Sky Masters

11

Duty aboard the Chinese Liberation Army Navy destroyer Hong Lung for the day watch and flag staff began at five A.M. with reveille shortly before sunrise, prayers for those who were so inclined (Admiral Yin Po L’un, and therefore most of his flag staff, were not), a thirty-minute exercise period, cleanup, and breakfast, which usually consisted of chicken or fish soup, rice, tea, and hard candy or caramel squares for the enlisted men. Morning inspection began at six-fifteen, and the reports from each section aboard ship were received by the captain by ten minutes to seven. By seven A.M. the executive officers of each ship of the fleet escorting the Hong Lung reported to the Admiral’s chief of operations, as did the group commanders from the three other naval battle groups in the southern Philippines; Yin’s chief of operations then compiled the morning report for the Admiral for presentation precisely at seven-fifteen.

The Admiral first received a synopsis of incoming-message-traffic from Beijing or South China Sea fleet headquarters in Zhanjiang (important messages would of course have received his immediate attention), then a theater situation briefing and intelligence briefing. Yin’s chief of operations, Captain Sun Ji Guoming, bowed deeply as he began: “Sir, I am pleased to provide you with the following theater briefing summary at this time, updated as of five A.M. local time:

“The primary threat to People’s Liberation Army Navy’s forces involved in the Philippines conflict currently is the United States Navy’s aircraft carrier Independence battle group from Japan operating in the Luzon Strait, the U.S. Army Twenty-fifth Infantry Division deployed to Guam, elements of the U.S. Marine Corps Third Marine Amphibious Force mobilized on Okinawa and deployed with the Independence carrier battle group, and the deployment of the Air Force First Air Battle Wing to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. It is important to point out that these all represent partial deployments of each unit, with approximately thirty to forty percent held in reserve at their home bases.

“Major elements of the U.S. Army’s Twenty-fifth Infantry Division were recently relocated to Andersen Air Force Base from Hawaii, with approximately eight thousand troops. It is designed to be a light, quickly deployable force. Our intelligence estimates state, however, that insufficient air or sealift capability exists to move this force from Guam to the Philippines with any speed. However, if they did move this force, we would oppose them with twice the number of infantry troops already in place on Mindanao and four times the number on Luzon and other areas of the Philippines. Elements of the Second Infantry Division in South Korea and Japan have also been mobilized, but we estimate they are still several days from being called into action and at least a week after that to see action in the Philippines.

“The Third Marine Division and elements of the First Marine Aircraft Wing have been deployed with the Independence carrier battle group, which is now stationed offshore approximately sixty kilometers northeast of Y’ami Island in the Luzon Strait; this is approximately three hundred and fifty kilometers north of the Philippines. In our estimation, the carrier battle group is not in position to strike into Luzon at this time, although they can be in position to strike with their aircraft within twenty-four hours and in position to begin ground operations on Luzon within forty-eight to seventy-two hours; this is what is currently driving our threat condition status throughout the People’s Liberation Army. The total American naval force includes approximately sixteen warships, ten support ships, four to six submarines — perhaps more, the exact number is uncertain — twenty fighter aircraft, and fifty fixed-wing strike aircraft.

“The Fifth Marine Pre-positioning Force from Hawaii has been activated and is deployed in the Philippine Sea with approximately five thousand Marines and forty helicopters, including the MV-22 tilt-rotor transport aircraft that was apparently used in the rescue of Samar and the American pilot on Mindanao. This force can strike in the central Philippines within twenty-four to forty-eight hours’ notice as well. This force includes two landing-ship carriers, four tank-landing carriers, and four support vessels.

“The greatest naval threat to our forces in the southern Philippines was the Ranger carrier battle group,” Sun continued. “The carrier itself is still heavily damaged and considered out of commission; it is being towed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and except for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft is unable to conduct any flight operations.”

A rustle of approving voices filled the conference room.

“However, the latest report has shown that a destroyer and a guided-missile cruiser from the Ranger group are en route to the Celebes from Indonesia and will be within missile range of some of our ships within the next four to five hours. They are being joined by a six-ship surface action group led by the battleship Wisconsin, en route from Hawaii, which our estimates say will be in position to attack in three to five days; these groups carry land-attack Tomahawk cruise missiles. Our embassy has received word that the Ranger's support ships intend to conduct search and rescue operations for their downed crew members lost in the air battle last week—”

“They will not be permitted to enter the Celebes Sea,” Admiral Yin said solemnly. “That I can promise. When Davao has been taken, Group One and Group Two will form to oppose these task forces until additional forces arrive from the mainland.”

“Yes, sir,” Sun continued. “This leaves the greatest threat to the southern Philippines task force, in the estimation of our intelligence section: the American Air Force. The First Air Battle Wing currently deployed on Guam reportedly has two dozen B-52 heavy bombers, perhaps eight long-range supersonic B-1 and F-111 bombers, nearly a dozen medium-range F-15 supersonic bombers, two dozen F-15 and F-16 fighter escorts, and various support aircraft, including reconnaissance, early warning, intelligence, and aerial refueling aircraft. Unverified reports from our patrols in the Philippine Sea say that the Americans might have sent B-2s as well.

“This force can strike within three hours with enough standoff weaponry to devastate large sections of our deployed battle groups. They have been flying reconnaissance flights as far west as Talaud Island, within radar range of our warships outside Davao Gulf. One U-2 spy plane was shot down last night by the destroyer Zhangyhum: we estimate the U-2 was able to get pictures of our vessels in Davao Gulf itself.”

“It does not sound like much of a threat to me, Captain,” Admiral Yin said. “Only thirty-two long-range strike aircraft, most of which are over forty years old? I see no substantial threat.”

“Their medium-range bombers and fighters are also a threat because of their aerial-refueling capability, sir,” Captain Sun replied. “And we should not underestimate the payload capability of the B-52. Fully armed, they can carry twenty-four Harpoon antiship missiles, which can strike from as far as one hundred and fifty kilometers—”

“Yes, the heavy bombers are a threat, Captain,” Admiral Yin said, “but once we secure Davao Airport, we can launch twenty fighters for every one of their bombers. The odds are clearly in our favor. The closest American air base on Okinawa is almost sixteen hundred kilometers from Manila, and the American air base on Guam is over two thousand kilometers from Davao. Even if the Americans were granted permission to use the British air base at Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei, that is still eight hundred kilometers to Zamboanga and twelve hundred kilometers to Davao — plenty of time to organize our air, ground, and surface defenses. Once reliable radar early-warning networks are established around the Philippines, no American planes would be able to approach any Chinese positions without being detected…

“The key, however, is our impending attack on Davao. What is the status of our forces and the status of our operation against Davao?” Yin asked.

“The Admiral’s headquarters fleet afloat reports fully operational,” Captain Sun replied. “All vessels report fully manned, ready, and combat-capable, with no operational defects.

“The schedule briefed yesterday is still valid, sir,” Captain Sun continued. “At two A.M. tomorrow morning, Marine paratroopers will land on the coast outside the city of Davao and secure the Subasta and Sibuyan highways. Other Marine units will take Talikud Island and seal off the coastal towns of Samal and Bangoy on Samal Island. This will allow the minesweepers to enter Dadaotan Bay ahead of the destroyers and landing craft transports, without fear of attack in the narrow channel.”

