Plan of Attack

3

We haven’t been successful yet in locating the exact origin of those three Backfire bombers that attacked Bukhara,” Patrick McLanahan reported. He was doing the daily morning briefing of the battle staff at Air Intelligence Agency headquarters. Seated beside him was Colonel Trevor Griffin. “The Russians are keeping their entire fleet of long-range bombers out of sight. However, we have recent imagery that might give us some clues.”

Griffin hit the slide button. “On this orbit we’re examining six bases in particular, all active or former Russian long-range-bomber bases in the south and far east: Omsk, Novosibirsk, Bratsk, Aginskoye, Blagoveshchensk, and Vladivostok,” Patrick said. “Vladivostok is the only base known to be operating the Tupolev-95 Bear bomber, primarily in a maritime-reconnaissance role. The last known inventory of Bears at Vladivostok is eighteen, but in the past couple days we’ve counted as many as thirty-nine. And as you can see, they’re not the Tupolev-142M or — MR maritime-reconnaissance planes. You can tell in these photos that the planes highlighted have no magnetic-anomaly devices on their vertical tail fins, and they have the large ‘Clam Pipe’ bombing radar under the nose. Only six of the thirty-nine Bears at Vladivostok have MAD stingers — the rest are strategic bombers.

“We did not see any planes at the other five bases,” Patrick went on as Griffin changed slides, “nor did we expect to see any — but, for inactive or closed bases, the five other bases showed a lot of activity. For instance, in Aginskoye, we see twelve brand-new and very large bombersize hangars built. At one time Aginskoye was one of the former Soviet Union’s main strategic-bomber bases in the south, housing dozens of Blinder, Backfire, and Bear bombers. But when the bomber forces were cut, Aginskoye was all but deserted, virtually overnight. Not anymore.

“Here was the most interesting feature of this particular shot. Notice the southeast end of Aginskoye’s runway. This base always had a long runway, over ten thousand feet long, but it was only stressed to handle aircraft as large as the Bear bomber, which is around four hundred thousand pounds max takeoff weight. At most bases this means a reinforced-concrete runway of approximately four feet in depth. Let’s zoom in on the end of the runway.” Griffin entered commands into the keyboard, and the digital satellite image zoomed to a very high magnification, losing only a little of its original definition.

“You’ll see some soldiers or guards climbing down the riprap supporting the edge of the runway. Note how high aboveground they are. We estimate about eight feet. That means this runway has been reinforced even more, perhaps double its original structure. The only plausible reason for reinforcing a runway like this is obviously to handle larger aircraft.

“There are only two aircraft in the Russian military’s aircraft inventory larger than the Bear bomber — the Antonov-124 Condor heavy-lift transport, the largest aircraft in the world, and the Tupolev-160 Blackjack bomber. These hangars, gentlemen, don’t fit the Condor — they’re way too short in height and length. However, each hangar is dimensioned to fit two Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers perfectly. I believe what we have here are accommodations for as many as twenty-four Blackjack bombers.”

“But aren’t there only forty Blackjack bombers in the entire Russian arsenal?” General Zoltrane asked.

“Yes, sir,” Patrick replied. “Engels and Blagoveshchensk were the two known Blackjack-bomber bases in Russia. The last verified inventory of Blackjacks at Engels had their full complement — twenty-eight planes, most transferred from Belarus. Two were recently verified destroyed, and two more damaged. That’s at least twenty-four survivors. Blagoveshchensk had its full complement as well — twelve bombers, transferred from Ukraine and refurbished.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, McLanahan,” Major General Gary Houser said. “Those hangars at Aginskoye could be housing anything — other transports, supplies, even oil-pipeline equipment or derricks. You’re seeing a big building and assuming there’s a couple Blackjack bombers in it.”

“The reinforced runway adds to my suspicions, sir,” Patrick responded. “Although it’s true that Aginskoye’s runway could have been reinforced to handle Condor transports, and the hangars could be storage buildings, their dimensions still leave room for doubt. It could be a coincidence, or they could be bomber hangars. The only way to verify it is to check it visually. We’re going to need some eyes on the ground to look it over.

“Aginskoye is about a hundred miles from the Mongolian border, about two hundred miles’ driving distance by the most direct route, or nine hundred miles from the Sea of Japan.”

Gary Houser turned away without further comments; no one else had anything to add.

“Colonel Griffin has some suggestions to make in a moment; I have one more item to present,” Patrick said. “We were able to launch a second constellation over Russia, shortly after launching the first over southern Russia,” he went on.

This time Houser made an expression of pure disgust, not trying to hide it at all.

“The targets were higher-latitude military bases on the Russian Pacific coast, as well as bases farther in the southwest and in former Soviet republics.” Griffin changed PowerPoint slides. “Here is the former bomber base at Magadan. This base has always been the Russian equivalent of their far east tanker task force, but the number of Ilyushin-76 and Tupolev-16 tankers there is astounding — well over forty planes are now based there. The imagery also gave us a good look at the submarine base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka, which also has seen an increase in the number of Tupolev-95 strategic bombers in recent days. All in all, we’ve seen a three hundred percent increase in the number of strategic bombers and tankers in the Russian far east theater.

