Armageddon

Chapter 3

Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, was a very busy place that morning. Once the center of the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) it was a warren of underground bunkers and command facilities that were now the heartbeat of the U.S. Strategic Command, (USSTRATCOM). Over the years it had seen some memorable events in both war and peace, and had been heralded in film and fiction for its strategic importance in time of national crisis. Henry Fonda was there in the cold war classic “Fail Safe” and Peter Sellers held forth there in Doctor Strangelove as he learned to love the bomb.

On this day it had a very important mission to ready, and one that might fit neatly into the script of either of those two old movies. For among other units stationed there, the base was home to some very special aircraft that would soon rise into the skies in an ominous prelude to what might happen soon after. They were not stealthy, sleek, black-tiled warplanes, or high flying hypersonic reconnaissance planes. In fact, anyone who might have seen them taxi from their secure hangers onto the wide tarmac near the 55th Bomb Wing Headquarters building would recognize their familiar silhouettes at once. One man who saw them that day was in no way surprised when their big engines began to turn over, the sound rolling across the field and reverberating amid the squat concrete buildings housing high level command facilities.

“Hear that?” said Airman First Class Ernie Mason. “I told you they would be flying today. The E-4 hanger doors were open at 04:00 hours this morning.”

“You were up at four AM, Mace?” His buddy Airman, James Suder was still working his first cup of coffee that morning, looking tired and needing sleep.

“I had the night shift. Took some down time at the Old Stripes Club, but there was no one there but old stripes. Good name for the place.”

“There a lot better clubs in Omaha,” said Suder. “Shark Club, Goodfellas, Whisky Tango.”

“Well who can get to Omaha and back on a thirty minute leash, Suder? I had the duty. We had to go over those engines with a fine toothed comb last night. So I knew the spooks were going to be up today.”

“Spooks?”

“That’s what I call them. They only fly the damn things when all hell is about to break loose. Scares the crap out of you because the only reason they made the damn things is to make certain someone survives to send Emergency Action Messages if we get toasted here on the ground.”

“What’s on the tarmac this morning?”

“E-4B Nightwatch is out there making noise right now. We had to work over the RC-135 Rivet Joints plane and the E-6B Mercury TACAMO plane too.”

“Jeeze Louise! That’s some serious business, Mace.”

The E-6B looked like a white Boeing commercial airliner, and the Nightwatch plane actually was a commercial airliner, a big 747 jumbo jet with the telltale porpoise hump and nose and a bright blue stripe down each side of the fuselage. It didn’t seem dressed for the part it was to play as the “Doomsday Plane,” an airborne command and control plane for the civilian leadership in the event of a major national emergency.

“No shit, Sherlock,” said Mason. “You can bet the Nightwatch will be heading east to find the President somewhere. And the Air Force brass will be in the E-6 by now. STRATCOM building looks like everyone left for a funeral or something. All the offices are shut down. There’s nothing but janitors mopping up over there now.”

“They probably all went into their gopher holes,” said Suder. “They’re all underground by now, which is where we should be. If the President is going airborne with the rest of the stripes, then you and I had better find us a couple cases of bravos and dig a hole ourselves. The proverbial shit is about to hit the fan, my friend.”

“Well hell, Suder. Did you think we were going to take that crap the Chinese pulled over the Pacific coast lying down? Hell no! I think we’re going to toast something to let them know what’s up. Any bets on what they do?”

“Rumors say they might hump Shanghai or some other big city over there. But you know the drill-they throw one, then we throw one, then they throw a few more and on it goes. This business has been wound up tight for the last nine days. Something is about to give, I tell you. Can’t you feel it?”

“Yeah, I’ve had the same feeling. I don’t think we’re going to back off on this one. It’s pedal to the metal from here on in, and that means you and I will either be real busy or very dead in the next 48 hours. Well, I say we make it through.”

“How do you figure, Mace?”

“We made it through the alien attack in Independence Day. We stopped those wacko alien ships in Battleship, and we beat the pants off ‘em in Battle: Los Angeles and War of The Worlds, and even kicked ass in Signs — swing away, Merrill… Merrill…Swing away!” He made as if he were holding a baseball bat ready to swing on the first alien that showed its snout.

