Plan of Attack

2

What in hell do you mean, you don’t know where it came from?” Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, commander of Eighth Air Force, thundered. Terrill Samson was a truly imposing man, even when seated, and a few of the staff members arrayed around him in the headquarters battle-staff area jumped when he shouted, even though they were accustomed to his loud, frequent outbursts. “A Russian bomber completely wipes out a CIA field-operations base in Uzbekistan, and you’re telling me we still don’t know where it came from or what weapon it used, General McLanahan? It didn’t just pop up out of nowhere!”

“Sir, we’re working on it,” Patrick McLanahan said. He was speaking via secure videoconference from the Command and Operations Center of the Air Intelligence Agency at its headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. “The Nine-sixty-sixth should have that information shortly. We have almost constant surveillance on every Russian bomber base west of the Urals. So far every one of those bases’ normal inventory has been accounted for—”

“What about Engels’s bombers, General?” Major General Gary Houser asked.

“Sir, we still have no firm estimates on how many planes survived, how many damaged planes were reconstituted, or where any survivors were relocated,” Patrick responded. Engels Air Base in southwestern Russia was the largest bomber base in Russia and the headquarters of Aviatsiya Voyska Strategischeskovo Naznacheniya (A-VSN), or Strategic Aviation Force, Russia’s intercontinental-bomber command, composed of subsonic Tupolev-95 Bear bombers, supersonic Tupolev-160 “Blackjack” bombers, Ilyushin-78 “Midas” aerial-refueling tankers, and Tupolev-16 “Badger” tankers and electronic-warfare aircraft. “Our poststrike intelligence after the raid reported twelve possible Backfire survivors, plus another ten with only minor damage. The base itself is still not operational, but it may be usable, so it’s likely that any surviving bombers could have made it out.”

“Engels’s bombers, eh?” Samson muttered, shaking his head. “I should have known.” It was well known throughout the command — and most of the world — that Patrick McLanahan’s former unit, the Air Battle Force, had conducted a surprise bombing raid on Engels Air Base. During the conflict with Turkmenistan, Russia was about to initiate a massive bomber raid from Engels against government and Taliban troops threatening Russian bases and interests in that oil-rich country. Using his fleet of unmanned long-range bombers launched from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Patrick had destroyed several Russian bombers on the ground at Engels, damaged several more, and severely damaged the base itself.

Although Patrick’s raid had halted the conflict in Turkmenistan and allowed United Nations peacekeepers to enter that country safely and establish a cease-fire, most of the U.S. government, the Pentagon, and the world had blamed Patrick McLanahan for the rising tensions between Russia and the United States. No one expected him still to be wearing an American military uniform, let alone a general’s star.

Least of all Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, Patrick’s new boss.

“We’ve tried to account for the survivors, through surveillance as well as through diplomatic channels, but have not been successful,” Patrick went on. “We should have an answer shortly as to where they came from. The Russians are bound by the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty to state exactly how many long-range bombers they have and their precise location; under the Open Skies Treaty, we have a right to verify that information ourselves. Russia can’t legally withhold that information. We will—”

“General McLanahan, thanks to your unsanctioned, wasteful, and wholly unnecessary attack on Engels, we will be lucky to get any cooperation from Russia on any aspect of the CFE or SALT agreements,” Samson interrupted. “You will make it your top priority to find out exactly where those bombers came from and what Russia’s current long-and medium-range strike capability is. I want that info on my desk in twenty-four — no, I want it in eight hours, in time for the next scheduled battle-staff meeting. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly, sir.” Patrick knew that was all his staff had been working on ever since U.S. Strategic Command alerted them of the attack — they would have the info ready by then.

“What do you know about the attack?” Samson asked heatedly.

“Reports from Uzbek air-traffic-control authorities in Tashkent have confirmed that the aircraft that crossed over from Russia was a Tupolev-22M bomber, call sign Mirny-203,” Patrick said. “Air-traffic controllers from Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, reported the bomber to Tashkent but did not provide any flight-plan information. The aircraft was spotted about one hundred and seventy-five miles north of the Uzbek border by radar operators at Tashkent before the radars were knocked off the air and communications were disrupted.

“The Russians have one missile with that kind of range: the AS-17, code name ‘Krypton,’ ” Patrick went on. “The AS-17 is an antiradar weapon designed to exceed the range and performance numbers of the Patriot antiaircraft missile. However, the AS-17 was not originally designed to be fired from the Tupolev-22M. One AS-17 apparently malfunctioned and crashed in the desert in Kazakhstan.”

“CIA will undoubtedly send out teams to recover data on that lost missile,” Houser said. “I’ll have the info as soon as they get it.”

“Sir, we’ve heard from CIA, and because of the strike against their base, they’re not prepared to mount a covert mission into Kazakhstan to retrieve the missile,” Patrick said. “Colonel Griffin has put together a mission plan for your approval. He can deploy with a team, or we can brief a team based in—”

“So Griffin wants to lead another covert-ops team into Central Asia, eh?” Houser asked derisively. “He obviously thinks he’s the newest action hero now.”

“Sir, no other agencies have offered to get that data for us,” Patrick said, daring to show his exasperation at Houser’s remark, “and if I may remind you, we have very few military or intelligence assets in place in that region since the United Nations Security Council ordered us to leave so they could install peacekeeping forces. If we want a chance to get that data, Colonel Griffin needs an execution order immediately. We can have him and his team deploy immediately to—”

“I think Colonel Griffin has stirred up enough shit in Central Asia for the time being,” Houser interjected. “Although we certainly applaud him for successfully retrieving General Turabi of Turkmenistan, who has proved to be an extremely valuable source of information on the Russians’ advance into Mary, it is clear now that the Russians felt threatened and retaliated against what they thought was a CIA operation. In addition, I personally feel that I was led astray by General Luger at Battle Mountain. Colonel Griffin took an awful risk by going on this mission, an especially unnecessary risk considering all the forces Battle Mountain had available.”

“Sir, Colonel Griffin’s plan utilizes forces based in—”

“General Houser said he’d discuss this with you later, General McLanahan,” Samson cut in irritably. “Can we get on with the briefing, please?”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick said. “The antiradar missiles flew for approximately one hundred and thirty miles. Speed of each missile was in excess of Mach three. They were on a ballistic flight path at first, but during descent the radar operators said the missiles made minute course changes that placed them precisely on target, indicating that perhaps the missiles were operator-or GPS-guided, not just inertially guided. This matches the AS-17’s flight profile. They scored direct hits on the Uzbek radar sites.

“As far as the attack on Bukhara itself — it’s still a mystery, sir,” Patrick admitted. “Observers near the impact points there, including a couple surviving CIA operatives, reported the explosions were tremendous, perhaps five-hundred-pound high-explosive warheads.”

“You have nothing?” Samson asked. “No leads at all?”

“We’re investigating a few uncorrelated bits of data, sir,” Patrick replied. “Greatly increased air traffic in eastern Siberia and a few rocket launches from test-launch sites in Siberia detected by DSP satellites apparently shot into the Kazakh missile-test ranges. So far nothing that could give us any clues on the attack all the way west in Uzbekistan.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be wasting your time on these other ‘uncorrelated bits of data,’ as you call them,” Samson said. “Any conclusions at all to report to us?”

“Sir, it appears that the missiles shot from the Backfire were intended to screen the real attack on the CIA headquarters in Uzbekistan,” Patrick went on. “The AS-17 is designed to be launched from tactical fighter-bombers, so the existence of these weapons on large bombers is a new development for the Russians: using tactical precision-guided weapons on strategic bombers instead of just long-range subsonic cruise missiles. It appears that the Russians had excellent intel and acted on it remarkably quickly. They knew exactly when and where to hit. They probably loaded those bombers within hours of the mission to exfiltrate Turabi and launched the attack immediately.

“I feel that this indicates a substantial increase in the capabilities and effectiveness of the Russian heavy-bomber forces. Wherever these bombers came from, they were highly modified and their crews trained to levels of proficiency and tactical coordination that rival our own. They obviously used sophisticated covert bases, perhaps underground or well-camouflaged facilities, and a supply system that is many times faster and more efficient than—”

“General McLanahan, I know you’re new to the Air Intelligence Agency and the Nine-sixty-sixth Wing, so I’ll give you a pass on this one,” Gary Houser said. “But in the future when you brief the command or battle staffs, we expect facts, not interpretation. And the facts are that you still don’t know where those bombers came from or where they went. That’s what we need to know. Is that clear, General?”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick responded. Houser looked at the darkened glassed-in booth where the communications officers sat and drew a finger across his throat. Moments later the link between Barksdale and Lackland was terminated.

“Let’s go on with the status of forces,” Samson said, giving the screen on which McLanahan had appeared one last disgusted glance that was very apparent, even across the secure videoconference network. “General?”

Conducting his briefing from his seat, in Samson’s preferred style, the Eighth Air Force deputy commander for operations and the acting vice commander, Brigadier General Charles C. Zoltrane, pressed a button on his console to call up his first PowerPoint slide. “Yes, sir. Currently all wings are reporting one hundred percent conventional-combat-ready.”

“Conventional only? What’s the nuclear side looking like?”

“Due to our conventional mission commitments, the lack of airframes and crews, and lower funding levels, we can meet approximately sixty percent taskings for Single Integrated Operations Plan missions, sir,” Zoltrane said. “The crews and the planes are simply not available for certification. The B-2 stealth bombers are in the best shape at seventy percent, but the B-52s are at only fifty percent — and I think that’s being generous.”