“One more observation was made in these latest images: up here, in the provincial capital of Yakutsk. Yakutsk is the largest northern city east of the Urals and the center of the Siberian oil and natural-gas industry. Air service is the life blood of this city, and we’d be accustomed to a lot of air traffic year-round. The orbit of the second string of satellites didn’t cover Yakutsk as well as we’d like, but we were able to get some pretty good oblique pictures — yet even in these shots, it’s obvious that air traffic into Yakutsk has more than tripled since official counts were made about a year ago.

“Now, this could be a result of higher oil prices making Siberian crude more valuable, and hence a push to develop the Siberian fields, but this rate of increase has been surprising to all of our analysts,” Patrick summarized. “We’ve seen an overall increase in all types of air traffic, but most notably in military cargo and resupply flights. It’s hard to categorize accurately because Aeroflot does as many civil and government flights as it does military, but we regard the increase in air traffic into Yakutsk as significant. And since it coincides with the increases in military activity in other far east locations, we can conclude that the buildups in strategic air assets in the far east theater and the buildups in Yakutsk are related and not just coincidental. We feel that the Russians are engaged in some sort of massive high-tech buildup of strategic air-attack assets, including supersonic and subsonic bombers and air-refueling tankers. The recent attack by Backfire bombers in Turkmenistan could have been a test of some of these assets.

“Most notably we feel that the Russians are building up Tupolev-22M Backfire bombers and Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers, in violation of Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty rules. The reason for this is obvious — conventional thinking has it that these aircraft are not threats to North America; the Backfires supposedly had insufficient range, and there were only six Blackjacks in the entire Russian arsenal with intercontinental range. The Nine-sixty-sixth feels that these conclusions are no longer valid. We feel that there may be as many as twenty to sixty Backfire bombers with intercontinental range and cruise-missile capability, and between twenty and perhaps thirty Blackjack bombers also with intercontinental range and cruise-missile capability, including nuclear-tipped weapons.

“We don’t know precisely what these forces will beusedfor,” Patrick concluded, “but our guess is that these forces pose a significant threat to our Asian allies — and a direct and credible threat to the United States as well. We feel that these bombers, with the massive number of tankers in the theater as well, could easily reach targets all across North America, primarily above forty degrees north longitude and west of ninety-five degrees west longitude — only one-fourth of the United States, but within striking distance of fifty percent of our land-based bombers, fifty percent of our ballistic-missile submarines not presently at sea, and one hundred percent of our land-based intercontinental missiles.”

The battle-staff conference room rumbled with low murmurs and sounds of utter disbelief — but the loudest voice came from the head of the table. “Say again? What did you just say, McLanahan?” Houser asked incredulously. Before Patrick could answer, he went on, “You have got to be shitting me, General McLanahan! You’re telling me that you think the Russians are assembling a force of strategic bombers and intend to attack the United States of America?”

“It may sound unbelievable, sir, but—”

“It doesn’t sound unbelievable, McLanahan — it sounds completely asinine!” Houser retorted. “You ought to know better than most of the people in this room that the Russians haven’t had a credible long-range-bomber force in over thirty years.”

“The Bear bombers are relics, McLanahan,” interjected Major General Ralph Nowland, the deputy commander of the Air Intelligence Agency. Nowland had been in AIA longer than almost anyone else and had convinced everyone else that he was the expert on any possible subject concerning the Russian military. “We’ve never received any credible evidence that the Russians are modernizing the Tupolev-22M Backfire as an intercontinental strike platform — the Russians have been yanking Backfires in favor of continued development of the MiG-29S and Sukhoi-35 fighter-bombers. And for good reason: The Fulcrum and Flankers have more capability, are far less costly to maintain and deploy, and have similar range and combat performance. As for the Blackjacks, there’s no evidence whatsoever in any documentation or imagery that proves they’ve been reactivated and their air-refueling capacity restored enough to give them true intercontinental capability. That’s an unsubstantiated rumor only.”

“And you haven’t given us one shred of evidence or even any plausible conjecture that the bomber that struck Bukhara is some sort of supersecret refurbished Backfire,” Houser said. “No one has been able to recover the missile that went off course — the Russians are all over the impact area, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever get a look at it. We have scoured the intercepts and technical literature coming out of every lab and every aircraft-manufacturing bureau in Russia, and there’s not one mention of any programs to upgrade the Backfire fleet. If it exists, it’s under a level of secrecy and compartmentalization that hasn’t been seen in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union.” He shook his head. “So let’s get down to the bottom line, General: You still don’t know where those Backfires came from, is that it?”

“Sir, my guess is that the bombers came from Bratsk,” Patrick responded.

“And how did you deduce that?”

“By the number of nonmilitary flights coming in and out of Bratsk,” Patrick said. “The Russians have made a big deal out of hiding all their Backfire bombers from satellite view of every base, but the number of Aeroflot flights going into Bratsk has increased almost threefold since the raid on Bukhara. The number of government and civil flights going into Bratsk has increased from an average of twenty per day to an average of sixty-three per day since the raid. Bratsk is a major city on the Trans-Siberian Railway and is a major oil-transshipment point, but its air traffic has remained fairly constant for the past few years — except for the past few days, when all of a sudden its civil air traffic spiked.”

