PROLOGUE

Over north-central Nevada
April 2000

"Get pumped, hogs!" the B-1B Lancer's pilot shouted excitedly on interphone. "We're coming up on the squid low-level. I'm ready to kick some ass! Let's show them who the top dogs are. I'm going to give us a few seconds on this waypoint, Long Dong. Thirty knots should do it. I want lots of room to rock and roll when they jump us. Power coming back to give us a few seconds' pad. I want some shacks!" He pulled the throttles back until the time over target matched the required time over target on the flight plan. Then, he pulled off one more notch of throttle until he had a good twenty to thirty-second pad.

"Go for it, Rodeo," the B-1B's OSO, or Offensive Systems Officer, responded eagerly. He glanced at his flight plan for the time over target, then at the time-to-target readout on his forward instrument panel. Being a few seconds late at this point meant they could fly faster on the bomb run itself, where the threats were likely to be heaviest. They fully expected to get jumped by fighters on this run, which meant they'd be running all over the sky trying to stay alive.

The pilot strained forward in his ejection seat to look at his wingman, a second B-1B bomber in loose formation on his right wing, as he made the airspeed adjustment. The B-1 "Bone" (few called it by its official nickname, "Lancer") rarely fought alone. If one B-1 was a devastating weapon, two were triply difficult to defeat. They would need every possible advantage to win this battle.

Sure, this was only an exercise—this was not a true life-or-death struggle. But everyone in the B-1B was playing this as if it was the real thing. As someone once said, "The most you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle." Besides, getting "shot down"—especially by the U.S. Navy—was almost as bad as a real-life kill in the eyes of these U.S. Air Force heavy bombardment crewdogs. Naval Air Station Fallon was the home of the Navy Strike and Air Warfare Center and the new home of the "TOP GUN" Fighter Combat School. All aircraft carrier fighter and bomber air crews were required to report to Navy Fallon before a deployment to certify their knowledge and skills in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat tactics. The Navy Fallon Target Range comprised over ten thousand square miles of an isolated corner of northern Nevada east of Reno, with some of the airspace restricted to all other aircraft from the surface to infinity, so the crews could practice live air-to-ground bombing, gunnery, and air combat maneuvers. Powerful TV cameras located throughout the range would score each bomber crew's attacks, and instrument packages on board each aircraft sent electronic telemetry to range control stations, allowing great scoring accuracy in air-to-air engagements during post-mission briefings.

Because the Navy liked to mix it up with as many different "adversaries" as possible, the U.S. Air Force was frequently invited to "play" at Navy Fallon. For the USAF bomber crews, there was no greater thrill than to blow past the Navy's defenses and bomb some targets on their home turf.

The competition would be even hotter today, because the B-1 unit in the box today was the Nevada Air National Guard's 111th "Aces High" Bomb Squadron from Reno-Tahoe International Airport, just a few miles west on Interstate 80 from Navy Fallon. The 111th was one of only three Air National Guard wings to fly the sleek, deadly B-1B Lancer supersonic bomber. Ever since the B-1Bs arrived in Reno, there was a heated competition between the Air Force and Navy about who were northern Nevada's best military aviators. Some serious bragging rights were on the line here.

"Get us some range clearance, Mad Dog," the pilot ordered. "Rog," the copilot responded. On the discrete "referee's" radio frequency, unknown to the defensive "players," he announced, "Fallon Range Control, Fallon Range Control, Aces Two-One flight of two, Austin One Blue inbound, requesting range clearance."

"Aces Two-One flight, this is Navy Fallon bomb plot," came the response. "Aces Two-One cleared hot into Navy Fallon ranges R-4804, R-4812, R-4810, Austin One MOA, Gabbs North MOA, and Ranch MOA routes and altitudes, maximum buzzer. Altimeter two-niner-niner-eight. Remain this frequency, monitor GUARD."

"Two-One, cleared into –04, -12, -10, Austin One, Gabbs North, and Ranch, two-niner-niner-eight, coming in hot and max buzzer, check," the copilot responded. "Two," the second B-1's pilot responded. The less a wingman ever said on the radio, the better.

On interphone, the B-1's copilot announced, "We're cleared in hot, maximum buzzer."

"Let's go fry us up some squid, then!" the pilot shouted again. No one responded—the rest of the crew was getting ready for the action. Two systems operators, the OSO, or Offensive Systems Officer, and the DSO, or Defensive Systems Officer, sat in ejection seats behind the pilots in a small compartment just above the entry ladder hatch. As his name implied, the OSO handled the bomber's weapons and attack systems. The DSO's job was to call out threats as they appeared, monitor the system to make sure it responded properly when a threat radar came up, and to take over operation of the defensive gear if the computers malfunctioned.

A tone sounded over interphone, a slow, almost playful "DEEDLE… DEEDLE… DEEDLE." "E-band early warning radar, gang," the DSO announced. "Bad guys are searching for us. No height-finder yet. Time to go low." "Copy," the pilot said. On the interplane frequency, he radioed, "Trapper, take spacing. Keep it in within eight miles."

"Rog, Rodeo," the second bomber's pilot responded. The wingman began a slight turn, letting the distance between the two bombers increase. Although they would both be flying the same route and attacking the same target, the two bombers would fly slightly different paths, separated by no less than thirty seconds, which would hopefully confuse and complicate the defender's task. The two bombers also used air-to-air TACAN to monitor the distance between them, and they had emergency procedures to follow if the distance dropped below three miles and they didn't have each other in sight. "See you in the winner's circle."

"Radar altimeter set AUTO, bug set to 830, radar altimeter override armed," the copilot announced on interphone. "Both TFR channels set to one thousand hard ride. Wings full aft. Flight director set to NAV, pitch mode select switch to TERFLW, copilot."

"Set pilot." The pilot was flipping switches before the copilot read each step. The command bars on the pilot's center vertical situation display, or VSD, dipped to twenty degrees nose-down. "Twenty pitch-down command. Here we go." When the pilot pressed the "TERFLW" switch on his Automatic Flight Control System control panel, the B-1 bomber dove for the hard desert earth below like an eagle swooping in for the kill. In the automatic TERFLW, or Terrain Following, descent, the 350,000-pound bomber was screaming earthward at over fifteen thousand feet per minute.

