Curtis said nothing. Apparently too shocked, the President decided.
"How long can the Excaliburs stay in their orbit, General?"
Curtis checked his watch, made a fast calculation. "They must leave in six hours to have enough fuel to reach Eielson with the necessary reserves. We'll have a tanker back in the first orbit area to give them extra fuel, but six hours is the most.
"Order them to depart the orbit area in five," the President asked. "I know it doesn't make much sense keeping them out there. They'd be sitting ducks if they tried anything, but at least it will make the Soviets nervous having two B-1s heading toward their backyard. We may even be able to bluff them into thinking those Excaliburs have more fuel and firepower onboard than they thought. It might even get them to negotiate for real The President's voice was flat. Who could blame him?He was still thinking of the Old Dog-thinking of another plan that had failed, and of the crew that would never come back.
He swiveled his seat around and stared, unseeing, into the gray, snow-covered world outside the Oval Office.
ABOARD THE OLD DOG
Dave Luger checked the master computer's clock on his TV display.
Weird, he thought. Watching a machine doing his navigation for him.
Playing a big "video game" in the belly of a B-52 somewhere over the north Pacific.
Well, not exactly "somewhere. "With the GPS up and running, he knew within sixty feet where they were at any given moment-and the GPS measured those moments within one-hundredth of a second.
Luger plugged his nose and blew against the pressures I'valsalva," designed to clear his ears after their hair-raising dive to "disappear" from Seattle Center radar. "General?"
"Go ahead, Dave," Elliott said.
"Fifteen minutes to the decision point. "Luger quickly called up a fuel reading on his video display. "I've got us right on your updated fuel curve, Colonel."
"Checks up here," Ormack acknowledged.
"So we're not leaking fuel?" Wendy asked.
"Negative," Ormack asked. "At least there's some good news.
"Well, it's time we talked about the bad news," Elliott said.
"This is what we're looking at. According to Patrick and Dave, and courtesy of those twelve navigation satellites feeding our computers information, we're fifteen minutes from a major decision point.
"We now have about thirty-four thousand pounds of fuel left. Thanks to that phony screaming-ass descent back there that had all those air traffic controllers buffaloed, and the hour long cruise at five hundred feet above the water, we'll soon be running on fumes. From our decision point ahead we can divert to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage and have about fifteen thousand pounds of fuel. That's the absolute minimum amount of landing fuel for a normal B-52.With this plastic monster of ours we can overfly Elmendorf and with favorable winds and a lot of luck divert again to Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks with about three thousand pounds remaining. That figure is significant because that's the normal tolerance of the fuel gauges we have-we can have six thousand at Eielson-" "Or we can have zero," Angelina said.
"Exactly But that plan does give us two available airfields to set this beast down on."
"Is there another option?" McLanahan asked.
"Yes, Patrick. We can continue on our planned flig route.
The only available airfield with a halfway decent runway for us becomes Shemya in the Aleutians. Fuel reserve over Shemya would be about five thousand pounds."
"Five thousand pounds?" Wendy asked. "That's cutting it close. Are there any-T' "There are other airfields nearby," Elliott said, anticipating her question. "All of them are shorter and narrower than Shemya, but we should be able to put down on any one of them. I bring up this option because Shemya has two things that we could use-a fairly isolated runway and fuel. We need the isolation if we ever hope to keep this plane and this mission secret. The decision becomes this-head toward Elmendorf with one good option but an end to our mission, or head toward Shemya with only a few poor options but an outside chance of continuing on."
"I don't see there's an option, General," Ormack said.
"We've come this far…"
Elliott nodded at Ormack, silently thanking him. To the crew he said, "I guess I'm bringing all this up to give each of you another out, another chance to put this bird down."
"We've given you our answer, General," Wendy said.
"I know, and I thank you. But you've had a few hours to think about it. I'm putting the question again."
"I've got a different question," McLanahan asked. "How's your leg, General?We can't complete this mission with less than a one hundred percent effort from everybody-you said so yourself. Are you one hundred percent, General?"
"Of course I am. "Elliott turned and found Orinack looking at him carefully.
"I can handle it, John."
"He has a point, General. You're worried about us not having the commitment-but do you have the capacity?"
Elliott paused, then spoke into the interphone. "I won't deny it, crew. My leg hurts like a sonofabitch. But if I didn't think I could get this beast to Kavaznya and back again, well, I would have said so back there when we were over Seattle.
Silence. Then McLanahan spoke. "All right, General.
That's good enough for me."
"Me, too," Angelina said.
"And me," Luger added.
The entire crew voiced their assent.
"All right, then," Elliott said, "do any of you have any brilliant ideas about how we can get enough gas to finish this mission?"
Downstairs in the lower offensive crew compartment McLanahan gave his partner Luger the thumbs-up sign and spoke into the interphone.
"I have an idea, General," McLanahan asked. "But it may involve breaking some rules."
"If there was ever a time to break rules, Patrick, this is it.
Let's hear it."
"Well, we'll have to call you General Jean Lafitte after this one," McLanahan said, "but here's what I had in mind Elliott flipped his radio over to HF TRANSMIT, took a deep breath: "Skybird, Skybird, this is Genesis on Quebec. Emergency. Over. "The command post senior controller on duty in the tiny SAC Command post on the tiny island of Shemya, perched nearly at the tip of the Aleutians, had to restrain himself from spilling his coffee as the emergency call blared through his speaker.
Calls over HE especially emergency calls, were few and far between up here at the extreme northwestern tip of the United States of America.
He whipped out a grease pencil and noted the time on the slate of glass covering his desktop.
He switched his radio to HF and keyed his microphone.
"Calling Skybird on HF, this is Icepack on Quebec. Spell your call sign phonetically and go ahead with information.
"We got him," Elliott said over interphone. Over the high frequency radio, he said, "Copy you, Icepack. I spell Golf.
Echo, November, Echo, Sierra, India, Sierra, SAC Special Operations.
We are one-eight-zero miles east-southeast of' your station. We have declared an emergency for a double engine fire and fire in the crew compartment. Massive fuel leaks. Request emergency random refueling with strip alerter and emergency recovery at Shemya."
The deputy controller was furiously writing the information down on a logbook. He opened the classified call signs book.
"Checks," the controller said to his partner. "Special ops out of Edwards."
"So what's he doing way the hell up here?" the senior controller said.
"Call the commander. "He checked the weather forecast printout on his console, then turned back to his radio.
"Understand your request, Genesis," the controller replied.
"Shemya is reporting marginal conditions. Can you divert to Anchorage?