Fortunes of War

by Stephen Coonts

  “No. The thinking is that if foreign powers learn how good Sky Eye is, they will target our satellites in any future conflict.”

  “Our satellites are already targets.”

  “Low-priority targets.”

  “But—” Tuck raised a hand. “I’m not here to argue. I didn’t make that decision. We have to live with it.”

  “Why the hell buy it if we can’t use it?” Cassidy asked with some irritation. “This country’s future isn’t on the come line just now,” Tuck said with his eyes half-closed. He seemed to be trying to measure Cassidy. “You and I are on the same side.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean—“

  “Go talk to Eatherly.”

  As Eatherly led Cassidy from the room, he stuck out his hand. “My friends call me John. Did you get along okay with the old man?”

  “I think so.”

  In his office, Eatherly pulled a chair around for Cassidy and got out a legal pad. “Does the general really think an F-22 squadron in Siberia has a chance?”

  Eatherly looked surprised. “What are you saying?”

  Cassidy frowned. “Or does he want me to give him reasons to say I can’t?

  “I believe he was hoping you could show him how this proposal could be made to work,” Eatherly replied thoughtfully. “If you think it can.”

  Cassidy rubbed his face hard. “I—“

  “You are going to be leading this parade, Colonel. The tender, quivering ass on the plate this time is yours.”

  Bob Cassidy sat lost in thought for a long moment. Then he said, “My source in Japan says the Zeros are invisible to radar. He says the Japanese acquired — stole — an American project called Athena.”

  Eatherly nodded. “There was a black American project with that name. I checked when I saw your report on the Zero. The American project died years ago.”

  “How did it work?”

  “It was active ECM. When the signal from an enemy radar was detected, the raw data was put through a superconductive computer, which then used other antennas buried in the aircraft’s skin to emit an out-of-sync wave that effectively canceled the enemy radar signal.”

  “But what about scatter effect? Radar A transmits a signal, but B receives it?”

  “The computer knows the scatter characteristics of the airplane it is protecting, so it emits the proper amount of energy in all directions. That was the heart of it.”

  “Why didn’t we develop it?”

  Eatherly shrugged. “Ran out of money.”

  “Terrific.”

  “The F-22 is very stealthy,” Eatherly mused. “With your radar off, you might escape detection until you are into visual range.”

  “It isn’t that stealthy,” Bob Cassidy replied. “And the human eyeball isn’t that good. What we’re going to need is Sky Eye. The satellites are going to have to find these guys and tell us where they are.”

  I’ll talk to the National Security people.”

  “And we’re going to need something to protect our bases. We won’t have the planes to stay airborne around the clock. We need an equalizer.”

  “Sentinel,” John said, and wrote the word on his legal pad. “Explain.”

  “Sentinel is an automated weapon — highly classified, of course. You deliver it to a site, turn it on, and leave it. When it detects electromagnetic energy on a preset frequency, it launches a small, solid-fuel, antiradiation missile that seeks out the emitter. The missiles have some memory capability, so they can track targets that cease emissions — the capability of these new computer chips is really amazing. Anyway, as I recall, Sentinel has a magazine capacity of forty-eight missiles. The missiles have a range of about sixteen miles.”

  “Electrical power will be a big problem in Siberia.”

  “Sentinel has rechargable solar cells. All you have to do is reload the magazine occasionally.”

  “So Zero pilots are going to be down to their Mach I, Mod Zero eyeballs.”

  “Sentinel will definitely encourage them to leave their radars turned off.” “Nasty.” Cassidy grinned. “Doesn’t the F-22 have the new camouflage skin that changes colors based on the background?” Eatherly asked after they discussed logistics for several minutes. “The newest ones do,” Cassidy told him. “Active skin camouflage, or smart skin. The skin has to be installed on the assembly line.”

  “How good is it?”

  “It really works. Against any kind of neutral background, such as clouds or ocean or haze, the plane is extremely difficult to locate visually when it’s more than a couple hundred yards away. Some people can pick it up with their peripheral vision, sometimes. Occasionally you see movement out of the corner of your eye, you know it’s there, and yet when you look directly at it, you can’t pick it up. It’s scary.”

