Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  “All we have covered now are the reported active bomber bases as of the last CFE and NPT treaty reports; the CFE reports are at least two years old, and the NPT and Open Sky reports are over a year old,” Patrick said. “I want all the known bases, active or otherwise—any bases that can still handle a hundred-and-fifty-ton-plus bomber.”

  “Like the Backfires, eh?” Dave asked. “The planes that apparently came out of nowhere and bombed the hell out of that CIA base in Uzbekistan?”

  “Exactly.”

  “We’ve actually been doing some looking ourselves, Muck,” Dave said. “Obviously, if those bombers reached Bukhara, they can reach the peacekeeping forces in Turkmenistan.”

  “The Backfire bombers have an unrefueled range of just a little over a thousand miles with a max combat load,” Patrick said. “But none of the Backfires from bases within that radius were used. That means they had to use air refueling. We’ve believed for years that the Russians wouldn’t use Backfires in a strategic role, but if they start putting the air-refueling probes back on and using them for long-range bombing missions, they become a strategic threat once again.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So now we have to go back and look at every past heavy-bomber base in Russia to find out where the Backfires came from,” Patrick went on, “and also to find out what else is going on. The Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers aren’t supposed to have air refueling probes either, according to the CFE Treaty, but if they’re putting probes back on Backfires, they can just as easily reactivate the retractable probes on Blackjacks, too.”

  “Sounds like good sound reasoning to me, Muck,” Dave said.

  “My guess is that the Backfires have been moved east, to somewhere in Siberia,” Patrick said. “It’s just a hunch, but I would like to get updated pics of the old Siberian bomber bases to see if they’ve been active lately.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I haven’t been able to sell my theories to anyone,” Patrick replied. “Around here it comes down to cost versus benefit. Retasking a Keyhole or Lacrosse satellite practically needs a papal edict. Landsat is a polar-orbit bird and won’t help me; if I move Ikonos, it will decrease its service life too much before a replacement can be launched; and SPOT charges too much for images of Russia.” SPOT Image was a private French firm that supplied radar and optical satellite imagery to users all over the world; many governments and military forces, including those of the United States, often purchased up-to-the-minute SPOT images to supplement their own data, or to mask their interest in a particular area. “I can’t convince Houser to send my plan up the chain.”

  David said nothing—mostly because a dull pain was starting to develop in his left temple. He wasn’t crazy about the direction this conversation was taking.

  “Is the Air Battle Force still heading up the peacekeeping surveillance effort in Turkmenistan?” Patrick asked.

  David Luger hesitated a bit before responding. Yep, he told himself, he could clearly see the reason for Patrick’s call now—and he didn’t like it. “I never received any orders relieving us of command,” he said finally, “but with all our planes grounded and the Russians’ advances into the interior of the country, no other surveillance assets instead of satellites have been committed. We’re in charge of nothing right now.”

  “The Backfires are obviously a threat to UN peacekeepers—”

  “We don’t know that for sure, Muck,” Dave interjected.

  “In any case, we can reasonably argue that there was a violation, so an investigation into where those bombers came from is fully justified. The suspected violation authorizes the Air Battle Force to investigate, according to the terms of the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution. That means you’re authorized to employ all necessary assets to investigate the violations. You can legally launch NIRTSats anywhere you want. You can—”

  “Patrick,” David Luger said seriously, “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Well, you can’t launch from the Megafortresses, because they’re still grounded—although I think after we make this argument, we can get that restriction lifted—but you can launch from the Sky Masters carrier aircraft,” Patrick went on. “I did a preliminary mission plan: two boosters, eight NIRTSats, placed in sixty-five-degree elliptical orbits at two hundred and twenty miles’ altitude—we shouldn’t need one-meter resolution, so we can afford to go a little higher. We’ll get all the baseline shots we need in about twelve days. If we have the fuel, we can reposition whoever’s left to an eighty-degree elliptical at whatever altitude they can make it to and get the remaining shots until we lose the birds. We’ll then plan to—”

  “Get me the okay from the Air Force or from Air Combat Command, Patrick, and I’ll do it tomorrow,” Dave said.

