Plan of Attack

5

NORAD’s long-range early-warning radars at Point Hope and Scammon Bay couldn’t see them, and even RAPCON’s — Nome Radar Approach Control — precision approach-control radar didn’t spot them until they were well over Kotzebue Sound, heading away from the Seward Peninsula and into the forbidding Arctic wastelands of Alaska. The groundspeed readout for the target did indeed say “540”—540 knots, over 570 miles per hour — but the electrically charged atmosphere, magnetic anomalies, and terrain often confused and scrambled radar plots in Alaska.

Still, with a few sketchy reports of some kind of air-defense activity up in the northeast part of Alaska, reporting even likely radar anomalies was far better than making no report at all. The Nome Approach controller issued a “pending” contact report to Fairbanks Approach Control, with an estimated time of radar contact. At the same time, the RAPCON supervisor issued a similar report to the Alaska NORAD Region headquarters at Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage. NORAD would in turn alert the short-range radar station at Clear Air Station in central Alaska to watch for the contact as well.

Except those manning the station would never get the chance to see it.

The activity wasn’t a radar anomaly or magnetic disturbance — it was a formation of two Russian Tupolev-160 supersonic bombers, which had been flying nap-of-the-earth for the past hour, since well over the Chukchi Peninsula of eastern Siberia.

It originally started as a formation of four bombers, but one could not refuel and another suffered engine failure and had to abort the mission. Their route of flight took them not over Siberia but along the Bering Sea close to the commercial polar transoceanic flight routes, where their presence would not cause alarm until the flight approached the American Air Defense Identification Zone. By then the two remaining bombers — fully refueled and with weapon, flight, engine, navigation, and defensive systems all working perfectly — descended below radar coverage and drove eastward toward their objective. Flying at very low altitudes — sometimes just a few meters above the sea — the bombers successfully slipped through the gaps in the long-range NORAD radars along the western Alaskan coastline.

By the time the bombers were detected, it was too late…but even if they had been detected earlier, there were no fighters to intercept them and no surface-to-air missile systems to shoot them down. The two alert fighters at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks had already been committed to the air patrol over northern Alaska with the E-3C AWACS radar plane; the four F-15C Eagle fighters being prepared for alert duties were still being armed and manned and wouldn’t be ready to respond to an alert call for several minutes. The bombers were completely unopposed as they headed east, into the heart of the Alaskan wilderness.

U. S. Marine Corps Sergeant Major Chris Wohl stuck his head in the door, letting light from the hallway spill across the bed inside the small room within. “Sir, you’re needed in the ready room,” he said loudly and without preamble.

Air Force Colonel Hal Briggs was instantly awake — a trait that, although it served him well as a forward combat air controller and chief of security at HAWC, was irritating because he knew that now that he was awake, it would be nearly impossible for him to go back to sleep. He glanced at the glowing red numerals on his bedside alarm clock and groaned theatrically. “Top, I just got to bed five friggin’ hours ago. What the hell is—?”

“Sir, you’re needed in the ready room. Now.” And the door slammed shut.

Hal knew that Chris Wohl wouldn’t awaken his boss if it weren’t pretty damned important — usually. He quickly dressed in pixelated Arctic battle dress uniform, cold-weather boots and gloves, wool balaclava, and a parka, and headed to his unit’s ready room.

Shemya Island was only six square miles in area, the largest of the Semichi Group of volcanic islands in the western Aleutian Island chain. Much closer to Russia than to Anchorage, the Aleutians were barely noticed before 1940; Russian blue foxes far outnumbered humans along almost the entire chain. But the islands’ strategic location did not go unnoticed at the start of World War II. The Japanese invaded them in 1942, occupying Adak Island and attacking Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. If the Aleutians could be captured and held, the Japanese could control the entire North Pacific and threaten all of North America.

Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered the construction of an airfield on Shemya in 1943 to enable the staging of air raids on Japanese positions on Adak and Kiska Islands; Shemya was chosen because it was relatively flat and was not bothered as much by fog as were most of the other Aleutians. By 1945 Shemya housed over eleven hundred soldiers, seamen, and airmen, plus a fleet of B-24 bombers and P-51 fighters. Its tremendous strategic importance as the guardian of America’s northern flank was in direct inverse proportion to the level of morale of its troops, who endured years of stark isolation, lack of resources, the worst living conditions of any base in the American military, no promotions, and severe psychological depression. It was without a doubt America’s version of a Soviet-style gulag.

After the end of the Korean War, Shemya’s importance steadily declined, as radar and eventually satellites took over the important job of watching the Arctic skies for any signs of attackers or intruders. At the end of the Cold War, with the Russian threat all but eliminated, the Air Force station was closed and put into caretaker status, with just a handful of civilian technicians on hand to service the massive COBRA DANE ballistic-missile tracking radar, nicknamed “Big Alice,” and other intelligence-gathering systems. The island became a massive dumping ground for all of the Aleutians, since it was far easier to dump even expensive equipment than it was to haul it back to the States. Shemya became “The Rock” once more.

But since the advent of President Thomas Thorn’s “Fortress America” initiative — eliminating overseas military commitments and building up the defense of the North American continent — Shemya, fifteen hundred miles west of Anchorage on the western tip of the Aleutian Island chain, was busier and more important than ever. Already vital as an emergency-abort base for transpolar and Far East airline and military flights and as a location of ballistic-missile tracking radars and other intelligence-gathering facilities, Eareckson Air Force Base, formerly just an air station but now advanced to full air-base status, was the location of the Aerospace Defense Command’s long-range XBR, or X-band radar, and the In-Flight Interceptor Communications System, which provided ultraprecise steering information to ground-based interceptor missiles fired from silos in Alaska and North Dakota.

Eareckson Air Force Base was now in an almost constant state of upgrade and new construction. Nearly two thousand men and women were based there in modern concrete dormitories, connected by underground tunnels and interspersed with comfortable, albeit subterranean, offices, computer rooms, laboratories, and other amenities. The runway facilities could now handle any aircraft in the world up to a million pounds gross weight and could land a suitably equipped aircraft in almost any weather, including the frequent and usually unexpected near-hurricane-force windstorms that were as much a part of life on Shemya as were Russian blue foxes, the cold, and the loneliness. Every aircraft that arrived in Shemya was housed in its own hydronically heated hangar — sometimes in better facilities than at its home base.

Along with the construction workers and engineers assembling the new missile-defense network, Shemya was host to many other government and military organizations — and that included the Air Battle Force. It was not the first time they had been there: Rebecca Furness’s 111th Bombardment Wing, from where all of the Air Battle Force’s B-1 bombers originated, had been deployed there during the War of Reunification, to prevent an outbreak of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. Shemya’s strategic location against Russia, China, and all of Far East Asia — especially now that all bases in Korea and Japan were closed to permanent American military forces — made the little island the stepping-off point for most military operations in the North Pacific theater.

