But truth to tell, the RF-111 was not a huge success. It was fast, stealthy, capable, and carried a large variety of payloads, like the EB-1, but it was maintenance-intensive, needed a lot of aerial refueling and ground support, and was considered old technology and not a good buy for the military — again, like the B-1. Despite their success in Operation Desert Storm, all of the F-111 models were soon retired from service — and the first to go was the RF-111. Having one aircraft do a variety of missions looked good on paper, but if the sortie didn’t launch or couldn’t continue the mission, the entire strike package suffered greatly. In effect, the weapon system was too capable — instead of considering all the incredible things the plane could do, all the planners could think of was what would happen if the plane broke down and didn’t make it to the target area. That was enough to kill the program.
The B-1 fleet came within a few votes of being mothballed as well. Sixty of ninety planes were placed in “flyable storage,” which meant they could be flown only after a few months of intensive resuscitation. The rest were transferred to the Air National Guard and Reserves as a cost-cutting measure. Patrick McLanahan and his research group at Dreamland had had other ideas for the fleet. He’d received enough funding to turn eight B-1B Lancers into EB-1C Vampire “flying battleships,” operated by the Nevada Air National Guard in peacetime and federalized into the Air Force’s Air Combat Command in wartime.
The Vampire could drop or launch every weapon in the U.S. arsenal, including antisatellite and anti-ballistic missile weapons and every kind of cruise missile imaginable. Its three bomb bays could hold over sixty thousand pounds of ordnance, and external hardpoints on the fuselage gave it the ability to carry even more weapons. Rebecca was proud to command the nation’s one and only Vampire unit. But the EB-1 was very much like a very big RF-111, and in this age of budget cuts and changing priorities, the second coming of the Vampire was very likely to suffer the same fate as the first.
Whether or not the EB-1C actually made it, Rebecca reminded herself that all these tests were helping to make Patrick McLanahan look pretty good, too. His use of the “we” word, she thought, was being a little disingenuous. Patrick McLanahan seemed like a good guy, but all one-star generals were alike — they just wanted to be two-star generals, and all two-stars wanted was three stars, and so on. When it came right down to it, Rebecca was sure McLanahan would grab the next rung of the ladder and use her and everyone else around him as a step to help himself up.
He was certainly, as the old saying went, “making hay while the sun shines.” Following his successful efforts both in protecting the United Republic of Korea from attack by China and at the same time protecting China from rogue retaliatory attacks by a power-mad Korean general with control of several dozen nuclear weapons, Patrick McLanahan had become an overnight hero, almost on a par with Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell. Many comparisons had been instantly made between him and his mentor, friend, former commander, and perennial thorn in the Pentagon’s ass, Brad Elliott, the former commander of HAWC, although McLanahan was definitely perceived as more of a team player than Elliott. Patrick’s promotion to major-general, his second star in three years, and eventual command of the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center — or possibly an operational command — were almost assured.
Now, Rebecca thought, he was going full speed ahead on every possible weapons program that popped into his head — or, more likely, every one that popped into his buddy Dr. Jon Masters’s head — and he was getting lots of funding and high-powered attention for almost every one of them. Jon Masters was the head of a small high-tech military contractor, Sky Masters Inc., that designed and built various pieces of hardware, including satellites, “brilliant” cruise missiles, and satellite communications and reconnaissance systems. When most of the officers in charge of HAWC had been dismissed a few years ago because of the Kenneth Francis James spy scandal, McLanahan and his wife Wendy, an electronics engineer, had gone to work for Jon Masters — and Dr. Wendy Tork still worked for him today. There was obviously a financial motive for Patrick to develop Sky Masters Inc.’s systems. It all looked a bit improper for such a direct pipeline between the military and civilian world to exist, but Rebecca was sure that relationship had been scrutinized by the Pentagon seven ways to Sunday by now.
Even though Rebecca questioned and maybe even resented McLanahan’s business dealings, to tell the truth, she liked McLanahan’s enthusiasm and drive. But she believed sometimes it was all being done at someone else’s expense. Namely, hers.
“Vampire, this is Control,” Luger radioed to Furness and McLanahan on the secure Blue Force channel. “Muck, the Ukrainians look like they’re asleep or something. You’re going to have to kick the Ukrainians in the butt a little. They seemed to be taking this exercise a little too lightly.”
“Roger,” Patrick responded. He took another laser radar snapshot” of the area, studied it for a moment, then radioed on the tactical interplane frequency: “Sila Zero-One, this is Vampire. You’ve got a bandit on your tail, seven o’clock, less than four miles! I have you at two thousand feet AGL. Recommend you descend, accelerate, begin evasive maneuvers, begin terrain masking, and prepare to respond to a heat-seeking missile threat.”
“Acknowledged,” the pilot responded simply.
Patrick waited — and nothing happened. “Sila Zero-One, the bandit will be within missile range in five seconds. Get out of there! Now!”
“Give us a heading, Vampire,” the Ukrainian pilot said.
“A heading? Any heading! You need to get away from him now!”
“Our Sirena tail-warning system is inoperative,”‘ the pilot reported. “We do not have contact. We need a heading, please.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake…” Patrick was ready to explode in frustration. He had just given them all the information they needed. Besides, they were two minutes from the target — they should be going balls-to-the-wall anyway! “Sila Zero-One, do a hard break to the right toward that ridgeline, descend at least fifteen hundred feet, then reverse about two miles from the ridge and accelerate. Make him start thinking about hitting the mountains instead of lining up a shot on you!”
“Acknowledged,” the Backfire pilot said. He started a relatively slow turn toward the north, then reversed his turn almost immediately. “Maneuver completed,” he reported. “Returning to target heading. One hundred seventeen seconds to target.”
“I think he’s more scared of the mountains than that F-16 pilot will be,” Rebecca said. “Well, scratch one Backfire,” Patrick said disgustedly. “Might as well let the Turks get some air-to-air work in and let the Ukrainians practice some bombing.”
“He’s not doing anything — just heading direct to the target,” the second Turkish F-16 pilot reported. “Apparently his tail-warning system is not functioning.”
“Your tail is clear, so he’s not playing possum so a fighter can sneak up behind you,” Sivarek said. “Give him a wake-up call with the radar and see what he does.”
“Roger,” the wingman said. He briefly activated his attack radar. Sure enough, the big Ukrainian bomber sped up slightly and made a steep banked turn to the south, pumping out chaff cartridges from its dorsal ejectors as he detected the F-16’s radar sweep. The F-16’s radar was effectively decoyed away from the bomber with the combination of chaff and electronic jammers, so the F-16 pilot merely shut off the radar. The Ukrainian bomber rolled right and headed back to his original course, speed, and altitude, as if the threat had suddenly disappeared. “Level-one evasive maneuvers. Good jamming and chaff, but small altitude and airspeed deviations. He’s back on original course and speed. No problem reacquiring.”