That was the same objective during the invasion of Zamboanga, when the heavily populated Santa Cruz Channel had to be sanitized before Yin’s fleet could take up positions, except then they had more air power flying from Puerto Princesa and the element of surprise. That was gone now — unlike Zamboanga, Davao was ready for a siege.

Many things were different between Davao and the relatively easy siege of Zamboanga. Davao was the heart of the Samar government and the capital of the autonomous proislamic government on Mindanao. Few officials and residents here were from Luzon — although Davao had as much natural beauty as Zamboanga and was the largest city on Mindanao, with a population of over seventy-five thousand, it was considered an isolated, remote, untamed frontier town and never gained the popularity of its more contemporary sister city to the west. Davao had no large military base, so there was no large-scale government facility from which to stage a “popular revolt.” Nevertheless, Yin was determined to see Davao fall.

“By five A.M. the destroyers should be in place, and the LSTs will begin deploying landing craft,” Sun continued. “The Air Force will move in to soften the beach area, and the destroyers with their escorts and shallow-draft patrol craft will secure the bay and harbors and provide gun support for the landing craft. The landing should begin at six A.M. and should be complete by eleven. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, perhaps earlier, Samar International Airport will be ours.

“The Air Force will continue to patrol the area, especially the six private airstrips within fifty kilometers of Samar International — these are known marshaling areas and resupply points for the Samar militia. Army troops should have these areas secured by day after tomorrow, along with the Cadeco River valley. General Yuhan’s forces should have also secured the radar site on Mount Apo and the Cagayan Highway to the north. With the Mount Apo radar site, we can scan the region for almost five hundred kilometers in all directions — we can detect a flock of birds or a group of whales approaching the Philippines.

“Once this is accomplished, Group One can begin patrols of the east Celebes Sea and provide escorts for supply vessels entering Davao Gulf. Group Three can begin resupply sorties to Davao via sealift until the Davao-Cotaban Highway is secure or until the area around Samar International Airport is secure and we can begin airlifting in supplies. We have no firm timetable on this as of yet, however. Our best option is to secure the sea-lanes for resupply until substantial numbers of troops are in place on Mindanao — it may take as long as a month.

“We can reasonably expect the fall of Davao to split the rebel forces into at least three separate groups, located roughly on the east coast, the southern coast, and the north-central parts of Mindanao,” Sun concluded. “This will reduce their ability to fight and dramatically disrupt their own resupply chain. We will force them into more and more austere conditions and reduce their ability to fight.”

Yin nodded thoughtfully. He was impressed with Sun’s briefing. If Sun had started briefing tactics and weapons, Yin would have been upset and concerned. Tactics and weapons did not win invasion campaigns — logistics won invasions. Everything his fleet and ground troops did ultimately had to open and secure supply fines or the invasion was doomed to failure. They were going to pour thousands of men and millions of tons of warships into Davao just to be able to land a few cargo aircraft at the airport or dock a supply ship in the harbor. Sun’s briefing emphasized resupply — that was the way it should be. If the supply fines were cut, he was doomed.

“Excellent, Captain Sun,” Admiral Yin said, bowing from the neck. “I congratulate you and your staff for a well-organized plan, and I wish us all success. Now tell me about areas in which we are weakest.”

“I see two areas of concern for this operation, sir,” Captain Sun replied. “Both relate to the remote possibility of counterattack from American or ASEAN forces.

“First, our close air support and fighter aircraft must launch from Zamboanga Airport — Cotabato Airport is still not secure enough for aircraft operations because of rebel activity. This means our fighters must fly four hundred kilometers one-way to reach Davao Gulf, and almost six hundred kilometers to intercept bombers carrying antiship missiles capable of hitting our warships in Davao Gulf. With the return trip and combat reserves, this leaves almost no loiter time for all our aircraft.”.

“Why was a plan not developed to secure the airport at Cotabato?” Yin asked angrily. “It was a major part of our invasion operation. You had several days and plenty of support, Captain — why am I now being told it is not safe to use this airport?”

“Sir, as I mentioned before to you, we depleted the reserve forces of Group Two to dangerous levels during the assault on Cotabato,” Sun replied. “As you know, we had to abandon our patrols of most of the Sulu Archipelago and create the hundred-kilometer safe zone around Zamboanga to form the invasion fleet for the Cotabato operation. It was barely enough for the job. We have taken the airport at Cotabato, but the staff and I agree that it is not wise to count on using it for the Davao operation. It is suitable as a landing base, and our aircraft recovering there can be refueled, but…”

“Can we not rearm our fighters and attack planes there as well?”

Sun shook his head reluctantly. “We deemed it too dangerous to ship massive amounts of rockets, bombs, and missiles to Cotabato, sir,” he replied. “Fuel trucks and bladders make poor targets for guerrillas with mortars or RPGs, but bomb dumps or parked cargo aircraft make convenient and inviting targets. Guerrilla attacks are too frequent…”

“Curse you, I should have been advised of all this sooner!” Yin exploded. He waved his hand irritably at Sun. “Continue, Captain. What other difficulties do you envision?”

Sun swallowed hard before continuing: he had previously briefed Admiral Yin on the problems with air cover if Cotabato was not secured, and now he was being blamed for not telling him; he had also briefed Yin on the next topic, and it appeared likely that Yin was going to forget about being advised of this as well.

“Sir, with the destroyers moving to the north Davao Gulf and their escorts taking their positions to support the landing, we have decreased our air coverage of the eastern Celebes Sea to a dangerous level,” Sun said.

“What air attacks are you concerned about, Captain?” Yin asked. “The American aircraft carrier is out of position, it cannot launch its strike aircraft, and no other carriers are within range…”

“The land-based bombers are our biggest threat, sir,” Sun replied. “The American Air Battle Force has been on the island of Guam ready to strike…”

“The Americans will not use the heavy bombers against us,” Yin said. “Our intelligence reports stated that the American President did not even want those bombers there. Besides, you reported that the Americans had only a handful of bombers there, less than thirty — is that not so…?”

“The count is accurate, sir,” Sun acknowledged, “but each can carry a number of Harpoon antiship missiles and bombs…”

“They have to get close enough to use them first,” Yin snapped. “Even one of our small patrol boats can destroy a Harpoon missile in flight. And the closer those bombers come to Davao during the invasion, the more effective our antiaircraft guns become.”

Sun paused momentarily. Yin seemed to have an answer for everything. Sun did not dispute his commander’s thoughts, but he was being extraordinarily confident of his own fleet’s power and recklessly unconcerned about the American Air Force’s power. “I agree with you, sir,” Sun said slowly, “but I think it would be wise to augment our air-defense preparations by moving the Hong Lung and some of its antiair-equipped escorts to the eastern Celebes Sea area. That would give us four ships with surface-to-air missiles and four more ships with large-caliber radar-guided antiaircraft guns. Zamboanga is secure — our presence is not needed here.”

Yin thought about the suggestion, and he liked it — Sun would make a fine fleet commander one day. The Hong Lung was one of the most powerful ships in the world, well suited for both antiair as well as antiship operations. It was also a very potent weapon for simple show-of-force, but since Yin liked to keep his warships mostly out of sight of the local population, it wasn’t doing much good as a weapon of intimidation in Zamboanga. His shore setups here were in place and operating well — it was time the Hong Lung, the Red Dragon, got back into the fight.

