by Dale Brown
"Attack it."
Curtis was somewhat taken aback. "No one said anything about 'taking out' anything, especially in goddamned Russia."
He smiled. "Jesus, Brad, you're a sonofabitch."
General Elliott smiled back at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.
"We'll walk from here, Hal. Meet us back at the guard shack in an hour.
The truck ground to a halt, and the driver, a young second lieutenant wearing fatigues and carrying a small Uzi submachine gun, trotted around to General Curtis' door and held it open for him. Both men stepped out.
"You won't get lost from here, will you, General?" the lieutenant asked Elliott in a low enough voice to keep Curtis from hearing.
"Straight down the road, about four hundred "This is my desert, Hal," Elliott growled. With a smile he said, "Get out of here. Make sure they have fresh coffee at the guard shack, and don't drink it all." The young officer saluted, trotted back to the driver's seat, and drove off.
"This, sir, is Dreamland," Elliott said, beaming. He spread his hands out across the desert as he spoke. "Ideas become reality here.
Theories become machines. Men like you don't come here just to visit-you come here to get answers."
Elliott's mind was racing-it was exhilarating for Curtis just to watch.
"Kavaznya. Heavily defended, I'd say, according to your intel.
"That would be an understatement," General Curtis replied.
"They converted their small supply airfield into a full-scale year-round base.
"Rule out a carrier task force, then," Elliott said, nodding.
"They'd be blown out of the water thirteen hundred miles north of Japan. The Russians would see a flight of F-15s and their tankers long before they reached Kavaznya, and you might need two squadrons to beat past the defense and take that complex out. "He looked at Curtis.
"Bombers. Heavy bombers. B-1s, perhaps?"
"What else would I get from an old SAC warhorse?" Curtis said, smiling.
Elliott went on: "We don't want the Russians to think we just declared war on them. One bomber, launch three, but pick the best for the attack. One lone penetrator, even against heavy defenses, has a chance. Especially a B- L" "My thoughts exactly."
It was Elliott's turn to smile. "You didn't come here to shop, did you, sir?You came to buy. Cash and carry. Price is no object. All that stuff."
"I wanted to see your little playland here, too," Curtis said, "but I knew you'd have what I'm looking for."
"I don't have a B-1 here," Elliott said as they approached the guard shack. "But I've got something… you won't believe.
"I knew you'd put on a show for me," Curtis asked. "But where the hell are we?"
"We're in Nevada, sir," Elliott said, scanning the horizon with the corners of his eyes. It was an old Navy seadog trick taught to him by his father: the corners of the eyes can detect motion easier than the center, because of the lesser concentration of light receptors at the edges."in the middle of nowhere.
That's the Groom Mountain range over there," Elliott said, pointing to the twilight-streaked horizon. "You can just barely see Bald Mountain over there. Papoose Range is over there to the south. We are on the northwest corner of Groom Lake."
"Lake?" Curtis said, kicking up a cloud of hard-packed sand and dust.
"Dry lake," Elliott explained. "Properly tested and reinforced. It makes a natural and easily concealed three-mile-long runway. "Elliott scanned the horizon, breathing in the fresh, clean, slightly chilling air. "Dreamland. They walked for a while longer. Suddenly, two streaks of light could be seen several miles in the distance, diving and turning over the nap of the rugged mountains. A moment later, two ear-shattering sonic booms rolled across the desert floor and echoed up and down the valley.
"What the hell was that?" Curtis asked.
"Red Flag," Elliott said with a smile. "Probably a couple of FB-111s on a night terrain-following sortie out there on range 74.Going max afterburners and supersonic at two hundred feet."
"But that was so close," Curtis asked. "What about-" "Relax, relax," Elliott asked. "They were at least fifteen miles away. Besides, those bomber pukes know better than to come any closer to Dreamland. The airspace from ground level to eighty thousand feet is absolutely prohibited from overflight-civilian, military, anybody. It's an instant aircrew violation and a security debriefing they'd not soon forget-I'd guarantee that.
