Chapter 67
By the time Kasey’s message arrived, DDO Flynn was convinced he had leveraged every possible source of information to monitor the ongoing rescue in the Arctic. As it turned out, he was wrong.
“NORAD?” Flynn repeated. He directed his comment at the ISR man, who was proving to be invaluable.
“Yes, sir. I’ve been working with them on a new bit of intelligence.” He launched into a detailed explanation.
On nothing more than a hunch, he had reached out to North American Aerospace Defense Command.
NORAD was a joint command responsible for monitoring the air and space borders of the United States and Canada.
The network of advanced radar stations of its North Warning System was one of the most advanced on earth and kept a close watch on polar airspace.
And while its primary mission was strategic, to detect inbound intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers, other aircraft were also tracked.
With every space-based asset focused on what was happening on the ground, it occurred to the ISR man that what was happening in the skies above might also be relevant.
He’d put in the request half an hour ago, and four targets of interest, which were already being watched closely by the Point Barrow long-range site in northern Alaska, had been forwarded.
Hours earlier, the system had begun tracking a lone Chinese aircraft in the vicinity of Wrangel Island, and a second group of three appeared roughly an hour behind it. The targets didn’t seem particularly threatening except for one notable fact.
“They’re all headed straight toward our area of operations,” the ISR man said.
“The crash site?” Flynn asked, wanting to be clear.
“Actually, their present course will take them slightly to the east. It looks like they’re making a straight line for our weather station.”
“You can tell that from so far out?”
“This radar is very accurate.”
“Have you got anything to suggest this is more than a coincidence?”
“Yes.”
He explained that NORAD could cross-hatch with other intel sources to determine where an aircraft had taken off from.
And in this case, the NRO had even acquired communication intercepts suggesting who was on board.
“These aircraft are Y-20 military transports. The first departed roughly seven hours ago—about the time when the Aurora first showed up at the crash site—from Shenyang Beiling Air Base in China.”
Flynn felt his stomach roll. But the analyst wasn’t done.
“And according to the NRO, the PLA’s Seventy-Eighth Special Forces Brigade, the Ice Wolves, were activated for a deployment at this same airfield, as were elements of the 134th Airborne Brigade.
The Ice Wolves are a spec ops unit, and since they’re a rapid reaction force, I’d guess they’re on the first aircraft.
The trailing jets are probably carrying airborne infantry from the 134th, which would have taken longer to organize and load. ”
Flynn stared at the four new blips that had been added to the big screen. “You said airborne infantry. Does that mean we’re not talking about these jets landing on the ice sheet?”
“Not a chance. The Y-20 is a heavy airlifter, nothing you could put on skis. But an airdrop is very much within its capabilities.”
Flynn turned to his DOD specialist. “How many men could these jets be carrying?”
“It depends on how they’re equipped. With just troops, close to a hundred on each one.
But jumping into an environment like this would require a fair amount of equipment.
If this lead jet is hauling the Ice Wolves, it’s probably one or two platoons, which would roughly equate to either twenty or forty men.
The jets in back are probably carrying twice that, an overall force of at least a hundred. ”
Flynn stood and stared at the big screen. “This is a lot of speculation.”
“Yes, sir, it is,” said the ISR man. “But is it something we can afford to ignore?”
The DDO’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Just to play along, is there a projected time of arrival for this first jet if it goes directly to our weather station?”
“At present speed, it will arrive ten minutes before our LC-130 does.”
After a brief silence, Flynn said, “Is there some way we can prove or disprove this theory?”
A long silence took hold, until a woman at the comm station said, “I think I might see some proof.” She pointed to a hovering blip on the screen, the single aircraft in the lead.
The altitude tagged next to its track number was changing.
“It’s descending now. And there aren’t any airports within a thousand miles. ”
Flynn shook his head in disbelief. They were so close to making the extraction work, and now the entire plan was at risk. Kasey, Chen, the first officer of the airliner. Not to mention the SEAL rescue team, the crew of the LC-130. And, of course, the ultimate prize itself: Sky Fire.
The DDO wasn’t 100 percent convinced they had it figured out. But if there was a Chinese force inbound, he had to come up with a counterpunch.
“We have to assume this threat is real. And if that’s the case, our SEALs will be outnumbered, in the very best case, five-to-one. What can we do to change that equation?”
The silence was prolonged. In the end, it was the DOD specialist who came up with the idea.
“Is that even possible?” Flynn asked after hearing it.
With only a slight hesitation, the man said, “Yes.”
“How long will it take to put in motion?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Okay. Make the call.”
IT TOOK ONLY twenty-six minutes.
Four F-35 Lightnings from the 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson Air Force Base, in central Alaska, were prepped to fly. Bombs and missiles were loaded, fuel topped off, and the runway was cleared of snow.
A senior flight commander, a major, had been assigned to lead the flight, and he’d selected three of his most experienced aviators.
They convened for what turned out to be an astonishingly short flight briefing.
This was in part due to the urgency of their tasking, which had been littered with phrases like “maximum speed” and “without delay.” In truth, even if he’d had more time, the flight lead wouldn’t have known what to discuss.
They had been given few details on what was clearly a fluid tactical situation: Potential threats and specific targets would be briefed en route, and the lone reference to friendly forces was oddly vague; they were being launched in aid of a “Special Operations unit supporting vital national security objectives.” This was as equivocal as it was unnerving.
On arriving at the target area, they were to establish contact with a ground unit via secure comm links.
It smacked of being a JSOC mission, and to the pilots there was a sense of being thrown into the sky like so many lawn darts. Or as one wingman commented, “Get your ass in the air, fly fast, and we’ll tell you what you’re doing when you get there.”
But the dead-serious tone of the tasking wasn’t lost on anyone.
This was no training exercise, proven by the fact that they were hauling live ordnance.
Multiple tankers were being launched to support their mission, a necessity since the target area was 1,200 nautical miles north, which exceeded their round-trip range with the load they were carrying.
Beyond that, the pilots were left to read between the lines. They were flying toward a point near the North Pole to, potentially, drop 12 tons of high explosives. Who those bombs might land on, and for what reason, hadn’t been mentioned.
Indeed, this was the most peculiar part of it all.
One wingman’s cursory search had uncovered no maps of the target area, for the simple reason that there was no terrain.
Even if they’d been ordered to fly to a point in the North Pacific, they might have made sense of it.
This could have suggested that a ship needed to be sunk, and there were no available U.S.
Navy assets to do the job. Yet even that didn’t compute for this target area.
They would be headed for a barren sheet of white on the top of the earth.
No people, no maritime routes, and virtually no military activity.
But somewhere in the middle of this cold nowhere, something very important was happening.
In less than half an hour, the first of the four jets began its takeoff roll, a massive cone of fire shooting from its afterburner as it shrieked down the runway. At ten-second intervals, the other jets followed.
All four pilots kept the afterburners cooking a little longer than necessary, a subconscious mix of showboating and adrenaline.
They climbed to 40,000 feet and kept the throttles up.
They would slow their speed to rendezvous with the first tanker in thirty minutes, but otherwise would hold maximum Mach.
The flight lead pushed his throttles to the stops, then cranked them back ever so slightly, giving his wingmen a bit of thrust to play with so they could maintain formation. He had no idea whom they were supporting, or what kind of threats they might face.
Only two things seemed clear: Lives were on the line, and time was of the essence.