Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (76 page)

 
          
“It
is extremely dangerous to provoke the Americans in their own ‘backyard.’
Remember the Cuban missile crisis and that fool Khrushchev. We could invite
retaliation and open conflict in an area of the world where we are hardly
dominant—”

 
          
“The
U.S.
is in no position to retaliate,”
Kalinin
said angrily. “If I had decided to put the
aircraft on an ocean-going vessel or even a transport plane, I will admit the
danger of attack in those cases would be high. If we were holding the fighter
in place for some sort of trade, there would be danger of attack by the
Americans. But the fighter is a
moving
target. The Americans will not blindly lash out and attack unless they know precisely
where the aircraft is located. Besides, they are not in good standing with most
of
Latin America
...”

 
          
Cherkov’s
hands shook with emphasis. “
Nicaragua
is hardly an ideal safe haven. Your base at
Sebaco is a prime target—you must feel the same way, judging by the haste with
which you want to fly the fighter out of there. I expect Sebaco will come under
attack. It is an isolated base, obviously not part of the Nicaraguan armed
forces, and now nearly unprotected. The President can call it a ‘communist-terrorist
headquarters,’ a rallying cry for most Americans. If I were Secretary Stuart or
General Kane, I would order an attack on Sebaco immediately.”

 
          
“Then
it is even more urgent that the fighter be moved without delay,”
Kalinin
said. “It’s too late for talking about what
should
have been done. I have
instructed Colonel

 
          
Maraklov,
the XF-34’s pilot, to do everything in his power to see that the aircraft
survives. I want to order him to fly the aircraft to the
Soviet Union
, and I want to provide him with all
available military support. If we hesitate, we are, as you say, inviting
defeat. If we act now, we can be successful ...”

 
          
There
was silence around the conference table. The General Secretary stared at
Kalinin, and from across the table Kalinin forced himself to return the General
Secretary’s icy stare with one as determined and convincing as he could manage.
He was sure that the General Secretary was trying to think days and weeks
ahead, assessing possible consequences of defeat and failure for both of them.
But he also realized that the General Secretary really had no choice—to back
away from this operation now, when the Americans had given them such a lengthy
chance to recover and regroup, would show indecision and timidness. Over time
that lack of initiative could be translated into political weakness, which
would mean a further loosening of his tenuous grasp on the reins of power.

 
          
“Very
well,” the General Secretary said, “you are authorized to requisition and
command the forces you have outlined to bring this aircraft home. But
understand, I am not convinced that this one fighter is worth a major
confrontation with the
U.S.
, no matter how advanced it may be. Be
prepared to terminate your operation and obey the orders of the Kollegiya
should you be so ordered. Am I clearly understood?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir,”
Kalinin
said automatically. The General Secretary
had relented, as
Kalinin
expected. His caveat was pro forma, face-saving.

 
          
Vladimir
Kalinin’s rise to power had begun.

Over the
Caribbean
Sea

Sunday, 21 June 1996
, 2100 CDT

 
          
“Tegucigalpa
Control, Sun Devil Three-Two is with you at flight level one-eight zero,
position one-zero—zero nautical miles north of LaCieba. Over.”

 
          
The
Honduran military radar operator checked his display and quickly located the
data block, then the primary radar return belonging to the American aircraft
one hundred miles north of the military airbase on the north coast of
Honduras
.

           
He cross-checked the information
with the newcomer’s flight plan. The aircraft, he knew from the flight plan,
was a modified McDonnell-Douglas DC-io belonging to the U.S. Air Force— that
would explain the very large radar return even at this distance.

 
          
Satisfied,
he replied in thick Latino-accented English, “Sun Devil Three Two, this is
Tegucigalpa Control, radar contact. Clear to intercept and track airway Bravo
eight-eight-one until overhead
Goloson
Airport
, then follow airway alpha seven- five-forty
to Toncontin International, maintain flight level one- eight-zero. Over.”

 
          
The
copilot of the KC-io Extender tanker from the 161st Air Refueling Group, the
very same group unlucky enough to get involved with all these “questionable”
(for which read technically illegal) missions into Central America, checked the
clearance with his computer flight plan and nodded to his pilot—it was the
clearance he had been expecting. “Sun Devil Three- Two, roger. Out.”

 
          
The
pilot switched over to the scrambled number-two radio. “Storm Zero Two, we’re
in contact with
Tegucigalpa
. Cleared on course.”

 
          
“Roger,
Mike,” J. C. Powell replied. “Right on time.”

 
          
The
KC-io’s copilot said, “You expected something else?”

 
          
McLanahan
scanned outside Cheetah’s bubble canopy at the huge gray-green tanker, a
massive, shadowy figure in the growing twilight. The tanker aircraft was on its
third mission for him and J.C. in almost as many days—they had gotten to know
each other very well during their videophone flightplanning sessions. Although
Tegucigalpa and all the other Central American radar operators only knew of a
single aircraft on this flight plan, there were actually two—McLanahan was
borrowing the tactic the Russians had used the morning before to try to get
DreamStar to Cuba. The two aircraft were sticking tightly together in order to
merge their radar returns.

