by Dale Brown
“What was that?” the mission commander asked.
“Nothing, just a fast request to the release crews,” the pilot said. The Air Force major didn’t notice him, but the flight engineer sitting behind him was suddenly pulling out charts and typing on his mission planning computer. “How much longer to release?” the pilot asked.
“Sixty seconds…now,” the mission commander said. He checked his own multifunction display, where he had the mission data displayed. They were flying to a precise location and a particular heading that would put the ALARM booster on the perfect trajectory for a successful insertion. Because the NIRTSats carried so little fuel, the closer they could shoot the booster into the perfect orbit, the better.
“Stand by, flight crew,” the pilot said. “Report checklists complete to the MC.”
“Flight deck configured and ready to go, MC,” the flight engineer said.
“Cabin deck ready, MC,” the civilian in charge of the cabin reported after getting a thumbs-up from his Air Force counterpart observing the release. The cabin of the modified DC-10 was split into pressurized and unpressurized compartments. In the pressurized compartment was a second ALARM booster, suspended on loading cables; the compartment could hold two ALARMs, plus one in the unpressurized compartment.
The first ALARM booster was already loaded into the unpressurized launch compartment, where it would be ejected into the slipstream underneath the DC-10. After release, its first solid rocket motor would fire, and it would fly under, then ahead of the DC-10, then start a sharp climb. Its second and third stage motors would fire in turn until the booster had accelerated to orbital speed and was at the proper altitude in space—in this case, eighty-eight miles above Earth—and then it would begin releasing the NIRTSats.
“Stand by,” the MC said. “Five…four…three…two…one…drop.” He waited for the brief pitch-down caused by the ALARM booster dropping free of the DC-10 before the fuel and trim systems could rebalance the plane. That was always the trickiest part of these releases; if the aircraft didn’t rebalance itself and the plane started rapid pitch motions, and if the ALARM booster was caught up in the disrupted slipstream, it could fly off course or out of control. That was a rare occurrence, but…
Then the MC realized he didn’t feel the pitch movement. He looked at his multifunction display…and saw that the ALARM booster hadn’t released! “Hey, what happened?” He checked his indicators…and saw that the pilot’s launch override was engaged. “Hey, you stopped the launch! You overrode the release! What’s going on?”
“We got orders,” the pilot said. “We’re going to get refueled, and then we’re going to change to a different launch axis.”
“Orders? Different launch? You can’t do this! This is an Air Force mission! Who told you to do this?”
“The boss.”
“What boss? Who? Masters? He can’t change this mission! I’m going to advise my command post.”
“You can tell them what we did after we launch this booster.”
“This booster, this mission belongs to the U.S. Air Force! I’m not going to let you hijack an Air Force missile.”
“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Major,” the pilot said kindly…just as the flight engineer reached up behind the MC, stuck a stun gun on the Air Force officer’s neck, and pressed the switch, instantly knocking him unconscious.
“How long will he stay out, Jim?” the pilot asked.
“Couple hours, I think.”
“Long enough,” the pilot said. He clicked the intercom: “Okay, John, send him up.” A few moments later the Air Force technician assigned to monitor the launch entered the flight deck, and he, too, was stunned unconscious by the flight engineer. “Okay, while the NIRTSats are reprogrammed by the front office in Vegas by satellite, I need a potty break before we rendezvous with the tanker. Double-check the new launch plan. Good job, everyone. Thanks for thinking on your feet. We’ll all deserve a raise after this…if we’re not in prison, that is.”
“Where’s the new tasking?” the launch deck technician asked.
“Turkey,” the pilot said. “Looks like the shit is hitting the fan out there.”
MARDIN PROVINCE, SOUTHEAST TURKEY
EARLY THAT EVENING
“Radar contact! Radar contact!” the tactical control officer, or TAO, of the area Turkish Patriot surface-to-air missile regiment shouted. “Multiple inbound contacts, medium altitude, medium subsonic, heading straight for us. It’s going to enter Syrian airspace in three minutes.”