  Eatherly made a note. “Talk to me about maintenance. How many people, how many spares?”

  After a morning of this, John Eatherly and Cassidy went back into the chairman’s office for lunch. As they ate bean soup and corn bread, Eatherly briefed the general. He ran through proposed solutions to every major problem: personnel, logistics, maintenance, weapons and fuel supply, early warning. “So what is your recommendation?” the general asked Cassidy when Eatherly was finished. “Isn’t there any way to prevent this war from happening, sir?” Cassidy was staring into the bean soup. He had no appetite. “The politicos say no.” Stanford Tuck shrugged. “War happens because a whole society screws itself up to it — it isn’t just the fault of the politicians at the top. That society will quit only when the vast majority believes their cause is hopeless.”

  “So the F-22 outfit is supposed to help convince them. Show them the error of their ways.”

  “I want you to nibble at ‘em, worry ‘em, shoot down a Zero occasionally, target their air transports, convince the Japanese that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”

  “Sir, the Japanese have active ECM that makes their plane invisible. Athena. They will blow us from the sky unless we use the satellites to find the Zeros and point them out to us.”

  “The White House says no.”

  “I am not taking Americans to Russia to be slaughtered. Without Sky Eye, there is no way. I want no part of it.”

  Stanford Tuck helped himself to another spoonful of soup, then put the spoon down beside the bowl. “You’ve been in the military for twenty-some years, Cassidy. There’s not much I could tell you about this business that you don’t already know. I will try to get authorization to use the satellites.”

  “I’ll be lucky to bring half of them home.”

  “I’ll do the best I can. That’s all I can promise.”

  “Those who do come home — can we get back into the Armed Forces?”

  “I’ll get a letter to that effect from the president. I’m sure he’ll sign it.”

  “Good.”

  Then Tuck added softly, “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Colonel?”

  “I know one of the Zero pilots pretty well, General.”

  Stanford Tuck glanced at Eatherly, then cleared his throat. “After spending a year in Japan, I’d be surprised if you didn’t know several,” he said. “I hate to press you like this, but time is running out. Can you do this job?”

  “I can do it, General. My comment about the Zero pilot is personal. The job you are offering is professional, in the best interests of the United States. I know the difference. I just pray to God my friend lives through all this.”

  “I understand.” Tuck’s head moved a tenth of an inch. It was a tiny bow, Cassidy noted, startled. “Colonel Eatherly will help you get the ball rolling,” the general said. “Let’s see what we can make happen.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cassidy managed to say as Stanford Tuck stuck out his hand to shake. Tuck held his hand firmly and looked him in the eye. “Check six, Colonel. And remember what the Good Book says: When you’re in the valley, fear no evil.”

  6

  Other first people in Siberia to discover somet
hing amiss were the radar operators at the Vladivostok airport, a facility the military shared with the occasional civil transports that had flown the length of Siberia or over the Pole. There weren’t many of those anymore. Fuel was expensive, money to maintain aircraft in short supply, and the navigation aids in the middle of the continent were not regularly maintained. Anything or anyone that really had to get to Vladivostok came by rail or sea. Still, the radars that searched the oceans to the east and south were in working order and operators were on duty, even at two o’clock in the morning, near the end of another short summer night. In Russia change occurred because the government agency responsible ceased paying the bills and, to survive, the people who had lived on that trickle of money wandered on to something else. Money to make the radars work still dribbled in occasionally from Moscow. The task of safeguarding Mother Russia was too sacred for any politician to touch.