“That’s it?” Nowland asked. “That’s all the evidence you have? No sign of Backfire bombers being loaded…no bombs, no men and equipment on the field, no signs of increased military activity? Just a few more planes per day taking off and landing there?”

“Sir, these additional flights going into a base that hasn’t seen much activity in years could be significant,” Patrick said. “It simply raises more questions — and it warrants a look around with HUMINT resources.”

“More spy missions inside Russia, is that it?” Houser asked derisively. “McLanahan, you have a lot to learn about the Air Intelligence Agency. We’re not the CIA, and we’re not a bunch of James Bonds ready to get an assignment to spy on the bad guys. We collect information necessary to build war plans and to defend Air Force assets. We collect information from other intelligence sources, including HUMINT data from other government agencies. The Air Force is not in the business of sending out spies, and sure as hell not inside Russia in peacetime.”

“Sir, Colonel Griffin has drawn up a plan that would help us verify our theories on the numbers and capabilities of Russia’s Backfires and other long-range aviation forces,” Patrick said. “We can send operatives in to three suspected Russian bases — Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Bratsk, launched from Kazakhstan — and verify the existence of modified Backfire bombers. Our other priority is a covert intelligence-gathering mission to Yakutsk, launched from the Sea of Okhotsk.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said, McLanahan?” Houser said. “It’s out of the question.”

“Sir, I think we’ve exhausted all of our signal and overhead-imagery data resources, and all we have to show for it are more unanswered questions,” Patrick said. “The only way to discard or verify any of our data is to get guys on the ground to go in and take a look.”

“General Houser, I’ve led Air Force and CIA teams all over the world collecting intel for the Air Force, and I’ve assisted the Intelligence Support Agency on several missions as well,” Trevor Griffin added. “These missions would not be easy, but they’re doable, and in a very short time frame. At least it’s worth a check to find out if any other agencies have field operatives in those areas. If so, we can combine forces and—”

Gary Houser held up a hand, closing his eyes and shaking his head to emphasize his weariness of this argument. “I understand the reason you feel you need to send operatives in, Colonel, but what I’m telling you is that in the current political climate, the national command authority is not likely to approve an operation like this,” Houser said. “Placing eight recon satellites over the heart of Russia rattled nerves and created enough animosity to last an entire generation — exactly the thing we’re trying to avoid here. Sending in ground operatives after sending those satellites over the same area would invite disaster as well as heighten tensions even more. You know that the Russians will be on guard for such a move. Anyone not passing the most rigorous security screening will be detained on the spot. Or did you think your operatives would just be able to hide in barns and ditches while they make their way to their objectives?”

“Sir, I can have the Nine-sixty-sixth work up a plan of action and brief you and the staff on it in two days,” Griffin said. “We have the latest threat assessment, force deployments, topographical and cultural photos of all the target areas. Our staff is already working up ingress and egress options, lining up aircraft and vehicles, mapping out refueling drop points and—”

“I know what goes into planning these types of operations, Colonel,” Houser said. “You can have your staff do all the planning they care to do — just be sure you don’t make one move off the planning charts without my express permission. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Before we leave this subject, General McLanahan, I want to know about these two satellite constellations you got all this information from,” Houser went on pointedly. “I don’t recall authorizing them, and I don’t recall Strategic Command’s briefing the staff that they were going to launch such a mission. Perhaps you could enlighten us? Whose are they, and who authorized their insertion?”

All eyes were on him, but Patrick didn’t shrink from any of their gazes, especially Gary Houser’s. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “When my request for overhead-imagery support was denied by Eighth Air Force, in my capacity as Nine-sixty-sixth Information Warfare Wing commander, I requested support from the Air Battle Force commander, Brigadier General Luger, at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. I knew that the Air Battle Force had on-demand satellite-reconnaissance assets available. General Luger sent my request to Air Combat Command, who sent it on to the Air Force chief of staff, who sent it on to the joint staff operations office and to the National Security Council liaison office. The mission was approved by the NSC and promptly executed.”

“Why wasn’t I notified of this request?” Houser asked.

“Sir, you are the deputy commander for intelligence of all these agencies,” Patrick said. “I thought you would have been notified every step of the way.”

“I mean, why didn’t you notify me that you were going around my office for support on an Air Intelligence Agency tasking?” Houser asked angrily.

“You had already disapproved my request, sir.”

“And why did you not inform Eighth Air Force that you were going to go around them?” Houser asked. “Did you not receive the directive from General Zoltrane that all requests for operations originating in Eighth Air Force go through his office before going outside the command?”

“Yes, sir, I did,” Patrick responded. “But as I understand it, the Air Battle Force reports to Eighth Air Force. My request for support did not go outside the command until General Luger upchanneled it to Air Combat Command.”