The tactical director, or TD, studied the Patriot radar display. “Medium speed, not maneuvering, medium altitude—probably reconnaissance drones,” he said. “How many?”
“Eight. They’re heading right for our radar sites.”
“I don’t want to waste missiles on drones,” he said, “but we’re supposed to seal this sector.” He thought for a moment, then said, “If they change altitude, engage. Otherwise we’ll try to get them with antiaircraft artillery.”
“What if they dive onto our radar sites, sir?” the TAO asked.
“I don’t know of any cruise missiles that start at a vulnerable altitude, then dive onto their targets,” the tactical director said. “Attack missiles will fly very low or very high. This one is right in the envelope for antiaircraft artillery. Heck, even the lousy Syrian gunners might have a chance to nail them. Watch them for now. If they start to accelerate or descend, we’ll—”
“Sir, Sector Four reports multiple inbound bogeys as well!” the communications officer shouted. That sector was the one adjacent to them in the east. “Another eight bogeys, medium altitude, medium subsonic, also headed for our radar sites!”
“Sixteen reconnaissance drones, all flying into Turkey at the exact same time…and from where?” the tactical director said aloud. “Turkey attacked all of the American bases this morning. There is no way they could launch so many drones so soon. They have to be air-launched.”
“Or they could be false targets, like the last time we launched,” the TAO said.
Sixteen targets…that meant thirty-two Patriots, since Patriot always launched two missiles at every target to ensure a kill. Thirty-two Patriots represented every launcher in the regiment. If they launched every missile at drones or false targets, it would represent a massive waste of missiles, and would leave them vulnerable until they were reloaded, which would take about thirty minutes.
The tactical director picked up the phone and passed all the information to the Sector Air Defense Coordinator in Diyarbakir. “Shoot them down,” the sector coordinator said. “They’re on an attack profile. Check your systems for any sign of spoofing.”
“Acknowledged,” the tactical director said. “TAO, prepare for—”
“Sir, they are starting to orbit,” the TAO shouted. “They’re right along the border, some in Syria. It looks like they’re orbiting.”
“Reconnaissance drones,” the TD said, relieved. “Continue to monitor. What about Sector Four’s bogeys?”
“Starting to orbit as well, sir,” the TAO said.
“Very well.” The TD needed a cigarette, but he knew that would not be possible until these things were out of his area. “Keep an eye on those things and…”
“Bandits!” the TAO shouted suddenly. “Four targets inbound, high subsonic, extreme low altitude, range forty miles!”
“Engage!” the TAO said immediately. “Batteries released! All batteries…!”
“The drones are leaving their orbits, accelerating, and descending!”
Damn, the tactical director thought, they just went from on alert to under attack in the blink of an eye. “Prioritize the high-speed bandits,” he said.
“But the drones are closing in!” the TAO said. “Patriot is prioritizing the drones!”
“I’m not going to waste missiles on drones,” the TD said. “The fast movers are the real threat. Change priorities and engage!”
But that decision obviously wasn’t going to stand, because
it was soon obvious that the drones were going straight for the Patriot phased-array radars. “Should I switch priorities, sir—”
“Do it! Do it!” the TD said.
The TAO furiously typed commands into his targeting computer, ordering Patriot to engage the closer, slower targets. “Patriot engaging!” he reported. “The fast movers are accelerating to supersonic…sir. Sector Four reports the drones have left their orbits, descending, accelerating, and are heading into our sector!”
“Can they engage?” But he already knew the answer: one Patriot radar couldn’t sweep into another’s because of interference, which created false targets that the engagement computer might launch against. Only one radar could handle an engagement. Their battery would have to take on all twenty-two targets…
…which meant they would run out of missiles by the time the fast movers arrived! “Reprogram the engagement computer to fire only one missile!” the tactical director ordered.
