Fatal Terrain

by Dale Brown

  "Oscar-Mike" challenge code--OM, or Old Man, was usually

  reserved as a radio tribute to him. "Zero-One authenticates

  Charlie."

  "Loud and clear, Zero-One." They repeated the procedure

  with the other UHF radio, with the secure UHF, and finally

  with the satellite teletype terminal.

  The next step: checking the weapons. With the weapons

  monitoring system off, Roma checked each weapon station to

  be sure each weapon and each weapon release circuit was in-

  deed off. He then turned the system on and flipped through

  4

  FATAL TERRAIN 301

  each weapon station again, watching for green sAm lights in-

  dicating each weapon was safed and had passed its continuity

  and connectivity self-tests with the B-IB's weapon computers.

  Checklist complete, he shut down the weapons-monitoring

  system.

  Next he checked the PAL, or Permissive Action Link, the

  computer that would allow him to prearin the weapons. He

  entered a test code and received a good sAm and READY in-

  dication. Once programmed with the correct prearming code

  transmitted to the crew by the National Command Authority-

  the President of the United States, along with the Secretary of

  Defense-the PAL would allow the crew to prearm the nuclear

  weapons. The PAL would allow only five incorrect prearming

  attempts, then automatically safe the weapons permanently.

  The PAL was mounted on the forward instrument panel be-

  tween the OSO and DSO, and Roma got his DSO's attention

  so he could visually double-check that the PAL was good.

  "Paul, PAL check."

  The DSO, Paul Wiegand, leaned over and checked the light

  indications on the PAL. "SAFE and READY checks."

  "Push to test," Roma said, hitting the MT button. All of

  the lights on the panel illuminated, with the SAFE light flashing.

  I 'Checks."

  "PAL off," Roma said, shutting off the system. "Arming

  switch lock lever safety wire."

  Wiegand looked over and saw that the safety wire to the

  mode switch lock lever was installed and secure. "Secure,"

  he responded. Because the PAL was a nuclear weapon com-

  ponent, protected just like a nuclear weapon itself, access to

  the PAL was strictly two-person control-no fewer than two

  persons had to be present whenever handling the PAL or any

  nuclear weapon or component. Additional safety was added by

  providing a single, physical, positive action to any attempt to

  prearm any nuclear weapon, such as breaking the thin steel

  safety wire off the lock lever before moving the lock lever

  over so the anning switch could be moved from SAFE to ARM.

  By this time, the navigation gyros had fully aligned, and he

  set the mode switch to NAV. "Chris, I'm in NAv, ready for

  engine start. "

  "Defense is ready for engine start."

  "Rog," the copilot replied. A few minutes later, the pilots

  started all four engines, then began their electrical, hydraulic,

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  fuel, environmental, flight control, terrain-following computer,

  and autopilot checks, swept the wings back and forward, and

  cycled the bomb doors and rotary launcher. One of the flight-

  control computers flunked a mode check, so the crew chiefs

  were scrambling to find a spare computer to swap. It took an

  hour and a half before a spare was found, and another half

  hour to finish the checks and shut down the engines. The crew

  then performed the "cocking" checklist, which configured all

  switches and systems so the aircraft could be ready for taxi

  and takeoff just minutes after hitting one button.

  "Control, Sortie Zero-One, code one, cocked on alert," the

  copilot reported after the crew finished their checklists.

  - Zero-One, control copies, cocked on alert. Assume normal

  alert, time two-one-zero-eight-zero-seven, authentication Os-

  car. Control out."

  Roma looked up the date-time group and checked the au-

  thentication code; it was correct. "Authentication checks,

  crew," Roma announced. The only response was the interior

  lights switching off as the pilots turned off the battery switch,

  and they were left in the dark. As the crew climbed out of the

  big bomber, motored the entry hatch closed, and walked to-

  ward the squadron headquarters building, Joe Roma thought

  that he was being left in the dark in more ways than one.

  It was after one-thirty in the morning, but Roma's day 'was

  just beginning. The Wing's goal was to generate four of its

  twenty B-IB Lancer bombers and six of its eighteen KC-135R

  Stratotanker aerial refueling tankers for nuclear alert within the

  first twelve hours, ten bombers within thirty-six hours, and

  sixteen planes within forty-eight hours. Crews that had just

  finished placing one plane on alert were immediately cycled

  back to begin preflighting another plane while its crews were

  being briefed. Roma was assigned the task of giving refresher

  briefings to oncoming crews on nuclear weapon preflight and

  handling procedures, and he also filled in giving route and

  target study and inventorying the CMF, or Classified Mission

  Folder, boxes for the crews placing aircraft on alert.

