50

THE WORLD
0001 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 26, 2006

The word came down — “Initiate Stormdragon” — and the labor began across an arc of time and space that stretched from the shores of Asia to the corridors of the Pentagon. Meat had to be put on the bare bones of the mission outline. Intelligence had to be collected and collated: satellite, aircraft, seaborne, surface, Elint, Sigint, Imagint, Humint … “Goddamn it! Will you please inquire of those paranoid sons of bitches over at Langley that if the Joint Chiefs of Staff aren’t authorized to have access to that data, who is?”

Targeting lists had to be assessed, proposed, rejected, and assessed again … “Okay, gentlemen. We’ve got six major transformer stations here in the Shanghai regional power grid. Which ones do we have to kill to pull the plug on the entire east side?”

Layer upon layer of strategic, operational, and tactical planning intermeshed into a single, composite whole. Scores of flight paths for cruise missiles and aircraft alike had to be planned, plotted, and timed to the second … “This is no good, Commander. You can’t bring that Tomahawk stream in over that high-density residential district. You know the mission parameters. Minimize collateral risk to all civilian areas. Replot it, expedite!”

Weather, fuel loads, weaponry … “Do we go with the laser-guided or do we load the GPUs? Desperate Jesus, Lieutenant! We got to start uploading ordnance in another forty-five minutes!”

Plan the perfect mission. Then plan for the mission that was not so perfect. What would happen if a carrier catapult failed with only half the strike in the air? What would happen if the Communists had a BARCAP up? What would happen if the first plane back crashed and fouled the deck? What would happen if … Stormdragon’s planners struggled mightily to cover every possible eventuality, to cover every possible untoward event that could affect the outcome of the mission.

It was impossible, of course.

In the rush to prepare the strike, a single small, yet critical, planning error was made. Overlooked, it lay like a ticking time bomb within the operation plan, waiting for its moment to ignite disaster.

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