by Dale Brown
“Yeah, well, nothing is ever guaranteed, as you know. Even the best stuff.” Patrick stepped over to a large chart on which was drawn the positions of the known Chinese warships that he, Cobb, and the dead U-2 pilot had photographed a few nights earlier. A second board had the intelligence section’s best guess as to how the ships were going to be deployed when the strike aircraft were set to go over the target. Elliott was amazed by the flyers he encountered in all his years of flying, but Patrick McLanahan had to be the most… admirable. His expression, his demeanor, his attitude were constant-distant, unshakable, almost detached. It was the same whether he was meeting the President of the United States or when getting promoted-unflappable coolness. Was it an act or was it real? Was McLanahan really such a cool character or was he destined for some huge heart attack or ulcer down the road for keeping all those emotions locked inside? He didn’t want to guess. He was just glad McLanahan was on their team. Elliott noticed Patrick’s eyes on the briefing board behind him. “Can’t wait to see what you’re up against either, eh? We have one more NIRTSat pass before the mass briefing, so this won’t be the final picture-and hopefully PACER SKY will be working by then-but the pictures you got us are spectacular and very useful.” They stepped toward the screen. “The Chinese are not only continuing on with their invasion plans, but they’ve set up a pretty sophisticated naval defense network around eastern Mindanao. It’s all being controlled from the radar installation here. “Don’t tell me, ” McLanahan said wearily. “The Chinese got Mount Apo.”
“Took it yesterday and set up shop immediately. They’ve got big-picture coverage of all Mindanao now-almost unlimited fighter-intercept coverage, early-warning, maritime, even ground and fire control. Samar’s boys held out for days against a huge Chinese task force-the word is, it took five thousand Chinese and New People’s Army troops to take Samar’s two-hundred-man garrison. Samar’s men were wiped out completely.” McLanahan felt his throat go instantly dry. “Here’s the easternmost ship-it’s a destroyer, extensive airsearch radar, early-warning capability, long-range HQ-91 SAM coverage, ” Elliott continued. “There’s a line of six frigates two hundred miles offshore, giving them four-hundred-mile early warning-a good thirty- to forty-five-minute warning at least. Nothing sophisticated but still effective. “One hundred and twenty miles offshore is the real gauntlet-three destroyers, six frigates, twelve patrol boats, in a three-hundred-mile-wide band around eastern Mindanao. The destroyers are spaced so that their anti air-missile lethal ranges don’t quite overlap, but they put a frigate with massed triple-A guns on it in the gaps. That’s how the U-2 was hit-they used one destroyer with an air-search radar to herd the U-2 into missile range of another destroyer that wasn’t transmitting. A few of these southern ships are in Indonesian waters, but there’s not a darn thing Indonesia can do about it. Between the missiles and guns, it’s overlapping, layered antiair coverage over all altitudes. “Inside that first band is another layer of frigates and patrol boats-no destroyers, thank God, but the frigates are bad enough. They stay in basically a semicircular band around the mouth of Davao Gulf. There’s one destroyer and six escorts sitting in the Sangihe Strait in the south Celebes Sea to oppose the two Navy cruisers we got moving up from Indonesia. “The main body is already in Davao Gulf itself, and it’s a real mess-the Chinese have one major warship for every ten square miles. That means they can theoretically shoot a shell or launch a missile and hit every part of Davao Gulf and every spot three miles above it.” Despite the ominous information, Patrick had to smile-it was very much like Elliott to describe such firepower, even the enemy’s, in such weird terms. “We’ve counted twelve minesweepers, ten frigates, two destroyers, about thirty fast guided-missile patrol boats, twenty amphibious-assault ships, tank-landing ships, dock ships, amphibious-landing craft everywhere-over a hundred vessels, ” Elliott continued. “To make matters worse, a battalion-sized airborne unit may have landed at one of the small airfields north of Davao and are making their way south. We don’t think the airfield is big enough to land fighters or transports, but if they can air-drop armor and artillery pieces there, Davao has had it. “To cap it all off, they also may be sending another destroyer surface-action group from Zamboanga to reinforce this armada-the Hong Lung battle group this time. It’s their most powerful warship. It’s escorted by three frigates and six patrol boats. Hong Lung was also the vessel that reportedly fired the nuclear-tipped antiship missile near Palawan, and of course the staff feels the Chinese task force commander might just do it again. “Their fighter coverage is pretty good, ” Elliott continued, “good enough that the Joint Task Force commander, General Stone, has decided not to risk sending the AWACS or tankers within two hundred miles of Mindanao.z.” “That means no combat air patrol for the strike packages?” McLanahan asked. “So far it looks unlikely, Patrick, ” Elliott replied. “We may be able to send up a few F- 155 to cover the withdrawal, but we can’t send a tanker close enough to cover the strikers going into the target area. The Megafortresses will have to take on the fighters.” Patrick felt his throat go dry-the Megafortresses were well equipped for air-to-air combat, but not against massed numbers of fighters. They would have to contend with the naval threats, too. The odds were looking worse every minute. “The Chinese have at least a hundred fighters in the area, half of which have the endurance for long overwater patrols, ” Elliott continued. “The Chinese can effectively layer their defenses-warships, fighters, warships, fighters, then warships, in the target area. If they take Samar International Airport near Davao and start using it as a forward staging base, it definitely means no AWACS or tankers-and it may mean no Air Battle Force over Mindanao.”