Hal decided not to take the tunnel to the ready room out on the flight line — and almost instantly regretted it. Although nights were fairly short in early spring, the changing seasons meant changing weather. In the short walk to the ready room, Hal experienced almost every possible climatic change: It went from cold and frosty to horizontal snow and stinging ice to horizontal freezing rain to windy but clear in a matter of a couple minutes. Once he had to brace himself against a light pole to keep from being knocked off his feet by an errant blast of wind.

There was one consolation: Hal was able to see a rare Aleutian sunrise, the first one he’d ever seen. The golden light illuminated the nearby islands and turned the sea from dark and forbidding to an unbelievable crystal blue. He was almost breathless with amazement — until another gush of icy wind brought his attention back to the here and now.

Hal was hesitant to remove his balaclava to speak, but when he did, he found that it was warming up quickly outside now that the sun was up. All part of living and working in Alaska. As the old saying went, “If you don’t like the weather on Shemya, wait five minutes.” “Duty Officer,” Hal spoke into thin air, “get the door for me, will you?”

“Yes, Colonel Briggs,” the female computerized voice of the Duty Officer responded, and Hal felt the click of electronic locks disengaging as soon as he touched the door handle. The “Duty Officer” was a computerized all-around assistant, handling everything from routine radio messages to complex top-secret mission planning from Air Battle Force headquarters at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in Battle Mountain, Nevada. Relayed via satellite, the Duty Officer tracked the location and identity of every person assigned to Battle Mountain and instantly responded to requests, even if the person was far from the main base. As it did at Battle Mountain, the Duty Officer constantly monitored and operated all security systems wherever the Air Battle Force was deployed — personnel never carried pass cards or had to worry about passwords or codes. The Duty Officer knew who and where you were and made sure that if you weren’t cleared to enter a particular area — from an aircraft hangar to an individual file drawer — you didn’t get in.

Of course, Hal realized, it would’ve been far easier, faster, and more efficient for the Duty Officer to awaken him if there was something urgent happening — but getting the boss’s ass out of bed was a pleasure Sergeant Major Wohl obviously reserved for himself, no matter what the weather.

The ready room for the Air Battle Force was actually their aircraft hangar, where barracks, planning, storage, and communications rooms had been set up. Two MV-32 Pave Dasher tilt-jet aircraft waited inside. The MV-32 resembled the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor special-operations transport — with a big, boxy fuselage; stubby, high-mounted wings; large tail structure; and a drive-up cargo ramp — except the MV-32 was larger and used four turbojet engines, two on each wingtip and two on the tips of the horizontal stabilizer, in place of rotors. Like the MV-22, the Pave Dasher could take off and land vertically yet fly like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft, but the MV-32 could fly 50 percent faster than the -22 on just a little more fuel. The MV-32 was air-refuelable and had an infrared camera and radar for terrain-following flight and precision navigation and targeting. It could carry as many as eighteen combat troops and also carried two retractable and reloadable weapon pods on the landing-gear sponsons, along with a twenty-millimeter Minigun in a steerable nose turret with five hundred rounds of ammunition.

Hal Briggs threw his parka and hood onto a chair. “Someone get me coffee, and someone else talk to me,” he said, “or I’m about to get very cranky.”

“Some increased NORAD activity, sir,” Chris Wohl responded.

“We know that already, Top,” Hal said irritably. “That’s why we’re here. The general convinced NORAD to put fighters on patrol until they can push out the radar surveillance.”

“It’s something else, sir,” Wohl went on, handing Briggs a large mug of steaming coffee. “NORAD just issued a BEELINE report for sudden, unexplained radar outages along the North Warning System.”

That didn’t sound good. “Where are the fighters?”

“NORAD put one fighter from Eielson on patrol over the Arctic Ocean — his wingman should be airborne shortly,” Wohl responded. “AnAWACS radar plane and a couple F-15 interceptors from Elmendorf are on their way now to fill in for the long-range radars that are out.”

“So at the present time, all the surveillance we have north of Alaska is one fighter?”

Wohl nodded. “Thought you’d need to know that right away, sir,” he said.

He did. Hal thought hard for a moment, then spoke into the air, “Briggs to Luger.”

“I was just going to give you a call, Hal,” Brigadier General David Luger, commanding the Air Battle Force, responded via the secure subcutaneous-transceiver system. “I got the message just now.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“Whatever it is, it’s not good,” Dave said. “What’s your status?”

“I just need to get the children out of bed and the planes rolled out, and we’re off,” Hal responded. “Fifteen minutes max.”

“Good. Stand by.” There was a slight pause. Then Luger said, “Civilian approach controllers just issued a ‘pending’ notification to NORAD — an unidentified target heading east, altitude unknown, groundspeed five hundred and forty knots.”

“A plane at low altitude going point-seven-two Mach over Alaska?” Briggs remarked. “Either it’s Santa Claus on a training flight — or it’s trouble.”

“It’s trouble,” Luger said. “I’ll see if the Navy can get any look-down eyes out there. Get your guys airborne. Disperse them someplace nearby. Adak?”

“The bad guys are the other way, Dave,” Hal said. “The Coast Guard said we can use their hangar on Attu Island, so that’s where we’ll go.” Attu Island, about fifty miles west of Shemya, was the largest and rockiest of the Near Islands, and the westernmost of the American Aleutians. It also had the worst weather in the Aleutians — if it wasn’t having driving rain or snow with hurricane-force winds, it was blanketed in thick, cold fog. The U.S. Coast Guard maintained a small search-and-rescue, maritime patrol, communications, and ground navigation facility there, with just twenty people manning the small site — they welcomed visitors and encouraged all services to use their facilities. “They usually have plenty of fuel and provisions, too. We’ve made a few resupply flights for them just since we arrived.”

“Good. Disperse there and keep in touch.”

“You think Shemya could be a target?”

“No, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe — and that big old radar out there plus all the ballistic-missile defense stuff sure are pretty inviting targets,” Dave said.

“Rog,” Hal said. He turned to Wohl and twirled his index finger in the air, telling the master sergeant to get his men ready to fly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure,” Dave said. “I’m not authorized to fly my bombers….” He thought for a moment, then added, “But no one said I couldn’t fuel them and hoist them to the surface, just for a systems-test run. Maybe I’ll see how fast my guys can get them upstairs.” Unlike any other air base in the world, Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base was built twelve stories underground in an abandoned national alternate military command center first built in the 1950s. The facility was originally constructed to house an entire fighter-bomber air wing and over five thousand men and women and protect them from all but a direct hit by a one-megaton nuclear device. Aircraft were raised up to the surface on eight large elevators located at the end of the airfield’s twelve-thousand-foot-long runway and at the mass parking ramp.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Hal said. “We’ll report in when we’re safe on Attu.”

