“No. They briefed us there wouldn’t be any exercises,” Alena replied. She was formerly a KC-135 tanker navigator, so she was familiar with strategic alert. In the old days, alert exercises were common and expected — not anymore. “It’s the real thing, Heather. Hurry and get dressed.”
“Jeez, I… I can’t believe it.” Cromwell used to be a T-37 “Tweet” FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot) for a year before she was RIFed out of the active-duty Air Force, and like Alena, she couldn’t get an assignment as a pilot and was forced to retrain as a navigator and weapons officer. She spent several years as a Reserve KC-135 tanker navigator before cross-training to the RF-111G Vampire, and had no exposure to strategic alert. As a civilian she was the wife of the president of a major New York construction firm and a mother of one chill. Cromwell was a skilled crewmember and good military officer, but her exposure to the realities of life as a combat aircrewman was limited.
Of course, the same could be said for most of the members of the 715th Tactical Squadron, even those who had once pulled alert in the active-duty Air Force. Nuclear war was supposed to have ended. The RF-l11 G Vampires, although still called bombers and still retaining a bombing capability, were now only Reserve reconnaissance and stand— off missile launchers — they were not supposed to carry nuclear weapons deep into enemy territory.
For many crewmembers, especially the young, inexperienced ones like Captain Heather Cromwell, the alert was like a nightmare.
“We don’t know what the alert means, Heather,” Alena said. “It could be to reposition the alert force, or just a report to aircraft, or… something else. Just stay calm. Don’t run in the hallways, but once you get outside the doors, run like hell,” She finished zipping up her boots, threw on her cold-weather jacket and flying gloves, and headed out the door.
The klaxon horn, an ancient-looking cast-iron thing, was mounted right outside her door, and Alena could hardly hear herself think. Crewmembers were dashing through the halls, knocking into her mindlessly. “Don’t run inside the facility!” she shouted. “Walk until you get outside!” But it didn’t do any good. A moment later Cromwell came out of her room, started running right past Laura Alena, and plowed headlong into a crew chief who was running out of his room. The impact sent Cromwell flying, but no one stopped.
“You all right, Heather?” Alena asked as she helped here to her feet.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Cromwell replied shakily. With dozens of crewmembers dashing past them, they headed for the outer doors at a slow trot.
“You sure you’re okay?” Alena asked, releasing Cromwell. She seemed pretty steady on her feet.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. I’ll see you after we get back,” Alena said, and sprinted off for her pickup truck.
Her partner, Major Robert Harcourt, and their two crew chiefs were already in the truck with the engine running. “Where were you?” Harcourt shouted as he put the little pickup in gear and stepped on the accelerator.
“Somebody smashed into Heather,” Alena replied.
“You worry about your own butt, Laura,” Harcourt said angrily. “Cromwell is a spoiled brat who can’t stand to be away from her chalet in the mountains.”
“Hey, go to hell, Bob,” Alena responded. “If it was one of your ‘bros’ on the deck, you’d be helping him out.” That was all the time they had for that argument, and the topic was forgotten as they pulled the truck up to the parking space between the shelters. A security guard with his M-16 rifle at port arms flashed a finger sign, Harcourt gave the countersign, and they were waved into the aircraft shelter.
Alena took enough time to pull the engine inlet cover off the right engine and fling it off to the side of the shelter before getting on the ladder and yelling “Ready!” When she heard Harcourt yell “Up!” in response, she scampered up the ladder and undogged her cockpit canopy, making sure that he was doing the same. Crews that manned nuclear-loaded bombers had to adhere to the “two-officer policy,” which meant that two nuclear-certified and knowledgeable officers had to be present when access to nuclear release or nuclear launch systems was possible. From the largest nuclear submarine to the smallest nuclear artillery shell, compliance with the two-officer policy was mandatory.
The RF-111G Vampire was indeed loaded for nuclear war. The 48,000-pound aircraft weighed over 119,000 pounds gross weight, loaded to the gills with fuel and weapons. Along with a full internal fuel load of 32,000 pounds, the Vampire carried four external fuel tanks with 14,400 total pounds of fuel — the outermost fuel tanks were on nonswiveling pylons, so the wings could not be swept back past 26 degrees unless those outer tanks were jettisoned, which would be only after the last refueling and when those tanks were finally empty, before crossing into enemy territory. On the innermost wing pylon, the Vampire carried an AGM-131 short-range attack missile with a 170-kiloton nuclear warhead, and on the outside of the number 3 and 6 pylons the bomber carried an AIM-9P Sidewinder missile for self-defense. Finally, two more AGM-131 attack missiles were nestled in the internal bomb bay.
Both crewmen jumped into the cockpit, strapped in, and put on helmets. While Alena retrieved her decoding documents and booklets, Harcourt flipped on battery power, flicked both starter switches on the center console to CART, and yelled “Clear cartridge start!” His crew chief, standing with a fire extinguisher by the left engine inlet, gave him a thumbs-up, and Harcourt lifted the throttle grips up over the cutoff detent, brought both throttles briefly to military to get a good shot of fuel into the system, and set the throttles to idle. When he lifted the throttle grips, battery power set off two large high-pressure smoke generators installed in each low-pressure engine turbine section, which started the turbines spinning. In less than sixty seconds, both engines were at idle power, and Harcourt began bringing up all aircraft systems.
After monitoring the engine start, Alena turned her attention to the coded message. The Plattsburgh command post was reading a long string of characters on the radio. When the controller said, “I say again, message follows,” Alena knew it was the beginning of the message, and she started copying the letters and numbers with a grease pencil on a nearly-frozen plastic sheet, one character per box. When she had the first ten characters, called the “preamble,” she began decoding, using the proper day-date decoding book.
The first character told the crew if this was an exercise or an actual message — and it read “actual.” “Bob … dammit, cross-check this,” Alena said. Harcourt stopped what he was doing, double-checked that she was using the right decoding document. It was correct. “It’s a ‘taxi-to-the-hold-line’ message,” Alena said after breaking out the preamble.
“Authenticate it,” Harcourt said.
“We don’t need to,” Alena said. “We only authenticate a launch message.”
“Hell, I’ll authenticate it myself,” Harcourt said. He clicked on the command radio: “I got a ‘taxi,’ “ he said. It was not proper procedures, but they were playing with real marbles here, and he wasn’t about to screw anything up.
“Taxi,” another voice said. They recognized it as the Sortie One pilot. One by one, all six pilots of Alpha Flight reported the same thing.
“We take our time,” Harcourt said. “I want a full stored heading alignment, I want you strapped in, and I want … I want everything perfect, dammit. We’re not moving until everything is perfect.”
A full stored heading alignment took only three minutes, and Alena reported that her system was ready to fly. She motioned to the green padded containers mounted under the instrument panel glare shield. “Tac doctrine says we gotta use ’em,” Alena said. Harcourt hesitated, then nodded, and both crewmen opened the containers.