by Dale Brown
road and away from the river just as the torrent
raged over everything in its path.
WATT AVENUE AND ELKHORN BOULEVARD,
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
A SHORT TIME LATER
What we're looking at, ladies and gentlemen," said
the radio announcer, "is a terrorist disaster of
monumental proportions. Four of the eight gates of
Folsom Dam have apparently been blown apart by
terrorists. Here's what we know so far: Police and
FBI were at Folsom Dam after receiving information
about possible sabotage of the dam. This is linked to
the shoot-outs reported out at Mather Field earlier
today. Sheriff's-department bomb squads removed
several explosives from the dam but were not able
to reach all of them before the remaining charges
were detonated, apparently by a timer or by remote
control. Eyewitnesses at the dam saw several explosions
; some described them as demolition charges.
The dam has all but ruptured at this point. We repeat
, Folsom Dam has suffered a major accident and
has ruptured. Outflow from the dam is in excess of
one hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet per second
, over twenty times the normal outflow, and is
spilling over the banks of the American River Canyon
.
"All residents living within two miles north and
south of the American River are being ordered by
the state Office of Emergency Services to evacuate
the area immediately," the announcer went on.
"This includes all residents of the cities of Folsom,
Rancho Cordova, Fair Oaks, Gold River, Carmichael
, and West Sacramento. In the city of Sacramento
, evacuations are being ordered for all areas
south of Arden Way east of the Capitol City Freeway
, and south of El Camino Boulevard west of the
Capitol City Freeway. In addition, all residents in
areas north of Kiefer Boulevard, north of Fourteenth
Avenue to Highway 99, and the entire downtown
district north of Broadway are ordered to evacuate.
"At this time the flood surge has reached the
western edge of the city of Folsom and is now approaching
the Gold River and eastern portions of
Rancho Cordova. It is spilling over Nimbus Dam
and the flsh hatchery. The Rainbow Bridge in Folsom
has collapsed, and the Negro Bar and Hazel Avenue
bridges are threatening to weaken or even
collapse. In Folsom, all areas north of the river appear
safe so far, but south of the river in low-lying
areas the destruction is extensive. Old Folsom and
indeed all areas south of the river and north of Blue
Ravine Road are under at least four feet of water.
We do not have any estimates of loss of life at this
time, but the explosions came with no warning.
The Aerojet-General rocket plant is underwater,
and the safety and environmental hazards are very
great. There are reports that tanks of rocket fuel and
propane gas are adrift in the floodwaters and could
present a highly dangerous explosion hazard.
"The flood surge is moving at a rate of approximately
five miles an hour, and is expected to reach
the city less than three hours from now. Evacuation
orders are mandatory and will be enforced by California
National Guard troops. Highway 50 and Folsom
Boulevard have been closed east of Watt
Avenue, so everyone should travel either north or
south on major surface streets away from the American
River and stay off Highway 50 and. Folsom Boulevard
. California National Guard units will be
blocking off the freeway to aid in evacuations, so
please do not use these thoroughfares. We repeat, all
residents of flood-prone low-lying areas within two
miles of the American River are ordered to evacuate
immediately, and residents within five miles of the
river are urged to evacuate as a precaution."
The passenger in the front seat of the California
National Guard Humvee turned off the radio as the
vehicle approached the Elkhorn Boulevard gate of
McClellan Air Force Base in the north part of the
city of Sacramento. Three more Humvees followed.
The gate was a madhouse as security guards scrambled
to keep track of the vehicles streaming in and
out. The four Humvees took their place in a long
line of military and civilian trucks trying to enter
the base. Under the press of traffic, the security
guards began waving all military vehicles through
with cursory checks of ID cards, and the Humvees
entered without difficulty.
One of them split off and headed east on the base,
stopping at the security headquarters and the central
communications facility, then going around the
west side of the base to the power transformer farm
near Roseville Road. The others headed north
around the runways toward the hangars on the
northwest side. Again, one split off, dropping off
four soldiers in full-camouflage battle-dress uniforms
and combat gear at strategic locations on the
access roads leading to the hangars. There was virtually
no security anywhere on the base except for
the southeast side, where air rescue and relief activities
were beginning to gear up in response to the
rupture of the dam and the anticipated flooding of
the city of Sacramento.
