Dale Brown - Sky Masters

SKY MASTERS

ALSO BY DALE BROWN

Flight of the Old Dog (1987)

Silver Tower (1988)

Day of the Cheetah (1989)

Hammerheads (1990)

Copyright 1991 by Dale Brown, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Sky Masters is dedicated to General Curtis E. LeMay, the Iron Eagle and the Father of Strategic Air Power, a man who envisioned much of what Sky Masters is all about.

Sky Masters is also dedicated to the men and women who served as part of Operation DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM.

I wish to especially dedicate this story to my brother, Second Lieutenant James D. Brown, 3-35 ARMOR, First Armored Division, United States Army, and his wife, Leah, and all of our military forces serving ashore, afloat, and aloft for all the sacrifices they made in their personal and professional lives.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my friend Lieutenant Colonel George Peck (who was instrumental in the research for Day of the Cheetah and who, like Lokis eternal fate in Norse mythology, seems destined to be forever bothered by my insistent questions and requests); TSgt Alan Dockery, Captain Harry G. Edwards, and the other helpful and professional persons in the Office of Public Affairs, Headquarters, Strategic Air Command (SAC), Offutt AFB, Nebraska, for their assistance in gathering information on SAC conventional and maritime operations and the Strategic Warfare Center, and for their help in reviewing the manuscript; To all the men and women of the Strategic Air Command and Pacific Air Forces whom I met during GIANT WARRIOR 90, a multinational, multiservice combat strike and deployment exercise conducted by SACs Fifteenth Air Force in August of 1990 at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. I wish to especially thank Lieutenant General Robert D. Beckel, Fifteenth Air Force commander, for allowing me the privilege of observing his super exercise; Brigadier General DavidJ. Pederson, Third Air Division commander, and Colonel Alan Cirino, Third Air Division deputy commander, and their staff for their hospitality and helpfulness in explaining the intricacies of Pacific theater combat operations; and to Colonel Arne Weinman, Ninety-second Bomb Wing commander and joint air forces commander of GIANT WARRIOR 90; Special thanks to Captain Cynthia Colin, Fifteenth Air Force Public Affairs, and the other professionals at Fifteenth Air Force Public Affairs, March AFB, California; MSgt Ron Pack, Ninety-second Bomb Wing public affairs; MSgt Al Dostal, Ninety-sixth Bomb Wing Public Affairs; Second Lieutenant Darian Slick Benson, Fifty-seventh Air Division Public Affairs; the feared terrorist-group-turned-media-pool known throughout the Pacific as the Dream Team; and everyone who helped make my visit to Guam and GIANT WARRIOR 90a pleasure and a success; To Brigadier General Larry Dilda, DCS I Communications and Computer Operations, HQ SAC, for conducting a very special tour of SAC Headquarters, where I learned much about the new Strategic Air Command and its people and its new arsenal of weapons; and to Ron Silverstein, B-2 Project Senior Engineer and Chief Spokesman, and the others at Northrop Corporation, Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California, for an amazing tour of the B-2 bomber assembly facilities; To Colonel Thomas A. Hornung, Chief of Public Affairs, Air Force Public Affairs-Western Region in Los Angeles, for his invaluable assistance throughout the making of Sky Masters and for arranging a spectacular tour of SAC headquarters; and to Major Ron Fuchs, former Deputy and Chief of Media Relations in Los Angeles, for his time in reviewing the manuscript and offering some valuable comments; To CDR Bruce R. Linder, commanding officer of the guided missile frigate FFG-55 USS Elrod, who was extremely helpful in providing details pertaining to naval operations in the South China Sea, Palawan Passage, and the Philippines; To Richard Herman, famous author of Warbirds and Force of Eagles, for his technical knowledge on aerial combat in the F-4E and other facets of fighter combat; To Rockwell International for information on the B- 1 bomber; also to Orbital Sciences Corporation for information on the Pegasus air-launched space booster; To my executive assistant, Dennis Hall, for his hard work and support.