“An excellent suggestion, Captain,” Yin said. “I want one vessel to remain here, positioned so residents of the city can see it clearly; the rest of the Fleet Master will accompany the Hong Lung to the battle area. Choose your escorts and alert the fleet: we sail immediately for the eastern Celebes Sea.”

Sun looked much more pleased — it was obvious he disagreed with Yin’s estimation of the American air threat — and he bowed to acknowledge the order. “If there is nothing else, publish the orders and proceed.” His flag staff stood, bowed, and exited the office.

Yin was alone in his office for several minutes when his executive officer knocked. “Sir, you have a visitor: Philippine President Daniel Teguina. He is requesting a short meeting with you in private.”

Yin had to struggle to maintain his composure. What in hell does Teguina want with me…? Since the coup, Teguina had dealt exclusively with the People’s Liberation Army Supreme Commander, High General Chin Po Zihong, on any military matters; otherwise he dealt with Dong Sen Kim, the ambassador to the Philippines, or to the Foreign Minister directly. Just a few weeks earlier, Teguina would have gladly kissed Yin’s feet if he had helped him with his coup — now that the coup was completed, Teguina was actually starting to believe the myth about China just assisting Teguina to defeat the “rebels” and save his country.

“Tell him I’m too… never mind. I’ll meet him. Have this room cleaned and coffee and pastries served… and put his flags back, too, his stupid Aguinaldo flag and the Sulu flag. And make sure our conversation is recorded and the video cameras are activated — I want a complete record of this entire meeting.”

The executive officer nodded and hurried off to issue the orders.

It was just like that pompous ass Teguina, Yin thought, to make up new flags for his two new “countries” before consolidating power — the flags only become a butt of jokes and an object of derision if the coup fails.

Accompanied by a heavily armed Marine guard, Admiral Yin made his way to the quarterdeck and onto the receiving area. He was kept waiting as several escort vessels made their way toward the Chinese destroyer, under the careful scrutiny of deck-gun crews. An honor guard was quickly assembled, and several crewmen were-positioned on the port rail, standing at parade rest, as Teguina’s liaison craft approached. Teguina’s boat was stopped several times and inspected before being allowed to dock at the Hong Lung's boarding platform, and the new Philippine President started up the stairs. The honor guard snapped to attention, and a broadcast was made on the public address system announcing the arrival of the Philippine President.

Yin forced himself to raise a hand to the brim of his cap in salute. Teguina ignored the Chinese colors and Yin’s salute. “I must speak with you immediately, Admiral,” Teguina said without preamble.

“By all means, Mr. President,” Yin’s interpreter replied. He quickly translated both Teguina’s words and his own hasty reply for the Admiral, and Yin scowled darkly as he followed Teguina through the quarterdeck doors. A few moments later they were in Yin’s flag briefing room.

“The Admiral wishes to extend his warmest greeting to the President of the Democratic Federation of Aguinaldo,” Yin’s interpreter said in English. “The Admiral considers it a great honor that you have come for a visit and wishes to offer you…

Teguina started talking, a long, completely unintelligible diatribe. The interpreter tried to tell Yin what the man was saying but was stopped by a sudden outburst of anger as Teguina angrily spit out his words. “He said he wants an explanation of why the Chinese government has made an alliance with Vietnam for the Spratly Islands,” the interpreter finally said. “He is angry that his country has lost all rights to the Spratly Islands to the Vietnamese.”

“What is he talking about?” Yin asked angrily. “We did not make a deal with Vietnam for anything!”

“Mr. Teguina says that Vietnam abstained in a recent vote of the Association of South East Asian Nations,” the interpreter said, “and the rumor that was passed to the Aguinaldo government was that the Chinese government made a deal with Vietnam to give them rights to the Spratly Islands in exchange for blocking a key vote.”

Yin was about to rebuff the accusation, but the words died in his throat. That had to be the reason why he had heard the tremendous outcry from the ASEAN nations concerning the Chinese invasion, yet nothing had been done — because two nations, Thailand and Vietnam, abstained. High General Chin Po Zihong must have lost a key argument in Beijing if he allowed the Nansha Dao — what the world called the Spratly Islands — to fall back into Vietnam’s hands… Chin would never have allowed that to happen unless his voice was firmly stilled by Premier Cheung.

“I assure you,” Yin calmly told Teguina, “that our alliance is firm and there is no duplicity involved. The vote to censure us was defeated in ASEAN because the members believe in what we’re doing, not because of any back-room deals, especially with the reprehensible Vietnamese government…”

But Teguina didn’t seem to be waiting for the interpreter to finish; he began lashing out more accusations. “He is saying that his alliance is ruined, that the Chinese are out to get him, that he can trust no one…”

“Calm yourself, Mr. President,” Yin said via the interpreter. “We will brief you on our preparations for assisting your forces to retake Davao, and we will give you a tour of our flagship. You may even speak to our officers. They will all tell you that they fully support your government in this struggle.” That seemed to mollify Teguina a little, and he allowed himself to be escorted out of Yin’s office to the Battle staff briefing area.

But as they were leaving, with Teguina well out of earshot, Yin grabbed Captain Sun and hissed, “Get headquarters’ political section on the line immediately. I want to find out about the ASEAN vote and the status of Nansha Dao. Do it immediately.”

The President of the United States had extended his hand to greet United Nations ambassador Deborah O’Day as she walked into the Oval Office, but by some sort of sudden urge he found himself giving her a cordial hug. “Welcome back home, Deborah,” the President said, guiding her to a chair. Secretary of State Danahall, Secretary of Defense Preston, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Curtis, and several members of the House and Senate armed services committees stayed on their feet until O’Day was seated, then took their place around her. “You’ve had a hell of an ordeal, haven’t you?”

“Dealing with the ASEAN representatives and the Chinese delegation has been tougher than getting kidnapped by Samar’s rebels,” O’Day admitted. She extended a hand, and her aide placed a leather-jacketed folder into it. “Mr. President, I’ve been given a communique by the Chinese government, a reply to your last message requesting withdrawal from the Philippines.”

“I take it by your tone that it’s not good news.”

“I haven’t read the letter itself, sir, but the Chinese ambassador was not cordial. I think it’s bad news.” The President took the folder, broke the seal, initialed the original Chinese-language version of the letter and placed it aside, then read the United Nations and State Department translations.

“Just as we thought,” Taylor said wearily. “China rejects our demands for an immediate withdrawal. They say they are in the Philippines with the permission and full sanction of the Philippine government, and the American involvement there is illegal meddling in the internal affairs of another government. They say they do not know the whereabouts of Arturo Mikaso and said we should make inquiries with the Filipino government as to his status, but as far as they are concerned Daniel Teguina is in charge and Jose Trujillo Samar has no authority in the government.

“They regret the attacks on our aircraft and warships, but in the current unstable world climate such interference should have been anticipated and therefore we should carry as much of the blame for the loss as they…”

“Bullshit,” Curtis murmured.