Samson thought about the news for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, if STRATCOM wants more planes ready for SIOP missions, they’re going to have to send me more money and more airframes,” he said. STRATCOM, or U.S. Strategic Command, was the unified military command in charge of planning and fighting a nuclear conflict. STRATCOM did not “own” any aircraft — like every unified command, STRATCOM “gained” aircraft from other major commands, such as nuclear bombers, intelligence-gathering aircraft, and strategic command-and-control planes, from Eighth Air Force.

“We can bring some planes out of flyable storage to have available for SIOP planning if necessary,” Zoltrane said. The fly-stores, or “flyable storage,” were the planes held in a sort of maintenance limbo — it was a way to save costs while maintaining a large fleet capable of fighting with minimal preparation. Two-thirds of the long-range bombers allocated to both Eighth and Twelfth Air Forces were in flyable storage at any one time.

“How many planes were we budgeting to come out of fly-store this year?”

“Through the normal rotation? Thirty-six B-52s and—”

“No, I meant planes coming out of fly-store to augment the fleet. How many?”

“Well…none, sir,” Zoltrane responded. “But we’re technically non-mission-ready if STRATCOM wants to put any bombers on alert. We’d have to—”

“That’s STRATCOM’s problem, not mine,” Samson said. “They know hour by hour how many planes we have available. If they notice our shortage, they’re not saying anything, which means they don’t want to deal with the budget crunch either.”

“Sir, we have to do something — at least notify the Pentagon that we’re low,” Zoltrane said. “It’ll take weeks, maybe months, for some of those bombers to be mission-ready out of flyable storage. If we start now, maybe we can stop the process before we break the bank, or maybe we’ll get interim funding later on. But we can’t just—”

“Okay, okay, Charlie, I get the picture,” General Samson said irritably. “Have the wings start pulling fly-stores out right away — see if they can put it under an exercise budget, or if they’re close enough to their cycle periods anyway, have them pull their allotments early.” Planes in flyable storage had to be rotated out every six months, brought back up to full combat readiness, and flown for a specified number of hours before being put back in fly-store. Because of arms-control limitations and other political considerations, there was usually no rush to do this, and in fact many planes in flyable storage went over their six-month time limit or were never brought back up to full combat-ready status. In effect they became “hangar queens,” a source of cannibalized parts. It was an unfortunate fact of life for the Air Force’s bomber fleet. “I want it done quietly. I don’t want it to appear like we’re mobilizing any long-range strategic forces.”

“Yes, sir,” Zoltrane said.

“This really sucks,” Samson said. “We’re forced to spend money on spinning up the fly-stores, while McLanahan and Luger get their pick of the best airframes to do their Q-conversion — and then we can’t even use the damned things because no one except the weenies at Battle Mountain knows how they work.” The Q-conversion was the outrageous plan recently approved by the Pentagon to modify a number of B-1 and B-52 bombers to unmanned combat-strike missions, reconnaissance, and suppression of enemy air defense. The 111th Bomb Wing at Battle Mountain had developed the capability to control a number of bombers for global-combat sorties without putting one human being in harm’s way. “They have code-one airframes and crews out there in Battle Mountain just twiddling their thumbs while the rest of the command has to bust our butts just to get to minimum force levels.

“And even if we had them, we don’t even know how to employ robot planes,” Samson went on. “It’s just like the Turkmenistan UN Security Council surveillance mission all over again — if we want to use them, we have to put one of their Trekkies in charge. I think we could stand David Luger or Rebecca Furness in our headquarters for a short period of time, but if they have to start bringing guys like Daren Mace or their civilian contractors Masters or Duffield in here, they’d drive us crazy in no time. No thanks. I’d rather spend the money and bring some of our fly-stores online before I bring in anyone from Battle Mountain.” He turned to the next officer at the conference table. “Gary, I hope you have better news for me.”

“Yes, sir, I do,” Major General Gary Houser said. “The good news is, one hundred percent of our spacecraft are operational, and we have complete overhead coverage of Central Asia and southwestern Russia; all reconnaissance and surveillance air wings are fully combat-ready, and sortie completion rates are over ninety percent. True, we didn’t see the air raid on Bukhara coming, and I will personally find out where the deficiency is and fix it. But now we have almost constant electronic surveillance on the entire region, and if the Russians try to make another move, we’ll know about it.”

“Good work,” Samson said. “I’m going to be relying on you for the best and latest intel, Gary. I expect to be called to the Pentagon soon, maybe even the White House, and I need a constant stream of updates.”

“You should let me handle the heat from Washington, sir,” Houser said. “You’ll have enough on your plate here organizing the force. Leave the intel mumbo jumbo to me.”

“Wouldn’t be offering just so you can get more face time with the honchos in Washington, would you, Gary?”

Houser smiled conspiratorially. “Never crossed my mind, sir. I’ll play it any way you’d like.”

“For now I’ll take the meetings in Washington or Offutt or wherever they send me, Gary,” Samson said. “If we start sending strikers overseas, and they deploy me as part of the air staff, you may have to stand in during the intel briefs. That’s your area of expertise.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, here’s my take on the attack, based on what we know, folks,” Samson said, addressing everyone in the room. “I believe that this attack on Bukhara was an isolated reaction by General Gryzlov. He got his butt kicked by us at Engels and twice in Turkmenistan, and he lashed out. We’ve seen this kind of massive aerial assault recently in Chechnya — he does it for show, then backs off.

“But I believe that Gryzlov is under a lot of pressure from his military to retaliate against us, so he won’t stand for any more attacks against Russian military forces, but the size and scope of this attack leads me to believe that this is not a prelude to a wider confrontation. Does anyone see any indication that he wants a war with us?” No response from the staff members.

“Then I think we concur. The CIA operation in Turkmenistan was discovered, they had to fight their way out, they killed some Russians, and the Russians retaliated by bombing their field-operations base. I’ll recommend to Air Combat Command and the Air Force that we step up monitoring and surveillance, but we feel that the Russians have shot their wad.

“What I need is a profile of Russian forces in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf and a look at other potential targets,” Samson ordered. “If you think a fight is possible anywhere in the region, I want analysis on where, when, and how, and I want a plan of action on what we should do about it. Naturally, the plan of action should place Eighth Air Force commanders in charge and assets at the pointy end of the spear, especially intelligence, reconnaissance, and information-warfare activities. Yes, make sure you emphasize joint warfighting — that’s the important buzzword these days, and if you use it in your planning, you’re likely to get your plan noticed. But the lead agency and the first units in combat should be the Mighty Eighth in every way possible.

“Next I want to make sure that every man and woman in this command — and every piece of hardware from the biggest bomber to the smallest microchip — is one hundred and ten percent ready to deploy and fight on a moment’s notice. I want to be able to tell the Pentagon and the White House that we can send any unit, any weapon system, and every airman under my command anywhere on the globe just by picking up a telephone.

“However, it is essential to remember that, until ordered to do so, we must not appear as if we are stepping up our posture or readiness for a shooting war,” Samson went on. “This means you cannot step up orders for weapons, fuel, and supplies or increase your normal air order of battle. Your units need to prepare as much as possible within the current posture, but no one receives any more planes, weapons, supplies, or fuel than they’re currently allotted.

“Finally, I want problems handled in-house, and I want strict, tight control on information and intelligence,” Samson said, his voice low and menacing. “Every piece of data that we collect stays in this command unless I authorize its release. If your staffs find a problem or think they find something important, it doesn’t leave the command unless this battle staff sees it, deals with the problem, and releases the information with a solution attached. No one, and I mean no one, breaks the chain of command. The buck will stop right here, and I will destroy the airman and his supervisor if I find out that he or she takes key information and upchannels it outside the command without my signature. If we generate it, it stays with us. Is that perfectly clear?” Heads nodded all around. “Anything else for me?” The battle staff knew better than to speak — they knew that the boss was done with the meeting. Any other questions were expected to go to the deputy commanders. “Good. Dismissed.”

As usual, Gary Houser and Charles Zoltrane stayed behind with Terrill Samson after the others had departed. “I apologize for McLanahan’s performance today, sir,” Houser said. “He’s new to the post, and he obviously thinks he can run things like he did at Battle Mountain and Dreamland. It won’t happen again.”

“You know McLanahan as well as I do, Gary,” Samson said. “He’s a smart and dedicated young officer who was detoured away from a successful career by some bad influences. He gets the job done by skirting the rules, just as Brad Elliott used to do. It’s too bad.”

“Don’t be sorry for him, sir,” Houser said. “I knew him before he joined up with Elliott, and he was an attitude case then, too. But back then the brass was letting guys slide if they made the wing king look good — and McLanahan was good, no doubt about that. He still thinks his shit doesn’t stink.”

“He’s probably better off retiring — in fact, that’s what I thought happened with him after I got him bounced out of Dreamland,” Samson said. “But he’s got balls of steel, loads of brain power, talented friends, and a real lock-and-load attitude that politicians like. He’s a survivor. Unfortunately, he’s your problem now, Gary.”

“We’ve had a heart-to-heart already, sir,” Houser said. “He won’t be a hassle for you.”

“After today’s performance I’d say you still have some work to do,” Samson said. “Just keep him in line and out of my face, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s your deputy, sir?” Zoltrane asked. “Have him give the Nine-sixty-sixth’s briefings from now on.”

