literally, the blink of an eye.

  The one large engine inlet for the single afterburning jet engine was beneath the fuselage, mounted so that a smooth flow of air could still be assured even at radical flight attitudes and fast changes in direction. DreamStar had two sets of rudders, one pair on top and one on the bottom, which extended and retracted into the fuselage as needed; the lower stabilizers were to assure directional control at very high angles-of-attack (when the nose would be pointed high above the flight path of the aircraft) and low speed when the upper stabilizers would be ineffective.

  Even at rest she seemed energetic, ready to leap effortlessly into the sky at any moment. “She looks like a great big cat ready to pounce,” Patrick said half-aloud.

  They continued their walkaround aft. DreamStar’s engine exhausts were not the typical round nozzles on other fighters. She used oblong vectored-thrust nozzles that could divert the engine exhaust in many different directions. Louvers on the top and bottoms of the nozzles could change the direction of thrust instantaneously, giving DreamStar even greater maneuverability. The vectored thrust from the engines could also act as added boost to shorten takeoff rolls, or as thrust-reversers during dogfights or on landing to bleed off energy.

  She was one hell of a bird, all right, and Patrick McLanahan figured he had the best job in the world—turning her into the world’s newest and deadliest combat-ready weapon. Patrick “Mac” McLananan, an ex-Strategic Air Command B-52 radar navigator-bombadier—especially remembered for his role on the Flight of the Old Dog that knocked out a Soviet laser installation—was the project officer in charge of development of the DreamStar advanced technology fighter. Once perfected, the XF-34A DreamStar fighter would be the nation’s new air-superiority fighter.

  Walking around the engine exhausts they noticed a crew chief running over to activate an external-power cart. “Looks like they’re ready for power,” Butler said. “I’d better go see how they’re doing. Have a good flight, Colonel.”

  Patrick returned his salute and headed toward the plane he would be flying that morning. If the two aircraft were humans, the second jet fighter, Cheetah, would be DreamStar’s older, less intelligent cousin. A by-product of the revolutionary SMTD, Short Takeoff and Landing and Maneuverability Demonstrator projects of the last decade, Cheetah was a line F-15E two-set jet fighter-bomber, heavily modified and enhanced after years of research and development in the fields of high- performance flight and advanced avionics. It had come to Dreamland, this top-secret aircraft and weapons research center northwest of Las Vegas, seven years earlier. It had been at Dreamland for less than a day before then Lieutenant General Bradley Elliott, the director of HAWC, had had her taken apart for the first time. The changes to the airframe had been so extensive that it had been given a code-name Cheetah instead of keeping its original nickname, Eagle.

  Hard to believe, McLanahan thought, that such a machine like Cheetah could be outdated in so short a time.

  The remarkable enhancements built into DreamStar had been tested years earlier on Cheetah, so Cheetah shared DreamStar’s huge moveable forward canards, vectored-thrust engines and computer-commanded flight controls. But even Cheetah was starting to show its twenty years of age. Modifications to every component of the fifty-seven-thousand-pound aircraft meant lots of riveted access panels scarred across its fuselage, performance-robbing patches that layers of paint could barely hide. With an eleven-hundred-pound remote- control camera mounted just behind her aft cockpit, her once impressive top speed of Mach two was now a forgotten statistic—she’d have a tough time, Patrick thought, of reaching Mach one without afterburners. DreamStar could easily cruise at one point five Mach without ‘burners.

  Where all of the high-tech components had made DreamStar the fighter of the future, those same enhancements had taken a severe performance penalty on Cheetah. But there was still one man who could make Cheetah dance in the sky like a brand-new bird. Patrick found that extraordinary young pilot asleep under Cheetah’s nose, using the nosewheel as a headrest.

  “J.C.”

  “Yo,” came a sleepy reply.

  Patrick went up the crew-boarding ladder, retrieved a set of ear noise protectors from the cockpit. “On your feet. Time to go aviating.”

