by Dale Brown
“He still likes being involved in his own tests, Mr. President—the more outrageous, the better,” the man beside him, retired Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan, said. Shorter than Martindale but considerably more solidly built, McLanahan was as much a legend as Martindale, except only in the shadowy world of strategic aerial combat. He’d served five years as a B-52G Stratofortress navigator and bombardier in the U.S. Air Force before being chosen to join a top-secret research-and-development unit known as the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC, based at an uncharted air base in the Nevada desert known as “Dreamland.”
Led by its audacious and slightly uncontrollable first commander, Lieutenant-General Bradley James Elliott, HAWC was tasked by the White House to perform secret missions throughout the world in order to stop an adversary from escalating a conflict into an all out war, using cutting-edge experimental technology that wouldn’t be used by any other military forces for many years—if ever.
HAWC’s specialty was modifying older aircraft with new systems and technology to make them perform unlike anything anyone had ever seen, and then using weapons brought to HAWC for classified test programs in the real world to quickly and quietly suppress a potential foe. Most of HAWC’s missions would never be known about by the public; the pilots chosen to test-fly a brand-new aircraft would never know not only that were they not the first to fly it but that the plane had already been used in combat; the families of the scores of dead aviators and engineers, both military and civilian, would never know what really happened to their loved ones.
Because of Elliott’s single-minded determination to dominate, as well as HAWC’s incredible capabilities, which far exceeded any civilian or military commander’s expectations, the unit often initiated responses to new threats without full knowledge or authorization from anyone. That eventually led to mistrust and finally to outright condemnation by the Washington and Pentagon establishment, which sought to isolate and even undermine HAWC’s activities.
As its most experienced and tested aviator and systems operator, McLanahan had been alternately praised, punished, promoted, dismissed, decorated, and disgraced during his fourteen years as a member of HAWC. Although he was widely considered America’s most heroic general since Norman Schwarzkopf, McLanahan retired from the Air Force as quietly as he had appeared on the scene, without fanfare, praise, or gratitude from anyone.
As both vice president and president, Kevin Martindale had been HAWC’s most ardent supporter and advocate, and over the years he knew he could rely on Patrick McLanahan to get the job done, no matter how impossible the odds. With both of them now out of public life, it was no surprise to Jon Masters to see them standing side by side here in the deserts of New Mexico, on a secret weapon test range.
“Congratulations again, Dr. Masters,” Martindale said. “I understand you can build that Slingshot laser self-protection system into any aircraft?”
“Yes, sir, we can,” Boomer said. “All it needs is a power source and a twelve-inch open access panel through the aircraft’s pressure vessel for the infrared detection sensor and beam director. We can install and calibrate a unit in a matter of days.”
“Does it form a protective cocoon around the entire plane, or just shoots the beam toward the missile?”
“We focus the beam on the enemy missile to save power and maximize the destructive effect of the laser beam,” Jon explained. “As soon as the infrared seeker detects a missile launch, it sends a beam of concentrated high-power laser energy along the same axis within milliseconds. Then, if the system can compute the approximate launch point, it’ll automatically hit the enemy launch area to try to knock out the bad guy.”
“What did getting hit by a laser beam feel like, Jon?” Patrick asked.
“Like being dunked in boiling cooking oil,” Jon replied with a weak smile. “And that was at the lowest power setting.”
“What else can that laser do, Jon?” Martindale asked. “I know HAWC has deployed offensive laser systems in the past. Is Slingshot like that?”
“Well, sir, the laser is only for self-defense, of course,” Jon replied sarcastically.
“Just like the XC-57 is no longer a bomber, right, Jon?”
“Yes, sir. The U.S. government doesn’t approve of its defense contractors building offensive weapons and using the technology in a manner that might harm relations with other countries or violate any laws. So the laser system is fairly limited in range and capabilities—mostly for use against tactical antiaircraft systems and their operators.”
“That leaves a lot left open for interpretation,” Patrick noted. “But you could turn the knob and pump up the power a skosh, right?”
“As far as you know, Muck, the answer is no,” Jon said.
The former president motioned toward the sky in the direction of the departing aircraft, which was just now entering the downwind pattern to set up for a landing. “Pretty risky using one of your new big test-bed planes to test the system, wasn’t it, Doc?” Martindale asked. “That was a real Stinger missile you fired at your own aircraft, I take it? Your shareholders can’t be too happy about risking a multi-million-dollar aircraft like that.”
“I wanted to water your eyes, of course, Mr. President,” Jon replied. “What the directors and shareholders don’t know won’t hurt them. Besides, this XC-57 ‘Loser’ is unmanned.”
“‘Loser,’ huh?” Patrick McLanahan commented. “Not the coolest name you’ve come up with, Jon.”
“Why in the world do you call it that?” Martindale asked.
“Because it lost out in the Next Generation Bomber competition,” Jon explained. “They didn’t want an unmanned plane; they wanted it stealthier and faster. I was going for payload and range, and I knew I could arm it with hypersonic standoff weapons, so we didn’t need stealth.