 
          
Cheetah
was right on the tanker’s left wingtip. She was carrying two conformal
FAST PACK
fuel tanks for added range,
and she was armed with four AIM-120 Scorpion missiles in semi-recessed wells
along the underside of the fuselage, four AIM-132 infrared homing dogfighting
missiles on wing pylons, and five hundred rounds of ammunition for the
twenty-millimeter cannon. Cheetah also carried a combination infrared and laser
seeker-scanner under the nose that could provide initial steering signals for
the AIM-120 missiles without using any telltale emissions from the attack
radar.

 
          
It
was armed and ready for a preemptive strike against the KGB base at Sebaco. The
mission was to retaliate against the theft of DreamStar and the Soviet reneging
on the deal struck between
Moscow
and
Washington
. It was also to try to flush out DreamStar and engage it in one last
aerial battle. Better a dead bird than in Soviet hands to copy . . .

 
          
But
Cheetah was on this mission only if DreamStar or other high-performance
fighters challenged the strike aircraft. The original plan proposed by General
Elliott had Cheetah armed as both an air-to-air and air-to-ground fighter, but
surprisingly J.C. had vetoed the idea—surprising because Powell rarely backed
away from a challenge, and because he was an excellent air-to-mud pilot. He had
argued that Cheetah would be too heavily loaded down if it had to carry any
bulky iron bombs or complicated laser-infrared target designators. He
recognized the real possibility that the Russians would use DreamStar to defend
Sebaco against attack, and he wanted to be ready with all the power and
maneuverability he could get. If DreamStar was going to launch, he wanted to be
right there on top of him.

 
          
There
was a surprise third party on the satellite conference call involved with
planning the strike mission, a project director from HAWC. He had been silent
most of the conversation, until J.C. had voiced his objections. Then he had
stepped in, presenting his options and his estimates for success. In short
order his proposals had been approved by General Elliott, and less than an hour
later approved by the Secretary of the Air Force.

 
          
This
fight had become personal—it was as if the President and the DOD had agreed to
let the men and women of HAWC deal with the traitor from their own ranks,
because that was how they thought of him—as Ken James, not a Soviet man named
Maraklov. There were more concrete reasons, of course: The unit was cloaked in
secrecy, with fewer persons involved who could alert the media or enemy agents;
they commanded the most high-tech weapons in the American military arsenal;
and, especially during the recent events, were able to generate a strike sortie
faster than an active-duty military unit.

 
          
The
two men in Cheetah’s cockpit were quiet. J.C. concentrated on maintaining close
fingertip formation with the KC- io, and McLanahan checked and rechecked his
equipment and watched the setting sun dipping behind the low
Maya
Mountains
near the coast of
Belize
off the right side of the fighter. The Islas
de la Bahia island chain was off to the left, with tiny lights twinkling in the
growing
Caribbean
twilight. It was a pleasant, romantic
sight—until the view of those tranquil islands was obscured by the row of
AIM-132 missiles slung under Cheetah’s wings, the missile’s large foreplanes
slicing the Isla de Roatan neatly in half.

 
          
“How
are you doing back there, sir?” Powell asked, finally breaking the strained
silence. “You’re quiet.”

 
          
“I’m
okay.”

 
          
“Radio’s
free. Want to call back to the command post again?”

 
          
“No,
not right now.” Since leaving Dreamland earlier that afternoon he had made one
UHF radio phone-patch back to HAWC’s command post to ask about Wendy. She was,
they told him, undergoing laser surgery to remove areas of scarred and damaged
tissue in her lungs. The last word he had gotten was that they were searching
for possible donors for a single lung transplant. Only a few hundred of these
transplants had been done in the
United States
in the past few years, and only a handful
of recipients were still alive.

 
          
“She’ll
be okay,” J.C. said.

 
          
Patrick
said nothing.

 
          
Silence
again as they approached the
Honduras
coastline and the tiny city of La Cieba
came into view. Then J.C. asked, “You figure we’ll run into James up here?”

 
          
“You
mean
Maraklov.
”

 
          
“Still
can’t help thinking of him as Ken James.”

 
          
“By
any other name he’s still a murderer. I don’t think of him as a Russian or an
American or even as a person. I won’t have any trouble pulling the trigger on
him.”

 
          
According
to General Elliott’s plan, Cheetah was meant to go up against DreamStar, to
engage with missiles from long range, close, engage at medium range with
missiles, and if necessary close and engage with guns.

 
          
“Ken
. . . Maraklov seems like he’s still on top of his game,” J.C. said. “He scared
the hell out of those F-16 Air National

 
          
Guard
guys. Faked one with a missile shot, follows him in a horizontal climb, then
hoses him while the F-16 descends on him. He busted up one other guy—”