  For J. C. Powell that bit of Air Force jargon was raw meat to a starving wolf—he was up, on his feet and skipping up the crew entry ladder like a kid.

  “Say the word, Colonel.”

  “I’m stopping by to see how our boy is doing in DreamStar,” McLanahan said, putting on the ear protectors to block out the noise of the external power cart. “Should be fifteen minutes to engine start. Get Cheetah ready to fly.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  In another life, Captain Roland Q. Powell, the only son of a very wealthy Virginia family, all five feet five and one hundred twenty pounds of him, must have been a barnstormer; before that he might have ridden barrels over Niagara Falls. “Plain reckless” would have been the wrong term to describe his flying, but “reckless abandon” was close. He was totally at home in airplanes, always pushing his machine to the limit but staying in control at all times. He never flew slow if he could fly fast, never made a turn at thirty degrees’ bank when he could do sixty or ninety, never flew up high when he could fly down in the trees. He earned the nickname “J.C.” from his Undergraduate Pilot Training instructors who would mutter “Jesus Christ” (usually followed by “help me” or “save me”) when they found out they had been scheduled to fly with Roland Powell.

  He became an FAIP, first assignment instructor pilot, out of Undergraduate Pilot Training, but the Air Force didn’t want an entire Air Force filled with J. C. Powells, so he was assigned to Edwards Air Force Base. Flight test was the perfect place to stick Roland Powell. He knew all there was to know about aerodynamics but would still agree to do anything the engineers asked of him, no matter how dangerous or impossible it seemed. As a result Powell got the hot planes. Every jet builder wanted to see what magic J. C. Powell could conjure up with his airframe. He was soon enticed to Dreamland by General Elliott with the promise of flying the hottest fighter of them all—Cheetah. Powell’s expertise both as a pilot and as an engineer helped speed up the development of DreamStar, but he chose to stay with Cheetah. From then on, he had been her only pilot.

  But J. C. Powell had had his time in the spotlight. Now, it was Kenneth Francis James’ turn.

  When he got to DreamStar again, Patrick climbed up the ladder on the hydraulic lift and watched as James was lowered into the cockpit. His special flight suit was preformed into a sitting position, making James look like a plastic doll. Once James was lowered into place, Patrick moved toward him as close as possible without interfering with the small army of experts attending to the pilot’s seat configuration.

  “Feeling okay, Ken?”

  James nodded. “Snug, but okay.”


  Patrick watched as James was set into his specially molded ejection seat, strapped into place, and had his oxygen, environmental and electronic leads connected. The image of a medieval knight being readied for combat flashed in Patrick’s head, topped off when they placed James’ helmet on his head and clipped it into a clavicle ring on his shoulders. The helmet was essentially a holder for a variety of superconducting sensors and terminals that covered the inner surface. Once the helmet was locked into place, the flight suit became one gigantic electronic circuit, one big superconducting transistor. It became the data-transmission circuit between James and the amazing aircraft he was strapped into.

  “Self-test in progress,” Carmichael said. The computer, a diagnostic self-test device as well as an electroencephalograph to monitor the human side of the system, checked each of the thousands of sensors, circuits and transmitters within the suit and their connections through the interface to DreamStar. But Carmichael chose not to let the computer do his work, even though he was the one who had designed the interface; the scientist manually ran through the complex maze of readouts, checking for any sign of malfunction or abnormal readings.

  He found none; neither did the computer. A few minutes later, Carmichael turned to Patrick, nodded. “He’s ready.”

  Patrick walked around the lift’s narrow catwalk and knelt down in front of James. He could barely see a movement of James’ eyes through the helmet’s thick electro-optical lenses.

  “Ready to do some flying, buddy?”

  They looked at each other. There was no movement at all from James. Patrick waited, watched. James appeared to be trying to decide on something. He didn’t seem fearful or apprehensive or at all nervous. He was just . . . what?

  Patrick glanced at Carmichael. “Alan? How’s he doing?”