“Roger that.”

“Any word from the general?” Even though Patrick McLanahan had been gone for several weeks now, everyone still referred to him as “the general.”

“He’s not at AIA headquarters anymore,” Dave said. “He may be heading back to Sacramento. I think he may have gotten spanked for going around Houser and Samson about what the Russians are doing.”

“I have to admit, it’s quite a stretch to see a bunch of tankers at one base in Siberia and conclude that the Russians are going to bomb the United States,” Hal said. “But that’s the general. He’s a smart guy and one hell of a leader, but he does tend to lead with his chin sometimes.”

“Hal, it scared the hell out of me when I saw all those bombers and tankers at those bases — and now with that BEELINE report about the North Warning System radars down, I’m more scared than ever,” Dave Luger said. “We’ll know what happens this morning. In the meantime I want to make sure our unit is safe.”

“We’re on our way, boss,” Hal said. “We’ll report when we’re on alert on Attu. Briggs out.”

Back at Battle Mountain, Luger thought about the situation for a moment, then spoke, “Duty Officer, set condition Alpha-Foxtrot-one for the Air Battle Force Alpha alert team, and set condition Echo-Foxtrot-two for all other aircraft. Then get me Colonel Shrike at Elliott Air Force Base.”

“Roger, General Luger, set condition Alpha-Foxtrot-one for the Alpha team and Echo-Foxtrot-two for all other aircraft,” the Duty Officer responded. “Please stand by for counterorder.”

“Furness to Luger,” Rebecca Furness radioed excitedly a few moments later. “I didn’t hear an ‘exercise’ classification. What’s going on?”

“This is not an exercise, Rebecca,” Dave said. “I want all the Alpha-alert aircraft into Foxtrot-one.”

“Luger, I damned well shouldn’t have to remind you that we’re not authorized to fly our aircraft anywhere,” Rebecca said angrily. “You remember that little order from the secretary of defense, don’t you?”

“By the time the crews arrive and the planes are hoisted to the surface, I’ll have authorization,” Luger said.

“Then why not order an Echo generation for all aircraft?” Rebecca asked. “You ordered an Alpha launch for the Alpha force — that’s a survival launch for our aircraft with weapons aboard.” Even though the planes were decertified and declared non-mission ready, David Luger and Rebecca Furness had directed that the Air Battle Force’s Alpha force — composed of two EB-1C Vampire bombers, four EB-52 Megafortress bombers, and four KC-135R tankers — remain loaded with weapons, fueled, and ready to respond at short notice for combat operations. These planes could be airborne in less than an hour. The other planes were all in various stages of readiness, but in general the Bravo force could be ready in three to six hours, and the Charlie force could be ready in nine to twelve hours.

“Rebecca, something’s happening up in Alaska,” Dave said, “and after what we’ve seen in Siberia, that’s enough warning for me. I need you to countersign the order to launch the Alpha team right away.”

“You’re going to end up out on your ass even faster than McLanahan,” Rebecca said.

“Rebecca…”

“I want your word that you won’t launch any aircraft, even the tankers, without my counterorder,” Rebecca said. “Otherwise I’ll defer my countersignature to higher headquarters.”

“Agreed.” A moment later he heard the Duty Officer report, “General Luger, generation order verified by General Furness, A-hour established.” A moment: “Colonel Shrike is on the line, secure.”

“Put him on.”

“Shrike here, secure,” Colonel Andrew “Amos” Shrike was commander of Elliott Air Force Base at Groom Lake, Nevada, the supersecret weapon-and aircraft-testing facility north of Las Vegas.

“This is General Luger at Battle Mountain.”

“What do you need, General?” Shrike said testily. Shrike was a twenty-three-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He’d received an Air Force commission through the Officer Training Corps program after graduating from the University of Texas A&M in electrical engineering. Through hard work and sheer determination, he rose through the ranks all the way to full colonel, wrangling a pilot-training slot for himself at a time when the Air Force was RIFing (Reduction in Forces) pilots left and right. He was hand-selected by Terrill Samson to take over the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, with strict instructions not to turn it into a secret combat base — specifically, not to let McLanahan, Luger, Furness, Mace, or Cheshire turn it into their private combat-operations center.

But on a personal level, Shrike resented the young, brash men and women like Luger who got promoted by doing outlandish, audacious things that Shrike himself would’ve been busted for in his early years. He had been taught that the way to get promoted was to follow orders and run a tight ship, not contravene orders and disregard the chain of command. Luger was ten years younger but was already a one-star general — in Shrike’s book that was pure crapola.

“I’d like my AL-52s fueled and ready to load the laser as soon as possible,” Luger said now. “I’m flying flight and technical crews down on a KC-135 in one hour.”

“I’d be happy to give them to you and get them the hell out of my hangars, General — as soon as I see some paperwork,” Shrike said. To call Andrew Shrike “anal” would be an understatement: He took a personal, direct interest in every aspect of all operations at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center. Nothing happened there without his express knowledge and approval. “But since I haven’t seen or heard anything from you guys in weeks, it won’t happen. It’ll take you an entire day just to get authorization for your tanker to land here — and another week at least to get permission to launch those things out of here.”

David Luger could feel that familiar tension creeping into his brain and spinal cord — the feeling of dread, of abject fear, of impending pain — and he felt his body start to move into self-defense mode. He found he couldn’t speak, couldn’t react. He just looked straight ahead, feet planted firmly on the floor, arms becoming rigid….

“Anything else, General? It’s early, and I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“I…I…” Dave stammered, but no words were coming out.

“Nice to talk to you, sir,” Shrike said flatly, obviously not meaning one word of it. “Good—”

“Colonel,” Dave finally spit. He blinked, gritted his teeth, and willed his back and neck muscles to move.

“Yes, General? What is it?”

“I want…those planes ready for my crews in one hour.”

“I told you, General, it won’t happen,” Shrike said. “You need the proper—”

“Damn it, Colonel, you do as I goddamned tell you to do!” Luger suddenly blurted out. “You don’t need authorization to fuel those planes and open the fucking hangar doors, and you don’t need authorization for an R&D team that already has clearance to both the aircraft and the facility to arrive there. I’ll get all the other authorizations. Now, move those planes like I told you to do, or I will nail your ass to my front gate, warning all you other insubordinate assholes not to mess with me!” And he disconnected the line.

