The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

6. World War

6.9 America

6.9.1 B-2s

Colonel Emil "Bud" Schaeffer stretched his legs and reached back along the low ceiling of the cockpit. 'It's a crying shame', he thought. "We used to be able to put hundreds of heavy bombers in the air at one time. We had BUFFs, B1s and B1Bs up the gazzinga. Then came stealth, and the half a billion dollar price tags that went with it. Now, my twelve B2s represent one-third of all our heavy bombing capacity. It's a damn shame!"

He looked left and right, checking the formation of the other eleven aircraft of the Ninth Heavy Bombardment Squadron. The big, black flying wings looked awesome! The Libyans were going to be surprised.

The Italians had been pounding Tunisia and eastern Algeria for three days, but Libya was just out of their reach. The five airfields around Tripoli were five hundred miles from the Italian boot, all over water. The Typhoons were good birds and could pack a heck of a wallop, but to get there and back would require a heavy aerial refueling effort, and would attract a lot of attention. So, the powers that be decided to let the Italians handle the close-in stuff, and let the big boys do the long-distance flying.

A long distance it was, indeed. The first leg from Barksdale to Loring was the easy part. They'd flown at night at sixty thousand feet to stay above the commercial traffic. After landing at Loring, they were briefed on their mission, armed and fueled. By 04:00, they were airborne, heading east into the rising sun. The great circle route took them up into Canada, across Newfoundland, Greenland and north of Ireland. They arrived at Farnsworth two hours after sundown amidst the tightest security in almost a century. The Brits were taking the threats of sabotage very seriously.

The tankers left some four hours ahead of them flying over Spain to the Mediterranean. There was no doubt that they were seen by Arab sympathizers, but it didn't matter. The tankers could have been heading to the other end of the MED for all they knew.

The B-2s were another story. After taking off, they headed northeast to gain altitude before crossing the European coastline. By the time they were over Holland, they were at fifty thousand feet and still climbing. Captain George Takashima, Bud's weapon systems officer, kept chuckling. All the radars in Europe had their shot at painting the big planes, but none of them did.

They flew quickly over France and rendezvoused with the KC-17Bs in the Gulf of Lion between the Belearic Islands and Corsica. After refueling, they headed east-southeast skirting Sardinia, Sicily and Malta before turning south-southwest towards Tripoli.

Their objective was the big Libyan bomber base at Tarhunan, some sixty klics southeast of Tripoli itself. Getting there meant running the radar gap between the Libyan capital and Misratah. The whole area was filled with missile controlled radars, and there were fighter bases both in Misratah and in Gharyan.

Their course would take them over Al-Khums, half way between the two cities. After plastering Tarhunan, they'd keep right on going, instead of returning by the route they had entered. They'd avoid Tripoli and exit back over the MED at Zuwarah. Then they'd go like hell for friendlier air space. With stealth to protect them from radar and non-reflective, black surfaces protecting them from enemy pilot's night vision, they should be safer than lying in bed.

"Malta coming up on the right, Colonel. We'll be turning in three-zero minutes."

"Thanks, Tark. Guess we better start getting this bird ready. Position check."

"Super, boss. I just got two satellite fixes and confirmed them with fixes on Ragusa tower and Cape Bon lighthouse. I've got us to within three or four feet. Should be close enough, but I'll keep working on it just the same."

"Good, see that you do. I'd like to put these down the pickle barrel. Have you done a weapons check?"

"Looks good so far. The laser is working just great, and the IR is, too. I haven't been able to check the radar on anything external, but it checks out internally. I'm just beginning the final checks on the LGBs. That'll take about five minutes per. So, I'm on schedule."

"Good, but aren't you cutting it a little close. Landfall is in two hours."

"It's OK, Bud, don't worry. This is my third time through. Last time I did all twenty-five GPS-guided bombs in seventy-five minutes. That's the whole thing, too. Full elevons check, full detector check in all three modes, full recognition check and arming sequencer. About the only check I haven't tried was the 'drop one and see what happens' check. I didn't think the French would like it a whole lot."

Schaeffer chuckled. The long flight was getting to them both.

Tark tensed over his threat scope. "Ships on the southern horizon. Looks like three, maybe four warships and a bunch of other ships, too. They're strung out for over a hundred miles. I count three, maybe four search radars.

"Let's see. There's ten merchies strung out over about twenty miles to the south southwest. We'll probably fly over the top of them. There's eight more due south, twelve south southeast and another ten closer to the southeast. They look like merchies, mostly cargo types, you know? Like I said, there are three warships standing out to sea, sorta like they're protecting them or something."

"Sounds odd." Bud threw a switch, and his secondary screen lit up with a real-time emulation of the threat/navigation screen.

Bud studied the display for a moment. "Yea, I see what you mean. The big ones are the merchies, right? It's like they were fish heading up stream to spawn." A brighter patch moved rapidly from left to right across his screen. "Ooh! That must have been one of the warships sweeping with his radar. Yup, there's the other two. They seem to be looking all around, don't they? If they were guarding those merchies from a sea attack, wouldn't they be spending more time looking our way and less rotating?"

"Maybe, Colonel, and maybe not. If they're old-style radars, they just sweep and let the fire control radars point at whatever they find."

"Yah, OK. It still looks weird, doesn't it?"

"Yessir, it does. Should I take a chance and send this out?"

"Negative! No way. We're hiding, remember? We're hiding in plain sight, and that's a real trick. Nope, we won't give those rag-heads a chance to find us by emitting. At the same time, you'd better record all of this for posterity. Keep track of them as long as you can. The G-2 guys will have a ball."