“Besides, I’ve been designing and building unmanned aircraft for years—just because they weren’t comfortable with it doesn’t mean it couldn’t be considered. Isn’t the Next Generation Bomber supposed to be next generation? The design wasn’t even considered. Their loss. Then, to add insult to injury, I was prohibited from building the plane for ten years.”
“But you built it anyway?”
“It’s not a bomber, Mr. President—this is a multirole transport,” Jon said. “It’s not designed to drop anything; it’s designed to put stuff into it.”
Martindale shook his head woefully. “Tap-dancing around the law…who else do I know likes to do that?” Patrick said nothing. “So you use an unmanned aircraft—that’s not a bomber—for the test of a laser that’s not an offensive weapon, but then put yourself in the line of fire to test its effects on a human? Makes perfect sense to me,” Martindale said drily. “But you certainly did water my eyes.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You have how many of the Losers flying now, Jon?” Patrick asked.
“There are just two others—we built three for the NGB competition but stopped work on the second and third when our design was rejected,” Jon replied. “It’s still a research-and-development program, so it was low priority…until you called, Mr. President. We’re considering putting our system on commercial planes as well as high-tech airframes.”
“Let’s have a closer look at it, Jon,” Martindale said.
“Yes, sir. I’ll have it fly over slowly so we can take a look, then I’ll bring it in for a landing. Watch this flyby—you won’t believe it.” He picked up his walkie-talkie and tried to call his control center, but the laser beam had fried it. “I forgot to take it out of my pocket before the test,” he said sheepishly, smiling at the others’ muffled chuckles. “I lose more phones that way. Boomer…?”
“I got it, boss,” Boomer said. “Low and slow?” Jon nodded, and Boomer winked and radioed the mobile control van.
Moments later the XC-57 appeared on final approach. It leveled off just fifty feet above ground, flying amazingly slow for such a large bird, as if it were a huge balsa-wood model dri
fting gently on a soft breeze.
“Like a pregnant stealth bomber with the engines on the outside,” Martindale commented. “It looks like it’s going to fall out of the sky at any moment. How do you do that?”
“It doesn’t use any normal flight controls or lifting devices—it flies using mission-adaptive technology,” Masters said. “Almost every square inch of the fuselage and wings can be either a lift or drag device. It can be flown manned or unmanned. About sixty-five thousand pounds of payload, and it can take up to four standard cargo pallets.
“But the Loser’s unique system is a completely integral cargo handling capability, including the ability to move containers around inside while in flight,” Masters went on. “That was Boomer’s first idea when he came on board, and we’ve been scrambling to refit all of the production aircraft to include it. Boomer?”
“Well, the problem I’ve always seen with cargo planes is that once the cargo’s inside you can’t do anything with the plane, the space, or the cargo,” Boomer said. “They’re all wasted as soon as it’s loaded on board.”
“It’s cargo on a cargo plane, Boomer. What else are you going to do with it?” Martindale asked.
“Maybe it’s a cargo plane in one configuration, sir,” Boomer replied, “but move the cargo around and slip a modular container through an opening in the belly, and now the cargo plane becomes a tanker or a surveillance platform. It’s based on the same concept as the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship that’s all the rage now—one ship that can do different missions depending on which hardware modules you put on board.”
“Plug and play? That simple?”
“It wasn’t easy to get the weight and balance, fuel system, and electrical systems to integrate,” Boomer admitted, “but we think we have the bugs worked out. We pump fuel around between the various tanks to maintain balance. Without the mission-adaptive system, I don’t think it would’ve been possible at all. The Loser can lift cargo or the mission modules inside through the cargo hatch or belly hatch—”
“Belly hatch?” Martindale interrupted him with a wink. “You mean the bomb bay?”
“It’s not a bomb bay, sir, it’s a cargo access hatch,” Jon retorted. “It used to have a bomb bay, and I didn’t think it was right to just seal it up—”
“So it became a ‘cargo access hatch,’” the former president said. “Got it, Doc.”
“Yes, sir,” Jon said, feigning exasperation at having to continually remind people of his point. “Boomer’s system automatically arranges the modules as necessary for the mission, plugs them in, and turns them on, all by remote control. It can do the same while in flight. When a module is needed or one is expended, the cargo handling system can replace it with another one.”
“What modules do you have available, Jon?” Martindale asked.
“We’re making up new ones every month, sir,” Jon said proudly. “Right now we have boom aerial refueling modules along with hose-and-drogue wingtip pods, which are installed on the ground and can refuel probe-equipped planes. We also have laser radar modules for air and ground surveillance with satellite datalink; infrared and electro-optical surveillance modules; and the active self-defense module. We’re pretty close on a netrusion module and a Flighthawk control system—launching, directing, and perhaps even refueling and rearming FlightHawks from the Loser.”
“Of course, we would want to do attack modules, too, if we could get permission from the White House,” Boomer interjected. “We’re doing pretty well with the high-powered microwave and laser-directed energy technology, so that might happen sooner rather than later—if we can convince the White House to let us proceed.”
“Boomer is highly motivated to say the least,” Jon added. “He won’t be happy until he gets a Loser into space.”
Martindale and McLanahan looked at each other, each instantly reading the other’s thoughts; they then looked at the otherworldly sight of the massive Loser aircraft gliding down the runway in that flying-saucer slow-motion pace.