When he looked up, he saw most of his senior officers — Rebecca Furness;Colonel Daren Mace, her ops officer; Colonel Nancy Cheshire, commander of the EB-52 Megafortresses and the AL-52 Dragons of the Fifty-second Bomb Squadron; and Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Hellion, commander of the EB-1C Vampire bombers of the Fifty-first Bomb Squadron — staring at him as if he had grown an extra head.

“What are you standing around for?” Luger snapped. “I want the Alpha force ready to launch into the Foxtrot One airborne-alert area in one hour, and I want the rest of the force on the roof and ready to fly in two hours. Nancy, get your Dragon crews loaded up on a KC-135 and ready to fly to Dreamland to get the birds ready for combat operations.”

“Are you serious, sir?” Nancy Cheshire asked incredulously. Cheshire was a veteran Dreamland test pilot and one of the original program directors of both the EB-52 Megafortress airborne battleship and the AL-52 Dragon airborne laser, both modified B-52 bombers. “We’re going into combat even though we haven’t been recertified?”

“Not quite — I said I want all our planes ‘ready’ to go into combat,” Luger said. “But I’m authorized to do everything necessary to have my force survive an attack against the United States, and that’s what I plan to do.”

“What attack against the United States?” Cheshire asked.

“The one that very well could be happening right now — if what Patrick thought might happen really does happen,” Dave said. “I’ve got a feeling he’s correct. And if he is, I don’t want my planes sitting around here on the ground like wounded ducks. Let’s roll, folks.” He paused, then said, “Duty Officer, get me General Muskoka’s office at Langley right away — urgent priority.”

The Tupolev-160 supersonic bombers accelerated to twelve hundred kilometers per hour and climbed slightly to five hundred meters above the ground shortly before crossing just north of Wolf Mountain in central Alaska. They received a READY indication moments later, but the navigator/bombardier knew well enough to wait until the designated launch point, because his Kh-15 missiles would lose valuable range if they had to climb over or circumnavigate the mountain.

At the preplanned launch point, the bombardier flipped a switch from SAFE to COMMIT, which started the Kh-15 missile countdown. The Tu-160’s attack computers immediately downloaded navigation, heading, and velocity information to the missiles, which allowed the missiles’ gyros to perform their final transfer alignment to prepare them for flight. As soon as the missiles reported ready, the aft bomb-bay doors flew open, and four Kh-15 missiles were ejected down into the slipstream, one every fifteen seconds. Each one fell about a hundred meters in a slightly nose-low attitude while the air data sensors sampled the air, computed roll and bank velocities, set the rear fins for stabilization, and then fired its first-stage solid rocket motor. The Kh-15 shot ahead of the bomber in the blink of an eye, sped ahead for a few kilometers, then started a fast climb. The second Tu-160 fired four missiles from its rear bomb bay as well.

In fifteen seconds the missiles were at twenty thousand meters’ altitude, where they began to level off as the second-stage motor ignited. They cruised at twice the speed of sound for another forty-five seconds, then started a descent. Their precision inertial accelerometers kept them on course for their target, now less than eighty kilometers away.

Like Shemya, Clear Air Station in central Alaska was a rather isolated location that was growing in importance and development with the advent of the Aerospace Defense Command’s ballistic-missile defense system. Along with the existing Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radar, Clear Air Station hosted civilian air-traffic-control radars and NORAD surveillance radars. As part of the national missile-defense system’s expansion, the Air Force was also constructing a Battle Management Command and Control Center and an In-Flight Interceptor Communications System, plus eight silos, each housing four ground-based interceptor (GBI) rockets, spread out over eight hundred acres. The rockets were modified Minuteman II ballistic missiles fitted with a kill-vehicle warhead, designed to track and destroy ballistic-missile warhead “buses” outside Earth’s atmosphere. Three hundred military and over five hundred civilian contractors and construction workers lived and worked at the base.

Clear Air Station was definitely a “soft” target — perfect prey for the Kh-15 missiles.

In less than two minutes from launch, the first Russian attack missile reached its target. When the Kh-15 missile was still a thousand meters aboveground, its warhead detonated. The fireball of a one-kiloton thermonuclear device was very small and barely reached the ground, but the shock and overpressure of the explosion were enough to destroy every surface structure within four kilometers of ground zero. Every fifteen seconds another explosion ripped across the Alaskan wilderness, burning, crushing, or sweeping away buildings, radar antennae, and trees — and killing every living thing standing within a sixteen-square-kilometer area.

Each bomber’s third and fourth missiles were fitted with a deep-penetrating warhead and a delayed-action fuze and programmed against the ground-based interceptor silos. Although these were not as effective as the air-burst warheads programmed against aboveground targets, over half of the thirty-two GBIs were destroyed by the burrowing Kh-15 nuclear warheads.

For the alert force, for the alert force, scramble, scramble, scramble!”

The radio announcement came as a complete surprise. The four F-16C Fighting Falcon alert crews were inside the ramp-maintenance supervisor’s truck, sipping coffee while they reviewed their jets’ Form 781 maintenance logs prior to accepting the aircraft for alert status. Coffee cups dropped to the floor, and confused, scared eyes turned to each other inside the truck.

“Holy shit!” one of the younger pilots shouted as they all collected their flight gear. “What do we do?”

“Get your ass airborne, that’s what!” answered one of the other pilots, the flight commander. “Get rolling as fast as you can!” He dashed for the door, hoping like hell the others were right behind him.

The alert ramp at Eielson Air Force Base was in a state of slight dis-array. With the two alert aircraft airborne in support of the newly established air patrols over northern Alaska, the wing was still in the process of preparing more aircraft for alert. The Third Wing at Eielson kept two F-16s interceptors in preload status, ready to be armed and fueled, but with no crews assigned, in support of the air-sovereignty mission for Alaska. Normally it took anywhere from one to three hours to get the preload birds ready to fly, but in this heightened state of alert, with the alert aircraft suddenly committed to fly airborne patrols, the two preload aircraft were almost ready, and two more F-16s were less than an hour away from ready-five status as well.

The four aircraft being preflighted were in alert shelters, with both forward and rear doors open and with many different teams of maintenance technicians inside checking systems and running checklists. The crew chiefs were furiously racing around their aircraft, yelling at the maintenance teams to finish up and get out of the hangars, removing streamers and plugs, and closing inspection and access panels. Their pre-cocking checklists were not yet complete, so they had to be sure that all steps in several other checklists were done, as well as the “scramble” checklist itself. The pilots did the same, following right behind their crew chiefs, running several checklists simultaneously in a mad dash to get their jets ready to fly. But in less than ten minutes, pilots were climbing inside the two ready-five interceptors, and soon engines were started, the taxiways cleared, and the two Falcons started taxiing to the active runway.