“They further regard the deployment of heavy bombers and carrier battle groups around the Philippines as an extremely hostile act and they will use any and all means at their disposal to protect their citizens and property.” The President tossed the communique aside and regarded the advisers around him. “Well? Thoughts?”

“Samar’s rebels come under attack in less than five hours, sir,” O’Day said. She glanced at Wilbur Curtis. “Is that right, General?”

“Yes, it is,” Curtis said. He referred to the pile of mounted satellite photos on the coffee table before him — the photos taken from the B-2 and U-2 reconnaissance flights. “It may have begun already. Chinese warships were in position to bombard Davao by sundown. When their landing craft get into position, they’ll start the invasion.”

“Five hours? So you’re saying it’s too late…?”

“No, sir, I’m not,” Curtis said. “As we discussed in the tactics briefing, the Chinese troops are most vulnerable while they’re still in their troop transports. They’ve already begun unloading troops along the Buoyan peninsula east of Mount Apo to secure the coastal towns, but the main force still hasn’t landed in Davao yet — Samar’s rebels are mining the straits and inlets, trying to slow the convoys up. We still have time to stop them.”

The President nodded to Curtis. “Thank you, General.” To Secretary of Defense Preston, he asked, “Thomas? What do you have for me?”

“Only my wish that we wait and bring the Lincoln and Nimitz carrier battle groups, and the Wisconsin surface action group, forward into position first,” Preston replied. “But I know if we still desire to support Samar and his Islamic rebels that we must act quickly.”

The President seemed to consider his words for a moment. “Thank you.” He continued around the room, getting last thoughts from Danahall and the congressional leadership. A few voiced hesitation, but all seemed to want to act.

From the front of his desk, the President withdrew a red-covered folder and opened it. Below large dark letters that read Top Secret were the words Executive Order 94–21, Air Operations, Strike, Island of Mindanao, Republic of the Philippines. Without any further hesitation, the President signed the order and several copies, then replaced it in the folder and resealed it.

Wilbur Curtis was on the phone thirty seconds later to the National Military Command Center.

Patrick McLanahan awoke thirty minutes before his alarm rang. Two hours before the first daily standby situation briefing — he needed rest, but he knew his mind was not going to let him have any more.

His bedroom was a maintenance office on the top floor of hangar building number 509, on Andersen’s expansive north parking ramp, which he shared with his aircraft commander, Major Henry Cobb. Down below them in the huge hangar were two very unusual machines — Patrick’s B-2A Black Knight stealth bomber and an EB-52C Megafortress strategic escort aircraft — the same Megafortress that had “saved” their tails from the F-23 Wildcat fighters during General Jarrel’s training sorties three weeks ago in Powder River Run. The hangar also housed all the other flight, maintenance, and support crews for the HAWC aircraft, as well as a full squadron of heavily armed security police.

Careful not to disturb his aircraft commander, Patrick pulled on his flight suit, picked up his socks and boots from their place under his canvas folding cot, and tried to tiptoe out.

“Up already, Colonel?” Cobb said from his cot.

“Yep. Sorry to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I never went to sleep.” Cobb threw off the sheet covering him and swung his feet onto the floor. “Never slept in a hangar before. Don’t think I want to again after this.”

“Amen,” Patrick said. “The smell really gets you after a while. I started to have… bad dreams.” He wasn’t going to say what those dreams were like or what mission he was flying in his dreams. He got the same dreams every time he was exposed to kerosene-like fumes — a morning long ago and far away… a tiny snow-covered fighter base at Anadyr, Siberia, in the Soviet Union, when he pumped thousands of gallons of kerosene into a B-52 by hand in subzero weather so they could take off again before the Soviet Army found them. David Luger had sacrificed himself to make sure they could escape, driving a fuel truck into a machine gun emplacement — and Patrick relived that horrible moment every night after smelling jet-fuel fumes. He would probably do so for the rest of his life.

Henry Cobb hadn’t heard all the stories about the Old Dog mission — he had of course met all the survivors of that mission, most of whom worked — some called it “exiled” — at the HAWC, and he had seen the first Megafortress itself after Ormack and McLanahan flew it from Alaska back to Dreamland — but he could guess that it was some event in that mission that starred in McLanahan’s bad dreams.

Both men quickly washed up in the lavatory down the hall, then returned to their rooms to dress. Despite the warm, muggy afternoon, they donned thin, fire-resistant long underwear and thick padded socks under their flight suits. Under the long underwear were regular cotton briefs and T-shirts.

They wore metal military dog tags next to their skin so they wouldn’t rattle or fly loose during ejection. Many crew members laced dog tags into their boots as well, because many times lower body parts survived aerial combat better than upper body parts. They both carried survival knives in ankle sheaths, lightweight composite-bladed knives with both straight and serrated edges, a built-in magnetic compass in the butt cap, and a watertight compartment in the handle that carried waterproof matches, fishing line, sunscreen, a small signal mirror, and a tiny first-aid and survival booklet. In thigh pockets they carried another knife, this one attached to their flight suits by a six-foot-long cord — this knife was a legal switchblade knife with a hook blade for cutting parachute risers. The thigh pocket also contained a vial with earplugs, which were often mistaken by curious nonflyers for suicide pills.

They carried no wallets, at least not the same ones they carried normally. Into a specially prepared nylon “sortie” wallet they placed their military identification cards, some cash, credit cards, and traveler’s checks — these were many times more valuable than the “blood chits” used to buy assistance during earlier wars. During the intelligence briefing before a mission, they would receive “pointee-talkee” native language cards and small escape-and-evasion maps of the area, which both went into the sortie wallet.

Just about every pocket in a flight suit contained something, usually personal survival items devised after years of experience. In his ankle pockets, Patrick carried fireproof Nomex flying gloves, extra pencils, and a large plastic Ziplok bag containing a hip flask filled with water and a small vial with water purification tablets. Cobb took a small Bible, a flask of some unidentifiable liquid, and included an unusual multipurpose tool that fit neatly inside his sortie wallet. They packed up their charts, flight manuals, and other documents in a Nomex flying bag, picked up a lightweight nylon flying jacket — which had its own assortment of survival articles in its pockets — and departed.

While they were up on the upper-floor “catwalk” in the hangar, they had a good opportunity to look at the EB-52C escort bomber that was in the hangar with their B-2. Unlike the B-2, where there was little activity, the technicians and munitions maintenance crews were swarming around the Megafortress like worker bees in a hive.

It had to be the weirdest plane — and the most deadly looking plane — either of them had ever seen. The long, sleek, pointed nose was canted down in taxi position, with the aerodynamically raked windscreens looking Oriental and menacing. The dorsal SAR synthetic aperture radar radome, which ran from just aft of the crew compartment and ended in a neat fairing that blended back into the fuselage and the diagonal stabilators near the aft end, made the Megafortress seem broad-shouldered and evil, like some warlock’s hunchbacked assistant. The pointed aerodynamic tip tanks, two on each wingtip, looked like twin stilettos challenging all comers, like lowered lances held by charging knights on horseback. Short low-drag pylons mounted between the inboard engine nacelles and the ebony fuselage on each side held six AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air missiles, their red ground-safety streamers still visible.