“That’s Trevor Griffin.”

Zoltrane nodded, but Samson chimed in derisively, “You mean ’Howdy Doody’ on steroids? Shit, last time he gave the staff a briefing, all I could think of was Opie Taylor giving a book report in front of the Mayberry schoolmarm. Christ, where do we find these characters anyway?” Houser did not respond. “Just do what you need to do to keep your folks in line and functioning, Gary,” Samson went on. “We don’t need smart-asses like McLanahan giving us attitude in my battle-staff room. Clear?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

“See that you do.”

“One more matter for you, sir,” Houser said. “I wanted to ask you about the vice commander’s vacancy here at headquarters. We talked about moving me here to get some combat command time before we—”

“Everything’s on schedule, Gary,” Samson said. “The vacancy is still there. I need a firm commitment from the Pentagon about my fourth star and taking over Air Combat Command or STRATCOM. Once I hear for sure, I’ll install you here as the vice, so you’ll automatically take command when I leave. Don’t worry about it. It’s in the bag.”

“Yes, sir.” Houser didn’t sound convinced.

“I don’t think this recent flap with McLanahan will spoil things,” Samson added. “To the command, I jump in McLanahan’s shit; to Washington, I tone it down a little. A lot of folks like the son of a bitch. He’s still being considered for national security adviser, for Christ’s sake. The politicians like getting their pictures taken with a real-life aerial assassin. We’re below their radar screen, and we need to stay that way.

“Just keep McLanahan on a short leash. This nonsense about the Russians gearing up their bomber fleet has got to stay in this command, understand me? If word gets out, the politicians will wonder why we’re not doing something about it, and then we’ll look like jerks. If we play it cool, eventually McLanahan will resign to go work for Thorn, or he’ll resign to be with his family on the coast, or he’ll be shipped off to Dreamland and put back in his genie’s bottle until the next war, like his mentor, Elliott.”

“Yes, sir. I agree. You won’t have to worry about McLanahan, sir.”

Samson pulled out a cigar, lit it, then waved it at the door to dismiss Houser. The Air Intelligence Agency commander practically bowed before he headed out.

“I’ll get that order to gin up the fly-stores going right now, sir,” Zoltrane said, picking up a phone to his office.

Samson nodded as he puffed away. “It’s bad enough dealing with the Russians, Offutt, and Washington,” Samson muttered. “Now I have to deal with my own subordinate officers who might be ready to start rolling around on the deck during the storm, knocking guys into the ocean and wrecking my ship.”

“Sir, to be perfectly honest with you, I give McLanahan kudos for giving us that analysis so quick,” Zoltrane admitted as he waited for the secure connection to go through. “Part of the problem is that our guys are hesitant to upchannel their reports for fear of being labeled a crackpot or a nuisance. We want guys to give us educated opinions, and we want them soonest. McLanahan’s only been on the job a short time, but he put together a pretty good analysis of Russian bomber capabilities and potential.

“And Trevor Griffin shocked the hell out of me. The guy’s…what? In his mid to late forties? He climbs aboard an unmanned B-52 bomber, flies halfway around the world, then climbs into a high-tech Spam can and lets himself be dropped out of the damned bomb bay. Fuckin’ incredible. And he made it out of Turkmenistan, too, after the Russians attacked — that’s even more incredible. Maybe we should—”

“What? Let him have some satellites and maybe even some field operatives and send them into Russia looking for supersecret Backfire bombers?” Samson asked. “How the hell can you hide a Backfire bomber? And we know damned well the Russians aren’t modernizing Backfires — they’re scrapping them. McLanahan couldn’t possibly have collected enough information from that raid on Bukhara to come up with valid conclusions that warrant additional intel missions. He’s guessing, Charlie. We don’t waste our time or resources on guesses. We need some hard evidence before we can take a field-intel-ops plan to Air Combat Command or the Pentagon. And that goes triple for a proposed operation into Russia. McLanahan is guessing, plain and simple, and he wants to rub our noses in the fact that he’s here against his will.”

“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to pull shit like that, sir,” Zoltrane said, adding the word “sir” to distance himself from his own remark and defer to whatever his boss told him. He really didn’t know McLanahan that well, and he certainly knew his reputation — he was not about to defend the guy before he personally saw him in action. “He seems like a straight shooter to me.”

“I worked with him long enough at Dreamland to know that he’s a sidewinder, Charlie,” Samson said. “He’s quiet and hardworking, but when he decides he wants to do something, he’ll step over anyone to do the job — and if there aren’t enough bodies and careers piled up high enough to get him to where he want stobe, he’ll create more. The sooner we get his ass out of the Air Force — for good this time — the better.”

So how was your first battle-staff meeting?” Trevor Griffin asked when he met Patrick back in his office. The grin on his face told Patrick that he already knew the answer to that one.

“Just peachy,” Patrick said dryly.

“If you want me to take those briefings and catch some spears for you, say the word,” Griffin said. “I’m used to the abuse.”

“Nah, I can handle it,” Patrick said, grateful that at least he hadn’t been singled out for extra-special abuse. He smiled and asked, “What’s the matter — you don’t want to go jumping around with the Battle Force anymore?”

“Hey, I’ll do that mission again in a heartbeat — just don’t tell my wife I said that,” Griffin said. “Your guys out there are cosmic. You should be proud of the team you built. If they need me, I’m in.”

Patrick liked it when Griffin said “your guys,” even though he knew it wasn’t true. “You’re a Tin Man now and forever, Tagger — they’ll be calling on you, I guarantee it. So anything else pop up while I was in the staff meeting?”

“Not a thing.”

Patrick loosened his tie. “What about that missile launch that DSP discovered?”

“We’re waiting for word from the air attaché’s office in Geneva,” Griffin responded. “According to the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, Kazakhstan and Russia are supposed to inform the United Nations if they conduct any tests on missiles with a range longer than five hundred kilometers. There was nothing on the schedule for that missile DSP detected.” The DSP, or Defense Support Program, satellites were supersensitive heat-detecting satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit, designed to warn of ballistic-missile launches. DSP could pinpoint the launch point, report on the missle’s track and speed, and predict its impact point with a fair amount of accuracy. The satellites were designed to warn of intercontinental-ballistic-missile attack but had been amazingly effective in warning friendly forces of Iraqi SS-1 SCUD surface-to-surface missile attacks during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and had provided a good amount of warning time in the missile’s projected target area. “Naturally, Russia denies that it was one of theirs and told us to contact Kazakhstan; Kazakhstan said they don’t have big missiles like that and recommended we talk to the Russians.”

Patrick punched instructions into his computer, called up the DSP data on those rocket launches, and studied them for a moment. “Apparently launched north of Bratsk,” he muttered. “Any ICBMs based at Bratsk?”

“Not that anyone knows about,” Griffin replied. “Mobile SS-25s at Irkutsk and Kansk and silo-based SS-24s at Krasnoyarsk. They could have set up a new SS-25 ‘shell-game’ racetrack out there — it would be worth a look with a SAR or photo-satellite pass.”

“I’m going to need an update of all the Russian land-based missile forces, especially the mobile ones,” Patrick said. “What do we have to help us on that?”

“We dedicate an entire office to doing just that,” Griffin responded. “Six guys and girls in the Seventieth Intelligence Wing at Fort Meade do nothing else but download the latest satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office and track down every Russian SS-24 ‘Scalpel’ and SS-25 ‘Sickle’ road-or rail-mobile missile in the Russian inventory. They study the rail and roadways and monitor every known secure garage where the missiles are sent on exercises. They also keep an eye out for cheating, monitor arms-control compliance, and study the ways the Russians try to decoy or camouflage their missile shelters.”

“Oh?”

“We believe that the Russians are doing a deliberate poor-mouth routine to delay deactivating their biggest and best nuclear weapons, claiming they don’t have the money to dismantle and destroy some weapons,” Griffin explained. “The Scalpel is a perfect example. The SS-24 is a copy of our ‘Peacekeeper’ ICBM, which was originally designed to be rail-mobile but was converted to silo-launched basing. Like Peacekeeper, the SS-24 has a range of ten thousand miles, has ten multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, and is extremely accurate — it can threaten targets all across North America and even as far as the Hawaiian Islands.

“According to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty number two, the Russian SS-24s and the American Peacekeepers were supposed to be dismantled or converted to single-warhead missiles. Although we no longer have any Peacekeepers on alert, the rockets themselves are still stored in their silos, without any warheads, awaiting removal and disposal. The Russians claim that this is a technical violation, so they said they would keep an equal number of SS-24s on their launchers, without warheads. The Russians recently started moving these SS-24s around, like they move the SS-25s around, so we have to track them as well.”

“Is that a problem?”

“The Seventieth has a pretty good record of finding both missiles,” Griffin said. “The SS-24s mostly stay in their garrisons. The SS-25s are much harder, because they’re road-mobile and they have a fairly good off-road capability and can fire from just about anywhere on the road, thanks to an inertial-navigation system augmented with satellite positioning.”

“We have several airborne sensors that can scan wide areas of all sorts of terrain for targets like this,” Patrick said. “The Megafortresses have synthetic-aperture radar that can pick out something as large as an SS-25 launcher from three hundred miles away — even concealed in a forest or under netting — and see inside a garage at one hundred miles.”

