by Andy Farman
On screen the icons for the fighter escorts, A-50 AWAC and Il-76 tankers did indeed briefly appear before vanishing off the screen to the north.
General Shaw advanced the time by an hour before setting the speed of the action at twice normal time. The General sat impassively throughout, speaking only to qualify various events on-screen. The President tried hard to emulate him, but inside his stomach churned. Every icon that disappeared in combat represented unknowable grief and heartache for families and loved ones, and death to those the icon represented. He felt tears threatening to well up as he watched the old Polish warship sacrifice itself in order that the air defence integrity of the task force remain unbreached.
When it was over the resident had to clear his throat before speaking, but his voice still cracked with emotion when he spoke, asking the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs what the butcher’s bill had been.
General Shaw did not answer him directly.
“Sir, it is early days yet in this war, a lot of people have died so far…and a whole bunch more are going to die before this thing is done. You cannot afford to go dwelling on it…any more than I can.” He could see that the strain, lack of a proper sleep and burden of responsibility was taking its toll.
“If it helps sir, try putting it into perspective. Our side lost three ships, thirty-nine combat aircraft, and a hell of a lot less in manpower than we did on Omaha Beach in the first hour of the D-Day landings, and a little more than died in homicides in this country last year. Thanks to the National Rifle Association lobby…on the other hand, the other guy lost a shit load of everything…and that Mr President is what matters, right here, right now.”
“Sir, we have defeated their air and surface efforts to open the way into the Atlantic, used nuclear weapons along the way, but they still have their boats intact for an attempt on their own…the question now is, will those same submarines use nukes earmarked for the next convoy, in breaking out? Or will they even try?”
“How badly did we hurt their air force yesterday, enough to affect the land battle in Germany?”
“Unfortunately not…oh, we hurt the hell out of them; all those regiments that came from Germany are going to have to be reconstituted. Two thirds of them are either at the bottom of the sea or decorating the Scandinavian countryside. They have forces in reserve, probably being held in readiness for their next phase…the Middle East if I had to guess. Anyway, those reserve air assets are already on the way to Germany.”
“So we are no better off, is that it General?”
“Oh, we are far better off than we were. The first convoy is unloading and supplies are on the way up to the front. We were getting low on everything. There has been some fighting on the front but our troops have had time to prepare better defence works, get more sleep than they were getting, to reinforce and re-equip.”
“So there we have it, we are now able to reinforce the line in Germany and Guillotine has a green light, the Russian insertion operation begins in one hour.”
“And the other aspects, is everything in place for them to move?”
“Our Special Forces and the Brits are ready to move and just require the transport to get there. Two Los Angeles class SSNs are in the area of the Pacific where we believe the Chinese boomer is hiding. A Sea Wolf, two more Los Angeles and the Brit boat will also be in the area in the next two days. Whilst we are on the subject of the Pacific, 5th Mechanised Division and the Nimitz group arrived at Brisbane this morning.”
The President nodded thoughtfully and then looked back at the screen.
“General, to get back to the North Cape, will they try to break out unsupported and will they use nukes?”
“Mr President, I just don’t know.”
RAF Kinloss, Scotland: 1858hrs, same day
Svetlana removed all her clothes, including underwear and padded barefoot across the tile floor unabashed and oblivious to the stares of two males present. At rear the tattoos on the rolling buttock and in the fore the gold stud piercing an intimate item ‘down south’, catching the light from the bright strip lighting.
She took the ‘Suit, underwear, flame retardant, thermal’ from the blushing storeman and pulled it on. It was supposed to be a snug fit and indeed it was. Major Caroline Nunro was stood with folded arms, leaning against the wall and watching, deciding the girl looked even more naked once garbed in the thing. The storeman and a specialist flight suit technician grinned at one another like schoolboys as she bent over to adjust the feet, appreciating the view of a rather superb example of buttocks clad in elasticated Nomex.
“I’ll take it from here.” she stated, with the steel of authority in her voice. “Wait outside.” The men left the heated G-Suit and departed, wondering how their wives would react to suggestions they join a gym.
Caroline plugged in the G-Suit to a test set and connected the valves at the end of the suits air bladders, inflating it to check for leaks and ensure that the heating matrix was operating. It wasn’t, and the technician was summoned. In extreme circumstances the non-function of the bladders could result in brain damage; however a non-functioning or malfunctioning heating matrix spelt certain death from hypothermia.
The fault was quickly found and a tiny coupling replaced; the suit heated up immediately.
“Replace them all.” Caroline ordered, just to be on the safe side and thirty two couplings were indeed swapped out for new ones and the circuit tested again.
Her skin was flushed as she helped Svetlana struggle into the heated G-suit, having to get up close and personal to heave the thing on. It was far bulkier than their own G-suits because she would be cocooned in the unheated belly of the aircraft.
“What’s the matter Caroline?”
“Oh nothing.” She replied. “All my payloads have bodies born for porn, haven’t you noticed?” Svetlana howled with laughter.
The Nighthawk pilot had been busy until noon with last minute preparations, followed by crew rest because of their 0430 start. This was the first time since arriving at the RAF station that day that she had seen Svetlana, and until she had hooted in laughter she had been uncharacteristically quiet, her normal effervescence subdued.