  . At the twelve-hour point, nine A. local time, Roma was

  in the Wing Battle Staff Room, attending the hourly battle staff

  meeting and the first major progress briefing of the alert force

  generation. The news was not good: Sortie Zero-Four was still

  at least thirty minutes to an hour from being ready, and it

  might even require an engine swap or a completely new air-

  K

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  plane. It was no secret that the morale of the B- I B community

  was at an all-time low after flying hours were cut and after

  learning that all of the B -Is would be going to the Air National

  Guard or Air Force Reserves starting in October--crew mem-

  bers, officers, and enlisted troops alike were spending more

  time looking for new assignments or applying for Guard or

  Reserve slots.

  "Aircrew response has been marginal to good overall,"

  Roma said when asked about how the aircrews were reacting

  to the recall and late-night generation. "About thirty percent

  response in the first hour, seventy percent in three hours-not

  bad when you consider the average commute time is forty

  minutes for the crew members that live off-base, which is

  about two-thirds of the force."

  "It's unacceptable," the group commander interjected an-

  grily. "The crews were dogging it."

  "I don't think anyone was dogging it, sir," Roma said. "It's

  Friday night. We just finished a wing deployment exercise and

  an Air Battle Force exercise. People were out of town for the

  weekend, going to graduation parties, getting ready for sum-

  mer vacation-this was a bolt-from- the-blue nuclear genera-

  tion."

  "All right, all right," the wing commander interrupted.

  "The bottom line is we have more crews than planes right

  now. What's the problem?"

  "Tbe t
raining on the SIOP-required gear and availability of

  spare parts for the numberbf planes required for alert, sir,"

  the chief of logistics interjected, referring to the specialized

  equipment needed to generate a plane for war under the Single

  Integrated Operations Plan. "We're having to break into pre-

  positioned deployment packs for spare parts and equipment.

  Going from zero planes available for nuclear generation to

  fifteen ready in just thirty-six more hours is eating up our

  supplies and overloading the avionics shops."

  "Besides, it's beenalmost a year since we've moved nukes

  for real, sir," the munitions maintenance chief added. "We've

  got a whole generation of troops that only have basic education

  and virtually no experience in special weapons."

  The strain was showing on the wing commander's face.

  "No excuses, dammit," he said, rubbing a hand over his

  weary face. "Our job around here is to generate planes and

  get ready for combat operations, and I'll shit-can anyone who

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  doesn't understand that. How well we do on our generation

  schedule depends on the leadership abilities of the men and

  women in this room. I want us back on schedule before the

  next battle staff meeting-I hold the senior staff officers and

  group commanders responsible. Cancel the intelligence brief-

  ing-we've got a job to do out on the ramp. Dismissed."

  Things had been somewhat disorganized during the first sev

  eral hours of a the full nighttime nuclear alert generation-

  that was situation-normal in any unit Roma had ever been in-

  but by midmorning things appeared to be humming along

  pretty well. By the time Roma returned to his office in the

  squadron building, his entire staff-including everyone re-

  called from leave-was busy. Everyone had been assigned an

  alert sortie. Most were not scheduled to start generating their

  alert line for several hours, so they were busy running simu-

  lator sessions, running mobility line duties, running errands for

  the Wing staff, or helping the maintenance crews to bring a

  plane up to preload status.

  Roma's E-mail mailbox had more than two dozen new mes-

  sages in it in just the last thirty minutes, so he turned on the

  TV in his office to get the latest news and sat down to start

  reading and returning messages. The news seemed to be a

  jumble of confusion, very much like the situation at Ellsworth

  Air Force Base as five thousand men and women were trying

  to get twenty planes ready to fly off and unleash nuclear dev-

  astation on the People's Republic of China.

  Little else was known about the nuclear disaster in Japan

  except what had been reported hours ago: the American air-

  craft carrier USS Independence, all eighty thousand tons of it,

  including approximately 5,200 officers and enlisted men and

  women, had disappeared when what eyewitnesses called pt

  small nuclear explosion erupted in the late-morning hours in

  the Gulf of Sagami, about sixty miles south of Tokyo.

  Roma couldn't believe what he was I hearing.

  The disastrous news didn't stop there. Two escort frigates

  and a 50,000-ton replenishment ship carrying 150,000 barrels

  of fuel oil cruising near the carrier had capsized in the explo-

  sion, and all hands were feared lost--460 more men and

  women presumed dead. Two guided-missile cruiser escorts had

  been substantially damaged in the explosion, with hundreds

  more dead or injured. Several other vessels, civilian and com-

  mercial, in the vicinity of the explosion had also been lost.