  The only operator actually watching the screens was also perusing a card game that the other members of the watch section were playing. conOccasionally, he remembered to glance at the screens. It was on one of these periscope sweeps that he saw the blip, to the south. Three minutes later, when the blip was still there, and closer, he called the supervisor to look. The supervisor put down his cards reluctantly. There were no aircraft scheduled to arrive from that direction — there were no aircraft at all scheduled to arrive in Vladivostok until the next afternoon — and repeated queries on the radio went unanswered. As the blip got closer, it separated into many smaller blips, apparently a flight of aircraft. The radar supervisor called the air defense watch officer on the other side of the base and reported the inbound flight, which would penetrate Russian airspace in about twelve minutes if it maintained the same COURSE and speed. Two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters were in the usual alert status, which meant each was fully fueled and armed with four AA-10 Alamo missiles and a belt of shells for its 30-mm cannon. The ground crews were asleep in a nearby hut. The pilots, wearing flight suits, were playing chess in another nearby shack. Usually at this time of night, the alert pilots would be asleep, but these two had attended a wedding dinner earlier in the evening and weren’t sleepy. When the duty officer telephoned, ordering a scramble, they dropped everything and ran for their planes as they shouted to awaken the ground crews. One of the pilots opened the door to the ground crew’s shack and turned on the light. At the aircraft, the pilots donned their flight gear as the ground crewmen came stumbling across the mat. The Sukhois rolled onto the runway eight minutes later, lit their afterburners, and accelerated. The mighty roar washed over the sleepy base like thunder. After a modest run, the wheels lifted from the concrete and the pilots sucked up gear and flaps. With the afterburners still engaged, the two fighters moved closer together. The pilots then pulled into a steep climb and punched up through the overcast as the leader checked in with the ground control intercept (Gci) controller, who was the same man who had seen the incoming blips, for what was originally one blip had now separated into five, sometimes six, individual targets. The supervisor and most of the watch section were now gathered behind him, watching the scope over his shoulder. The blips were doing about 250 knots. Probably turboprop aircraft. But whose? Why were so many aircraft coming from the southeast?

  Why hadn’t Moscow transmitted a copy of their flight plans?

  The tops of the lower layer of stratus clouds were at fifteen thousand feet tonight. Another cloud layer far above blocked out most of the glow of the high-latitude sky. As they climbed above the lower layer of stratus clouds, the Sukhoi pilots eased their throttles back out of burner and spread out into a loose combat formation. They then killed their wingtip lights, so only the dim formation lights on the sides of the planes enlivened the darkness. When the fighters were level at twenty thousand feet, the GCI controller turned them to a course to intercept the large formation heading toward Vladivostok.

  The leader’s attention was inside his cockpit. Although the Su-27 had a HUD, the pilot wasn’t using it. Even if he had been, he would probably have died anyway. He concentrated on flying his aircraft on instruments, and on adjusting the gain and brightness of his radar screen. The task took several seconds. As he examined the scope, he glanced at his electronic countermeasures panel, which was silent. Yes, the switches were on. A shout on the radio. He automatically raised his gaze, scanned outside. At eleven o’clock, slightly high, a bright light…, brilliant! missile!

