Unless it was now headed on a mission over Russia. In that case, he would be considered a bungler who arrived ten minutes too late.
“Signal that we are going ahead,” Luksha told his communications man. “Tell the helicopters to remain as reserves. We may not need them until the plane returns. The less attention we draw now, the better chance we will have for surprise afterwards.”
He pointed his finger toward the island for the helmsman and leaned toward the spray as they picked up speed.
Chapter 6
Howe and Timmy launched at precisely 0400 local time, the two F/22Es rocketing into the blue twilight with the studied precision of a pair of synchronized swimmers. They climbed out to twenty thousand feet as they arced westward, drawing a sweeping semicircle over the Bering Sea. The Aleutian islands spread out to their left as they flew; the Fox Islands, a small group about midway in the chain, marked the launch point for the test.
The test area was already being patrolled. Howe exchanged pleasantries with a pair of Navy jocks as they pushed south, riding a wide curve that had them roughly parallel to the northern Kuril Islands, a thousand miles off their right wings. The Velociraptors hit the southernmost point of their patrol area, then swept back toward the rendezvous with a tanker. They’d just topped off when the RC-135 with the monitoring gear came on station. There were still two hours left before the first test launch; Jolice’s turn was scheduled for two hours after that.
Howe believed there were two possibilities for detecting a plane. The most likely was with the RC-135 equipment, which presumably would catch the laser shot during the test. But he also thought they might find the aircraft prior to the test as it moved into position. Since they knew Cyclops’s range and capabilities, they also knew where the plane would have to position itself to fire. The “box”—more like a long rhomboid with rounded edges — ranged nearly a thousand miles, depending on the altitude the laser plane flew and the altitude it engaged its target at. But they thought the position of the Navy ships cordoning off the test area probably narrowed it a great deal — they couldn’t be sure, since they didn’t know the details of the radar profile — and so the long box was only a hundred miles wide.
Still a lot of area to cover, but not an impossible haystack.
The Navy had two Hawker E-2C radar aircraft covering the southwestern portion of the test zone; an Aegis-equipped cruiser with its powerful SPY-1B phased-array radar and associated systems complemented the airborne radar planes and their carrier group, tracking through an arc of roughly 250 miles. An array of smaller ships, aircraft, and drones formed a thick picket around the area.
Howe answered a query from one of the Hawkeye controllers. Timmy exchanged a few good-natured insults with the Navy jocks. Otherwise their flight south and then back north was almost eerily quiet.
Driving the entire circuit in supercruise took just over an hour, the finely tuned P&Ws humming. A Russian monitoring ship had taken up station at the southwest corner of the test area under the shadow of an American destroyer. Two monitoring aircraft, also Russian, were flying out from Siberia. These were tentatively ID’d by the AWACS as Myasishchev M-55 Geofizia twin-boom spy planes. Known as Mystic Bs in the West, the planes were advertised as high-altitude “environmental research” aircraft and could fly somewhere over 65,000 feet for four or five hours. Odd-looking creatures with swept-back wings and tails vaguely reminiscent of North American Broncos, their capabilities were somewhat comparable to early-model U-2s.
Two F-15s were tasked to shadow the Mystics—shadow being the operative word, since the Russian aircraft, though slow and not particularly maneuverable, could operate comfortably several thousand feet higher than the Eagles. Howe didn’t envy the F-15 pilots — or the F/A-18 pilot tasked with checking out a small boat spotted at the southern end of the test range by one of the drones a few minutes later.
“Just about an hour to go,” said Timmy as they spun back to the south.
“How’s the hangover?”
“How do you know I have a hangover?”
“Maybe the fact that you’ve said three words the whole flight.”
Fisher unfolded the large chart on his lap, studying the red X’s that were supposed to designate the approximate locations of the surface ships around the test range. He had another small map of the test area that showed the approximate positions for the intercepts, as well as a folder of satellite photos.
None of it was worth very much, though it seemed to impress the Air Force people flying the C-17. Fisher had been granted a seat on the flight deck, which, he gathered, was considered an honor. It was not only padded but swiveled, and if you didn’t get too anal about restraints and watched what you were doing, you could stretch your feet against the back of the copilot’s seat and a panel on the far right, making for a position nearly as comfortable as the back of a Honda Civic flattened in a rear-end collision.
His headset was not only plugged into the plane’s intercom, or “interphone,” system but had what looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio wired in that could select any of the myriad frequencies, though it wasn’t clear to Fisher what combination of buttons he had to push to actually communicate with anyone.
Fisher looked at his watch. There was now just over a half hour before the test.
He didn’t know what was going to happen, but whatever it was, he figured it should have happened by now.
So he was wrong again. Bitch of a losing streak.
Howe listened as a controller in one of the Hawkeyes exchanged a few choice words with a crewman aboard the cruiser about a contact flying out of the south toward the aircraft carrier and test area. The airplane — it appeared to be a civilian airliner, but its Ident gear wasn’t working properly — didn’t answer hails but finally took a sharp turn southward away from the test area. Howe broke in to request the Hawkeye to detail an aircraft to visually inspect the airliner: It was, after all, at least theoretically large enough to house the Cyclops weapon. The Navy controller replied somewhat sharply that he already had a plane en route.
The seaman at the display of the Aegis air defense system aboard the cruiser started throwing a series of numbers and acronyms out over the air. It sounded almost as if he were speaking in tongues.
“Five minutes to test,” said the mission controller, who was aboard a Navy ship just off the Aleutians. Though presented as a simple statement, the words were actually a command:
Shut up and let’s get to work.
Howe felt himself starting to relax. Maybe Fisher was wrong about everything — maybe the wreckage had contained the laser after all.
“Religion?” Megan laughed at him.
“Yeah. Are you religious?”
“Are you?”
“You sound religious.”
“I believe in things.”
“I don’t see how you can be a pacifist and be involved in a military program.”
“How am I a pacifist?”
“You want to end war, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“That’s not pacifism?”
“See, the word is all fucked up.”
Howe laughed.
“It is.”
“That word seems strange coming out of your mouth.”
“Kiss me, then, and make the strangeness go away.”