But they would not make it airborne.

Two minutes after the last warhead detonated over Clear Air Station, the Tu-160 Blackjack bombers screamed overhead, continuing their missile run. With the NORAD and FAA radars down, they would be virtually invisible as they pressed their attack. Five minutes after passing over Clear, the Tupolev-160 bombers were in position to begin their second missile run.

Each bomber launched four missiles against three separate target areas around the city of Fairbanks, Alaska: Fort Wainwright, Eielson Air Force Base, and Fort Greely. Like Shemya and Clear, all these three locations had components of the new ballistic-missile defense system under construction; in addition, Eielson was the location of the Alaskan battle-management headquarters, which was a mirror to the main command headquarters located in North Dakota. All eight missiles were bunker-buster weapons, designed to explode deep underground — but the blast effects were more than powerful enough to heavily damage all three military bases.

As soon as the two Russian bombers launched the remaining weapons in their aft bomb bays, they headed southwest across Alaska, staying clear of the radar sites around Anchorage, Bethel, and Dillingham. In twenty minutes they were feet-wet over the Bering Sea. Two F-15C Eagle fighters launched from Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage to pursue, but they never got within range to spot them at low altitude.

And the Russian bombers still were not finished with their attacks.

Feet dry, crew,” the navigator radioed. “Ninety minutes to launch point.”

Leborov was in the middle of his attack briefing when the navigator gave his report. The cabin got instantly quiet. They still had a long way to go before this part of their mission was over, but actually making it into North America was simply an incredible feat in itself. Even the most optimistic planner gave them a one-in-ten chance of getting this far — and, as far as Leborov could tell, every Tupolev-95MS in his formation that had completed an air refueling had made it. The old rattle-traps had done their jobs nicely so far.

The Tupolev-22M bombers had done their job admirably, too. They had created a curtain of electronic jamming that screened the attack force from detection until their long-range Kh-31 antiradar missiles were in range to destroy the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s North Warning System radar sites. As far as he could tell, they had lost just six -22Ms, and no -95Ms.

“R…roger, nav,” Leborov responded after a few moments. “Station check, crew.” Each one of his crew members responded with his crew position and then performed the routine check, which included switches, oxygen, safety equipment, lights, radios, and required logbook entries. They had done a station check just a few minutes earlier, but doing that simple yet important task, Leborov hoped, would get their minds back on the mission and away from the danger they were continuing to fly into.

When everyone had finished, Leborov went on, “Okay, crew, let me get through this damned briefing, and then you can have some quiet time to yourselves before we do our thing.

“After weapon release we’ll head directly west toward the Rocky Mountains, then northward along the military crest to evade any surviving radars. We still have all of our antiradar missiles on board, so we’ll attack and destroy any military radars we encounter, such as AWACS, fighter-intercept, or fire-control radars, and secondarily any ground-surveillance radars. If possible, we’ll retain any unused weapons for force reconstitution.

“Our primary forward landing base is Norman Wells, which is located on the Mackenzie River west of Great Bear Lake — in fact, we’ll be flying close to it on our inbound leg. We have SPETZNAZ commandos and mechanics on the ground waiting for our signal to help us refuel—”

“Has that been confirmed, sir?” the flight engineer cut in. “Are they really there?”

“They were in place when we departed, but we haven’t heard a thing since,” Leborov responded. “We won’t know for sure until we’re getting ready to land. If we get no word from them, we’ll decide what to do as a crew — either land and attempt a refueling ourselves, land and abandon the plane, bail out and crash the plane, or risk flying across Alaska attempting to make it back into eastern Siberia.” Again the crew got very quiet. “Anyway, as soon as possible, we’ll take on as much fuel at Norman Wells as we can and, as the Americans say, ‘Get out of Dodge’—whatever the hell that means. We then will try to make it past any American fighter patrols and across to any friendly base. Anadyr is the primary recovery base. If we top off our tanks at Norman Wells, we will have enough fuel to make it all the way to Novosibirsk or Petropavlovsk with no problems.

“Weapon-disposal procedures: If we have any of the Kh-90 weapons still on board, and we can’t launch them against secondary targets, we’ll take them with us,” Leborov went on. “If there is any danger whatsoever of their falling into enemy hands, we’ll jettison them safe over isolated enemy territory, open ocean, or ice pack. If we’re on the ground, we’ll jettison them prearmed on the ramp — they won’t detonate, and they’ll be useless after their chemical batteries run out. Lastly, if the weapons cannot be jettisoned at all, our only option is to bail out of the aircraft and let the weapons crash with the plane. If we do make it on the ground, under no circumstances shut down power to the weapon-arming panel. I will stay in the pilot’s seat, and I will have full authority on whether to retain or jettison the weapons. Bottom line: We don’t let viable nuclear weapons fall into enemy hands. Of course, none of this applies to the Kh-31s, since they are nonnuclear.

“Survival and evasion: If we are forced to bail out, crash-land, or ditch, it is each individual crew member’s responsibility to survive and to make your way to a designated recovery or exfiltration point. Our poststrike exfiltration zones are near Norman Wells, Pine Point, Inuvik, Prince Rupert, Whitehorse, and Fort Nelson. If you don’t know how to get to them by now, you had better learn fast, because we’re destroying all maps after we launch our missiles. You are all well trained in cold-weather survival, and I should think our chances of surviving off the land and making it to one of the planned exfiltration points is very good. Try to link up with one of the others if possible, but don’t travel together unless you need assistance. The exfiltration points will be visited from time to time by friendly forces, hired escorts, or SPETZNAZ combat-rescue teams, as conditions warrant, so sit tight once you make it to an exfil point, and look out for your contact. Most of all, remember your training and keep acool head.

“Resistance and escape: If you’re captured, remember that your first and foremost responsibility to your crew and your country is to survive; second, to resist to the best of your ability giving up vital state secrets; and third, to escape, so you can return to friendly forces and fight again. You must protect your fellow crew members and support your country, but if you feel you will be killed if you do not talk, then talk — but say as little as possible. The Canadians and Americans are generally not considered brutal captors, but the outposts and field-intelligence officers will be the most unpredictable, and of course we’ll have just launched nuclear weapons against them, so they’re likely to be very, very angry.