Gregory Townsend and eighteen of his soldiers
dismounted from the remaining vehicles and ran to
the edge of the security fence around the four target
hangars. When all his units were in position,
Townsend issued the order to go. Explosions destroyed
the base's central communications facility,
and more explosions at the power transformer farm
on Roseville Road cut off power to most of the base.
This did not affect power inside the target hangars,
but it deactivated the security systems surrounding
them, slowing down any response from elsewhere
on the base. Then he blew open the security gates
and headed for the hangars.
There were eight of them, but Townsend had
targeted only the four on the west side and assigned
four soldiers to each hangar. On his signal, they entered
the hangars simultaneously by blowing open
the outer doors, then rushing inside, neutralizing
the Air Force guards, and mopping up the remaining
armed resistance.
The guards in the hangars had managed to sound
the alarm, but the base's central communications
system and security-police headquarters never received
it. Still, Townsend knew that before long
someone would realize they were missing a scheduled
security report or check-in, and there'd be
some form of response. But with the frantic preparations
for coping with the flood rapidly approaching
Sacramento, he calculated he had at least an hour's
leeway. His men could easily deal with any roving
or curious security-police unit that happened by
in
the meantime, and an hour was all he needed. His
men set to work on their final objective.
The complex on the northwest side of McClellan
Air Force Base had changed hands many times over
the years. Back in the 1950's and '60's, the area had
been used to decontaminate spy planes that were
flowd over American, French, Russian, and Chinese
aboveground nuclear-weapons explosions. In more
recent years, flight-test squadrons built and tested
new air weapon systems there, such as the ,700pound
GBU-28 "bunker-buster" bomb used to try to
kill Saddam Hussein as he hid in his deep underground
shelters in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
In addition to the classified weapon and flighttest
work done there, the complex had another secret
activity: It contained a small but full-scale nuclear
reactor, which produced gamma rays used for
NDI, or nondestructive inspection, of military aircraft
. Although magnetic eddy current fields, X
rays, lasers, radar, and plain old eyeballs were still
useful in detecting cracks and fatigue in aircraft
structures, they weren't reliable or adequate for the
new crop of composite "stealth" aircraft, so gammaray
inspections were developed to check these
planes without having to disassemble them first.
Fifteen years ago, McClellan Air Force Base had
been the first aircraft-maintenance depot in the
world to use gamma rays for aircraft NDI, and it
was still the main nuclear NDI facility in the free
world.
And the latest clients ready for their annual nuclear
NDI inspection were sitting right there before
Gregory Townsend and his soldiers: four F-117A
Night Hawk stealth fighter-bombers. All four of
these odd-looking planes, with their multifaceted,
pyramid-shaped fuselages, short pointed wings, and
thin, highly swept tails, were Gulf War veterans,
each having performed more than thirty missions in
the heart of stiff Iraqi air defenses without a single
casualty. Although they could carry only five thousand
pounds of ordnance-usually two twothousand-pound
laser-guided bombs-and were
more than fifteen years old, they were still in good
condition. And because they were virtually invisible
on radar and invulnerable to most modern air
defense systems, they were four of the deadliest
warplanes on earth . . .. . . and they now belonged to Gregory Townsend
While several of his soldiers began to refuel the
planes and brought over ground power "start carts,"
Townsend and three of his other men, all trained
combat pilots, stepped up the special access ladders
designed for the F-117 stealth fighters, opened up
the cockpit canopies, and got to work preflighting
their aircraft. The preflight checks went quickly.
Because the Night Hawks' cockpits were so
cramped and uncomfortable, they were designed
from the outset to be highly automated, relegating
the human on board to being a system monitor
rather than a pilot.
Besides, these pilots were not concerned about
getting the planes ready to go to war. They simply
had to make sure they had enough gas to fly a few
hundred miles to an isolated airstrip in southwestern
Nevada, where more fuel was waiting. A thousand
miles at a time, and the aircraft would
eventually end up in South America, where eager
international arms merchants and foreign countries
were waiting to start the bidding on the auction of
the century.
On a signal from Townsend, all four F- 117 engines
were started inside the hangars themselves, in
preparation for taxiing. There was no concern about
the exhaust damage-it didn't matter what the hangars
looked like after they left-and none of them
bothered with flight-control or engine checks. The
F-117 Night Hawk stealth fighter was inherently
unstable in all flight axes-there was no such thing
as "dead-sticking" an F- 117 to an emergency landing
. The aircraft needed at least one flight-control
computer and one engine to fly. If it lost more than
that, the pilot had a single option: eject. But a foreign
government such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, or China
would still pay hundreds of millions of dollars for
an F-117 stealth fighter even with only one engine
or one flight-control computer.