"Min safe altitude nine thousand," the OSO called out. "Looking for LARA ring-in." Just as he announced it, the low-altitude radar altimeter locked onto the earth. Now that the bomber knew exactly where earth was, it descended even faster. Dirt, dust, a piece of insulation, and a loose flight plan page floated around the cabin in the sudden negative-Gs of the rapid descent—the OSO felt like breakfast was soon going to follow, and he pulled his straps tighter. Suddenly, the DSO shouted, "Bandits eleven o'clock, thirty miles and closing fast! Looks like a Hornet!"

"Shit!" the pilot cursed. He was hoping they wouldn't find them so early. "Hang on, crew." With his gloved right index finger, he pulled the trigger on his control stick to the first detent, then rolled the B-1 bomber up on its left wing until they were almost sideways. The sudden loss of lift from the bomber's sleek, blended fuselage made the bomber's plummet from the sky even faster.

"Passing twenty!" the OSO shouted a few seconds later, after he pinched his nose through his oxygen mask and blew against the pressure to relieve the squeezing in his ears. "Passing fifteen! C'mon, Sonny, let's get down there! Push it over!" The pilot didn't roll it upside down, but he did increase the bank angle to well over ninety degrees. The big bomber roared out of the sky like a lightning bolt.

Just seconds before hitting the ground, the pilot rolled out of his steep bank with a fast yank of the control stick. The big but nimble bomber snapped upright with the speed and agility of a small jet fighter, and they leveled off less than a thousand feet above the terrain. The B-1B bomber's AN/ASQ-164 multi-mode radar displayed a profile of the terrain out to ten miles ahead of the aircraft on both pilot's VSDs. The B-1 punched through a layer of clouds at six thousand feet—and saw the high terrain, snow-encrusted Dixie Peak, staring right back at them, nearly filling the entire windscreen. "Damn!" the pilot shouted, banking left again to fly around the peak. "Shit, I hate letdowns over mountains!"

"That cumulogranite might've just put the fear of God into that squid pilot chasing us," the OSO reminded him. "Let him try to chase us with Dixie staring in his face!"

With the valley floor in clear sight, the rest of the descent went smoothly. The B-1B's Offensive Radar System electronically scanned ten miles ahead and to each side, measuring the width and height of all the terrain and providing pitch inputs to the autopilot so the bomber would clear the terrain by the selected altitude. The pilots first selected TF 1000 and accomplished a fast check of both redundant TFR system channels, then stepped the clearance plane down to its lowest setting of TF 200. The pilots also selected "hard ride," which would command steeper climbs and descents over the terrain so they could hug the earth even closer.

But since they were clear of clouds and could see the ground, after checking the TERFLW system for a few moments, the pilots deactivated automatic navigation and used visual contour procedures to guide the huge bomber. Instead of gripping the control stick, the pilot pushed on the sides of the stick with an open palm, dodging and cutting down and between any significant terrain features while allowing the automatic terrain-following system to guide them over high terrain. Flying in a straight line only made it easier for defenders to find them—hugging terrain contours while letting the TERFLW system keep them as low as possible was the best and safest tactic. "Where's that bandit, D?" the pilot shouted. "Moving to four o'clock, twenty-five miles," the DSO replied. "He's not locked on… wait, he's got a lock! Notch right, reference heading two-four-zero!" "Aces, notching right!" the pilot shouted on interplane frequency. He then honked the B-1 into a tight sixty degree bank turn to the right, changing course ninety degrees to their original track and placing themselves on the backside of Dixie Peak. Most modern-day fighters like the F-15, F/A-18, and F-22 used pulse-Doppler attack radars, which acquired targets based on relative speed. Turning ninety degrees to the fighter's flight path made relative speed equal to the fighter's speed, causing the fighter radar's computer to analyze the target as a terrain feature and squelch the target. The turn would also complicate the fighter pilot's attack geometry and give the bomber a chance to hide behind terrain. The B-1 bomber descended to less than three hundred feet above the desert floor, flying over 600 miles per hour.

"Lost the bandit," the DSO reported. "He's somewhere at five o'clock."

"Rog," the pilot said. He knew that Dixie Peak was between him and the fighter, and the longer he kept the hard stuff between them, the closer he'd get to his target before the next attack.

"Clear to the IP, pilot," the OSO shouted. "Center up, steering's good." The pilot started a left turn back towards the target area, drawing a mental picture of the air situation.

It was not a favorable attack setup for him and his crew, but these Navy air intercept exercises were usually one-sided affairs. Austin One Military Operating Area, or MOA, acted as the "funnel" of airspace that led to the three restricted areas where practice targets were attacked with live weapons. Navy fighters could chase a bomber all the way down as low as he could go in Austin One. Fighters could continue the chase in the restricted areas, but had to fly no less than a thousand feet above the ground to stay clear of bomb explosions. The Ranch MOA at the western end of the run was the "recovery zone," where the bombers and fighters had to disengage and establish safe altitude separation while the bombers turned around. The bombers were required to fly through the restricted area again, clear their bomb bays of all other weapons, then exited the range complex. Of course, the Navy pilots knew all this, so all they had to do was wait at the bottom of Austin One for the bomber to enter the restricted areas. It gave the fighter jocks a little less time to intercept before bomb release, but they were almost assured of a kill. The first fighter was probably a young jock on one of his first fighter-intercept exercises, hoping to score an early kill while the bomber was at high altitude.

Well, the B-1B Lancer was not that easy to kill. It had almost the same agility as a jet fighter, it was just as fast, and it had one-half the radar cross-section. Down low, no fighter in the world could keep up with a B-1—if they even dared to fly down close to the dirt.

The pilot released the trigger on his control stick, and the bomber made a relatively gentle thirty-degree bank turn towards the IP, or initial point, the start of the bomb run itself. The air-to-air TACAN read six miles—just right, about thirty seconds apart. "Lead is two NAP from the IP," he radioed on interplane.

"Copy," the wingman replied. "We're seven NAP. We're popeye."

"Bandits at seven o'clock, no range," the DSO announced.

"Hold steady," the OSO called out. "Let me get my ACAL and get a patch." "Range nine miles, five o'clock," the DSO shouted. "I think he's got a lock. Notch right, reference three-zero-zero."