“If necessary, give them the most minimal information possible — name, rank, serial number, and date of birth — then beg for mercy. Try anything and everything to avoid being abused, tortured, or interrogated: Remind them of their legal responsibilities, speak about the Geneva Conventions, ask to talk to the Red Cross, plead with them to be fair and humane, tell them you are a family man, pretend you’re injured, blah blah blah, and they will likely not hurt you. This is no time to be a hero and get yourselves maimed. Remember, we are not talking about the Chechens or the Afghans — the Americans and Canadians respond to pleas for help. Again, rely on your training and keep a cool head, and you’ll come out of it okay. Hell, you might even star on one of their television reality shows, sign a Hollywood movie deal, marry Pamela Anderson, and get famous defense lawyer Johnny Cochran to represent you in court within a day or two.” That got a laugh that Leborov could hear even in the noisy cabin.

“If you escape, your chance of finding support from the civilian population is unknown,” the aircraft commander went on. “You may encounter some Russian-speaking individuals, but don’t assume they are pro-Russian. Generally, people who live in the Arctic, as in Russia, support strangers they find in the wilderness — it is an unwritten code for those who live in inhospitable regions. Still, it is best to stay away from strangers and make contact only if your situation becomes desperate. We assume you’ll be treated as an evading combatant as defined in the Geneva Conventions; as such, remember that if you kill a civilian while evading or in custody, even if you are being pursued by armed individuals or are being mistreated or tortured, you may be subject to the death penalty, even though Canada does not have it. Is that understood?”

Leborov asked for questions. They discussed this and that, mostly the weather and ground conditions in northern Canada and a little about their poststrike refueling base. Norman Wells was in the heart of Canada’s vast western oil fields, so there was a lot of jet traffic and a lot of aviation fuel stored there. It was doubtful they’d be able to steal enough gas for all twenty-one Tupolev-95 bombers to refuel — in that case they’d pick the best planes, fill them up with crew members, and take whomever they could. The SPETZNAZ commandos would be exfiltrated by submarine from Mackenzie Bay, so some of the crew members could go with them if they chose.

“Fuck all that,” Borodev said cross-cockpit after their discussions were concluded. “I’m staying in Canada.”

Leborov couldn’t believe his ears. “What did you say?”

“I said, if I can’t fly out, I’m staying,” the copilot said. “I speak pretty good English — I can even speak some Canadian, hey? I’ll be a bush pilot. I’ll fly tourists in the summer and supplies in the winter. Or maybe I’ll put on a Russian fur-trapper music show with a dancing bear in Sitka, Alaska, for the tourists coming off the cruise ships. I’ll hide out right under their noses.”

“You’re crazy,” Leborov said. “Do you think they’ll still have dancing bears and music shows after what we’ll do to them today?”

“More than ever,” Borodev said.

“You have a life back in Russia, my friend, remember? You’re an airman and an officer in the Russian air force.”

“You made a life for yourself back home — if they let you have one,” Borodev said, turning serious. “Wherever they send us after this is over, at least you’ll have your family with you. I won’t have shit.”

“You’ll be a hero,” Leborov said. “You’ll spend the rest of your military career explaining how in hell you survived penetrating Canadian and American air defenses and bombing the shit out of them.”

The copilot laughed. “I think I prefer the dancing bear, Joey,” he said. “But I’ll make sure you’re on your way home first, don’t worry.” Leborov didn’t respond — he didn’t want to continue this line of discussion at all.

“Coming up on the turnpoint,” the navigator said.

“There’s another good reason to stay in Canada, my friend,” Borodev said. “Great Bear Lake. One of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, and by far the best trout fishing on Earth. I read they catch trout out of that lake that take two men to carry. A busboy at one of their fishing lodges makes more money in one month than flying officers in the Russian air force make all year.”

“You’re fucked in the head, pal.”

The navigator gave a heading correction that would take them east of the lake. Although there was nothing in the area this time of year except caribou, grizzly bears, and oil rigs, overflying the lake would highlight them from any air patrols they might encounter.

“Forty minutes to launch point, crew,” the navigator said.

“Stop with the damned countdown, nav,” Leborov said irritably. He took a few whiffs of oxygen to try to calm his nerves. “Just let us know when you’re starting your checklists — everyone else is configured for weapon release. Let’s do a station check and then—”

Suddenly they all heard the slow warning tone over their headphones. “UHF search radar, two o’clock,” the electronic-warfare officer reported.

“Search radar? From where?”

“Airborne radar, probably an AWACS,” the EWO said.

“Want to step it down to one hundred meters?” Borodev asked.

“If it’s an AWACS, it won’t matter how low we go — it’ll find us,” Leborov said grimly. “Our only hope is to try to shoot it down before they—”

Just then they heard another warning tone. “Fighter radar sweep, two o’clock,” the EWO reported. “X-band, probably a Canadian CF-18 Hornet. It’s down — AWACs will take over the hunt.”

“—send in fighters,” Leborov said, finishing his sentence. “Let’s get up to launch altitude.” They had no choice. They had to climb to one thousand meters aboveground to launch a Kh-31 from the bomb bay.

“Airborne search radar changing from long-range scan to fast PRF height-finder scan. I think they spotted us. Jammers on. All countermeasures active.”

“I need a fire-control solution right now, EWO,” Leborov said.

“No azimuth or range data yet.”

“Damn it, EWO, you gave me the azimuth a moment ago!”

“That was a rough estimate off the warning receiver,” the electronic-warfare officer retorted. “The fire-control receiver hasn’t computed a launch bearing.”

“I don’t want excuses, I need to attack!” Leborov shouted. “That Hornet will be on us any moment now!”

“No azimuth yet…”

“Don’t wait for the fire-control computer!” Leborov screamed. “Fire a missile at the last known azimuth. Make them take the first move!”

There was a short pause, then, “Stand by for missile launch, crew! Consent switches.”

“Consent!” Leborov shouted, flipping three red guarded switches up. “Shoot, damn it!”

“Bomb doors coming open!” the EWO shouted. Seconds later there was a deep rumbling sound as the Tupolev-95’s massive bomb doors swung open. “Missile away!” Both pilots shielded their eyes as a tremendous streak of fire illuminated the cabin and an impossibly loud roaring sound drowned out even the thunder of the Tu-95’s turbo-props. The first Kh-31P missile fired ahead of the bomber on its solid rocket booster, then started its climb.

Seconds later: “AWACS radar down!” the EWO crowed. The missile launch had its desired effect — the AWACS crew shut down its radar to escape the missile. Moments later: “X-band radar, CF-18 Hornet, three o’clock!”

Leborov immediately performed a “notch,” turning the Tu-95 hard right, directly over Great Bear Lake. He was hoping to maneuver until he was flying perpendicular to the Hornet’s flight path, which would blank out the Russian bomber from the Hornet’s pulse-Doppler radar. It seemed a little ridiculous trying to hide a huge, lumbering rhinoceros like the Tu-95 from an advanced interceptor like the CF-18 Hornet, but for the sake of his crew, he had to try everything.

