“They further regard the deployment of heavy bombers and carrier battle groups around the Philippines as an extremely hostile act and they will use any and all means at their disposal to protect their citizens and property.” The President tossed the communique aside and regarded the advisers around him. “Well? Thoughts?”
“Samar’s rebels come under attack in less than five hours, sir,” O’Day said. She glanced at Wilbur Curtis. “Is that right, General?”
“Yes, it is,” Curtis said. He referred to the pile of mounted satellite photos on the coffee table before him — the photos taken from the B-2 and U-2 reconnaissance flights. “It may have begun already. Chinese warships were in position to bombard Davao by sundown. When their landing craft get into position, they’ll start the invasion.”
“Five hours? So you’re saying it’s too late…?”
“No, sir, I’m not,” Curtis said. “As we discussed in the tactics briefing, the Chinese troops are most vulnerable while they’re still in their troop transports. They’ve already begun unloading troops along the Buoyan peninsula east of Mount Apo to secure the coastal towns, but the main force still hasn’t landed in Davao yet — Samar’s rebels are mining the straits and inlets, trying to slow the convoys up. We still have time to stop them.”
The President nodded to Curtis. “Thank you, General.” To Secretary of Defense Preston, he asked, “Thomas? What do you have for me?”
“Only my wish that we wait and bring the
The President seemed to consider his words for a moment. “Thank you.” He continued around the room, getting last thoughts from Danahall and the congressional leadership. A few voiced hesitation, but all seemed to want to act.
From the front of his desk, the President withdrew a red-covered folder and opened it. Below large dark letters that read Top Secret were the words
Wilbur Curtis was on the phone thirty seconds later to the National Military Command Center.
Patrick McLanahan awoke thirty minutes before his alarm rang. Two hours before the first daily standby situation briefing — he needed rest, but he knew his mind was not going to let him have any more.
His bedroom was a maintenance office on the top floor of hangar building number 509, on Andersen’s expansive north parking ramp, which he shared with his aircraft commander, Major Henry Cobb. Down below them in the huge hangar were two very unusual machines — Patrick’s B-2A Black Knight stealth bomber and an EB-52C Megafortress strategic escort aircraft — the same Megafortress that had “saved” their tails from the F-23 Wildcat fighters during General Jarrel’s training sorties three weeks ago in Powder River Run. The hangar also housed all the other flight, maintenance, and support crews for the HAWC aircraft, as well as a full squadron of heavily armed security police.
Careful not to disturb his aircraft commander, Patrick pulled on his flight suit, picked up his socks and boots from their place under his canvas folding cot, and tried to tiptoe out.
“Up already, Colonel?” Cobb said from his cot.
“Yep. Sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I never went to sleep.” Cobb threw off the sheet covering him and swung his feet onto the floor. “Never slept in a hangar before. Don’t think I want to again after this.”
“Amen,” Patrick said. “The smell really gets you after a while. I started to have… bad dreams.” He wasn’t going to say what those dreams were like or what mission he was flying in his dreams. He got the same dreams every time he was exposed to kerosene-like fumes — a morning long ago and far away… a tiny snow-covered fighter base at Anadyr, Siberia, in the Soviet Union, when he pumped thousands of gallons of kerosene into a B-52 by hand in subzero weather so they could take off again before the Soviet Army found them. David Luger had sacrificed himself to make sure they could escape, driving a fuel truck into a machine gun emplacement — and Patrick relived that horrible moment every night after smelling jet-fuel fumes. He would probably do so for the rest of his life.
