“You’re giving me this ‘no harm, no foul’ nonsense, Victor?” Mortonson asked incredulously. “You expect me to go in front of the Joint Chiefs and the President and say something like ‘no harm, no foul’? Are you crazy?”
“Sir, what I’d prefer you say is that we have the antiballistic missile system the White House and Congress have been clamoring for,” Hayes said earnestly. “Lieutenant General Terrill Samson at HAWC demonstrated an air-launched antimissile system that is almost as effective as the airborne laser program but that we can field in just a few months. You told me to find a way to fit ABL into the budget — here’s how we do it. I respectfully suggest, sir, you tell the Navy to stuff it.”
“I think we will be fighting to keep from getting our asses stuffed, General,” Mortonson said. He paused, staring across the room for a moment. Then: “It was our range, right?”
“The range is administered by the Navy, and a naval officer was the controlling authority,” Hayes said, “but we were paying for it.” Mortonson closed his eyes and shook his head in exasperation. Hayes was indignant. “Sir, we paid for that range and everything in it. We paid for those ships, we paid for the target rockets, we paid for the antiair missiles, we paid for security, and we would’ve paid any claims in case of an accident. The Navy insisted we accept responsibility for everything. In my mind, that gives us the right to use the range however we want.
“The Navy never gave us any limits on what weapons we could use, only that we not overfly any of their ships with our missiles. We briefed which weapons we’d use and we used what we briefed — except for the plasma-yield warheads. All of the Navy ships were well outside the warheads’ kill radius, which we knew with great precision because that’s a property of the weapon. The Navy knows all about the weapon because they intend to use it on their Aegis Tier Two and Three antiballistic missile weapons. It was perfectly safe. No Navy personnel were in any danger, and they know it.”
“You’re deluding yourself with that argument, General,” said the secretary of the Air Force. “They are going to nail our hides to the wall over this. What was the closest detonation to any ships?”
Hayes checked his notes: “The rocket intercept was thirty miles downrange and at an altitude of seventy-four thousand feet — that’s over twelve nautical miles high,” he replied. “The launch barge was over nine miles from the nearest warship. The explosions didn’t cause a ripple in the water. They didn’t detect any radiation until they sailed right over to ground zero and recovered a piece of the barge, and radiation levels were well below danger levels. The closest nonmilitary vessel was twenty-three miles.”
Hayes was heartened to see Mortonson stop to think again. Good, he thought, maybe he wasn’t ready to concede defeat over this. “All right, General,” Mortonson said finally. “I’ll back your play. I’m going to need a briefing file on the plasma-yield warhead and on the missiles you launched. I’m sure we’ll all take a few turns roasting on the spit, but I think I can keep us from getting completely cooked.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hayes said gratefully.
“Don’t thank me yet, General — if the CNO or the White House wants someone’s ass, it’ll be yours, mine, and Samson’s. We’re not out of the woods by any means. All this means is you have an advocate. It may not do us a lick of good.”
“Then, if you’ll permit me, I suggest you don’t go in there with your hat in your hand, sir,” Hayes said.
“You have something else in mind, General?”
“Sir, we did a successful boost-phase antimissile test this morning,” Hayes said. “We built the weapon they wanted us to build. We have a victory, not a failure. I think the Navy and the Army both know it, or at least suspect it. Let’s capitalize on it. We are ready to begin operational tests of the new ‘Coronet Tiger.’”
Secretary Mortonson shook his head in some confusion. He was very familiar with the program — he had almost lost his confirmation to be secretary of the Air Force because of his overwhelming support of the expensive, controversial weapon system. “Coronet Tiger” was the classified code name of the Air Force’s new antiballistic missile defense program, starting with the airborne laser and continuing on to the new Skybolt space-based laser system.
But in this day and age of military “jointness,” every branch of the service had to be involved or nothing would ever get approval. The airborne laser was the Air Force’s one and only contribution to the new fifty-billion-dollar antiballistic missile program; its designs and plans — and funding — for the space-based laser were all transferred to the Navy.
“I don’t understand, General,” he said irritably. “Coronet Tiger is dead.”
“You can blame Lieutenant General Samson at HAWC for this one too, sir,” Hayes said. “The air-launched antiballistic missile system was Samson’s lab’s invention. He wants to put the Lancelot ABM system on a dozen B-1 bombers and create an antimissile attack squadron. Lancelot is teamed up with cruise missiles to destroy not only enemy rockets but the launchers as well, and Lancelot even has an antisatellite capability. Fast, deployable, survivable, and effective. I’ve got a full report, and I can brief you and the Joint Chiefs whenever you’d like.”
“Forget it, General,” Mortonson said. “There is no way that’s ever going to be approved now. Even if I can keep all our asses out of the fire — which I’m not confident I can do — there’s no way in hell the Department of Defense will authorize funding for a new squadron of B-1s to carry these weapons. Hell, we’ll be lucky if they let us keep Dreamland open, let alone allow us to keep those missiles.”
“Samson has already drawn up an organizational chart and preliminary budget proposal,” Hayes said. “He suggests we fund and equip the unit through the Air National Guard. We share the cost of the conversion, training, upkeep, and basing with the Guard. He’s got it laid out pretty well, sir. I think it’s worth a look.”
Mortonson scowled at Hayes, then glanced at General Gregory Hammond. “You seen any of these numbers, Greg?”
“Yes, sir,” Hammond replied. He shrugged noncommittally. “It’s workable. It’s certainly cutting-edge, so the states might actually compete to get such a unit. Kansas, Georgia, Nevada — they can all afford to invest in the conversion. A popular, needed technology, lots of deployments, maybe a training center in the future for the first unit that gets the weapon — the states see an opportunity for big revenues from this. And each state has nationally known congressmen, so interest and visibility will be very high.”
“Who has the best package?”
“Hard to say exactly, sir, but — no pun intended — I’d put my money on Nevada,” Hammond replied with a slight smile. “They have two possible facilities other than the Reno-Tahoe Airport: Tonopah and the old Tuscarora Air Force Base near Battle Mountain. Both have first-class runways, taxiways, construction areas, and weapons storage facilities — they just need major work on buildings and infrastructure, which the state would fund to our specifications.”
“The Nevada Air Guard, eh?” Mortonson remarked. “The Reno B-1 bomber unit? Not only do they not deserve an upgraded unit, they probably deserve to be disbanded. What’s the latest on that crash investigation?”
“The investigators are now saying crew error and possibly a dummy missile hit them,” Hammond replied. “The crew was performing a ‘scram’ maneuver, which is a tight turn to get away from a ground threat. The finding is unofficial right now because we have a lot of new information, but it’s been demonstrated in two different B-1 simulators.”