Razor's Edge

by Dale Brown

  “Okay, crew. Let’s go kick butt for little Muhammad Liu, Dreamland’s newest addition,” she told them.

  Someone on the circuit laughed, but the roar of the power plants drowned it out as the Megafortress accelerated. Controlled by the flight computer, the Flighthawk engines acted like rocket packs, augmenting the massive thrust of the EB-52’s own PWs as the plane shot forward on the mesh. Breanna held the stick loosely, little more than a passenger as the plane rolled past the halfway point of the runway. A slight sensation of weightlessness followed as the plane’s wheels skipped off the pavement.

  “Gear,” she prompted, at the same time nudging the stick. The computer stepped away, content to remain only a backseat driver until called on again. Chris, meanwhile, made sure the landing gear was stowed, did another quick check of the instruments, and then worked with Zen to refuel the Flighthawks through the Megafortress’s wing plumbing. The mission specialists began the lengthy process of firing up and calibrating their gear.

  The Cold War had given rise to a variety of reconnaissance aircraft, most famously the U-2 and SR-71, which were essentially high-altitude observation platforms able to focus cameras over—or in some cases alongside of—enemy territory. Less well-known were a series of collectors that gathered electronic data ranging from radar capabilities to live radio transmissions. B-29s and B-50s, essentially Superfortresses on steroids, were first pressed into this role; RB-47s replaced them. But it wasn’t until vast improvements in electronics in the late sixties and early seventies that the type really came into its own.

  While a number of airframes were used, the workhorse was based on one of the most successful commercial aircraft of all time—the Boeing 707. Known as the C-135 (and later, E-3) and prepared in dozens if not hundreds of variations, the plane provided an unassuming platform for some of the most sensitive missions of the Cold War.

  Bristling with antennas and radars, a Rivet Joint or Cobra Ball aircraft might spend hours flying a track in international waters near the Soviet Union, monitoring transmissions during a missile test or a military exercise. It might note how the local air defense commanders reacted when American fighter aircraft approached. It might check the radars used, their capabilities and characteristics. It showed the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, helping to compile a considerable library of information.

  As valuable as they were, the planes remained 707s—highly vulnerable to attack. Even JSTARS, a real-time flying command post that revolutionized combat intelligence during the Gulf War, had to stand off at some distance from hostile territory.

  That was where the EB-52 came in. Bigger than the 707 or even the 757 airframes proposed to replace it, the Megafortress was designed to operate in the heart of the volcano. One aircraft such as Quicksilver could perform the functions of several, detecting and jamming radars, snooping and disrupting radio transmissions, all in places and at times previously unthinkable. Along with an AWACS version and their Flighthawks, the Megafortresses promised to revolutionize warfare once again.

  Today’s mission, simple in outline, tested some of those basic concepts. Quicksilver would fly eastward thirty thousand feet, vectoring south at a point exactly equidistant between Kirkuk and the Iranian border. Thirty miles south of Kirkuk it would loop back north. At roughly the time it swung parallel to Kirkuk about four minutes later, two packages of attack planes would strike their targets, 88 Bravo and 44 Alpha. Quicksilver would listen to the Iraqi response, compiling intelligence that might locate the laser or whatever it was that was attacking the allied planes.

  “Looking good, Zen,” Breanna told her husband as the second U/MF rolled off their wing and sped off to the east. The robot planes had to stay within a ten-mile radius of the Megafortress because of their wide-band communications link.

  “Hawk leader,” acknowledged her husband stiffly.

  “Still cranky, huh?” Chris said as they began their run south.

  “He’s not much of a morning person,” said Breanna.

  “Have some J bands, gun dish—looks like a ring of Zsu-23s using their radars,” said O’Brien, who was monitoring the radar intercepts. The computer system guiding him would have been the envy of any Cobra Ball operator, able to glide between a dozen different sensors, prioritizing intercepts and pointing out suspicious activity without prompting. Then again, they might not have been envious—it did the work of eight crewmen, making all of them eligible for early retirement.

  “Dog Ear detected—they’re looking for low fliers at Eight-eight Bravo,” added O’Brien.

