by Dale Brown
Interviewer: Since the end of the Cold War, threats to “our way of life” are not so neatly geographically placed. Nor, aside from Saddam Hussein and various terrorist groups, is it clear where we should place our military priorities.
Dale Brown: There are plenty of bad guys out there—but it sometimes takes more background to explain why they are the bad guys. Fifteen years ago, everyone understood why we were fighting the Soviets. But if you set a war story in Ukraine or Lithuania or the Philippines, you need to take some time and explain why we’re fighting there.
Interviewer: What effect has the advent of improved technology had on the art of being a fighter pilot?
Dale Brown: It has changed it completely. The “dogfight”—two pilots, two planes—is all but dead. Life and death takes place in split-second battles that happen across dozens of miles, usually without either adversary ever seeing the other. Pilots are more systems operators than fliers nowadays. Sooner than most folks think, our fighters won’t even have pilots in them!
This interview was first published, in a slightly different form, at www.fireandwater.com, the website of HarperCollins UK.
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction and a product of my imagination. Although I use the names of some real-world persons and organizations, their use is only to enhance authenticity of the story and is not meant to describe any real-world persons or organizations or depict their actual activities. Any similarity whatsoever is coincidental.
Cast of Characters
Brigadier General Patrick McLanahan, commander, 966th Information Warfare Wing; plans intelligence operations; 4 ops groups, 1 intel group
Major General Gary Houser, commander, Air Intelligence Agency
Colonel Trevor Griffin, deputy commander, 966th Information Warfare Wing, Lackland AFB
Command CMSgt Harold Bayless, Command NCOIC
Chief Master Sergeant Donald Saks, NCOIC, National Air Intelligence Center, WPAFB; produces foreign aerospace intel for DoD
Brigadier General David Luger, commander, First Air Battle Force
Brigadier General Rebecca Furness, commander, 111th Attack Wing; commander, 1 ABF/Air Operations
Colonel Hal Briggs, commander, 1 ABF/Ground Operations
Sergeant Major Chris Wohl, NCOIC, 1 ABF/GO
First Lieutenant Mark Bastian, Ground Ops squad leader
Staff Sergeant Emily Angel, ABF Ground Ops
Tech Sergeant James “JD” Daniels
Lance Corporal Johnny “Hulk” Morris
Colonel Daren Mace, Ops Group commander, 111th Attack Wing
Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Hellion, Fifty-first Bomb Squadron (EB-1C)
Colonel Nancy Cheshire, commander, Fifty-second Bomb Squadron (EB-52 and AL-52)
Colonel Kelvin Carter, operations officer, Fifty-second Bomb Squadron, AL-52 AC
Lieutenant Colonel Summer O’Dea, EB-52 AC
Major Matthew Whitley, EB-52 remote-control technician Major Frankie “Zipper” Tarantino, AL-52 MC
Captain Johnny “Soccer” Sammis, EB-52 MC
U.S. Marine Corps Captain Ted Merritt, Marine Special Purpose Forces platoon leader
Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, commander, Eighth Air Force
Brigadier General Charles C. Zoltrane, acting deputy commander and operations officer, Eighth Air Force
General Charles F. “Cuz” Kuzner, chief of staff, USAF
General Thomas “Turbo” Muskoka, commander, Air Combat Command
Lieutenant General Leah “Skyy” Fortuna, deputy commander, Air Combat Command
Admiral Charles Andover, chief of Naval Operations
General Walter Wollensky, commander, U.S. Space Command
General Randall Shepard, commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command; also commander of U.S. Northern Command
Colonel Joanna Kearsage, C-crew command director, Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station
Lieutenant Colonel Susan Paige, C-crew commander, Air Warning Center, NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, Colorado
Brigadier General Jerrod Richland, E-4 AOC battle staff commander
Thomas Nathaniel Thorn, president of the United States
Robert Goff, secretary of defense
Richard W. Venti, USAF general, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral Charles Andover, chief of Naval Operations
Douglas R. Morgan, director of Central Intelligence
Maureen Hershel, secretary of state
Darrow Horton, attorney general
Russians
General Anatoliy Gryzlov, president of the Russian Federation
