Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  “You do have a history of heart disease, is that correct?”

  “My dad did die of heart problems, yes,” Patrick replied somberly. “Dad suffered from what they used to call ‘heart flutters’ and was treated for anxiety and stress. Long-QT is hereditary. Apparently in my dad’s case it was the police department and running a family business that triggered it; in my case, it was flying in space.”

  “And he died around the same age as you are now?”

  A cloud passed briefly over Patrick’s face that was clearly visible to millions of viewers around the world. “Yes, a couple years after retiring from the Sacramento Police Department and opening up McLanahan’s in Old Town Sacramento.”

  “A shameless plug for your family tavern, eh, General?” the host asked, trying to liven up the conversation.

  “I’m not ashamed of McLanahan’s in Old Town Sacramento at all, Megyn.”

  “Another plug. Good. Okay, that’s enough, General, you did your job fantastically,” the host said, laughing. “Was this heart condition already noted on your records, and if so what were you doing flying repeatedly to Armstrong Space Station?”

  “I did report the family history on my medical records,” Patrick replied, “and I get a Class One Air Force flight physical twice a year, plus pre- and post-space flight checkups, and no problems have ever been detected before. Even though long-QT syndrome is a common disqualifying condition in the astronaut corps, I wasn’t specifically tested for it because, as I said, technically I’m not an astronaut—I’m a unit commander and engineer who just happens to get to ride on his unit’s research vehicles whenever I feel it’s necessary.”

  “So do you feel that your lack of astronaut training and screening contributed to onset of this medical condition?”

  “One of the things we’re trying to prove with the Black Stallion spaceplane and Armstrong Space Station program, Megyn, is to make space more accessible to everyday folks.”

  “And it appears that the answer might be, ‘No, they can’t,’ is that right?”

  “I don’t know all there is to know about long-QT syndrome, Megyn, but if it’s commonly found only in combat aviators over the age of fifty who have to go into space frequently, perhaps we can test for it and exclude only those who show a proclivity for that disease,” Patrick said. “I don’t see why it has to disqualify everyone.”

  “But it is disqualifying for you?”

  “I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet,” Patrick said with a confident smile. “We have some incredible technology at our disposal, and new and better technologies being developed every day. If I can, I’ll keep on flying, believe me.”

  “You haven’t seen enough combat and orbited the Earth enough times already, General?” the host said with an amused laugh. “As I understand it, you’ve been on the station several times just in the past few months. That’s more than a NASA astronaut goes into space in his entire career, isn’t that true? John Glenn only flew in space twice.”

  “Pioneers like Senator John Glenn will always be the inspiration our future astronauts need to summon the courage and fortitude to undergo the rigorous preparation for space,” Patrick replied, “but as I said, one goal of our military space program is to gain greater access to space. I don’t consider episodes like mine a setback. It’s all part of the learning experience.”

  “But you have to think of yourself and your family too, don’t you, General?”

  “Of course—my son sees me on TV more than he does in person,” Patrick said gamely. “But no aviator likes to lose his wings, Megyn—we have an inbred aversion to doctors, hospitals, weight scales, eye charts, sphygmomanometers, and anything else that can keep us from flying…”

  “Okay, General, you lost me there. Sphygmo…sphygmo…what is that, one of your high-tech laser ray guns?”

  “A blood pressure tester.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’ll be up to the flight docs, but you can bet I’ll be fighting disqualification the whole way,” Patrick said. A beep in his communications earset got his attention, and he turned and briefly activated his command monitor and read the display. “Sorry, Megyn, I have to go. Thanks for having me on this morning.” The host was able to get out a confused and startled “But General, we’re live around the—!” before Patrick terminated the link. “What do you have, Master Sergeant?” he asked on the command module intercom.