“But there’s not enough time!” the tactical action officer said. “I’d have to terminate this engagement and…”
“Don’t argue, just do it!” The TAO had never typed as fast as he did then. He managed to reprogram the engagement computer and reengage the batteries…
…but he couldn’t do it fast enough, and one radar was hit by the cruise missiles. The missiles, which were AGM-158A JASSMs, or Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles, were turbojet-powered air-launched cruise missiles with thousand-pound blast fragmentation warheads and a range of over two hundred miles.
Now one radar had to handle the entire engagement. Patriot radars didn’t sweep like conventional mechanically scanning radars, and didn’t have to be steered, but they had a specific section of sky that was assigned to them to avoid interference problems. The remaining radar, located at Batman Air Base sixty miles east of Diyarbakir, had been assigned to look south, into Iraq, and not westerly toward Diyarbakir. On their current heading—actually tracking through Syria—they were on the extreme edge of the radar’s airspace.
“Order the Batman radar to turn west-southwest to cover that flight path,” the tactical director ordered. The TAO relayed the order. The AN/MPQ-53 radar array was normally trailer-mounted, and although it was fairly easy to move to cover a new section of sky, it was generally never done, especially when under attack. The Batman emplacement was different, however: even though Patriot is designed to be mobile, the Batman site was set up semipermanently, which meant its radar array could be easily moved as necessary.
“Radar reset, good track on the fast movers,” the TAO reported a few minutes later. “Patriot engaging—”
But at that moment, all radar indications went out. “What happened?” the tactical director shouted.
“The Batman radar is off the air,” the TAO reported. “Hit by a cruise missile.” A few moments later: “Ground observers reporting two fast-moving low-altitude jets flew overhead from the east.” Now it was obvious what had happened: turning the radar to look farther to the west had reduced coverage to the east. Two jets had simply slipped in through the gap in radar coverage between Batman and Van and attacked the radar.
Diyarbakir was now wide open.
ABOARD FRACTURE ONE-NINE
THAT SAME TIME
“Fracture flight, this is One-Niner, your tail is clear,” Lieutenant Colonel Gia “Boxer” Cazzotto radioed to the rest of her little squadron of B-1B Lancer bombers. “Let’s go get them, what do you say?”
“Fracture One-Nine, this is Genesis,” Patrick McLanahan radioed via their secure transceiver. “Are you getting the latest downloads?”
“Buckeye?”
“Roger, I got ’em,” the offensive systems officer, or OSO, replied. “The images are great—even better than the radar.” He was looking at ultra-high-resolution radar images of Diyarbakir Air Base in Turkey, taken by NIRTSat reconnaissance satellites only moments earlier. The images downloaded from the satellites could be manipulated by the B-1’s AN/APQ-164 bombing system as if the bomber’s own radar had taken the shot. They were over forty miles to the target, well outside low-altitude radar range, but the OSO could see and compute target coordinates well before flying over the target.
The OSO got busy grabbing target coordinates and loading them into their eight remaining JASSM attack missiles, and once all the missiles had targets loaded, they coordinated launches by time and azimuth and let them fly. This time the turbojet-powered cruise missiles flew low, avoiding known obstacles using inertial navigation with Global Positioning System updates. The six B-1 bombers each released eight JASSMs, filling the sky with forty-eight of the stealthy cruise missiles.
There was no time to pick and choose different warheads for the missiles, so they all sported the same one-thousand-pound blast fragmentation warheads, but some were fuzed to explode on impact, while others were set to explode in the air after reaching their target coordinates. The air-burst missiles were sent over aircraft parking areas, where the massive explosions destroyed anything and anyone for two hundred yards in all directions, while the impact missiles were targeted against buildings, weapon storage areas, fuel depots, and hangars. The OSOs could refine the missile’s target using their real-time imaging infrared datalink, which gave the crews a picture of the target and allowed them to steer the missile precisely on target.
“Genesis, this is Fracture, clean sweep,” Cazzotto radioed. “All weapons expended. How’d we do?”
“We’ll get the next NIRTSat downloads in about an hour,” Patrick replied, “but judging by the images I got from the JASSMs, you did outstanding. All Patriot radars are down; I show you clear to climb and RTB. Good show.”
