“I know we weren’t,” McLanahan said, “but we got the gas, the TA system was up, we got the fighters, and they wanted to play.”
“We didn’t brief it, we didn’t plan it, and I’ve got two civilians on board,” Samson interjected angrily. “Yes, you’re a civilian, McLanahan. I know you can do the job, I know you’re every bit as capable as an active- duty crew member, but you’re still just a civilian observer. Hell, McLanahan, I’m not qualified in this contraption, and I haven’t flown terrain-avoidance missions in ten years, let alone been chased by Lightnings at five hundred AGL! It was dangerous.”
“It’s nothing you haven’t done before, General,” McLanahan said. “I know you’ve gone over the Mach at one hundred AGL in the B-1B, and you’ve shook off fighters in a B-52 down low before, too.”
“That’s enough, McLanahan,” Samson said. “The test is over. Sit back and enjoy the ride back to Edwards.” He turned to look over his right shoulder at Masters. “You okay, Dr. Masters?”
“Sure… fine.” He looked right at the edge of losing control of his stomach’s contents, but he wore a concerned expression. “I hope you didn’t stop all that yanking and banking pilot stuff because of me. Actually, I was starting to get into it.”
“Why did you stop, Terrill?” McLanahan asked. “Why did you let those guys get us?”
“What’s the point, Patrick?” Samson asked in an angry tone. “Like you said, it was daylight, they had us visually. They got us. We didn’t have a chance. We were just rolling around down close to the ground, waiting for them to kill us. We couldn’t escape. It was inevitable.”
“Nothing is inevitable, sir,” McLanahan said. “We can beat even the F-22 Lightning down low. I’ve seen the best fighters in the world lose a B-52 when it’s down in the rocks — the more high-tech a fighter gets, the less capable it’ll be in a visual chase down low.”
“I know that, Patrick. I’ve done it myself.”
“But we can’t show the powers that be how good we are if we keep on calling ‘knock it off’ the minute we’re bombs-away, sir. We’ve got to prove that we can survive in this day and age of superfighters and high- tech air defense systems.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Patrick,” Samson said, “but unfortunately I think the heavy bomber is going to become a thing of the past with or without the Wolverine missile. The Pentagon understands the concept of employing squadrons of fighters and fighter-bombers overseas or aboard carriers — they don’t understand, or refuse to accept, the idea that we might not be able to send a carrier into a certain part of the world, or we might not be able to establish a forward operating base close enough to the enemy to use a fighter-bomber.”
“So… what are you saying, sir?”
“I’m saying, as of October first, Eighth Air Force goes away — and with it, most of the heavies.”
“What?” McLanahan interjected. “The Air Force is doing away with the long-range bombers?”
“Not entirely,” Samson replied. “Twelfth Air Force gets one B-2 wing, twenty planes by the year 2000—hopefully with ten or twenty more, if Congress gets their act together, by 2010—and three B-1B wings, two Reserve wings, and one Air National Guard group.”
“No B-lBs in the active duty force — and all the BUFFs and Aardvarks go to the boneyard?” McLanahan exclaimed, referring to the B- 52s and F-llls by their crewdog-given nicknames. “Unbelievable. It doesn’t seem real. ”
“Fiscal realities,” Samson said. “You can fill the sky with F-15E fighter-bombers for the same price as a single B-2 squadron. The President looks at Mountain Home with a huge ramp full of a hundred F-15s, F-16s, and tankers, and he knows he can precision-bomb the shit out of North Korea with just that one wing for three hundred million per year; or he looks at Barksdale or Ellsworth with just twenty heavies and virtually no precision-guided stuff for the same money. Which one does he pick? Which one looks worse to the bad guys?”
“But the heavies drop more ordnance, cause more damage, inflict more psychological confusion—”
“That’s arguable, and besides, it doesn’t matter,” Samson interjected. “I can tell you that European or Central Command planners much prefer to hear that a hundred Eagles or Falcons are on their way rather than twenty B-52s or even thirty B-ls, even though a B-l can beat an F-16 any day in conventional radar bombing. Pacific Command — well, forget it. They won’t even ask for an Air Force bomber wing unless every carrier is on the bottom of the ocean — for them, almost nothing except tankers and an occasional AWACS radar plane exist outside Navy or Marine Corps fighter.”
“I just hope, sir,” McLanahan said, “that you don’t let the Pentagon kill off the heavy bombers as easily as you just let those fighters kill us. ”
“Hey, McLanahan, that’s out of line,” Samson said bitterly. “You listen to me — I believe in the heavy bombers just as much as you, probably more. I fight to keep the heavies in the arsenal every fucking day.”
“I didn’t mean to accuse or insult you, sir,” McLanahan said, iron still in his voice, “but I’m not ready to give up on the heavy-bomber program. We’d be committing national defense suicide.”
“You might want to loosen up a bit, Patrick,” Samson interjected, with a wry smile. “Those decisions are made far, far above our pay grade. Besides, it was the success of the heavy bomber that helped kill it off more than anything else.”
“What do you mean?”
“After your overflying of China with a B-2 everyone thought had been destroyed, the world is scared shitless,” Samson explained. “Any talk of using strategic bombers in a conflict, especially with China, looks like a return to the Cold War days, and it has lawmakers on both sides nervous. The President has ordered all the Beaks back to Whiteman, and he’s lying low, waiting for the ‘lynch mobs’ to quiet down.”
“Lynch mobs? Someone’s upset that we struck back at the Iranians?” “Don’t you read the papers, Patrick?” Samson asked with surprise. “Half of Congress, mostly the left side of the aisle, is howling mad at the President for authorizing those bombing missions against Iran. There’s talk of an investigation, an independent counsel, even impeachment. Nothing will come of it, of course — it’s all political mudslinging, and few outside the Pentagon or the closed-door congressional military committees know what we did over Iran — but the President’s neck is stretched way out there.”
“We proved today that the B-52 is still a first-class weapon system,” McLanahan said resolutely. “We’ve got five more EB-52s sitting in storage right now, and Sky Masters can arm them all with Wolverine attack missiles and Tacit Rainbow anti-radar missiles. The mission has changed, General, but we still need the B-52s.”
“The B-52s have already been fragged for the boneyard, Patrick, including the Megafortresses,” Samson said. “The moneys already been spent to get rid of them. Minot and Barksdale go civilian by the end of next year — hell, my desk will be auctioned off by Christmas. Give it up, Patrick. I’ll recommend that Air Force buy Wolverines, but not to equip B-52s — that’s a losing proposition. Mate Wolverines with Beaks and Bones”—Samson used the crewdog nicknames for the B-2 A and B-1B bombers—“and I think we’ll have a deal.”
But McLanahan wasn’t listening — he was lost in thought, his eyes locked in the “thousand-yard stare” that he seemed to lapse into from time to time. Even though he ran checklists and did his duties as a B-2 bomber mission commander, he seemed to think about a hundred different things all at once. Just like Brad Elliott, Samson thought. Thinking about how he was going to twist the game to his advantage, turning over each and every possibility, no matter how weird or outlandish, until the solution presented itself. Elliott was famous… no, infamous… for that.