Freeman shrugged. “I don’t want a plan of action just for the hell of it — I need a plan that’s doable, that’ll position our forces in the best possible manner if Russia decides to bust loose. My idea is to support Turkey, to unify and strengthen the NATO allies. If we tighten up NATO and show the Russians we still got a strong, unified military alliance opposing them, the Russians might think twice before starting any large-scale operation.”
“So you’re going to tell the President — and our demure First Lady — to stop making speeches condemning the joint military operations between the Ukraine and Turkey?” Admiral Marise asked skeptically. When dealing with the chief executive of the United States, everyone knew it was always two-on-one — the President and his wife versus everyone else. But in their few confrontations, General Philip Freeman actually seemed to have a handle on the opinionated, sometimes volatile First Lady — if not cordial or friendly, at least their meetings had been mutually respectful. He just didn’t care for women who kept their maiden name and their husband’s all in one.
“Hey, I don’t like the Turks flying F-16s close to the Russian borders,” Freeman replied, “or having the Turks doing practice bomb runs in a new bombing range that ‘just happened’ to have been constructed close to a Russian cabinet member’s dacha near the Black Sea, or having the Turks reportedly accepting surplus weapons and equipment from the Ukraine for safekeeping.”
“It’s not a rumor,” Sparlin interjected. “It’s the truth. They averaged ten cargo ships per day until the Washington Post broke the story last month.”
“Turkey says it’s not true, so we believe our ally.” Freeman sighed. “The point is, I wish Turkey would play straight with us a little more. But yes, I’m going to recommend we support Turkey — all of NATO, but especially the Turks. Turkey has asked for more Patriot missile batteries and defensive aircraft, and they want to buy our surplus F-111 aircraft. I’ll recommend we go ahead with the deal.”
“Good luck,” someone chuckled.
“Thanks a heap. Okay, what else do we need to think about?” Freeman asked. “Let’s say the President does nothing about the Russians until well after the shooting starts, but then the country and the allies go into a panic when the Red Army starts rolling across the Ukraine, and the President finally decides he better do something. What are we going to want or need? What can we do to get it into better position once the shit hits the fan?”
There were several ideas tossed around the table, but one comment from Air Force general Martin Blaylock got everyone’s attention like nothing else: “Maybe we should consider the absolute worst-case scenario, Philip. What if the Russians try to invade the Ukraine, they drag Turkey into it, Russia nails Turkey, NATO gets dragged into it, and the Cold War heats up overnight? Let’s think about putting our Reservists on nuclear alert — putting the B-1s, B-52s, maybe the F-111s and B-2 bombers on alert, with Reservists, and the boomers back on patrol. What then?”
It was the question to end all questions. As a major cost-cutting measure, the President had slashed the size of the active-duty military forces by nearly half. But to appease those worried about readiness, he increased the size of the Reserves and Guard to their highest levels yet — there was almost parity between active and Reserve force levels. The cost savings were enormous. But many front-line units were now manned by Reservists, especially in Blaylock’s Air Force. If ninety B-1 bombers went on nuclear alert, as many as twenty of them would be manned by Reservists. If the B-52s went on alert, over half of them would have Reservists on board …
… and in all Air Force flying units, as many as one-fourth of the aircrews would be women as well.
“Good point, Marty,” Freeman said. “I think we can see that scenario happening here. I know you’re pushing for chairman of this gaggle, Marty, so I’ll bet you have a rundown on what we’d have to do and what we’d have if we went ahead and did it, am I right?”
“You’ve got that right, sir,” Blaylock said. “I got together with CINC-Strategic Command, Chris Laird, and put together a dog-and-pony show for you. I’d like to bring him in and lay it on you.”
“No,” Freeman replied. His response stunned the Joint Chiefs — but he raised a hand to settle them all down, and added, “I want that briefing, but I want the whole National Security Council, including the President and Veep, to hear it. Let’s get General Laird in here ASAP and set up a meeting.”
“Yes, sir,” Blaylock said, then, with an evil smile, added: “But remember to double-check to make sure the First Lady’s calendar is clear.”
No one laughed.
“No, no, no,” U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel Daren J. Mace shouted over interphone. “If you go in hot, Lieutenant, you can’t dick around — and don’t you dare touch those throttles. IP inbound to the target, you’re at military power, and you stay there unless you need to plug in the afterburners. Understand?”
“I think I overshoot,” Lieutenant Ivan Kondrat’evich of the Ukrainian Air Force replied. He and Mace were flying in a tandem two-seat Ukrainian Sukhoi-17 “Fitter-G” attack plane, over a bombing range in eastern Turkey. They were practicing bombing and aerial gunnery with Turkish F-16 fighters and other NATO aircraft. “I too high, I go around.”
“No way, Ivan,” Mace said. “You go in hot, you burn your target. Show me your moves, Ivan.”
“I not understand, Colonel Daren.”
“Like this. I got the aircraft.” Mace grabbed the control stick in the backseat of the Su-17, made sure the throttles were up into military power, and rolled the Su-17 inverted. As expected, the big, heavy fighter-bomber sank like a stone. “Wings to forty-five,” Mace ordered. Kondrat’evich moved the Sukhoi-17’s wing-sweep handle to the intermediate setting — the backseaters did not have wing-sweep control, a serious design flaw — which gave them a much rougher ride at this high airspeed but gave them much more precise control. The big fighter was now aimed at an impossibly steep angle, and the altimeter was unwinding as if it had an electric motor driving it down. Since he had very little forward visibility, the only way Mace could see the target visually was to look out the top of the canopy while they were inverted and try to line up as best he could.
At two thousand feet above the ground, Mace rolled upright. “You got the aircraft,” he shouted to Kondrat’evich in the front seat. “Now kill that bad boy.” Instead of firing the guns, however, Mace felt the young Ukrainian pilot pop the Su-17’s four big speedbrakes. “Don’t do that! Retract your speedbrakes, Ivan.” He did so. “Now kill the target, Ivan, now!”
With Mace’s hand on the control stick helping him line up, Kondrat’evich pressed the gun trigger on his control stick. The two 30-millimeter Nudelmann-Richter NR-30 cannons, one in each wingroot, erupted with a tremendous shudder, and a visible tongue of fire at least thirty feet long seared the sides of the Su-17. “Richter” was a good name for that cannon: they had fired only about eighty rounds at the target, an old Soviet tank, but the huge 30-millimeter “soda bottle” shells completely ripped the tank apart and probably slowed the Su-17 down a good fifty knots, even though they were in a screaming descent. “Good shooting, good kill,” Mace said. “Recover.”
There was no reaction, and Mace was ready for it. Many young attack pilots, especially if they transition from air-to-air fighters, get a bad case of “target fixation,” or keeping their noses pointed at the target after completing the attack. Perhaps it was a holdover from firing radar-guided missiles, which usually required the pilot to keep his nose aimed at the enemy to radar-illuminate the target so the missile could home in; or maybe it was just a fascination with seeing a hapless ground target die. In any case, a lot of ground attack crews kill themselves by forgetting to pull up after firing their weapons.