by FARMAN, ANDY
Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA.
The stresses of this day of days showed upon everyone present in the room.
All stood as the President entered and took his seat, waving everyone down.
“Sit, everyone please sit.”
General Shaw remained upstanding, his briefing notes laid out before him with thick red marker pen annotations here and there.
“Mr President?”
“Go ahead General.” The President wagged a message slip in his hand.
“I got this a couple of minutes ago so start with Guiana, how bad is it and how badly does it screw up Guillotine?”
A map of South America appeared on the screen behind Henry and he cleared his throat.
“As you are aware Mr President, the ESA facility on the equator has been attacked but it was not a result of a security leak?”
Henry addressed the President’s question by bringing up the aerial photographs of the surfaced Typhoon and Kilo. His eyes flicked momentarily to the CIA director but Terry ignored the look.
“No Mr President, there is no possible way that this attack could have been put together within the timeframe of our formulating Guillotine.” He pointed to the huge Russian submarine.
“This is a Typhoon, that is to say that ‘Typhoon’ is NATO’s designation for Russia’s largest class of submarines carrying ICBMs. However this one has been extensively modified to provide at sea refuelling and replenishment for diesel electric submarines such as this Kilo class beside it.”
The picture altered to the computer enhanced photograph that clearly showed the fuelling hose connecting both vessels.
The next photograph was of the submersible upon the Kilo’s rear casing.
“These were taken a week ago by an Argentinian P3 Orion out of Tierra del Fuego which attacked and sank both vessels. But the sinking’s were only made public after a delay of several days.”
The President stared long and hard at the photograph on the screen.
“What is the sailing time for a diesel submarine from China?”
“Three to four weeks the cross the Pacific with refuelling along the way, Mr President.” Henry replied.
“The conversion of the Typhoon was most certainly carried out pre-war sir, so it is entirely possible that this was being planned as long ago as two years.” He did not need to add that the infiltration by Chinese intelligence agents had made discovery of this preparation by the NSA or CIA highly unlikely.
At last the President nodded, satisfied that their best hope was not already doomed.
“The attack failed and we can still provide satellite support, sir.” General Shaw assured him.
“I spent a half hour on the phone with the French Premier.” The President said. “I have to say that I was having trouble reading his reaction. I expected Gallic rage but he was surprisingly reticent for someone who has almost had some of his sovereign territory nuked, he certainly seems to be taking it better than I did.” The President had a gut feeling that the French were not likely to just shrug off a nuclear attack, even one that had been defeated.
“Our people in Russia almost had the difficulty factor of their mission doubled Joseph, so look at it from that angle instead.” The President took a sip of water.
“Now, as you will notice there are just we few of us members of the choir present, so go ahead Terry, the floor is all yours?”
Terry smiled at the President.
“Did you ever get one of those discs through the mail from a company offering free Internet time, where you load the disc into your PC and it connects you to the company’s server?”
It had taken a little longer than Terry Jones had predicted for the secrets of the CD-ROM to give themselves up.
The President nodded in agreement to Terry’s question of course; there had been a time when the things had been a modern day plague with the postman delivering the unsolicited offerings from various competing companies almost daily.
“Well this disc lets us in through a backdoor to the PRC’s space and satellite program.” Terry held the item aloft.
“Is this true?”
“Yes sir, indeed it is, however as a spook I prefer this feature………..” The plasma screen on the wall of the briefing room had been showing western Germany and the positions of the opposing units; it now changed to depict the Philippines and events there from the Peoples Republic’s perspective.
“Oh my word…” The President found himself on his feet without consciously rising from his seat.
“How are we seeing this, how is this possible…can we look at all area’s their forces are engaged in?”
“Each operation is password protected but they can be cracked, as we have in fact already begun to do.” Terry pointed out.
“The late and probably very little lamented Comrade Peridenko, was no fool Mister President. I have already said that I think he was planning a coup, and I now think he was planning on dissolving the partnership with China once he had attained the Premiership. This disc could give a wise man one hell of an advantage.”
The President’s response to his CIA chief’s observation was one of unsubtle sarcasm.
“Oh really, you think!”
Terry had been in the business far too long to let something as minor as a President’s sarcastic retorts faze him.
“Yes sir, I do.” Terry responded. “Just as I know that he could just as easily have blown the whole deal by being too obvious, because if the PRC get the slightest suspicion that someone is reading their mail, they’ll change their access codes and encryption in a New York minute.”
The President was quiet for a moment as he thought about that and Terry allowed him the time to let it sink in before gesturing toward the screen.
“All we are doing at the moment is looking at the data feed from the Peoples Liberation Army’s, Sixth Army headquarters on Leyte, to the Central Committee headquarters.” Terry explained.
“That doesn’t effect the outcome of the war by one iota, because we’re merely spectators, we are not doing anything with the data. However, once we act on what we see, or even start to feed disinformation to them on the basis of what we can see here, then from that moment on in we are running the risk of them changing the locks on us, or god forbid, they feed us what they want us to see.”
