Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (26 page)

 
          
“What?”

           
“I’ve been tasked with forming a
group that can support secret high-risk deep-strike and reconnaissance
operations worldwide. The B-2A stealth bomber is the best strike platform out
there; the President and the National Security Council agree. Eve been tasked
to recruit B-2A flight and support crews from the active-duty ranks, among
others, to support group operations.”

 
          
“You
mean, you’re forming a secret squadron to fly B-2A bombing missions?” Jamieson
asked incredulously. “That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. Pardon me,
General, but I don’t believe what I’m hearing here.”

 
          
“You
go ahead, Tiger,” Samson said, fixing McLanahan with a satisfied smile. “You
got something to say, say it.”

 
          
“So
what about it, McLanahan?” Jamieson asked, arms crossed on his chest.

 
          
McLanahan
didn’t need to be an expert on body language to know that Jamieson wasn’t going
to buy any explanations—those crossed arms were like a wall erected against any
suggestions. “I don’t have to explain anything to you, Colonel. My instructions
were to recruit you to fly missions for me and my team and see to the refit of
my plane.”

 
          
“Your
plane?”

 
          
“Air
Vehicle Oil,” McLanahan said. “Colonel Dominguez’s techs are modifying it as we
speak.”

 
          
“Modifying
it? Are you crazy? That’s our best plane!” Jamieson cried. “That bird is
tweaked tighter than any other bird Northrop’s ever cranked out! It’s got the
lowest radar cross-section, the best engines, the best hydraulics, the best...”

 
          
“It
should have the best of everything—I spent two years on that bird back in
Dreamland, redesigning and improving almost every aspect of that plane’s
performance,” McLanahan said. “Air Vehicle Oil used to be Test Vehicle 002 ...”

           
“The one that was supposedly tested
to destruction?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir,” McLanahan said. “HAWC rescued it, rebuilt it—we probably spent a quarter
of a billion dollars on making it airworthy and upgrading it. I spent plenty of
long nights with the engineers to squeeze every knot of performance out of that
plane, before the
Philippines
conflict. That’s the plane I flew into
combat—twice. It’s the only bird in the fleet already modified to carry
reconnaissance pods, anti-radar missiles, cruise missiles ...”

 
          
“It
can’t be the same one,” Jamieson pointed out. “AV-011 doesn’t have a MILSTD
data bus yet for the release systems—it’s only hardwired for dumb bombs. It
can’t carry any ‘smart’ weapons without a—”

 
          
“We
didn’t use MILSTD buses on test articles at HAWC,” McLanahan said. MILSTD, or
Military Standard, was the generic term for the standard electrical and
electronic circuits and systems developed by the
U.S.
military for civilian contractors—every
weapons design used MILSTD, so the plane could “talk” with the weapons or other
systems. “They were too slow, too old, and too easy to jam or disrupt. We
borrowed a few commercial-grade data buses from a company in
Arkansas
—sixty-four-bit logic, clock speed well into
triple digits, fiber optics ready, secure and hardened. It’s all plumbed for
our own data bus—the Sky Masters people I brought with me are going to
reinstall the system in about three hours. Ever have any problems with the
radar?”

 
          
“No,”
Jamieson replied, “but we haven’t had much trouble with any of our radars.”

 
          
“If
your troops opened up the SAR on AV-011, you wouldn’t have known what to do
with it,” McLanahan said proudly. “We modified some of its subsystems for
reconnaissance as well as for targeting and terrain avoidance, far beyond Block
30 standards. Range is doubled, resolution tripled, and it has air, sea, and
electromagnetic-

spectrum search as
well as ground mapping, terrain following, and targeting—the radar can act as a
signal processor for programming anti-radar missiles and for jamming. We were
doing terrainfollowing years before Block 30 was announced.”

 
          
Now
Jamieson was intrigued. He’d always suspected that organizations like HAWC did
cool stuff like this, and he had always wanted to be a part of it—but was this
the way to do the job? “I still don’t buy it, McLanahan,” Jamieson said.
“You’ll be conducting military missions in support of... who? The National
Security Council? The CIA? The Boy Scouts of
America
?”

 
          
“Listen,
Colonel, I was given a task to perform—to get you and Test Vehicle
Double-Ought-Two ready to fly, for
me,
” McLanahan said impatiently. “We were assured full cooperation by General
Samson and General Wright. In exchange, I agreed to tell you a little bit about
what’s going on. I was not authorized to answer any questions, and I’m sure
I’ve told you far more than I’m supposed to tell. Now you’ll agree to cooperate
in this project and prepare to—”

 
          
“Hey,
mister, I don’t fly for nobody unless I know the
whole
story,” Jamieson said. “I’m not participating in any secret
backroom espionage Ollie North-Air America stunt that’s gonna get me in front
of some congressional committee or a court-martial. You tell me what’s going
on, and then I’ll
think
about helping
you.”

 
          
McLanahan
noticed General Samson’s satisfied smile, as if he were saying, “I told you he
wouldn’t take kindly to threats, boy.” “General Samson said that approach
wouldn’t fly,” McLanahan said, “which is why I decided not to take the
tough-guy approach with you.”

 
          
“You’re
smarter than you look, McLanahan ...”