Finally, after a few minutes of searching, Elliott spotted the low, dimly lit guardhouse and steered Curtis and himself toward it. "I come out here once a week," Elliott said, "and I still have trouble finding the damn guard shack."
"I don't think your sky-cops would let us wander around out here for too long," Curtis observed.
"True," Elliott asked. "They'd send a German shepherd to fetch us back."
A few moments later, they all ived at a small concrete block building.
The shack had one large bullet-proof double-paned glass window in front, one door, and numerous gunports around it on the other walls. A twelve-foot-tall fence stretched on either side of the building, and the fence was topped with large, silvery coils of sharp barbed wire.
Three fully rigged Air Force security guards emerged from the building and quickly and quietly surrounded Elliott and Curtis. All three were armed with M-16 rifles, one with a mean-looking M-203 grenade launcher attached to the underside of his rifle barrel. A German shepherd dog was led out and began sniffing around the two visitors. The dog took one sniff of Wilbur Curtis and sat down directly in front of him, no more than six inches from the tips of his shoes.
" Don't move, sir, " the dog handler asked. "Is your identification in your breast pocket?" Curtis nodded, once, very slowly.
The guard removed Curtis' wallet while another guard quickly pat-searched him.
"Should I raise my hands?" Curtis asked.
"He means 'don't move, sir," Elliott said, as his ID was examined.
"Bambi there weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds and could probably drag you up a vertical ladder."
"Bambi?" Curtis felt his body stiffen as he looked at the dog.
" I didn't know you were carrying a weapon," Elliott said to Curtis as the guard pulled a nine-millimeter automatic from a shoulder holster.
Curtis grunted, afraid to move his lips any further. The dog was led reluctantly to Elliott for a quick search, and then taken away.
As the two generals drank steaming cups of coffee just outside the guard shack waiting for their ID verification, Curtis surveyed what little visible landscape there was inside the compound. Inside the tall fence, the area was completely dark leading to a row of three hangars. No lights at all were visible anywhere. The large hangars were flanked by several smaller ones. A wide ramp emerged from the opposite side of each hangar, and stretched out over the horizon.
"Why no lights inside the compound, Brad?" Curtis asked after their IDs were rechecked and they were cleared inside the fence.
"Oh, they have lights on, sir," Elliott asked. "All infrared.
To the guards with their sensors and sniperscopes, it's just as clear as day. The darkness also helps the Dobermans."
Curtis gulped. "Dobermans?"
" Yes, unattended guard dogs. They're more effective if they're allowed to prowl, and they're very shy of lights. They all have laryngectomies, too, poor devils. If they spot you, they won't even give you the courtesy of a warning bark before they go for your throat.
" Curtis looked around nervously.
"They're not around now," Elliott asked. "At least, I hope they've recalled them. We'd never know what hit us if they haven't.
They reached the back entrance to the hangar after another hundred-yard walk. "One at a time," Elliott said. They heard a buzzing sound, and Elliott grabbed the doorhandle, pulled the large metallic door open, and stepped inside. A few moments later, Curtis heard the same buzzer and did the same.
Curtis was standi
ng in a long corridor. The walls of the corridor were clear, thick plastic on all sides, even the floor, and Elliott was just stepping out of the second half of the unusual walkway. More security guards studied Curtis carefully as he walked down the corridor and stopped at a plastic door.
He was aware of a large cannon-like device tracking him as he walked along, humming like a dentist's X-ray machine. The remote-controlled lock buzzed, and he stepped into the second half of the plastic hallway Another door later, he joined up with General Elliott.
"Well, that's new even to me. "Elliott asked. "An X-ray chamber.
Must've put it in just in the past few days. It checks for implants.
That X-ray device, I'm told, can find microdot transmitters embedded in your teeth, fingernails-even your intestines.
"Hmm. I'm not sure how much good it will do," General Curtis asked. "I bet the Russians have Dreamland scoped out from six different angles.
A jackrabbit probably can't screw in this desert without some Soviet spy satellite watching him.
"Well," Elliott replied, "they might know about all the activity going on around here, and all the security, and maybe even have snapshots of you and me taking a stroll. But, at least for now, they don't know anything about… this!"