Army General Nikolai Stepashin, chief of staff of the Russian military and commander, ministry of state security (chief of all intelligence bureaus)
Aviatskiy Kapitan Leytenant Josef Leborov, Tu-95MS-16 pilot
Aviatskiy Starshij Leytenant Yuri Bodorev, his copilot
Turkmen Starshiy Leytenant
General Jalaluddin Turabi, interim commander of Turkmen armed forces
Abdul Dendara, his aide
Aircraft and Weapons
MV-32 PAVE DASHER tilt-jet special-operations transport, cruise speed 320 KIAS, endurance 5 hours (conventional takeoff/vertical landing/vertical takeoff/vertical landing), carries 18 combat-ready troops plus crew of three; cargo ramp allows Humvee-size vehicles to fit inside; 2 retractable weapons pods for defensive or attack missiles; 1 20-millimeter Gatling gun in steerable chin turret; satellite and inertial navigation plus imaging-infrared sensor and millimeter-wave radar allows global terrain-following flight
MQ-35 CONDOR air-launched special-operations transport, cruise speed 300 KIAS, endurance 3 hours (glide insertion/conventional takeoff from rough field/conventional landing on rough field); carries 4 combat-ready troops plus up to 260 pounds of cargo; remotely piloted; mission-adaptive skin and lifting-body technology allows aircraft to be controlled without wings or flight-control surfaces; small turbojet engine and tricycle landing gear allows aircraft to take off from unimproved fields
RAQ-15 StealthHawk long-range reconnaissance and attack cruise missile; turbojet engine, 600 KIAS max cruise speed, max range 2,000 miles; lifting-body design, mission-adaptive flight controls; carries 6 AGM-211 mini-Maverick guided attack missiles; 2 can be carried by EB-52 Megafortress bombers on wing pylons or 2 in center bomb bay of EB-1C Vampire bomber; reloadable and refuelable by EB-1C bombers; launch weight 3,500 pounds
AGM-211 mini-Maverick, small TV-guided attack missile, 28-pound thermium nitrate (TN) warhead, glide-and rocket-boosted, 6-mile range
AGM-165 Longhorn TV-and IIR-guided attack missile, 200-pound TN warhead, MMW radar guidance, 60-mile range, 2,000 pounds each
AIM-120 Scorpion AMRAAM air-to-air missile, 50-pound warhead, 35 miles max range, triple-mode active radar, passive radar, or infrared, max speed Mach 3, 350 pounds each
AIM-154 Anaconda long-range radar-guided air-to-air missile, 50-pound TN warhead, 150-mile max range, ramjet engine, active-passive radar/IR guidance, max speed Mach 5, weight 6,000 pounds
AGM-177 Wolverine cruise missile, turbojet powered, max 50-mile range, 3 weapon bays, IIR or MMW radar terminal guidance, 2,000 pounds
AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), range 15 to 40 miles depending on release altitude, 1,500 pounds, unpowered glide weapon, carries 200 antipersonnel/antivehicle bomblets, 10 BLU-108/B antiarmor submunitions, or 500-pound high explosive; EB-52, B-2, or EB-1C can carry 8 on rotary launcher
ABM-3 Lancelot air-launched anti-ballistic-missile weapon, 200-mile range, plasma-yield or conventional warheads, 3,000-pound launch weight
Russian:
AS-17 “Krypton” (Kh-31P) medium-range air-launched antiradar missile, max 120-mile range, speed in excess of Mach 3, 225-pound blast/fragmentation warhead; carried by Tu-22M Backfire bombers
AS-X-19 “Koala” (Kh-90) long-range air-launched attack missile, ramjet powered, max range 1,800 miles, speed in excess of Mach
8, 1-kiloton nuclear warhead with delayed trigger fuze and armored nose cap, designed for destroying deep underground or armored facilities; two carried by Tu-95 Bear bombers
AS-16 “Kickback” (Kh-15) inertially guided supersonic attack missile, 90-mile range, max speed Mach 2, 300-pound high-explosive warhead or 1-kiloton nuclear warhead; Tu-160 bomber can carry 24 internally on rotary launcher
Prologue
Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, Nevada
June 2004
SA-17 target-detection radar, twelve o’clock, fifty miles, no problem, well below detection threshold…oh, wow, a newcomer, SA-12 surveillance radar, one o’clock, eighty-five miles,” the reconnaissance technician reported. The guy looked all of nineteen years old and sounded even younger. He could’ve been commenting on the appearance of aliens in a video game—he was neither excited nor surprised, just gleefully energized. “SA-12 datalink signals being transmitted…still not locked on, but he knows we’re out here. He—Wait, radar’s down. He shut it off in a big hurry.”
