Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 Read online

  DALE BROWN IS A SUPERB STORYTELLER"

  —W.E.B. Griffin

  "THE BEST MILITARY ADVENTURE WRITER IN THE COUNTRY TODAY."

  —Clive Cussler

  "A MASTER OF MIXING TECHNOLOGY AND ACTION. HE PUTS READERS RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INFERNO."

  —Larry Bond

  "HIS AIR COMBAT SCENES HAVE A SLAM-BANG ACCURACY."

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  Praise for Dale Brown

  and his electrifying bestsellers

  “Like the thrillers of Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts, and Larry Bond, the novels of Dale Brown brim with violent action, detailed descriptions of sophisticated weaponry, and political intrigue . . . His ability to bring technical weaponry to life is amazing.” —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Dale Brown has an uncanny talent for putting his millions of fans into the middle of his action stories. He keeps you glued to the page with thundering battle scenes and his intimate knowledge of air warfare and international politics.”

  —Tulsa World

  “Brown describes the virtually nonstop dogfights and overflights in loving, vivid detail.” —New York Daily News

  “Nobody, in detailing the lethal excitements of high-tech aerial combat in plausible geopolitical contexts, does it better than Brown.” —Kirkus Reviews

  WINGS OF FIRE

  “Plenty of action.” —Library Journal

  “Dale Brown is the king of techno thrillers and his latest novel, Wings of Fire, is his best novel to date.”

  —BookBrowser

  WARRIOR CLASS

  “High altitude action and adventure .. . Fasten your seat belts as the story takes off in great style.”

  —U.K. News quest Regional Press

  And his acclaimed new series • • •

  DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

  “Few novelists can craft an aerial battle scene more strategically than former U.S. Air Force Captain Brown, and he and [coauthor Jim] DeFelice are in fine form here. Set deep in the Nevada desert, Dreamland is the place where top minds converge to develop cutting-edge artillery and aircraft . .. Military-thriller readers will marvel at the fast pace.” —Publishers Weekly

  Titles by Dale Brown

  WINGS OF FIRE

  WARRIOR CLASS

  FLIGHT OF THE OLD DOG

  SILVER TOWER

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH

  HAMMERHEADS

  SKY MASTERS

  NIGHT OF THE HAWK

  CHAINS OF COMMAND

  STORMING HEAVEN

  SHADOWS OF STEEL

  FATAL TERRAIN

  THE TIN MAN

  BATTLE BORN

  Titles by Dale Brown with Jim DeFelice

  DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

  DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND: NERVE CENTER

  WINGS of FIRE

  Dale Brown

  BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and

  Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author

  assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the

  product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

  events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  WINGS OF FIRE

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons hardcover edition / July 2002

  Berkley mass-market edition / June 2003

  Copyright © 2002 by Target Direct Productions.

  Cover design by Steve Ferlauto.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any

  other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable

  by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate

  in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the

  author’s rights is appreciated.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 0-425-19065-X

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the “B” design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 987654321

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all the folks I met and spoke with at the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate and Airborne Laser Special Projects Office, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Special thanks to my old friend Colonel Ellen Pawlikowski, ABL SPO commander, for inviting me to visit her incredible staff and facilities; Lieutenant Colonel Joel Olsen, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Neice, Major Steve Smiley, Captain Carey Johnson, Captain Barrett McCann, Captain Dave Edwards, Captain Lynn Anderson, and Tim Foley, ABL SPO; and Rich Garcia, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Alley, Captain Eric Moomey, Conrad Dziewalski, Dr. Bob Fugate, Mike Connor, and Dr. Kip Kendrick of the Directed Energy Directorate.

  Special thanks to Ken Englade, AFRL/ABL SPO public affairs, for all his hard work in setting up a great tour of all the facilities at Kirtland.

  Thanks to David and Cheryl Duffield, Susan Bailey, Dean and Meredith Meiling, Sandy Scarcella, and Ed Bolecky for their extraordinary generosity.

  Thanks to Robert Gottlieb, Neil Nyren, and Suzanne Tarantino for their help and support.

  As always, To Diane for her love and support.

  To the memory of the victims of the terrorist

  attacks on September 11, 2001,

  and to the men and women who have answered

  the call to arms in the war on terror.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real- world persons, places, events, or organizations is coincidental.

  Your comments are welcome! Please visit http:// www.megafortress.com on the World Wide Web to leave your comments and to learn about upcoming works, projects, appearances, or events. I read every comment.

  REAL-WORLD NEWS EXCERPTS

  waiting on Cairo—STRATFOR Intelligence Update, www. stratfor.com. 13 October 2000—Within the Arab world, the Egyptians occupy a unique position, the very reason that they have been propelled to the center of the situation. Although it wields one of the largest Arab militaries, Cairo is also the largest Arab state to continue ties with Israel; even Morocco has called its diplomatic representative home for consultation . ..