“Hornet’s at nine o’clock…wait…fast PRF, Hornet has reacquired…Hornet is locked on…chaff, chaff, pilot hard turn left.” Leborov threw the Tupolev-95 into a hard left turn, hoping now to cut down on their radar cross-section and make the enemy fighter’s radar track the decoy chaff and not the plane. “Hornet’s…wait…Hornet’s turning northeast…Hornet’s locked on…missile launch, missile launch, break…Wait…he’s not tracking us…I’m picking up the uplink for an AMRAAM launch, but it’s not aimed at us…another missile launch!”

Leborov twisted the microphone-select switch on his intercom panel to the formation frequency. “Heads up, guys, the bastard’s firing!”

“Second Hornet, eight o’clock. Hard turn left, heading one-two-zero…possibly a third Hornet in formation…”

Suddenly they heard on the command channel, “We’re hit, we’re hit, One-seven. Initiating bailout. We are—” And the radio went dead.

“We lost One-seven,” Borodev said.

“Bandits, seven o’clock high, six K!” their tail gunner shouted over the intercom.

“No RWR contact,” the electronic warfare officer said. “He must be using a night-attack system, or night-vision goggles.” They heard the chatter and felt the heavy vibration as the Tu-95’s big twin twenty-three-millimeter tail cannons opened fire. Moments later they heard the roar of powerful jet engines overhead as the Hornets sped past. Like a shark that brushes up against its prey to taste it before attacking, the crew knew that the Hornets’ first pass was an identification run — they’d close in for the kill on the next pass.

“AWACS radar back up,” the EWO reported. “Our first missile must’ve missed.”

“Nail that bastard, EWO!” Leborov shouted.

“No fire-control solution yet.”

“Bandit, five o’clock, seven K,” the gunner reported. “Coming in fast…six K, five K…”

“Fire-control solution resolved and entered!” the EWO shouted. “I got it! Stay wings-level! Bomb doors coming open!” Seconds later they launched their second Kh-31 missile. The two pilots watched as the missile seemed to shoot straight up in front of them, and they heard the sonic boom as it broke the sound barrier. “AWACS radar down… — 31 is going active… — 31 is homing, it’s locked on!” The pilots were surprised when, in another instant, they saw a tremendous flash of light off in the distance, and a large streak of fire slowly tumbled across the night sky, with burning pieces of debris breaking off and fluttering to Earth.

“You got it!” Borodev shouted. “You got the AWACS! Good shoo—”

At that moment they heard the tail guns firing again. “Bandit five o’clock four K!” the tail gunner screamed. They couldn’t maneuver while the Kh-31 was being launched, and so they were sitting ducks for the Canadian Hornet. Seconds later the Tupolev-95 rumbled and vibrated as several huge sledgehammer-like blows rippled across its fuselage and wings. One engine on the left wing surged and bucked, yawing the bomber violently from side to side as Leborov fought for control. “Second bandit is at seven o’clock high, six K…. He’s coming down…five…four….” The tail guns opened fire again — and then abruptly stopped. It seemed there was a moment of eerie silence.

And then more hammer blows pelted the bomber. A flash of light illuminated the cabin. “Fire, fire, fire, engine number four!” Borodev screamed. As Leborov pulled the appropriate prop lever to FEATHER, brought the throttle to idle, and pulled the condition lever to SHUT DOWN, Borodev pulled the emergency fire T-handle, shut off fuel to the number-four engine, and isolated its electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic systems.

“The number-two -90 is still reporting okay,” the bombardier said. “I can see the fire on number four — it’s still on fire! I’m preparing to jettison the number-two missile.”

“No!” Leborov shouted. “We didn’t come all this way just to jettison the missiles!”

“Joey, if that missile cooks off, it’ll blow us into a billion pieces,” Borodev said.

“Then launch the bastard instead!”

“We’re still forty minutes from our launch point.”

“Forget the planned launch point!” Leborov shouted. “Replan the missiles for closer targets.”

“But…how can we…I mean, which ones?”

“Get on the damned radio and coordinate retargeting with the rest of the formation,” Leborov said. “We’ve been discovered — I think we can break radio silence now. Then radio to the other formations and have them retarget as well. You’re the formation leader — you tell them what targets to hit. Hurry! Navigator, help him.”

“Ack-acknowledged.” The bombardier switched radio channels and immediately began issuing orders to the other planes. Each bomber’s attack computers had been programmed with the same set of target coordinates, so it was a simple matter to look up the targets farther north within range and reprogram the computer. Finally the bombardier radioed the second flight of Tu-95 bombers that they were changing their targets and taking their target sets, so the second formation could reprogram their computers for targets farther south.

It was very quiet in the cockpit for several long moments, but suddenly the pilots saw a large red RYADAM light illuminate on their forward eyebrow panel. “I have a SAFE IN RANGE light, bombardier.”

“Acknowledged. Consent switches.”

“Bandit, eight o’clock high, seven K…”

“Consent! Launch the damn missiles!”

The RYADAM light began to blink. “Missiles counting down…Start a slow climb, pilot, wings-level….”

“Six K…five K…”

The RYADAM light went to steady as the tail started violently swaying from side to side. “Hold the nose steady, pilot!”

“I think we’re losing the number-three engine,” Borodev said. “Oil pressure is surging…losing control of prop pitch on the number-six propeller…. Should I shut it down?”

“No. I’ll hold it.” Leborov took a crushing grip on the control wheel, and he was practically lifting himself off the seat as his feet danced on the rudder pedals to keep the tail following the nose.

The RYADAM light began to blink once more — the first missile was counting down again. Suddenly the light flashed brightly. “Missile one away!” the bombardier shouted. There was nothing for what seemed like a very long time — and then there was an earsplitting roar that seemed a thousand times louder than the Kh-31’s rocket-motor ignition, and the first Kh-90 missile fired ahead, then started a steep climb and fast acceleration, disappearing quickly into the night sky. “Missile two counting down…”

Just then they heard the gunner yell something — and then an instant later the number-one engine blew apart in a dramatic shower of fire. An AIM-9L Sidewinder missile launched from one of the Canadian CF-18 Hornets had found its mark.

“Fire, fire, fire on engine number one!” Leborov shouted as he pulled prop, throttle, and condition levers. “Shut down number one!” He glanced at the RYADAM light — it was steady, the missile holding its launch countdown until the proper aircraft flight parameters were met. Leborov struggled to keep the plane steady, but it seemed to be swaying, yawing, and turning in every direction at once.