“We can sure use them in treaty-compliance missions — not much chance of them authorizing us to fly a high-tech stealthy bomber over their missile-silo fields, though,” Griffin said. “Our imaging satellites do a pretty good job overall, and we correlate signals intelligence with vehicle movements to spot most movements — we keep the count up as high as eighty percent. Weather hampers their movements a bit, especially in the Far East theater, and many units traverse the same areas every time during routine deployments. The good thing is that for the past few years the SS-25s have stayed mostly in their storage areas.”

“Reason?”

“It’s four times as expensive to maintain the road-mobile missiles than it is the silo-based weapons,” Griffin explained. “In addition, the transporter-erector-launchers were built in Belarus, so the Russians have had a hard time getting spare parts and replacements after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The START II treaty limit of just one warhead on every land-launched missile means that the SS-25 has less ‘bang for the buck.’

“Of course, its survivability gives it a big edge, and the missiles can be fired from their garages as well, so they all have to be monitored even while parked. We watch the garrison areas carefully for any sign of movement, and we use satellite-based visual, radiological, and thermal identification methods for tracking and identifying each convoy. We think there are only two regiments, a total of eighty missiles, actually deployed in the field at any one time.”

“I think I need to get a status briefing from the Seventieth right away,” Patrick said. “What else does the Seventieth monitor?”

“Test launches,” Griffin said. “There is a missile test-firing range north of Bratsk that has been used in the past to test-launch mobile missiles, so no one was surprised at that DSP detection warning. But Russia hasn’t fired a missile into the old Kazakh test ranges since shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union — they usually fire shorter-range missiles north to the Pol’kino instrumented target complex, and longer-range missiles east to the Petropavlovsk Pacific range complex. Kazakhstan hasn’t specifically banned use of their old target ranges, but they haven’t allowed it either.”

Patrick nodded as he studied the DSP satellite data. After another few moments, he asked, “Can the DSP satellites give us the speed and direction of the missile?”

“Not exactly,” Griffin replied. “Lots of folks say that DSP has a ‘tracking’ function, but in fact it’s just a series of detector activations. Certain users, like NORAD, can derive speed and ground track from the detectors, but DSP itself doesn’t provide that information. Since DSP is a warning-and-reporting system, not a target-tracking system — ground-based radars like BMEWS and the new National Missile Defense System are meant for tracking missiles — and since the system is designed to track missiles inbound to North America, not to Central Asia, we don’t have that info.”

“I’d like to find out how fast that missile was going when it was first detected,” Patrick said.

“It may not be a very accurate number,” Griffin warned. “In essence, DSP looks directly down at Earth when it spots a missile exhaust plume. Because most missiles go up awhile before heading down-range, the speed turns out to be zero for the first minute or two. That’s why we sometimes get excited even when we detect a forest fire or oil-well fire in Russia — they all look the same for the first couple minutes, which is why NORAD is usually quick to blow the Klaxon if it sees a hot dot anywhere in-country.”

“Find out for me,” Patrick said.

“Sure. What are you thinking about, Patrick?”

“I’m thinking that uncorrelated target has something to do with the attack on Bukhara,” Patrick said. He drew an electronic line on the screen between the DSP target-track data points to plot a course — and they saw that the missile’s flight path took it directly to Bukhara.

“That could be a coincidence,” Griffin said. “The track also goes through the Kazakh missile ranges. We don’t know where the missile went after its motor burned out….”

“But you said the Russians haven’t been shooting missiles into Kazakhstan — which makes sense,” Patrick said. “Kazakhstan cooperates as much with the U.S. as it does with Russia. And we don’t exactly know where the missile or its payload impacted — we’re assuming it was the missile test ranges in Kazakhstan. Maybe it really hit in Bukhara. But if there are no silos and the Russians have never shot a missile from Bratsk before, maybe it wasn’t a ground-launched missile.”

“What else could it be?”

“An air-launched missile,” Patrick responded. “Ever hear of anything like that before?”

“An air-launched Mach-eight missile that can fly almost eighteen hundred miles? I seem to recall something like that, but it’s better to ask the expert.” Griffin picked up Patrick’s secure phone. “This is Colonel Griffin. Get Chief Master Sergeant Saks secure at NAIC, ASAP,” he asked Patrick’s clerk. To Patrick he said, “Don Saks is one of our ‘old heads’—he’s been around longer than just about everyone. He’s the NCOIC at the National Air Intelligence Center at Wright-Pat, which collects and disseminates information on enemy air-and-space weaponry. If it exists, ever existed, or was once on the drawing board, he’ll know all about it.” A few moments later, Griffin punched the speakerphone button on the phone and returned the receiver to its hook. “Chief? Tagger here, secure. I’m here at Lackland with General McLanahan.”

“Saks, secure. Hello, sirs. What can I do you for?”

“You’re the walking Russian threat encyclopedia and the Air Intelligence Agency’s Jeopardy! champ, so here goes: It’s a Russian long-range air-launched hypersonic attack missile.”

“Easy. What is the AS-X-19 ‘Koala’?” Saks answered immediately. “A combination of the obsolete AS-3 ’Kangaroo’ air-to-surface missile and the naval SS-N-24 long-range hypersonic ship-launched antiship missile. Russian designation Kh-90 or BL-10. First test-launched in 1988. Rocket-boosted to Mach two, then ramjet-powered, speed in excess of Mach eight, range in excess of fifteen hundred miles, cruises at seventy thousand feet altitude. Too big to fit inside a Blackjack bomber, but the Tupolev-95 Bear could carry two externally. The Tupolev-22M Backfire could carry three, although over very short distances — the suckers were supposed to be more than thirty feet long and weigh in excess of eight thousand pounds. The program was canceled in 1992, but rumors persisted that the Russians were going to build a shorter-range conventional-warhead version.”

“You mean, this AS-X-19 was supposed to have a nuclear warhead, Chief?” Patrick remarked.

“Every Russian air-launched weapon designed before 1991 was supposed to be able to carry a nuke, and the Koala was no exception, sir,” Saks replied. “The Koala was inertially guided, but the Russians had terrible inertial nav systems back then — the missile needed a nuke in order to destroy anything. They were experimenting with GLONASS-navigating ultraprecise missiles when the program was canceled. Why, sir?”

“We’re looking into a recent Russian missile launch to see if it was an air-or ground-launched bird.”

“Got radar data on it, sir?” Saks asked.

“Negative.”

“Any data on it? DSP perhaps?”

“That we got.”

“Get Space Command to give you the plume-illumination-rate levels from the satellite detectors,” Saks recommended. “They’ll squawk and say you’re not cleared for that info, but tell them you need it anyway. A ground-launched missile will have a huge and sustained first-stage plume, followed by a medium-size second-stage plume, followed by a long unpowered-coast phase. Air-launched missiles like the Kh-90 have a relatively small first stage — the carrier aircraft is actually considered the missile’s first stage — followed by a whopping big and sustained second stage, which sometimes continues through reentry and even to impact.”

“Would DSP be able to track the Koala during its ramjet-cruise phase?” Patrick asked.

“Probably not, sir,” Saks responded. “DSP needs a good hot flame, as from a chemical-reaction motor, versus an air-fuel motor like a ramjet. A ramjet is basically an air-breathing engine, like a turbojet, except it uses the Venturi shape of the combustion chamber, rather than vanes and rotating blades, to compress incoming air. Because there’s no moving parts that stall in supersonic air, the ramjet vehicle can fly several times faster than most turbojets or turboramjets. NORAD can tune DSP to pick up cooler heat sources such as from a ramjet engine, but then it’s more prone to false alarms, so they probably wouldn’t do it unless they had a really compelling reason. The HAVE GAZE and SLOW WALKER satellites — designed to detect and track stealth aircraft — might be able to pick them up, but they need a pretty solid aimpoint to start with.”

“Speed of a ballistic missile, range of a cruise missile — and a nuclear warhead to boot,” Griffin summarized. “Did you get the data on the antiradar missiles fired against Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan yesterday?”

“Yes, sir. Most certainly AS-17 ‘Krypton’ antiradar missiles, what the Russkies call the Kh-31P. It’s a knockoff of the French ANS supersonic antiship and antiradar missile. We’ve never seen them on Backfires before, but it makes total sense. It’s a pretty awesome threat. But if the Russians are flying Koalas now, that’s an even greater threat. The Russians practiced launching Koalas from everything from fighters to cargo planes, and even from airliners back in the eighties. Even a Patriot missile can’t catch up to it — it’s a hypersonic missile almost right up to impact.”

“Any more good news for us, Don?” Patrick asked wryly.

“Two things, sir: The Russians know superramjet technology,” Saks responded seriously. “If you think you saw a Koala test-fired lately, chances are they’ve got a bunch of them ready to go.”

“What’s the other thing, Don?”

“The Koala was originally designed to carry two independently targetable reentry vehicles,” Saks added. “They’d deploy at seventy to eighty thousand feet, which meant the two targets could be as far as sixty to seventy miles apart. Their accuracy back then was one to two hundred meters — but now, with GPS or GLONASS steering, they could have ten-to twenty-meter accuracy. Just thought you should know.”

Those words stayed with Patrick long after he hung up. “Tagger, we’re going to need to look at those uncorrelated contacts in Siberia,” he said finally. “We know that Backfire bombers were involved in that attack on Bukhara, and we know that they can carry both AS-17 and AS-19 missiles. The boss wants to know where that Backfire came from — but I want to know who launched that AS-19, and I want to know what else the Russians are doing with their bomber fleet. If this was some isolated incident, or if this was a prelude to some sort of bigger offensive in Turkmenistan or somewhere else, I want to find out about it.”