“Right, we always win against the aliens,” said Suder. “But this time we’re not up against them. This time it’s us, the good old primates. We’re going to swing away alright, but those planes out there might end up being the only things left around to see what happens. Nightwatch…good name for the damn thing.”

High above the Pacific, NROL-52 was up and running, a replacement sent up the previous day for a bird the Chinese had taken down with their surprise ASAT attack. The Americans had seen to it that they would not lose any more of their precious satellites, at least not at the hands of the Chinese. They had sent their B-2s in with a devastating fast new cruise missile and blasted all the key satellite launching facilities the Chinese relied on. To express their displeasure, the Chinese escalated by sending a sub launched missile over the US Pacific coast and, though the resulting EMP burst was not as devastating as originally thought, it had taken down power grids from Seattle to San Diego.

Watching the latest developments very closely from space, 2nd Lieutenant Matt Eden was on the duty roster again that day at the Naval Intelligence Center. He had already lost one bird, and wondered how long this one would fly as he monitored the regrouping of the Russian Red Banner Pacific Fleet. He was told to look for the principle surface combatants, but thus far the only capital ship of note he had been able to identify was the Admiral Kuznetsov.

It was time to make his scheduled report to the Deputy Watch Commander, and he punched up line two on his phone set.

“Deep Black Ten, sir. Lieutenant Eden reporting on RB1.”

“Anything new, Lieutenant?”

“Yes sir, but communications with the satellite have been difficult. There’s a considerable electromagnetic disturbance from that eruption and it’s propagated through the atmosphere into space. The high altitude EMP burst didn’t help either, but at least our bird was over the horizon at the time and the system wasn’t fried. Our optics are still nice and sharp. Lucky for us the ash fall has been blowing south, otherwise we couldn’t see a thing.”

“I don’t need a weather report, Lieutenant. What’s up with the damn Russians?”

“Sorry sir. The flotilla was regrouping and replenishing in the Sea of Okhotsk, but that operation appears to be concluded now. They transited the Gulf of Sakhalin and moved into the Tartar Strait off Sovetskaya Gavan and Vanino. There’s been some helicopter activity around the carrier but it looks like they were just delivering a few missile canisters. Now they have moved what appears to be a sub tender into the area. I’ve sent the digital imagery to Section Four for analysis.”

“Any sign of that hot submarine PACCOM is still looking for?”

“Nothing has surfaced, sir. But I’ll watch this tender and see what it’s up to. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“Good enough, Lieutenant.”

Eden hung up the phone and returned to his console, deciding to take a closer look at the new arrival. What would they need a sub tender out here for unless there was a submarine nearby, and possibly one in difficulty? Could this be a blood trail from the submarine Naval Intelligence is all hot and bothered about? Perhaps it was wounded in action on its first sortie, and is licking its wounds in sheltered waters until help can arrive. The Russians sure moved that sub tender there in a hurry. My data points indicate it was making sixteen knots, and that is the top of the scale for that class ship.

He wished he could get a better look on infrared, but that channel was still all screwed up with the heat from that damn volcano making it very difficult to get clear readings in the region. And every so often he would experience a sudden electromagnetic disturbance, even if his satellite was far enough from the eruption to remain largely unaffected.

He thought about the situation…If I was that Russian attack boat Captain I’d be right under that ash cloud. Then again, if I can come up with that, I’m sure our own subs would be searching there as well.

The Russians have pulled most everything in tight-all their diesel boats that were screening that last fleet sortie have turned tail and are mostly on picket duty along the line of the Kuriles and south of Vladivostok. We’ve already nailed their two Oscars, but where is this slippery Yasen class boat? Where is Kazan?

He would have to rely on his optical feed, and with the ashfall over most of Hokkaido shutting down air operations there, he decided the best place to look was up in the Russian safety zones in the Sea of Okhotsk and Gulf of Sakhalin. Where do you hide a big hungry nuclear attack sub, he wondered?

Lieutenant Commander William Reed sat uncomfortably in his chair looking at the satellite photography, and he was thinking the same thing.