 
          
“So
I’ll just say this, Jamieson.” McLanahan stepped closer to Tiger Jamieson and
regarded him with an amused stare. “You will agree to accompany me on this
mission and cooperate, or . .. I’ll get someone
else.
”

 
          
“You’ll
what?”
Jamieson was as surprised as
if he’d just kissed him on the lips. “You can’t do that...” Jamieson instandy
decided it was a bluff. “Yeah, right, don’t make me puke, McLanahan,” Jamieson
said acidly. He noticed the shit-eating grin on McLanahan’s face, then turned
to Samson—the big three-star was not smiling. “You’re crazy, McLanahan,”
Jamieson sputtered nervously. “Who else are you going to get?”

 
          
“Doesn’t
matter. I’ll find someone.”

 
          
“Hey,
buster, I trained each and every B-2A crewdog on the entire
planet
Jamieson said, jabbing a thumb
into his own chest to drive the point home, then jabbing a finger at McLanahan,
“except maybe you, and I’m not
totally
convinced you’re fully qualified. I’ve forgotten more about the Beak than
everyone else put together
knows.
You
can’t get no one better because there
ain't
nobody better.”

 
          
“I’ll
get Ed Carlisle,” McLanahan said calmly. “He’s the 715th Bomb Squadron
commander, young, lots of hours, bright guy, and the 715th hasn’t stood up
yet.”

 
          
“
Carlisle
? ‘Boondock’
Carlisle
, the only guy ever to get lost while flying
a B-2A bomber?” Jamieson exclaimed. “The guy’s got fifty million dollars’ worth
of navigation gear sitting in front of him, and he still managed to fly out of
the RED FLAG range during an exercise—he was nearly in
Los Angeles
before he figured out where he was. The
guy’s a former Navy pilot, for God’s sake!”

 
          
“He’s
also written the book on B-2 A combat tactics,” McLanahan repeated, standing up
and packing up his briefcase. “He’s a forward thinker, an innovator, a
planner—you’re just a throtde jockey. The bottom line, Jamieson, is this:
you’re either in with me, or you’re out. We’re going to take aerial strike
warfare into the next century,
today,
and if you’re not with me, you’ll be left behind. So what’s it going to be?”

 
          
“Don’t
fuck with me, McLanahan,” Jamieson said angrily. He realized that McLanahan was
serious—he was
not
going to select
him if he didn’t cooperate! “You’re obviously not thinking about the success or
failure of your project—you’re only out to throw your weight around. This is
some kind of damned power trip for you ...”

 
          
“I
don’t play games, Colonel,” McLanahan warned. “I’ve been given a job to do, and
I’m doing it. I’m wasting my time talking to you.”

 
          
“I
think you’re both two prima donnas who’re only out to see who can pee the
farthest, and I’m sick of it. Button it, both of you,” General Samson said
angrily, aiming a huge finger at both McLanahan and Jamieson. “McLanahan, I
agreed to backstop this project because of one thing: you got the best players
working for you, dedicated guys who won’t let
America
down no matter how bad the bureaucrats,
politicians, and spooks want to screw things up. Now
Carlisle
is damned good, but he’s more valuable to
me as a staff officer and squadron commander—”

 
          
“Wait
a minute, General,” Jamieson interjected, “where does that leave
me?”

 
          
“I
said
button it,
Jamieson!” Samson
shouted. “Tiger, you’re a damned fine officer and a great pilot—but you are not
the last word in strategic aerial strike warfare. This is not a beauty contest,
Jamieson, this is serious business, and I want it done right or not at all.

 
          
“Now,
McLanahan has proven to me that he can fly the Beak without breaking it, so I’m
authorizing the refit of Air Vehicle Oil and the transfer to McLanahan and his
Intelligence Support Agency group. In my mind, there’s only one B-2A crew
member who I trust to do this mission, and it’s Tony Jamieson. There’s no
alternative, no option—it’s you two, or nobody. And the choice is still
voluntary— Colonel Jamieson can accept or reject the offer, with no
official
consequences.” He turned to
Jamieson. “Talk to me, Tiger. Now’s your chance to talk—do it.”

 
          
“This
is total
bullshit,
sir,” Jamieson
said angrily. “Since when do we turn tricks for a bunch of spies? If they want
a target taken out, why don’t they just crank out a warning order and an air
tasking order? We’ll blow up anything they want. We don’t need McLanahan. Fve
got the best aviators in the world waiting right now to go to war, especially
with
Iran
. Just say the word, and we’re locked and loaded.”

 
          
“Colonel,
they’ve got a ship that carries precision-guided weapons, anti-radar missiles,
and reconnaissance gear that even
Fve
never
heard of,” Samson said. “How long would it take you to train a crew to use the
equipment?”

 
          
“I
don’t know, sir,” Jamieson replied testily. “Maybe a week, maybe a month—maybe
it’s so automated that it doesn’t require any special training, just turn it on
and watch it work. Make McLanahan our tech rep or our civilian instructor—but
don’t make him part of the flight crew.”

 
          
“Colonel,
you know the answer as well as I do, and that ain’t it,” Samson said, turning
toward Jamieson and impaling him with the most evil, deadliest stare he had
ever seen. “Face it—this wing is not operational. Your crews and your planes
are at least a year, probably two, from going into combat. McLanahan and this
Future Flight is the best we’ve got, and I want you part of it.”

 
          
Jamieson
still didn’t like it, still resented the break from his long- established and
trusted chain of command. But it was the opportunity of a lifetime. “Who would
I report to?”

 
          
“Me,”
McLanahan replied. “The plane, the weapons, the personnel—I own them all, as of
right now.”