Through those contacts Waters had learned something of how the Arab mind worked. Rather than move logically from one step to the next until a conclusion was reached, the Arab circled his objective, often going off on a wild tangent or goose chase but always returning to circle — so what was the Libyan leader’s objective this time?
“Bill,” Waters finally said, “I’ve moved our orbit closer to Tripoli. So far, we’ve only picked up routine messenger traffic, nothing to worry about. We may be spinning our wheels, but pay special attention to the Libyans for a while.”
He waved for Stan Cruzak to join them. “Stan, as soon as we start picking up the Libyan’s command net, see if you can crack into their frequency rotation.”
One of the RC-135’s most closely guarded secrets was its ability to break into the method of scrambling radio messages the Russians had provided the Libyans with. The Libyans could not handle encryption, and out of exasperation the Russians had sold them a scrambling system that rapidly rotated voice radio transmissions over many frequencies. The frequency shift was so rapid that the users did not even notice it. The idea was that an enemy could not follow the frequency changes. But a skilled radio operator on the RC-135 could slave the plane’s computer to the monitoring sweeps and lock onto the frequency rotation. He also had to work with a translator to know if what he was receiving made sense and he wasn’t missing frequency changes. Carroll and Cruzak were a well-rehearsed team.
“Tell me when you start to get something,” Waters said. He left the two men and walked back to a sealed compartment in the rear of the module that held the aircraft’s most classified equipment. The man that occupied the small space had jokingly painted the door green in homage to the movie Behind the Green Door, reminding the crew that what went on behind the door was none of their business. Only the operator and Waters knew what the equipment did and each held one half the code that activated the self-destruct mechanism that would destroy the sensitive equipment, which could, under the right conditions, pick up unshielded landline telephone conversations from as far as one hundred miles. Waters had the Libyans wired for sound. He explained what was happening to the operator and told him to buzz his position if he monitored anything significant.
At first Bill Carroll could not understand the flood of Arabic that started to crackle through his headset. But as the recon bird moved south, and as Stan refined the frequency shifts, the transmissions became stronger and clearer.
“Goddamn,” Carroll said. “The Libyans are acting like they’ve got an intruder!” For five more minutes he monitored the transmission, wanting to be sure he understood exactly what he was hearing, then called Waters.
“Damn,” Waters muttered. His internal warning sensations had turned into alarms. The action light from behind the green door flashed for his attention.
“Colonel… ”
Waters cut him off and keyed the communication circuit for the green door. The operator’s information was sketchy, “Sorry, Colonel. I can’t break out what is being said, but the lines between the Soviet Embassy and Libyan Headquarters are hotter than hell.”
The colonel broke the connection and patched his interphone into a conference line to talk to his translators and radio technicians. “Has anyone got unusual flight activity inside Libya or approaching their airspace?” The replies were negative. He punched up Carroll’s circuit for a private conversation. “Bill, I think the Libyans are getting ready to scramble interceptors. I can only see one logical target — Grain King. You’re an expert on these people, am I reading this wrong?”
“It’s hard to tell, sir. They don’t react like we do. It’s a possibility… ”
Which was enough for Waters to act on. He cut him off and called the flight deck. “Pilot, this is Waters. Go to Rose Orbit. Climb as high as possible. Now. Words why later.” Everyone looked at one another, knowing that Rose Orbit was the optimum location for downlinking with Washington, D.C. RC-135s were required to maintain radio silence — their job was to monitor and gather information for analysis later on the ground, and not to talk to the world.
One of Waters’ most important duties was to protect the capabilities of his reconnaissance platform from compromise, and if the Soviets monitored communications from the RC-135 that coincided with the actions of the Libyans, they would soon figure out what the bird could do. Waters knew a normal high-frequency radio transmission as well as an ultra-low-frequency message transmitted through the trailing wire antenna that stretched two miles behind the aircraft would be picked up immediately.
That only left an Apple Wave, which had never been used operationally.
The colonel rapidly drafted a message outlining the situation. He could anticipate some searching questions about breaking radio silence, probably be subject to an official enquiry, and worst of all, have to personally debrief Sundown Cunningham. Screw it, he thought, remembering when he had met the troublesome general at Red Flag. Maybe he could retire before that. Besides, he was willing to take the chance if other airmen were in danger and he could do something about it.
A computer technician fed the colonel’s message into a computer bank. The computer encoded the message into a one-time use code, then split it into several parts. All of the parts would be transmitted simultaneously; however, the second part would start its transmission a fraction of a second after the first and on a slightly different part of the frequency wave and so on until all parts of the message were being transmitted at once. But before that happened, the computer would send a series of command signals to the aircraft’s power sources and to the phased array antenna that punched the message into the atmosphere. Huge amounts of power were needed to overcome any jamming attempts by an enemy, to narrowly focus and to bend the beam over the horizon. Relays in junction boxes would open and close at the command of the computer, readying circuits that for a few seconds drew electrical power from other equipment on the aircraft.
Less than five seconds after the computer technician had finished typing the message into the computer, two ready lights flashed at the colonel’s panel. Waters read the soft copy of his message spat out by the computer’s printer. The computer had encoded, then decoded, the message before printing it out, accomplishing two things: first, the computer signaled that it had completed its self-tests, and second, it verified that it had properly encoded the message. It was up to Waters to check the most fallible element — human error in writing the message and inserting it into the computer.
There were no typographical errors, and as he had determined, it was not a bad message to end a career with. He pushed the TRANSMIT button. At least he had given the generals enough information to make a timely decision. He had done his part, he hoped the command network would do theirs.
Every light on the RC-135 dimmed or went out, the two radar sets automatically went to standby, drawing less power than a hundred-watt bulb, and the big computer went into a reduced operating mode, using only the power needed to control the transmission and keep its memory banks alive. Only the electronic counter-measures warning gear remained alive. A sharply focused burst of radio energy drilled the message over the horizon. The entire sequence took less than ten seconds before all systems on the aircraft reverted to normal.
If the Soviets monitored the Apple Wave, they would never decode the message, but they would soon make the connection between Grain King and what the RC-135 could do. Every module commander knew that possibility as well as General Cunningham.
Muddy Waters knew that he was in big trouble unless he was absolutely right.