Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (90 page)

 
          
Each
B-2A carried sixteen AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) guided weapons
on two internal rotary launchers. Each SLAM was a Harpoon turbojet-powered
anti-ship cruise missile fitted with an imaging infrared television sensor in
the nose and a GPS satellite navigation guidance system. The coordinates of the
targets were all loaded into the missile’s memory by the B-2’s attack computer;
each B-2 bomber merely had to fly to a predetermined launch point and release the
missiles. Once released from low altitude—300 and 500 feet above ground— and as
far as fifty miles from the target, the missiles would get a final navigation
update by its GPS receiver and guide itself to the target, skimming less than a
hundred feet above the ground at 250 miles an hour. The missile was even
programmed with turnpoints so they would not reveal the location of the B-2
launch aircraft. Once the missiles were launched, the B-2 bombers turned
eastbound and began the treacherous 1,500-mile trek back across hostile
airspace to their first post-strike refueling anchor.

 
          
Sixty
seconds prior to impact, the AGM-84E SLAMs began to transmit images of their
assigned target area—but they did not transmit the pictures back to the B-2s
that launched them. Instead, the images were picked up by a lone aircraft
flying over the Chinese ICBM missile fields at 20,000 feet.

 
          
The
EB-52 Megafortress had launched from Kai-Shan with the remaining nine flyable
Taiwanese F-16s and Jon Masters’s DC-10 just after sunset. The Megafortress was
armed with every drop of fuel and every remaining weapon it could possibly
carry: two Wolverine cruise missiles and two Striker rocket bombs on the
forward bomb-bay rotary launcher; six CBU-59 cluster bomb units on the aft bomb
bay; and one AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air missile and four AIM-9 Sidewinder
air-to-air missiles on each wing weapon pod. After an aerial refueling, the
EB-52 flew north over the
East China Sea
and waited for the B-l and B-2 bombers to arrive from the
United States
. Once the B-l bombers laid down the cruise
missile barrage along the Chinese coastline, the B-2 and the Megafortress
cruised in toward the Chinese ICBM fields. With the attention of the entire
Chinese air defense system focused on the
Formosa Strait
, it was a simple exercise for the six B-2s
and the lone EB-52 to penetrate disrupted Chinese airspace and head for their
assigned targets.

 
          
The
EB-52 arrived in the Chinese ICBM field several minutes before the B-2 Spirit
stealth bombers got to their launch points. Flying in the defensive systems
officer s seat, Wendy McLanahan started the attack by launching the Wolverine
missiles over the ICBM missile fields. The two Wolverines used their decoys and
radar seekers to hunt down any antiaircraft radars, then attacked them with
antiarmor skeets.

 
          
“The
Wolverines are working,” Brad Elliott said. “I can see the place starting to
light up.” Several antiaircraft artillery sites opened fire, some very close by
but locked onto the decoy gliders, not the Megafortress. Streams of heavy
antiaircraft artillery tracers arced into the sky—followed a few moments later
by a bright flash on the ground and secondary explosions rippling across the
expanse of darkness.

 
          
“Very
cool,” Nancy Cheshire remarked, as more missile and tripleA sites were hit.
“The Wolverines are working great.”

 
          
“You
spoke too soon,” Wendy said. “Eve lost contact with both Wolverines. Both of
them got shot down.”

           
“I’ve got missile video starting to
come in,” Patrick McLanahan announced. As each SLAM got within range, a window
would open up on his supercockpit display, and he could watch as the missile
approached the target. A wide white rectangle in the center of the video
indicated the missiles preprogrammed target area. As the SLAM got closer, Patrick
could make out more and more detail of the exact target spot, and he resized
the target rectangle until it enclosed only the spot he wanted to hit. A small
white dot represented the missiles impact point, and Patrick resized the
rectangle so the dot could stay inside the rectangle without too many gross
flight-control corrections.

 
          
“Pve
got fighter radar activity at
three o’clock
, range unknown,” Wendy announced. “We’re
running out of time.”

 
          
Patrick
could hear the tension in her voice. He had been against having her on this
mission at all—her wounds from the last time she had flown on an EB-52
Megafortress had only recently healed, not to mention the danger to the child
she carried. But Wendy had been the first to demand that she go along, and hers
was the loudest voice arguing against her husband. No one else knew the
Megafortress’s defensive suite and weapons better than Wendy Tork McLanahan.
Patrick might be able to operate the systems by himself if the bomber was not
under attack, but if it ever became an item of interest and came under active
attack, it would take one crew member’s full attention to defend the
Megafortress. If there was going to be any chance of success on this raid,
Wendy had to go along.

 
          
“Got
a range now,
three o’clock
,
forty miles and closing,” Wendy reported. “I’ve got multiple bandits—four,
maybe six. One of them looks like a Su-27. Signal threshold is low, but they’ve
got several sweeps on us. They could get a lock on us in three to four
minutes.”

 
          
Two
SLAM missiles would be targeted against the DF-5 silos—the first SLAM would
crack open the silo, and the second would dive inside and destroy the missile.
The first 1,400-pound Standoff Land Attack Missile would execute a pop-up
maneuver a few seconds before impact, then dive directly down onto the silo
cover to crack open the silo; the second SLAM would follow a few seconds later,
execute the same pop-up and dive maneuver, and destroy the missile inside. The
DF-3 missiles were stored on erector trailers inside storage sheds near each
launch site, and it was a simple task to target each storage shed and destroy
the missile inside.