"Got my ACAL, guys," the OSO said on interphone. "Clear to notch!" The pilot complied with a sharp right turn. Staying on a straight line course for more than a few seconds with enemy defenders in the area was deadly for a bomber. The bombing computers needed accurate altitude data to compute bombing ballistics. The OSO needed to fly over a specific point on the route, usually the initial point of the bomb run, to calibrate altitude. There were several ACAL points on the route, but the one prior to the bomb run was the most important.

"AI's down," the DSO shouted. The fighter had turned off its radar, knowing he would disappear from the bomber's radar threat sensors. "He might have a visual on us!"

"ADF zero-three-zero, pilot!" the OSO shouted. The pilot turned hard left back towards the inbound track line to the target. By "ADFing" the course, the pilot would return to the original inbound heading to the target so it would make it easier for the OSO to find the target on radar.

As soon as the pilot rolled out of his turn, the OSO switched to the target itself. Exactly as predicted, the first target appeared right under his crosshairs. "Got you, you bitch!" he crowed. "Pilot, give me twenty right, and I'll get a patch." When the pilot rolled out on his new heading, the OSO moved his crosshairs directly on the box, clicked the left button on his radar controller down twice, then clicked the button up.

The high-resolution synthetic aperture image on his digital display resembled a black-and-white photograph. The clarity was incredible—he could actually make out the definite outline of a large tractor-trailer vehicle. "Hogs, I got a big mother trailer-sized vehicle—looks like a SCUD missile reloading operation." He centered the crosshairs directly on the image. "You're cleared to the target! Let's nail that puppy! We're seven seconds late. Give me twenty more knots, pilot." The pilot goosed the throttles a bit more—now they were screaming inbound to their target at almost ten miles per minute. "TG twenty seconds."

"Bandits four o'clock, twenty miles and closing!" the DSO shouted. "Notch right!" The pilot yanked the control stick right…

"No! TG fifteen! Wings level!" the OSO responded. "Stay on the bomb run!" Suddenly, they all heard a faster-pitched "DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE" tone, no longer playful at all. "SA-6 up!" the DSO shouted. The SA-6 was a mobile Soviet-made medium-range surface-to-air missile system, widely exported all over the world. Its mobility, its top speed of almost three times the speed of sound and its all-weather, all-altitude capability made it a deadly threat. It fired a salvo of three missiles that were almost impossible to evade. "Three o'clock, within lethal range! Trackbreakers active!"

At the same moment, several white arcs of smoke traced across the sky, the thin white trails aiming right for the B-1, and the warning tone on interphone changed to a fast, high-pitched "DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE!" "Smoky SAMs!" the copilot shouted. "Smoky SAMs" were little papier-mâché rockets, no threat to the bomber by themselves, but they signified a missile launch against the bomber crew—it meant the crew hadn't done their job protecting their bomber. "Simulated SA-6 launch!" the DSO shouted. "Uplink shut down! Chaff, chaff!" Clouds of thin tinsel shot out of canisters along the Bone's upper spine, creating a radar target several hundred times larger than the four hundred thousand pound plane itself.

"Hold heading!" the OSO shouted. "TG ten! Doors coming open!"

The copilot watched as one of the simulated surface-to-air missiles passed directly overhead. Talk about the "bullet between the eyes," he thought grimly—if that had been a real anti-aircraft missile, they'd have been dead meat. And he would have watched the final stroke all the damned way.

"Ready…ready, now! Bombs away!" the OSO shouted. One cluster bomb canister dropped free of the aft weapons bay. At the precise instant, the canister split apart and scattered the bomblets across the target area in a direct hit on the trailer. "Bomb doors closed!" the OSO shouted. "Clear to maneuver!

"Pump right, now!" the DSO shouted. The pilots rolled the bomber to the right away from the target area and pulled back on the control stick until the stall warning horn sounded, then released the back-pressure. The DSO ejected more clouds of chaff behind them, successfully breaking the "enemy" radar locks and allowing the bomber to escape.

"That release looked good from back here, pilots!" the OSO yelled gleefully.

"What did you see up there?"

"We saw our shit get blown away by a SAM!" the copilot yelled. "They had us dead on!"

"I had the uplink shut down," the DSO protested. "No way that missile would've hit…"

"Well, then they used an optical tracker, or they got lucky," the pilot said, "but they got us. If one of those smoky SAMs was a real one, we've gotten nailed. Shake it off, Long Dong. Nail the next one. These Navy pukes aren't playing fair anyway."

"Shit!" the OSO cursed into his oxygen mask. A perfect bomb run, a perfect release... and they got zilch. All that hard work for nothing. He angrily entered commands into his keyboard to sequence to the next target area. "Steering is good to the next target complex, pilot. We'll take out the next SCUD missile site." "What are the defenses in the area" the copilot asked. "SA-3s, SA-6s, and Zeus-23s," the DSO replied.

"All right. Shake it off, guys," the pilot said. "No more mistakes. Let's kick some ass this time."

"I've got another SA-6 and a SA-3 up," the DSO reported. "SA-6 is nine o'clock, moving outside lethal range. The SA-3 is at one o'clock." "Where are the fighters?" the pilot asked.

"No sign of 'em," the DSO replied.

"Clearing turn coming up," the pilot said. "Back me up on altitude, co." He banked the B-1 up on its left wing, then strained to look aft up through the eyebrow windows for any signs of pursuit. When he had almost turned ninety degrees, he initiated a steep left turn. "I got it," he told the copilot. "Find the damn…" "Aces!" they suddenly heard on the interplane frequency. It was their wingman, about five miles somewhere behind them. "Bandit, coming down the ramp! I think he's on you! You see him?"

Both pilots furiously scanned out the cockpit windows. Suddenly the copilot shouted, "I got him! Two o'clock high! He's diving right on top of us! He's got us nailed!"

The pilot swore loudly, then racked the bomber into a steep right turn, jammed the throttles to full military power, pulled the pitch interrupt trigger to the first detent, and zoomed the B-1 skyward.

"What are you doing, Rodeo?" the copilot shouted.

"I'm going nose to nose with this bandit!"

"Are you nuts?"