"Can do, Colonel." Tark replied, as he checked the mission chronometer and the plane's global positioning readout. "One minute to course correction. Prepare to turn to Two-One-Niner on my mark. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark!"

Bud dropped the right wing just a little, and the B-2 began a long, gentle right-hand turn. This was one of those tricky bits of flying stealthy. As long as his B-2 was "clean" it was very hard to detect from any angle. The moment anything "dirtied" his plane's smooth lines, it created a slight inconsistency that might reflect a radar beam back to its receiver. So, he had to do everything just a little at a time.

With the big plane in a three-degree bank, the turn took fifteen minutes to complete. Then, with a slight nudge in the opposite direction, they were headed right on course for Al-Kuhms, a flight of just a little over a half hour.

It was nervous time. They'd be passing within fifty miles or so of two major radar installations. And, no matter how many times they'd done it, the eerie lines on the scope reaching upward towards them made their skins crawl. Only one mistake, one piece of equipment failing or one tiny blip from some odd angle would alert the whole world to their presence.

If they were discovered, they had no defense, other than the usual ECM stuff. That was even worse in some ways. Electronic Counter Measures relied on various jamming techniques. That is, ECMs were emitters, and emitters of any kind could be seen on the other guy's radars. Even if they couldn't be detected perfectly, the enemy had no doubt as to where they were. Worse, some of the enemy's missiles homed on jam. The Ninth Heavy Bombardment Squadron tip-toed through the night.

"Feet dry," Takasmina announced, "We're over Al-Khums. New course Two-Five-Five. On my mark. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark!"

Bud nudged the right pedal with his toe and pushed the stick a tad to the right. 'Fly clean,' he kept repeating, hoping that all the other pilots were thinking similar thoughts.

"Target coming up in five minutes. Ready! Mark!"

Tark leaned forward, suddenly tense. "IR's got them. Painting with the laser. Designating. Hold it still!" Schaeffer held the plane steady, keeping a close eye on the GPS system as Tark designated his twenty-five targets according to the prearranged plan. "Designation completed. Ready for bombing autopilot. Engage on my mark. Ready? Engage!"

Bud flipped a switch, and glanced at his WSO. Both of them raised their hands up over their heads to make sure that neither of them was still on the controls. The computer was flying their bird.

One of the reasons the B-2 was so expensive was that it almost flew itself. By querying the constellation of global positioning satellites, the computer always knew the aircraft's exact position. When the WSO designated a target, the computer simply downloaded the appropriate position to the B-2's smart bombs.

After the computer dropped them, the bombs directed themselves to the target. Either the computer or the WSO could monitor all twenty-five of the projectiles and provide mid-course corrections to each of them. If any of them needed addition guidance, lasers could be used to illuminate individual targets for the bombs to home in on, but they shouldn't be needed.

The bomb bay doors opened, exposing the B-2's underside to radar returns. They could now be seen. The objective was to drop their loads quickly, close the bomb bay door and skedaddle home, ASAP. The B-2 began to lurch as the individual one-ton bombs fell away. The computer didn't try to control the aircraft's attitude. Instead, it compensated for the slight increase in altitude within its memory circuits. Those relatively small differences in drop times were as eons to the computer. It could use those small time increments to monitor, control and direct each of the bombs as they fell.

The bomb bay doors whined back into place, and the B-2 settled down. Bud grabbed the controls, releasing the autopilot. "Time to blow this pop stand," Bud murmured into his helmet mike. "Slow and easy. Coming to course Three-Oh-Two. Speed, sneaky fast!"

Bud looked into the lower screen to watch the results of two days of work. His squadron's three-hundred two-thousand pound bombs saturated an area three hundred yards wide and three thousand yards long. Two squadrons of Blinders, one of Blackjacks and one each of their precious Badger Recon planes and a MadCap had been completely destroyed. The airport's runways were destroyed, as were the fuel and ammunition bunkers. The control tower, hangars, revetments and all personnel quarters had ceased to exist.

The Libyans were frantic. Bombs had rained down on them from an empty sky, as though the hand of Allah had slapped the ground upon which they trod. They launched one squadron of MiG-31s from Gharyan, and one of MiG-29s from Misrah in pursuit of their spectral assailant. They searched for two hours, but found no enemy upon which they could vent their rage.

Ten minutes later, the Ninth Heavy Bombardment Squadron was over the Mediterranean. Four hours later, they were refueling over the Gulf of Lion and were on their way back to England. They landed eight hours later, once again in the dark.

Two hours of debriefing were almost at an end when Bud mentioned the funny formation of ships. The G-2 he had been talking to jumped out of his seat yelling, "Why didn't you tell me about this? What the hell's that matter with you fly-boys anyway? Shit for brains? You see fifty ships heading east into a war zone covered by escorts, and you wait 'til now to tell me!"

Colonel Schaeffer had lived on eight hours of sleep in the past two and a half days. He was punchy. He had just come off a very long, tiring but successful mission over enemy territory. The very last thing he needed was a shave-tailed captain trying to ream him out.

Schaeffer uncoiled himself until he stretched to his full five feet, four inches. His one hundred and thirty-five pound frame launched itself across the table, and his small but powerful hand grabbed the captain's necktie. With his free hand, he pointed at the black birds on his shoulders.

"You're talking to a colonel, Captain, and my bird is about to shit all over your railroad tracks. You're at attention, Mister!"

The captain leapt to his feet. He was a full head taller than the colonel, and outweighed him by sixty pounds. Nonetheless, he stood ramrod straight, eyes ahead with thumbs on the seams of his pants. "Yes, Sir!"