by Dale Brown
mand, General Steven Shaw. He was put on hold.
Samson sighed but did not let himself become angry. He
knew he was already effectively out of the picture-in more
ways than one. Steve Shaw didn't need to talk to Ter-rill Sam-
son for any important reason right now.
Barksdale's sortie board was filled with tail numbers and
parking areas, but all the sortie numbers and crew numbers
were blank. That's because they were all for B-52H bombers,
and the B-52s had all been retired, deactivated. By October,
FATAL TERRAIN 429
all of them would be flown to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base
near Tucson, Arizona, there to be cut up and put on display
so that Russian, Chinese, and whoever else's spy satellites
could photograph the birds and be sure their wings had been
clipped for good. Not that Barksdale's ramps were vacant.
Some of the B- I Bs from the Seventh Bomb Wing out of Dyess
Air Force Base, Abilene, Texas, who were going to become
Air Force Reserve bombers in October, had dispersed to
Barksdale-they would probably be assigned here full-time
when Dyess turned into a B- I B training base.
But all of the heavy bombers that had once been under Ter-
rill Samson's command were now in the hands of U. Stra-
tegic Command and Admiral Henry Danforth-and since
Samson had opened his mouth and dared to contradict Dan-
forth's blind preparation for a nuclear war that was not wanted
and probably would never come except by some horrible ac-
cident, Samson was not even entrusted with commanding his
bombers under CINCSTRATCOM. He was a three-star gen-
eral without a command, without any responsibilities. He still
monitored the status of each and every bomber that was for-
merly under his supervision, but he was not in the chain of
command anymore-he was not even in the advice and con-
sultation loop.
The bomber SIOP generation, the preparation for all the
land-based B-111 Lancer and B-2A Spirit bombers for nuclear
war, was still not going very well. About three-quarters of the
force was on alert now-but under DEFCON Three, 100 per-
cent of the bombers had to be on alert. In addition, 25 percent
of the force had to be dispersed to alternate operating loca-
tions-Barksdale was one, along with Fairchild AFB in Spo-
kane, Washington, Grand Forks AFB in North Dakota, and
Castle AFB near Merced, California-but just a few bombers
had arrived, and it would take days for them to get on alert
with nuclear weapons aboard. All of the alternate fields were
former bomber bases, but it had been months, even years, since
any of them had any big bombers land there, let alone any
bombers with nuclear weapons aboard.
Terrill Samson could offer words of encouragement, or dis-
pense advice, or rant and rave and threaten to kick ass if they
didn't get moving faster. But it meant nothing. His words did
not have any authority behind them anymore. Although his
stand-down wasn't officially set until October, it was as if
430 DALE BROWN
Terrill Samson had already been relieved of command, and
retired.
' 'Terrill, Steve here," General Shaw said, as he came on
the line a few moments later. "STRATCOM wants to put the
B-2s on airborne alert. You got something on the shelf that
we can give them in the next couple hours?"
"Yes, sir," Samson responded woodenly, disguising his
shock and disbelief. Airborne alert, nicknamed "Chrome
Dome" and immortalized in films like Dr. Strangelove, hadn't
been done in more than twenty-five years because it was so
dangerous to have nuclear-loaded bombers flying around for
hours or even days on end-the old Strategic Air Command
had lost two bombers and four nuclear gravity bombs during
Chrome Dome missions. Now Danforth and Balboa, two Navy
pukes, somehow thought it would be a good idea to do it again.
"I expected a slightly stronger reaction from you, Earth-
mover," Shaw remarked.
:'Would it do any good, coming from me-or you?"
'Probably not, but I'd like to hear it anyway," Shaw said.
"First answer the question so I can give STRATCOM their
answer, then talk to me."
I 'We don't have any Beak-specific airborne alert tracks laid
out," Samson responded, "but we can modify a few old B-
52 racetracks and give them out to the B-2 crews. We can
mate them to B-111 tracks, but we want to be sure we spread
them out in case China decides to use nuclear warheads on
air-to-air missiles." Samson wondered why his deputy, Gen-
eral Michael Collier, who was the bomber chief for Strategic
Command after Samson had been relieved, hadn't called in the
request directly from STRATCOM headquarters at Off-utt. The
only explanation was that Danforth, commander in chief of
Strategic Command, was disregarding Collier's recommenda-
tions, as he disregarded Samson's.
"Sounds good. I knew I could count on you. Pass them
along to Offutt soonest," Shaw ordered. "Now, lay it on me.
Give me your thoughts. Quickly, please."
"Yes, sir," Samson said.."I want to make another pitch to
the Chief and the National Command Authority about the
bomber force. We have got to take them off SIOP alert. I've
got a series of plans we can present to the NCA--
"I don't have time to make the same pitch we tried yester-
day, Terrill," Shaw said. "I'm up to my eyeballs. STRAT-
FATAL TER RAI N 431
COM wants to put nukes on the Strike Eagles now."