“Number one isn’t shutting down!” Borodev shouted.

“What?”

“Fuel control must’ve been cut — I can’t shut off fuel to the engine. It’s still burning. I can’t isolate hydraulics or bleed air either.”

The cabin started to fill with smoke, getting heavier and heavier by the second. “Crew, bail out, bail out, bail out!” Leborov ordered.

“I’ll take it, Joey,” Borodev said, grasping the control wheel.

“Negative. Blow the hatch and get the hell out.”

“I told you before, Joey — I’m staying here, in Canada,” Borodev said, a smile on his face. “You have someone to go home to, remember? You’re a family man now. I’m staying.”

“Yuri…”

“I have the airplane,” Borodev said. He jabbed a thumb aft. “Get going, Commander.”

Leborov could see that he wasn’t going to change his copilot’s mind, so he quickly unstrapped, pressed the ESCAPE button, then patted Borodev on the shoulder. “Thank you, Yuri,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll see you on the ground, Joey. Get going. I’ve got work to do.” Borodev started concentrating on keeping the plane steady so that the last remaining missile could continue its countdown.

Caution lights illuminated on the forward instrument panel as both the bombardier and gunner blew their escape hatches. The flight engineer, navigator, and electronic-warfare officer were already on the lower deck. The lower entry hatch was open and the escape slide rail extended. They attached their parachute slide rings to the rail, faced aft, put one hand on the emergency parachute D-ring, one hand on the rail, and dropped through the hatch. The escape slide rail kept the crew members from getting caught in the bomber’s slipstream and sucked back into the fuselage. At the end of the rail, a mechanism pulled the automatic parachute-activation knob, which used a barometric device to control parachute opening — since they were at very low altitude, the pilot chute came out immediately, followed by the main chute less than a second later.

Leborov was the last man under a parachute. At first he couldn’t believe how quiet it was. He could hear a faint humming sound, probably his Tupolev-95 flying away, but he thought it must be very far away, because he could barely hear the sound. He wondered how far….

And then the silence was shattered by an incredibly deafening roar, and a tongue of flame seemed to erupt right in front of his face. It was the last Kh-90 missile: Yuri Borodev had managed to keep the stricken bomber straight enough for the missile to finish its countdown.

Leborov pulled a parachute riser so he could turn around — and then he saw the missile streaking away into the night sky, followed by a stream of fire arcing off to the right. It was the Tupolev-95, its leftmost engine burning fiercely. As he drifted down in his parachute, he saw the fire completely consume, then burn apart, the left wing. Leborov scanned the underside of the fuselage in the glow of the fire, hoping he could catch a glimpse of his copilot sliding out of the hatch. But soon the bomber spiraled into the darkness and crashed into the tundra below, and Leborov never saw if Borodev exited.

He hit the hard, half-frozen ground a few moments later, in the typical aircrew member’s parachute-landing fall — feet, butt, and head. Dazed, Leborov just lay on his back, not daring to move. The still-billowing parachute tugged at his harness, asking to be released, but he ignored it. If the parachute dragged him, he didn’t much care right now.

As he lay there trying to recover his senses, he saw them — streaks of fire across the clear night sky. His teammates had done it — one by one they were launching their missiles, too. He lost count after fifteen, but they kept on coming. He blinked every time a sonic boom rolled across him, but it was a happy sound.

The sound of success.

Tell Village to launch every plane they’ve got to their patrol orbits now,” Joanna Kearsage said. “Armed or unarmed, get them up in the air before they get their asses blown away. Order Ferry and Argus to get their alert planes up into their patrols as well, and tell Vigil and Feast to disperse all available aircraft.” Those were the other air-defense units in central Canada and the western United States — she needed to get as many planes into the sky as she could to deal with the bombers attacking Alaska.

“Warning, MWC detects multiple strategic events via DSP three in central Canada,” the Missile Warning Center’s senior controller reported. “MWC determines the events are hostile. This is not a drill. We confirm, repeat confirm, multiple missile launches. Track and impact estimations in progress.”

Joanna Kearsage nearly catapulted out of her seat as she saw the numerous lines beginning to appear over the map of Canada. Swearing softly to herself, she lifted a clear plastic cover on a button on her console and pressed it, waiting for it to turn from red to green. When it did — signifying that everyone on the NORAD Aerospace Reporting System network was online — she said, “Warning, warning, warning, this is Anchor with a Flash Top Secret PINNACLE FRONT BURNER report. Missile Warning Center has detected numerous events over central Canada and is resolving track and impact predictions. This is not a drill. All stations stand by.”

It was her second warning in just the past few minutes — the first being the attacks in Alaska by bombers carrying cruise missiles. This was no rogue or terrorist action — this was an all-out attack on the United States ofAmerica!

“Triple-C, ADOC, Village reports fighters have engaged multiple Russian bomber aircraft, Tupolev-95 Bear-H bombers,” the senior controller of the Air Defense Operations Center cut in. “The bombers are launching small missiles from their bomb bays and have apparently shot down the AWACS—”

“They what?”

“—and the Bear bombers have also launched larger missiles from wing pylons. Each Bear seems to have two very large wing missiles and an unknown number of the smaller missiles in its bomb bays.”

“How many Bear bombers, ADOC?”

“They’ve counted over a dozen so far, Triple-C, and there may be many more,” the ADOC controller replied. “They’ve shot down three so far. There’s only two CF-18 Hornets up there, and without the AWACS they don’t have a complete picture.”

Kearsage keyed the Aerospace Reporting System button again: “Warning, warning, warning, all stations, NORAD air forces have engaged multiple Russian bomber aircraft, position near Great Bear Lake in Alberta, Canada. Enemy aircraft have been observed launching multiple hypersonic attack missiles. All NORAD regions are being ordered to launch alert aircraft to their assigned patrol orbits and to launch all other flyable aircraft to dispersal or survival anchors immediately.”

The phone lights started blinking, but all Kearsage could see were the growing track lines of missiles speeding south toward the United States. She flipped open her codebook to the next section and started to compose a new missile-track report, working as quickly as she could: “Warning, warning, warning, all stations, Missile Warning Center issues the following special hostile track report Sierra-Bravo-seven. AWACS issues Flash special hostile track report Tango-Alpha-one-three, stand by for—”

And then she stopped. Because now the computers were issuing their predictions for missile impacts. Her mouth dropped open in surprise. The codebook forgotten, she pressed the ARS button and spoke, “All units, this is Anchor, inbound track reports…missile targets — Oh, my God, we’re under attack! America is under attack. For God’s sake, America is under attack!”