Faired under the wings were sensor pods that contained laser target designators, infrared scanners, telescopic cameras for long-range air-target identification, and millimeter-wave radars to scan for large metallic objects hidden by trees or fog that normally could not be picked up by other sensors, such as tanks and armored vehicles. This was one of the older Megafortress escort bombers — it still had the older, conventional metal wings that drooped so far down that the wingtips were only a few feet above the ground and had to be supported by “pogo” wheels. The new Megafortress wings were made of composite materials and wouldn’t sag one inch, even fully loaded with fuel and weapons.

Other weapons were just being uploaded, and Henry Cobb, who had had little experience with the Megafortress project, could only shake his head in amazement. The forward section of the bomb bay contained two four-round clip-in racks that held AGM-136 TACIT RAINBOW antiradar cruise missiles. The aft bomb bay contained a Common Strategy Rotary Launcher filled with smooth, oblong-bodied missiles — eight TV-guided AGM-84E SLAMs, or Standoff Land Attack Missiles.

“Looks like the Megafortresses are getting loaded for bear,” Cobb remarked. They could also see the loading procedures for the Stinger airmine rockets in the tail launcher.

Watching this Megafortress getting ready for combat made McLanahan feel strange — a crashing wave of deja vu was descending on him. The hangar in a remote location, the weapons loaded and ready, the plane fueled and ready to go — it was horribly like the last time he had taken a B-52 into combat all those years ago.

But that wasn’t his bird now. He had a new one, a bigger, darker, more lethal one — the B-2 Black Knight, modified like the EB-52 to be a strategic escort bomber. All of the B-2’s weapons were internal, and the sophisticated sensors were buried within the wing leading edges or in the sensor bay in the nose under the crew compartment. The reconnaissance pods were gone, to be replaced by rotary launchers that would carry much more lethal warloads than cameras and radars.

The B-2’s ground crew had just arrived for the pre-takeoff inspection, and since the two crewmen were awake at least an hour before they intended, they had time to look over their Black Knight before reporting to the briefing room. They found little changed. The maintenance crews were going through a normal pre-flight as if the plane were going on another training sortie — they were less than four hours from takeoff and no weapons had been uploaded yet. “Where are the missiles?” Cobb asked McLanahan. “I thought we were loading up on Harpoons or SLAMs for this run.”

“Won’t know what we’ll be doing for at least another two hours yet,” Patrick replied. “We don’t know yet if we’re going after ships, or radars, or ground targets — it could be anything. Once the Joint Battle Staff decides, it’ll take them just a few minutes to snap those launchers and bomb racks in and do a ground check. They can probably do it while other planes are launching.”

They completed a casual walkaround inspection, chatting with the maintenance crews along the way. It was apparent that each and every one of them was just as apprehensive, just as nervous, just as concerned for what was happening on Andersen Air Force Base and in the rest of the Pacific as Cobb and McLanahan.

One of the munitions maintenance men stopped inspecting a SLAM missile seeker head when McLanahan greeted him. “Think we’ll be flying tonight, sir?” the man asked. The “we” was not just a demonstrative — ground crews were just as emotionally and professionally tied to their aircraft as the flight crews. When McLanahan’s B-2 rolled down the runway, a hundred other minds and hearts were right in there with him.

“Wish I could tell you, Paul,” Patrick said. “They tell us to be ready, that’s all.”

The man stepped closer to McLanahan, as if afraid to ask the question that had obviously been nagging at his consciousness: “Are you scared, sir?” he asked in a low voice.

Patrick looked back at the man with a touch of astonishment at the question. Before he could reply, however, some other technician had pulled the man away. “That’s McLanahan, you butthead. He’s the best there is,” Patrick heard the second tech tell him. “He’s too good to get scared.” None of the other crew chiefs dared to speak with the two aviators.

Cobb and McLanahan finished their inspection, checked in with the security guard, who inspected their bags before allowing them to leave, and then the two B-2 crew members stepped out of the hangar into the twilight.

Unlike the controlled, calm tension inside hangar 509, outside it was sheer bedlam. The ramp space in front of the hangars was the only clear space as far as either man could see — the rest of the base was filled with aircraft of every possible description, and the access roads and taxiways were clogged with maintenance and support vehicles.

The north ramp to their far right was choked full of cargo aircraft — C-141 Starlifters, C-5 Galaxys, and C-130 Hercules planes, all surrounded by cargo-handling equipment offloading their precious pallets of spare parts, personnel, weapons, and other supplies. Like a line of ants along a crack in a sidewalk, there was a steady stream of forklift trucks, tractor-trailers, flatbed trucks, and “mules” carrying supplies from the aircraft to the inspection and distribution warehouses. Every few minutes, another cargo plane would arrive on one of the Andersen AFB’s twin parallel runways, taxi off to a waiting area, then be met by a “Follow-Me” truck which would direct it to another parking spot. Empty cargo planes that had crews with duty day hours remaining went to a refueling pit on the south side of the base and were immediately marshaled to the end of the runway for takeoff; planes that were not due to take off until later were directed to waiting areas along the northeast side of the base, at the edge of the steep cliffs of Pati Point.

West of the north ramp, near the north end of the east runway, were the parking spots for the aerial refueling tankers. These were perhaps the most important aircraft on Guam. The KC-135 Stratotanker, KC-10 Extender, and KC-130 Hercules tankers provided the only means for most of the Air Battle Force’s aircraft to conduct strike operations from Guam — indeed, most of the aircraft there could not have arrived without the tankers supplying them fuel. Tankers were airborne almost continually in support of flight operations, and several tankers were on “strip alert” status to respond to emergency requests of fuel. The tankers also acted as cargo aircraft themselves — one KC-10 tanker could deploy all of the support personnel, equipment, and spare parts for six F-16 fighters from Hawaii to Guam, and refuel those six planes, all on the same trip.

Directly ahead of the hangars were the parking spots for the air-defense fighters. Only half of the Air Battle Force’s twenty F-15s and fifteen F-16s were parked there, because the rest were either flying escort missions with the “ferret” bombers or were on air-defense alert on the south parking apron. Four F-15s and six F-16s were fueled, armed, and ready to respond should the Chinese attempt an air raid on Andersen Air Force Base itself. The complement included four F-23 Advance Tactical Fighters, deployed for the first time out of the fifty states. A few of the F-14s stranded from the stricken aircraft carrier USS Ranger were also parked there.

Each fighter carried relatively few weapons, only two radar-guided and two heat-seeking missiles total: the most prominent store on each fighter was the huge seven-hundred-gallon centerline fuel tank. When flying from Guam, where alternate landing bases were hundreds of miles apart, fuel was a very precious commodity. The incredible offensive power of these fighters was severely limited by fuel availability — if one aerial refueling tanker failed to launch or could not transfer fuel, it could take dozens of fighters out of the battle.

Cobb and McLanahan waited near a group of soldiers until a civilian contractor-hired “Guam Bomb” jeepney bus, its body rusting and its broken leaf springs squeaking with every movement, trundled by, then stepped on board — the bus was so full it looked as if the fat native Chamorro driver had to sit sideways to let riders on. The sea of men and machines on Guam was simply amazing — it seemed every patch of sandy lawn, every square foot of concrete or asphalt, every empty space was occupied by a vehicle or aircraft. Lines were everywhere — lines to the chow hall, lines to maintenance or radio trucks, lines in front of water trucks. Traffic crisscrossed the streets and access roads, ignoring security-police whistles and traffic guards — being a pedestrian on the flight line was a definite health risk. The cloying, stupefying smells of burning jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, sweat, mildew — and, yes, fear — were everywhere. The noise was deafening and inescapable — even with earplugs or ear protectors, the screams of jet engines, auxiliary power carts, honking horns, yelling men and women, and public address speakers could not be reduced. The bus had no windows, so those without ear protectors stuck fingers in their ears to blot out the din of the parking ramp.