 
          
The
SLAM launches had been coordinated so that the Megafortress could fly eastbound
out of the target area and he would be within effective datalink range of each
SLAM, working west to east. As soon as one SLAM would hit, another window
popped open, and Patrick would start steering another SLAM in to its target.
Some SLAMs did not transmit their TV images, so it was unknown if they ever hit
their targets, but each SLAM was guided by a precise inertial navigation system
updated by GPS satellite navigation signals, accurate to at least ten feet in
altitude and position, so even without a TV datalink they were very accurate
weapons. Out of seventy-two SLAMs successfully launched from the B-2s,
fifty-one reached their assigned targets and transmitted a good enough TV
picture so Patrick could assess the damage and call the target destroyed or
knocked out of commission.

 
          
“But
we got three DF-3 and two DF-5 sites where we don’t know if they got hit,”
Patrick announced to his crew.

 
          
“Perfect—we
got two Strikers and six CBUs left,” Brad Elliott said. “Let’s go back there
and finish the job.”

 
          
“
Two o’clock
, thirty-two miles and closing,” Wendy
announced. She then looked over at her husband and saw him intently watching
her. “I agree,” she said. “Let’s go get ’em.”

 
          
“The
odds are that the SLAMs got the last missile sites,” Patrick said. “They’ve
been running great, all of them.”

 
          
“But
we can’t be sure, can we?” Nancy Cheshire asked.

 
          
“We
can wait and get a satellite downlink from Jon’s NIRTSats,” Elliott said.
“Those can tell us if they got hit. How long until we get a picture?”

 
          
“We
won’t—we didn’t get a new constellation up in time,” Patrick said. “The best
info we’ll get is from our synthetic aperture radar or from a Striker video
link.”

 
          
“Then
let’s do it,” Wendy said. Patrick turned toward her, and she saw something that
she’d rarely seen before—the fear in his eyes. “Patrick, we’ve
got
to go back,” Wendy said on
interphone. “We don’t have a choice. We didn’t come all this way to leave any
targets left.” Patrick knew she was right. They had risked everything to fly
deep into the heart of the People’s Republic of
China
and attack these important targets—as long
as they had weapons left, they had to use them.

 
          
Patrick
touched his supercockpit display and called up the five surviving targets. The
closest one was only ten miles away; the farthest, a DF-5 long-range ICBM site,
was nearly forty miles farther west.

           
“Gimme a left turn heading
two-five-seven, center the bug, stand by for bomb-bay Striker launch,” Patrick
ordered.

 
          
“No.”
The words came from none other than Brad Elliott. “We’re not turning back.
We’re going to use the gas and the weapons we have left to fight our way out of
here.”

 
          
“Brad
...”

 
          
“I’m
overruling you this time, Muck,” Elliott said determinedly. “You may be the
mission commander, but I’m the aircraft commander, and I’m responsible for the
lives on board this plane. We’re six hundred miles inside
China
, alone, with only ten defensive missiles
and three hours’ worth of gas left. We did our job. Two DF-5s and six DF-3s are
not going to threaten anyone.”

 
          
“Brad,
we can do it,” Wendy said. “We can take out those last sites.” “Forget about
it, Wendy,” Elliott said. “Let someone else worry about them. You and Patrick
and Nancy have a life that’s more important than blowing up a couple missile
sites in the middle of nowhere. Patrick, call up the exit point and pick the
best way to get us out of here.” Patrick looked as if a huge weight had been
lifted off his shoulders— he even smiled. “Okay, Brad,” Patrick said. “We’ve
got one DF-5 site that’ll be within range just a couple minutes to the north,
and all of the DF-3 sites are east and southeast. We’ll leave the last DF-5
site for some other time.” He entered commands on the supercockpit display,
then said, ’’Give me a left turn to zero-three-seven and center up. Bomb-bay
Striker launch coming up ... in one hundred seconds.” Elliott responded by
turning the Megafortress to the northeast.

 
          
“Bandits
are at
five o’clock
,
twenty-five miles and closing,” Wendy reported. “I’m targeting the lead Su-27
for one Scorpion launch. Looks like we might have two Su-27s leading a total of
eight J-7s or J-8s. The second formation of fighters is moving to
eight o’clock
, thirty-three miles.”

 
          
“They’re
going back to defend the western surviving DF-5 site,”
Cheshire
guessed. “It must still be active.”

 
          
“Bomb
doors coming open . . . missile away!” Patrick said as he processed a Striker
missile launch. Elliott immediately rolled right and centered up on the first
DF-3 launch site.

 
          
“Bandits
got a good look at that missile launch! ” Wendy cried. “Bandits at six o’clock,
eighteen miles and closing ... stand by for pylon missile launch . . . radar
lock, they got a radar lock . . . no, radar’s down, they’re closing in to
heater range ... missile away, missile away! ” An AIM- 120 Scorpion missile
streaked out of the left weapon pod, arced up and over the Megafortress, and
plummeted down on its quarry. “Splash one! ” Wendy shouted. “Splash ..
.no,
the Su-27’s still up! I hit one of
the other fighters! The Su-27’s still coming!”

 
          
“Good
terminal video,” Patrick called out. Sure enough, the Dong Feng-5 missile silo they
had just launched on had not been touched by any of the SLAMs. Patrick centered
the targeting crosshairs directly on the movable concrete silo cover, and hit
it directly in the center. “Got it! ” he shouted.

 
          
“Stand
by for second pylon launch!” Wendy shouted. “Missile away! ” The last Scorpion
missile flew out of the right weapon pod, and this time it did not miss.
“Splash two!” she shouted. “Got the -27! The other fighters are breaking
formation. ... I’ve got two formations of J-8s now, closest at
three o’clock
, seven miles and closing. The second
formation’s at
six o’clock
,
twelve miles.”