by Dale Brown
“And Trevor Griffin shocked the hell out of me. The guy’s…what? In his mid to late forties? He climbs aboard an unmanned B-52 bomber, flies halfway around the world, then climbs into a high-tech Spam can and lets himself be dropped out of the damned bomb bay. Fuckin’ incredible. And he made it out of Turkmenistan, too, after the Russians attacked — that’s even more incredible. Maybe we should—”
“What? Let him have some satellites and maybe even some field operatives and send them into Russia looking for supersecret Backfire bombers?” Samson asked. “How the hell can you hide a Backfire bomber? And we know damned well the Russians aren’t modernizing Backfires — they’re scrapping them. McLanahan couldn’t possibly have collected enough information from that raid on Bukhara to come up with valid conclusions that warrant additional intel missions. He’s guessing, Charlie. We don’t waste our time or resources on guesses. We need some hard evidence before we can take a field-intel-ops plan to Air Combat Command or the Pentagon. And that goes triple for a proposed operation into Russia. McLanahan is guessing, plain and simple, and he wants to rub our noses in the fact that he’s here against his will.”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to pull shit like that, sir,” Zoltrane said, adding the word “sir” to distance himself from his own remark and defer to whatever his boss told him. He really didn’t know McLanahan that well, and he certainly knew his reputation — he was not about to defend the guy before he personally saw him in action. “He seems like a straight shooter to me.”
“I worked with him long enough at Dreamland to know that he’s a sidewinder, Charlie,” Samson said. “He’s quiet and hardworking, but when he decides he wants to do something, he’ll step over anyone to do the job — and if there aren’t enough bodies and careers piled up high enough to get him to where he want stobe, he’ll create more. The sooner we get his ass out of the Air Force — for good this time — the better.”
966th Information Wing Headquarters, Lackland Air
Force Base, San Antonio, Texas
A short time later
So how was your first battle-staff meeting?” Trevor Griffin asked when he met Patrick back in his office. The grin on his face told Patrick that he already knew the answer to that one.
“Just peachy,” Patrick said dryly.
“If you want me to take those briefings and catch some spears for you, say the word,” Griffin said. “I’m used to the abuse.”
“Nah, I can handle it,” Patrick said, grateful that at least he hadn’t been singled out for extra-special abuse. He smiled and asked, “What’s the matter — you don’t want to go jumping around with the Battle Force anymore?”
“Hey, I’ll do that mission again in a heartbeat — just don’t tell my wife I said that,” Griffin said. “Your guys out there are cosmic. You should be proud of the team you built. If they need me, I’m in.”
Patrick liked it when Griffin said “your guys,” even though he knew it wasn’t true. “You’re a Tin Man now and forever, Tagger — they’ll be calling on you, I guarantee it. So anything else pop up while I was in the staff meeting?”
“Not a thing.”
Patrick loosened his tie. “What about that missile launch that DSP discovered?”
“We’re waiting for word from the air attaché’s office in Geneva,” Griffin responded. “According to the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, Kazakhstan and Russia are supposed to inform the United Nations if they conduct any tests on missiles with a range longer than five hundred kilometers. There was nothing on the schedule for that missile DSP detected.” The DSP, or Defense Support Program, satellites were supersensitive heat-detecting satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit, designed to warn of ballistic-missile launches. DSP could pinpoint the launch point, report on the missle’s track and speed, and predict its impact point with a fair amount of accuracy. The satellites were designed to warn of intercontinental-ballistic-missile attack but had been amazingly effective in warning friendly forces of Iraqi SS-1 SCUD surface-to-surface missile attacks during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and had provided a good amount of warning time in the missile’s projected target area. “Naturally, Russia denies that it was one of theirs and told us to contact Kazakhstan; Kazakhstan said they don’t have big missiles like that and recommended we talk to the Russians.”
Patrick punched instructions into his computer, called up the DSP data on those rocket launches, and studied them for a moment. “Apparently launched north of Bratsk,” he muttered. “Any ICBMs based at Bratsk?”
