Crowley had just maneuvered his F-14 behind the KA-6D tanker and was setting up for the run in toward the lighted drogue when suddenly they heard, “All units, all units, pop-up bogeys bearing zero-two-zero, two-seven-five miles bull’s-eye, angels twenty, speed six-zero-zero-knots, all Aardvark units, say fuel status and stand by.” “121 flight’s on the hose, ten-point-one!” Crowley shouted as he rushed toward the drogue for at least a token on-load. But the harder he tried to plug the drogue, the worse he did. He finally got the tanker to fly straight and level for longer than normal so he could plug the drogue; he took a fast five thousand pounds and cycled off. “121’s clear.”
“121, vector to intercept new bogey one, heading zero-five-zero, angels forty,” the combat controller aboard a different E-2C Hawk- eye ordered. Crowley finally realized that the new voice was from the new Hawkeye just launched to cover north of the Lincoln carrier group—sure enough, another Tu-22M Backfire bomber had sneaked in and was now within 250 miles of the carrier! “Go single ship, 122 will follow in trail.”
“121 copies,” Crowley responded, banking to the vector heading and again pushing his throttles up to military power. “Wall- banger, be advised, 121 will be bingo fuel in two-zero mike, I only got a token on-load. I’m down two Ps.”
“Copy that, 121, break, Aardvark-122, top ’em off, you’ll be the only north CAP when your leader bingos. Say your state.”
“122 copies, I’m down two Ps also. I’m on the hose.”
Crowley’s RIO wasn’t able to lock the second Tupolev-22M until it was within 250 miles from the carrier and just over 100 miles ahead. “Stand by for Kitchens, home plate,” Crowley yelled. “Stand by!”
But the Tu-22M continued to barrel in, now traveling at well over the speed of sound. “Wallbanger, 121, do you want me on the Backfire or do you want me to wait on the Kitchens?”
“Stand by, 121 ... ”
“You better hurry with an answer, Wallbanger,” Crowley said. He was now within range to fire on the Backfire bomber itself, but it had not launched a missile. “Wallbanger, lets hear it!”
Just before Crowley was in position to launch, the combat controller aboard the E-2C Hawkeye responded, “Bandit one turning . .. bandit one now heading two-seven-five, angels forty, looks like he’s bugging out... 121, home plate says hold fire and maintain contact.”
“Copy, Wallbanger. I will...”
“Missile launch!” Matte suddenly shouted. “The Backfires launching missiles! ”
It had happened so fast, Crowley didn’t see it happening, and they were expecting another attack on the carrier, not on anything else. Before anyone could react, the Backfire bomber had launched four missiles—not at the carrier, but all of them at the third E-2C Hawkeye radar plane that had just launched from the Lincoln.
The missiles were new Russian Novator KS-172 Pithon “Python” air-to-air missiles, designed specifically for use against airborne radar planes and intelligence-gathering aircraft by homing in on their radars and electromagnetic emissions—they could even home in on the stray electronic emissions from computer screens leaking through the cockpit or observation windows. Flying at a speed of Mach two and fired from a distance of well over two hundred miles, the Pithon missiles were devastating weapons. Even though the E-2C shut off its radar and took evasive action, the missiles “remembered” the planes last position and activated its onboard radar when it got within range. Then it could not miss. All four Pithon missiles plowed into the Hawkeye s twenty-foot rotodome, stripping it from the fuselage and sending the entire aircraft spinning into the sea.
Crowley could do nothing as the third Wallbanger aircraft abruptly went off the air. He immediately turned to pursue, even plugging in full afterburner to try to catch up, but he never got within Phoenix missile range of the retreating Backfire bomber, and within minutes was forced to return to the tanker.
The White House Oval office
25 April 1997, 1321 hours ET
“Do we know that it was an Iranian Backfire bomber?” the President of the United States asked in a low, bitter voice. “Positive ID . . . ?”