  “But that’s what I’m saying, Dave—you don’t need authorization from anyone,” Patrick said. “As the joint task force commander, you have full authority to launch those constellations. Then you can just share the data with the Nine-sixty-sixth here, and I’ll—”

  “Patrick, I’m sorry, but I won’t do that,” Luger said tonelessly.

  “What?”

  “I said I’m not launching anything from Battle Mountain without an okay from Air Combat Command or higher,” David said.

  “But you have the authority to—”

  “No, I don’t,” Luger said. “I’ve been ordered to stand down until our activities have been investigated. The fact that the joint task force has not been terminated doesn’t mean I can ignore a direct order from my superior officers to stand down.”

  “But I need that imagery, Dave.”

  “I understand, Patrick, and I’m sure we can get it for you. But until I get an order to launch, I won’t do it.”

  “Dave, Air Intelligence Agency is authorized to request support from any unit or command in the United States military,” Patrick insisted. “I can call up Beale or Whiteman or Offutt or Elmendorf and launch any number of reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering aircraft I need.”

  “Then go ahead and do it, Patrick,” Luger said firmly. “I’ll watch.”

  “This isn’t funny, Texas….”

  “I’m not being funny at all, Patrick,” David said. “I would love for you to put in a request for support to Air Force or Air Combat Command, because then we’d get recertified and back into the air again. But the bottom line is, if you thought you could do it through normal channels, you would have done it already. You probably already made the request, and it was turned down.”

  “Gary Houser is my boss here, Dave,” Patrick said by way of explanation. “You remember Gary, don’t you? He tormented young lieutenants like you for fun, like a cat toying with a mouse.”

  “I remember him. He was a great pilot—just not a great person. You protected me from him…took a lot of the heat away from me and put it on you.”

  “Well, he’s doing the same shit to me now, here,” Patrick went on. “He wants me to find out where the Backfires came from, but he won’t give me the tools I need to find them. He’s toying with me, hoping I’ll fail and retire.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Muck. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Well, I can’t let him get away with that shit.”

  “And maybe he’s right, Patrick,” Dave said.

  “He’s…what?”

  “Maybe you should retire, Patrick.”

  Patrick was thunderstruck. He couldn’t believe that his longtime friend and partner just said what he said. “Dave…you don’t really believe that…?”

  “Patrick, overflying four hostile countries without permission to retrieve that UCAV after it had gone out of control, then crash-landing on Diego Garcia after being ordered by the secretary of defense himself not to. Or when you ordered the bombing of Engels without authority, when you flew back over Russia in direct violation of orders after Dewey and Deverill were shot down—all those incidents happened because you made them happen. I’ll agree that the situation was desper
ate, you made a hard decision, and everything turned out for the better for us in the long run. But the fact is, you exceeded your authority each and every time. We don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t intervened—maybe lives would have been lost….”

  “Maybe? Engels bombers were preparing to kill every soul in Chärjew. Dewey and Deverill might still be in a Russian prison if I hadn’t gone back for them!”

  “You don’t know that, Patrick,” Luger insisted. “In any case, you had no right to disregard orders.”

  “I had every right. I was in command.”

  “I know your arguments, Patrick, and I disregard them all,” Luger said. “We all have a superior officer. When he or she gives a lawful order, we’re supposed to obey it. The problem is, you don’t. Every day I saw more and more of Brad Elliott emerging from within you.”

  “Oh, Christ, you’re not going to give me the ‘I’m turning into Brad Elliott’ bullshit, too, are you?” Patrick retorted. “I heard that enough from Houser and Samson and half the four-stars in the Pentagon. It has nothing to do with Brad Elliott—it has everything to do with accepting responsibility and taking action.” He paused for a few heartbeats, then added, “So you’re not going to consider my request for satellite-reconnaissance support?”

