“Better turn mode four on,” Furness said, “and hope Sergeant Brodie set it right.” Fogelman used the CDU and made sure the correct codes were on. It was unlikely that mode two was set properly, but if WINDJAMMER wanted it on, they would turn it on.
But it didn’t seem to work. “Thunder Zero-One, this is WINDJAMMER on GUARD, codes not received, turn right heading zero-four-zero, clear of United States warning and prohibited airspace. Acknowledge.”
“WINDJAMMER, Zero-One, we cannot turn,” Furness replied. “Altering course may cause a fuel emergency. We are talking with Boston Center at this time, requesting an IFR clearance, type aircraft Romeo-Foxtrot-One-Eleven-Golf, slant-Romeo, flight of four, direct Plattsburgh at sixteen thousand feet, cargo code yellow-four. We are VFR at this time. How copy?” Usually flight plans were filed only with an air-traffic-control facility, not with a military surveillance site, but this guy didn’t seem to realize who they were, so it would be best to let him copy their information down and get it into the system however possible. The “yellow-four” code, indicating they were carrying explosive ordnance on board, usually got a lot of attention from anyone who recognized the nomenclature, so a flight plan should be ready ver—
“Thunder Flight, this is WINDJAMMER on GUARD, your request cannot be accepted at this time,” the air defense controller said. Furness’ mouth dropped open. Was this guy serious …? “You must alter course and turn away from the coastline until proper identification procedures and clearances are obtained. Turn right immediately to heading zero-four-zero, maintain VFR at seventeen thousand five hundred feet or above, with all lights on and landing gear extended. Acknowledge.”
What kind of idiot was in the control tower? she wondered. Rebecca mashed the mike button on the throttle quadrant in total anger: “WINDJAMMER, I am not going to lower my landing gear. We were sent to warning area W-102 VFR as part of a Bravo exercise conducted by Thunder control. We were told to expect refueling support and further instructions at a later time, but some aircraft formations are low on fuel and we need to proceed back to base. If this is part of the exercise, then terminate immediately or we’ll declare an inflight emergency and file a written report with the FAA. Over.”
The “unknown rider” warning was then repeated several times, with hardly an opportunity in the broadcasts to interject a response. “Christ,” Furness mused on interphone, “it’s like they don’t know who the hell we are. I hate to risk busting the air-defense identification zone, but I think we’re lost in the system, and with the HF and AFSATCOM out, we’ve got no way to communicate with the command post as long as we’re out over water.” On interplane frequency, she radioed to Johnson: “Two, any luck with Boston Center?”
“Negative,” Johnson replied. “They can hear us, I think, and I can hear them talking, but it sounds weird, like there’s been an accident and they’re clearing out the airspace or something. It’s pretty confused, but I don’t think they want to talk to us. What are we going to do, Lead?”
“What’s your fuel look like?”
“About an hour left, with minimum reserves,” Johnson replied. “We’ll have about five thousand over the fix, probably less.” Five thousand pounds of fuel “over the fix,” or at the initial approach fix for an instrument approach and landing, was the absolute minimum for any chosen destination — that would allow enough fuel for perhaps two or three bad-weather landing attempts. “Maybe we should think about Pease instead, or go to Navy Brunswick.” Even though they had the National Guard tankers there, Pease, a former Strategic Air Command bomber base and home for the FB-111, was now a civilian airport, and they might not take kindly to RF-111 bombers with bombs and lasers aboard landing beside the tourists and vacationers.
“Brunswick it is,” Furness said. On interphone, she told Fogelman, “Mark, call up Navy Brunswick on the computer and give me a heading, then squawk ‘Emergency’ and keep trying to raise someone on GUARD frequency on the backup radio. This bullshit’s gone on long—”
Just then, on the radar threat-warning receiver, a bat-wing symbol appeared at the top of the scope, with a fast, insistent deedledeedledeedle audio warning over the interphone. Fogelman was working on calling up Navy Brunswick’s destination number and didn’t call it out — the warning receiver gave spurious signals occasionally, and this one certainly seemed like a phantom signal. A bat-wing symbol was an enemy-airborne-radar warning, showing the presence of a radar that matched the pulse-repetition frequency and wavelength of a Russianor Chinese-made fighter. The symbol drifted around at the top of the scope for a few seconds, moving slowly eastbound — the AN/APS-109B Radar Homing and Warning System could not determine the range to the threat, only approximate “lethal range”—then disappeared. “That’s weird,” Furness said. “Friendly radars don’t make that warning.”
“Probably a glitch,” Fogelman said dismissively. “ ‘Captain’s bars’ are on Brunswick.” Rebecca gently steered the bomber until the nav computer director’s bars were centered, then reengaged the autopilot to head for Navy Brunswick. Meanwhile, Fogelman began rooting through the charts and approach plates in the rack beside Furness’ headrest, searching for the approach plates and airport diagrams for the base. He set in the VOR radio navigation aid frequency in the primary nav radio as a backup to his admittedly poor INS system. The VOR needle on Furness’ Horizontal Situation Indicator continued to rotate aimlessly, and a red OFF flag in the HSI case told them no nav signal was being received. “Brunswick VOR must be off the air,” he said. He set in the UHF frequencies for Brunswick ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) to hear a recording of the Brunswick weather and field conditions — no response. Fogelman set in the approach, tower, and ground control frequency into presets. “I’ll wait till we get a bit closer to the base, then—”
“Hey,” Rebecca interrupted, motioning out the right windscreen with her head into the darkening gray clouds, “there’s traffic at—holy shit, look out!”
Fogelman looked up just in time to see two F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter-jets in steep 90-degree-plus bank turns, not more than a few yards away from Thunder Zero-Four — and the first fighter appeared to be firing its 20-millimeter cannon at them.
Rebecca could actually see several winks of light and a stream of gas from the cannon muzzle of the lead F-16. The second F-16 fighter appeared to be flying in close trail, directly behind and slightly above his leader, and so he passed right over Rebecca’s head, so close that she could see the second pilot’s checklist strapped to his right thigh through his large clear bubble canopy. There was no time to react, speak, not even scream — Furness couldn’t do anything but let the thunderous roar and the shock wave of the two jets pass over her and pray that death would come swiftly or not at all.