“Didn’t you expect that General Luger would go outside the command to get permission to execute the mission?” Houser asked. Patrick did not reply. Houser nodded knowingly, then added, “Or were you hoping that he wouldn’t upchannel your request, but just go ahead and launch the mission without permission from his superiors?” Again Patrick did not respond. “Well, it’s good to see that someone in Brad Elliott’s old organization is obeying orders.

“General McLanahan, I am going to give you a direct order, so as not to create any confusion or misunderstanding,” Houser went on. “You will confine your work and your communications to Air Intelligence Agency units only. If you need information from agencies or sources outside of AIA, you will forward the request to me or General Nowland first. Under no circumstances will you request information or pass information outside AIA without permission from my office. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick replied simply. “May I ask why, sir?”

Heads snapped from Houser to Patrick and back to Houser in surprise at the question. Houser’s eyes blazed, but his voice was surprisingly calm. “It’s simple, General McLanahan — I don’t trust you anymore,” he said. “You see, while it is technically correct that you can request intelligence data from any source to create your work product, I’m afraid that you will be using a multitude of unorthodox or nonsecure sources and then not sharing the information with AIA, or not even notifying AIA that you have obtained this information. By doing this you compromise security and break the chain of custody of classified and extremely sensitive information.”

“I assure you, sir, that I would never—”

“I don’t need your assurances, General,” Houser interjected. “Around here assurances are made with actions, not words. You’ve been here only a short while, but you’ve already proven you can’t be trusted with following our procedures and directives. You give me no choice. My order stands. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. General, I’d like to see your plans for covert field action against the four targets you mentioned, but don’t count on having the operation approved anytime soon. General McLanahan, the information you’ve given us is interesting, but I don’t find enough specific information to support any ground-reconnaissance action. You still have not given the staff any information on where those Backfires came from, only guesses and speculation — and frankly, your ultimate conclusion is pretty far-fetched, bordering on irresponsible. We need to have a talk about your thought processes — maybe you’re not cut out to run the Air Intelligence Agency after all. We’ll see about that. In any case, I can’t present that conclusion to Eighth Air Force and expect anyone to take it seriously.”

“Sir, if you’re not comfortable presenting my findings to Eighth Air Force or Air Combat Command, I’m prepared to do so,” Patrick said firmly.

“That’s not the way we run things here, General McLanahan.”

“Sir, you can’t just sit on the data we’ve collected. Your job is to collect information and present analysis to—”

“Don’t tell me my job, McLanahan!” Houser snapped. “Your job is to shut your damned mouth and do as you’re ordered! Is that clear?”

Patrick glared at Gary Houser for several seconds, then replied, “Yes, sir.”

“Colonel Griffin can take the rest of the staff reports. I may ask him to do so from now on,” Houser said angrily. “In the meantime you’re dismissed.” Patrick pushed his classified reports and photos on the table before him to Griffin, stood at attention, then departed. When he did, Houser said, “Colonel Griffin, plan on taking over the Nine-sixty-sixth shortly. McLanahan’s on his way out.”

Patrick ignored the surprised stares of his office staff as he hurried into his office and slammed the door shut. He hung up his Class A uniform jacket on the coatrack behind his door, poured himself a cup of coffee, dumped it out, grabbed a bottle of water instead, and nearly squished it as he tried to open the cap. He finally flung himself onto his chair and was on the phone moments later.

David Luger picked up the secure phone and could barely wait for the encryption circuits to lock in before speaking. “Patrick—”

“Houser ignored my report,” Patrick said heatedly. “He’s not going to send in any recon personnel.”

“Patrick, listen—”

“Dave, I’ve never been so damned frustrated in my whole life,” Patrick moaned angrily. “Houser threw me out of his battle-staff meeting. He’s probably going to throw me out of the Nine-sixty-sixth, if not the entire Air Force….”

“Patrick, listen to me,” Dave said. “We’ve been studying the imagery from the NIRTSats today, and—”

“Were you able to move the top constellation?” Patrick asked. “We need better images of Yakutsk. I have a feeling that’s going to be the key. We should keep an eye on Bratsk and Aginskoye, too, but all the activity up in—”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Patrick, so just listen!” Dave interjected. “We moved the second constellation like you asked, and the orbit dropped down to around eighty-eight miles, and it’s only going to be aloft for another few hours, but we finally got some good shots of Yakutsk, and—”

“Good job. What did you—”

“I’m trying to tell you, Muck It looks like half the Russian air force is parked there all of a sudden,” Dave said. “We counted sixteen Tu-16 Blinder tankers and — get this—twenty-four Ilyushin-78 tankers. They only have about thirty in the whole fleet!”

“My God,” Patrick said. “Ninety percent of the Russian tanker fleet is on one base, in the middle of nowhere in Siberia! Something’s going on. What about—”

“I’m getting to that, too, Muck,” Luger said breathlessly. “We spotted twenty-four Blackjacks at Blagoveshchensk. We haven’t verified if they’re all different airframes, but they’re sitting there being loaded with some kind of weapons we haven’t identified yet — probably cruise missiles.”

“We’ve got to alert Air Force.”