  “Let’s pass that on,” said Breanna. “They’re still a good distance away.”

  “Coyote Bravo leader, this is Dreamland Quicksilver,” said Chris.

  “Coyote Bravo. Go ahead Quicksilver.”

  “We have an active Dog Ear looking for you at Eight-eight Bravo. Indication is they have a Gopher missile battery along with their Zeus guns.”

  “Coyote Bravo acknowledges. Thanks for the heads-up, Quicksilver.”

  The Gophers—also called SA-13s by NATO—were short- to medium-range SAMs that used infrared radar to lock on their target, similar to the more common SA-9s though somewhat larger and more capable. The Dog Ear radar was used to detect aircraft at a distance. After detection, a range-finding unit would allow the commander to launch the missiles; their all-aspect, filtered IR sensors would then take them to their target. The systems were relatively sophisticated but defeatable if you knew they were there.

  “Have an E band radar that’s not on my menu,” said O’Brien. “Low power, really low power—lost it. Plotting.

  Wow—never seen anything like this.”

  Aboard Quicksilver,

  over northern Iraq

  0742

  ZEN WORKED THE FLIGHTHAWKS AHEAD OF QUICKSILVER, ALTERNATING between One and Two. He was at twenty thousand feet, considerably lower than the EB-52 but well outside the range of the low-altitude AAA and shoulder-launched weapons that were ubiquitous below. His helmet visor was divided into two sections; the upper two-thirds fed an optical view from one of the Flighthawks, simulating what he would see if he were sitting in the cockpit. A HUD ghosted over altitude, speed, and other essentials.

  The lower screen was divided into three smaller sections—an instrument summary for both planes at the far left, a long-distance radar plot supplied by Quicksilver in the middle, and an optical cockpit view from the other plane.

  The visor display could be infinitely customized, though Zen tended to stick to this preset, using it about ninety percent of the time when he was flying two robots. The voice commands “One” and “Two” instantly changed the main view, a phenomenon he thought of as jumping into the cockpit of the plane. He controlled the small planes with the help of two joysticks, one in his right and one in his left hand. Control for the planes jumped with the view, so that his right hand always worked the plane in the main screen.

  “O’Brien, you find that E band radar?” asked Zen.

  “Negative. Threat library thinks it’s a Side Net but it’s not clear what it would be connected to. Definitely early warning. I can’t even find the source.”

  “How about approximately?” Zen asked.

  They plotted it below 88 Bravo and a bit to the east, which put it fifty miles away and dead on in Hawk One‘s path near the Iranian border. A Side Net radar was a long-range target acquisition unit, capable of detecting a plane the size of an F-16 at roughly ninety-five miles; with its uncoated nose, the Megafortress was possibly though not definitely visible around the same range. The Flighthawk would be invisible at least to ten miles, and might not even be seen at all.

  Of course, with the radar off, it could see nothing at all.

  Zen’s threat radar was clean.

  “What do you think it’s working with?” Zen asked O’Brien.

  “Ordinarily I’d say an SA-2 and SA-3 battalion,” answered O’Brien. “But at this point it’s anybody’s guess.

  There are no known sites in the are
a.”

  “Maybe this is the sucker we’re looking for.”

  “Could be. They’re not on the air. Tracking some other stuff,” added O’Brien. “Man, there are a lot of radars up here—didn’t we put these suckers out of business five years ago?”

  “I’m going to get a little lower and see if I spot anything,” said Jeff. “We’ll store the video for the analysts.”

  “Sounds good, Captain. I’ll alert you if I get another read.”

  “Strike aircraft are zero-three from their IPs,” said Chris, indicating that the attackers were just about to start their bombing runs.

  Zen concentrated on the image in his screen as he tucked toward the earth, looking for the semicircle of launchers and trailers the Iraqis liked to set their missiles up in. SA-2s were large suckers always accompanied by a variety of support vehicles; they could be obscured by netting and other camouflage but not totally hidden.

  SA-3s were about half the size, but they too should stick out if they were positioned to fire.

  O’Brien’s rough plot was centered around a farming area on a relatively flat plain about two miles square.