ACTUAL NEWS EXCERPTS Date: 5/21/90 PENTAGON DECLARES PHILIPPINES IMMINENT DANGER AREA WASHINGTON (MAY 18) UPI-The Defense Department designated the Philippines Friday as an area of imminent danger for special pay purposes, which means US military and civilian employees will be getting slightly larger paychecks. The Pentagon said it took the action because of the current unstable conditions in the Philippines, where three American servicemen have been killed in politically motivated attacks this month alone. Imminent danger pay is an additional 15 percent of basic salary for American citizens who are department employees and $110 per month for all US military personnel. Date: 5/22/90 Well, first in my mind, the communist dream in the Philippines will always be there. The communist dream of taking over and dominating the country will always be there because you cant kill an ideology. General Renato S. de Villa, Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philippines, from Asia-Pacific Defense Forum, U.S. Pacific Command, Winter 1989-1990 Date: 11/2/90 Turmoil in China combined with speculation about U.S. forces departures from the Philippines, have merged to cause a new appreciation for U.S. regional security presence. . . . I believe there is a growing realization in the Pacific that U.S. presence cannot be taken for granted. If the U.S. presence is substantially reduced, many Pacific nations perceive the danger of other nations moving into the vacuum created by our departure, with a potential result of conflict and instability. 22 ACTUAL NEWS EXCERPTS Admiral Huntington Hardisty, U.S. Navy, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, from Asia-Paczfic Defense Forum, U.S. Pacific Command, winter 1989-1990 Date: 11/6/90 MELEE MARS INAUGURATION OF AUTONOMY IN SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES COTABATO (Nov 6) REUTER-Police punched and clubbed 17 Moslem students before dragging them off by their hair on Tuesday after they disrupted President Corazon Aquinos inauguration of an autonomous government in the southern Philippines, witnesses said. The students, members of an organization supporting Moslem rebels demanding a separate state on Mindanao island, chanted slogans against the autonomous government about 20 meters from where Aquino was speaking. Manila has set up the autonomous government, dominated by Moslems, as a way to end separatist violence on Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippines. The government, headed by former Moslem rebel commander Zacaria Candao, can pass its own laws, collect taxes and license fees, and set up a regional police force in the four predominantly Moslem provinces on Mindanao island it controls. Manila would retain control of defense and foreign policy. -from U.S. Naval Institute Military Database Defense News. Date: 14 January 1991 AIR FORCE TO CREATE TWO NEW COMPOSITE AIR WINGS BY 1993 WASHINGTON-The U.S. Air Force will develop by 1993 two composite tactical air wings that combine different types of aircraft in the same unit. The new wings will serve as prototypes for the possible reorganization of the services tactical force structure along more mission-oriented lines. . . . [The composite air wings] would include aircraft that could perform attack, defensive, standoff jamming, and precision-strike missions. -from Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, p.26 AUTHOR NOTE Although the BIB bomber is now officially called Lancer, the author will still use Excalibur. Every effort has been made to present realistic situations, but all of the persons and situations presented here are products of my imagination and should not be considered reflections of actual persons, products, policy, or practice. Any similarity of any organization, device, weapons system, policy, person, or place to any real-world counterpart is strictly coincidental. The author makes no attempt to present the actual military or civil policies of any organization or government. The author hopes readers will note the chronological setting of this novel in regards to some of his previous books, most notably Day of the Cheetah. While certain characters and backdrops in that book appear here, the events described in this book come a full two years earlier than those in Day of the Cheetah. Moreover, this book, like that one, stands completely on its own-neither a prequel nor sequel. MONDAY, 6 JUNE 1994, 0812 HOURS LOCAL SOMEWHERE OVER SOUTHERN NEVADA < minus two minutes and counting. . . mark. Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan glanced up at his mission data display just as the time-to-go clock clicked over to 00:01:59. Dead on time. He clicked open the command radio channel with the switch near his left foot. Vapor TwoOne copies, he reported. CROWBAR, Vapor Two-One requesting final range clearance.