The President was silent as he looked at the board.
“So what exactly have we got here, what does it give us?”
“We know where every single satellite of theirs is, what each one does and we see and hear everything that they do. We can read all the data passing through them, we know where every single PRC military unit is, what its equipment and supply state is and where it’s heading to.” Terry had asked these exact same questions of his experts only an hour before.
“We know what hardware they have scheduled to go up and we can see precisely what they know about our own satellites, for instance, I now see that we need to start producing more communications satellites, because they will start prioritising their destruction in the next forty-eight hours.”
“Won’t that affect our RORSAT and photo reconnaissance satellite replacement program?”
“Of course it will, but we don’t need them as desperately as we did before Mister President, because we can utilise the PRC’s own satellites now, but of course we will still need to put some up for them to shoot down, otherwise they may get suspicious. All we do is keep sending up something that emits radar waves, I’m sure there must be a warehouse full of 1960s and 70s satellite technology gathering dust somewhere?”
“We are also working on the possibilities of a hack, perhaps to shut down their communications totally, or even write a disinformation program similar to the one they stiffed us with.” Terry had already ordered the writing of several programs, but although they may never be used, it always helped to have something available if the opportunity came up.
“We couldn’t just do that now?”
“No sir, we are peeping ove
r their shoulder, that’s all.” Terry said.
“Our safest bet is to continue to do so, too.” He added with feeling.
While the President and the CIA boss were speaking, Henry was studying the screen. It was all being downloaded elsewhere by NSA and Henry could look at it again anytime he wanted, so he wasn’t too vexed when someone in China pushed a button to bring up the Indian Ocean and Australia. He nodded to himself after taking a moment to see where the PRC thought the allies ships, aircraft and land forces were in that region, and he conceded the PRC had a pretty accurate picture of their deployment, they even had his kids’ ships up there but something else caught his eye and made him feel cold all over.
The President saw Henry stood close to the screen and apparently taking a professional interest in the PLAN and Red Fleet ships heading south across the Indian Ocean. He didn’t know the names of the ships although they were right there on screen, right next to the icon representing the vessel in question, but it was all in Chinese characters of course.
From where the President was stood he could make out a solitary icon trailing along at the rear of the invasion fleet.
“What ship is that Henry has it got engine trouble do you think?” he moved from his seat to stand beside the big marine.
“Looks kinda lonely all by itself back there.” The President removed his glasses from a pocket and polished the lenses before putting them on and leaning forward, peering at the solitary vessel.
It was a small submarine icon and lacked any I.D beside it accept a tiny Australian flag.
“Oh my god, Henry…”
Henry’s expression was grim.
“Yes Mister President, apparently they have discovered that the Hooper is shadowing them.” The exact course, speed and depth were displayed beside the icon.
“It must be difficult to move about without being heard if you’re half deaf, yourself?”
Terry Jones took a look at the screen and then at his boss, he knew exactly what the President was thinking, and as soon as he opened his mouth Terry cut him off.
“We can’t warn them Mister President.”
“But they’ll sink her if we don’t, the Chinese will kill them all!” The President looked from one man to the other, but neither showed anything except grim acceptance. He tried anyway though.
“Those men and women probably won’t hear them coming in time to escape!”
“We can do nothing to help them Mister President, not whilst there is the slightest chance that the enemy may guess how we knew that they had discovered the presence of HMAS Hooper.”
“But….”
“We have here a tool that could help us defeat the Chinese, IF we use it right Mister President. We will take direct action as a result of what we discover, but only if the stakes are high enough sir, because the more often we do so increases the chance of the enemy guessing how and why we did what we did.”
The President looked from CIA chief to top soldier, but Henry shook his head sadly.
“He’s right sir, the only reason the enemy hasn’t sunk her yet is because they are waiting for the right opportunity, probably when the time comes to change course for their intended destination. Until that time arrives they will try and use her to deceive us as to their real intentions, and we also have to let them think we are buying it. If they change course for New Zealand we are going to have to do something there, just to make them think we don’t know any better …I’m sorry Mister President, but we can’t do anything to save them.”
The President took a last look at the tiny icon that was far from home and forcing himself to ignore the men and women it represented, he strode from the room.
Vormundberg, Germany.
The commencement of a massive artillery bombardment announced the arrival of the Red Army at the last line of organised defence that NATO had. Shells and rocket artillery began pounding the Royal Marines of 40 Commando in their fighting holes to the front of the wooded feature, and also isolating them from help by laying a wall of exploding steel to their rear.
On the marine’s flank the Foreign Legionnaires were also receiving some serious attention.