“Not that anyone knows about,” Griffin replied. “Mobile SS-25s at Irkutsk and Kansk and silo-based SS-24s at Krasnoyarsk. They could have set up a new SS-25 ‘shell-game’ racetrack out there — it would be worth a look with a SAR or photo-satellite pass.”
“I’m going to need an update of all the Russian land-based missile forces, especially the mobile ones,” Patrick said. “What do we have to help us on that?”
“We dedicate an entire office to doing just that,” Griffin responded. “Six guys and girls in the Seventieth Intelligence Wing at Fort Meade do nothing else but download the latest satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office and track down every Russian SS-24 ‘Scalpel’ and SS-25 ‘Sickle’ road-or rail-mobile missile in the Russian inventory. They study the rail and roadways and monitor every known secure garage where the missiles are sent on exercises. They also keep an eye out for cheating, monitor arms-control compliance, and study the ways the Russians try to decoy or camouflage their missile shelters.”
“Oh?”
“We believe that the Russians are doing a deliberate poor-mouth routine to delay deactivating their biggest and best nuclear weapons, claiming they don’t have the money to dismantle and destroy some weapons,” Griffin explained. “The Scalpel is a perfect example. The SS-24 is a copy of our ‘Peacekeeper’ ICBM, which was originally designed to be rail-mobile but was converted to silo-launched basing. Like Peacekeeper, the SS-24 has a range of ten thousand miles, has ten multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, and is extremely accurate — it can threaten targets all across North America and even as far as the Hawaiian Islands.
“According to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty number two, the Russian SS-24s and the American Peacekeepers were supposed to be dismantled or converted to single-warhead missiles. Although we no longer have any Peacekeepers on alert, the rockets themselves are still stored in their silos, without any warheads, awaiting removal and disposal. The Russians claim that this is a technical violation, so they said they would keep an equal number of SS-24s on their launchers, without warheads. The Russians recently started moving these SS-24s around, like they move the SS-25s around, so we have to track them as well.”
“Is that a problem?”
“The Seventieth has a pretty good record of finding both missiles,” Griffin said. “The SS-24s mostly stay in their garrisons. The SS-25s are much harder, because they’re road-mobile and they have a fairly good off-road capability and can fire from just about anywhere on the road, thanks to an inertial-navigation system augmented with satellite positioning.”
“We have several airborne sensors that can scan wide areas of all sorts of terrain for targets like this,” Patrick said. “The Megafortresses have synthetic-aperture radar that can pick out something as large as an SS-25 launcher from three hundred miles away — even concealed in a forest or under netting — and see inside a garage at one hundred miles.”
“We can sure use them in treaty-compliance missions — not much chance of them authorizing us to fly a high-tech stealthy bomber over their missile-silo fields, though,” Griffin said. “Our imaging satellites do a pretty good job overall, and we correlate signals intelligence with vehicle movements to spot most movements — we keep the count up as high as eighty percent. Weather hampers their movements a bit, especially in the Far East theater, and many units traverse the same areas every time during routine deployments. The good thing is that for the past few years the SS-25s have stayed mos
tly in their storage areas.”
“Reason?”
“It’s four times as expensive to maintain the road-mobile missiles than it is the silo-based weapons,” Griffin explained. “In addition, the transporter-erector-launchers were built in Belarus, so the Russians have had a hard time getting spare parts and replacements after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The START II treaty limit of just one warhead on every land-launched missile means that the SS-25 has less ‘bang for the buck.’
“Of course, its survivability gives it a big edge, and the missiles can be fired from their garages as well, so they all have to be monitored even while parked. We watch the garrison areas carefully for any sign of movement, and we use satellite-based visual, radiological, and thermal identification methods for tracking and identifying each convoy. We think there are only two regiments, a total of eighty missiles, actually deployed in the field at any one time.”
“I think I need to get a status briefing from the Seventieth right away,” Patrick said. “What else does the Seventieth monitor?”
“Test launches,” Griffin said. “There is a missile test-firing range north of Bratsk that has been used in the past to test-launch mobile missiles, so no one was surprised at that DSP detection warning. But Russia hasn’t fired a missile into the old Kazakh test ranges since shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union — they usually fire shorter-range missiles north to the Pol’kino instrumented target complex, and longer-range missiles east to the Petropavlovsk Pacific range complex. Kazakhstan hasn’t specifically banned use of their old target ranges, but they haven’t allowed it either.”