“You got any good news on that screen, General?” McLanahan asked wryly. “Sort of. The New People’s Army and the Chinese lost a big battle for the city of Cotabato, here on Moro Gulf. We think the Chinese wanted to use the airport there to stage fighters to support their upcoming assault on Davao. Samar’s guerrillas held out-for a while. But it was long enough, because they demolished the airfield before they were driven out by Chinese air raids. Pretty clever how they did it, too-instead of just cratering the runway, which would have made it easy for Chinese engineers to repair, they stripped out sections of runway, buried stolen bombs in it, then cemented trucks over the bombs. It’s going to take the Chinese two or three days to repair the runway and another few days to make it a usable staging base.”
“So what do we do, then?” McLanahan asked. “This is what might be called a target-rich environment. What’s first?”
“General Stone and the Joint Task Force still haven’t decided, ” Elliott replied. “They have a general outline to work with, but they’ll wait for the latest satellite data from Washington before going ahead with a frag order. If Jon Masters’ setup was working, we’d be done by now-it only takes a few minutes to build a frag order from PACER SKY data. We get flight plans, data cartridges, computer tapes, charts, briefing boards, even slides from his system here. Now we have to program all this stuff by hand.” McLanahan saw Masters on the master console. “Masters, how are you doing?”
“Cool, Mac, my man, real cool, ” Masters said. Masters was dressed in white shorts, a flowered Hawaiian shirt, and sneakers with no socks-it looked as if he had just returned from Tarague Beach, Andersen Air Force Base’s recreation area. “Brad, we got ten more minutes until the data comes in… “Is it back on-line, Doctor Masters?”
“Not quite, ” Masters admitted. “But, hey, you gotta think positive. Everything looks good so far. Say, Mac, you ready to kick some Chinese butt out there tonight?” Patrick stared, not believing what he had just heard. “Excuse me, Doctor?”
“Yeah, man, you’re gonna clean up, ” Masters enthused. “We got spectacular photos and data, and we’ve got ingress and egress routes scoped out so well that the Chinks won’t even know you’ve just kicked their sloped asses “I don’t think we better-“
“Hey, loosen up, ” Masters said, taking a big swallow from h
is ever-present squeeze bottle of Pepsi. “Just sit back in that big B-2 cockpit of yours, put on some tunes, turn on the BNS, and send Uncle Cheung’s squids to the bottom of the Celebes Sea. You can come back and we’ll check out the Japanese babes out on Tumon Beach . . Patrick noticed General Elliott take a step toward Masters, but Patrick was already moving by then. Without another word, Patrick had taken Masters’ skinny left arm in his big left hand and had pulled the young scientist up out of his chair and out of the battle staff area. “Hey, Mac, I can’t leave the board quite yet. The adjacent office near the Command Post was unoccupied and unlocked, so McLanahan took Masters right inside, closed the door behind him, and deposited him unceremoniously onto the worn Naugahyde sofa. “Let’s get something straight, Doctor. First, the name is Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan. Second, you’ve got a big mouth.” Masters stared at the looming, six-foot blond pilot. He looked a lot bigger standing over him than he had a moment ago. “Look, Colonel, I know you’re a little nervous about-“
“You don’t know jack-shit, including when to keep your mouth shut about classified material and when to conduct yourself in an appropriate manner Masters smiled weakly. “Hey, who are you, Dirty Harry?” He tried to rise, but McLanahan pushed him back down. “Get this straight, Doctor. While you’re in this command post, you’ll not wear shorts or sneakers, you’ll address the senior officer in the room as ‘sir’ or by their rank, not their first name, and you’ll keep your bigoted comments to yourself. You’re supposed to be a professional, so start acting like one.” McLanahan looked at his watch. “You’ve got about ten minutes before your satellite data comes in-that’s plenty of time for you to go back to your barracks and change.”