“See you…well, sometime, Genesis,” Gia said.
“Looking forward to it, Fracture,” Patrick said. And he really meant it.
EPILOGUE
Get mad. Then get over it.
—COLIN POWELL
THE OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
THE NEXT MORNING
“ What in hell do you mean, the United States attacked Turkey last night?” President Joseph Gardner shouted. In the Oval Office with him was his chief of staff, Walter Kordus; National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle; and Secretary of Defense Miller Turner. “I didn’t order an attack! Who? Where…?”
“The target was Diyarbakir, the main air base Turkey was using to launch air strikes into Iraq,” Turner said. “Six B-1B Lancer bombers launched from the United Arab Emirates—”
“On whose authority?” the president thundered. “Who gave them the order?”
“We’re not sure, sir…”
“Not sure? Six supersonic heavy bombers loaded with bombs takes off from a base in the Middle East and bombs an air base in Turkey, and no one knows who authorized it? Who was the commander?”
“Her name is Cazzotto.”
“Her? A woman bomber-wing commander?”
“It apparently is an engineering squadron, sir,” Turner said. “They take planes out of mothballs and make them operational again. They were tasked with providing air support for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“And they just blasted off and bombed Turkey? How is this even possible? Who ordered them to do it?”
“Colonel Cazzotto refuses to talk, except to say that the person that expedited the mission will make contact,” Turner said.
“This is unacceptable, Miller,” the president said. “Find that person and throw him in prison! This is insanity! I’m not going to allow six B-1 bombers to fly around anytime someone feels like taking out some buildings.” He accepted a note from Kordus, read it, then crumpled it up and threw it on his desk. “So what did they hit?”
“They destroyed two Patriot radar sites on their way in,” Turner said, “then they hit a variety of military targets at Diyarbakir, including parked and taxiing aircraft, hangars, fuel depots, and command and control centers. Very effective target selection. They used Joint Air to Surface Strike Missiles, which are high-precision subsonic convention
ally armed cruise missiles. All the planes came back safely.”
“And put in the stockade, I hope!”
“Yes, sir. It appears that the Turks were gearing up for a major air raid into Iraq. They had over a hundred tactical planes ready for takeoff at Diyarbakir. Looks like they were trying to get some licks in before we set up the no-fly zone in northern Iraq.”
This somewhat mollified the president’s rage, but he shook his head. “I want some answers, Miller, and I want some butts!” he shouted. Kordus answered the flashing phone, looked at the president until he looked back, then nodded toward the door to the president’s private office, adjacent to the Oval Office. “Christ, just what I need when the shit starts flying—a VIP visitor.”
“Who is it?” Carlyle asked.
“President Kevin Martindale.”
“Martindale? What does he want?”
“Beats me, but he’s been waiting for an hour,” Gardner said. “I’ll get rid of him. Get me some answers, Miller!” He entered his private study and closed the door. “I’m sorry, Mr. President,” he said. “Something urgent came up.”
“That happens a lot in this business, Mr. President,” Kevin Martindale said, standing and shaking hands with his former secretary of defense. “I’m sorry for the unexpected visit, but there’s something I had to run past you.”
“Can it wait for lunch, Kevin?” Gardner asked. “You know, the whole Turkey thing is threatening to come off the hinges—”
“It has to do with Turkey,” Martindale said.
“Oh? What about it?”
“The air strike on Diyarbakir last night.”
Gardner’s eyes bulged in shock. “The air strike…Jesus, Kevin, I just found out about it two minutes ago! How do you know about it?”
“Because I helped plan it,” Martindale said. Gardner’s eyes bulged even farther. “I convinced the base commander at Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, General Omeir, to let the bombers go. He owed me.” Gardner was absolutely dumbstruck. “Listen, Joe, you have to promise me not to pursue this thing,” Martindale went on. “Don’t investigate Cazzotto, Omeir, or anyone else.”