She knew about Constantine’s removal from the mission, it meant that Svetlana now only had the nuclear weapon for company on the flight, and that their fuel consumption was improved fractionally. Constantine had collared her half an hour before, distressed that he was not going, angry with himself and also worried for Svetlana.
“Keep an eye on her please Caroline; make sure she doesn’t try winging it solo when she makes contact with her old boss. She might trust this woman but I don’t.”
She now reached out to stroke the Russian girl’s hair.
“What are you brooding about, him or yourself?”
Svetlana smiled in a sad way.
“I’ve been avoiding him all day…Scott told me last night that he was pulling Con off the mission. The trouble is that Con feels so useless right now, he knew that he was only going along because I wanted him there, even though he would be stuck in the safe house at the landing strip. Now that I’m going in alone…I’m scared Caroline.” The American gave her a brief hug and stood back.
“You are not alone in this ‘lana, there are twenty tough American boys already in place, they know their stuff.”
“I don’t doubt that, but they look like fighting men…even if they are fluent, but their youth and all the muscles will give them away, they’ll get picked up, and maybe even screw up my mission at the same time.”
Caroline frowned; she was not on the need-to-know-list of the ground mission specifics.
“I thought your part was a done deal…this person you are contacting, she got you your job, and you’re solid, right?”
“It’s not quite as cut and dried as that,” Svetlana began; the American pilot knew nothing of the type of work she had originally been recruited for. She was a spook, as simple as that.
“I didn’t have any real choice in the matter
, either I joined one of their departments or I got blacklisted from any kind of decent work. They would have prevented me leaving the country to make a living abroad, too.” She turned to the American pilot. “I had a certain reputation at university and I was given an offer I could have refused but as I just said, not without ruining my life. After they spent nine months training me, there isn’t a man, or woman for that matter, who I wouldn’t stand a far better than average chance of getting into bed, and once there who wouldn’t blab secrets just so I would carry on doing to them whatever it was I was doing to them.” She looked Caroline in the eye and the pilot read in those eyes that it hadn’t exactly been all fun.
Caroline said the name of a rather gorgeous Sparrow who had hit the headlines worldwide, in an effort to lighten the sudden dark mood of the Russian girl.
“Pah!” Svetlana said her grin and twinkle returning. “She got a B as her final grade and you guys caught her.”
“And you?”
“You never caught me.” She said simply in reply as she frowned in the mirror at the G-suit she wore.
“Hardly a Viv Westwood.” She mused to herself, and then paused to look back over her shoulder. “And I passed with honours.” She said, winking wickedly.
“Anyway, I love the Motherland but being pressed into service to be her whore was not on my to-do list when I was growing up…I mean the sex was fun, I liked that a lot, but I could do that in my own time. I wanted a real life, a career and a couple of million in the bank, and then I’d find Mr Right and become a fat happy Mummy churning out beautiful babies.”
“You still could.” Caroline said. “When this is all over, and we have peace again.”
Involuntarily Svetlana shivered.
“I am going back there, back to people who see me as nothing but bait on a hook.” The Russian shook her head as she recalled. “There was a girl I sometimes worked with, a real looker, when they felt the sapphic touch was appropriate for whichever man or woman they wanted to turn.” She paused. “They sent her off with a foreign diplomat without telling her he got his jollies hurting pretty things…the video footage they got of him doing that was the leverage to turn him.” again the involuntary shudder. “When I saw her again she wasn’t pretty anymore.” She shrugged and smiled weakly.
“That’s when I knew I had to get out, and if I couldn’t get out of the spying game then at least out of the Aviary…that is what they call the Sparrow’s department.”
Caroline thought she was listening to some film plot, but she realised she was being naïve; this sort of thing went on for real.
“So I took steps when I found out my recruiter had been moved to a different department, and was in a position to get me in there too.” It was all Svetlana was prepared to elaborate to the pilot. Not who the recruiter was nor how she had achieved the move from Mata Hari baiting honey pots in Russia to low profile Jemima Bond in the west.
“Well…I’ll be in Russia too, so will Patty so it is not as if you will be amongst strangers.”
Svetlana smiled in thanks.
“Ok, it is just me being girlie and realising…..” her voice tailed off to leave an awkward silence.
Caroline looked at her watch, as much to change the mood as anything.
“Whoops, we have to hustle now!” picking up velcro backed straps she stepped behind the Russian girl. “Okay then, let us get the rest of this rig on and get you strapped in and connected up.”
One hour later, and sealed in a life support capsule in the bowels of the stealth aircraft Svetlana’s heartbeat rose as the aircraft lined up on the runway of the airbase in Scotland, and the engine pitch rose to a howl. The machine lunged forward as brakes were released and she found herself breathing rapidly as the vibration ceased and they banked steeply. Alone in her capsule she had a nuclear weapon and various other ground attack, air-air missiles and the like as neighbours. If the aircraft got into trouble she was trapped there, the crew could eject but Svetlana did not even have a parachute. With only an iPhone for company she settled herself and let the strains of Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album distract her, after quickly skipping the first track, Funeral for a friend.