Patrick nodded as he studied the DSP satellite data. After another few moments, he asked, “Can the DSP satellites give us the speed and direction of the missile?”
“Not exactly,” Griffin replied. “Lots of folks say that DSP has a ‘tracking’ function, but in fact it’s just a series of detector activations. Certain users, like NORAD, can derive speed and ground track from the detectors, but DSP itself doesn’t provide that information. Since DSP is a warning-and-reporting system, not a target-tracking system — ground-based radars like BMEWS and the new National Missile Defense System are meant for tracking missiles — and since the system is designed to track missiles inbound to North America, not to Central Asia, we don’t have that info.”
“I’d like to find out how fast that missile was going when it was first detected,” Patrick said.
“It may not be a very accurate number,” Griffin warned. “In essence, DSP looks directly down at Earth when it spots a missile exhaust plume. Because most missiles go up awhile before heading down-range, the speed turns out to be zero for the first minute or two. That’s why we sometimes get excited even when we detect a forest fire or oil-well fire in Russia — they all look the same for the first couple minutes, which is why NORAD is usually quick to blow the Klaxon if it sees a hot dot anywhere in-country.”
“Find out for me,” Patrick said.
“Sure. What are you thinking about, Patrick?”
“I’m thinking that uncorrelated target has something to do with the attack on Bukhara,” Patrick said. He drew an electronic line on the screen between the DSP target-track data points to plot a course — and they saw that the missile’s flight path took it directly to Bukhara.
“That could be a coincidence,” Griffin said. “The track also goes through the Kazakh missile ranges. We don’t know where the missile went after its motor burned out….”
“But you said the Russians haven’t been shooting missiles into Kazakhstan — which makes sense,” Patrick said. “Kazakhstan cooperates as much with the U.S. as it does with Russia. And we don’t exactly know where the missile or its payload impacted — we’re assuming it was the missile test ranges in Kazakhstan. Maybe it really hit in Bukhara. But if there are no silos and the Russians have never shot a missile from Bratsk before, maybe it wasn’t a ground-launched missile.”
“What else could it be?”
“An air-launched missile,” Patrick responded. “Ever hear of anything like that before?”
“An air-launched Mach-eight missile that can fly almost eighteen hundred miles? I seem to recall something like that, but it’s better to ask the expert.” Griffin picked up Patrick’s secure phone. “This is Colonel Griffin. Get Chief Master Sergeant Saks secure at NAIC, ASAP,” he asked Patrick’s clerk. To Patrick he said, “Don Saks is one of our ‘old heads’—he’s been around longer than just about everyone. He’s the NCOIC at the National Air Intelligence Center at Wright-Pat, which collects and disseminates information on enemy air-and-space weaponry. If it exists, ever existed, or was once on the drawing board, he’ll know all about it.” A few moments later, Griffin punched the speakerphone button on the phone and returned the receiver to its hook. “Chief? Tagger here, secure. I’m here at Lackland with General McLanahan.”
“Saks, secure. Hello, sirs. What can I do you for?”
“You’re the walking Russian threat encyclopedia and the Air Intelligence Agency’s Jeopardy! champ, so here goes: It’s a Russian long-range air-launched hypersonic attack missile.”
“Easy. What is the AS-X-19 ‘Koala’?” Saks answered immediately. “A combination of the obsolete AS-3 ’Kangaroo’ air-to-surface missile and the naval SS-N-24 long-range hypersonic ship-launched antiship missile. Russian designation Kh-90 or BL-10. First test-launched in 1988. Rocket-boosted to Mach two, then ramjet-powered, speed in excess of Mach eight, range in excess of fifteen hundred miles, cruises at seventy thousand feet altitude. Too big to fit inside a Blackjack bomber, but the Tupolev-95 Bear could carry two externally. The Tupolev-22M Backfire could carry three, although over very short distances — the suckers were supposed to be more than thirty feet long and weigh in excess of eight thousand pounds. The program was canceled in 1992, but rumors persisted that the Russians were going to build a shorter-range conventional-warhead version.”