“Well, well—the Russkies sneaked an SA-12 into the theater,” Major General Patrick McLanahan remarked. He was well accustomed to the youthful expressions and seemingly laid-back style of his soldiers, and he tried not to impart his own “red alert” mentality on them. The forty-seven-year-old two-star Air Force general typed in commands on his computer terminal, calling up any additional information on this new contact. “Possibly a full SA-12 battery—six transporter-erector-launchers plus five loader-launchers tied into a surveillance radar vehicle, sector-scanning radar vehicle, and command post. He’s pretty far outside Ashkhabad—it’s obviously not intended to protect Russian forces in the capital. It’s a clear violation.”
“They’re moving the heavy guns a little farther east every day,” Air Force Colonel Daren Mace remarked. The fifty-one-year-old Air Force veteran watched as the large, full-color tactical display updated itself with the location and identification of the new Russian surface-to-air missile unit. The SA-12, similar in performance to the American Patriot antiaircraft system, was one of the Russian Federation’s most advanced surface-to-air missile systems, capable of destroying large aircraft out as far as sixty miles. “You’d think they didn’t want us out there watching them or something.” He made a few inputs on his own keyboard. “The task force has been updated with the new intel, and we’ve sent warnings to all the United Nations participants,” he went on. “The Russians are threatening past the sixtieth meridian now with the SA-12, sir. If they keep this up, they’ll have surface-to-air missile coverage over Mary itself in just a few days.”
Patrick nodded. The Republic of Turkmenistan had been cut in half since the Taliban invasion last year, with the Turkmen government and military virtually exiled to the city of Mary in the east and the Army of the Russian Federation in control of the capital city of Ashkhabad in the west. The United Nations Security Council had ordered all parties to stand fast until peacekeeping forces could be moved into the country to try to sort everything out, and to everyone’s surprise the resolution passed without a veto from Russia. Now it appeared that the Russians were violating the order and moving steadily eastward, taking steps to control the skies first and then slowly taking more and more of the countryside. “I’ll go to Eighth Air Force again and make sure they know that the Russians haven’t stopped pushing east.”
“Think that’ll do any good, sir?” Daren asked. “We’ve painted a pretty clear picture of the Russians moving east across Turkmenistan, in violation of the Security Council’s resolution. The SA-12 is a lot more than a tactical defensive weapon—one battery can shut off two hundred thousand cubic miles of airspace.”
“Our job is to surveille, monitor, analyze, and report—not attack,” Patrick said with a hint of weariness in his voice as he keyed in commands to submit a report to Eighth Air Force’s senior duty controller. Eighth Air Force, located in Shreveport, Louisiana, was the Air Force major command in charge of all of America’s heavy bomber forces. “I’m taking it upon myself to have the assets in place in case we’re asked to respond. I have a feeling I’m lucky to continue to be doing that.” Daren Mace said nothing—he knew that the general was definitely correct.
Patrick, Daren, and their technical crew were conducting an aerial surveillance and reconnaissance mission over central Turkmenistan, a former Soviet Central Asian republic—but they were safe and secure in the BATMAN, or Battle Management Center, at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in north-central Nevada. The aircraft flying over Turkmenistan was a QB-1C Vampire III, a highly modified unmanned B-1 bomber loaded with electronic surveillance and monitoring equipment. Eavesdropping equipment allowed Patrick to intercept signals from a wide variety of sources, and the bomber’s laser radar, or LADAR, allowed them to take incredibly detailed images of ground and air targets from long range.
Along with defensive weapons—six AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs) on external fuselage hardpoints—the Vampire bomber carried two StealthHawk UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles) on a special rotary launcher in its center bomb bay. Resembling wide, fat, winged surfboards, the StealthHawk drones carried small but powerful precision-guided missiles and cluster munitions to attack hostile ground targets. The StealthHawks could be retrieved, refueled, and rearmed inside the Vampire, allowing each drone to attack dozens of targets while the mother ship stayed well out of range of antiaircraft threats.
