Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (46 page)

 
          
And,
like Nancy Cheshire flying in the copilot’s seat, he had seen combat before in
the Megafortress: over the Philippines, over Lithuania, and over the United
States. Back then, actually flying the beast hadn’t been his strong point—he
could design systems built perfectly for a crewdog, but he didn’t enjoy flying
itself. But flying was part of the job, and besides, no one said “no” to the
boss, Lieutenant-General Bradley James Elliott. Even after HAWC disbanded and
Atkins set off to get his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology as part of a joint industry-Air Force program, he could not escape,
or resist, Brad Elliott’s call to glory.

 
          
“Right,
right,” Ashley Bruno responded. Bruno, a former Navy engineer from the
China
Lake
Naval
Weapons
Center
, touched the threat display and keyed the
computer voice interface button with her left foot and said, “Computer,
identify.”

 
          
SIERRA-BAND BEAN STICKS EARLY-WARNING
RADAR, the computer responded.

           
“It’s not necessary to preface your
commands with ‘computer’ or anything else,” Atkins said.

 
          
“I
know,” Bruno said, wearing a playful grin. “But I guess I’m still a Trekkie at
heart. Mr. Spock always started a voice command with ‘computer.’ ” She keyed
the voice command switch again: “Computer, are we in detection range of the
Bean Sticks radar? ”

 
          
NEGATIVE.

           
“Computer, what is the estimated
detection range of the Bean Stick radar?”

 
          
ESTIMATED EFFECTIVE DETECTION RANGE IN
CURRENT CONFIGURATION, FIFTEEN MILES, the computer responded, effective
detection RANGE WITH BAY DOORS OPEN, TWENTY-SEVEN MILES. EFFECTIVE DETECTION
RANGE IN CLEAN CONFIGURATION . . .

           
Bruno keyed the voice command button
twice to cancel the report. “Thank you, computer,” she said.

 
          
“I
think, I
hope,
what Atkins is saying,
Lieutenant Bruno,” Brad Elliott cut in on interphone, “was that it would be
faster and more efficient in a combat situation to just say what you want and
can the fucking bullshit!”
He spat the
last four words like heavy-caliber gunshots. “This is not a starship
Enterprise
reunion, and it’s not a
computer game. Now, do it right or
I’ll
beam your Trekkie ass into the goddamn ocean—with my boot, not a transporter.”

 
          
“Yes,
sir,” Bruno responded contritely.

 
          
McLanahan
said to Denton, “Read up on the emergency electrical attack procedures for a
few. ” While the student OSO called up the hypertext tech order flight manual
on the supercockpit display and began reading, McLanahan leaned back in his
jump seat and clicked the interphone button twice. He and Elliott had used that
command many times in their ten-year relationship to signal one another to “go
private” on the interphone panel, which would allow the two to talk to each
other without the rest of the crew listening in.

 
          
Sure
enough, Elliott was on private to meet him. “What?”

 
          
“Ease
up a bit, Brad,” McLanahan said.

 
          
“The
newbies need to keep their minds on the job and stop fucking around.”

 
          
“Bruno’s
doing okay,” McLanahan said. “So is Denton. We can all use a little comic
relief. ”

 
          
“If
Bruno does her
Star Trek
routine in
training, she’ll do it in combat,” Elliott said. “You know it, I know it.”

 
          
“Okay,
Brad, okay,” McLanahan said. “Yes, you’re right, we’re supposed to be training
like we’re going to fight. But you’re being a little hard on Bruno. Wouldn’t be
because she’s sitting in Vikram’s seat, is it?”

 
          
“Screw
you and your amateur psychoanalysis, Muck,” Elliott snapped. “I know how to
train newbies.” McLanahan heard the click that meant Elliott had switched back
to normal interphone.

 
          
McLanahan
fell silent as he followed Elliott back to normal interphone. In the past two
weeks since the skirmish near Quemoy Island, Brad Elliott had been quiet, moody
almost to the point of irritation, and demanding of everyone with whom he came
into contact. He flew the EB-52 with practiced, methodical precision, strictly
by the book—which he should know, because he had personally written most of it
and reviewed all of it for many years—but he did it more with dogged
impatience, without his usual sense of happiness and purpose.

 
          
Well,
there was certainly nothing going on to get too excited about right now. The
worldwide hue and cry over the nuclear detonations near mainland China had
quieted all participants down considerably. Only about a third of the world
media believed the People’s Republic of China’s Liberation Army was responsible
for the dreaded nuclear explosions; the rest of the blame was equally divided
between the United States and Taiwan. This was considered a major propaganda
victory for China and a complete propaganda disaster for Taiwan and the United
States.

 
          
As
a result of the heavy media and governmental scrutiny, however, the Formosa
Strait was relatively free from heavy military presence—a fact that McLanahan
was able to verify by looking at the EB-52 Megafortress’s God’s-eye display on
the supercockpit monitor, which was now being operated by Captain Denton. The
fifty-plus-vessel People’s Liberation Army Navy carrier battle group was gone,
dispersed to various bases or sent south toward Hong Kong to participate in
Reunification Day festivities. As far as McLanahan could tell, the PLAN had
only one ship of any size in the region; it had just appeared on the latest
NIRTSat inverse synthetic aperture radar sweep.

 
          
“Okay,
did you get IDs on the ships closest to the frigates?” McLanahan asked.

 
          
“Yep,”
Denton responded. “Coastal trawlers and fishing vessels, both less than fifty
tons. Neither moving faster than nine knots.”