"What? "
"You heard me," Shaw said. "We're going to have all four
F- 15E Strike Eagle wings-the 3rd at Elmendorf, the 4th at
Seymour-Johnson, the 366th at Mountain Home, and the 48th
at Lakenheath-loaded for the SIOP and deployed to Elmen-
dorf for operations against North Korea or China. CINC-
STRATCOM is looking at North Korea starting a nuclear
exchange within a few hours."
"That's nuts, sir," Samson said. "That'll suck a fourth of
your tankers away. Losing Guam was bad enough for the tank-
ers-putting nukes on F- 15s for possible missions against
North Korea will drain even more tankers away."
"You're exactly correct, Earthmover, and that's the argu-
ment I made-but the JCS and STRATCOM are on autopilot
for Armaggedon. They think that if we put more nukes on
more planes, the Chinese and North Koreans will back off,"
Shaw said. "Anyway, I'm still waiting on a cocked-on-alert
call from your Bones. Pass along a good word for me to the
boys and girls at Whiteman for a good job in getting the B-
2s loaded up so fast."
They were loaded up and put on alert just so Danforth and
Balboa could start dinking around with them, such as putting
them on airborne alert, Samson thought bitterly. "I will, sir,"
he responded; then, quickly, Samson went on: "Sir, I'd like a
chance to meet with you and General Hayes on my plan to
neutralize the Chinese strategic forces. We have missions on
one of the Chinese long-range-missile silos without using nu-
clear weapons. I'd like to-"
'Sorry, Earthmover, but I can't," Shaw interrupted. "I
went to STRATCOM with your suggestions without any luck,
and I've got a second message in with the chief. They want
to keep all the bombers on nuclear alert-they think it gives
them the most leverage to have the bombers, especially the B-
2s, loaded @vith nukes and threatening to destroy targets in
China."
"It's obviously not working, sir, because China went ahead
and destroyed Andersen and nearly wiped out the capital city
of Guam," Samson interjected, "and we still haven't retali-
ated. Someone did, but it wasn't us.' I
"Sorry, Earthmover," Shaw repeated. "To a certain extent,
432 DALE BROWN
1 happen to agree with the JCS. We can't risk losing the B-2s
on a deep strike mission inside China."
"The B-lBs can soften up China's air defense well enough
for the B-2s to go in."
"But then they're up against thousands of fighters and tri-
ple-A sites," Shaw argued. "We can't destroy all of them.
Eventually, the B-2s would be fully exposed. If we lost even
ten percent of the B-2 fleet on this attack, it would be a stag-
geringly demoralizing loss-and it would seem even worse if
we didn't do commensurate damage to the Chinese military.
We might then be forced to use ICBMs or nuclear cruise mis-
siles to destroy Chinese targets, and then we'd be on the very
slippery slope we want to stay off. We'd be sending nuclear
warheads over the pole, over Russia. That would make the
Russkies very nervous, and we don't want them involved in
this fight, on either side."
"Sir, we've got a plan that would practically ensure destruc-
tion o the nese ong- and interme ate-range strategi of-
fensive arsenal, without a devastating loss on our side-and
without using nukes," Samson said. "But I need the B-1 and
B-2 bombers. All of them. They're not doing any good loaded
with nukes. With you, me, and General Hayes talking to the
SECDEF or maybe even the President, we might be able to
convince him to let us try my plan before it's too late."
There was a slight pause on the other end, followed by an
exasperated but resigned sigh; then: "Okay, Terrill, I'll make
the request once more. But it's not going to work."
"Thank you, sir," Samson said. "I can fly out to Washing-
ton at any time to meet with the Chief or the NCA."
"You just stay at Barksdale, a ' nd I'll tell you when to show
to give your dog-and-pony show," Shaw said. "Keep quiet
till then, okay?"
"Yes, sir," Samson replied-but Shaw had hung up before
Samson gave his response. It was not a friendly suggestion to
keep quiet-it was an order.
Sometime during the conversation with Shaw, Samson was
handed a note. He asked a question of the briefer, then half-
listened to the reply as he glanced at the messageform-and
then his heart skipped a beat. He threw a "Continue on" order
to his battle staff and dashed out of the battle staff room to
the comm center. "What did you pick up?" he asked the com-
mand post senior controller.
FATAL TERRAIN 433
"A message on that special SATCOM terminal you had
installed here, sir," the senior controller said. He handed Sam-
son a printout. "Auto decryption on this end." The message
read: "HEADBANGER SENDS. URGENT REQUEST
EMER AR RNDZVZ W/ SINGLE DRAGON16 25NI17E
10K ONLOAD. USE RED7 ARFREQ. ADVISE ASAP.
OUT.- A later message read: "HEADBANGER FINDS
FOUR H-7 MANY H-6 AT TDELTA SKIPPING TFOX-
TROT AND TGOLF. THX FOR EMERAR WITH
DRAGON 16. NAV27 ARCP OK. OUT."
" ' Wasn't Headbanger the call sign of that modified B-52
that broke out of Andersen past the Navy and U. marshals
and then disappeared, sir?" the senior controller asked.
