Book with 2 or three short stories

Question

I remember years ago when I was in the Army and deployed, I found a book with 2 or three short stories. One of them was about an Asian country shooting down an American Satellite and a mission to space that needed to be secret. A fighter jet then flies extremely low over the ground toward where the rocket or shuttle is and uses his afterburner (at night) flying vertical over the launch site and pretends it's the space launch. With the overcast skies, no one can clearly see the launch, just the light and noise and assume its a space launch. I really enjoyed that book but I lost it.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Really sounds like "Lash Up" by Larry Bond c2001, printed in "Combat", Stephen Coonts, editor, Forge/Tom Doherty 2001. The satellites are being shot down by magnetic gun. Ray McConnell risks his job & security clearance to coordinates an effort outside acceptable bureaucratic channels to put Defender spacecraft in orbit, and save the day using lasers and tungsten penetrator-rods dropped from space.