“We didn’t get a visual ID, sir,” Philip Freeman replied. Freeman had called the President out of a Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony, and now they were back in the Oval Office, with the President scanning a written report on the Gulf of Oman incident. “But its size was estimated by the radar operators, and based on the range at which it was detected, it had to be a large aircraft. Combine its speed and altitude, then add in the flight characteristics of the missiles it launched—we’re ninety-nine percent sure it was an Iranian Backfire bomber.”
“What in our inventory could do something like that?”
“The B-1B Lancer bomber has a very similar flight profile,” Freeman replied. “The F-lll, F-15, F-16, or F-22 fighters could mimic a Backfire’s speed and performance, but not its range or payload. We have nothing like the AS-4 Kitchen missile—all of our cruise missiles are subsonic.”
“What about other countries? What about China?”
“The Chinese have a bomber, the B-6D Badger, that possibly could mimic the speed of the Backfire bomber,” Freeman said. “They have one supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, but it has a much shorter range than the AS-4 Kitchen missile—forty miles versus two hundred miles. Iraq and Libya also fly the Backfire bomber, but none are reported to be in serviceable condition, and neither country is known to possess any supersonic cruise missiles. Pakistan’s F-16 fighter might be able to mimic the speed and performance of a Backfire bomber, but it could not carry any cruise missiles with the performance of an AS-4 missile.
“Russia of course still flies the Backfire and its upgraded follow- on supersonic bomber, the Tu-145 Blackjack. Ukraine owns several Backfire and Blackjack bombers acquired from Russia, but it is uncertain if they are operational. Russia also still possesses the AS-4, a few of the AS-6, and the AS-9 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.”
“You’re saying Russia might have done this?”
“Extremely unlikely, sir,” Freeman said, shaking his head. “At best, the Russians keep twenty-five percent of their supersonic bombers flyable—they were selling off their Backfire bombers to anyone in the world that might be interested, and they didn’t squawk too loudly when Ukraine claimed the Blackjack bombers. Given what’s happened in Iran in the past few days with the establishment of martial law and the suspension of President Nateq-Nouri by the Ayatollah Khamenei, I think Iran is the most likely culprit.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Do you want us to be positive before we go further?”
“Hell no, Philip, I’m damned positive,” the President said resolutely. “I don’t need a bomb to fall on me to figure out that this is Buzhazi’s attempt to scare us away. But you said you’re still looking for the Backfire bomber base . . . ?”
“It should be much easier to find them now, sir,” Freeman said. “The Navy was able to track the Backfires well inside Iran after their attack, and we’ve had many more surveillance assets in place looking for them. Jon Masters launched two constellations of tactical reconnaissance satellites himself—just gave us the satellites. Once Space Command picked out an orbit for them, Masters put them up there. He’s got every airfield in Iran capable of landing a Backfire bomber under constant surveillance.”
“Good,” the President said. “I want to meet Masters one of these days, after this is over. Now,” the President went on, fixing a serious gaze on his National Security Advisor, “its important to me to hit back without starting a huge, full-scale war in the Middle East. The allies and the oil companies are already jumpy enough—oil prices are already spiking. Now, I know it was this Intelligence Support Agency group that launched those ‘screamer’ missiles, but I want to start shutting down Iran’s ability to make war, not just harass them. What have you got?”
“We’re already sending Future Flight the entire Disruptor series of weapons,” Freeman said. “Brad Elliott’s Disruptors don’t just screw with radars and
sensors—they can do a lot of damage as well.”
“I never thought I’d be saying this, Philip—it sounds like a bad movie,” the President said, “but it’s the truth: I want this to look like an accident. When Masters finds those Backfire bombers, I want them grounded, for good—and I want it to look like an accident. If that Iranian carrier comes anywhere near the Lincoln or any American warship, I want it on the bottom of the Gulf—and I want it to look like an accident. If Iran even thinks about popping off any of those long-range Scuds toward Saudi or Turkey, I want a major military headquarters building in Tehran to grow a large jagged hole in its middle—and I want it to look like an accident. Can you do that?”
“I understand completely, sir,” Freeman said. “And, yes, I think we can. ”
“Good. Keep me advised, day or night, before any operation starts, but you’ve got the green light,” the President said, straightening his tie and getting ready to head back to the reception following the Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony. “Get the forces moving, then brief me as soon as you can; I want to OK each mission before the B-2A crosses into hostile airspace.