"The best way to defeat a fighter on a gun or close-in missile pass is nose-to-nose," the pilot said. "I'm not going to let this Navy puke get a clear shot on us!" Both pilots clearly saw the oncoming fighter as it plummeted towards them. It was a Navy or Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet, the primary carrier attack plane that also had a good air-to-air capability. The Bone's nose was thirty degrees above the horizon in the steep climb—all they saw was blue sky and the fighter diving down on them.

The sharp zoom maneuver was sapping their speed quickly. "Airspeed!" the copilot shouted—just a warning right now, not an admonition. The aircraft commander was still in charge here, no matter how unusual his actions seemed. "I got it," the pilot acknowledged. He pushed the throttles forward into full afterburner power. "C'mon, you squid bastard," the pilot murmured. "You don't have a shot. You're running out of sky. Break it off."

"We better get back down, pilot," the OSO urged him. "We're off our force timing!"

"Get the nose down, pilot," the copilot warned.

"You lost us, bub," the Bone pilot murmured to the Hornet pilot.

The OSO switched his radar display to air-to-air, and the ORS immediately locked onto the Hornet. "Range three miles and closing!" he shouted. "Closure rate one thousand knots! This doesn't look good!"

"Airspeed!" the copilot warned again. They were now draining fuel at an incredible three hundred pounds of fuel per second and going nowhere but straight up.

"Pilot, we're off our force timing and three thousand feet high!" the OSO warned. "We're inside the one mile bubble!" For safety's sake, the Rules of Engagement, or ROE, at Navy Fallon prohibited any pilot from breaking an invisible one-mile diameter "bubble" around all participants. "The ROE…"

"Shut up, co!" the pilot snapped. "We still got three seconds!" Breaking the ROE could put all the players in serious danger—and the B-1 pilot was breaking rules one after another. "We're not going to show ourselves. He'll have to break it off." "Get the nose down, dammit…!" the copilot shouted again.

Just then, seconds before the copilot was going to push his control stick and try to overpower the pilot, the fighter rapidly rolled right. They had lost almost three hundred knots of airspeed—and for what? They saved themselves from the fighter but were now in the lethal envelope for any surface-to-air missile battery within thirty miles.

"Ha! Where are you going, you wussie?" the pilot shouted happily. The pilot was breathing as hard as if he had just finished a hundred-yard sprint. "Keep him in sight, co," the pilot panted.

"This will work out perfectly, hogs," the OSO said. "This next target is a Zeus-23. We'll stay high and nail him! Center up."

The pilot started a left turn towards the next target. "Where's that fighter?" he asked.

"Eleven o'clock, moving to ten o'clock, way high," the DSO reported. "Zeus-23 at twelve o'clock," the DSO reported. The real "Zeus-23," or ZSU-23/4, was the standard Russian anti-aircraft artillery weapon system, a mobile unit with four 23-millimeter radar guided cannons that could fill the sky with thousands of shells per minute out to two miles away—very deadly for any aircraft. "That's our target, crew," the OSO reported. He put his crosshairs on the one closest to the pre-planned target area. "Action left forty-five." When the pilot rolled out of his turn, the OSO took a radar patch on the target. "I got the patch. Steering to the target is good. Give me full blowers, Rodeo!" The pilot shoved the throttles back into max afterburner, and a few seconds later they broke the speed of sound.

"Bandit now at nine o'clock, ten miles and closing!"

"Stand by… bomb's away!" the OSO yelled. The CBU-87 cluster bomb scored a direct hit.

"Zeus-23's still up," the DSO reported.

"What?" the OSO yelled. "That run looked great! We were a little off, but well within the kill zone. Those squids are jacking us around, guys! That was a good kill all the…"

"Forget about it, Rodeo," the pilot interrupted. "Where's my steering?" The OSO called up the last target in the third restricted area bombing range. "Steering is good," he said. "Single SCUD-ER transporter-erector-launcher with communications van. Supposed to be tucked in between some hills. Max points if we get this one, guys—it's worth more than all the other targets put together. Gimme a little altitude so I can see into the target area." "Scope's clear," the DSO immediately reported.

It was clear to see why the OSO needed some altitude—the pilots couldn't see much more than a few miles ahead, and if they couldn't see, the radar could see even less. They were several seconds late, too, and the faster speed meant even less time to spot the target. "Get ready for a vertical jink," the pilot said. He reset the clearance plane switch to one thousand feet, and the bomber responded with a steep climb.

"I got… squat," the OSO reported. The crosshairs went out to a large section of blackness—no radar returns yet in the target area. His hesitant voice only infuriated the pilots even more. "ADF a one-three-five track, pilots. Clear back down."

The pilot released the pitch interrupt trigger, and the bomber settled back down to its roller-coaster ride just two hundred feet above the blurred earth zooming by. "You got the target?" the pilot asked.

"Not yet," the OSO responded. "The radar predictions said we won't see the targets until four NAP if we stay low—we'd need to go up to two thousand to see it sooner. Let's get back on planned track, and then give me another jink so I can get a better…"

"Bandits!" the DSO interrupted. "Eight o'clock, fifteen miles and closing! I think it's an F-14—no, two F-14s! Give me a hard left thirty!"

"I'll lose my look down the canyon…!" the OSO protested. But the pilot rolled into a hard ninety-degree bank turn, rolling out just far enough to track perpendicular to the fighter. "Reverse as fast as you can!" the OSO said. "I need one last look down that canyon!"

"Clear to turn back!" the DSO said after only a few seconds. The pilot started a right turn. "Trackbreakers active! Bandits never turned. They're nine o'clock, nine miles."

"Give me a vertical jink now!" the OSO said.

"Negative!" the DSO interjected. "We'll be highlighted against the horizon! If the fighter gets a visual on us, he's got us!"

"I need the altitude!" the OSO cried. "I can't see shit!"

"If we climb, he'll spot us!" the pilot said.

"Then center up!" the OSO shouted. "I'll try to get a lock close in." The OSO knew he'd have only seconds to see the target on radar before bomb release. Sure enough, as they closed in on the target all he could see on the digital radar screen was dark green, interspersed with flecks of white. The terrain was shadowing every bit of ground radar returns. Nothing showed up on the MTA display—no moving targets at all.

