Suddenly several symbols popped onto the right side of the big screen, resembling bat’s wings, far to the west of the B-2’s position. Each bat-wing symbol had a small column of numerals near it, along with a two-colored wedge-shaped symbol on the front. The wider edge of the outer yellow-colored portion of the wedge seemed to be aimed right for the symbol of the B-2 in the center of the SMFD, while the red inner portion of the wedge seemed to be undulating in and out as if trying to decide whether to touch the B-2 icon.
“And there they are,” McLanahan announced. “Fighters at two o’clock. Two F-23s. Doppler frequency shift processing estimates they’re twenty miles out and above us. Signal strength is increasing — their search radar might pick us up any second. I don’t think they got a radar lock on us yet, Henry… their flight path is taking them behind us, but that could be a feint.”
Cobb seemed not to have heard McLanahan — he remained as motionless as ever, as if frozen in place with his hands on the throttles and control stick and his eyes riveted forward — but he asked, “Got jammers set up?”
“Not yet,” McLanahan said, double-checking the SMFD display of the fighter’s radar signal. The colored portions of the fighter’s radar wedges, which represented the sweep area, detection range, and estimated kill range of the fighters, was still not solidly covering the B-2’s icon, which meant that the stealth characteristics of the B-2 were allowing it to continue toward the target without using active transmitting jammers. He selected the ECM display and put it on the right side of the SMFD, ready to activate the electronic jammers at the proper time. “PRF is still in search range, and power level is too weak. If we buzz them too early, they can get a bearing on us.”
“If you buzz them too late, they’ll get a visual on us.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” McLanahan said. “In any case, they’re too late.” He brought the communications screen forward and activated a pre-programmed SATCOM message, then transmitted it. “Sending range-clearance request in now,” he said. Sent by SATCOM and coded like normal SAC message traffic, the message or its response would not alert the fighters searching for them.
The reply came thirty seconds later: “Range clearance received, all targets clear,” McLanahan reported. “Less than fifteen minutes to first launch point.”
He enlarged the weapons screen and brought it higher up on the large SMFD screen so Cobb could check it as well. The B-2 carried one AGM-84E SLAM conventional standoff missile in the left bomb bay and a three-thousand-pound concrete shape, which simulated a second SLAM missile but was not intended to be released. With its turbojet engine, the AGM-84E SLAM, the acronym for the Standoff Land Attack Missile, could carry a one-thousand-pound warhead over sixty miles. It had an imaging infrared camera in the nose that transmitted pictures back to its carrier aircraft, and it could be flown and locked on target with pinpoint precision. It was designed to give SAC’s bombers a precision, high-powered, long-range conventional bombing capability without exposing the bomber to stiff target-area defenses. The right bomb bay carried two AGM-130 Striker rocket-powered glide bombs, which had a range of only fifteen miles but carried a two-thousand-pound bomb with the same precision as the SLAM. Striker worked in conjunction with SLAM to destroy area defenses and strike hardened targets with one bomber — and with the B-2 stealth bomber, which could penetrate closer to heavily defended targets than any other bomber in the world, it was a lethal combination.
McLanahan glanced at the weapons arranged along the SMFD, then spoke, “Unsafe… ready,” to ready all weapons. Each weapon icon changed from red to green, indicating all were ready for release. “Weapon status verified, full connectivity.”
Cobb turned to look, then nodded his agreement. “Checks.”
McLanahan relocked all weapons, then unlocked the SLAM rocket bomb only. “Left bay SLAM selected,” he told Cobb.
Another quick glance from Cobb, then he resumed his seemingly petrified position. “Checks. Left bay weapon unlocked. All others locked.” McLanahan thought Cobb looked a little like the Lincoln Memorial, sitting erect and unmoving in his seat, hands on either side of him, staring straight ahead.
McLanahan selected a special symbol in the upper-right corner of the SMFD with his head-pointing system. He spoke “Active” and it began to blink, indicating that it was active and preparing to send data. “I’m calling up satellitetargeting data from the latest NIRTSat surveillance scan,” he told Ormack. “In a few minutes I should have an updated radar image of the target area, and with the composite infrared and visual data, I should be able to program the SLAM missile for a direct hit. We got this bomb run wired.”
The F-23 pilots, Lieutenant Colonel Mirisch and Captain Ed Milo, felt as if they were chasing a ghost ship — there was an attacker out there, but he barely registered on any of their sensors. If they didn’t find him within the next five minutes or less, they would lose max points for any intercepts done outside the MOA.
Well, Mirisch thought, this mystery plane couldn’t escape the Mark One attack sensor system — their eyeballs. Jarrel’s Air Force Battle had B-1 and B-2 bombers in it now, so just maybe this attacker was one of those stealthy beasts. Mirisch noted the direction of the shadows on the ground and began to search not for the airplanes themselves, but for big, dark shadows — a bomber’s shadow was always many times larger than the plane itself, and there was no camouflaging a shadow…
Got it!
“Tally ho!” Mirisch shouted. He was so excited that he forgot his radio discipline: “Jesus Christ, I got a B-2 bomber, one o’clock low! It’s a fucking B-2 bomber!” That’s why their attack radars wouldn’t lock on or the infrared scanners wouldn’t work — the B-2 was supposed to have the radar cross-section of a bird, and birds don’t paint too well on radar. Mirisch was expecting a black aircraft, but this batwinged monstrosity was painted tan and green camouflage, blending in perfectly with the surrounding terrain. It was flying very low, but the late afternoon’s shadows were long and it was a dead giveaway. At night, Mirisch thought, it would be next to impossible to find this bastard. “Raider flight, this is Raider Two-Zero flight, we got a Bravo Two bomber, repeat, Bravo Two, at low altitude. Closing to…”
Suddenly there was the worst squealing and chirping on the UHF radio frequency that Mirisch had ever heard. It completely blotted out not only the UHF channel, but the scrambled FM HAVE QUICK channel as well. Except for the Godawful screeching, the jamming was no big deal — they had a visual on the bomber, and no B-2 was going to outrun, outmaneuver, or outgun an F-23. This guy is toast. The newcomer, whoever he was, was too far out to matter now. He would deal with the B-2, then go back and take care of the newcomer with the big jammer.
Mirisch had a solid visual on the B-2, so he took the lead back from Milo and began his run. The B-2 had begun a series of S-turns, flying lower and lower until his shadow really did seem to disappear, trying to break Mirisch’s visual contact. In fact it did take a lot of concentration to stay focused on the bomber as it slid around low hills and gullys, but the closer the F-23 got, the easier it was to stay on him. Now, with the B-2 noticeably closer, the attack radar finally locked on at four miles. The heavy jamming from the bomber occasionally managed to break the range gate lock and spoil his firing solution, but the F-23’s attack radar was frequency-agile enough to escape the jamming long enough for the lead-computing sight to operate. No sweat…
The throttles were at full military thrust, and Cobb had the three-hundred-thousand-pound bomber right at three hundred feet above the ground, and occasionally he cheated and nudged it even lower. He knew the wild S-turns ate up speed and allowed the fighters to move closer, but one advantage of the water-based custom camouflage job on the B-2 that had been applied specifically for this mission was that it degraded the one attack option that no B-2 bomber could defend against — a visual gun attack.