  The thought registered on his brain and automatically he slammed the stick sideways to roll left, away from his wingman, and pulled. The responsive fighter flicked over obediently into 220 degrees of bank. The missile arrived a second and a half after the pilot first spotted the exhaust plume: The fighter’s nose had come down no more than conten degrees. The missile missed the Sukhoi by about six inches. The proximity fuse detonated the warhead immediately under the cockpit area. The shrapnel punched hundreds of holes in the belly of the plane. In less than a second, fuel from punctured fuel lines sprayed into the engine compartment, starting a fire. A half second later, the aircraft exploded, killing the pilot instantly. The wingman had instinctively rolled right — away from his leader — when he spotted the inbound missile. He also shouted into his radio mike, which was contained within his oxygen mask. It was this warning that the leader heard. The wingman only rolled about seventy degrees, however, so he could keep the oncoming missile in sight. Still he laid on six Go’s. He saw the missile streak in out of the corner of his eye and saw the flash as it detonated under the leader’s plane. The flash temporarily blinded him. Blinking mightily, he slammed the stick back left and pulled while he looked to see if his leader had successfully avoided the missile. He keyed his radio mike, opened his mouth to call. The wingman never saw the second missile, which impacted his plane in the area of the left wing root and detonated. The explosion severed the wing spar, so the wing collapsed. The hot metal of the warhead ignited fuel spewing under pressure from the ruptured wing tank. Then all the fuel still in the wing exploded. The sequence was over in a few thousandths of a second. The pilot died without even knowing there had been a second missile. The blossoming fireballs from the two Sukhois were visible for twenty miles in this dark universe. The pilots of the four Japanese Zeros — White Flight — cruising at max conserve took their thumbs off the fire buttons on their sticks, where they had been hovering in case further missiles were necessary. The leader had been the only plane to fire. Now White Leader began a gentle left turn to carry the flight back in the direction of Vladivostok. He hoped to orbit in this area to the east of the city in a racetrack pattern, ready to shoot down any other aircraft coming out of Vlad or the bases on Sakhalin Island to harass Japanese aircraft delivering paratroops. Flying as number three, Jiro Kimura checked the location of the other aircraft in the formation on his computer presentation. The planes used pencil-thin laser beams to keep track of one another. No external lights were illuminated; consequently, the airplanes were invisible in the darkness. Confident that all four planes were where they were supposed to be, Jiro’s thoughts moved on. He banked to keep the leader in position. Why did he not feel elated? The first two victories of the war had just been won. The Athena devices on the Zeros made them invisible to Russian radar, so the GCI controllers had no clue whatsoever that the Zeros were even airborne. They had launched the Sukhois to investigate the incoming transports. The Sukhoi pilots had been ambushed without warning…, without mercy, without a chance in hell. They were executed. That was the truth of it. Jiro felt no pity or remorse, only a tiredness, a lethargy, and a sense of profound sadness. Flash, flash, two explosions seventeen miles away in the night sky… and two men were dead. Presumably. Jiro thought the odds of surviving explosions like that must be very slim. Bang, bang. Just like that — two men dead. That was the way he would die, too. The revelation came to him now in his cockpit as he sat there tired, hungry, thirsty, and very much alone. He would die in this cockpit someday just as those two Russians had, without warning, without luck, without a moment to reflect, w
ithout an opportunity to make his peace with the universe. And he had chosen this destiny! Just last evening, his commanding officer had sent for him, showed him a message from the Japanese Intelligence Agency demanding a loyalty investigation. “You telephoned an American Air Force officer?”

  “I attended the American Air Force Academy, sir, as you are aware. I know many Americans. I have kept up my contacts with several of them through the years.”

  “Of course,” his CO said. “These bureaucratic spy fools have not looked at your record. But you see how it is, Kimura. You see how easy it is to compromise yourself. Be more careful in the future.” With that admonition, the CO tossed the message in a pile of paperwork that a clerk was placing in boxes for storage. “I called this American to—” His commanding officer didn’t want to hear it. He cut him off. “Kimura, we are going to have a war. You and I will both be in combat within twenty-four hours. I have better things to do just now than write letters to bureaucrats. An investigation, they want. If we are both alive a month from now, I shall write them a letter saying that you are a loyal soldier of Japan. If you are dead, I shall tell them how gloriously you died. Like cherry blossoms falling — isn’t that the way the old poems go? If I am dead …”

  The CO had shooed him out. Now the Russian GCI controller came on the air, calling to his dead pilots. He didn’t know they were dead, of course, but they had disappeared from his radar scope, so he was calling, albeit futilely. Jiro could not understand the words, but he could hear the concern and frustration in the controller’s voice. Jiro kept a wary eye on his electronic warfare (Ew) warning indications they were comfortably silent — monitored the tactical display, and concentrated on staying in proper position in his formation as the controller called and called to men who would never answer.

  The ten aircraft approaching Vladivostok were C-130 Hercules, J- models, the most advanced version of the late-twentieth-century military transportation workhorse. Each aircraft was crammed with troops. The first flight of four aircraft began descending seventy miles from the city. They dropped into a trail formation by alternately dropping gear and flaps. The pilot of the lead plane delayed his dirty-up the longest— he dropped his gear just as he intercepted the instrument landing system (Ils) glide path. He couldn’t yet see the runway since the visibility was only three or four miles in this gentle rain.