"Twenty TG, " the OSO said. "Action left thirty. I need one thousand feet, pilot, and I need it now."

"All right, " the pilot said. "You got about five seconds." The pilot spun the clearance plane switch, and they climbed. "You get your fix, Long Dong?" The last climb was enough. The crosshairs fell on a lone radar return in the very southern edge of the gully. When the pilot rolled out of the turn, the OSO snapped a patch image of the last target. "Got it! Steering is good!" the OSO responded. Damn, what a relief, he thought. His crosshairs were nestled right over a long, thin target, small and partially hidden. Magnifying the radar image showed a definite SCUD transporter-erector-launcher on the move. A small, mobile target—max points, if they hit it. "Let's nail this sucker! Fifteen TG! Ten… doors coming open… five… bombs away!" The pilots could see the target, a large white trailer with a old sewer pipe strapped atop it, configured to look somewhat like a SCUD missile. "Doors coming closed…"

"We got it!" the copilot shouted happily. "We nailed it!"

"Let's start a right turn to two-four-three," the OSO said.

Just as they zoomed past the target area and crossed over the southern edge of the gully, a flurry of smoky SAMs filled the sky. "I've got SA-3s, SA-6s, SA-8s, and triple-A all around us!" the DSO shouted. "Scram! Scram left!"

The B-1 snap-rolled to the left so hard that the OSO's head hit the right bulkhead, and then he was thrown forward as the bomber quickly decelerated. He cried out in pain, his vision swimming with stars.

The pilot threw in forty degrees of bank and pulled on the stick to two and a half Gs—almost tripling their weight. He pulled the throttles to idle to slow to cornering velocity.

"C'mon, Rodeo! Turn!" the OSO shouted. "Pop the brakes! Go to ninety degrees bank!"

"We're restricted…"

"We're gonna get hosed if you don't get that nose around, pilot!" the OSO said. "Pop the 'brakes! You're VMC. Go to ninety degrees bank!" "Speedbrakes coming out," the pilot shouted on interphone, then flipped the speedbrake "OVERRIDE" switches and thumbed the speedbrake switches to decelerate even faster. The "scram" maneuver was an emergency turn designed to get away from ground threats as quickly as possible. It meant quickly slowing the B-1 bomber to "cornering velocity," a speed that increased the turn rate but wouldn't normally sacrifice controllability.

"SA-8! Zeus-23! Eight o'clock, lethal range!" The electronic countermeasures system was ejecting chaff and flares as fast as possible, but the threats stayed locked on. The sky was suddenly filled with white lines—smoky SAMs, dozens of them, flitting around them like bees around a hive. Several of the little paper rockets hit the Bone. No way they could do any damage—they weighed less than two pounds and were as fragile as a toy.

The pilot kept the back-pressure on his control stick right at 2.5Gs until the bomber had decelerated to their planned cornering velocity, then shoved the throttles to max afterburner. The maneuver worked. By the time he had plugged in the afterburners, they were almost headed in the opposite direction. He pushed the control stick right to roll wings-level, set the spoiler control switches from "OVERRIDE" to "NORMAL," and thumbed the speed brake control to retract the speedbrakes so they could recover their lost airspeed…

… except the bomber never rolled upright—they were still in a steep bank. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" the pilot was shouting. "What's happening here?" The "TERFLW FAIL" warning tone sounded, a low continuous tone signaling that the terrain-following system had failed. The system automatically performed a three-G fail-safe pull-up, designed to fly the bomber away from the ground—but in a steep bank angle, a fly-up would drive the plane into the ground if the pilots didn't intervene quickly. "Shit, what's going on? It won't roll wings-level! Mad Dog, get on your stick. I think my controls failed!"

"Get the nose down! Airspeed!" the copilot shouted as he reached for his stick. He tried to move it, but the bomber would not respond. He checked the flight control indicators. "Retract your speedbrakes! Spoilers are still up." The pilot thumbed the switch to retract them, but there was no change. "Check my 'OVERRIDE' switches!" he shouted.

The copilot reached over to the center console and checked switches. "Spoiler 'OVERRIDE' switches are normal," he said. "What's going on?" The OSO could feel a definitely sink building—it felt like the bomber was mushing, on the verge of a stall. The B-1 was yawing to the left as well, as if the pilot had pulled back power on the left engines. "Roll out! Roll out!" he shouted on interphone. "TF fail! You got it, pilot? Altitude…!" But he didn't have it. The pilot saw his altimeter beginning to spin down faster and faster. He felt a weightless sensation, felt his body floating in his straps. They were going in! It seemed like they were spinning in six different directions at once. Oh shit! Oh shit…!

No choice, no warning—the pilot put his hand on his ejection lever, closed his eyes, and pulled.

Without warning, the upper hatch over each crewmember's station popped free, followed by a roar of windblast and a cloud of debris and dust enveloping the aft compartment a split-second before the rocket motors blasted him up the ejection seat rails. The pilot felt a crushing blow on his right shoulder, and felt his body tumbling hard through the sky as it was snatched into the slipstream. The last thing he remembered was seeing the sleek, deadly-looking B-1B slide underneath him, still in a moderate left bank but with the nose up in a gentle climb. The pain in his right shoulder was excruciating. He saw a tremendous fireball, a massive cloud of fire as big as the mountains surrounding his home back in Reno… … and he saw two ejection seats, with partially inflated parachutes, fly right into that hellish wall of flames.

Seconds later, the pilot felt a sharp blow to his back and head… and then everything went black.

Wonju Air Base, Republic of Korea

In recent months, Wonju Air Base had been placed on alert at least once a day. So when the Klaxon sounded that night, the crews acted as if the alert was planned—they ran to their planes and prepared to launch their fighters with surprising calm.

As South Korea's northernmost air defense installation, less than thirty miles from the Demilitarized Zone and about one hundred miles from the North Korean capital of P'yongyang, Wonju would always be one of the first to react to any incursion by North Korean attackers. Wonju had a mixed fleet of aircraft. The primary air defense weapon was the F-16K, license-built in South Korea by a conglomerate of Korean heavy equipment manufacturers. The fighters were designed to respond to a massive invasion force, and so carried only one centerline external fuel tank, but it carried two radar-guided AIM-120 AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air To Air Missiles) and eight AIM-9M Sidewinder short-range heat-seeking missiles, plus 200 rounds for the 20-millimeter cannon. No less than twelve F-16Ks pulled 'round-the-clock alert at Wonju.