McLanahan had never felt so insignificant. He had participated in lots of aircraft generation exercises, when his unit’s fleet of bombers and tankers was fueled and armed in preparation for a strategic war, but this was at least twenty times greater in magnitude than he had ever seen before. Even during Air Battle Force generation exercises at Ellsworth Air Force Base — which, even in these few days since arriving on Guam, seemed a billion miles away and years ago — things seemed to go in a smooth, orderly fashion: here, it was like some kind of controlled riot, or like the world’s largest exhibition hall with thousands of participants milling around from building to aircraft and back again.

Parked south of the air-defense fighters and on the other side of base operations were the support aircraft. They had one E-3C Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System radar plane, one EC-135L radio relay plane, and one RC-135X reconnaissance plane parked there; an E-3 and another EC-135 were already airborne, participating in intelligence and “ferret” flights near the Philippines — obviously Masters’ NIRTSats were still down. There were also three EF-111A Raven electronic countermeasure aircraft, two Navy EA-6 electronic warfare aircraft, another U-2R spy plane like the one that was shot down near the Philippines, and a Navy E-2 Hawkeye radar plane from the Ranger. A few small “liaison” jets and supply helicopters were parked in front of base operations — these were fast transport jets that flitted all across the Mariana Islands, carrying urgent supplies or staff officers from base to base. On the other side of the support planes was the “Christmas tree” parking area for the alert fighters and tankers, situated so they could quickly and easily take off in case of emergency.

Barely visible across and in between the runways were the parking areas for the strike aircraft, surrounded by twelve-foot-high corrugated steel revetments to protect each other from damage should a bomb go off on one parking area. The smaller fighter-bombers — the F-15E Strike Eagles, the F-4 Phantoms, and the F-111G bombers, along with a few Navy A-6 Intruder bombers, were in the infield parking spots between the parallel runways, while the “heavies” — the B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers — were on the west parking areas.

Construction crews had built huge shelters for the three B-2 Black Knights to protect them as much as possible, not only from the elements — with their nonmetallic composite construction, the B-2s were more resilient to the harsh tropical climate and corroding effects of salt air than the other planes — but from the prying eyes of spy satellites and newsmen.

Although the B-2 had been operational for some years and was no longer the oddity it first was when it was unveiled in 1989, it still attracted a lot of undue attention. Just beyond the aircraft parking areas to the west, McLanahan could just barely make out the Patriot air-defense-missile canisters poking just above the treeline, already erected and ready to fire in case of an air attack.

Air defense of Andersen, as well as the Seventh Fleet combat groups, Okinawa, and the other island bases supporting the Philippines operation, was a very important consideration. The primary concern was attack from submarine-launched weapons. The Chinese Navy operated six Wuhan-class cruise-missile submarines that fired antiship missiles with ranges varying from twenty to one hundred nautical miles; these missiles were thought to have a secondary land-attack role by programming the missile’s autopilot to impact a selected set of geographical coordinates. Navy and Air Force radar planes were used to scan the skies around Andersen for any low-flying aircraft, while Navy ships and antisubmarine aircraft patrolled for signs of submarines. The Patriot missile was somewhat effective against low-flying cruise missiles, and even the F-16 fighters with their AIM-120C Scorpion missiles were fairly effective at chasing down subsonic cruise missiles.

China also possessed four sea-launched ballistic nuclear missile submarines, all of which had been deployed into the Pacific and were thought to be a threat to all American forces. These submarines were being located and shadowed as best as could be expected — the diesel-powered submarines were hundreds of times quieter submerged than their nuclear-powered counterparts — but the feeling was that if the fight escalated to a nuclear exchange, the weapons being used in this battle would be quickly supplanted by the full strategic nuclear might of the United States anyway.

The two B-2 crew members edged their way through the crush of bodies off the jeepney at the headquarters building and stepped inside, feeling the uncomfortable chill as the building’s heavy-duty air conditioning instantly turned the thin layer of sweat over their bodies to ice. McLanahan went immediately to the command post, waiting patiently as his ID was checked by the security guards and a metal detector was swept over his body — he had to unstrap his survival knife and keep it with the guards. He went and checked in at the room where the PACER SKY satellite system had been installed.

“Patrick?” a surprised General Brad Elliott asked as the young navigator-bombardier walked in. Elliott checked his watch. “You’re early — about an hour and a half early.” The veteran aviator looked at McLanahan’s hardened, concerned, somewhat distracted eyes. “Couldn’t sleep, eh?” Patrick shook his head. “Henry either.”

“It always happens that way, I think,” Elliott said. “The time you need sleep the most is when you can’t do it.” He regarded his younger colleague with an inquisitive expression; McLanahan seemed to pick up on the pause right away.

“We got the order, didn’t we?” Patrick asked.

“Couple hours ago,” Elliott said. “They wanted to be sure the three Navy ships in the Philippine Sea could get into position; we just got the word that they reported ready. They may wait one more day to see if we get the NIRTSats back on-line, but the recon photos you got last night are pretty good quality so we might do it tonight.”

Strangely, Patrick felt no fear, no apprehension, not even a trace of nervousness — his churning stomach and restless mind had kept him from sleep all afternoon, but now his body was quiet. It was as if he had already been told they were going to fly, that Elliott had somehow given him secondhand information. He nodded wordlessly to Elliott; then his eyes sought out the large high-definition monitor on which the NIRTSat reconnaissance data was usually displayed. “I can’t believe these are still down…”

“Yeah, well, nothing is ever guaranteed, as you know. Even the best stuff.”

Patrick stepped over to a large chart on which was drawn the positions of the known Chinese warships that he, Cobb, and the dead U-2 pilot had photographed a few nights earlier. A second board had the intelligence section’s best guess as to how the ships were going to be deployed when the strike aircraft were set to go over the target.

Elliott was amazed by the flyers he encountered in all his years of flying, but Patrick McLanahan had to be the most… admirable. His expression, his demeanor, his attitude were constant — distant, unshakable, almost detached. It was the same whether he was meeting the President of the United States or when getting promoted — unflappable coolness. Was it an act or was it real? Was McLanahan really such a cool character or was he destined for some huge heart attack or ulcer down the road for keeping all those emotions locked inside? He didn’t want to guess. He was just glad McLanahan was on their team.

Elliott noticed Patrick’s eyes on the briefing board behind him. “Can’t wait to see what you’re up against either, eh? We have one more NIRTSat pass before the mass briefing, so this won’t be the final picture — and hopefully PACER SKY will be working by then — but the pictures you got us are spectacular and very useful.”

They stepped toward the screen. “The Chinese are not only continuing on with their invasion plans, but they’ve set up a pretty sophisticated naval defense network around eastern Mindanao. It’s all being controlled from the radar installation here…”

“Don’t tell me,” McLanahan said wearily. “The Chinese got Mount Apo.”