“That’s not all, Patrick. We counted at least twenty Backfires out in the open at Bratsk, Novosibirsk, and Aginskoye — that’s at least twenty bombers at each base. They’re being loaded, too. And they have huge fuel-drop tanks on their external hardpoints — they’ve got to be five or ten thousand pounds apiece, maybe larger. I mean, all these planes appeared out of nowhere! Twenty-four hours ago there was nothing — today, boom, the entire Russian bomber fleet is being readied for takeoff. And we’re only counting the ones we can see — there might be twice that number in shelters or hangars or dispersed to other bases we’re not watching. Where in heck did they all come from?”

“I’m sure they’ve been there for a long time, Dave — we just weren’t looking for them until now,” Patrick said. “Did you report this to anyone else yet?”

“It just crossed my desk, Muck.”

“Can you transmit it to me?”

“It’s on the way.”

At that same moment, Patrick received a message on his computer with the image files. “I got them. Hold on.” Patrick punched in a telephone code for the battle-staff area. Colonel Griffin picked up the phone. “Tagger, I need to speak with General Houser right away. I’m e-mailing you photos just taken from the two NIRTSat constellations. The Russians are on the move.”

“I’ll try,” Griffin said, and he put the line on hold. But moments later he came back on: “The general said not now, Patrick. I’m looking at the images. I see lots of planes, Patrick, but these are raw images. We need analysis and verification before we can present it to the staff.”

“Tagger, these images were verified by the intel guys at Air Battle Force,” Patrick said. “The location and identification data have been verified. It’s real, Tagger. Houser has to look at them now.”

“Hold on.” But the wait was even shorter. “I’ll be right down, Patrick,” Griffin said. “The general wants me to go talk to you.”

“This can’t wait, Tagger. I’ll come up there.”

“Don’t, Patrick. Sit tight. I’ll be right there.” And he hung up.

Shit, Patrick thought, now I’ve succeeded in getting Trevor Griffin kicked out of the battle-staff meeting also. But this was too important to just sit on. “Houser won’t look at the imagery, Dave,” Patrick said to David Luger when he got him back on the line. He thought for a moment, then said, “I’m going to send a message to the secretary of defense’s office and let them know what’s happening. They’ll have to contact NORAD to activate the North Warning System, OTH-B, and put every fighter they can find on five-minute alert.” But at the same time as he said those words, he knew it was going to be an almost impossible job to convince anyone that the threat was great enough to warrant activating one of the pillars of the Cold War: ADC.

Years earlier the continent of North America was defended by the Air Defense Command, or ADC, which was a joint U.S.-Canadian integrated system of military and civilian ground-based radars and military jet-fighter interceptors that stood poised to stop an attack by enemy bombers or cruise missiles. Its parent organization, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, still existed, but “aerospace defense” had been replaced with “air sovereignty,” which generally dealt with detecting and interdicting drug smugglers. Since the late 1980s, the threat that Russian bombers would launch cruise missiles against the United States had all but disappeared, while drug smugglers had virtual free rein over America’s skies, so any resources set up to detect and defend against obsolete Russian bombers was shifted to detect, track, and interdict smugglers.

Along with squadrons of jet fighters stationed in Alaska, Canada, and the northern United States, the ADC used a series of long- and short-range unmanned radar sites to detect unidentified aircraft. Called the North Warning System, this system replaced the 1950s-era Defense Early Warning, or DEW Line, consisting of manned radars in Alaska and Canada. The ultimate radar system was deployed in the late 1980s: Called OTH-B, or Over-the-Horizon-Backscatter radar, it could detect aircraft as far away as three thousand miles by bouncing radar energy off the ionosphere. In ideal conditions, OTH-B radar operators in Colorado could see Soviet bombers taking off from their Siberian bases. Along with the radar net, there were fighter interceptors on round-the-clock alert, ready to hunt down and destroy any unidentified aircraft. At one time there had been a dozen bases and many dozens of fighters on twenty-four-hour alert.

But as the threat diminished, so did readiness. OTH-B shifted from a full-time system to part-time only, and finally it was placed in “ready” mode, meaning it could be reactivated if needed. The North Warning System radars shifted to part-time mode as well, to reduce annual maintenance and operating costs. Finally, one by one, the fighter-interceptor squadrons were inactivated, disarmed, reassigned to drug-interdiction duties, or placed on “generation recall” status, meaning that the fighters could be placed on the line only after long days of preparation. No one cared: The Russians had only a handful of nearly obsolete bombers that were capable of launching ineffective, inaccurate, and unreliable cruise missiles; the Russian deterrent lay in its arsenal of land-and sea-launched ballistic missiles; the United States had even reactivated and modernized its anti-ballistic-missile defense system.

The problem was soon obvious: Could the air-defense network in North America be reactivated quickly and effectively enough to stop a modern threat? Cranking up the Air Defense Command system was only practiced twice a year, and even so it seemed like a lost and arcane art. Patrick had no idea how to go about ordering an ADC reactivation — and he doubted if it could be effective enough to stop a massive Russian attack against the United States such as the one they were seeing develop right now.

“What do you want me to do, Muck?” David Luger asked.

“You need to get your surveillance and intelligence data over to Air Force as soon as possible,” Patrick replied, “because when I hit SECDEF with my concerns, they’re going to want proof.”