“Hey, man, you’re not my father, ” Masters complained. “Get off your Clint Eastwood act and off my case. McLanahan leaned over the couch, putting his face within an inch of Masters’ own. They were but eight years apart in age, but worlds apart in experience. McLanahan looked directly into Masters’ eyes. “I shouldn’t have to be on your case, Doctor. But if you’d open your eyes, you might learn a thing or two about what’s going on here.” Masters cleared his throat and tried to look away from McLanahan, but couldn’t. “Hey, ” he said calmly, “I know what’s going on. I know the weapons you’re going to use, the routes you’ll fly. I wrote the friggin’ scenarios, for Godssake.”
“You may have, ” McLanahan said, moving back a bit from Masters, “but you don’t know anything about combat. About what it’s like to be in a war machine facing your own mortality. Have General Elliott or Ormack or Cobb tell you sometime about combat, about life in the cockpit. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before-your secret society, your brotherhood of aviators. Brad-General Elliott-and his B-52s during Vietnam, out at that Arc Light Memorial, he tried to get into it, but he couldn’t explain it. He says, ‘You gotta be there.” Stone, Jarrel, and all the others, even you-you’ve all been in combat before. But you treat it like a game, so why shouldn’t I?” McLanahan bristled. He pulled out his dog tags from under his flight suit. “A game? What are these, Doctor? Tell me.” Masters rolled his eyes. This was boring. “Dog tags. Next.”
“You’re partially right. Out here, Doctor, we have them for more than ornaments on a key ring. See how one is on the neck chain and one’s a small chain all by itself? There’s a reason for that. One they bring back to headquarters to prove you were killed in action-f they find your body, that is. The other they keep on the body, usually clamped shut in your mouth.” He pulled out his water bottle from his left leg pocket. “You see this? Emergency water supply in case I lose my survival kit after ejection-this could be the only fresh water for a thousand miles if I have to punch out over the Philippine Sea.” He ripped off his unit patches and name tag from their Velcro strips on his flight suit. “Patches Velcroed on and removed before we take off in case we get shot down and captured-so the enemy won’t know what unit we’re from. Some chaplain will come around and collect them before we go out to our planes. They’ll check if we made out a will, check to see if they know who our next of kin are. “Take a look at that data you’re generating sometime, Masters. Those ships your satellites are locating represent hundreds of sailors whose job it is to find and destroy me. There are thousands of sailors out there waiting for us-“
“But we know where they are . . . we know who they are. . “We know where they are because men risked their lives to get that data, ” McLanahan said. “A man died getting us those pictures… “Well, once the NIRTSat comes back on-line, that won’t happen again “It doesn’t matter, my friend. Combat isn’t a series of preprogrammed parameters on a computer monitor-it’s men and women who are scared, and brave, and angry, and who feel hopeless. It’s not a clear-cut engagement. Anything can happen. You gotta realize that the people around you don’t think in absolutes, because they know that anything can happen… “Maybe in wars past that was true, ” Masters offered. “When the enemy was a mystery, when you couldn’t see over the horizon or through the fog or under the ocean, maybe it wasn’t so clear-cut. But things are different now. Hell, you know more than anyone else how different it is-you fly the most advanced warplane in the friggin’ universe! We know exactly where the bad guys are. Once the NIRTSats are working again, I can steer your weapons, I can warn you of danger, I can tell you exactly how many weapons you need to win, and I can tell you how long it will take you to achieve any objective. “Then tell me this, Doctor Masters, ” McLanahan said, affixing his steel-blue eyes on the scientist and letting his glare bore into him: “Tell me who’s going to die out there.” Masters opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it suddenly, thought a moment, then replied, “I estimate your losses at less than five percent for the duration of this conflict . “No, I didn’t ask you how many. I asked who.”