  With no indications of any military activity—or any activity at all—Zen nudged the Flighthawk faster and slightly farther east, widening his search pattern.

  “Losing connection, ” warned the computer as he strayed a bit too far.

  Zen immediately throttled back, letting Quicksilver catch up. As his speed dropped, a row of black boxes appeared in the lower left screen.

  “Magnify ground image,” he told the computer. A scanner tracking his retinas interpreted exactly which images he meant.

  “O’Brien, I have four stationary vehicles, look like they might be radar or telemetry vans. Not set up.”

  “You see a dish?”

  “Negative,” said Jeff. “No missiles.” He slid the robot plane closer to the ground. Razor was mobile, roughly the size of a tank.

  “Losing connection, ” warned the computer again.

  “Bree, I need you to stay with Hawk One.”

  “We’re at our turn,” Breanna told him. Her priority was the attack package, at least until they saddled up and headed home.

  The first vehicle was a car, oldish, a nondescript Japanese sedan.

  Two pickup trucks.

  A flatbed.

  Not Razor, not anything.

  “Radar—something,” said O’Brien.

  “Connection loss in five seconds, ” pleaded the computer. “Four, three—”

  Zen flicked his wrist back, bringing the Flighthawk west to stay with the Megafortress.

  “Vehicles were clean,” he told Breanna.

  “Acknowledged,” she said.

  “Got something else,” said O’Brien. “Jayhawk—airplanes on A-1.”

  “Sitrep map,” Zen told the computer. “Identify A-1.” A bird’s-eye view with Quicksilver and the Flighthawks highlighted as green blips materialized in the main screen. A red highlight and circle identified A-1 as a small airfield northeast of Baghdad, about 120 miles away.

  “MiG-21 radars,” added O’Brien. “They must be getting ready to take off.”

  “QUICKSILVER, BE ADVISED WE HAVE A PAIR OF BOGIES coming off A-1 south of Eight-eight Bravo,” said the controller aboard Coyote, the AWACS plane. “Stick Flight is being vectored in. Please hold to your flight plan.”

  “Quicksilver,” acknowledged Breanna. “We have radar indications from those planes. Looks like two MiG-21s.

  Working on radio intercepts,” she added.

  O’Brien and Habib started talking together behind her.

  “One at a time,” scolded Ferris.

  “Indications are MiG-21 or F-7 Spin Scan-style I band radars. Old soldiers, these boys,” said O’Brien.

  “Tower has cleared four planes,” said Habib. “I have his transmission loud and clear.”

  “Lost radars.”

  “You’re sure about four planes?” Breanna asked.

  “Yes, Captain. No acknowledgments, though. I have some ground transmissions. Computer says it’s an HQ code. I can put more resources on the descramble.”

  “Concentrate on the planes,” Breanna told him.

  “O’Brien—any sign of that laser?”

  “Negative.”

  “Coyote, be advised that we believe there are four planes, not two,” said Breanna.

  “Tower remains silent,” said Habib. “No ground control radio that I can pick up. We’re doing a full spin,” he added, meaning that the snooping gear was now scanning or “spinning” through frequencies looking for hits at low power or wide distances.

  “No radars,” said O’Brien.

  “Thanks for the information, Quicksilver,” answered the AWACS. “We continue to have only two contacts, MiG-21s, in the bushes. Eagles are being scrambled.

  Hold to your flight plan.”

  High Top

  0830

  “I’VE RIDDEN MOTORCYCLES THAT GO FASTER.”

  “Major, I’m telling you—two hours with these engines and you have twenty percent more power. Probably thirty.

  Thieves, hungry for power.”

  “That’s not another stinkin’ Dylan song, is it, Garcia?”

  “Knockin’ on heaven’s door, Major,” said the techie, beaming as if he’d just hit Powerball.

  A Pave Low heading in toward High Top began shaking the air, kicking off a sympathetic rattle in the Bronco’s props—and Mack’s teeth.