In his battalion CP, Pat Reed could feel the detonation of the nearer high explosives through the soles of his boots, and despite, or maybe even because of having endured the attentions of the Red Army’s guns at Magdeburg, he felt a sense of apprehension growing. The marines to their front were the buffer, the thing on which the Soviet’s would expend valuable munitions, and of course time upon, whilst the lightly armed and equipped British troops picked away at the Soviet fighting vehicles as best they could.
Pat was aware that the new men, the US Paratroopers and British Guardsmen who had arrived in the last couple of days would be listening to the sound of the guns and wondering how they would fare once 40 Commando gave ground and fell back through their lines. He would have liked to be able to tour the positions once more but his place was in the CP now.
Jim Popham was having the same thoughts at the battalion’s alternate CP set 500m to the rear of Pat Reed’s location. Ptarmigan showed the latest sitrep from brigade, 40 Commando was reporting the return to their lines of sub units of their ATGW Troop, anti-tank guided weapons. 40 Commando didn’t expect any more of their anti-tank element would be re-joining owing to the losses they had sustained. The forward screen of the leading MRR had reached the edge of the first obstacle; a deep ditch dug part way across their frontage by the Royal Engineers in the apparent hope of channelling the Soviet’s into a prepared killing ground. An update by the brigades’ intelligence cell identified the leading unit and Jim Popham wondered why that particular unit should ring bells with him. A field telephone near him buzzed for attention, Lt Col Reed was on the other end of the line.
“James dear boy, have you by any chance seen the latest on the opposition?”
“Yes sir, the point unit is Czech, their 23rd MRR according to the brigade G3.”
“You may or may not know all the ins and outs of this battalion’s first battle of the war, but it was against a Czech division that consisted of three regiments. The 21st MRR, which were annihilated whilst a second, the 22nd MRR, took heavy losses from this battalion before it, and the 23rd MRR, overran the battalions’ positions.”
“Ah, these are the guys who killed your wounded and the prisoners, aren’t they sir?”
“No Major, these are the guys who butchered our wounded, and the men they captured.”
There was a moment’s silence from his CO and Jim wondered exactly what was going to be asked of him.
“I want someone to go around the positions one last time before we come under direct attack. Talk to the new boys and give them a little reassurance, and spread the word that we play rough but we play by the rules…even with these bastards!”
If word hadn’t already got out, well there’s a first time for everything, Jim thought, he was going to have the impossible task of stopping this turning into a grudge match.
Arnie Moore had been looking for an excuse all morning to get out of this bunker and mix with the men on the firing line, and so he didn’t have to be asked twice. The RSM even managed to look sincere when Jim extracted a promise from him that he would be back before the Soviet’s reached the forward slopes of the location.
Arnie Moore took a tri of Guardsmen with him, and ignoring the FV-432 assigned for his use, he took Jim Popham’s Warrior and its three-man crew instead. He wasn’t planning on returning to the bunker any time soon, and if he were going to take part in the fighting he would require something more substantial than a bulletproof taxi.
There was a brief lull in the artillery falling upon the RM positions, and a Wimik broke from cover close by to a Soviet O.P to dash back into friendly lines, chased by small arms fire and mortars that fell wide. No sooner had the vehicle made it to safety the artillery fell once more, keeping the marines pinned in their holes.
Fifteen minutes later, brigade informed 2REP and 1CG, the units closest to th
e Royal Marines, that 40 Commando’s CP had gone off the air and the RM’s senior surviving officer, the O.C. Bravo Company, had taken command but his company CP was not set up to run the whole unit, so there could be command and control shortfalls. It was not an unheard of occurrence to lose a CP; 1CG had lost its own during its first defensive action of the war, so on the face of it the marines had hit an unlucky streak. Major Venables was passed the same message by the CP with an update by the C.O, and he in turn warned his troop commanders that they might possibly be leaving their hide positions for the forward fighting positions earlier than expected.
As well as warning the attached arms and company commanders, Pat Reed had the information passed to the OPs and snipers; Big Stef listened briefly to a signaller at the battalion CP and replaced the hides’ field telephone receiver.
“Keep a good eye open to the sunken lane, the Green Machine lost its CP.”
Bill removed his eye from the Schmidt & Bender sight. “They’ve got another, a fall back like we have, haven’t they?” The infantry was not his chosen arm and despite the time spent with 1CG he found many of the ways of the infantry a mystery.
“What about the farm, that’s a CP?”
“The farm’s their support company CP, and they may not have an alternate…we only have one because of what happened before. It’s not standard practice.”
Bill returned his attention to the scope.
“The marines’ gunners are back.” Stef grunted an acknowledgement. Half an hour before, the gunners had fired a mission and relocated, vacating the gun line nearest the snipers just before Soviet counter battery fire landed. The 105mm battery had been changing location after every mission it fired in support of the troops on the ground, and was now moving back in to their original position. If there were a breakdown in communication between units, it would be hard to tell if the gunners were relocating or bugging out because they may know something their neighbours didn’t. The only way to tell would be the sudden influx of traffic, foot and vehicular, onto the sunken lane.
