Russia also still possesses the AS-4, a few of the AS-6, and the AS-9 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.”
“You’re saying Russia might have done this?”
“Extremely unlikely, sir,” Freeman said, shaking his head. “At best, the Russians keep twenty-five percent of their supersonic bombers flyable—they were selling off their Backfire bombers to anyone in the world that might be interested, and they didn’t squawk too loudly when Ukraine claimed the Blackjack bombers.
Given what’s happened in Iran in the past few days with the establishment of martial law and the suspension of President Nateq-Nouri by the Ayatollah Khamenei, I think Iran is the most likely culprit.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Do you want us to be positive before we go further?”
“Hell no, Philip, I’m damned positive,” the President said resolutely. “I don’t need a bomb to fall on me to figure out that this is Buzhazi’s attempt to scare us away. But you said you’re still looking for the Backfire bomber base …?”
“It should be much easier to find them now, sir,” Freeman said.
“The Navy was able to track the Backfires well inside Iran after their attack, and we’ve had many more surveillance assets in place looking for them. Jon Masters launched two constellations of tactical reconnaissance satellites himself—just gave us the satellites. Once Space Command picked out an orbit for them, Masters put them up there. He’s got every airfield in Iran capable of landing a Backfire bomber under constant surveillance.”
“Good,” the President said. “I want to meet Masters one of these days, after this is over. Now,” the President went on, fixing a serious gaze on his National Security Advisor, “it’s important to me to hit back without starting a huge, full-scale war in the Middle East. The allies and the oil companies are already jumpy enough—oil prices are already spiking. Now, I know it was this Intelligence Support Agency group that launched those ‘screamer’ missiles, but I f, want to start shutting down Iran’s ability to make war, not just harass them. What have you got?”
“We’re already sending Future Hight the entire Disruptor series of weapons,” Freeman said. “Brad Elliott’s Disruptors don’t just screw with radars and sensors—they can do a lot of damage as well.”
“I never thought I’d be saying this, Philip—it sounds like a bad movie,” the President said, “but it’s the truth: I want this to look like an accident. When Masters finds those BACKfire bombers, I want them grounded, for good—and I want it to look like an accident. If that Iranian carrier comes anywhere near the Lincoln or any American warship, I want it on the bottom of end Saudi or Turkey, I want a major military headquarters building in Tehran to grow a large jagged hole in its middle—and I want it to look like an accident. Can you do that?”
“I understand completely, sir,” Freeman said. “And, yes, I think we can.”
“Good. Keep me advised, day or night, before any operation starts, but you’ve got the green light,” the President said, straightening his tie and getting ready to head back to the reception following the Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony. “Get the forces moving, then brief me as soon as you can; I want to OK each mission before the B-2A crosses into hostile airspace.
“This operation is to be quiet, deniable, and squeaky clean, General, but most of all, I want Iran to pay for shooting down our aircraft, the sons of bitches—attacking unarmed support aircraft is the lowest act any military man can do, and I want Buzhazi to feel it right in his damned groin. Get to it, Philip.”
General Philip Freeman was almost embarrassed by the enthusiasm he felt as he headed to the White House Situation Room to issue his orders to the Intelligence Support Agency. No more “disruptions,” no more “screamers”—the President wanted Iran’s war-making machine shut down, piece by piece, and that’s exactly what was going to happen.
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, GUAM 26 APRIL 1997, 1625 HOURS LOCAL
Jon Masters didn’t knock—he never knocked. He always burst into a room, day or night, and started talking as if the conversation had already started minutes before. This time, it was in the middle of a briefing being given by Colonel Dominguez on the maintenance status of the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber.
“Okay, so we got them. What we did, General,” Masters said breathlessly, “was simple: we launched two NIRTSat boosters, each carrying four Pacer Sky digital photo intelligence satellites, over Iran. We targeted each and every Iranian airfield, civilian or military, longer than forty-five hundred feet long and one hundred fifty feet wide, capable of handling something like a Tu-22M Backfire bomber. We took pictures of each airfield every sixty to ninety minutes. Of course, the Iranians didn’t know we launched these satellites—heck, nobody knew we launched them except you and me. We hit pay dirt.”
Griffith and Dominguez leapt to their feet and followed Masters down the hall of the fourth floor of the Thirteenth Air Force headquarters building, which was now occupied by the members of the Air Intelligence Agency and Future Flight for the B-2A missions against Iran. When everyone was in place and the door closed and locked behind them, Masters clicked the button on his display controller. The large-screen computer monitor showed an overhead view of a very large airport. “They can run, but they couldn’t hide,” Masters said proudly. “Sky Masters comes through again.”
Jon Masters’s NIRTSats (Need it Right This Second Satellites) were small devices, smaller than a washing machine, but capable of photographing a dog from 200 miles in space clearly enough to discern the breed. Four photo-reconnaissance NIRTSats, code-named Pacer Sky, could be loaded aboard a small two-stage scissor-winged rocket booster Masters called ALARM (for Air-Launched Alert Response Missile), and two such ALARM boosters could be loaded aboard Masters’s specially designed DC-10 aircraft. The DC-10 would take the ALARM boosters up to 40,000 feet, then drop them one by one. The DC-10 acted as the boosters’ first-stage engine—the booster’s two stages would fly the missile up as high as 400 miles in space, where the satellites would be inserted in their proper orbit. In this way, Masters could give almost any battlefield commander a complete reconnaissance, surveillance, and communications satellite network in a matter of hours.
Today, however, Masters wasn’t under a government or commercial contract to launch NIRTSats over Iran—this he was doing for himself.
“Beghin Airport, near Kerman, Iran, about two hundred fifty miles north of Bandar Abbas,” Masters went on. “Two hours after the attack on the Lincoln carrier group, we photographed this.” He directed a laser-beam pointer on the screen, then clicked another button, which zoomed the image down around the laser-beam point.
Magnified in the image was the unmistakable outline of a B-1B Lancer-type aircraft, with a long, pointed nose, slender body, and thin wings swept back very close to its fuselage.
“There’s your Tupolev-22M bomber base, folks: Beghin Airport—at least it’s one of them.” Masters zoomed the image out until the entire airport could be seen. “With the wings folded, those hangars there can accommodate six Backfires, two per hangar, so we’re still missing at least six more. I’m setting up round-the-clock surveillance on Beghin, and I’m still beating the bushes for the other six bombers.”
“Thank you, Jon,” Major General Brien Griffith, Commander of the U.S. Air Force Air Intelligence Agency, said. “Good work.”
“My extreme friggin’ pleasure, sir,” Masters said acidly. “The data’s been relayed to McLanahan and Jamieson via Sheila MacNichol was just returning from the ladies’ room that afternoon—her sixth month of pregnancy seemed like one endless trip to the bathroom—and was returning to her desk in the 722nd Air Refueling Wing commander’s office, where she was “flying a desk,” grounded from her regular job as an Air Force Reserve KC-10 copilot and now acting as the wing executive officer, when she noticed the scared, almost panicked look on the face of the wing commander’s civilian secretary. Instantly her throat turned dry, and the baby kicked, and she felt as if her knees were going to give way.