“Patrick…Muck, what in hell do you think is going on?” Luger asked. He sounded more scared than Patrick had heard him sound in a long time. Despite his traumatic recent history, David Luger was one of the most unflappable — many called it “emotionless”—persons he knew. Luger possessed a well-trained scientific mind. Everything could be explained, even forecast, by using the proper mixture of research, reasoning, and theory. He never worried about anything, because his finely tuned brain started working on a problem the moment it presented itself. But for any man, especially someone like Dave Luger, the reality of what he knew and the thought of what could happen were finally too much for him to contemplate rationally and analytically.

“Dave…”

“I’m looking at the pictures and the analysis, Muck, and I can’t fucking believe what I’m seeing!”

“Dave, keep it together, buddy,” Patrick said evenly. “I need you one hundred and ten percent on this.”

“What in hell can we do?”

“The first thing we need to do is turn on all the air-defense infrastructure in North America, and do it immediately,” Patrick said. “Next we need to begin twenty-four/seven surveillance of Yakutsk and all the other bases where bombers have been appearing. I need eyes inside those bases, especially Yakutsk. The tankers are the key, and it looks to me like Yakutsk is turning into tanker city. I’m going to talk to the Air Force and get them to crank up the readiness posture, but we need to take a look inside those Russian bases immediately, and the Air Battle Force is the best-positioned unit to get in there. It would take a week just to convince the CIA that what we’re looking at is real.”

“I’ve already received permission to forward-deploy Hal and Chris to the region,” Dave said. “We’re going to send them to Shemya — five hours one way by tilt-jet, but it’s the best we can do unless we get some support from U.S. Special Operations Command or the Air Force.”

“Do whatever you can to get the mout there, as fast as you can,” Patrick said. “If you can get in contact with someone at the Pentagon, maybe SECDEF’s office directly, we might be able to implement it.”

“What is General Houser going to do with the pictures we got from the NIRTSats?”

“Nothing, until he’s told to do something with them,” Patrick responded. “That’s why it has to come from the top down, and higher than Eighth Air Force or Air Combat Command — Houser might even be able to shrug off STRATCOM. Get moving, Dave, and let me know if you make any progress.”

“Will do, Muck,” Luger said, and disconnected the secure transmission.

Patrick began another secure telephone call to the secretary of defense’s office, then hung up the phone before the encrypted connection could go through. Although he had met and briefed the SECDEF, Robert Goff, on more than one occasion, their encounters had been mostly negative — Patrick was usually being reprimanded for some action he undertook with less than full authority. He was losing friends and allies fast, and a phone call to SECDEF’s office, in violation of a direct order issued just a few minutes ago in the presence of the rest of the Air Intelligence Agency staff, was not going to win him any more. But this had to be done.

Instead he initiated a secure call to the commander of the Air Warning Center of the North American Aerospace Defense Command at its command-and-control center at Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, Colorado, deep inside the underground military base. The Air Warning Center, or AWC, was responsible for monitoring the periphery of the United States, Canada, and parts of Central America and the Caribbean for unidentified aircraft — including cruise missiles — and passing information to the Cheyenne Mountain Command Center. The Air Warning Center controlled the ground-based radars operated by NORADand also collected data from ground, sea, and airborne military-fighter control radars; other surveillance systems, such as ground-and ship-based radar balloons; Homeland Security radar systems; and civil air-traffic-control radars. Patrick’s 966th Information Warfare Wing routinely passed information to AWC on the status of military forces in Russia and on events around the world, which might give AWC a heads-up in adjusting its surveillance to counter enemy incursions.

After several long, excruciating minutes, he was put through to the AWC Charlie-crew commander, Lieutenant Colonel Susan Paige. “It’s nice to finally talk with you, General McLanahan,” she said after the secure connection was made and verified. “We’ve received the regular information updates from the Nine-sixty-sixth, and we’re very impressed with the quality of work coming from your office. I’d like to—”

“Colonel Paige, I have information provided me by Air Battle Force that shows that Russia may commence a strategic air attack against the United States at any time,” Patrick said. “I’m recommending that NORAD implement full air-defense measures immediately, including a full recall and activation of all northern interceptor units and round-the-clock activation of North Warning and OTH-B. It’s vital that—”

“Who gave you this information, General? Who is this Air Battle Force?” Patrick knew she was stalling for time — she would be hitting a hot key on her computer that would be tracing and recording this call and perhaps notifying the senior controller at the Command and Operations Center of Patrick’s information — or of a crank phone call. After Patrick briefly explained, Paige said, “General McLanahan, you need to take this information to Air Intelligence Agency and have General Houser message—”

“I’ve already done that. General Houser won’t act on it. I need to speak directly with General Lombardi so he can decide if he wants to increase the air-defense posture.” General Lombardi was the commander of NORAD and the man who could activate all of the defense systems around North America with one order.