Patrick punched the radio channel command, entered a password, waited a few moments until the secure channels synchronized, then spoke, “Fortress, this is Avenger, secure.”
“Avenger, Fortress is secure,” the Eighth Air Force senior controller on duty responded.
“How are you tonight, Taylor?”
“Just fine, General,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Taylor Viner replied. Taylor Rose Viner was a young and talented aerospace engineer and command pilot that Patrick had tried for years to recruit to Dreamland, the top-secret weapon center in Nevada, but the mother of twin boys had opted for a halfway normal family life as one of the shift commanders in charge of Eighth Air Force’s command center. “Go ahead, sir.”
“We’ve detected a new SAM site in central Turkmenistan, an SA-12 less than forty miles outside the city of Mary,” Patrick said. “It’s not a threat to task-force aircraft right now, but that’s only because we’re stealthier than the average bear. If we put up any standard reconnaissance aircraft, they’d be dead meat.”
“The Security Council resolution prohibits Russian forces from approaching closer than fifty kilometers from Mary—that’s thirty miles,” Viner said. “He’s legal.”
“But an SA-12 is a threat to large aircraft out to forty miles, and that means over the city of Mary,” Patrick said.
“I understand, sir,” Viner said. “I’m not arguing, only playing devil’s advocate.” She was also gently reminding Patrick of the first likely question the Eighth Air Force commanders would ask if she woke them up with this information. “What do you want to do, sir?”
“I’m requesting permission to launch a StealthHawk UCAV over the city in an effort to ascertain the Russians’ intent.”
“UCAV? You’ve got UCAVs on board the task-force aircraft, sir?” Taylor asked with surprise. She paused for a moment as she typed on her own computer terminal, then added, “Sir, there’s nothing on the frag order about UCAVs. Are they armed, sir?” Patrick hesitated—and that’s all Viner needed to know. “General, my recommendation to you would be to launch another aircraft immediately that is armed exactly per the frag order to replace the one you have on station.”
“The frag order doesn’t prohibit us from carrying UCAVs, and it does permit us to carry defensive weapons.”
“Yes, sir,” Viner replied, in a tone of voice that clearly said, The bosses aren’t going to like that argument one bit. “Shall I upchannel your observations and request, sir, or would you like to continue monitoring the situation?”
Taylor was making one last attempt
to dissuade Patrick from taking any action, and Patrick decided she was right. “We’ll continue monitoring the situation, Colonel,” Patrick said. “You can put in your report that we have StealthHawk UCAVs on board the Bobcat patrol aircraft and that we are ready to respond immediately if necessary. Please mark the SA-12 battery-contact report ‘urgent’ and let them know we’re standing by.”
“Yes, sir,” Viner responded. “Anything else to report, sir?”
“No, Taylor. Ops normal otherwise. We’re standing by to respond.”
“Roger that, sir. Fortress clear.”
“Avenger standing by.” Patrick sat back in his seat and studied the displays in front of him. “Well, Daren,” he said to Mace beside him, “I sure hope I didn’t piss off the brass—any more than I already have.”
“If you’ll pardon an unsolicited observation, sir, I think they’re probably going to be perpetually pissed at you, whether or not you launched the Vampires with UCAVs,” Daren observed. Patrick nodded in agreement. He was right: This whole mission was a no-win situation from day one, and Patrick was the center of the shit storm.
The United Nations Security Council resolution ordered aerial observation of Turkmenistan only. President Thomas Thorn, in a surprise move, pledged support, and the council accepted. The secretary of defense ordered U.S. Central Command, the major command in charge of military operations in Central Asia, to set up round-the-clock reconnaissance; Central Command in turn tapped the U.S. Air Force to perform the reconnaissance task.
At first the Air Force tasked Twelfth Air Force, the Air Combat Command headquarters that owned long-range reconnaissance aircraft, to plan a reconnaissance schedule. Twelfth Air Force built a plan to deploy its conventional reconnaissance aircraft—the unmanned RQ-4A Global Hawk, the U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane, the RC-135 RIVET JOINT electronic reconnaissance plane, and the E-8 Joint STARS (Surveillance and Targeting Radar System) ground-reconnaissance aircraft. With a combination of these aircraft over Turkmenistan, augmented with satellite reconnaissance, they’d have a complete, 24/7 real-time picture of the situation there.