“I’ll get the ball rolling, Patrick,” Griffin said. “What’s your guess?”

“My guess is that this attack on Bukhara was an operational test mission,” Patrick said. “I’ve flown many of them myself with planes from Dreamland and from Battle Mountain. I think the Russians are getting ready to roll out a whole new attack system, based on long-range bombers. The addition of the Koala missile is the scariest part — with it they can hold thousands of targets in North America at risk.”

David Luger snatched up the secure telephone receiver as soon as he was told who was on the line. “Muck!” he exclaimed after logging in secure. “How are you, sir?”

“I’m fine, and I’m not ‘sir’ to you anymore,” Patrick responded.

“You’ll always be ‘sir’ to me, Muck,” Dave said. “How’s the Nine-sixty-sixth treating you?”

“Just fine,” Patrick responded. “Good bunch of guys. Some of the civilian contractors need a bath and a haircut, though.”

“Sounds like our kind of guys. And what’s it like to be hobnobbing with the numbered air force brass?”

“Remember the old saying about not wanting to watch how sausage is made?”

“Got it.”

“How are things out there?”

“Quiet and busy at the same time,” Dave replied. “Our tanker guys are getting plenty of work, but the bomber guys and UCAV operators are going stir-crazy. We had to fly the AL-52s back to the lake.” Even on a secure line, both parties hesitated to mention Dreamland or HAWC.

“I expected that to happen,” Patrick said. “We were spending their money but not keeping up with the test schedule.” The AL-52 Dragon airborne-laser anti-ballistic-missile aircraft was a test program initially begun at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC, the supersecret flight-test facility in south-central Nevada known as Dreamland. Patrick McLanahan brought the Dragons, the first operational aircraft to use a laser as their primary attack weapon, to Battle Mountain and created a combat unit based around these amazing planes. They were used over both Libya and Turkmenistan with outstanding results, against both air and ground targets and on targets as small as a heat-seeking missile and as large as a Russian MiG-29 supersonic fighter. But technically the planes still belonged to Dreamland, because Patrick didn’t have an official budget. “Too bad. Are they going to continue the program?”

“Hard to tell. The Cobra program is doing well — they should deploy their first operational aircraft ahead of schedule.” The YAL-1A Cobra was an airborne chemical-oxygen-iodine laser set in a Boeing 747 airframe. While the AL-52 Dragon airborne laser had actually been used in combat, the technology used in the YAL-1A was less expensive and far less risky, and so it had much more political and military support than HAWC’s version.

“Who’s the project officer assigned to the AL-52?”

“There wasn’t one when we brought the planes in,” David said. “The director of flight ops signed for the birds himself.”

“That’s not good.” If there was no project officer assigned to the flight-test program, there was a very good chance the AL-52 Dragon airborne-laser program would languish — or, more likely, be canceled. “I’ll see what I can do from here.”

“Good. Hey, we got the word that the Seventh Bomb Wing is down for their ORI. We put in a request to cover their sorties. Any word on that?”

“It was discussed. They’re going to gin up some fly-stores instead.”

“That doesn’t make sense. We’re ready to go now. We can do everything the Seventh can do, plus the SEAD stuff.”

“I know. General Hollister stood up for us, but Zoltrane and Samson wanted fly-stores.”

“Hmph. Well, it’s kind of a moot point anyway — we still need to be certified by Eighth Air Force before we cover sorties. Any word on when we’re going to recert?”

“After this Russia thing cools down, I’m sure they’ll be out there to get you recertified.”

“I hope so — we’re definitely ready. The sooner, the better. So what’s up, Muck?”

“Dave, I’ve got a request for you,” Patrick said. “Do you have any NIRTSats handy?”

“Sure,” Luger replied. NIRTSat stood for “Need It Right This Second” satellite. Up to four of the different types of the small oven-size NIRTSats — reconnaissance, communications, or weapon targeting — were loaded aboard a winged rocket-powered booster, taken up to thirty or forty thousand feet, then dropped from a launch aircraft such as Battle Mountain’s EB-52s or EB-1C bombers or from other carrier aircraft, such as Sky Masters Inc.’s DC-10 launch/tanker aircraft. After launch, the booster’s first-stage solid rocket motor shot the aircraft to the top of the stratosphere, where the second-and third-stage motors would kick in and propel the booster into low Earth orbit, anywhere from fifty to three hundred miles’ altitude. After ejecting its satellites in the proper sequence and spacing, the booster would then fly itself back to Earth for reuse.

Although the NIRTSats carried very little fuel and therefore could not be easily repositioned and could stay in orbit only a short time, they gave a wide range of users — field commanders, aircrews, even small-unit commando forces — their own specialized satellite constellation. But the cost per pound was high; and although Dreamland and the 111th Bomb Wing had launched many NIRTSats over the years, it was still considered an experimental system. “Who’s the customer?” Dave asked.

“The Nine-sixty-sixth Wing.”

“Air Intelligence Agency? You own every other satellite in the Air Force inventory already, and you control several others I’m sure I don’t want to know about. What do you need NIRTSats for?”

“I need a look at some Russian bomber bases to set some baseline database imagery.”

“Hold on a sec.” David Luger began entering commands into his desktop computer, pulling up a complex grid of lines surrounding the globe at various different levels, then studying the results. “I assume you’ve looked at your current taskings? You’ve got them pretty well covered.”

“All we have covered now are the reported active bomber bases as of the last CFE and NPT treaty reports; the CFE reports are at least two years old, and the NPT and Open Sky reports are over a year old,” Patrick said. “I want all the known bases, active or otherwise — any bases that can still handle a hundred-and-fifty-ton-plus bomber.”

“Like the Backfires, eh?” Dave asked. “The planes that apparently came out of nowhere and bombed the hell out of that CIA base in Uzbekistan?”

“Exactly.”

“We’ve actually been doing some looking ourselves, Muck,” Dave said. “Obviously, if those bombers reached Bukhara, they can reach the peacekeeping forces in Turkmenistan.”

“The Backfire bombers have an unrefueled range of just a little over a thousand miles with a max combat load,” Patrick said. “But none of the Backfires from bases within that radius were used. That means they had to use air refueling. We’ve believed for years that the Russians wouldn’t use Backfires in a strategic role, but if they start putting the air-refueling probes back on and using them for long-range bombing missions, they become a strategic threat once again.”

“Agreed.”

“So now we have to go back and look at every past heavy-bomber base in Russia to find out where the Backfires came from,” Patrick went on, “and also to find out what else is going on. The Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers aren’t supposed to have air refueling probes either, according to the CFE Treaty, but if they’re putting probes back on Backfires, they can just as easily reactivate the retractable probes on Blackjacks, too.”

“Sounds like good sound reasoning to me, Muck,” Dave said.

“My guess is that the Backfires have been moved east, to somewhere in Siberia,” Patrick said. “It’s just a hunch, but I would like to get updated pics of the old Siberian bomber bases to see if they’ve been active lately.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I haven’t been able to sell my theories to anyone,” Patrick replied. “Around here it comes down to cost versus benefit. Retasking a Keyhole or Lacrosse satellite practically needs a papal edict. Landsat is a polar-orbit bird and won’t help me; if I move Ikonos, it will decrease its service life too much before a replacement can be launched; and SPOT charges too much for images of Russia.” SPOT Image was a private French firm that supplied radar and optical satellite imagery to users all over the world; many governments and military forces, including those of the United States, often purchased up-to-the-minute SPOT images to supplement their own data, or to mask their interest in a particular area. “I can’t convince Houser to send my plan up the chain.”

David said nothing — mostly because a dull pain was starting to develop in his left temple. He wasn’t crazy about the direction this conversation was taking.

“Is the Air Battle Force still heading up the peacekeeping surveillance effort in Turkmenistan?” Patrick asked.

David Luger hesitated a bit before responding. Yep, he told himself, he could clearly see the reason for Patrick’s call now — and he didn’t like it. “I never received any orders relieving us of command,” he said finally, “but with all our planes grounded and the Russians’ advances into the interior of the country, no other surveillance assets instead of satellites have been committed. We’re in charge of nothing right now.”

“The Backfires are obviously a threat to UN peacekeepers—”

“We don’t know that for sure, Muck,” Dave interjected.

“In any case, we can reasonably argue that there was a violation, so an investigation into where those bombers came from is fully justified. The suspected violation authorizes the Air Battle Force to investigate, according to the terms of the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution. That means you’re authorized to employ all necessary assets to investigate the violations. You can legally launch NIRTSats anywhere you want. You can—”

“Patrick,” David Luger said seriously, “I’m not going to do that.”

“Well, you can’t launch from the Megafortresses, because they’re still grounded — although I think after we make this argument, we can get that restriction lifted — but you can launch from the Sky Masters carrier aircraft,” Patrick went on. “I did a preliminary mission plan: two boosters, eight NIRTSats, placed in sixty-five-degree elliptical orbits at two hundred and twenty miles’ altitude — we shouldn’t need one-meter resolution, so we can afford to go a little higher. We’ll get all the baseline shots we need in about twelve days. If we have the fuel, we can reposition whoever’s left to an eighty-degree elliptical at whatever altitude they can make it to and get the remaining shots until we lose the birds. We’ll then plan to—”

“Get me the okay from the Air Force or from Air Combat Command, Patrick, and I’ll do it tomorrow,” Dave said.