The base's fleet also included a number of French-built Mirage F1 fighters, American-built F-5 fighters for daylight intercepts—the North Korean Air Force was ill-equipped to fight at night—and a few American-built F-4E Phantom jets for both bombing and air defense work. The alert fleet of twelve F-4s were loaded with high-explosive and incendiary "firestorm" bombs specifically targeted for low-level, high-speed bombing raids of key selected North Korean targets should the expected—many said "inevitable"—invasion from the north take place.

All alert crews, fighters and bombers, responded to their planes, started engines, and monitored the air defense network. Even though they were in a heightened state of alert, no planes launched. A "launch on alert" could set off an uncontrollable military escalation between north and south in minutes. With engines running, the entire alert force could be in the air in less than two minutes. With planes taking off every fifteen seconds from the main runway and the two taxiways two-by-two, that meant twenty-four warplanes in the sky from one base in less time than it took a high-speed attacker to fly ten miles.

The crews waited and listened. Was it the invasion they all expected? Was this finally the big showdown between the Communists and the South?

"Unidentified aircraft heading south at three-four-zero degrees bearing from Wonju, fifteen miles, you are in danger of crossing the Demilitarized Zone at your present heading and airspeed," the South Korean air defense controller warned. "This is your final warning. If you cross restricted airspace, you will be fired upon. Unidentified aircraft, turn north immediately or you will be fired upon." At that same moment, two green lights flashed on the flightline ready board—the first two South Korean F-16s had launch clearance.

As soon as the F-16s were airborne, the lead pilot switched his wingman to the air defense controller's callup frequency. "Sapphire Command, Tiger Flight of two, passing three thousand, check." "Two," his wingman replied.

"Tiger Flight, Sapphire Command reads you loud and clear," the controller responded. "Switch to blue seven."

"Tiger Flight going to blue seven, now." After receiving a curt "Two" from his wingman—any good wingman will answer all calls with little more than their position in the formation—the two pilots changed over to a secure HAVE QUICK radio frequency. The channel "hopped" to different frequencies at irregular intervals, which made it difficult for outsiders to eavesdrop. "Sapphire, Tiger Flight with you passing four thousand, check."

"Two."

"Tiger Flight, this is Sapphire Control, read you loud and clear," the air defense controller responded, his voice now twisted and slightly garbled by the computer-controlled frequency-hopping algorithm. "Say position from Solar."

The lead pilot flipped his navigation system to the Solar waypoint, an imaginary point from which they could give position reports without revealing their position to outsiders. "Tiger Flight is zero-six-three degree bearing and one-niner miles from Solar."

"Roger, Tiger Flight. Fly heading two-niner five and take base plus one-four." Base altitude today was ten thousand feet, so the F-16s started a climb to twenty-four thousand feet. A few minutes later, when the F-16s were less than twenty miles from the DMZ, the controller called, "Linear."

The lead F-16 pilot activated his APG-66 attack radar, and seconds later the radar locked onto a target directly off the nose. "Tiger Flight is tied on, bogey bearing two-niner-seven, range thirty-two, low, speed three-zero-zero."

"Tiger Flight, that's your bogey," the controller replied.

The F-16's APG-66 pulse-Doppler radar could track several targets simultaneously, but just for good measure the lead ROK pilot broke lock on the target and let the radar scan the sky again. No more targets. A lone invader from the north? The North rarely flew single-ship. A tight formation of many invaders? The Communists flyers were not known for their formation flying skills in daytime, and they rarely flew at all at night, especially in formation. But the ROK pilot learned never to make safe assumptions. It was always better to assume there were numerous attackers out there. "Tiger flight, tactical spread, now."

"Two." The second F-16 left his leader's right wingtip and spread out several hundred feet laterally and two hundred feet above, close enough to keep his leader in sight in the darkness but still be able to move and react quickly if the tactical situation changed. The North pilot might be able to see two targets on his radar screen—if he bothered to turn his radar on. So far, there was not one squeak from the threat warning receiver, meaning the Communist pilot was not using his attack radar. Some of the North's advanced J-7 and MiG-29 fighters purchased from China had infrared tracking devices and infrared-homing missiles, so a radar wasn't necessary close in, but it was still very strange for an attacker to charge blindly into enemy territory without using radar.

The target continued across the DMZ without the slightest change in airspeed, altitude, or heading. The Communists had just committed an overt act of war, breaking the fragile truce. The second Korean War was underway.

To the ROK pilot, this was not just an act of war—this was an act of barbarism. The two nations had been struggling for years to make peace and eventually reunite their two countries. Covert probes by North Korean special forces and provocative but non-aggressive border "incidents," meant to trip the South into reacting with force for propaganda purposes, were bad enough. But this was a deliberate air attack profile.

There was plenty of mutual distrust to go around. The South was accused of building up an invasion force by buying or license-building American fighters, warships, anti-aircraft systems, radars, and high-tech precision-guided weapons. The North was accused of continuing spy missions and deploying improved surface-to-surface missile systems, capable of bombarding Seoul with chemical, biological, or even nuclear warheads. Everyone knew the arms race between the two countries had to stop, but neither side wanted to make the first substantial move.

Both nations tried "baby-steps" towards peace. The North agreed to dismantle its breeder nuclear reactors in favor of light-water reactors, less capable of producing weapons-grade nuclear material. The West promised huge grants of cooking and heating oil so the North would not be tempted to trade weapons for oil from unfriendly Middle East nations such as Iran. The South canceled joint U.S. and Japanese military maneuvers, removed Patriot and Rapier air defense systems from the DMZ, and reduced U.S. military presence to less than ten thousand troops. But the distrust continued.

The ROK pilot wanted nothing more than to have the entire Korean Peninsula reunited once again--under a Korean, not a foreign, flag. That was the dream of all Koreans since the Chinese and Japanese occupations. But what he wanted didn't matter right now. Right now, his homeland was under attack, and it was his sacred responsibility to stop it.