“This operation is to be quiet, deniable, and squeaky clean, General, but most of all, I want Iran to pay for shooting down our aircraft, the sons of bitches—attacking unarmed support aircraft is the lowest act any military man can do, and I want Buzhazi to feel it right in his damned groin. Get to it, Philip.”
General Philip Freeman was almost embarrassed by the enthusiasm he felt as he headed to the White House Situation Room to issue his orders to the Intelligence Support Agency. No more "disruptions,” no more "screamers”—the President wanted Iran’s warmaking machine shut down, piece by piece, and that’s exactly what was going to happen.
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam
26 APRIL 1997, 1625 HOURS LOCAL
Jon Masters didn’t knock—he never knocked. He always burst into a room, day or night, and started talking as if the conversation had already started minutes before. This time, it was in the middle of a briefing being given by Colonel Dominguez on the maintenance status of the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber.
“Okay, so we got them. What we did, General,” Masters said breathlessly, "was simple: we launched two NIRTSat boosters, each carrying four Pacer Sky digital photo intelligence satellites, over Iran. We targeted each and every Iranian airfield, civilian or military, longer than forty-five hundred feet long and one hundred fifty feet wide, capable of handling something like a Tu-22M Backfire bomber. We took pictures of each airfield every sixty to ninety minutes. Of course, the Iranians didn’t know we launched these satellites—heck, nobody knew we launched them except you and me. We hit pay dirt.”
Griffith and Dominguez leapt to their feet and followed Masters down the hall of the fourth floor of the Thirteenth Air Force headquarters building, which was now occupied by the members of the Air Intelligence Agency and Future Flight for the B-2A missions against Iran. When everyone was in place and the door closed and locked behind them, Masters clicked the button on his display controller. The large-screen computer monitor showed an overhead view of a very large airport. “They can run, but they couldn’t hide,” Masters said proudly. “Sky Masters comes through again.”
Jon Masters’s NIRTSats (Need it Right This Second Satellites) were small devices, smaller than a washing machine, but capable of photographing a dog from 200 miles in space clearly enough to discern the breed. Four photo-reconnaissance NIRTSats, code-named Pacer Sky, could be loaded aboard a small two-stage scissor-winged rocket booster Masters called ALARM (for Air-Launched Alert Response Missile), and two such ALARM boosters could be loaded aboard Masters’s specially designed DC-10 aircraft. The DC-10 would take the ALARM boosters up to 40,000 feet, then drop them one by one. The DC-10 acted as the boosters’ first-stage engine—the booster’s two stages would fly the missile up as high as 400 miles in space, where the satellites would be inserted in their proper orbit. In this way, Masters could give almost any battlefield commander a complete reconnaissance, surveillance, and communications satellite network in a matter of hours.
Today, however, Masters wasn’t under a government or commercial contract to launch NIRTSats over Iran—this he was doing for himself.
“Beghin Airport, near Kerman, Iran, about two hundred fifty miles north of Bandar Abbas,” Masters went on. “Two hours after the attack on the Lincoln carrier group, we photographed this.” He directed a laser-beam pointer on the screen, then clicked another button, which zoomed the image down around the laser-beam point. Magnified in the image was the unmistakable outline of a B-1B Lancer-type aircraft, with a long, pointed nose, slender body, and thin wings swept back very close to its fuselage.
“There’s your Tupolev-22M bomber base, folks: Beghin Airport—at least it’s one of them.” Masters zoomed the image out until the entire airport could be seen. “With the wings folded, those hangars there can accommodate six Backfires, two per hangar, so we’re still missing at least six more. I’m setting up round-the-clock surveillance on Beghin, and I’m still beating the bushes for the other six bombers.”
“Thank you, Jon,” Major General Brien Griffith, commander of the U.S. Air Force Air Intelligence Agency, said. “Good work.”
“My extreme friggin’ pleasure, sir,” Masters said acidly. “The data’s been relayed to McLanahan and Jamieson via MILSTAR, fed right into their attack computers. They’ll be over the target in ten hours.”