“But that’s what I’m saying, Dave — you don’t need authorization from anyone,” Patrick said. “As the joint task force commander, you have full authority to launch those constellations. Then you can just share the data with the Nine-sixty-sixth here, and I’ll—”

“Patrick, I’m sorry, but I won’t do that,” Luger said tonelessly.

“What?”

“I said I’m not launching anything from Battle Mountain without an okay from Air Combat Command or higher,” David said.

“But you have the authority to—”

“No, I don’t,” Luger said. “I’ve been ordered to stand down until our activities have been investigated. The fact that the joint task force has not been terminated doesn’t mean I can ignore a direct order from my superior officers to stand down.”

“But I need that imagery, Dave.”

“I understand, Patrick, and I’m sure we can get it for you. But until I get an order to launch, I won’t do it.”

“Dave, Air Intelligence Agency is authorized to request support from any unit or command in the United States military,” Patrick insisted. “I can call up Beale or Whiteman or Offutt or Elmendorf and launch any number of reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering aircraft I need.”

“Then go ahead and do it, Patrick,” Luger said firmly. “I’ll watch.”

“This isn’t funny, Texas….”

“I’m not being funny at all, Patrick,” David said. “I would love for you to put in a request for support to Air Force or Air Combat Command, because then we’d get recertified and back into the air again. But the bottom line is, if you thought you could do it through normal channels, you would have done it already. You probably already made the request, and it was turned down.”

“Gary Houser is my boss here, Dave,” Patrick said by way of explanation. “You remember Gary, don’t you? He tormented young lieutenants like you for fun, like a cat toying with a mouse.”

“I remember him. He was a great pilot — just not a great person. You protected me from him…took a lot of the heat away from me and put it on you.”

“Well, he’s doing the same shit to me now, here,” Patrick went on. “He wants me to find out where the Backfires came from, but he won’t give me the tools I need to find them. He’s toying with me, hoping I’ll fail and retire.”

“Maybe you’re right, Muck. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Well, I can’t let him get away with that shit.”

“And maybe he’s right, Patrick,” Dave said.

“He’s…what?”

“Maybe you should retire, Patrick.”

Patrick was thunderstruck. He couldn’t believe that his longtime friend and partner just said what he said. “Dave…you don’t really believe that…?”

“Patrick, overflying four hostile countries without permission to retrieve that UCAV after it had gone out of control, then crash-landing on Diego Garcia after being ordered by the secretary of defense himself not to. Or when you ordered the bombing of Engels without authority, when you flew back over Russia in direct violation of orders after Dewey and Deverill were shot down — all those incidents happened because you made them happen. I’ll agree that the situation was desperate, you made a hard decision, and everything turned out for the better for us in the long run. But the fact is, you exceeded your authority each and every time. We don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t intervened — maybe lives would have been lost….”

“Maybe? Engels bombers were preparing to kill every soul in Chärjew. Dewey and Deverill might still be in a Russian prison if I hadn’t gone back for them!”

“You don’t know that, Patrick,” Luger insisted. “In any case, you had no right to disregard orders.”

“I had every right. I was in command.”

“I know your arguments, Patrick, and I disregard them all,” Luger said. “We all have a superior officer. When he or she gives a lawful order, we’re supposed to obey it. The problem is, you don’t. Every day I saw more and more of Brad Elliott emerging from within you.”

“Oh, Christ, you’re not going to give me the ‘I’m turning into Brad Elliott’ bullshit, too, are you?” Patrick retorted. “I heard that enough from Houser and Samson and half the four-stars in the Pentagon. It has nothing to do with Brad Elliott — it has everything to do with accepting responsibility and taking action.” He paused for a few heartbeats, then added, “So you’re not going to consider my request for satellite-reconnaissance support?”

“I’ll be happy to consider it — but I’ll upchannel the request to my superior officers at Air Force, Air Combat Command, and Eighth Air Force,” Luger replied. “That’s what I feel I have to do.”

“You actually think that’s the way you should play this, eh, Dave?” Patrick asked. “Make no decision yourself. Don’t exercise your authority. Ask permission first — and don’t forget to say ‘pretty please.’ ”

“That is the way it’s supposed to be done, Patrick — you just forgot that somehow. Maybe it is Brad Elliott’s influence working on you. There’s no doubt that Brad was your surrogate father, and he praised and encouraged your success in the military the way you know your actual father never would have done. Your real dad wanted you to join the police force, and you told me many times how disappointed he was when his oldest son wouldn’t follow in his footsteps—”

“Don’t give me that Freudian psychobabble crap, Dave.”

“—or maybe it was just your sense of how the bomber world works…no, how your world is supposed to work, your world of instant justice delivered from above.”

“Are you listening to yourself, Dave? Do you really believe all this shit you’re telling me?”

“But that’s not how my world works,” Luger said, ignoring Patrick’s remarks. “In my world, in my command, I need authorization before I commence a risky operation that puts lives and weapon systems in jeopardy.”

“Oh, I get it — you have your command now, and you’re going to do everything you can not to see it get messed up. You’re afraid to take a risk because it might mean you’re unsuited to command a combat unit of your own.”

“With all due respect, Muck—eat shit,” Luger snarled. “The only reason I got this command is because you screwed up, so let’s not forget that. I didn’t ask to get it; I was your deputy, and I was content to do that job. But now I make the decisions here—not you. It is my responsibility and my call, and what I say is that I require authorization from higher headquarters before I’ll commit my aircraft, satellites, airmen, or ground teams. You must get me that authorization before I commence operations. If you don’t, I’ll upchannel your request to my superiors before I begin.

“And you know something, Patrick? I have a feeling you already knew the answer to your request, which is why you came to me first,” Luger went on hotly. “You thought you’d take advantage of our friendship and ask me a favor, hoping I’d go along just because we’ve partnered together for so long. Tell me I’m wrong, Muck.” No response. “Yeah, I thought so. And you wonder why half of Eighth Air Force wants to see you retire. You’ve turned into something I never thought I’d ever see you become.”

“Dave, listen…”

“You take it easy, sir. Air Battle Force, clear.” And Luger abruptly terminated the connection.

David Luger sat upright in his chair, hands on the armrests, staring straight ahead, feet flat on the floor. Anyone who might look in on him at that moment might think he was catatonic — and in a sense that’s exactly what he was.

Almost twenty years earlier, David Luger had been part of a secret bombing mission into the Soviet Union, along with Brad Elliott, Patrick McLanahan, and three others. After completing the mission by bombing a ground-based laser site, the crew was forced to land their crippled EB-52 Megafortress bomber on an isolated Soviet air base to refuel. Dave Luger sacrificed himself to draw the defenders away, which allowed the Megafortress and its crew to escape.

Luger was captured and held in a secret location in Siberia for many years. Brainwashed into thinking he was a Soviet scientist, Luger helped the Soviets design and build aircraft and weapons that advanced the Soviet state of the art by several years, perhaps several generations. Eventually Patrick McLanahan and the crew of the EB-52 “Old Dog” helped rescue him, but by then he had been held against his will, psychologically and physically tortured, for almost seven years.

During his captivity the rigid position he was in now was a sort of psychological and emotional “happy place”—when he was not being tortured or brainwashed, he was ordered to assume that position, which he equated with rest or relief. To Luger it actually felt good to assume that stiff, tense position. After his rescue and rehabilitation, his doctors and psychologists saw this posture as a manifestation of his emotional damage. But after years of therapy, David was fully aware of what he was doing when he put himself in this rather awkward-looking seated position. In a strange way, it was still a “happy place” for him — in fact, it helped him focus his thoughts more clearly.

Yes, he was angry at Patrick. Yes, Patrick was wrong for not following the proper chain of command, and it was exceedingly unfair of him to use their close personal relationship to break the rules and do something they’d both have to answer for later.

But…Patrick McLanahan was the best strategic planner and the best strategic-bombing task-force commander he had ever known. If he had a hunch about where those Russian bombers came from, he was probably correct.

“Luger to Briggs, Luger to Furness,” Dave spoke into thin air.

“Briggs here,” Colonel Hal Briggs responded via the subcutaneous transceiver system. All of the former Dreamland officers were “wired” with the global satellite datalink and communications system.

“Can you stop by for a chat?”

“I can be there in ten,” Hal said.

“I’m in the box and ten minutes to the high fix, Dave,” Rebecca Furness responded. “Give me twenty.” Furness, the commander of the 111th Wing, in charge of Battle Mountain’s fleet of airborne-laser and flying-battleship aircraft, was returning from a pilot-proficiency flight in the “virtual cockpit,” the control station for Battle Mountain’s fleet of remotely piloted aircraft. With Battle Mountain’s combat fleet grounded, the crews maintained proficiency by flying unmanned QF-4 Phantom jet-fighter drones, which were the closest to the unmanned QB-1C Vampire drone’s performance. “Get Daren, unless it can wait.”

“Roger. Luger to Mace.”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“You and Hal meet me in the BATMAN. I have a mission I want planned.”

“Are we getting a recert?”

“Soon — I hope. Luger to Masters.”

“For Pete’s sake, Dave, I just sat down to breakfast,” responded Jon Masters, one of the partners of Sky Masters Inc., a high-tech defense contractor that developed many of the weapon systems and aircraft used at Battle Mountain. “I’m going to program this thing to send callers to voice mail when it detects my mouth full of food.”

