“The Premier is telling Chin to be silent… Chin is saying to the Foreign Minister that he will not agree to release the Spratlys to Vietnam… the Premier repeats his order for silence.” The last order seemed to stick; General Chin stopped his bellowing and was content for the moment to shift his weight impatiently from foot to foot and glare at Leing.
The Premier spoke up. “Please deliver this request to your government with all speed and confidentiality. We await your reply.”
“Man — living in Arkansas, I thought I knew what humidity felt like,” Jon Masters had said. “Guam has Blytheville beat six ways to none.” Those were Masters’ first words when he stepped off his converted DC-10 airliner onto the tarmac at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Everything he touched felt clammy — the railing on the portable stairs, the concrete parking apron, everything. Breathing became a conscious activity, and things like long pants and underwear became serious personal liabilities.
General Brad Elliott had to agree. Although he had spent some months in Guam during the Vietnam War, flying B-52D and — G bombers from Guam over twenty-five hundred miles one-way on bombing missions, he never got accustomed to the oppressive humidity on the tiny tropical island, which felt like 100 percent every hour of every day. The daily three P.M. thunderstorms did nothing to improve conditions — in fact, it felt even worse, as if one were drowning in oceans one could not see, only feel.
Guam had been the linchpin of American military presence in the Pacific since the Spanish-American War of 1898. The Japanese invaded Guam on December 7, 1941, at the same time that Pearl Harbor was being bombed, but they were ousted in 1944 after days of heavy American bombing, and the militarization of Guam began.
Of the three B-29, B-36, and B-47 bomber bases built on Guam from 1944 to 1950, the largest, Andersen Air Force Base — first known simply as North Field — remained. Andersen Air Force Base was a vast, stark facility on Guam’s northern shore that, although reduced to a small fraction of its recent size and relatively quiet, still echoed with the ghosts of missions past. Dominating the base were Andersen’s twin two-mile-long runways.
Surrounding the runways, including the “infield” between the parallel runways, were concrete parking stubs big enough for B-52s. During the height of the Vietnam War, during Operation Bullet Shot in 1972, over one hundred and fifty bombers were parked here. The B-52s participated in the massive Arc Light, Young Tiger, and Linebacker bombing missions between 1965 and 1973.
By 1990 the Air Force had removed all the permanently assigned B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers from Andersen, and the base transitioned to caretaker status of the 633rd Air Base Wing of the Pacific Air Forces.
But Elliott and Masters knew it would become an important base of operations again.
Masters had already launched two ALARM boosters while still over the United States. The young scientist and engineer couldn’t believe his NIRTSats were being used in an actual operation that was part of America’s response to a nuclear explosion. What better endorsement could Sky Masters, Inc., ask for than from the U.S. government in a crisis situation?.
Unfortunately, his other Sky Masters colleagues had been less than enthusiastic. After General Curtis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had given the go-ahead, the government presented Masters with a request for six satellites and two boosters ASAP — a contract worth $300 million. It was all on a handshake and letter of intent, and Helen Kaddiri, as a board member, was especially vocal about taking satellites contracted for by other buyers and selling them to the government. Masters had had to do some hard lobbying, but the board — even Kaddiri — finally agreed.
Still, it put the ALARM booster program to its most grueling test, but it was the process that Jon Masters had originally devised the system to accomplish: twelve hours from the go-ahead, two space boosters were launched that inserted two completely different satellite constellations into low Earth orbit — not just single satellites, but multiple, interconnected strings of small, highly sophisticated satellites…