“I think it’s a fair bet we nailed their flagship,” he said to the men assembled around the table. “But we lost Key West in the undersea duel, though we do have confirmed kills on both their Oscars. The only boat we really need to watch out for now is that new Yasen class sub.”

White House Chief of Staff Leyman was there, along with General Lane of the Air Force and Admiral Stone of the Navy. Called simply the “Stonewall” because of his stalwart opinions on defense readiness, he had come up to the Washington circuit in 2018, and was pressing the palms of Senators and Congressmen to make sure defense allocations kept flowing the Navy’s way. Now he was sent in to relay a briefing received from PACCOM on the situation in the Pacific.

“I can’t say as that matters a whole lot now,” said Lane. “After what the Chinese pulled the other day it’s coming down to missiles and bombers soon.”

“That decision has not been made yet,” said Leyman. “You were in on that meeting with the President. Yes, he’s hopping mad, but the general feeling is that if we respond in kind, say with one of these EMP weapons like the Chinese used, it will only escalate the matter further.”

“It sure looked grim from what we were seeing in space,” said Lane. “The Russians were heating up all their primary missile bastions and dispersing their mobile launchers all over Siberia. Now it seems they’ve cooled things down.” He looked at Leyman, knowing any news on that front would most likely come from him.

“We received a diplomatic message on the red phone from Moscow. They asked us not to retaliate for the Chinese attack, and to sweeten the deal they backed off on their missile bastion alert. It’s a strong signal that they don’t want this to go any farther than it has thus far.”

“I’d do the same after the pounding we gave them in the Pacific,” said Admiral Stone.

Lane looked at him askance. “How does Captain Tanner feel about that on the Washington?”

“Well at least the ship is still afloat and back in friendly waters. Sure they got through with something, and they hurt us, particularly when Key West went down. I can’t say as I’m surprised. That was an old Los Angeles class boat that should have been retired and replaced years ago. Still, all things considered, we did worse to them. They lost Kirov, their hot new destroyer Orlan and the frigate Admiral Golovko, not to mention that old Udaloy. We didn’t get the Admiral Kuznetsov, but we’ve got the damn thing bottled up now. Let’s face it gentlemen, the Red Banner Pacific Fleet is pretty much out of business. Now that we’ve got CVBG Ford heading east with other Third Fleet assets the Russians won’t lift another finger. So if we have to do something about the Chinese, I think the job should go to us-to the United States Navy. Toss this potato to General Lane here and all it does is ratchet this whole thing up another notch because his bombers will be perceived as strategic weapons.”

Lane folded his arms. “Hold on just a moment, Admiral, if you please. We’ve already showed them we can hit their home turf with our B-2s and there’s nothing they can do about it. I can put in a limited strike with our new CHAMP missiles and we can take down their local command and control for this planned amphibious operation. That’s a well measured response to what they did over the Pacific coast here.”

Leyman looked from Lane to Reed, obviously lost in the forest of acronyms. Reed stepped up to enlighten him.

“CHAMP is Mil-speak for Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project, Mister Leyman. It’s basically a missile that delivers high powered microwaves to the target instead of a warhead. The effect will knock down electronics within a given radius of the strike. Think of it as a precision EMP weapon of sorts, good for a surgical strike if need be, or for wide area deployment if you’ve got enough of them.”

“We have twenty in theater and I can put them on the B-2s in six hours,” said Lane. “We can knock out all their key command assets. Hell, they won’t even be able to turn over their aircraft engines or use search radars if we hit a few key airfields supporting this operation. Our Raptors out of Okinawa stopped that last air strike package they had headed for Taiwan, but that’s the conventional way to slow the Chinese down. We can throw in a magic wand or two and go real high-tech on them any time we choose.”

“Yes, well we’re going to have to establish air superiority over Taiwan if this thing goes any further,” said Stone. “That’s job one, and it’s going to have to come off the decks of Eisenhower and Nimitz. Ford is up north to keep an eye on the Russians, but with those two carriers, and reserve planes from CVBG Washington, Admiral Ghortney informs me he believes we can restore order over Taiwan. We do that fast enough and they would be stupid to try and press this attack any further. There’s no way they cross the straits in force without air superiority.”