They emerged from the security chief's office into the main hangar area. Curtis let out a gasp.and even Elliott, who had seen this plane in nearly every step of its metamorphosis, felt a thrill of pride and anticipation as he studied the immense form before them.
"General Curtis," Elliott said, "meet the Old Dog."
The huge B-52 was completely black, a strange, eerie jetblack that seemed to absorb light, totally negating the effect of the hundred maintenance floodlights surrounding it. The surface was absolutely clean and as smooth as a bowling ball.
It was as if the B-52, the veteran of over thirty years of service, was in some sort of futuristic, comical costume.
"What the hell Curtis said.
"Don't recognize it, huh?" Elliott laughed. "Officially, the B-52 I-model, although it's only a B-52 H-model with a bunch of modifications. It is without a doubt one of a kind. We use it as a test bed for Stealth-type technology, air-to-air weaponry, weapons mating tests, computer hardware, everything. But she's in top flyin' condition-she can fly right now if you want. The workers have renamed her from Stratofortress to Megafortress, and you'll see why. Let me show you around."
Curtis followed Elliott around to the most prominent exterior change on the bomber-a long, needle-sharp nose and sharply angled cockpit windows.
" An SST-style nose, Brad?" Curtis asked. "Isn't this going a little too far?"
"We checked out every aspect of this plane's performance," Elliott asked. "You'd be surprised how much a long, pointed nose, pointed tip fuel tanks, more streamlined cockpit windows, smoothed and polished skin, and no external TV or infrared cameras help to increase this plane's top speed. The limiting Mach on this plane before modification was point eight-four Mach; now, the limiting Mach speed of this baby is point nine-six without the externals. And it's just as comfortable at low altitude as it is in the stratosphere."
Curtis ran his hand over the skin. "What kind of metal is this?" he asked. "Fiberglass?It's not aluminum. What is it?"
"Radar-absorbing fibersteel," Elliott asked. "A composition of fiberglass and carbon steel, stronger than aluminum but as radar-transparent as plastic.
"We can't make it invisible, of course," Elliott asked. "It's all a matter of time. If we can get thirty or forty miles closer to the target without being detected, all the expense and trouble is worth it.
If an enemy fighter has to come in another ten or twenty miles before he can get a solid missile lock-on, it just improves our chances of getting him first and surviving. At night, the special black antisearchlight paint is worth its weight in gold. This plane will be virtually invisible to the naked eye at night. A fighter can be flying side-by-side with the Megafortress and he'll never see it. "Elliott smiled as they walked around the smooth, pointed nose. "Besides, the black paint and the nose make it look mean as hell."
As they approached the huge bomber, Curtis stopped short.
"You can't… Elliott, you really did it this time, dammit., Curtis was staring at a long pylon on each wing, mounted between the fuselage and the inboard engine nacelles.
Each pylon carried six long, sleek missiles.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" Elliott asked. "Advanced MediumRange Air-to-Air Missiles. Radar guided, with terminal infrared and home-on-jam guidance. Twenty-five mile range.
High-explosive proximity flak warheads. We've modified the main attack radar to act as a guidance radar for these Scorpions."
"Scorpions," Curtis muttered. "Dammit, Elliott. We don't even have Scorpions on our front-line fighters yet."
"But I've put them on an SAC bomber, sir," Elliott said.
"And they'll go on your B-1s, too.
"Also on each wing we've put two thousand-gallon external fuel tanks instead of the one normal fifteen-hundred gallon tank. Both the missile pylons and all four external tanks are jettisonable.
" We also have split fibersteel bomb bay doors, which are lighter and more radar-transparent. You'll see why they're split in a moment.
There are many places in this beast that radar energy will just pass through with zero reflectivity. The radar cross-section of the B-52 used to double with the bomb doors open-but not anymore. By applying the same technology to a B-1, which already has half the radar cross-section of a B-52.
you can make it practically invisible."