Ural Mountains, Russia: Same time
Admiral Petorim, Marshal Ortan and General of Aviation Sudukov received their summons to the premiers’ chamber hours after the disaster at the North Cape was known. There was no chance that the premier was not already aware of the full facts, but the hours ticked by without his demanding an explanation.
Of the three, Ortan felt the most confident, because after all he had taken no part in the planning of this attempted breakout, and none of his ground forces were involved. For the other two, it must have been something akin to waiting outside the headmaster’s office, knowing a painful punishment awaited them within, except of course that they may not survive the visit.
They had been made to wait a further twenty minutes in the anteroom, under the gaze of the premier’s guards before the double doors opened and an aide stood to one side to permit them to pass, following them in and closing the doors behind them.
The premier of the new Soviet Union sat at his desk, his face not only calm but with an amiable expression upon it. Beside his desk stood Elena Torneski, his KGB chief, a good enough looking woman in her late thirties who no one really knew much about, owing to being raised from obscurity by the premier to replace the ‘disappeared’ Peridenko.
The senior officers of the three services came to a halt and stood rigidly at attention, and the aide reached into his jacket, stepped quickly up behind them and fired once, allowing the body to fall before firing once more, shifting aim from its head to slightly left of the centre of its back. Torneski jumped each time the small calibre silenced pistol fired.
“I have decided, gentlemen, that where we went wrong was the lack of the proper motivation,” said the premier pleasantly. “You answered to him…and now you answer to me, in all things military.” He pressed a button on the desk and the doors opened for a squad, which rolled the dead Marshal into a body bag and carried it out. Marshal Ortan’s deputy was hurrying into the anteroom, summoned by the premier's aide and almost collided with his former boss. “General Tomokovsky…come join us!” called out the premier, and the soldier marched quickly in.
“Petorim, our submarines are not yet in the Atlantic, what are you going to do to make that happen?” The admiral stammered and kept looking down at the spot where the marshal had fallen.
“You have no reply for me Admiral, no contingency plan?” He studied the naval officer’s face for a few moments before turning to the airman. “General, you will focus the air forces efforts on Germany; it may be that the only way to win this war is to have the Channel ports in our hands by the time the next convoy arrives.” He then turned back to the admiral. “Our submarines are performing no useful function where they are. You therefore have two choices, scuttle them, give your sailors rifles and send them to Germany, or…blast your way through the North Cape…AND SINK THOSE DAMN CONVOYS!”
All semblance of calm had vanished; the premier’s face was purple with rage as he leant forward to scream the last words at Admiral Petorim.
He sat back in his chair, breathing heavily and it was a full minute before he could speak again.
“General Tomokovsky, Miss Torneski. You command our covert forces in the West and I want you to plan a mission targeting what is on this list.” The new commander of land forces reached over and took the proffered sheet of paper, glancing down the list he answered.
“Sir, we already have plans, updated daily should it be necessary to eliminate some of these, as I am sure the KGB has also. It is simply that the missions are not survivable.”
“General, do I look like a ‘people person’ to you?”
“Miss Torneski, General…you will action those missions tonight. I care nothing for the lives of your men and women, but unless you want to witness your loved ones sharing the late marshal’s fate, in this ve
ry room, you will ensure success before this time next week. I am sure the air force and navy will extend you every assistance that you may require, as that threat includes their families also.”
He looked them both over before opening a file on his desk and commencing to read the contents.
“One week, not a day more and not a single excuse,” he said without looking up, and they filed from the room.
North of Magdeburg, Germany: 2212hrs, same day
Lt Col Reed watched the last rifle company section cross the bridge, leaving only radio operators in abandoned company headquarter positions, a half dozen gun groups, Milan crews and snipers of course.
Smoke and HE were concealing the movement of the troops to prepared positions behind the canal, leaving the ‘island’ between the Mitterland Kanal and the river Elbe. Reed had spent several days arguing first with brigade and then with division to make this happen, he had been refused on both occasions. His argument was simple, if the bridge across the canal were dropped his troops would have to abandon their equipment and swim for it. If a landing, airborne or amphibious, got behind them then the battalion and its attached units were lost. Eventually he had gone to SACEUR, and put his case before General Allain who not only agreed entirely, but also sent strongly worded memos to both commanders of the subordinate headquarters. Reed got his way but got himself crossed off a couple of Christmas card lists in so doing.
There was nothing to suggest to the enemy that the trenches to the rear of the canal were anything but in-depth positions. However, with a little luck they would waste a lot of firepower on the old positions.
The E-3 Sentries had reported movement forty miles to the enemies rear and predicted it was the OMUs moving up, Operational Manoeuvre Units that would dash in to take advantage of any break-through in NATOs lines.
There was no counter-battery fire coming from the east either, so they were preserving their stocks for an imminent softening up thought Reed as he turned and made his way back to the battalion CP. His two companies of Coldstreamers were back up to full strength, as was the 82nd. The Hussars had a full complement of tanks but one troop of the state of the art Challenger IIs had been withdrawn, and replaced with a troop of Mk 11 Chieftains, mothballed equipment now brought back into service.