  “COMPSCAN alert in the target region, sir, and it says it’s a big one, although we might have nothing but a big glitch on our hands,” Master Sergeant Valerie “Seeker” Lukas replied. The COMPSCAN, or Comparison Scans, collected and compared radar and imaging infrared data during sensor sweeps and alerted the crew whenever there was a significant buildup of personnel or equipment in a particular target region—thanks to the power and resolution of Armstrong’s space-based radar and other satellites and unmanned aircraft, the target region could be as large as continent, and the change between comparison scans could be as small as four or five vehicles.

  “What’s the target?”

  “Soltanabad, a highway airfield about a hundred miles west of Mashhad. Imaged recently by the new Night Owl unmanned reconnaissance plane Captain Noble just launched.” Seeker studied the reconnaissance file on the area before continuing: “Attacked once by the Air Battle Force with a Vampire bomber with runway-cratering munitions last year because it was suspected of being used to fly in weapons and supplies to the Islamists operating out of Mashhad. The highway portion of the base was reopened by the Revolutionary Guards Corps, reportedly for relief and humanitarian supply shipments. We put the entire base on the ‘watch’ list and launched the Night Owl over the area to be sure they weren’t repairing the ramps and taxiways or flying military stuff in there.”

  “Let’s see what they’re doing,” Patrick said. A few moments later an incredibly detailed overhead image of the spot came up on his monitor. It clearly showed the four-lane highway with aircraft distance marks, taxi lines, and touchdown zone designations—it looked like a typical military runway, only with cars and trucks running on it. On both the north and south sides of the highway/airstrip were wide paved areas with aircraft taxiways, large aircraft parking areas, and the remnants of bombed-out buildings. Many of the destroyed buildings had been razed and a number of tents of various sizes put in their place, some with the seal of the Red Crescent humanitarian relief organization on them. “Do those tents look like they have open sides to you, Master Sergeant?” Patrick asked.

  Seeker peered closer at the image, then magnified it until it started to lose resolution. “Yes, sir,” she replied, unsure of why the general had asked—it was fairly plain to her. Per agreement between the United Nations, Buzhazi’s Persian occupying force, and the Iranian government-in-exile, large tents set up in certain combat areas servicing refugees or others traveling through the Iranian deserts had to have open sides during reconnaissance flyover time periods so all sides could see inside, or they could be designated as hostile emplacements and attacked.

  “Looks like a big shadow on that side, that’s all,” Patrick said. “This photo was taken during nighttime, correct?” Lukas nodded. “The sides look open, but the shadows on the ground from the nearby floodlights are making it look…I don’t know, they just don’t look right to me, that’s all.” He zoomed in again on the former aircraft parking ramps. Both paved areas were dotted with dozens of bomb craters, from several yards to over a hundred feet wide, with huge chunks of concrete heaved up around the edges. “Still looks busted up to me. How old is this image?”

  “Just two hours, sir. No way they could have repaired all those craters and brought in aircraft in two hours.”

  “Let’s see the scans compared by the computer.” The image split first into two, then four, then sixteen shots of the same spot taken over a period of several days. The pictures appeared identical.

  “Looks like a glitch—false alarm,” Seeker said. “I’ll reset the images and take a look at the compari
son parameters for—”

  “Wait a minute,” Patrick said. “What is the computer saying has changed?” A moment later, the computer had drawn rectangles around several of the craters. The craters were precisely the same—the only difference was that the rectangles were not exactly oriented the same in all the images. “I still don’t get what COMPSCAN is flagging.”

  “Me neither, sir,” Seeker admitted. “Could be just a looking-angle computation error.”

  “But we’re sun-synchronous on this part of the world, right?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re precisely over Tehran at the same time—approximately two A.M. local—every day.”

  “So the looking angle should be the same except for minor station or sensor attitude changes, which the computer should be correcting for,” Patrick said.

  “Obviously something’s screwed up in the adjustment routine, sir,” Seeker said apologetically, anchoring herself at her terminal to begin work. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it straightened out. Sorry about that, sir. These things need recalibrating—obviously a bit more often that I thought. I should probably look at the station attitude gyro compensation readouts and fuel consumption figures to see if there’s a major shift taking place—we might have to make a gross alignment change, or just throw out all the old attitude adjustment figures and come up with new ones. Sorry, sir.”