They reached the strange, unrecognizable tail of the airplane. "We eliminated the typical horizontal and vertical stabilizers and replaced them with a short, curved V-tail assembly. We built all of the tail-warning receivers and aft jammer antennas into the tail. We've also included an infrared search and warning system that is designed to detect air-to-air missile launches from the rear."
"You took the tail guns MP" Curtis said, pointing up at the very end of the plane. "No big Gatling multibarrel gun, like on the H-models?"
"Tail guns are antiquated," Elliott asked. "Even a radar guided Gatling gun is not effective enough against the current class of Soviet fighters we're expecting. Hell, some Soviet interceptors can actually outrun a fifty-caliber shell."
Curtis checked the tail end closer. "Well, you've got something up there. A larger fire-control radar, that's for sure.
What else?A flame thrower or something?"
"Land mines, " Elliott explained. "Actually, air mines. That enclosed cannon in the back fires twelve-inch-long flak canister rockets. The aft fire-control radar on the Megafortress tracks both the rocket and the enemy fighter, and it transmits steering signals to the rockets.
When the range between the fighter and the flak rocket is down to about two hundred yards or so, the fire-control computer detonates the rocket. The explosion s a pattern of metal chips out a couple hundred yards, send which acts like thousands of fifty-caliber bullets being fired all at once. There doesn't have to be a direct hit on the fighter.
"The fire-control radar has an increased detection range of about thirty miles," Elliott continued, as Curtis shook his head. "The rockets have a range of nearly three miles, which is very close to optimum infrared missile firing range."
' "Elliott," Curtis asked. "This is too much. Way too much. I don't believe you-" "General," Elliott interrupted, "you haven't seen nothin' yet. "Elliott waved to a nearby guard standing near the left wing-tip.
The guard spoke briefly into a walkie-talkie, received a reply, then waved to the general in response. Crouching below the ebony belly of the plane, Curtis and Elliott went inside the back half of the bomb bay. Once inside, Curtis stopped short.
"What the Mounted on a large drum-like rotary launcher in the aft portion of the sixty-foot-long bomb bay were fourteen long, sleek missiles.
"Our ace-in-the-hole, sir," Elliott asked. "Ten more brandnew AIM-120
Scorpion AMRAAM mis
siles. They can be guided by the fire-control radar, the bombing radar, or they can home-in on an enemy fighter's radar or on the fighter jamming transmissions. We have them facing aft, but they can attack any threat at any angle. If one of those radars has found a fighter, or if the threat-warning receivers can see it, a missile can hit it. The rotary launcher can pump out a missile once every two seconds."
" Unbelievable," Curtis asked. "Well, I suppose I should say it's about time, eh, Brad?Nuclear bombers with little machine guns going against Mach one fighters seemed awfully silly to me. "He examined the launcher. "I can't wait for you to tell me what the other rockets do."
"Ah, yes. Glad you reminded me," Elliott asked. "Four AGM-88B HARM missiles. HARM stands for High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile. They were the stars over Libya in 1985.The missiles home-in on either the radars themselves or, if the radars are turned off, they'll fly the last computed path to the target.
"Twenty-two air-to-air missiles, four air-to-ground missiles, and a total of fifty air mine rockets, all for bomber selfdefense," Elliott said, summing up. "Together with the usual chaff and flares and specialized electronic countermeasure packages installed on board, we think we've greatly increased the chances of this Megafortress reaching the target. Like I said, sir-a flying battleship."
"Armed to the teeth, all right," Curtis said. He closely examined the long, slender missiles on their launcher and looked forward. "What's this?"
"The only space left for offensive weaponry," Elliott explained. "In using the Megafortress as a test-bed we've concentrated mostly on defensive armament for strategic bombers. But she can still carry fifteen thousands pounds of ordnance-nukes, iron bombs, missiles, mines, anything. Or we can put extra fuel, additional defensive missiles, decoys, even personnel up there. How about side gunners, like a B-17 in World War Two?We've already done that with the Old Dog.
"We've been running tests with the new AGM-130 Striker TV/infrared guided glide bomb, the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the inventory. The damn thing weighs a ton and a half but can glide twelve miles when released at low altitudes."