Generals are not known for their sunny dispositions. Just now this general's disposition was as frigid as the Alaskan snowbanks lining the runways outside. His staff didn't look like they were having much fun either.
"Okay, so whatever these things are, we haven't been able to get good radar signatures on them. Are we even sure they are real?"
The other officers in the room shifted uncomfortably. At last the intelligence officer spoke up.
"Sir, we're not sure. But they act like they are."
"Analysis shows there's about an eighty-five percent chance they are real," said the officer responsible for the base's powerful radar chain.
The general glared as if he wanted to kill someone. Now.
"Well, if they're real why the hell can't our pilots find them?"
"By the time we can get there they are always gone," the intelligence officer said. "Besides, that whole area is a fog bank."
"That's unusual in itself, isn't it?"
"No, sir, not exactly," the base weather officer put in. "As you know fog's not unusual in that part of the Bering Sea. More like the normal thing."
"Is it normal for the same patch of ocean to stay fogged in for weeks?"
The weather officer shrugged. "Not quite so far north, no. But it's not unheard of either."
"What's causing that?"
"Cold air moving over warm water. Telemetry shows the water's somewhat warmer there than in the surrounding parts of the ocean."
"Why?"
Again the shrug. "We don't understand the weather patterns in this part of the world that well. An upwelling current, a vortex breaking off one of the regular warm currents, we just don't know."
"And you don't know what's playing hide and seek with our radar?"
"Whatever it is, it's not meteorological."
The general turned to his radar officer.
"And you don't know either?"
"No, sir. I can tell you something is showing up intermittently and whatever it is is probably not an artifact of the equipment, but that's all I can say."
"And patrols through that show nothing?"
"Nothing but fog. Sometimes our equipment works perfectly. Sometimes everything goes to hell. Radar, radios. I even had one case where the inertial navigation systems started acting up."
He scowled at the thought. This far north compasses were unreliable. If the INS failed, the pilot was reduced to dead reckoning and quite possibly a very chilly bath.
The general nodded again. In peacetime the base only kept one pair of F-15s sitting as CAP—combat air patrol—and they were not launched except at definite targets. They were well positioned to intercept something coming in to the Alaskan mainland, but not to go chasing things out over the Bering Sea.
He looked over at his intelligence officer, who merely shook his head. "It doesn't match anything we know of."
The general thought hard. "Thank you, gentlemen." The officers rose to go, but the general motioned his intelligence officer back into his chair. "Matt, stay behind for a minute, will you?"
"Now," the general said when the others had filed out and closed the door behind them. "What do you think this thing is?"
The intelligence officer frowned and shook his head.
"I don't have the faintest idea. If it is Soviet, it's stealthed well beyond what we thought they could do and it's carrying one holy hell of an electronic counter-measures suite. I don't know anything that could produce returns like that, or the kind of interference that's coming out of that area." He paused significantly. The northern border was so sensitive that if the intelligence officer at this base didn't know, no one in the Air Force knew.
"I'll tell you something else," he went on at last. "From what I'm hearing, I don't think the spooks know what those things are either. CIA and NSA don't tell us everything, but the reactions I'm getting tell me they're in the dark and they're plenty worried."
It was the general's turn to frown. "Why so?"
"The arms control talks. If the Soviets can produce something that good without our having an inkling of it, then our `national technical means of verification' aren't worth a damn. If we can't catch them with our satellites and spy planes then we can't make sure they aren't cheating." He made a throw-away gesture. "Poof, no treaty."
The general didn't say anything for a long, long time.
"Would they really blow a treaty over some anomalous returns?"
"It sure as hell wouldn't help."
"But why the hell would the Soviets take something like that out over the ocean? Haven't they got enough places to test it where it would be secure?"
The intelligence officer shrugged. "Ask me another one. But don't be surprised if we get some company before long. Important company."
The general cracked the knuckles in one fist and then the other, like a man preparing for a fight. Then he smacked his right fist into his left palm and stared out into space.
"All right," he said finally, "what you're telling me is that it's vital to the security of the United States that we find out what the hell these things are?"
The IO chewed that over for a minute and then nodded. "Not `vital' maybe, but damned important. Yessir, that's my assessment."
The general slammed his palm down on the desk. "Then we're by damn going to find out, and soon! I want some F-15s prepared with long range ferry tanks and recon gear up the wazoo. Damn, I wish I had some EF-111s!" He looked over at his intelligence officer.
"The next time that thing shows its nose we're going to be ready. We're going to find out what this sucker is and we're going to nail him!"