“Breakfast was over three hours ago for most of the civilized world, Jon,” Dave said. “I want one of your DC-10s for a couple weeks. I’m planning on launching some boosters.”

“About time you guys started doing something,” Masters said. “Send me your equipment list, and I’ll load her up for you.”

“I’ll send over my list, but I’m not ready to upload yet,” Luger said. “You’ll get the go-ahead from the chief.”

“You mean you’re actually going to have a budget and I might actually get paid for my gear before the mission kicks off?” Masters asked incredulously. “With all due respect to the Old Man, I like the way you do business, Dave.” Masters liked to call Patrick McLanahan the “Old Man,” an appellation Patrick never seemed to mind.

“Just be ready to go ASAP, Jon,” Luger said. “It’s important.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Colonel Daren Mace, the deputy commander of the 111th Wing, entered Luger’s office. He noticed Luger’s stiff posture in his chair and tried not to show how sorrowful he felt that Luger had to endure that psychological burden, apparently for the rest of his life. “What’s the target, sir?” Daren asked. Dave put his computer-generated map of Russia on the wall monitor and overlaid several satellite tracks on it. “Looks like Russian ICBM bases in the south. Entire country. Are we doing a treaty-verification run? Or does this have to do with that raid on Bukhara?”

“We’re looking for Backfire bombers,” Luger responded. “We need to find out where the Backfires came from that raided Bukhara. I want a look at all the known bases.”

“Are there that many?” Mace asked. “The Russians only have seventy strategic bombers in their entire fleet.”

“Which bases are you aware of?”

“Khabarovsk in the east, Novgorod in the west, Arkhangel’sk in the northwest, and Mozdok taking over from Engels in the southwest,” Mace replied after a moment’s thought.

“So where did those Backfire bombers come from?”

“My guess would be one of those bases.”

“Patrick said not. He said AIA has checked, and there’s no evidence that any Backfires launched from known bases.”

“Well, Backfires are considered tactical bombers, not strategic ones….”

“I’d love to hear the logic the Russkies used to convince us of that,” Luger remarked.

“The Tupolev-22M bomber is a pig, and everyone knows it — that’s why the Russians have been deactivating them in favor of tactical fighter-bombers like the Sukhoi-35,” Mace said. Daren Mace had worked around medium bombers most of his Air Force career and, in the past few years, had worked closely with the secretary of defense and the Air Force on developing new bomber technologies. “They’d waste too many resources trying to fly one more than a thousand miles. Sure, they might be able to refuel them, but it would take one Ilyushin-76 tanker for every Backfire to make it across the pole. It’s not worth it. The Tupolev-160s and -95s already have much longer legs.”

“They have speed, and they have a big payload,” Luger pointed out. “Obviously the Russians changed their minds on the Backfires, because they’ve used them extensively recently over Chechnya, Turkmenistan, and now Uzbekistan. They could easily upgrade the engine and sacrifice a little of payload for added fuel. Screw in the air-refueling probe, reset the circuit breakers, then retrain your crews in how to do a hose-and-drogue refueling—”

“Not easy in a big mother like a Backfire.”

“But doable.”

“Sure.”

“So you agree that it’s possible to put a Backfire force together in Siberia, fly them across Central Asia to bomb Bukhara, and fly them back without anyone seeing them?” Luger asked.

“Why not? No one would ever see them coming,” Mace surmised. “The Backfires were supposed to dash across Western Europe and destroy NATO airfields with cruise missiles and NATO ships in the Baltic with big-ass antiship cruise missiles. They were forward-deployed in Warsaw Pact countries close to the frontier because they didn’t have the range of a Tupolev-95 Bear bomber; hence, they were never considered strategic weapons with the ability to threaten North America.”

“Are they a threat?” Luger asked.

“Top one off over Moscow and it can launch a cruise missile against every country in NATO — except the U.S. and Canada, of course,” Daren said. “Yes, I’d say it’s a threat. If the Russians are turning tactical jets like Backfires out as long-range strategic weapons, that shifts the balance of power significantly in their favor, especially in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. We’ve assumed that the Russians were mothballing them as they got older and they ran out of money to support them — we’d be in real trouble if it turned out they were not only rehabilitating them but giving them a much greater warfighting capability.”

Luger nodded, lost in thought for a moment. He then got up and headed to the battle-staff room to meet the others.

The BATMAN, or Battle Management area, was a large, theaterlike room with a stage flanked by sixteen large full-color computer monitors. The senior staff sat behind computer workstations in the “orchestra” section. Arrayed behind the senior staff were the support-staff members, and in two separate enclosures were the control stations for Battle Mountain’s unmanned aircraft. Hal Briggs was already waiting for Luger, and Rebecca Furness was just logging off her QF-4 drone training session. They all met at the commander’s workstation in the front row, where Dave Luger quickly ran down the situation.

“Wonder why Air Intelligence Agency won’t give Patrick satellite support?” Daren Mace asked.

“I can think of lots of reasons — none of them flattering to the general,” Rebecca Furness said. “His reputation has definitely preceded him.”

“I told Patrick that an unofficial request for support is not good enough for me — I needed the request to come from either ACC or the Pentagon,” Luger said.

“I’ll bet he was thrilled to hear you say that, sir,” Briggs quipped.

“Nonetheless, that’s how I see it,” Dave said. “I want to help, but I want the mission to be fully authorized and budgeted. I’m not going to spend money I don’t have and use assets I haven’t paid for.” Rebecca Furness made a show of clearing out her ears, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Knock it off, Rebecca. But that doesn’t mean I can’t plan a mission right now.”

He turned to his console and called up the computer images he’d been working with in his office on the “Big Board” in front of the BATMAN. “Assume I’m getting two constellations of NIRTSats aloft in the next few days, and we find something in one of the Siberian or Sakha provinces — I want a plan of action to take a closer look by the Tin Men and, if necessary, destroy the bases.”

“A secret Russian base filled with intercontinental bombers?” Furness asked. “The Russians haven’t relied on bombers to threaten North America for decades.”

“But just in the past year they’ve used heavy bombers three times, in Chechnya, Turkmenistan, and now against Uzbekistan,” Dave pointed out. “Plus, the new president of Russia is the former military chief of staff and a bomber aficionado. Patrick thinks there are too many coincidences, and I agree. Let’s build a plan that I can show to Langley right now.”

It did not take long — working together and relying on their digital catalogs of preplanned space and aircraft missions along with the computer’s real-time inventory of aircraft and weapons, the team had two preliminary plans drafted within an hour: one relying on the 111th’s bombers and special-operations transports, which were currently grounded but were ready to go on short notice; and one relying only on Sky Masters Inc.’s research-and-development aircraft and Air Force special-ops transports. Once the plans were signed off on by each element of the Air Battle Force and finally by Dave Luger himself, he spoke, “Duty Officer, get me the deputy commander of Air Combat Command, secure.”

“Please stand by, General Luger,” the voice of the “Duty Officer,” the omnipresent computerized clerk and assistant for everyone at Battle Mountain, responded.

After Luger was routed through several clerks, aides, and chiefs of staff, he finally heard, “General Fortuna, secure.”

“General, how are you, ma’am? This is General Luger, Air Battle Force, Battle Mountain, secure.”

“Dave! Good to hear from you,” General Leah “Skyy” Fortuna, the deputy commander of Air Combat Command, responded happily, her thick New York accent still obvious despite the distortion from the secure telephone line. Leah Fortuna got her call sign “Skyy” both from her love of flying — she’d been a bomber pilot and flight instructor — and her love of blue American-made vodka. “How the heck is the smartest guy ever to graduate from the Air Force Academy?”

“I’m doing okay, thanks.”

“Congrats on getting the command out there,” Leah said, “although I’m sure you hoped it would be under happier circumstances. No one deserves it more than you, though.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re making me feel old with that ‘ma’am’ crap, Dave — or is this a ‘ma’am’ phone call?”

“Sort of, yes.”

“Okay. So what can I do you for?”

“I received an unofficial request for support from General McLanahan at Air Intelligence Agency,” Dave said.

“ ‘Unofficial request,’ huh?”

“That’s why I’m calling, ma’am. I have a request for overhead-imagery support that I’d like you to take to General Muskoka.” General Thomas “Turbo” Muskoka, a former F-15E Strike Eagle and F-117A stealth fighter pilot and deputy chief of staff of the Air Force, was the new commander of Air Combat Command, the Air Force’s largest major command. “Patrick made the request directly to me. I was not comfortable taking that request outside the chain of command, so I denied it. But I believe that Patrick does have a legitimate operational need for the data, and I firmly believe I have the sensors and equipment that can get him the information he needs.”

“Why not take it to Eighth Air Force?”

“Air Battle Force’s taskings don’t normally come from Eighth Air Force,” Dave said. He knew it sounded lame, but it was the best excuse he could think of at the moment. Although the EB-52 and EB-1C bombers in the Air Battle Force were not nuclear-weapon-capable, the unit came under the command of Eighth Air Force — although Terrill Samson definitely treated the unit from Battle Mountain, Nevada, as the long-lost ugly stepchild.

“I never really understood exactly whom Air Battle Force reports to,” Leah admitted. “I assumed it was directly to the Air Force chief of staff’s office. But it’s okay with me for now — I don’t mind being your boss.”