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  The force of the blast was estimated to be equivalent to 10,000

  tons of TNT.

  The Japanese prime minister, Kazumi Nagai, immediately

  blamed the accident on the United States, saying that the In-

  dependence had been carrying nuclear weapons and that one

  of the warheads had gone off when a C-2 Greyhound cargo

  aircraft made a crash landing. U. President Kevin Martindale

  went on national radio and TV immediately, reporting the ac-

  cident and denying that the Independence or any U. warships

  near Japan were carrying nuclear weapons, but his denials

  seemed to be falling on deaf ears throughout the world.

  The Japanese Diet, under heavy pressure by Nagai, imme-

  diately ordered all American military bases in Japan sealed and

  all U. vessels, military or civilian military contract, to remain

  in port until they could be inspected by Japanese nuclear of-

  ficials and Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers. Again, Japan

  was the site of a nuclear explosion, and accusing eyes were

  on America. South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia,

  Australia, and New Zealand immediately followed Japan's pre-

  cautionary move-no U. warships or civilian ships con-

  tracted by the U. military could enter their territorial waters,

  and they could not leave, until they were inspected and corti-

  fied that they carried no nuclear weapons.

  The People's Republic of China went one step further, re-

  stricting all U. warships from coming within a hundred miles

  of its shores or they would consider it an act of war. They

  knew that the Independence had been bound for the Formosa

  Strait, and they surmised that the United States was using the

  attacks on the two frigates Duncan and James Daniel as a

  pretext to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on China. All

  U. warships already within the one-hundred-mile buffer zone

  had twenty-four hours to get out, or they would be attacked

  without warning. China then revealed the position and even

  the identification of four U. submarines in the Formosa Strait

  and South China Sea, including two ballistic missile attack

  subs, and estimated that perhaps as many as ten more were in

  the vicinity, ready to wage war on the People's Republic of

  China.

  In hours, virtually the entire Pacific Ocean was off-limits to

  the U. Navy.

  Joe Roma knew all of this was bullshit. First, he knew from

  intelligence reports that all nuclear weapons had been removed

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  from all Navy warships except some ballistic missile subs, just

  as they had been removed from American bombers, since

  1991-and nothing that he had been briefed lately caused him

  to believe that the recent incidents with China had altered that

  policy. It was possible that the President had changed his mind

  and rearmed hundreds of capital warships around the world in

  less than a month, but Roma thought it very unlikely.

  Second, nuclear warheads do not go off by themselves, no

  matter how badly they are abused. Roma knew enough about

  the inner workings of a modem-day nuclear warhead to know

  that it would take much more than a crash landing to set it

  off, even one that had been prearmed and was ready to be

  released or launched-they had dozens of safety devices and

  delivery parameters that had to be met before a full nuclear

  yield could result. If one parameter or interlock was not sat-
>
  isfied, or if there was the slightest bit of damage to a weapon,

  it simply would not function. It was possible that an accident

  or internal failure could cause a large non-nuclear explosion,

  scattering radioactive debris, but a full yield from a damaged

  weapon, even if it had been prearmed, was virtually impossi-

  ble.

  Bottom line: the nuclear device had to have been set. The

  protests in Yokusuka Harbor before the Independence set sail

  would have provided the perfect opportunity for a terrorist to

  plant a device somewhere on the hull.

  But for some reason no one was suggesting this might be

  the work of a terrorist. There were plenty of so-called experts

  on all of the networks, and almost all of them were blaming

  the United States for sloppy handling of nuclear weapons dur-

  ing a time of crisis caused by the United States flying stealth

  bombers all over Asia. The United States government, and

  President Kevin Martindale and his administration in particu-

  lar, were being blamed for the deaths of nearly six thousand

  American soldiers, the loss of fifteen billion dollars' worth of

  military hardware, the astronomical environmental disaster that

  was likely to occur in northeastern Japan and the northern

  Pacific Ocean, and for threatening the world with thermonu-

  clear war.

  While Roma had a "compose new message" window open

  on his computer answering other messages, he decided to drop

  a line to his old teacher and mentor, Lieutenant General Terrill

  Samson, commander of Eighth Air Force. No doubt Samson

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  was at U. Strategic Command headquarters right now, in the

  huge underground command center that had formerly been the

  nucleus of the Strategic Air Command. It was a simple mes-

  sage, not demanding a reply: "What's happening, boss?"

  along with his phone number and E-mail address. He then

  forged ahead with the pile of E-mail messages waiting for his

  response.

  Roma was halfway through his list of E-mail messages

  when he was interrupted by a page. When he tried to return

  it, he was notified by an electronic voice that he needed a

  secure telephone to dial it. The only STU phone he knew of