 
          
“Good,”
McLanahan said. “Remember, the system can squelch out small vessels like that
if necessary, based on size or speed, but it’s always best to check out
everything. Also remember that the ISAR system isn’t infallible, so even if
those ships show as not hostile, even if you recheck six times, don’t ignore
them. But right now they’re far enough away from the frigates to be safe, so
you can mark those ships as noncombatants.”

 
          
That
action turned out to be a mistake, because precisely at that time, crew members
aboard the two Chinese “noncombatants” were dropping the last of a dozen large
SS-N-16 missile canisters overboard. The SS-N-16, code-named “Stallion,” was an
air- or submarine-launched rocket-powered torpedo, except these weren’t going
flying before releasing their deadly cargoes. Once sailing clear of all
torpedoes, they were activated by radio command. Simultaneously, the canisters
activated their sensors, detected the distinctive high-speed, high-powered
screws of the U.S. Navy warships, and turned toward them. Once perfectly
aligned with their targets, they powered up their payloads—each canister
carried a E45-75A torpedo with a 200-pound penetrating-blast high-explosive
warhead, sitting atop a solid-fueled rocket booster—and the countdown commenced
. . .

 
          
New
NIRTSat satellite radar data was being downloaded every eight minutes; in less
than a minute, the supercockpit God’s-eye view was automatically updated, and
the map of the surveillance area had to be reexamined as if for the first time.
“Okay, we see the ‘noncombatants’ are still poking along—in fact, it looks like
they’re heading away from the frigates, cruising at ten knots,” McLanahan said
to Denton. “What else you got?” When Oakley didn’t answer in a few moments,
McLanahan pointed to the screen. “Looks like we got a newcomer, probably pulled
out of Xiamen a couple sweeps ago. Remember, the NIRTSat data isn’t really
God’s-eye—it’s better than turning on a radar and letting the bad guys know
we’re up here, but it’s not perfect.. . yet. Let’s get an ID on that ship
there, Jeff.”

 
          
“Rog,”
Denton responded, expertly rolling the trackball cursor over the stored NIRTSat
radar image. Jeff Denton, a former F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, Gulf War vet,
and F-15E Strike Eagle backseater, had had the bad luck of joining HAWC just
weeks before it closed last year. Unable to get another fighter-bomber
assignment anywhere, he had been forced to accept an early-out bonus and found
himself unemployed right near the holiday season of 1996. Fortunately, just as
the bonus money had started running low, he’d gotten the call from General
Samson to do some flying for a private defense firm he had never heard of, Sky
Masters, Inc., in Blytheville, Arkansas, which was working on some former HAWC
projects.

 
          
Denton
had jumped at the opportunity—never expecting to be suddenly flying a hybrid
B-52/B-1B/B-2 monster over the Formosa Strait in Asia, near where a nuclear war
had almost broken out just a few days earlier.

 
          
“Identify
this return,”
Denton
ordered the computer, being careful to make the command short and
sweet, lest he bring down the wrath of the legendary General Brad Elliott on
himself.

 
          
identification unknown, the computer
responded, searching ...

           
TARGET
IDENTIFIED AS SLAVA-CLASS CRUISER . . . TARGET IDENTIFIED AS KIROV-CLASS
CRUISER . . . TARGET IDENTIFIED AS FEARLESS-CLASS ASSAULT SHIP . . . TARGET
IDENTIFIED AS TYPE 82-CLASS ACCOMMODATIONS SHIP . . .

           
“You got a cruiser, Muck?” Nancy
Cheshire, flying as copilot, asked. A warship of that size always got a lot of
attention from every member of the crew, especially the ones who had once faced
those fearsome vessels. “Where is it?”

 
          
“Cancel
the report,” McLanahan said. Denton double-clicked the voice command switch.
“Looks like the computer’s a little confused— either there’s not enough radar
data, or the data quality isn’t good enough. It’s a big sucker, though, and
it’s moving pretty good—over twenty knots, and crossing in front of the
frigates’ course. After what’s happened in this area recently, I might not call
that a friendly move. So what do you do now?”

 
          
“Ask
the DSO if they got any idea what it is, based on electronic emissions,” Denton
replied.

 
          
“Excellent,”
McLanahan said. “The attack computer system is supposed to get that information
from the defensive computer suite automatically, but sometimes it won’t make
the connection. Try it.”

 
          
“Way
ahead of you,” Bruno responded. She had briefly looked at the God’s-eye view
and matched the signals received by her system with the computerized charts.
“Nothing but a commercial nav radar from that contact—looks like a Furuno or
Oki system—and wide-spectrum radio transmissions, everything from HF single
sideband to UHF. I get an occasional IFF interrogator, too, maybe a Square
Head.” The old Soviet IFF interrogator code-named “Square Head” sent radio
triggering signals out to another vessel or aircraft, asking for a coded radio
response to help identification—of course, the EB-52 Megafortress or the U.S.
Navy ships in the area would never respond to a foreign IFF, so all they would
get would be silence.

 
          
“Not
much help there,” McLanahan said. “What else, Jeff?”

 
          
“Test
the system, see if it’s working okay?”

 
          
McLanahan
shrugged. “In a combat situation, I wouldn’t waste time on that. But now, with things
quiet, press on.”
Denton
rolled the cursor onto one of the nearby U.S. Navy frigates, and the
system quickly and correctly identified it as a Perry-class frigate; he tried
IDing one of the previously classified “noncombatants”—it again reported as a
trawler. “What else, Jeff? Times running out.”

 
          
“Call
the Navy and ask if they can get an eyeball on it,” Denton suggested.