“Well, what about these Vampire planes of theirs?” Leyman looked at Reed now. “My understanding is that they gave the Taiwanese a pretty good licking. And don’t the Chinese have carriers too?”

“They do, sir, and so you can bet that if we do move as Admiral Stone suggests, those assets will come into play on the other side.”

“ I can take those out of the game real easy,” said Lane. “We have enough bombers in theater now to make a real difference here. I can put a hundred cruise missiles on any targets you name, Mister Leyman. Let me get the Bones and Buffs up with the rest, we can plaster their amphibious loading operation in port before it ever gets to sea or anywhere near Taiwan. Air superiority is not necessary. Hell, I can put 24 AGM-158s on a single B-1 bomber! One squadron could lay waste to their entire operation from 600 miles away.” The General was referring to the relatively new AGM-158B JASSM-ER, a stealthy, radar evading Long Range Anti-Ship Missile. (LRASM). Six B-1 bombers could send 144 of the sleek cruise missiles at the Chinese amphibious flotilla and wreak havoc.

“So you see we don’t need aircraft carriers in the mix to stop this. You all saw what happened to the Washington. The right tool for the job here is strategic bomber assets. I hope the President knows that.” He folded his arms, well satisfied that he had thumped his chest for the Air Force.

“I’ll see that he does,” General Lane, said Leyman.

“Then what are we waiting for? I say we take out those Chinese carriers with my standoff bombers, and you can go in and darken the skies over Taiwan with your carriers, Admiral Stone. That’s a one two punch that will set the Chinese back on their heels soon enough, and it will still be perceived as a conventional operation. We can stop this planned invasion of Taiwan in 36 hours. Either that or we send our new CHAMP out there, and then maybe they’ll think twice about another EMP attack.”

“Yes, but what if they do respond with another such attack?” Reed cautioned. “The West coast is still a real mess. Yes we can stop their conventional assets, which means the Chinese will then have little more than their ballistic missiles for offensive punch. They can reach Guam with those if they have to, and they can also let slip the dogs of war in Korea. Mister Kim over there would like nothing more than to cross the line after we took out his little missile launch.”

“That was an operational necessity, and I will note that they haven’t crossed the line.”

“Only because Beijing has held them on a tight leash. But believe me, gentlemen, the Chinese know the one little nightmare we have had concerning Asia is a ground war. If this thing escalates any further, you can look for one in Korea. It may come down to that. They may tell us they either take Taiwan or we can have the Korean war back again in short order. Is the Navy prepared for that?”

“We can move 3rd Marines over. The planning is already underway, and we have the sealift assets as well.”

“Well then let me pose another question here.” Reed tacked in a new direction now, playing the devil’s advocate well. “Suppose you do hobble the Chinese Navy, just like you did the Red Banner Pacific Fleet. Suppose you stop their planned invasion of Taiwan in the bargain. Then all they have left are the missiles. You saw what they did to Taiwan with those. What if they start lobbing the damn things at Japan? They’ve got all that area targeted and they could start raining down hell on Tokyo, Osaka, and twenty other cities. The Fukushima complex is still hot as hell over there. What if they dropped a few missiles right into that facility? You all know we don’t have enough anti-missile defense batteries to stop them. Look what happened on Taiwan. They had ten patriot batteries over there, and a whole lot more, but they still got smashed.”

It was a good point, and Lane shifted uncomfortably in his chair. China’s ballistic missiles were their trump card, widely dispersed, difficult to find and kill, and extremely effective on offense.

“The problem with all of this is that when you force the other guy to dig into his haversack for the last weapon he has, he’s going to fish around and eventually pull out an ICBM. The Chinese made it perfectly clear with that pot shot they took over Nevada.”

“And in my opinion that is the danger of leaving it go unanswered.” Lane spoke up now, and with more resolve. “We may want to show them that if they do reach for another missile like that again, we’re going to give them the same thing in spades!”

“We have boomers on patrol that can do just that,” said Admiral Stone. “It can be a measured response. We can move in a boomer and use a single missile, just like they did.”

“Well what about the Russians? You want them heating up all their stuff again?”

