by Brian Parker
Now what were they supposed to do?
*****
20 March 2020
Pentagon, Washington, DC
Two stories underground, the Joint Operations Center, known in the Pentagon as the JOC, could withstand direct hits from even the largest conventional bombs. Service members from every branch and career civilians, most of whom were former military, manned it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, keeping a watchful eye on US military operations around the world.
Normally, at this time of night, the JOC was abuzz with activity as the CENTCOM Desk managed ongoing operations in Iraq eight hours ahead of Washington, or in Afghanistan, which was nine hours and thirty minutes ahead. The Pacific Desk got a little play each time the North Koreans wanted attention and even the African and European Desks had enough going on to occupy their time, especially with the recent Russian activity in the Crimea.
James Branson, the Department of Defense civilian who’d been lucky enough to score a full time position as a GS-12 working the North American desk overnight, stared at his terminal in shock. In three years, he’d never really had any emergencies. Sure, he’d had to keep a finger on the pulse of a few riots here and there and collect data on National Guard humanitarian relief missions, but military operations didn’t take place within the continental United States.
The reports coming in from Florida were alarming. It had to be a hoax of some kind, not a real report. He glanced furtively toward his friend, Aletia, who managed the South American desk. She was just as lucky as he was to have a high-paying job with very little work.
“Hey, are you seeing anything strange coming out of South America—or even Central America?” James asked. Central America, while firmly in his portfolio, was one of those blurry areas where information could flow up different reporting chains to either desk.
“Hmm,” she replied, tapping a few keys to refresh her screen. “No. I don’t see anything. Why?”
“I don’t know. I just got a report from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. Something about multiple explosions. They’re reporting hundreds of people dead. That can’t be right though.”
Aletia tapped a few more keys before answering. “It is spring break. If there was a major terrorist attack at a venue, then it’s possible. I think you should report it.”
His heart skipped a beat. “Are you… Are you sure? Colonel Carpenter is an ass. Do you remember when he ridiculed John for weeks after the Canberra incident?”
The JOC watch commander, Colonel Mark Carpenter was a notorious hothead who rode his subordinates hard, took credit for their successes and abandoned them when they failed. He was the epitome of what the DoD called a toxic leader, but hid it well enough throughout his career to get promoted and assigned to increasingly rewarding positions.
The incident in question had been an unannounced fireworks display in the Australian capital city of Canberra. The supporters of one of the city’s rugby teams had financed and purchased the pyrotechnics themselves in celebration of their team winning the Canberra Raiders Cup. John Weeks, one of the Pacific Desk analysts, made the announcement that the Australians were under attack. Carpenter mocked him for weeks afterwards.
James wasn’t sure if he was prepared for that kind of scrutiny—or bullying.
“Yes, I’m sure, Jimmy,” she responded, seemingly ignoring his mention of the JOC watch commander. “It’s our job to bring up credible threats to national security and let the brass make the decision about what to do.”
“You’re right,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. Aletia was always right. She’d been in the JOC for six years—almost double the time James had worked there.
He took a deep breath and raised his hand. “Excuse me, sir?”
FOUR
21 March 2020
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Gabriel Murdock stared in disbelief at the small television screen mounted on the wall of the bus station. Several terrorist organizations had claimed responsibility for the attack on the city two nights ago, but according to both the Department of Defense and the FBI none of the claims had panned out as credible.
The pundits were discussing whether aliens had attacked the United States. They weren’t simply entertaining an errant crackpot with wild hair, they were legitimately discussing the merits of whether an alien race had invaded the globe.
Grainy camera footage from the concert showed the lights appearing over the ocean and flying rapidly toward the beach, where they opened fire, killing thousands across the city. The footage was raw and uncut, reminding him of a shitty horror movie where the director uses the technique to disorient the viewer and cause fear.
While smoke and mirrors of the movies didn’t bother him, the video footage did. He had to look away or risk becoming violently ill, like he did when he thought about the details of Boston.
