“Weapons check,” Colonel Lin said in his communications mike. “Make sure our friend is riding comfortably and that there is no vibration loosening of the tie downs.”
“Yes sir, right away.”
Moments later an affirmative signal came back. Colonel Lin nodded and monitored his own controls. On course, at the right speed. From their base in Congqing, China, it was a 1,350-mile flight to target. At the top speed of the Badger at 650 mph, it would take them a little over two hours to make the trip. The Badger had a ceiling of 49,215 feet, but that kind of altitude was not needed. They were flying at 19,000 feet for good fuel economy. They would get to the target and return without refueling. The Badger’s range with a warload was 4,475 miles. Lots of room to spare.
Colonel Lin expected no trouble. They were over the friendly skies of China for all but the last few miles. They would make the bombing run and return. Routine.
Colonel Lin was taller than most Chinese his age. At thirty-eight he was young for his rank, but he had earned it. He had never disobeyed an order in his life, but he had to think about his current mission. He would be doing something that only two or three men had ever done before.
Would he be cheered or condemned? He knew the world would call him a monster, a villain, a mass killer. He had come to peace with that. He was doing a job assigned to him by his superiors. It had to be done.
Lin stretched in the pilot’s seat. He looked over at his co-pilot. The Major did not know what the mission was. He was not aware of any of the massive movements that the bombing run would set off.
Lin thought about it again. Yes, he would do it. Yes he would carry out his orders. He would drop the bomb on target as ordered and blast away at maximum power to escape as much of the blast and detonation problems as possible. The crew would be affected to a certain degree. They all would be examined carefully when they returned to base. Both he and the co-pilot wore special lead chest and lap protectors.
“One hour and ten minutes to target,” his bombardier reported.
“Yes, understood,” Lin said into the intercom. He adjusted the helmet, checked his instruments, and peered into the black sky ahead. Nothing there. There shouldn’t be. There wouldn’t be anything there. No enemy aircraft to contend with.
For no reason, Colonel Lin thought of his wife and one child at home. He and his wife obeyed the edict of one child per family in an attempt by the government to limit population growth. The plan had worked fairly well in the cities; but in rural China, there were still many four- and five-child families. He and his wife had been lucky, they had a son. He knew of two officers who had determined the sex of their child before birth and aborted girl babies. Male children were highly prized in China.
At once he thought of the wives and children who would never have another day in their lives. He shivered slightly. There could be a hundred thousand casualties. The target was a city of 135,000 people. True, they were not Chinese, they were the enemy. Lin had been surprised when told of the target. How could that small country harm the greatness of China? Certainly, it was no threat and there had been no buildups or threats or war between the countries.
The timing had been carefully plotted out so the bomb would fall on Biratnagar at precisely 0530. That would be at the official time of sunrise in the city.
“Starting gradual climb to 25,000 feet,” the co-pilot said. Lin looked round. Yes, it was time. Two minutes past time. He had been daydreaming.
“Right, climbing to 25,000 as programmed.”
“Thirty minutes to target,” the navigator said. “Colonel, I have more than two dozen blips on the radar of aircraft coming toward us from the south and east.”
“Yes, transports, those are ours. No worry. They will follow us over the target by thirty minutes. Everything is going as planned. Good work, crew. Stand by for bomb drop in twenty-eight minutes.”
Bomb drop. Two words that would change the course of the world for the next few years. The world would never be the same. He was the trigger that would start it. He had no idea where it might end or what else he might do in the plan. After they returned to their base, he was to be flown directly to Beijing for a ceremony and a medal. That much he knew. After that, he had no idea how he would serve China. If there were an air war, he hoped that he would be in the thick of it.
Twenty minutes later the navigator came on the IC, the intercom, again. “Seven minutes to release time. Seven minutes. Starting prerelease check off and count down.”
Colonel Lin went over the procedure again. The bomb would be released at the proper point for forward motion toward the target. It would drop fifty feet and a parachute would deploy, slowing its descent. It would still fall at 120 feet per second, giving it two minutes to descend to 10,000 feet over the target where the altitude sensors would trigger the bomb.
That gave the Tupolev Badger two minutes to get out of the way of the atomic explosion and tremendous heat and air blast. Two minutes at 650 mph would be twenty-two miles. Twenty-two miles away from a blast that could only be described as pure hell on earth. A roiling, boiling mass of flames, blast, destruction, radiation, and instant immolation of buildings, vegetation, and human beings.
Colonel Lin tried not to think about it. He had an airplane to fly, a mission to complete. He would complete his mission!
“One minute to release,” the navigator said. “On proper target course. About eleven miles from release point.”
“Release checklist completed. We have a green light for release by the Colonel.”
“Acknowledged,” Colonel Lin said. He felt sweat seeping down inside his helmet. His right knee hurt. It always began to ache when he went into combat. He had no idea why. For a moment his visor fogged over, then cleared. All he could think about was his family at home in Beijing.
“Counting down from ten,” the bombardier said. “Five, four, three…”
Colonel Lin felt tears streaming down his cheeks. He could think only of his family in Bejing, and the 130,000 souls below who might never see another sunrise.
“… two, one, release.”
Colonel Lin pushed the button on his console that had been especially rigged to release the twenty-megaton bomb in the underfuselage weapons bay. He felt a sudden upward surge of the aircraft as the extremely heavy bomb left the craft.
“Your airplane, Major,” Colonel Lin said.
“Right, full throttle, gradual turn to the left, about two minutes to blast,” the co-pilot said. “We’ll be riding the tail of the air surge. At twenty-two miles it should be moderate but on our tail.”
“Agreed, flip down face mask shields now,” Colonel Lin said. The crew moved down shields that let them see almost nothing.
Colonel Lin tried to count down the two minutes. The navigator did it for him.
“A minute and fifty seconds from release,” he said.
Almost at once, a searing brilliant flash overrode the sparse sunlight of early morning, stabbing through the face shields, followed a few seconds later by a crashing mountain of air that spasmed out of the huge ball of fire and away from the mushroom cloud back there twenty-two miles.