  “I’ll be happy to consider it—but I’ll upchannel the request to my superior officers at Air Force, Air Combat Command, and Eighth Air Force,” Luger replied. “That’s what I feel I have to do.”

  “You actually think that’s the way you should play this, eh, Dave?” Patrick asked. “Make no decision yourself. Don’t exercise your authority. Ask permission first—and don’t forget to say ‘pretty please.’ ”

  “That is the way it’s supposed to be done, Patrick—you just forgot that somehow. Maybe it is Brad Elliott’s influence working on you. There’s no doubt that Brad was your surrogate father, and he praised and encouraged your success in the military the way you know your actual father never would have done. Your real dad wanted you to join the police force, and you told me many times how disappointed he was when his oldest son wouldn’t follow in his footsteps—”

  “Don’t give me that Freudian psychobabble crap, Dave.”

  “—or maybe it was just your sense of how the bomber world works…no, how your world is supposed to work, your world of instant justice delivered from above.”

  “Are you listening to yourself, Dave? Do you really believe all this shit you’re telling me?”

  “But that’s not how my world works,” Luger said, ignoring Patrick’s remarks. “In my world, in my command, I need authorization before I commence a risky operation that puts lives and weapon systems in jeopardy.”

  “Oh, I get it—you have your command now, and you’re going to do everything you can not to see it get messed up. You’re afraid to take a risk because it might mean you’re unsuited to command a combat unit of your own.”

  “With all due respect, Muck—eat shit,” Luger snarled. “The only reason I got this command is because you screwed up, so let’s not forget that. I didn’t ask to get it; I was your deputy, and I was content to do that job. But now I make the decisions here—not you. It is my responsibility and my call, and what I say is that I require authorization from higher headquarters before I’ll commit my aircraft, satellites, airmen, or ground teams. You must get me that authorization before I commence operations. If you don’t, I’ll upchannel your request to my superiors before I begin.

  “And you know something, Patrick? I have a feeling you already knew the answer to your request, which is why you came to me first,” Luger went on hotly. “You thought you’d take advantage of our friendship and ask me a favor, hoping I’d go along just because we’ve partnered together for so long. Tell me I’m wrong, Muck.” No response. “Yeah, I thought so. And you wonder why half of Eighth Air Force wants to see you retire. You’ve turned into something I never thought I’d ever see you become.”

  “Dave, listen…”

  “You take it easy, sir. Air Battle Force, clear.” And Luger abruptly terminated the connection.

  David Luger sat upright in his chair, hands on the armrests, staring straight ahead, feet flat on the floor. Anyone who might look in on him at that moment might think he was catatonic—and in a sense that’s exactly what he was.

  Almost twenty years earlier, David Luger had been part of a secret bombing mission into the Soviet Union, along with Brad Elliott, Patrick McLanahan, and three others. After completing the mission by bombing a ground-based laser site, the crew was forced to land their crippled EB-52 Megafortress bomber on an isolated Soviet air base to refuel. Dave Luger sacrificed himself to draw the defenders away, which allowed the Megafortress and its crew to escape.

  Luger was captured and held in a secret location in Siberia for many years. Brainwashed into thinking he was a Soviet scientist, Luger helped the Soviets design and build aircraft and weapons that advanced the Soviet state of the art by several years, perhaps several generations. Eventually Patrick McLanahan and the crew of the EB-52 “Old Dog” helped rescue him, but by then he had been held against his will, psychologically and physically tortured, for almost seven years.

  During his captivity the rigid position he was in now was a sort of psychological and emotional “happy place”—when he was not being tortured or brainwashed, he was ordered to assume that position, which he equated with rest or relief. To Luger it actually felt good to assume that stiff, tense position. After his rescue and rehabilitation, his doctors and psychologists saw this posture as a manifestation of his emotional damage. But after years of therapy, David was fully aware of what he was doing when he put himself in this rather awkward-looking seated position. In a strange way, it was still a “happy place” for him—in fact, it helped him focus his thoughts more clearly.