"It sure as hell is," Samson replied excitedly. "Shit. This
means that not only is Elliott, McLanahan, and the rest of that
motley crew alive, but they're flying a damned mission-over
fucking China!"
"That attack on the PRC garrison at Xiamen?"
"A SEAD Wolverine cruise missile attack," Samson sur-
mised. "A couple of those cruise missiles could wipe out doz-
ens of SAM and triple-A sites. Then they get someone to
follow up with cluster-bomb attacks."
"The 'Dragon-16'? You don't suppose they mean Taiwa-
nese F-16s? That EB-52 is flying SEAD missions for Taiwa-
nese F-160"
"Yep, and then continuing on deep inside China to do more
bombing missions," Samson said proudly. "I'll bet the next
intelligence message we get says that Wuhan has been attacked
by unidentified bombers-maybe a couple other targets be-
tween Xiamen and Wuhan, or between Wuhan and the East
China Sea."
"But I thought all the Taiwanese F-16s were destroyed,
along with their bases."
"Obviously some survived-along with one Megafortress
and Jon Masters's tanker and a few of his gadgets," Samson
said. He searched a map of China: "The Chinese H-6 bomber
base is at Wuhan, west of Shanghai," he said. "It sounds like
McLanahan found some H-7s-those are Tupolev-26 super-
sonic bombers-and decided to expend their remaining weap-
ons there, instead of a couple other preplanned targets. But
where are they flying out of? Who is running that operation?"
"We could find out," the senior controller said. "If I can
434 DALE BROWN
still receive their SATCOM transmissions, I suppose we can
send them a message just as easy.
General Samson broke out into a broad grin, the first one
in many, many hours. "Move over, son," he said excitedly.
"I've got to call me up some renegades so we can get to work
c ng up tus war- . ore it gets comp. ete y out o ian(
As Terrill Samson sat down to start typing out messages, he
called for his executive officer. "Get the C-21 fueled up and
ready to depart for Andrews. I want every preplanned strike
package we've got to attack the Chinese ICBM complexes,
bomber bases, and radar sites-and I want it all ready to go
within the hour. Then contact Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Roma
at Ellsworth and Colonel Anthony Jamieson at Whiteman, drag
them off alert or wherever they are, and have them standing
by with their conventional strike packages. Tell them I'm tak-
ing some of their bombers off nuclear alert-and then we're
going to work the way we were meant to go to work!"
KAI-SHAN MILITARY COMPLEX, HEAR HUALIEN,
REPUBLIC OF CHINA
WEDNESDAY, 25 JUNE 1997, 0651 HOURS LOCAL
(TUESDAY, 24 JUNE, 1751 HOURS ET)
The roar of jet engines could be heard far below, creating a
constant rumbling and vibration throughout the medical facil-
ity. The Taiwanese staff appeared not to notice. They worked
with silent efficiency, quickly and quietly loa
ding up medical
supplies for the evacuation.
David Luger had just been wheeled into an examination
room from the X-ray lab. He was lying on a gurney, a thin
sheet concealing all the other bandages on his left leg and arm.
The left side of his body looked as if he had been spray-
painted with a mixture of black, yellow, and brown paint-it
looked like one continuous bruise from his head to ankle, and
his left eye was swollen almost completely shut. "I tell ya,
I'm okay," Luger was protesting to the doctor accompanying
him. Patrick and Wendy McLanahan, Brad Elliott, and Jon
Masters were waiting for him; Patrick's injuries, not nearly as
serious as Luger's, had already been treated.
FATAL T ER RAI N 435
"What's the scoop, Doctor?" McLanahan asked the attend-
ing physician, who was carrying Luger's X rays.
"Severe concussion, as we suspected," the Taiwanese doc-
tor replied, holding up each pertinent X ray as he spoke.
"Slight cranial fracture. Partial hearing loss in the left ear,
slight fracture in the left orbit. Cuts and bruises all along the
left side of his body where he took the brunt of the explosion.
Broken left knee, swollen left ankle and left foot. If I did not
know he was hit by an exploding missile, I would say he had
been hit by a bus."
I 'I'm okay, I said," Luger protested. "Damn, we kicked
some ass, didn't we?"
"We sure did," Brad Elliott said, a broad smile on his face.
"It was just like the first Old Dog flight. They threw every-
thing but another Kavaznya laser at us, and we fought through
it all and bombed the crap out of them!"
"So let's gas up and get ready to fly another sortie," Luger
said.
"Not you, Dave," Patrick said. "You're grounded. We'll
take the next run ourselves. I can handle both the OSO and
DSO's stu
"This damned headache won't keep me from at least help-
ing mission-plan for you guys," Luger said. "We still have to
knock out the air defense sites around Shanghai."
"What I'd like to do is bomb the crap out of the Chinese
ICBM silos and launch sites," Patrick McLanahan said, a def-
inite tone of anger in his voice-very uncharacteristic for his