“You mean, this AS-X-19 was supposed to have a nuclear warhead, Chief?” Patrick remarked.
“Every Russian air-launched weapon designed before 1991 was supposed to be able to carry a nuke, and the Koala was no exception, sir,” Saks replied. “The Koala was inertially guided, but the Russians had terrible inertial nav systems back then — the missile needed a nuke in order to destroy anything. They were experimenting with GLONASS-navigating ultraprecise missiles when the program was canceled. Why, sir?”
“We’re looking into a recent Russian missile launch to see if it was an air-or ground-launched bird.”
“Got radar data on it, sir?” Saks asked.
“Negative.”
“Any data on it? DSP perhaps?”
“That we got.”
“Get Space Command to give you the plume-illumination-rate levels from the satellite detectors,” Saks recommended. “They’ll squawk and say you’re not cleared for that info, but tell them you need it anyway. A ground-launched missile will have a huge and sustained first-stage plume, followed by a medium-size second-stage plume, followed by a long unpowered-coast phase. Air-launched missiles like the Kh-90 have a relatively small first stage — the carrier aircraft is actually considered the missile’s first stage — followed by a whopping big and sustained second stage, which sometimes continues through reentry and even to impact.”
“Would DSP be able to track the Koala during its ramjet-cruise phase?” Patrick asked.
“Probably not, sir,” Saks responded. “DSP needs a good hot flame, as from a chemical-reaction motor, versus an air-fuel motor like a ramjet. A ramjet is basically an air-breathing engine, like a turbojet, except it uses the Venturi shape of the combustion chamber, rather than vanes and rotating blades, to compress incoming air. Because there’s no moving parts that stall in supersonic air, the ramjet vehicle can fly several times faster than most turbojets or turboramjets. NORAD can tune DSP to pick up cooler heat sources such as from a ramjet engine, but then it’s more prone to false alarms, so they probably wouldn’t do it unless they had a really
compelling reason. The HAVE GAZE and SLOW WALKER satellites — designed to detect and track stealth aircraft — might be able to pick them up, but they need a pretty solid aimpoint to start with.”
“Speed of a ballistic missile, range of a cruise missile — and a nuclear warhead to boot,” Griffin summarized. “Did you get the data on the antiradar missiles fired against Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan yesterday?”
“Yes, sir. Most certainly AS-17 ‘Krypton’ antiradar missiles, what the Russkies call the Kh-31P. It’s a knockoff of the French ANS supersonic antiship and antiradar missile. We’ve never seen them on Backfires before, but it makes total sense. It’s a pretty awesome threat. But if the Russians are flying Koalas now, that’s an even greater threat. The Russians practiced launching Koalas from everything from fighters to cargo planes, and even from airliners back in the eighties. Even a Patriot missile can’t catch up to it — it’s a hypersonic missile almost right up to impact.”
“Any more good news for us, Don?” Patrick asked wryly.
“Two things, sir: The Russians know superramjet technology,” Saks responded seriously. “If you think you saw a Koala test-fired lately, chances are they’ve got a bunch of them ready to go.”
“What’s the other thing, Don?”
“The Koala was originally designed to carry two independently targetable reentry vehicles,” Saks added. “They’d deploy at seventy to eighty thousand feet, which meant the two targets could be as far as sixty to seventy miles apart. Their accuracy back then was one to two hundred meters — but now, with GPS or GLONASS steering, they could have ten-to twenty-meter accuracy. Just thought you should know.”
Those words stayed with Patrick long after he hung up. “Tagger, we’re going to need to look at those uncorrelated contacts in Siberia,” he said finally. “We know that Backfire bombers were involved in that attack on Bukhara, and we know that they can carry both AS-17 and AS-19 missiles. The boss wants to know where that Backfire came from — but I want to know who launched that AS-19, and I want to know what else the Russians are doing with their bomber fleet. If this was some isolated incident, or if this was a prelude to some sort of bigger offensive in Turkmenistan or somewhere else, I want to find out about it.”
