The Red Line

But life isn’t always kind.

Shortly after the commencement ceremony, on what was to be her wedding day, her husband-to-be had failed to appear. Twenty-one days later, her offer of a well-paying Wall Street entry-level position had been unexpectedly withdrawn. In three weeks’ time, she’d suffered two crushing blows. Staggered by her misfortunes, she’d desperately needed to get away. She went out to find herself. Within a month, the Army found her.

The lieutenant and sergeant reached out and started flipping switches and pushing buttons from the countless selections on the electronic panels positioned above and around their side-by-side radar screens. The Engagement Control Station sprang to life. In front of Fowler and Morgan, the identical screens started feeding them information.

Unlike older radars, where the target would only appear on the screen when the radar swept by it, the advanced Patriot radar didn’t sweep at all. Anything in the sky would remain constant on the screens at all times.

Thirty small triangles, each representing an aircraft, appeared at various locations on their screens. Most of the triangles were well to the east, near the German-Czech border. The movement of the triangles indicated that the aircraft were circling in no discernible pattern. Fowler and Morgan watched the activity in the predawn sky. Six of the thirty triangles were racing east.

The six appeared to have just taken off from one of the American air bases in central Germany. Another six, having left their positions at the border, were headed west.

“They aren’t in our sector, and I’m certain they’re friendlies,” Morgan said. “Even so, just to make sure everything’s working okay, I’m going to interrogate the flight headed west.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me, Lieutenant.”

Barbara Morgan activated the IFF—the interrogator, friend or foe. She directed it to interrogate the formation’s lead aircraft. The Patriot’s computer transmitted a coded signal to the unidentified fighter. The signal asked the plane to identify itself by sending back the proper response. In the nose of the leading F-16, the signal was received. The correct answer to the interrogation was transmitted back to the Engagement Control Station by the fighter’s computer.

Upon receiving the appropriate reply, the Patriot’s computer placed a friendly symbol next to the aircraft’s triangle on both screens. The system was working fine. For no other reason than to calm her nerves, the lieutenant continued to interrogate the fighters in the formation. In seconds, friendly symbols appeared next to all six triangles.

Sitting in the right-hand chair, Morgan’s job for the next four hours consisted of identifying any approaching aircraft. There were only three possible identification symbols. An aircraft was friendly, hostile, or unknown. Dealing with the friendlies and hostiles was easy. The friendlies would be passed through the protective air-defense net. The hostiles would be turned over to Fowler to be shot down by a screaming Patriot missile.

The unknowns would be Morgan’s most critical task. Deep within their windowless world many miles from the soaring aircraft, it would be difficult for the Patriot crew to determine whether or not to fire on an unknown. There was always the possibility that a friendly aircraft’s transponder had malfunctioned, or combat had damaged the fighter and it could no longer answer. The air-defense system couldn’t allow enemy MiGs to get through. Yet it was considered bad form to shoot down one of your own planes.

With no way for the aircraft to identify itself as a friendly, the onus was on the pilot to show that he belonged to the good guys. On the radar screens, the Patriot identified a prearranged corridor. If the pilot entered the narrow corridor and made the proper turns within its boundaries, Morgan would allow it to pass unharmed. All the pilot had to do was remain inside this invisible, crooked crosswalk in the sky, and he or she would be home free.

Hopefully, the sleepy pilot had been paying close attention during the early-morning mission briefing. If not, they would pay for their carelessness with the loss of their life.

They watched the friendly triangles disappear from their screens as the F-16s landed at Spangdahlem Air Base, 160 miles northwest of the battery’s position.

“Looks like we’re in business, ma’am,” Fowler said.

Morgan opened her mouth to respond. As she did, the eastern edges of the radar screens started to fill with wave after wave of never-ending triangles. By the untold hundreds, the triangles suddenly appeared. All were headed west at a high rate of speed.

The long-anticipated Russian air attack had begun.

• • •

With the AWACS’ guidance, huge numbers of Allied fighters should have risen up to meet the enemy near the Czech border. That was what the American battle plan said would occur. But with the AWACS crippled by a lack of communications, the air bases were slow to respond.