Gabe spent Thursday night and half of yesterday at Holy Cross Hospital before being subjected to eight hours of questioning by federal agents about what he’d seen at the beach. There had been few survivors and any information he could provide was carefully recorded, cross-referenced and fact-checked.
In truth, he had little to give them. He hit his head after the first explosions and then woke up to Olivia telling him that the “grey men” were killing survivors. The investigators—who never bothered to tell him which agency they were from—played the sounds of people talking in German and asked if that’s what he’d heard. It sent chills down his spine. He hadn’t put the two together at the time, but the grey men were speaking German. He also told them about the uniforms and the occasional coalscuttle helmet that he’d seen the soldiers wearing.
Whoever—or whatever—attacked the Florida coast had certainly gone through a lot of effort to disguise their identity. Everything pointed to an excellent duplication of the German army from the 1940s, which was ludicrous in its own right since the Allies had kicked the Nazis’ ass all the way across Europe and then hung the worst of them after the Nuremberg trials.
Gabe grinned as he thought of his grandfather, a tough old WWII veteran who volunteered at the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City until the day he died of a heart attack on the job. He gave hourly tours and a question that always seemed to come up was if he had any regrets. His grandfather, true to form, would answer, “My only regret is that they made me stop killing goddamned Germans once the war was over.”
He wondered what the old man would say about these invaders. His smile faded.
In all his studies and the military training he’d gotten, he hadn’t heard of anything like what he saw on that beach. Those flying machines looked an awful lot like every UFO drawn in those bad science fiction pulp magazines from when his dad was a kid. And their accuracy…that was insane. They hit every high rise building in the city, and a lot of other infrastructure like police and fire stations, the airport, even the grocery stores and gas stations.
Gabe wondered why they left the bus station intact, but as he thought about it, leaving it operational was probably part of their plot to spread terror. They’d planned their attack perfectly, coinciding with the annual spring break pilgrimage of college students to maximize the damage. It was both sick and brilliant. Fort Lauderdale attracted students from all over the continental United States, virtually ensuring that people everywhere were affected and not just a small region. Those who weren’t killed would be shipped out on buses and tell others what they’d seen.
The speaker overhead chimed, causing him to glance at the arrivals and departure board. His bus to Atlanta was here, so it was time to go. He picked up the nylon bag of spare clothes the Red Cross gave him when he left the hospital and walked over to the group of disheveled passengers queueing for their buses. Most of them seemed to be survivors, like him, headed off to tell their friends and families about the terror from the sea.
He took his seat on the bus and stared vacantly at the empty seat beside him until another college-aged person sat down. Todd Kilgo
re should have been sitting beside him. They should both be returning to Missouri State with their batteries recharged, full of stories of debauchery that they could recall together over beers years from now.
Instead, Gabe was returning alone, without knowing whether Todd was truly dead or alive. He was up near the stage the last time Gabe saw him, so the overwhelming odds were that he was dead, if not from the initial attack, then from the subsequent ground assault where the grey men murdered anyone left alive after the explosions.
Their hotel had burnt to the ground and his friend’s cell phone no longer rang, it just went straight to voicemail. Until the government could sort through the tens of thousands of bodies in Fort Lauderdale, there was no trace of Kilgore.
The bus merged onto the Florida Turnpike and Gabe sighed heavily before resting his head against the oversized window. He had to get his head straight. In two months he’d be an infantry officer in the US Army and then he’d get the opportunity to get his revenge on whoever did this.
*****
21 March 2020
Pentagon, Washington, DC
James Branson stretched at his workstation. They were nearing the end of the night shift and his daytime counterpart should arrive any minute. Major Johansen was notorious for not showing up until the last minute before anyone would notice. He’d stroll in like he’d been in the office for fifteen minutes, listen to the JOC shift changeover brief and then get the North America-specific brief from James.