“Took it yesterday and set up shop immediately. They’ve got big-picture coverage of all Mindanao now — almost unlimited fighter-intercept coverage, early-warning, maritime, even ground and fire control. Samar’s boys held out for days against a huge Chinese task force — the word is, it took five thousand Chinese and New People’s Army troops to take Samar’s two-hundred-man garrison. Samar’s men were wiped out completely.”

McLanahan felt his throat go instantly dry.

“Here’s the easternmost ship — it’s a destroyer, extensive air-search radar, early-warning capability, long-range HQ-91 SAM coverage,” Elliott continued. “There’s a line of six frigates two hundred miles offshore, giving them four-hundred-mile early warning — a good thirty- to forty-five-minute warning at least. Nothing sophisticated but still effective.

“One hundred and twenty miles offshore is the real gauntlet — three destroyers, six frigates, twelve patrol boats, in a three-hundred-mile-wide band around eastern Mindanao. The destroyers are spaced so that their anti air-missile lethal ranges don’t quite overlap, but they put a frigate with massed triple-A guns on it in the gaps. That’s how the U-2 was hit — they used one destroyer with an air-search radar to herd the U-2 into missile range of another destroyer that wasn’t transmitting. A few of these southern ships are in Indonesian waters, but there’s not a dam thing Indonesia can do about it. Between the missiles and guns, it’s overlapping, layered antiair coverage over all altitudes.

“Inside that first band is another layer of frigates and patrol boats — no destroyers, thank God, but the frigates are bad enough. They stay in basically a semicircular band around the mouth of Davao Gulf. There’s one destroyer and six escorts sitting in the Sangihe Strait in the south Celebes Sea to oppose the two Navy cruisers we got moving up from Indonesia.

“The main body is already in Davao Gulf itself, and it’s a real mess — the Chinese have one major warship for every ten square miles. That means they can theoretically shoot a shell or launch a missile and hit every part of Davao Gulf and every spot three miles above it.” Despite the ominous information, Patrick had to smile — it was very much like Elliott to describe such firepower, even the enemy’s, in such weird terms.

“We’ve counted twelve minesweepers, ten frigates, two destroyers, about thirty fast guided-missile patrol boats, twenty amphibious-assault ships, tank-landing ships, dock ships, amphibious-landing craft everywhere — over a hundred vessels,” Elliott continued. “To make matters worse, a battalion-sized airborne unit may have landed at one of the small airfields north of Davao and are making their way south. We don’t think the airfield is big enough to land fighters or transports, but if they can air-drop armor and artillery pieces there, Davao has had it.

“To cap it all off, they also may be sending another destroyer surface-action group from Zamboanga to reinforce this armada — the Hong Lung battle group this time. It’s their most powerful warship. It’s escorted by three frigates and six patrol boats. Hong Lung was also the vessel that reportedly fired the nuclear-tipped antiship missile near Palawan, and of course the staff feels the Chinese task force commander might just do it again.

“Their fighter coverage is pretty good,” Elliott continued, “good enough that the Joint Task Force commander, General Stone, has decided not to risk sending the AWACS or tankers within two hundred miles of Mindanao…”

“That means no combat air patrol for the strike packages?” McLanahan asked.

“So far it looks unlikely, Patrick,” Elliott replied. “We may be able to send up a few F-15s to cover the withdrawal, but we can’t send a tanker close enough to cover the strikers going into the target area. The Megafortresses will have to take on the fighters.”

Patrick felt his throat go dry — the Megafortresses were well equipped for air-to-air combat, but not against massed numbers of fighters. They would have to contend with the naval threats, too.

The odds were looking worse every minute…

“The Chinese have at least a hundred fighters in the area, half of which have the endurance for long overwater patrols,” Elliott continued. “The Chinese can effectively layer their defenses — warships, fighters, warships, fighters, then warships, in the target area. If they take Samar International Airport near Davao and start using it as a forward staging base, it definitely means no AWACS or tankers — and it may mean no Air Battle Force over Mindanao.”

“You got any good news on that screen, General?” McLanahan asked wryly.

“Sort of. The New People’s Army and the Chinese lost a big battle for the city of Cotabato, here on Moro Gulf. We think the Chinese wanted to use the airport there to stage fighters to support their upcoming assault on Davao. Samar’s guerrillas held out — for a while. But it was long enough, because they demolished the airfield before they were driven out by Chinese air raids. Pretty clever how they did it, too — instead of just cratering the runway, which would have made it easy for Chinese engineers to repair, they stripped out sections of runway, buried stolen bombs in it, then cemented trucks over the bombs. It’s going to take the Chinese two or three days to repair the runway and another few days to make it a usable staging base.”

“So what do we do, then?” McLanahan asked. “This is what might be called a target-rich environment. What’s first?”

“General Stone and the Joint Task Force still haven’t decided,” Elliott replied. “They have a general outline to work with, but they’ll wait for the latest satellite data from Washington before going ahead with a frag order. If Jon Masters’ setup was working, we’d be done by now — it only takes a few minutes to build a frag order from PACER SKY data. We get flight plans, data cartridges, computer tapes, charts, briefing boards, even slides from his system here. Now we have to program all this stuff by hand.” McLanahan saw Masters on the master console. “Masters, how are you doing?”

“Cool, Mac, my man, real cool,” Masters said. Masters was dressed in white shorts, a flowered Hawaiian shirt, and sneakers with no socks — it looked as if he had just returned from Tarague Beach, Andersen Air Force Base’s recreation area. “Brad, we got ten more minutes until the data comes in…”

“Is it back on-line, Doctor Masters?”

“Not quite,” Masters admitted. “But, hey, you gotta think positive. Everything looks good so far. Say, Mac, you ready to kick some Chinese butt out there tonight?” Patrick stared, not believing what he had just heard.

“Excuse me, Doctor?”

“Yeah, man, you’re gonna clean up,” Masters enthused. “We got spectacular photos and data, and we’ve got ingress and egress routes scoped out so well that the Chinks won’t even know you’ve just kicked their sloped asses…”

“I don’t think we better—”

“Hey, loosen up,” Masters said, taking a big swallow from his ever-present squeeze bottle of Pepsi. “Just sit back in that big B-2 cockpit of yours, put on some tunes, turn on the BNS, and send Uncle Cheung’s squids to the bottom of the Celebes Sea. You can come back and we’ll check out the Japanese babes out on Turnon Beach…”

Patrick noticed General Elliott take a step toward Masters, but Patrick was already moving by then. Without another word, Patrick had taken Masters’ skinny left arm in his big left hand and had pulled the young scientist up out of his chair and out of the battle staff area.

“Hey, Mac, I can’t leave the board quite yet…”

The adjacent office near the Command Post was unoccupied and unlocked, so McLanahan took Masters right inside, closed the door behind him, and deposited him unceremoniously onto the worn Naugahyde sofa. “Let’s get something straight, Doctor. First, the name is Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan. Second, you’ve got a big mouth.”