  ... Arab nations—even those that have signed peace agreements with Israel—are under intense pressure to join together and take a unified stand against Israel. ..

  U.S. AID FUELING THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN EGYPT--------------- The

  Washington Post, December 26, 2000—Egypt, a preoccupation of U.S. foreign policy for the last quarter-century, has been the second-largest recipient of American foreign aid during that period. The $52 billion program, so far, has rebuilt mosques, constructed new schools, promoted family planning and transferred high-tech weapons like F-16 warplanes and Ml-Al tanks at a $2-billion-a-year
clip . ..

  CONSEQUENCES OF A NEW U.S. DEFENSE STRATEGY--------- STRATFOR

  Global Intelligence Update, www.stratfor.com. 1 March 2001—In Washington, an internal Pentagon review of American defense strategy is likely to call for a dramatic reduction in U.S. troops deployed overseas . . . Such a historic shift would reduce the vulnerability of U.S. forces to attack and lower the profile of a seemingly imperial military presence. Over the long term, however, such a strategy may force allies and adversaries alike to build new regional alliances or adopt independent, antagonistic defense strategies ...

  LIBYA: GAINING LEVERAGE IN CENTRAL AFRICA--------- STRATFOR, 5

  June 2001—Chad and Libya reportedly deployed several hundred troops, attack helicopters and other military equipment to the Central African Republic on May 30, the BBC reported.

  . .. The unsuccessful uprising has opened the door for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to send Libyan troops into central Africa and closer to Chad’s southern oil fields . ..

  AIR FORCE TURNS 747 INTO HOLSTER FOR GIANT LASER—The

  Washington Post, July 22, 2001—USAF plans to shoot down a Scud-type missile with a giant laser fired from a modified 747 within two years. That test would be to prove the feasibility of destroying an attacking missile in the “boost” phase shortly after launch.

  3 STUDIES FOCUS ON CUTTING OVERSEAS DEPLOYMENTS—The

  Washington Times, July 25, 2001—Secretary Rumsfeld ordered three Pentagon reviews of foreign troop engagements in order to determine how best to reduce the type of overseas deployments that mushroomed during the Clinton era.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  OVER CENTRAL LIBYA

  “This has got to be the most insane idea in the history of aviation,” retired Navy commander John “Bud” Franken muttered. “Let it go and let’s get this over with.”

  Retired Air Force brigadier general Patrick McLanahan smiled, then fastened his oxygen visor in place with a snap. “That’s the spirit, AC,” he said happily. “It only seems insane because no one’s ever done it before.”

  “Yeah, right. Just unzip your pants over there and let’s go home.”

  “Here it comes,” Patrick said. He hit a small stud on his computer trackball and spoke: “Deploy array.” The computer acknowledged the command, and the attack was under way:

  Far behind them, in a fairing between their aircraft’s twin V-tails, a small oblong cylinder detached itself from its mounting and began to trail behind the aircraft on a thin carbon-fiber-reinforced fiber-optic cable. The tiny object, soon trailing several hundred feet behind the AL-52, was an ALE-50-towed electronic countermeasures decoy. Just three feet long and six inches in diameter, it was invisible to the Libyan air defense radars that surrounded them at that moment.

  The aircraft was a modified B-52 Stratofortress bomber— not a U.S. Air Force warplane, but an experimental aircraft modified by Patrick’s company, Sky Masters Inc., called an AL-52 Dragon. The warplane he was sitting in was so advanced that even Patrick, who had been involved in its development both in and out of the Air Force for years, was truly amazed. What he was really sitting in, he realized with a mixture of awe and glee, was ... the future. “Star Wars” was no longer a Reagan-era pipe dream or the name of a hugely successful science-fiction motion picture series—it was right here, right now. The AL-52 Dragon combined the absolute state-of-the-art in laser technology, high-speed computers, miniaturization, stealth systems, and systems integration to produce the world’s first true twenty-first-century weapon system, using technology that had never been deployed on an aircraft before.

  The airframe itself was based on the EB-52 Megafortress modification of the B-52H Stratofortress bomber, with stealthy composite fibersteel skin and frame, four powerful turbofan engines replacing the original eight turbofans, a V- tail stabilator replacing the big cruciform tail, and an advanced self-protection suite, including radar and infrared jammers, towed arrays, decoys, and Stinger aerial land mines. The original six-person crew had been replaced by enough state-of-the-art computers and artificial intelligence systems that now only two crew members, an aircraft commander and a mission commander, were required to be on board—and, in an extreme emergency, either could bring the plane home alone.

