Time was running out for the Western Forces. Jones's intelligence people told him that the Circle Army would be in place and linked-up with the Soviet forces in the Badlands in a matter of days. Once that took place, the Western Forces would be-facing an organized, fully deployed enemy. It would be next to impossible to fight them even up at that point. The democracy's only hope harked back to Jones's conversation with Hunter several days back. Increase the air attacks, disrupt the enemy's lines of communication, hit important targets, keep them guessing.
Which is why Jones knew this bombing mission was so necessary. Air strikes on SAM sites up and down the Badlands had continued unabated for the past several days, with thankfully low loss rates for the democratic air forces. These attacks served two purposes. They kept the enemy off-balance, and they punched holes in the SAM line, very important passageways that the Western Forces would soon need critically.
But Jones needed time. Time for the armies of the west to fully mobilize. Time for all of the available air units to get operational. Time for all the Free Canadian "volunteers" to get in position. And time for the west's best weapon — Hawk Hunter — to return, ideally with the fifth black box in hand. Then they might have a chance.
A missile explosion off to his left jarred Jones's thoughts. He saw another one of his bombers get hit; a long fiery trail spiraling down was all that was left of it. He put his airplane into another dive, and yanked it hard to the portside, just in time to avoid two missiles that were rising up toward him, side-by-side.
"I've never seen anything like this," he called over to his co-pilot. The sky all around them was filled with powerful explosions and white streaks of exhaust contrails caused by the seemingly endless barrage of SAMs.
And they were still 20 miles from the target…
Still the bombers pressed on. Jones's navigator called out the coordinates of the "castle" target, now 10 miles ahead. Jones radioed for his bombardier to make his final adjustments, then he ordered his remaining bombers to quickly form up again. One group would divert to hit the nuke station; he would lead the others to hit the Soviets' main base.
They were going to use an old World War II tactic called "bomb-on-leader."
This meant when Jones's B-52 started dropping its bombs, the rest of the bomber group would follow suit. It was up to Jones and his crew to pick the absolute correct time to order their bombs away.
Seven miles to target and amazingly the SAM fire increased. Two more Stratofortresses were hit; one right behind Jones took a missile hit direct on its bomb bay door. The big airplane was immediately obliterated. The other airplane got its wing clipped. Jones watched as most of its crew bailed out and the pilot steered the ailing bomber into a suicide dive directly into a SAM concentration just outside the castle base. The airplane slammed into the enemy position with a tremendous explosion.
Soon Jones's bombers were only seconds from the target. The general's bombardier called up his ready signal and Jones acknowledged it. He waited for a three count, gritted his teeth then yelled, "Bombs away!"
He immediately felt the aircraft go lighter as the 30 tons of bombs fell away from the bomb bay. The other B-52s dropped their bombloads at exactly the same times. As Jones watched out of his window, he could see the first string of bombs landing right in the middle of the walled city. Then another string hit.
Then another. The resulting explosions were so powerful and concentrated, a fiery mini-mushroom cloud rose up over the city.
Just as the last bomb was dropped, Jones ordered the entire force to immediately climb. Then the survivors turned for home. The B-52s had battled their way in and now would have to battle their way out. But they had delivered 400 tons of high explosives right on top of the main command center of the enemy.
Jones figured the destruction of the enemy HQ would give the west another few days of valuable time. Off in the distance, he could see the nuke station was also enveloped in flames, courtesy of 50 additional tons of bombs. Suddenly, there was a green flash of light, followed by a king-sized mushroom cloud. Jones knew that was the nuke's reactor going up. Anyone left alive on the ground would now have even radiation to contend with.
Jones figured the destruction of the enemy HQ and the nuke would seriously disrupt the Soviets' command structure and give the west another few days of valuable time.
Now if only Hunter would show up…
Chapter Thirty
One by one, the surviving B-52s approached the Denver air station and began their landing descent. Jones was stationed toward the end of the pack as several of his ships had been damaged and had fallen behind the main group.
Suddenly the pilot of the last trailing bomber — code named Caboose — called ahead to Jones with'.an urgent message.
"Sir, we got a boogie back here!" the pilot radioed. "He's right off our tail!"
Jones yelled back to his own radar man. "What do you show back there?"
"Nothing sir," the answer came back. "All I got is '52s."
Jones radioed back to his tail pilot. "What do you have? Visual sighting? Or a blip?"
"It's a visual, sir," the pilot replied. "I've got no radar signature. My set must have caught some damage over the target."
Jones was worried. The bogie might very well be a Yak recon ship, following the stragglers back to their home base in preparation for an air strike of their own. But why didn't the aircraft show up on radar? He quickly radioed all the other airplanes ahead of him to drop down and land as quickly as possible.
"What's his airspeed and altitude, Caboose?" Jones then radioed the last ship.
"He's at 450, and about 2000 feet above us," came the reply. "He's keeping pace with us, sir."
There was a crackle of static. "Stand by sir," the pilot called out. "He's booted it sir, coming down fast."
"Can your tail gunner get a fix on him?" Jones radioed back.
"Negative, sir," the pilot said, his voice raising a notch in anxiety. "He's going right by us… right now!"
Jones turned around in his seat and looked back I toward the Caboose. Sure enough, a small, strange-looking fighter streaked by right underneath him. His co-pilot saw it too.
"What the hell kind of airplane is that, General?" he asked.
"Beats the hell out of me," Jones said. Just then, his B-52 entered a low hung cloud bank. Jones had to concentrate on landing the airplane. He activated his landing gear and deployed his tail chute to further slow down the big bomber.
When he broke through the clouds, the landing strip was directly ahead of him.
And so was the mysterious fighter!
"The Goddamned thing has landed!" co-pilot called out. "Jesus, he walked right in without the tower or the scramble jet picking him up? He's got to be friendly or crazy…"
"Or both," Jones said, looking at his co-pilot.
By the time Jones taxied his Stratofortress into its holding station, a crowd of armed guards and curious monkeys had surrounded the strange jet. The general quickly shut down the big bomber's engines and climbed out of the access hatch. He wasn't totally surprised to see Hunter standing on the wing of the oddly-shaped black fighter, coolly discussing something with the group of onlookers.
Hunter jumped off the wing and walked quickly to meet Jones. He was holding the fifth black box.
"Am I glad to see you," Jones said. "And that black box."
The general put his fingers to his mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle.
Immediately a jeep filled with military police appeared. Jones handed the precious black box to the sergeant of the group, saying: "You know what to do."