The F-16 pilot scanned an authentication encoder-decoder card strapped to his left thigh. Even though they were on a secure frequency and had already verified each other's identities, they were entering a critical phase of this mission. Careful coordination and verification was an absolute must. The authenticator card was changed every twelve hours and would provide positive command authentication for all upcoming orders: "Sapphire Command, this is Tiger flight, authenticate tango-alpha. Over."

"Sapphire authenticates Alpha."

"Authentication received and verified. Tiger flight requests final intercept instructions."

"Stand by, Tiger flight," the controller responded. The wait was not that long: "Tiger flight, you are ordered to attempt to make visual contact to verify the target's identity. If it is a hostile aircraft, or if identification is not possible, you are instructed to attempt to force the aircraft to land at a Category Charlie, Delta, Echo, or Foxtrot airfield, military or civilian. If the hostile will not respond, or if you are approaching any Category Bravo airspace, you are authorized to destroy the hostile aircraft." The controller read the current date-time group and authentication code, and it matched.

The F-16 lead pilot called up the coordinates of the closest Category Bravo airspace—which happened to be Seoul itself. They were only fifty miles north of the edge of the thirty-mile buffer zone around the South Korean capital. At their current airspeed, the F-16 pilot had only about seven minutes to convince this Communist invader to turn around or land before he had to shoot him out of the sky.

The ROK flight leader tried the radio first. In Korean, then broken Chinese, he radioed, "Unidentified aircraft seventy-eight miles northeast of Seoul, this is the Republic of Korea air defense flight leader. You have violated restricted airspace. I have you in sight and am prepared to destroy you if you do not reverse course immediately. I warn you to reverse course now." No response. He tried the universal emergency frequencies on UHF, VHF, and HF channels as well as several known North Korean fighter common frequencies, but no response.

It took two minutes for the F-16 pilot, with his wingman flying high cover position, to maneuver alongside the hostile. Thankfully, it was only a single plane, not an entire attack formation. It was easy to visually intercept the intruder because he had all of his outside navigation and anti-collision lights on—and, the ROK pilot soon realized with surprise, he had his landing gear and takeoff flaps still down too! This pilot had launched and flown hundreds of miles with his gear and flaps down—he was surely sucking fuel at an enormous rate, and at over three hundred knots had probably overstressed them both to the breaking point. The ROK F-16s were equipped with three thousand candlepower spotlights on the left side of the plane, and when he was close enough to see the plane's shadowy outline in the darkness, he flicked it on.

"Sapphire, this is Tiger flight lead, I have visual contact on the hostile," the F-16 pilot reported on the secure HAVE QUICK channel. "It appears to be a A-5 Qian attack plane." The A-5 was a Chinese-made attack plane, a thirty year-old copy of the ancient Soviet Su-7 attack fighter. It was a mainstay of the North Korean People's Air Army. "Configuration as follows: single engine, single pilot, small cylindrical fuselage, with short delta wings, a large nose intake, and a small radome in the center of the intake. I see a red and blue flag of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on the side, along with a tail code 'WS' and number one-one-four." The "CH" stood for Ch'ongjin, a North Korean air attack base.

Ch'ongjin was known to have large stores of chemical and possibly nuclear weapons. "The A-5 is carrying three external stores: one one hundred deciliter centerline fuel tank, and another one hundred deciliter fuel tank under each wing." He steered the searchlight across the weapons, gulped in shock, then added with a barely controllable voice, "Correction, Sapphire, correction. The stores under the wings are not fuel tanks, repeat, not fuel tanks. They appear to be gravity weapons, repeat, gravity weapons. I see four purple stripes around the center of the starboard gravity weapon."

That was the worst possible news. The purple stripes around the bomb, a standard marking in both the Communist Chinese and old Soviet military from which all of North Korea's weapons came, meant that they were thermonuclear bombs. They were the old-style Yi-241 weapons, disguised to look like fuel tanks—the Chinese and Soviets even once stored them outside secure areas to try to convince Western intelligence analysts that they were not nuclear bombs. But each of these "fuel tanks" had the explosive power of six hundred thousand tons of TNT—more than enough to level Seoul or any other city in the world. Because they were considered unreliable weapons, both were dropped on a single target—if the first one detonated, the second would "fratricide" in the fireball.

"Tiger leader, this is Sapphire, you are instructed to attempt to divert the hostile away from Category Bravo airspace in any way possible," the controller ordered after a moment's tense pause. The F-16 pilot could hear the fear quivering in the controller's voice. "You must not allow the hostile aircraft to close within fifty miles of Category Bravo airspace, but you are instructed to shoot down the hostile only as a last resort." The reasoning was clear: if he put a missile into the A-5, at best the explosion would scatter nuclear material; at worst, the devices could detonate, causing widespread destruction. The ex-Chinese, ex-Soviet weapons did not have the numerous safety features of Western nuclear devices—they were designed to explode, not designed to safe themselves.

"Tiger Flight copies," the leader acknowledged. "Check."

"Two copies," his wingman responded immediately. With the safety radius now increased to fifty miles, they had less than three minutes to get this intruder turned around.

The lead F-16 pilot shined the searchlight into the A-5's cockpit canopy from a distance of less than fifty meters. What he saw shocked him again: the North Korean pilot was not wearing a helmet! It looked as if the pilot has simply climbed in the plane and blasted off without any of his flight gear! It explained why he never heard the radio or configuration warnings.

The North Korean pilot shielded his eyes from the searchlight—and, thankfully, turned away from the F-16. Good—they were no longer heading directly for the heart of the capital. The ROK pilot edged closer to the A-5 and shined the light in his cockpit again, and again the A-5 turned away. He was almost heading southeast now, well away from Seoul. This time, the F-16 pilot flew slightly above and closer to the North Korean A-5, and the intruder descended and turned away again. The Communist pilot appeared to be screaming at the F-16, gesturing wildly while shielding his eyes from the blinding light.

Dare he hope this would actually work? The ROK pilot called up a list of nearby Category Echo airfields and found a deactivated military base, Hongch'on, less than thirty miles away. It was isolated, with the nearest populated area a small town over twenty miles away. There was no time to search for a better choice.