“Maybe you should speak with Air Force or STRATCOM about—”

This was getting him nowhere. “Colonel Paige, this is extremely urgent, or I wouldn’t have called the NORAD commander’s office directly,” Patrick interjected. “I’m having General Luger of the Air Battle Force transmit his overhead imagery to you and to STRATCOM, but I’m calling to advise you that I believe that a Russian combat air operation is in progress, perhaps an all-out attack against the United States using long-range bombers and cruise missiles.”

“Is this for real, McLanahan?” Paige asked. “This isn’t how AIA issues alerts to NORAD. You should—”

“This alert is from the Nine-sixty-sixth Wing, Colonel Paige, not from AIA,” Patrick said. “The information has not been cleared by General Houser. But I decided to contact you directly because I feel there is danger of imminent attack, and when I briefed General Houser a short time ago, he indicated he wasn’t going to act on the information. I decided to take a chance and contact you directly. I am now going to try to contact the secretary of defense and give him this same information. McLanahan, Nine-sixty-sixth Wing, clear.” Before Paige could say anything more, Patrick hung up.

He had done everything he could with NORAD, Patrick thought. It was up to them if they wanted to act on the information. But even if she didn’t believe him, she would certainly sound the alarm — and an alarm from someplace like NORAD traveled up very, very quickly.

Patrick was on hold with the deputy chief of staff of Air and Space Operations — the highest person he could reach at the office of the Air Force chief of staff in the Pentagon — when someone knocked on his door and then entered without being invited in. It was Trevor Griffin. Patrick was about to admonish him when he noticed his stony expression. “I’m on the phone with the Pentagon, Tagger.”

“I know, Patrick,” Griffin said. “The boss knows, too.” Patrick nodded and waved for Griffin to sit, but he didn’t put the phone down. Griffin held up his secure cellular phone, which had a long list of SMS messages already on it. “Cheyenne Mountain called a few moments ago, and just now the chief’s office called. Everybody wants to know what’s going on. All hell is breaking loose. The boss wants you in the battle-staff area, pronto.” He paused for a moment, then said with a serious expression, “Sir, what are you doing? You’re out of control. You gotta stop this.”

“You’ve seen the pictures and looked over my data, Tagger,” Patrick said. “You know as well as I do how serious this is.”

“Patrick, it’s all speculation,” Griffin said. “It’s a few buildings erected on bases that haven’t been used in a few years, a bunch of tired old Backfire bombers — nothing earth-shattering about that. What are you—?”

“Air Battle Force got new images, Tagger — you saw them yourself,” Patrick said. “Yakutsk is wall-to-wall tankers now — dozens of them. Aginskoye, Bratsk, Blagoveshchensk, Ulan-Ude — the Blackjacks and Backfires are massing everywhere. As fast as they’ve appeared, I think they’re going to disappear just as fast — all headed this way.”

“Patrick, no one believes that,” Griffin said. “No one believes that the Russians would be crazy enough to attack North America. It’s gotta be something else — if there is anything at all.”

“The target’s not Europe. All the bombers and tankers are in Siberia,” Patrick said. “Unless they’re going after China or Japan, I think the target is the United States.”

“Why? Why would they attack the U.S.?”

“Gryzlov — he wants revenge for my attack on Engels, and he wants to kill ten thousand enemy soldiers for every one Russian soldier we kill,” Patrick said. “The guy’s crazy, he’s in charge, and he wants payback.”

“Patrick, this is nuts,” Griffin breathed. “How in the world are you going to convince anyone of this? They all think that you…well, that you…”

“That I’m trying to stir up shit, that I’m trying to get back at the guys that took away my command and sent me here,” Patrick said. “I know what they think. But there’s only one thing that matters: We do everything we can to protect the United States of America.” Patrick noticed Griffin’s exasperated expression. “Yeah, I know, I sound like some goody-goody comic-book hero, but that’s what I believe.”

Patrick heard a series of clicks and a rainburst signal on the phone, and then a voice said, “General McLanahan? Stand by for the chief.” A moment later: “Kuzner here, secure.”

“General Kuzner, this is General McLanahan, Nine-sixty-sixth Information Warfare Wing, secure. I have a possible situation that requires your immediate attention, sir.”

“McLanahan, do you have any idea the shit storm you’ve caused over here?” Charles Kuzner, the Air Force chief of staff, responded angrily. “The NORAD Command Center issued a red alert to the Joint Staff Operations Center, telling us that one of the AIA wing commanders warned them that the United States was under attack by Russian bombers. Did that warning come from you?”

“Yes, sir, it did.”

“For Christ’s sake, McLanahan…where’s General Houser? Does he even know about any of this?”

“I briefed General Houser and the AIA staff on the findings from two recent satellite-constellation overflights just minutes ago, sir. He indicated to me that I didn’t have enough actionable information. I disagreed, and I felt that my information needed immediate attention, so I called Air Battle Force and asked them to draw up a plan for ground reconnaissance. It—”

“Air Battle Force?” Kuzner retorted. “You’re with Air Intelligence Agency, McLanahan, not Air Battle Force! We pulled you out of there specifically to keep shit like this from happening!”

“Sir, I feel that the information I had needed immediate attention, but I wasn’t going to get it from AIA,” Patrick went on. “The only recourse I had was Air Battle Force.”