“We call the Russians and tell them exactly what we are going to do, and state that it will be a limited, measured response. Oh, they’ll try to find that boomer with anything they have, but there isn’t much left of the Red Banner Fleet, either above or below the sea now. This is again a job for the Navy. I can give you stealth in a way that even General Lane’s B-2s can’t deliver. We can creep over with a boomer and turn off all the lights in Shanghai. Then they’ll know we mean business.”

“Shanghai?” Lane scratched his ear. “Wouldn’t that affect Korea and Japan too?”

“I just picked that one out of my hat, but we could go inland with this too. We could hit the heartland cities along the Yellow River, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Kaifeng. One little missile would turn off the lights there for 15 million people and make a very strong statement. Hell, they took down San Francisco, LA and San Diego! Tit for tat.”

“Those cities are starting to recover somewhat,” said Reed. “That EMP burst was not as severe as it first appeared. Most of the outage was due to Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams going down, but latest estimates are that they can get back online in a matter of weeks. They found out a lot of the transformers made it through without significant damage. It’s still dark there, but the power is coming back in spots. It could take a while, but they’ll eventually recover.”

“Gentlemen…” Leyman spoke now. “I’ll take all these options to the President, but my feeling is that he wants to keep this on a conventional level as long as possible.”

“Which leads us right back to this business over Taiwan,” said Stone. “Either we stand in defense of that nation or we don’t. What’s it going to be, Mister Leyman? Admiral Ghortney made a particular point of insisting he was given operational control of the battle space here.”

“Within the limits defined by the civilian leadership, Admiral. Now, what we want to know is this: can you do what you claim and recover air superiority over Taiwan in the next 36 hours? If so, you have authorization to proceed. As for you, General Lane, get those bombers armed and ready. If they can do what you say and stop this invasion from 600 miles away, I think the President will want to hear that as soon as possible.”

“You have my word on that,” said Lane, satisfied.

The meeting rambled on for another ten minutes before Leyman adjourned the session and went to brief the President. As he rose from his chair, Lieutenant Commander Reed handed Admiral Stone the latest satellite photos he had been reviewing.

“Have you seen these, Admiral?”

Stone took a brief look, immediately recognizing what he was seeing. “So that’s what’s left of the fleet. Still holed up off Sakhalin Island?”

“They’ve moved.”

“Where?”

“Through the Gulf of Sakhalin and into the Tartar Strait, but they don’t seem to be in any hurry.”

“Lane would love to take a shot at them, if only just to prove his bombers can get the job done. But the feeling is we ought not provoke the Russians any more than necessary here.”

“I agree. They took down Thunder Horse in the Gulf, and have already lost three subs and the heart of their entire Pacific Fleet.”

“Well it will be cat and mouse out there for a while.”

“How do you mean?

“The surface combatants have withdrawn and consolidated in to new battlegroups. They pulled their ships up north and we pulled ours south to Guam. That damn volcano is blanketing the sea as much as anything else. It’s no place for surface ships in the waters south of the Kuriles. It’s down to submarines for them now. So if we move Eisenhower and Nimitz into strike range off Taiwan, that means we have to worry about their submarines too, both the Chinese and Russian boats.”

“That’s what all this fuss is with the sub tender? You think they are planning to move their subs out again?”

Stone gave him a long look. “What sub tender?”

“Right there in those satellite images I just handed you.”

Stone took a closer look. “That’s not a sub tender… looks to be one of their old Pioner Moskvy class submersible salvage and support ships. I suppose you could call it a sub tender, but a ship like that usually shows up when there’s a rescue operation planned.”

“It joined the main fleet group last night, though we have no confirmed report of a sub operating with that task force.”

“Are you kidding me?” Stone smiled. “That’s the Admiral Kuznetsov there, Mister Reed. It’s the last surface ship in the Red Banner Pacific Fleet that could pose any threat if it broke out into the Pacific or the Sea of Japan. You can bet your bottom dollar that they have a sub nearby-probably two or three. If I was the Russian Fleet commander I’d have my very best boat right there, on undersea watch for that ship.”

Reed raised an eyebrow, then nodded his agreement as Stone handed him back the file. Yes, he thought, that makes good sense…Their very best boat…He looked at the satellite image again, a suspicious light in his eyes.