  “If we were at Dreamland—five-bladed prop, variable pitch—reinforce the wings, maybe a rocket pack for that quick boost, sellin’ postcards at the hangin’,” continued Garcia. “This is a great platform, Major. A fantastic aircraft. See this?” Garcia ducked under the wing and slapped the rear fuselage. “Four guys in here—five if they don’t have B.O. This ain’t workin’ on Maggie’s Farm, I’ll tell you that.”

  “So if it’s such a great plane, how come the Marines gave it up?” Mack asked.

  “They didn’t want to,” said Garcia. “You ask—they went kicking and screaming. These are boots of Spanish leather.”

  “You know, Garcia, you ought to lose that speech impediment.”

  Dust whipped toward them as the helicopter pushed in.

  Mack turned his back and covered the side of his face. As the rotors died down, he turned back to Garcia. “Let’s refuel and get back in the air.”

  “Uh, Major, didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “That’s another Dylan song?”

  “What I’ve been trying to tell you is that I have to re-tune the engines to work with the Dreamland fuel,” said Garcia.

  “What?”

  “Well, it all started during the first oil scare. See, what the problem is—ten-shutt!”

  Garcia snapped to attention so sharply a drill sergeant would have swooned. General Elliott, lugging his overnight and a serious frown, tossed off a salute.

  “Mack—when the hell are we taking off?” asked Elliott.

  “I don’t know, General. There’s some sort of fuel thing.”

  “Few minor adjustments to the engines, General,” said Garcia, who had served under Elliott at Dreamland. “As you recall, sir, it was under your command that JP-12B-2 was developed as a special blend for the Flighthawks, with the Megafortress engines tuned to accept it. The mix is just a little different from your JP-8 or JP-4, and over time or in extreme—”

  “That’s quite all right, Garcia,” said Elliott. “Just make it work.”

  “I just have to make a few adjustments. Not a big deal.

  Now, if we were back home—”

  “It’s okay,” said Elliott. He put out his hand as if he were a traffic cop. “Mack, I’m going back on the Pave Low. Get the plane back to Incirlik in one piece, all right?”

  Aboard Quicksilver

  0830

  ZEN PUSHED FORWARD, HIS BODY LEANING TO THE RIGHT as he whipped both Flighthawks in that direction, the U/MFs about five miles apart, parallel at a separation of three t
housand feet. The radar detector screen in the middle of the lower visual band showed two large yellow clumps peeking upward at him; the transmissions were ID’d as I band and the yellow indicated that, while they were active, they did not yet pose a threat to the small, stealthy Flighthawks.

  “Gun Dish,” said O’Brien, adding coordinates to his warning that a Zeus radar was looking for him.

  The two MiG-21s were old and primitive aircraft, easy fodder for the Americans. Zen suspected that the Iraqis were using them as decoys for the other two planes Habib had heard—which he guessed would be MiG-29s using passive sensors. The planes were approaching from the southeast, roughly eleven o’clock off Hawk One‘s center line—they didn’t have a precise location, but they would have to be very low not to be detected by the AWACS.

  If they’d been in Galatica, the gear would have them dotted by now.

  “Connection loss in five seconds,” warned the computer.

  “Bree!”

  “Zen, you have to stay with me. The attack package isn’t clear. Let the Eagles get the MiGs.”

  “I can nail them myself. There’s an RAF flight just south of them; if the MiGs divert, they’ll run right into them.”

  “The AWACS is aware of that. It’s not our show. Let the Eagles do their job.”

  “Connection loss in three, two—” Zen yanked back on his sticks, pulling the robot planes back closer to the Megafortress. As he did, the radar in Hawk Two caught another plane flying from the south low enough to scrape a grasshopper’s belly.

  “Contact, bearing 180—shit, I lost it,” he told Breanna.

  “Nothing,” said O’Brien quickly.

  “Blue Bandits!” shouted one of the Eagle pilots, his voice loud and excited at seeing the enemy MiG-21s.

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “Tally,” replied the other pilot, as calm as his wingman was excited. The two interceptors had run up from the south behind the two small planes at tremendous speed, closing to visual range to avoid the possibility—slim, but real—of locking onto friendlies in the tangled fray. With their limited radars and no ground controller to warn them, the two Iraqi jets probably didn’t even know they were in the crosshairs.