Free Strike Force Bravo by Mack Maloney Page B

the secret base off Guam.
    â€œThat B-2F took off from here on a ‘routine’ flight just over twenty-four hours ago. A training mission was how it was logged. This plane is now missing.”
    He let that information sink in a moment, then put up the next image. It showed a sat photo of the Bangtang Channel, with its three tiny islands.
    â€œThe aircraft’s last known position was on a refueling track above these three specks, north of the Philippines’ big island of Luzon. For those of you who flunked geography, that’s about 1000 miles east of here. Communications were lost with the B-2 soon after it hooked up for the refueling. The KC-10 Extender never came back, either. Because they were flying the mission mostly in radio silence, it took a while to determine that both were missing.”
    The next image showed a close-up of the Bangtang Channel.
    â€œThese are the islands of Calayan, Fuggu and Dalu Pree. If the B-2 went down, in one piece or not, over dry land, it is probably on one of these postage stamps. If not, it’s under the water nearby. But the Navy has had two subs combing the channel’s seabed for the past twelve hours or so. They’ve found nothing so far.”
    Next image. A split screen showing both the B-2 spy bomber and the KC-10 refueler in better days.
    â€œHigher Authority has no idea what happened to either of these planes,” Fox went on. “An accident of some kind? A midair collision? No one knows. However, it is very important that these planes are found and the fate of their crews determined quickly. That goes especially for the B-2, for a variety of reasons but mostly because it’s an advanced model that’s not suppose to exist.
    â€œThe problem is, no one in that part of the world knows what’s going on—and it has to stay that way. I’m talking specifically about the Philippine government. Don’t get me wrong. They are still allies of our country—or at least they were this morning. But the current Filipino administration and especially the national police add up to a security nightmare. Nothing can be kept a secret for more than two hours inside the presidential palace, and the national cops just cannot be trusted. They’ll have every mook within five thousand miles looking in on us if they find out. So, any search and rescue has to be done not just quickly, but very quietly.”
    Fox paused a moment. He wished he had another sandwich.
    â€œNow how we all wound up here like this is a moot point,” he began again. “But it’s also serendipity. Look around. Can you see what we’ve got here? Delta, SEALs, SDS guys, plus two pilots, a ship’s captain. We all know our business. But more importantly, we are now the closest special ops force of any kind to the crash zone. We can be on the job in a matter of hours. It will take another team at least a day to get up to speed.”
    He let those words hang in the air for a moment. He’d been on some screwy missions before, but this one was already the screwiest.
    Finally someone in the mess said: “So?”
    â€œSo,” Fox replied. “The President’s men want us— all of us—to go find those two planes.”
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    At 46, Ryder Long was nearly the elder statesman of this group.
    He was sitting next to the girl eating the steak, but at the moment he was craving a peanut butter sandwich. He suspected most of the people in the mess hall were.
    Technically Ryder was a colonel in the USAF Reserves, but that was just a formality. He’d spent the last 20 years flying secret aircraft for people like Boeing and Northrup while doing the occasional black op for the Pentagon. It was not just a good life; it was a great one. Then came September 11th—and that’s when everything changed. Returning from a job assignment in Boston, his wife was on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center towers. No last second phone