"Report ready to taxi," Townsend ordered. When
the other three pilots reported, the four hangar
doors were manually opened. Guards stationed
themselves in front of the hangars and along the
taxi route, prepared to repel any security forces that
might come along. Each was armed with an M-16
assault rifle fitted with an M-206 grenade launcher
for fighting off heavy response vehicles or trucks.
"Release brakes now," Townsend ordered.
At that moment, the pilot of the number four
F-117 moving from the westernmost hangar saw a
blur of motion off to his right. A soldier in full combat
gear and helmet appeared out of nowhere directly
in front of his hangar, carrying what looked
like two large duffel bags. He dropped both bags on
the tarmac, then reached down with his left hand
and threw one of them under the nose gear of the
aircraft. "Nein!" the pilot shouted. "What are you
doing? Clear the way!"
Then the pilot looked again and realized that
these were not duffel bags being thrown under
his wheels-they were bodies! Soldiers' bodies.
This . . . this stranger was throwing bodies under
the wheels to prevent him from taxiing! "Warning!
Intruder alert!" he called. "I am stopped! I can't
move!"
"Unit four, go to full power!" ordered Townsend,
who could not see what was happening from his
cockpit. "Taxi immediately! All other units taxi at
maximum speed!"
The number four pilot shoved his throttles up to
full military power, trying to taxi over the bodies of
his dead comrades. But the intruder had disappeared
under the nose of the F- 117 and seconds later the
pilot felt four hard bangs. The aircraft shuddered
and dropped. Before the pilot's stunned eyes the in-
truder reappeared, one of the dead soldiers' sidearms
in his hands. He had shot out several of the tires.
The pilot pulled the throttles to idle, opened his
canopy, and jumped out of the plane. He watched as
the intruder calmly walked over to the number
three aircraft. Then he crouched down to get the
M-16 assault rifle slung across the body of the soldier
under his left main gear, checked it, loaded a
fresh magazine, and fired from a range of fifteen meters
. There was no way he could miss-yet the man
did not go down. He turned around to look at the
pilot even as the shots struck him, then continued
on his way.
It was him, the pilot realized.
The Tin Man. He
was alive! He had been killed in the dam explosion
but he was alive!
The Tin Man reached the number three F- 117
and fired several rounds into the left main landinggear
wheel. The outside tire popped, but the inner
tire kept the plane moving. As the plane's pilot
watched in astonishment, he saw the helmeted figure
leap fifteen meters across his windshield and
land on his left wing.
Atop the engine inlets were blow-in doors, which
provided additional inlet air to compensate for the
reduced airflow through the large main inlets
caused by the radar-absorbing mesh screen covering
them. Before the pilot's eyes, the Tin Man dropped
the empty pistol into one of the open blow-in doors
on the left engine. Sucked into the engine, it shredded
the first-stage compressor blades in a matter of
seconds, and the disintegrating remnants shot out
in all directions, puncturing fuel and hydraulic lines
and blasting apart the entire engine and part of the
left fuselage.
The number one and two F-117's were taxiing
away fast. The Tin Man sped down the right wing of
the stricken number three, jumped onto the ground,
ran toward the taxiing fighters, then leaped as soon
as his thrusters were recharged. He landed right on
the canopy of number two, but with nothing to
grasp and the groundspeed building up rapidly, he
beat on the glass canopy panels. His left fist broke
through a side panel with ease. The glass of the forward
panels was much thicker and stronger, but
several crushing blows broke it too. He reached in,
shattered the heads-up display atop the instrument
panel, then grabbed for the pilot. "He is on my aircraft
!" the pilot shrieked into his radio, evading the
grasping arm.
Unable to reach the pilot to disable him, the Tin
Man grabbed the overhead curtain ejection handle
on the ACES II ejection seat, then hit his thrusters
to blow himself clear of the plane. The pilot shot up
through the broken canopy on a column of fire from
the rockets in his ejection seat. He was blasted 150
feet into the night sky. His parachute fully deployed
, but there was time only for one swing under
it before he hit the taxiway. The plane continued
straight ahead. But starting the ejection sequence