  The Megafortress was designed as a stealthy flying battleship, able to penetrate heavily defended targets deep behind enemy lines and employ every air-launched weapon in the American arsenal—and a few that had been dreamed up just for it—with great precision. The Dragon variant of the Megafortress battleship retained the conventional attack capabilities—it could carry up to twelve thousand pounds of ordnance on wing hardpoints, including cruise missiles, air-to-air missiles, and even antisatellite and antimissile weapons. Patrick knew all about the devastating warfighting capabilities of the EB-52 Megafortress—he had spent more than fifteen years of his life working on it. Sky Masters Inc. still flew several versions of the EB-52 for flight test and research purposes, still hoping that the Air Force would someday take the roughly one hundred B- 52H Stratofortress bombers in flyable storage out of mothballs and have the company convert them to either EB-52 Megafortresses or AL-52 Dragons.

  “Here we go, Bud,” Patrick said. To the computer, he said, “Activate array.” In an instant, the towed array, which normally was all but invisible to radar, blossomed to the electromagnetic equivalent of a Boeing 747.

  That move had its desired and expected effect: All of the Libyan air defense radars, which had just been searching the skies seconds before, almost immediately locked on to the towed decoy. Now instead of peaceful search and air traffic control radars, Patrick’s threat scope was suddenly alive with dozens of antiaircraft threats—surface-to- air missile sites, antiaircraft artillery, and fighter-intercept radars. “Warning, SA-10 acquisition mode, ten o'clock, twenty miles," the computer responded. “Warning, SA-9 acquisition mode, two o'clock, ten miles...” The warnings kept coming, until: “Warning, missile launch, SA-10, ten o'clock, nineteen miles. .. warning, missile launch, SA-10, ten o'clock, nineteen miles...”—the SA-10 missiles always launched in pairs. “Countermeasures not activated."

  “Commit Dragon,” Patrick spoke. He had to consciously bring his breathing and voice under control. In all the times he had been on an attack run, this was the first time he did not react when a threat came up. If this didn’t work, they’d be dead in fifteen seconds.

  “Caution, Dragon activated.. . caution, Dragon engaging," the computer responded. Patrick watched in fascination as the newest and most sophisticated computer system ever placed aboard any aircraft automatically began prosecuting the attack and activating the most devastating airborne weapon ever produced:

  The AL-52 Dragon’s LADARs, or laser radar arrays, which electronically scanned hundred of thousands of cubic miles of space in every direction thirty times per second, tracked the Soviet-made SA-10 missile with millimeter precision. At the same time the LADAR also instantly measured the dimensions of the rocket, determining where its motor section was. Tracking computers then began measuring the rocket’s speed, altitude, and direction— even predicting its probable impact point and relaying the data to friendly forces downrange.

  At the same moment, the Dragon itself came to life.

  Turbopumps in the belly of the AL-52 Dragon immediately began pressurizing hydrogen peroxide and potassium hydroxide inside a reaction chamber. Chlorine gas and helium from storage tanks in the cargo section of the modified B-52 bomber were then sprayed under pressure into the chamber, forming an energized substance called singlet delta-oxygen. In another reaction chamber, iodine and helium were injected into the substance, which released the high-energy photons from the
gas, creating laser light.

  At the same time, the AL-52’s laser radar locked onto the rocket rising through the atmosphere and immediately began to send target airspeed, altitude, direction, acceleration, and flight path data to targeting computers. The computers immediately fed the data to the gimbaled turret in the nose of the AL-52, and the turret unstowed itself from inside the bomber’s nose and turned and swiveled until the laser’s telescope and four-foot-diameter mirror were aimed at the rocket. The pilots could feel a slight rumbling under their toes as the huge fifteen-foot-high turret slewed toward the target, but otherwise it did not affect the flight characteristics of the heavy bomber.

  When all this information was received, processed, analyzed, and instructions sent—eight seconds after target detection—Patrick received a simple “LASER READY” computerized voice in his headphones. “Cockpit’s ready for launch.”

  “Roger. COIL in attack mode ... now.”

  The attack was purely automatic—there was no big red “FIRE” button anywhere on the plane. The laser radar system instantaneously measured the exact size of the SS-12 rocket and aimed the laser at the rocket motor section, the point of maximum pressure on the missile. The laser radar also provided an atmospheric correction to the laser telescope’s deformable mirror to adjust for temperature gradients from the Dragon to the target. Finally, the big COIL, or chlorine-oxygen-iodine laser, fired. A four-foot-diameter beam of high-energy laser light shot from the nose of the AL-52 and was focused by the deformable mirror down to a spot the size of a basketball on the motor section of the first rocket. The beam was completely invisible to the cockpit crew—they could see the mirror turret moving slightly, tracking the target, but nothing else.