The F-16 pilot found the North Korean pilot to be manically single-minded, which worked to his advantage: if he steered away from the A-5, the Communist pilot tried to turn right towards Seoul, but if he crowded him, he turned left away from him; if he climbed over him, the Communist descended, but if he flew at the same altitude, the A-5 pilot would try to climb back to original altitude or maintain altitude. Good.

"Sapphire Control, this is Tiger lead, I have the hostile turned towards Hongch'on, and I will attempt to get him to land," the lead F-16 pilot radioed. "Have security and special weapon maintenance crews standing by. Our ETE is fifteen minutes."

They were over Hongch'on in a little over twenty minutes. The airstrip was being illuminated by several trucks shining their headlights onto the concrete, and it was more than enough light. Herding the reluctant North Korean pilot to land on the long nine thousand foot runway was proving more difficult. It was as if the North Korean pilot finally realized what the F-16 was forcing him to do, and he constantly tried to turn away from the runway. Finally, the wingman got on the A-5's left side, and they boxed him in. But when the leader tried to force the A-5 lower and onto the runway centerline a third time, the A-5 rolled hard left, striking the wingman's right wingtip.

"Damn! He mid-aired me! Tiger Two is lost wingman!" the second F-16 pilot shouted as he climbed away from the North Korean attack plane. "Lead, I have substantial damage to my right wingtip and number ten weapon station. I am climbing, passing five thousand." "How is your controllability?" the leader asked. "Do you need an escort?"

"Negative," the wingman replied. "I feel a slight vibration from the damage area, and I've lost some airspeed, but I have no warning or caution lights and my controls feel okay. I have safed and locked all my weapons. Still showing full connectivity on all stations except number ten. I am visually inspecting my right pylon…" The lead F-16 pilot knew his wingman was fishing a flashlight out of his flight suit pocket so he could see his wingtip: "I have lost my number ten weapon. Substantial damage to my right wingtip, but very little observed damage to my right wing."

"Good," the lead F-16 pilot responded with relief. "Stay above us at ten thousand feet until I end this intercept, and then I will escort you back to base." He got a fuel status from his wingman—he had over an hour's worth of fuel remaining. More than enough.

The Communist A-5 was trying to turn back towards Seoul again. The lead F-16 moved in tight on his right side and fired his 20-millimeter cannon. The blaze of the muzzle flash made the A-5 pilot nearly flip over in shock and fear, and he turned away exactly as before. The ROK pilot waited until the A-7 had turned almost all the way around towards Hongch'on. Then he yanked the throttle, dropped back a few hundred feet behind the A-5, kicked in a little left rudder, and fired a one-second stream of shells across the A-5's tail, being careful not to shoot below the wings at the chemical weapon bombs.

The shells ripped across the horizontal and vertical control surfaces, ripping them to shreds. Several rounds entered the engine exhaust, and the F-16 pilot could see sparks and then a fire spread inside the engine compartment. The A-5's airspeed, already at absolute maximum because of the hanging gear and flaps, was cut nearly to nothing in the blink of an eye as the engine slowly began to disintegrate. The North Korean A-5 dropped like a brick.

Even though the Communist pilot was obviously suffering from some mental lapse for flying without his gear, fortunately his instinct and training took over as his fighter began to die. As the A-5 fell, the fire was extinguished, and the fighter nosed over to help build up airspeed. As it did, the pilot was able to maneuver his stricken jet towards the runway at Hongch'on. Incredibly, the pilot almost managed to plant his fighter on the runway. The A-5 was in a landing attitude, nose up slightly to try to preserve some airspeed, when it slammed into the ground about three miles short of the runway, onto the soft peat earth surrounding the airfield. The F-16 pilot, trying to keep the stricken Communist plane in sight as long as possible, watched in horror as the fighter-bomber flipped upside down in the soft earth, then spun across the ground. The bombs and fuel tank scattered—he couldn't see where they landed. As the F-16 pilot climbed away from Hongch'on, he thanked the gods that his intended landing base was many, many miles away.

The provincial police evacuated the village of Hongch'on quickly and efficiently, while forces from the Republic of Korea Army base at Yongsan sealed off the area within twenty miles of the crash site. Thankfully the early morning winds were light, so they anticipated no more evacuations for several hours until the rising sun stirred the atmosphere again. Village officials were simply told that a military plane had crashed, and that was good enough for them all. Slowly, deliberately, the army nuclear weapons experts closed in towards the crash site. There was much evidence of fire and debris everywhere, but they detected no radiation. The fires were small, probably because the A-5 fighter had little fuel left in his tanks—just enough for a one-way suicide run over Seoul to dispense his cargo of death. There were no signs of explosion.

The wreckage of the A-5 was found inverted, facing opposite from the direction of flight. The plane was almost intact, a tribute to the tough-as-nails construction of the little attack jet. The centerline fuel tank was crushed up into the bottom of the fuselage, the cockpit canopy had been flattened… and the nuclear weapons were missing.

While searchers fanned out to look for the bombs, the pilot's body was pulled out of the cockpit. The pilot's head was crushed. He was wearing a dark brown wool flight suit ringed at the collar and cuffs with lambswool, typical of the DPRK's Air Army, but indeed he had no other flight gear—no helmet, no gloves, no survival gear, not even flying boots. How he survived the nearly one-hour ordeal in the freezing cold cockpit was impossible to guess. There was no name tag. Some of his insignia, including the pilot's wings and flag of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, had been partially torn off. Either the pilot was trying at the last moment to hide his identity or country of origin—or he was ashamed to reveal his homeland.

But the most incredible revelation was the pilot's body itself. It was as emaciated as a scarecrow's. The pilot could not have weighed more than one hundred pounds. His chest was sunken, his ribs were visible, and his skin was stretched taunt across his skeleton. He looked like a concentration camp survivor, so thin that investigators guessed he might not have had a regular meal in weeks. The body was carried out of the crash site for further investigation. Less than an hour later, searchers found both thermonuclear gravity bombs. By an incredible stroke of fortune, both had not ruptured. One bomb's housing had cracked, but there was no spill and the basketball-sized globe of fissionable material was intact. The second bomb was fully intact, minus its tail fins and with several dents and scrapes. The weapons were carefully packaged in lead-lined caskets and carried away for analysis.

South Korea had thus acquired its first two thermonuclear weapons—and, unknown to them or the rest of the world, that tiny nation would never be the same again.