Masters stared at the looming, six-foot blond pilot. He looked a lot bigger standing over him than he had a moment ago. “Look, Colonel, I know you’re a little nervous about—”

“You don’t know jack-shit, including when to keep your mouth shut about classified material and when to conduct yourself in an appropriate manner—”

Masters smiled weakly. “Hey, who are you, Dirty Harry?” He tried to rise, but McLanahan pushed him back down.

“Get this straight, Doctor. While you’re in this command post, you’ll not wear shorts or sneakers, you’ll address the senior officer in the room as ‘sir’ or by their rank, not their first name, and you’ll keep your bigoted comments to yourself. You’re supposed to be a professional, so start acting like one.” McLanahan looked at his watch. “You’ve got about ten minutes before your satellite data comes in — that’s plenty of time for you to go back to your barracks and change.”

“Hey, man, you’re not my father,” Masters complained. “Get off your Clint Eastwood act and off my case…”

McLanahan leaned over the couch, putting his face within an inch of Masters’ own. They were but eight years apart in age, but worlds apart in experience. McLanahan looked directly into Masters’ eyes. “I shouldn’t have to be on your case, Doctor. But if you’d open your eyes, you might learn a thing or two about what’s going on here.”

Masters cleared his throat and tried to look away from McLanahan, but couldn’t. “Hey,” he said calmly, “I know what’s going on. I know the weapons you’re going to use, the routes you’ll fly. I wrote the friggin’ scenarios, for Gods-sake.”

“You may have,” McLanahan said, moving back a bit from Masters, “but you don’t know anything about combat. About what it’s like to be in a war machine facing your own mortality. Have General Elliott or Ormack or Cobb tell you sometime about combat, about life in the cockpit…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before — your secret society, your brotherhood of aviators. Brad — General Elliott — and his B-52s during Vietnam, out at that Arc Light Memorial, he tried to get into it, but he couldn’t explain it. He says, ‘You gotta be there.’ Stone, Jarrel, and all the others, even you — you’ve all been in combat before. But you treat it like a game, so why shouldn’t I?”

McLanahan bristled. He pulled out his dog tags from under his flight suit. “A game? What are these, Doctor? Tell me.”

Masters rolled his eyes. This was boring. “Dog tags. Next.”

“You’re partially right. Out here, Doctor, we have them for more than ornaments on a key ring. See how one is on the neck chain and one’s a small chain all by itself? There’s a reason for that. One they bring back to headquarters to prove you were killed in action — if they find your body, that is. The other they keep on the body, usually clamped shut in your mouth.”

He pulled out his water bottle from his left leg pocket. “You see this? Emergency water supply in case I lose my survival kit after ejection — this could be the only fresh water for a thousand miles if I have to punch out over the Philippine Sea.” He ripped off his unit patches and name tag from their Velcro strips on his flight suit. “Patches Velcroed on and removed before we take off in case we get shot down and captured — so the enemy won’t know what unit we’re from. Some chaplain will come around and collect them before we go out to our planes. They’ll check if we made out a will, check to see if they know who our next of kin are.

“Take a look at that data you’re generating sometime, Masters. Those ships your satellites are locating represent hundreds of sailors whose job it is to find and destroy me. There are thousands of sailors out there waiting for us—”

“But we know where they are… we know who they are…”

“We know where they are because men risked their lives to get that data,” McLanahan said. “A man died getting us those pictures…”

“Well, once the NIRTSat comes back on-line, that won’t happen again…”

“It doesn’t matter, my friend. Combat isn’t a series of pre-programmed parameters on a computer monitor — it’s men and women who are scared, and brave, and angry, and who feel hopeless. It’s not a clear-cut engagement. Anything can happen. You gotta realize that the people around you don’t think in absolutes, because they know that anything can happen…”

“Maybe in wars past that was true,” Masters offered. “When the enemy was a mystery, when you couldn’t see over the horizon or through the fog or under the ocean, maybe it wasn’t so clear-cut. But things are different now. Hell, you know more than anyone else how different it is — you fly the most advanced warplane in the friggin’ universe! We know exactly where the bad guys are. Once the NIRTSats are working again, I can steer your weapons, I can warn you of danger, I can tell you exactly how many weapons you need to win, and I can tell you how long it will take you to achieve any objective…”

“Then tell me this, Doctor Masters,” McLanahan said, affixing his steel-blue eyes on the scientist and letting his glare bore into him: “Tell me who’s going to die out there.”

Masters opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it suddenly, thought a moment, then replied, “I estimate your losses at less than five percent for the duration of this conflict…”

“No, I didn’t ask you how many. I asked who.”

“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know who? If you follow the plan and put your weapons on target, no one should die…”

“You said should die, Doctor. That means that even if everything turns out perfectly, someone may still die. Right?”

Masters shrugged. “Well, it’s very unlikely, but — anything can happen.”

“You’re damned right it can. Now tell me how to deal with that. Tell me how a highly trained professional pilot or navigator can climb into a bomber or fighter and fly into the teeth of the enemy and know that even if everything goes perfectly, he may still end up at the bottom of the sea, and I’ll let you act like a cocky little punk peacock all you want in my command post. Until then you will give this campaign and the people who fight it — all the people who fight it, the combatants on both sides — the proper respect.”

Masters was finally silent. McLanahan backed away from Masters, allowing him to get up, but Masters stayed where he was.

“So what you’re saying is — you’re scared,” Masters said after a few long moments. He looked at McLanahan, and when the officer didn’t reply for several seconds, Masters’ eyes opened wide in surprise. “You’re scared? You? But you’re the—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Patrick said. “I’m supposed to be the best. But it’s bullshit. I know my shit, and I’m lucky. That doesn’t make me invincible, and it doesn’t give you or anyone the right to think this is going to be easy — for any of us. Nothing is cut and dried. Nothing is certain. We know our equipment, know our procedures, but when you go into combat we learn not to trust it. We trust ourselves. We look to ourselves to find the strength to get through the mission.”

Masters rose and stood before McLanahan, afraid to look into the Air Force officer’s face but respectful enough to want to be able to do it. “I never realized that, Patrick. Really. I always thought, ‘Well, the gear’s in place, everything’s running, so everything’s going to be okay.’ I guess… well, I don’t work with people that much. I’m really so used to dealing with computers and machines…” McLanahan shrugged. “Hell, listen to me. A few years ago I never gave a shit much about people either. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a team player. I did my job and went home. I hate to say it, but we were a lot alike back then.” Masters smiled at that. “Oh yeah? Dirty Harry was laid-back and mellow? You drank beer and chased girls and got stupid?”

It was McLanahan’s turn to smile this time. He remembered the B-52 crew parties back in California, the weekends rafting down the American River — one big twelve-person raft for crew dogs, wives, and girlfriends; another slightly smaller raft for the numerous ice chests full of six-packs — the bar-hopping in Old Sacramento till two in the morning, the ski trips to Lake Tahoe when they’d get back to base just minutes before show time for a training mission. “All the damned time, Jon.”

“What happened to you?”

McLanahan’s smile vanished, and all his fond recollections of life back home exploded in a bright yellow fireball called reality. He put his dog tags back under his shirt and put his water flask back in its pocket. The pungent odor of jet exhaust and the roar of a plane on its takeoff run invaded the office, and the horrors of another impossible mission thousands of miles away flooded back into his consciousness once again.

“Combat,” was all he said, and he turned and walked away.