“Dr. Masters, Mr. Noble…” President Martindale began. Just then, the XC-57 Loser suddenly accelerated with a powerful roar of its engines, climbing out at an impossibly steep angle and disappearing from sight within moments. Martindale shook his head, amazed all over again. “Where can we go to talk, boys?”
CHAPTER TWO
The road to Hades is easy to travel.
—BION, 325–255 B.C.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, ÇANCAYA, ANKARA, TURKEY
THE NEXT MORNING
“Close the damn door before I start bawling like a damned baby,” Kurzat Hirsiz, president of the Republic of Turkey, said, wiping his eyes once again before putting away his handkerchief. He shook his head. “One of the dead was a two-year-old. Completely innocent. Probably couldn’t even pronounce ‘PKK.’”
Thin, oval-faced, and tall, Hirsiz was a lawyer, academic, and expert on macroeconomics as well as the chief executive of the Republic of Turkey. He’d served for many years as an executive director of the World Bank and lectured around the world on economic solutions for the developing world before being appointed prime minister. Popular throughout the world as well as in his homeland, he’d received the largest percentage of the vote of the members of the Grand National Assembly in the country’s history when he was elected president.
Hirsiz and his top advisers had just returned from a press conference in Çancaya, the presidential compound in Ankara. He had read the list of names of the dead that had been given to him a few moments before the televised briefing, and had then taken some questions. When he was told by a reporter that one of the dead was a toddler, he suddenly broke down, openly weeping, and abruptly ended the presser. “I want the names, phone numbers, and some details about all the victims. I will call them personally after this meeting,” Hirsiz’s aide picked up the phone to issue the orders. “I will attend each of the families’ services as well.”
“Don’t feel embarrassed breaking down like that, Kurzat,” Ayşe Akas, the prime minister, said. Her eyes were red as well, although she was known in Turkey for her personal and political toughness, something to which her two ex-husbands would certainly attest. “It shows you’re human.”
“I can just hear the PKK bastards laughing at the sight of me crying in front of a roomful of reporters,” Hirsiz said. “They win twice. They take advantage of both a lapse in security procedures and a lapse in control.”
“It just solidifies what we have been telling the entire world for almost three decades—the PKK is and always will be nothing but murderous slime,” General Orhan Sahin, secretary-general of the Turkish National Security Council, interjected. Sahin, an army general, coordinated all military and intelligence activities between Çancaya, the military headquarters at Baskanligi, and Turkey’s six major intelligence agencies. “It is the most devastating and dastardly PKK attack in many years, since the cross-border attacks of 2007, and by far the most daring. Fifteen dead, including six on the ground; fifty-one injured—including the commander of the Jandarma himself, General Ozek—and the tanker aircraft a complete loss.”
The president returned to his desk, loosened his tie, and lit a cigarette, the signal for everyone else in the office to do so as well. “What is the status of the investigation, General?” Hirsiz asked.
“Well under way, Mr. President,” Sahin said. “The initial reports are disturbing. One of the deputy heads of security for the airport has not responded to orders to return to his post and cannot be located. I’m hoping he’s just on vacation and will check in soon after he hears the news, but I’m afraid we’ll find it was an inside job.”
“My God,” Hirsiz muttered. “The PKK infiltrates into our units and offices higher and higher every day.”
“I think it is a very good possibility that PKK agents have infiltrated into the very office of the Jandarma, the organization tasked with defending the country against those murderous bastards,” Sahin said. “My guess is that Ozek’s travel plans were leaked and the
PKK targeted that plane specifically to kill him.”
“But you told me Ozek was going to Diyarbakir on a surprise inspection!” Hirsiz exclaimed. “Is it possible they’ve infiltrated so deeply and are organized so well that they can dispatch a kill squad with a shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile so quickly?”
“It has to be an inside job, but not just one man—that base must be infested with insurgents in deep cover, in highly trusted positions, ready to be activated and deployed within hours with specific attacks tasks.”
“It’s a level of sophistication we’ve dreaded but have been expecting, sir,” General Abdullah Guzlev, chief of staff of the Turkish military forces, said. “It’s time we reacted in kind. We can’t be content to just play defense, sir. We need to go after the leadership of the PKK and wipe them out once and for all.”
“In Iraq and Iran, I suppose, General?” Prime Minister Akas asked.
“That’s where they hide, Madam Prime Minister, like the cowards they are,” Guzlev snapped. “We’ll get an update from our undercover operatives, find a few nests with as many of the murderous bastards as possible in them, and eliminate them.”
“Exactly what will that accomplish, General,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Hamarat asked, “except further angering our neighbors, the world community, and our supporters in the United States and Europe?”
“Excuse me, Minister,” Guzlev said angrily, “but I’m not much concerned about what someone on another continent thinks while innocent men, women, and children are being murdered by—”
Guzlev was interrupted by a ringing telephone, which was answered immediately by the president’s chief of staff. The aide looked dumbstruck as he put down the receiver. “Sir, General Ozek is in your outer office and wishes to speak to the national security staff!”