Instead of meeting the Russians with an equal number of fighters, the Americans met them with two dozen F-16s out of Spangdahlem. The F-16s had been circling the border waiting for a Warsaw Pact attack. Twenty-four found themselves pitted against one thousand.

The idea was simple: have the twenty-four delay the enemy to buy enough time for the American, British, and German fighters to scramble into the sky. Using the AWACS, the NATO air forces would be coordinated with pinpoint accuracy to stop the enemy in its tracks. The AWACS would then further coordinate the American and German air defenses to strike down any intruder lucky enough to get through the deadly curtain of fighters.

With the AWACS ground stations destroyed, however, such a response didn’t occur. The AWACS was designed to instantly feed the Russian attack data through Schoenfeld or Mildenhall to every wing at the nine Allied fighter bases in Germany and six in England. At the fifteen bases, the defenders would rush to their planes. Within minutes, the skies would fill with lethal Allied defenders. Without the attack data, however, it never happened. Instead, all the AWACS commander could do was speak into her headset to the operations center at Ramstein.

“Ramstein, this is Colonel Howard, technical director of Sentry One. For some reason that both of my communication specialists are at a loss to explain, all of our ground communication links have gone dead. The Soviets have launched a massive air strike. Enemy strike force of approximately one thousand aircraft launched at zero-seven-twenty. All headed west. Every available fighter from all bases must take to the air to meet the enemy threat. AWACS will control the fighters once they’re airborne. Say again. Launch all Allied fighters at once. Did you get that, Ramstein?”

“Roger, Sentry One,” the major in charge of base operations said. “We copy. Will have my team notify Ramstein’s wings and the remainder of the Allied bases immediately.”

The AWACS commander had done what she could to alert the defenders. While waiting for the American, British, and German fighter aircraft, she returned to coordinating the force she had available at the moment—twenty-four F-16s.

At Ramstein, the major turned to the three sergeants who comprised his staff.

“You heard Sentry One, we’ve got to get every possible plane into the air. I’ll begin notifying Ramstein’s fighter wings. Sergeant Brennan, contact Spangdahlem base operations and relay the information. Once you’ve finished that task, get in touch with the American air bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath and order their fighters to cross the English Channel to engage the enemy as soon as they can. Let me know when you’ve com

pleted that assignment. There will no doubt be a great deal more to do.”

“I’m on it, Major Coleman.” The sergeant picked up the phone to call Spangdahlem and initiate the first of his actions.

“Sergeant Rodgers, you’ve got the German air bases. Contact each one immediately,” Coleman said.

“Will do, sir,” she said. Like her predecessor, she was quickly on the telephone.

“Sergeant Mitchell, you take the English air base in Germany first, then begin contacting the ones in England.”

“Got it, sir.”

Satisfied by his team’s efforts, one by one the major called each of Ramstein’s wings and relayed Sentry One’s order. It would take him nearly seven minutes to alert and scramble all of Ramstein’s fighter aircraft.

Score after score of pilots and their support crews began racing to the aircraft waiting in the darkness of the hangers or on the icy tarmac.

Sergeant Brennan needed four tries to get through to Spangdahlem. But in scarcely more than a minute, a second base operations center was beginning to pass on the call to arms to its pilots.

The MiGs roared through the heavens at over one thousand miles per hour.

Brennan attempted to contact the two American fighter bases in England. He first tried Mildenhall. Unaware of the Spetsnaz team’s destruction of Mildenhall’s communications, he made eight fruitless attempts before finally giving up. Lakenheath was next. But he had no better luck getting through to the other American base. With the shortage of available circuits between Germany and England, no matter what he tried, all the frustrated airman heard was a busy signal.

The Russian fighters were almost twenty miles closer than they’d been sixty seconds earlier.

Even before the commandos’ successes, American attempts to communicate with their NATO allies had been a joke. There were far too few interconnect points between the separate American and NATO systems. The most important of those interconnections had occurred through a microwave link between the NATO facility at Bad Kreuznach and the American facility at Schoenfeld.