  Yes, he was angry at Patrick. Yes, Patrick was wrong for not following the proper chain of command, and it was exceedingly unfair of him to use their close personal relationship to break the rules and do something they’d both have to answer for later.

  But…Patrick McLanahan was the best strategic planner and the best strategic-bombing task-force commander he had ever known. If he had a hunch about where those Russian bombers came from, he was probably correct.

  “Luger to Briggs, Luger to Furness,” Dave spoke into thin air.

  “Briggs here,” Colonel Hal Briggs responded via the subcutaneous transceiver system. All of the former Dreamland officers were “wired” with the global satellite datalink and communications system.

  “Can you stop by for a chat?”

  “I can be there in ten,” Hal said.

  “I’m in the box and ten minutes to the high fix, Dave,” Rebecca Furness responded. “Give me twenty.” Furness, the commander of the 111th Wing, in charge of Battle Mountain’s fleet of airborne-laser and flying-battleship aircraft, was returning from a pilot-proficiency flight in the “virtual cockpit,” the control station for Battle Mountain’s fleet of remotely piloted aircraft. With Battle Mountain’s combat fleet grounded, the crews maintained proficiency by flying unmanned QF-4 Phantom jet-fighter drones, which were the closest to the unmanned QB-1C Vampire drone’s performance. “Get Daren, unless it can wait.”

  “Roger. Luger to Mace.”

  “Go ahead, sir.”

  “You and Hal meet me in the BATMAN. I have a mission I want planned.”

  “Are we getting a recert?”

  “Soon—I hope. Luger to Masters.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Dave, I just sat down to breakfast,” responded Jon Masters, one of the partners of Sky Masters Inc., a high-tech defense contractor that developed many of the weapon systems and aircraft used at Battle Mountain. “I’m going to program this thing to send callers to voice mail when it detects my mouth full of food.”

  “Breakfast was over three hours ago for most of the civilized world, Jon,” Dave said. “I want one of your DC-10s for a couple weeks. I’m planning on launching some boosters.”

&nb
sp; “About time you guys started doing something,” Masters said. “Send me your equipment list, and I’ll load her up for you.”

  “I’ll send over my list, but I’m not ready to upload yet,” Luger said. “You’ll get the go-ahead from the chief.”

  “You mean you’re actually going to have a budget and I might actually get paid for my gear before the mission kicks off?” Masters asked incredulously. “With all due respect to the Old Man, I like the way you do business, Dave.” Masters liked to call Patrick McLanahan the “Old Man,” an appellation Patrick never seemed to mind.

  “Just be ready to go ASAP, Jon,” Luger said. “It’s important.”

  At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Colonel Daren Mace, the deputy commander of the 111th Wing, entered Luger’s office. He noticed Luger’s stiff posture in his chair and tried not to show how sorrowful he felt that Luger had to endure that psychological burden, apparently for the rest of his life. “What’s the target, sir?” Daren asked. Dave put his computer-generated map of Russia on the wall monitor and overlaid several satellite tracks on it. “Looks like Russian ICBM bases in the south. Entire country. Are we doing a treaty-verification run? Or does this have to do with that raid on Bukhara?”

  “We’re looking for Backfire bombers,” Luger responded. “We need to find out where the Backfires came from that raided Bukhara. I want a look at all the known bases.”

  “Are there that many?” Mace asked. “The Russians only have seventy strategic bombers in their entire fleet.”

  “Which bases are you aware of?”

  “Khabarovsk in the east, Novgorod in the west, Arkhangel’sk in the northwest, and Mozdok taking over from Engels in the southwest,” Mace replied after a moment’s thought.

  “So where did those Backfire bombers come from?”

  “My guess would be one of those bases.”

  “Patrick said not. He said AIA has checked, and there’s no evidence that any Backfires launched from known bases.”

  “Well, Backfires are considered tactical bombers, not strategic ones….”