  “No problem, Master Sergeant,” Patrick said. “We’ll know to look for things like that more often from now on.” But he continued staring at the images and the computer’s comparison boxes. The boxes disappeared as Lukas erased the old comparison data, leaving very clear images of the bomb craters on the ramps and taxiways. He shook his head. “The space-based radar’s pictures are stunning, Seeker—it’s like I can measure the thickness of those concrete blocks heaved up by the bombs. Amazing. I can even see the colors of the different layers of concrete, and where the steel reinforcing mesh was applied. Cool.”

  “The SBR is incredible, sir—it’s hard to believe it’s almost twenty-year-old technology.”

  “You can clearly see where the concrete ends and the road base begins. It’s—” Patrick looked closely at the images, then put on a pair of reading glasses and peered closer. “Can you enlarge that image for me, Seeker?” he asked, pointing at a large crater on the south side of the highway.

  “Yes, sir. Stand by.”

  A moment later the crater filled the monitor. “Fantastic detail, all right.” But now something was niggling at him. “My son loves those ‘I Spy’ and ‘Where’s Waldo?’ books—maybe he’ll be an imagery analyst someday.”

  “Or he’ll design the computers that will do it for us.”

  Patrick chuckled, but he still felt uneasy. “What is wrong with this picture? Why did the computer ring the bell?”

  “I’m still checking, sir.”

  “I spent a short but insightful period of time as a detachment commander in the U.S. Air Force’s Air Intelligence Agency,” Patrick said, “and the one thing I learned about interpreting multispectral overhead imagery was not to let the mind fill in too many blanks.”

  “Analysis 101, sir: Don’t see what isn’t there,” Seeker said.

  “But never ignore what is there but isn’t right,” Patrick said, “and there is something not right about the position of those craters. They’re different…but how?” He looked at them again. “They look to me like they’re turned, and the computer said they moved, but—”

  “That’s not possible for a crater.”

  “No…unless they’re not craters,” Patrick said. He zoomed in again. “I might be seeing something that’s not there, but those craters look too perfect, too uniform. I think they’re decoys.”

  “Decoy craters? I’ve never heard of such a thing, sir.”

  “I’ve heard of every other kind of decoy—planes, armored vehicles, troops, buildings, even runways—so why not?” Patrick remarked. “That might explain why COMPSCAN flags them—if they’re moved and not placed in exactly the same spot, COMPSCAN flags it as a new target.”

  “So you think they’ve rebuilt that base and are secretly using it, right under our noses?” Lukas asked, still unconvinced. “If that’s true, sir, then the space-based radar and our other sensors should have picked up other signs of activity—vehicles, tire tracks, storage piles, security personnel patrolling the area…”

  “If you know exactly when a satellite is going to pass overhead, it’s relatively easy to fool it—just cover the gear with radar-absorbent camouflage, erase the tracks, or disguise them with other targets,” Patrick said. “All those tents, trucks, and buses out there could be housing an entire battalion and hundreds of tons of supplies. As long as they offload the planes, get the men and vehicles out of the area, and sweep up the area within the two-to-three-hour span between our overflights, they’re safe.”

  “So all our gear is practically useless.”

  “Against whoever is doing this, yes—and I’ll bet it’s not the Islamist clerics or even the remnants of the Revolutionary Guards Corps,” Patrick said. “There’s only one way to find out: we need eyes on the ground. Let’s get a report ready for STRATCOM and I’ll append my recommendations for action…but first I want to get Rascal working on a plan.” While Lukas began downloading sensor data and adding her observations—and reservations—about the activity at Soltanabad, Patrick selected the command channel on his encrypted satellite communications system. “Odin to Rascal.”