“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know who? If you follow the plan and put your weapons on target, no one should die. “You said should die, Doctor. That means that even if everything turns out perfectly, someone may still die. Right?” Masters shrugged. “Well, it’s very unlikely, but-anything can happen.”
“You’re damned right it can. Now tell me how to deal with that. Tell me how a highly trained professional pilot or navigator can climb into a bomber or fighter and fly into the teeth of the enemy and know that even if everything goes perfectly, he may still end up at the bottom of the sea, and I’ll let you act like a cocky little punk peacock all you want in my command post. Until then you will give this campaign and the people who fight it-all the people who fight it, the combatants on both sides-the proper respect.” Masters was finally silent. McLanahan backed away from Masters, allowing him to get up, but Masters stayed where he was. “So what you’re saying is-you’re scared, ” Masters said after a few long moments. He looked at McLanahan, and when the officer didn’t reply for several seconds, Masters’ eyes opened wide in surprise. “You’re scared? You? But you’re the-“
“Yeah, yeah, I know, ” Patrick said. “I’m supposed to be the best. But it’s bullshit. I know my shit, and I’m lucky. That doesn’t make me invincible, and it doesn’t give you or anyone the right to think this is going to be easy-for any of us. Nothing is cut and dried. Nothing is certain. We know our equipment, know our procedures, but when you go into combat we learn not to trust it. We trust ourselves. We look to ourselves to find the strength to get through the mission.” Masters rose and stood before McLanahan, afraid to look into the Air Force officer’s face but respectful enough to want to be able to do it. “I never realized that, Patrick. Really. I always thought, ‘Well, the gear’s in place, everything’s running, so everything’s going to be okay.” I guess… well, I don’t work with people that much. I’m really so used to dealing with computers and machines. McLanahan shrugged. “Hell, listen to me. A few years ago I never gave a shit much about people either. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a team player. I did my job and went home. I hate to say it, but we were a lot alike back then.” Masters smiled at that. “Oh yeah? Dirty H
arry was laid-back and mellow? You drank beer and chased girls and got stupid?” It was McLanahan’s turn to smile this time. He remembered the B-52 crew parties back in California, the weekends rafting down the American River-one big twelve-person raft for crew dogs, wives, and girlfriends; another slightly smaller raft for the numerous ice chests full of six-packs-the bar-hopping in Old Sacramento till two in the morning, the ski trips to Lake Tahoe when they’d get back to base just minutes before show time for a training mission. “All the damned time, Jon.”
“What happened to you?” McLanahan’s smile vanished, and all his fond recollections of life back home exploded in a bright yellow fireball called reality. He put his dog tags back under his shirt and put his water flask back in its pocket. The pungent odor of jet exhaust and the roar of a plane on its takeoff run invaded the office, and the horrors of another impossible mission thousands of miles away flooded back into his consciousness once again. “Combat, ” was all he said, and he turned and walked away. CHINESE DESTROYER HAIFRNG TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE CITY OF DAVAO MINDANAO, THE PHILIPPINES MONDAY, 10 OCTOBER 1994, 2351 HOURS LOCAL had been hanging around for so long now, big, slow, and I gt~~~~p~~~g, that they had humorously dubbed it Syensheng Tz, Old Gas. They could see the thing easily, almost a hundred miles away and at high altitude-a single, unescorted, vulnerable B-52 bomber. It was cruising westward at a leisurely four hundred and twenty nautical miles per hour. Although it was definitely getting closer, on its present course it would pass well out of HQ-9 1 missile range of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy missile destroyer Kaifeng. It was obviously giving the Chinese ships a wide berth. Even so, if the aircraft carried antiship missiles, it was still a substantial threat: it was within Harpoon missile range of the destroyer, yet outside the range of the destroyer’s missiles, and there were no fighters nearby that could reach it. The commander of the destroyer Kazfeng, a Luda-class destroyer with over three hundred men on board, wanted very close tabs kept on this intruder. “CIC, bridge, status of that B-52, ” the commander of the Kazjeng requested. “Bridge, CIC, air target one still at seventy-eight-nauticalmiles range, altitude ten thousand meters, speed four-twozero knots, offset range six-zero nautical miles. No detectable radar transmissions from aircraft. It is within Harpoon missile range at this time.”