“Thank you,” Dave said. “Besides, I think Patrick already made the request to his command and was denied. As I said, I think he has a legitimate need that we can fulfill.”

“So you decided to go right to Air Combat Command,” Fortuna said. “I don’t appreciate McLanahan’s using you to go over his bosses’ heads. You were smart to upchannel his request, Dave. I hate to say this of Patrick McLanahan, but that man is snake-bit these days. No one wants anything to do with him, because they’re afraid he’ll do something on his own that’ll bite them in the ass. I know he’s a good friend of yours, but I think you should know the buzz about him. He’s gone way beyond what even Brad Elliott supposedly did.”

“I hear what you’re saying, Leah, and I agree,” Dave said, “but he’s much more than just a good friend of mine.”

“I know. A word to the wise, that’s all. What kind of satellite support is he requesting?”

“Two constellations of NIRTSats, launched from a Sky Masters carrier aircraft or from one of the One-eleventh Wing’s Megafortresses, if I can get them recertified; a mix of visual and synthetic-aperture radar, short duration, low altitude, targeting southern Siberia and Sakha provinces. I also want to forward-position a Battle Force ground team to Shemya for possible ground ops in eastern Siberia.”

“Russia, huh? That’s going to have to go right up to the Pentagon, probably right past the chief’s office to SECDEF himself. And you said that Patrick McLanahan requested it?”

“Is that what I said?” Dave asked. “I believe what I said was I was requesting it on behalf of the Air Battle Force, in support of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Turkmenistan.”

“There you go, Dave,” Leah said. “I think you’ll find that an easier sell, especially after that attack on the CIA base at Bukhara. A little piece of friendly advice, Dave? Don’t tie your star too tightly to Patrick McLanahan. He can be your friend — just don’t let him be your mentor.”

“Can I share the data I get with him?”

General Fortuna chuckled lightly into the secure connection. “Loyal to the end, eh, Dave? Okay, it’s your funeral. And it’s your data — you do with it whatever you want. Air Intelligence Agency gets a copy of all overhead imagery for its databases anyway. Send me your ops plan ASAP, and I’ll give the boss a heads-up and a recommendation for approval to pass to the Pentagon. Don’t send those ground forces farther west than Shemya, or the boss will have your ass for breakfast — after he gets done kicking mine.”

“Understood.”

“Your request will probably need to go to the White House, too — just so you know,” Fortuna continued as she made notes on her tablet PC computer. “Your name and McLanahan’s will be seen by all the suits as well as the brass. Get ready to take the heat. How soon can you have the plan over here?”

Luger tapped a button on his computer. “Transmitting it now.”

“Good. I’ll look it over, but if it’s coming from you, I don’t see a problem.”

“Thanks, Leah.”

“Hey, I still owe you big-time for all the help you gave me in computer-science and math classes at the Zoo,” Fortuna said. “I never would’ve passed without your help.”

“Bull.”

“Maybe, but I still owe you,” she said. “You were so damned smart — and you are so damned cute. Good thing you’re way the hell out there in Nevada.”

“Your husband might agree.”

“Jeez, Dave, has it been that long since we’ve spoken? I ditched what’s-his-name two years ago,” Leah said. “Best thing that ever happened to my career. Men might need loyal, sacrificing wives to get promoted, but women need a good long game on the golf course, and to be able to stay up late, smoke expensive cigars, and bullshit with the politicians and contractors. Once I figured that out, I got my second and third stars with no problem.”

“In that case I think I’d like to come out for a visit and play a few rounds,” Luger suggested.

“I have a feeling you’re going to be busy here real soon,” Leah said, “but I’ll keep the light on for you, Texas. Stop by anytime, big boy. I’m clear.”

When the connection was terminated, David Luger sat quietly, thinking.

Rebecca Furness broke the silence a few moments later. “Sounds like you two were an item, David. So you were the nerdy bookworm at the Zoo who helped all the hard-charging type-A upperclassmen pass the hard-science classes so they wouldn’t get kicked out?”

Luger ignored the comment and turned to Hal Briggs. “Hal, I want to position a few of your guys out in eastern Russia as quickly as possible — Shemya, perhaps?”

“Somewhere close to those Russian bomber bases in Siberia?”

“Exactly.”

“No problem,” Briggs said. “Weather’s improving up there. I’ll start working on getting plenty of special-ops tanker and combat search-and-rescue support — five minutes after takeoff, we’re in no-man’s-land. How many troops are we talking about?”

“Everyone you have available,” Luger said. “If we find that base, I want to be able to take it down right away.”

Furness looked at Luger with an exasperated expression as Briggs stepped over to his console in the BATMAN. “Didn’t you hear what your girlfriend said, David?” she asked. “I know you like and respect Patrick, but he’s way overstepped his authority, and he’s asking you to do the same. Be smart. Don’t do it.”

“Rebecca, I want a couple Megafortresses available to link up with Hal’s ground forces,” Luger said. “Get together with him and plan a cover operation with whatever forces he manages to link up with over there.”

Furness shook her head. “It’s your career, General. You Dreamland guys will just never learn, will you?”

General Nikolai Stepashin strode quickly into Anatoliy Gryzlov’s office and waited as discreetly as possible just inside the large double doors. Gryzlov was in a meeting with his team of economic advisers; obviously it was not a pleasant meeting at all. When Stepashin finally caught the president’s eye, the chief of staff of the Russian Federation’s armed forces and chief of military intelligence raised a red-covered folder; Gryzlov adjourned the meeting moments later.

“Practically all of the Central Asian republics of the Commonwealth are threatening to withhold wheat and rice shipments in protest against the attack on Bukhara,” Gryzlov shouted, lighting a cigarette and plopping down disgustedly into his chair. “Ukraine and Belarus might follow suit.”

“We made it perfectly clear to all of them that we bombed an American CIA base — we were hunting down those responsible for the attack on our forces in Turkmenistan,” Stepashin said.

“I made it clear to them, but they insisted that any CIA operations in their countries have been fully sanctioned by Moscow — technically true — and that no operations of any kind have been mounted by Americans from those bases in Commonwealth nations,” Gryzlov said. “God, I hate dealing with bureaucrats and politicians! The economic council is panicking, the foreign ministers are panicking — everything is spinning out of control.” He paused, then looked at Stepashin carefully through eyes squinting with the sting of the pungent smoke from his Turkish cigarette. “What is it now?”

“We’ve detected two new visual-reconnaissance satellite constellations, launched within just the past few days,” he said. “Probably American. They did not come from one of their government ground-launch sites at Vandenberg, Shemya, or Patrick Air Force Base; they were either launched by a relocatable sea platform or air-launched. Low Earth orbit, small, some radar emissions, deeply encrypted datalinks. One satellite overhead every twenty-five minutes in each orbit.”

Gryzlov’s face fell. “The target tracks…?”

“Southern and central Siberia — right over the temporary Tupolev-22M bases.”

“Damn!” he shouted, slamming his chair’s armrest so hard that his cigarette went flying out of his hand in a shower of sparks. “How in hell did they zero in on those bases so quickly?”

“It was a risk using the redesigned -22Ms for the raid on Bukhara,” Stepashin said. “It turned out to be a good test of the new birds and the new air-launched weapon, but it raised a lot of questions with the Americans. They’re keeping a close eye on our bombers now — and having the refurbished Tupolev-22Ms do such a good job over Bukhara obviously drew their attention.” Gryzlov remained silent, fuming, so Stepashin went on. “We detected the new satellites quickly and were able to hide the planes well, so I don’t think we have been compromised yet. The Americans will perhaps notice increased activity at bases that have not been in use for a long time, but they will not be able to deduce much more than that. And I don’t think they got a good overhead look at Yakutsk — they were concentrating more on the bases in the west and along the Mongolian-Manchurian border.”

“We will have to step up our preparations,” Gryzlov said. “The modified bombers need to be completed as soon as possible and then dispersed to their secret operating bases.”

“The bomber retrofit is proceeding well ahead of schedule,” Stepashin assured him. “As soon as the satellite coverage goes away — these new satellites are small, not very maneuverable, and their orbits will decay very soon — we can disperse the Tupolev-22Ms and their weapons to their operating locations. I’m sorry the Americans seem to be zeroing in on the reactivated bases so quickly, but we knew they would be discovered sooner or later.”

“I, too, am sorry they apparently have been discovered,” Gryzlov said, “but at this point I don’t care. I’m tired of trying to suck up to the Americans on arms-control issues. The Americans unilaterally abrogate the Anti — Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build their ‘Star Wars’ missile-defense system; then they expect us to hurry up and conform to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty nuclear-weapon limits so they can impose further arms reductions on us. In the meantime they continue to leap ahead of us in conventional-weapons technology. We cannot compete with the United States. The only way to maintain our position as a world power is to increase, not decrease, our military capabilities.”

Gryzlov lit another cigarette, then stubbed it out angrily after taking only one puff. “And that attack on Engels Air Base by those American robot planes—that was the last straw!” he fumed. “McLanahan actually dared to mount a preemptive attack against an active Russian air base! That is completely unacceptable! And the spineless American president, Thorn, actually had the audacity to deny he authorized the attack, and at the same time he rewards McLanahan by allowing him to keep his stars! He should be in prison—or dangling at the end of a noose—for what he did!

“The Americans want only one thing — complete domination over the entire planet,” Gryzlov said. “Well, I will not allow that to happen. I am going to show how weak and defenseless the United States really is….”