Such ferocity looked so out of place for a young-looking guy like Masters, Griffith thought, but he had undergone much in the last few days—including nearly losing his life at the hands of the Iranian navy. This young man had the technology, the money, and the desire to make Iran pay dearly for what they had done.
Riverside, California
THAT SAME TIME
First Lieutenant Sheila MacNichol was just returning from her sixth trip to the ladies’ room that afternoon—her sixth month of pregnancy seemed like one endless trip to the bathroom—and was returning to her desk in the 722nd Air Refueling Wing commander’s office, where she was “flying a desk,” grounded from her regular job as an Air Force Reserve KC-10 copilot and now acting as the wing executive officer, when she noticed the scared, almost panicked look on the face of the wing commander’s civilian secretary. Instantly her throat turned dry, and the baby kicked, and she felt as if her knees were going to give way.
Even before the secretary got to her feet and headed toward her; even before she saw the door to the wing commander’s office open and the general emerge, his face ashen and drawn; even before she saw the base chaplain and the squadron commander recognize her and open their mouths in surprise and dread—she knew Scotty was dead.
Sheila’s husband Major Scott MacNichol was one of the best, most experienced KC-10 Extender tanker pilots in the U.S. Air Force, a veteran of over four hundred sorties, some over enemy territory, in the “tanker war” during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, a dedicated, knowledgeable flight commander and instructor pilot. No mission was too tough or impossible. The unspoken rule “never volunteer” was unheard of in Scotty’s lexicon—he volunteered for everything. He enjoyed, relished, rejoiced' in putting his 600,000- pound tanker-transport plane in the tightest spots, the most difficult missions, the shortest runways, the most hazardous jobs.
He had been awarded the Air Medal with two oak-leaf clusters for his service in Desert Storm—very, very unusual for an aircraft that was never supposed to be in enemy territory. Scotty would go in and get his receivers if there was the slightest hint of trouble. There were only forty KC-10 tankers in the world, but as a “force multiplier,” able to refuel both Air Force, Navy, Marines, and many foreign aircraft, it was worth a hundred times its number—too valuable to risk over Indian country. But Scotty went there.
Damn him, Sheila cursed silently, he did this on purpose! When the baby came, she thought, he knew he was going to be asked to give up all the TDY, all the long weeks of traveling to exotic foreign destinations, all
the secret missions, the sudden midnight phone calls, the hastily packed mobility bags—packing cold-weather gear when it was ninety degrees out. She knew he wasn’t going to have fun in Hawaii while she stayed home with the backaches and swollen feet and hemorrhoids. He wanted to get all his excitement, all his heroics in before he was asked to settle down and be a regular dad, a regular guy, for the first time in his life.
The wing commander motioned her inside his office and helped her sit down. Sheila knew the chaplain and the squadron commander, of course, so she got right to it: “Scotty ... is dead?”
“His plane suffered an unknown, catastrophic failure of some kind over the Gulf of Oman,” the wing commander said. “His plane was lost with all aboard. I’m so sorry, Lieutenant.”
Sheila tried not to cry, but the tears came unbidden, and then the sobbing. She didn’t mean to do that, in front of the wing king and the squadron commander and the chaplain, but it was happening, and she couldn’t stop it until she heard the wing commander ask his secretary to call for an ambulance to stand by out front, and Sheila decided she wasn’t going to have any of that, so she stopped.
“A... a catastrophic failure, sir? What kind? A bird strike? Compressor failure? Fuel-system malfunction?” Everyone in this room was an experienced KC-10 driver except for the chaplain, and even he had a couple hundred hours in one—why was he being so obtuse? Probably because the plane had crashed in the ocean— not much chance to do an accident investigation with the pieces scattered across the seabed. The wing king was in his “comfort the grieving survivors” mode, too, so maybe he wasn’t trying to be so evasive—he wasn’t accustomed to talking to widows about compressor stalls, center-of-gravity violations, or in-flight emergencies.
“We don’t know yet, Lieutenant. . . Sheila,” the general said. “An investigation is under way.”
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