“How about Eighth Air—” And then Kuzner stopped — because he knew about Patrick’s history with Terrill Samson. He didn’t need to mention Air Combat Command either — Thomas Muskoka wasn’t a fan of Patrick’s either.

“I was informed by General Luger of new data that strongly suggested a massive bomber and tanker mobilization in the Russian far east,” Patrick went on. “His new information confirmed my suspicions. At that point I contacted NORAD and gave them the warning, then contacted Air Force. I—”

“Hold on,” Kuzner said, and the line went silent. He came back a few moments later. “CJCS wants a briefing later today. You’re going to give it to him. Let’s see if he believes you — because I sure as hell don’t. You report to a videoconference center, hook into the Pentagon comm center, and stand by until they send you over to the Gold Room.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff Conference Room was nicknamed the “Gold Room” because of its décor and because of all the “brass” inside. “I’m calling the Eighth Air Force staff to meet up with Strategic Command at Offutt to discuss the situation. If you’re one second late, mister, I’ll personally go out there and kick your ass all the way back to Washington. Kuzner, clear.” And the connection went dead.

Patrick got up from his desk and put on his Class A uniform jacket. “This is probably the second command I’ve given up in less than a month — it’s gotta be some sort of record. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Dave Luger before I left Air Battle Force, Tagger: Pay attention to what your head and your heart tell you, not what some bureaucrat tells you.”

“I will, Patrick,” Griffin said, “but you’re not going to lose this command.”

“I think this time you’re wrong, Tagger,” Patrick said. He opened his wall safe and extracted a red folder marked TOP SECRET. Griffin knew what it was — and he wished Patrick would put it back in the safe where it belonged. “My last recommendation: Get your ground-recon plan to Kuzner ASAP and press him on it. Get in contact with Dave Luger and Hal Briggs at Air Battle Force for help. They have gadgets and weapons you won’t believe.”

“We’ll plan this thing together, sir,” Griffin said. “I’ll go with you to the battle-staff area.”

“Negative. I want you to get your ground-ops plan forwarded to Air Force right away. I want to see it kicked off in eight hours.”

“Okay, I’ll take care of it.” He stuck out a hand. “You haven’t been here long, Patrick, but I already know I’d follow you to hell and back if you asked me to go.” Patrick smiled, shook Griffin’s hand, nodded, and left to report to the battle-staff area for the videoconference.

Gary Houser showed up moments after Patrick did. Patrick stood at attention as Houser stormed over to him. “I’m getting on a plane in a few hours to report to Strategic Command headquarters to explain what the hell happened here today,” Houser said angrily. “My boss and his senior staff, the entire Strategic Command senior staff, half the senior staff from NORAD, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and undoubtedly the secretary of defense will be grilling me on what you did today. What am I supposed to tell them? I think you’ve flipped out or something. Is that what you think I should tell them?” He stepped toward Patrick until he was almost nose to nose with him. “I just have one question for you, General McLanahan,” Houser said. “What in hell do you want?”

“Want, sir?”

“What do you want, McLanahan?” Houser barked, standing just inches from Patrick, leaning down to snarl directly into his face. “Do you really want to be in the Air Force, or do you want to go out in a blaze of glory? Do you want to serve your country, or do you just want to soothe your own bruised and battered ego? Do you want to destroy the careers of those around you, or are you crazy enough to believe that what you’re doing here is the right thing?”

“Sir…” And then Patrick stopped and locked his eyes on his two-star commander. Houser’s eyes blazed, and a jaw muscle twitched. “Gary, I’m getting sick and tired of putting up with your bullshit.”

“What in hell did you just say?” Houser shouted.

“I said, I’m not going to put up with your bullshit anymore,” Patrick repeated. “I gave you information on what could possibly be a major attack against the United States, and all you can do is blow me off. I contacted NORAD and the Pentagon because you’re too full of yourself to do it.”

“Get the hell out of here, McLanahan, before I—”

“I’ve been ordered by General Kuzner to brief the Joint Chiefs on the alert I issued NORAD,” Patrick said. “I’m staying. You’re not going to have a chance to weasel out of this.”

“Weasel out…?”

“I’m going to give my information to the JCS, Gary, and then you can tell them why you chose to ignore it.”

Houser shook his head. “You’ve gone off the deep end, McLanahan,” he said. “I always knew you were a loner and a little strange, but now I know you’ve just completely lost it. Your career is over, my friend. Not only have you disobeyed a lawful order, but you have some sort of delusional problem that makes you a danger to the United States in any sort of command position.

“As soon as this briefing is over, pal, you’re relieved of duty as Nine-sixty-sixth commander. I will prefer charges against you for disobeying a direct order and for insubordination. You will report to your quarters and await the convening of a court-martial. And if I can, I’ll make sure you spend the last remaining years of your career in a military prison camp.”

“Gary, all you’ve done since I’ve arrived at Lackland is threaten me,” Patrick said. “That’s not leadership — that’s tyranny. I’ll be glad to get the hell out of here, even if it’s to a prison cell, as long as I don’t have to put up with your adolescent nonsense again. Sir.”