, Can someone take HF for a while?" Luger asked. "The static is driving me nuts."
"I'll take it," McLanahan said, reached across and took the 0 high-altitude general aviation chart that Luger was using to copy the high-frequency radio messages on. He glanced at his watch. "Three more minutes until Alpha monitor. "He switched his interphone panel waver switch to the HF setting and winced as he turned the switch on.
He fumbled for the S volume knob. "Sorry I volunteered. You got three-eleven, I remember.
Here's the log I made up.
Luger looked over the mountain of radio messages on the 9 U.H.F alternate SAC command post frequency "Just routine messages," he asked. "What are we looking for?"
"Anything," McLanahan asked. "A clue. Something unusual.
"Can't they just say, "Hey you guys, set A-B-C in SATCOM "Then everyone who hears the message sets it in their printers. It's not secure anymore."
"Or, "Hey, Dog, land at Tonopah'?Oh, never mind. Same reason." "Real smart boy," McLanahan asked. "Alpha monitor i period — " He shut off all the radio switches except HF and pressed the headset pads closer to his head to hear better the Strategic Air Command emergency action message broadcasts.
Alpha monitor was the primary time period for worldwide Strategic Air Command messages over the high-frequency radio spectrum.
"How's the fuel look, John?" Elliott asked Ormack.
"Still about seven hours at this throttle setting," Ormack said, checking his homemade flight plan filled out on the back of a piece of cardboard- "We can still fly across the country twice if we need to, "My butt won't hang in there that long, Elliott said.
"How about your leg?"
"Still smarts," Elliott said, gently touching his calf.
ight publications holder behind his Ormack reached into a fl seat and pulled out the North America IFR supplement. "I've got the frequency for McClellan Global Command Control," he told Elliott. "I'll give them a call, tell them we're exiting the ADIZ.- Over the interphone he asked, "Anyone using the HF?"
"The Muck's copying a message," Luger replied. He glanced over at McLanahan, who was intently listening to the static-charged radio message, occasionally tapping a pencil on the characters he was transcribing.
"Let me know when he's finished," Ormack asked. "Any problem with keeping up with our position?"
"No, sir."
"I'll need some more endurance figures in a minute. I'l probably need an ETA to a fix somewhere when I call McClellan.
Ask and ye shall receive," Luger said, and looked over again a It McLanahan, who had just switched his interphone knobs to their normal positions.
"HF is yours, Colonel," Luger asked. "Nav clearing off to the sextant.
Hey, Muck, I gotta take a sun shot. You wanna do the honors or count me down?"
"I've done the last three shots on the sextant," he said.
"Gimme the watch. "As Luger got up to head to the upper deck to take the sextant positions, McLanahan grabbed his arm. "Anything unusual about any of these HF messages you copied, Dave?" He tapped his pencil on the long lines of numbers and letters, together with the time of transmission ant the call sign of the command post that made the transmission "No, the usual number of characters, no special order o anything. Of course, we can't decode the messages."
"Something in the messages… Dave, did the message say 'fox' or 'foxtrot'?"
"What?Oh, the phonetic spelling for the "Fs, Chr(34)+ you mean? He thought for a moment. "Yeah, you're right. "Fox'!No 'foxtrot'!But it's the same thing, right?"
"Maybe, maybe not. "McLanahan pulled the mike closer "Angelina? Any luck?"
Angelina made an obscene gesture at the row of buttons on the SATCOM printer, which were used to set the address enable codes into the printer-receiver. "My finger's getting numb setting codes."
"I think I might have something," McLanahan asked. "We just got HF traffic. They're using 'fox' in their messages instead of 'foxtrot."
It's the same as that strange suffix on our call sign.
Fox'?Sure, why not?I've tried dozens of other codes."
In the gunner's compartment, Angelina set the address enable switch on the SATCOM printer to DISENABLE.She then set the address code windows to "F-O-X' and changed the address switch to ENABLE."Nothing," she said.
"Try those characters backwards," McLanahan told her.
"That has to be the key."
Angelina entered "X-O-F' into the printer address code and switched the receiver to "ENABLE."Instantly, the SATCOM printer rumbled to life.
"It worked!"
"Great," Elliott asked. "Read out any messages you get as soon as possible.
"Just a stream message with our call sign in it so far," Angelina said.
"I'll get an acknowledgment message out right away. "She unstowed the SATCOM keyboard and began to type out an acknowledgment message.
Fifteen minutes later she keyed the mike again.
"Message, General," she announced.
"Go ahead."
"it reads, "Orbit at SHARK intersection for recovery at Boeing Auxiliary Eleven at zero-eight-hundred hours Zulu.
Insure weapons safe for recovery. JCS."That's it. I got the codes for the satellite navigation system, too. I'll pass down the GPS code to the nav in a minute."
"Well, that's it," Elliott asked. "We'll have this beast down on the tarmac in a few hours. "He turned to Ormack. "Sure was nice getting behind these controls again, John. I'm just sorry about the circumstances."
Elliott stared out the windowscreen and watched the Old Dog's nose as it veered into the sun. The pain continued to throb in his right leg as he thought about the two Excaliburs headed toward Russia.
OVER THE ARCTIC OCEAN NORTH OF BARROW, ALASKA
"Disconnect, seven-seven.
The boom operator hit a trigger on his control stick, and the KC-10
Extender's refueling boom popped out of the nozzle of the jet fuel vapor the receptacle, a small white cloud of JP A B Excalibur below.
streaming away in the slipstream of the B The boomer pulled on the stick, and the boom moved quickly away from the black shape hovering below his panoramic window beneath his toes. He hit another switch, and the boom motored up and automatically stowed itself under the modified McDonnell-Douglas DC-10's tail.
"Clear One-Three to the wing," the pilot aboard the B-1 requested.
The lead B-1 replied.
"Clear to the right wing, One-Three," The B-1 that had just completed its refueling slowed, dipped its right wing, and slid out of view of the KC-10 boom operator.
Just as he cruised out of view, the boom operator got another glimpse of the pylon full of missiles slung under the Excalibur's wings.
"Refueling complete," the boom operator radioed to the co-pilot. He swiveled his headphone microphone away from his lips and wiped sweat from his face and neck. Refueling a B-1 was always hard-even though they were steady platforms, their dark NATO camouflage made it hard to find their open receptacles, even during the daytime.
But these two B-1s were different-very different. Their dark gray coloring was gone, replaced by dull jet-black surfaces. Even with the electrofluorescent aiming grid on the D Excalibur's nose, the boomer had been very reluctant to extend the nozzle into that dark, shapeless void. He knew he had only about a six-foot margin for error before he stuck the nozzle into the bomber's radome-or, worse, through its windscreen.
Even though he had been a boom operator for fifteen years and six feet was a lot of free space to work with, there was always the possibility of error. Two planes flying twelve feet away from each other, traveling at almost three hundred and eighty miles an hour-well, it was easy to screw up.
The co-pilot was giving the off load report to the two bombers: "Kelly One-Two flight, you received a total of one hundred and seventy thousand pounds, about equally divided.