  A moment later the image of a large, blond-haired, blue-eyed, powerful-looking man appeared on Patrick’s monitor: “Rascal here, sir,” replied Air Force Major Wayne Macomber rather testily. Macomber was the new commander of the Battle Force ground forces based at Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada, replacing Hal Briggs, who had been killed while hunting down mobile medium-range ballistic missiles in Iran a year earlier. Macomber was only the second person ever to take charge of the Battle Force. He had big shoes to fill, and that, in Patrick’s mind, would never happen.

  Macomber was not Patrick’s first choice to lead “Rascal” (which had been Hal’s call-sign and was now the new unclassified call-sign of the Battle Force). To put it mildly, Macomber had serious problems dealing with authority. But he had somehow managed to use that personality glitch to propel himself into more and more challenging situations in which he was ultimately able to adapt, overcome, and succeed.

  He was kicked out of public middle school in Spokane, Washington, because of “behavioral incompatibilities” and was sent off to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell in hopes of having round-the-clock military discipline straighten him out. Sure enough—after a difficult first year—it worked. He graduated near the top of his class both academically and athletically and won a nomination to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

  Although he was a nationally ranked linebacker for the Falcons football team, where he earned his nickname “Whack,” he was kicked off the squad in his senior year for aggressive play and “personality conflicts” with several coaches and teammates. He used the extra time—and probationary period—to improve his grades and again graduated with honors with a bachelor of science degree in physics and a pilot training slot. Once again he dominated in his undergraduate pilot training class, graduating top of his class, and won one of only six F-15E Strike Eagle pilot slots awarded straight out of flight school—almost unheard of for a first lieutenant at the time.

  But again, he couldn’t keep his drive and determination in check. An F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter is a completely different bird with an offensive systems operator, big radar, conformal long-range fuel tanks, and ten thousand pounds of ordnance on board, and for some reason Wayne Macomber couldn’t figure out that airframes bend in unnatural directions when an F-15E Strike Eagle pilot loaded up with bombs tries to dogfight with another fighter. It didn’t matter that he was almost always the winner—he was racking up victories at the expense of bending expensive airframes, and was eventually…ultimately…asked to
leave.

  But he was not orphaned for long. One organization in the Air Force welcomed and even encouraged aggressive action, out-of-the-box thinking, and virulent leadership: Air Force Special Operations. To his dismay, however, the unit that wanted rude and crude “Whack” the most was the Tenth Combat Weather Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Florida: because of his physics education, the Air Force quickly made him a combat weather parachutist. He got to wear the coveted green beret and parachutist wings of an Air Force commando, but it still grated on him to be known as a “weatherman.”

  Although he and his squadron mates always took a lot of ribbing from other commando units for being “combat weather-guessers” or “groundhogs,” Macomber soon learned to like the specialty not only because he happened to like the science of meteorology but also because he got to parachute out of perfectly good planes and helicopters, carry lots of guns and explosives, learn how to set up airfields and observation posts behind enemy lines, and how to kill the enemy at close quarters. Whack performed more than a hundred and twenty combat jumps in the next eight years and rose quickly through the ranks, eventually taking command of the squadron.

  When Brigadier General Hal Briggs was planning the assault and occupation of Yakutsk Air Base in Siberia in Patrick McLanahan’s retaliatory operation against Russia following the American Holocaust, he turned to the one nationally recognized expert in the field to assist in mission planning for operations behind enemy lines: Wayne Macomber. At first Whack didn’t like taking orders from a kid eight years younger than he, especially one who outranked him, but he quickly recognized Briggs’ skill, intelligence, and guts, and they made a good team. The operation was a complete success. Macomber won a Silver Star for saving dozens of personnel, Russians as well as Americans, by getting them into fallout shelters before Russian president Gryzlov’s bombers attacked Yakutsk with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

  “I’m sending you the most recent shots of a highway airbase in northeastern Iran, Wayne,” Patrick said. “I think it’s being secretly repaired, and I’m going to ask permission for you to go in, recon it, and render it unusable again—permanently.”