Johansen’s nonchalant attitude combined with James’ timidity created poor products from the North American desk at a time when they needed to be expressive and provide helpful information. And Colonel Carpenter had noticed.
“Barnes! Where’s Major Johansen? Shift change is in ten minutes.”
“I—I don’t know, sir,” James replied. “He’s normally here.”
“Bullshit. Stop covering for him,” Carpenter growled. “This is one of the most important events to ever happen on US soil, if not the most important. I can’t have a North American desk lead that doesn’t give a shit about anything except their paycheck.”
The colonel’s eyes roved across the room. He was visibly agitated and looking for a target to lash out at. “Hollinsworth!”
“Yes, sir?” a Navy commander said.
“Get your ass over to the North American desk. You’re now the daytime desk officer.”
“Sir, I’m attached from the CNO’s office for the express purpose of—”
“Drop it, son,” the colonel cut him off. “This is the number one thing on our plate. The Pacific can wait.”
James cringed in anticipation of Hollinsworth pushing back against Colonel Carpenter. The JOC watch commander was notorious for the public dressing downs he gave subordinates who screwed up, and Hollinsworth was definitely on the verge of screwing up.
The Navy man seemed to consider his options for a moment and then picked up his notebook. He skirted behind the chairs in the stadium-style JOC until he made it to the aisle and then walked quickly to where James sat at the North American desk.
“Bryan Hollinsworth,” he said with an easy smile and outstretched hand.
“James Branson, sir.”
“You don’t need to call me sir, James. I’m doing the same job as you. Please, call me Bryan.”
He ducked his head. James already liked him better than Johansen, who’d insisted on being addressed as either sir or Major Johansen. Small dick complex, James thought with an internal guffaw.
“So, what have we got, James?” Commander Hollinsworth asked. “The attack down in Florida has got everyone scrambling for answers. What have you found out?”
James swallowed hard before replying. “We put out feelers to all the normal agencies, FBI, NSA, DHS, State, CIA… We got nothing. Nobody knows where these people came from.”
He paused as Bryan frowned. “So we don’t have any leads? No satellite imagery of where they came from? Airport radar? Sea floor sonar stations? Shell casing analysis from the expended ammo on the beach? Anything at all?”
“No. They attacked when there wasn’t a satellite overhead, the airport radar didn’t pick them up until they were ten miles away, so we know they came from the ocean side. The sonar didn’t pick up anything more dangerous than a large pod of whales.” James typed into his email’s search box. “And the shell casings came back as two types: either vintage World War Two zinc-coated mild steel, or as a square casing that nobody’s ever seen it before.”
“WWII?” Bryan asked, pronouncing the “W’s” individually. “Who’d be crazy enough to use that old stuff? I can’t believe it still worked.”
James shrugged. He didn’t know if ammunition had a shelf life—another question to ask his contacts at the Florida State Police. “I did get an odd email from a military historian at the US Army Center for Military History. She said she may have an answer as to who attacked us.”
“What would a historian know about events four days ago?” Bryan scoffed.
“Not sure. I was going to run it by Major Johansen when he finally got in this morning.”
“Well, he’s out of a job and I’m it. What does this guy want?”
“Girl.”
“What?”
“The historian is a female.” He scanned his email inbox for a moment until he found her note.
“See, here it is,” James said, tapping his screen. “Major Gloria Adams. She says that after the war, we were convinced that the Nazis were hiding in Antarctica and launched an expedition to root them out, even nuked the continent. Whole thing was covered up as an experiment to test cold weather gear.”
“Pretty thin cover up,” Bryan replied. “How did they justify launching nukes?”
“I don’t know,” James admitted. “She doesn’t go into that kind of detail in her email and says that things quickly get into the classified realm that she can’t discuss in an unclassified email.”
“Any port in a storm, eh?” Bryan mumbled. “Okay, let’s call her up. Did she give you her SIPR email?”
James searched the historian’s signature block. There wasn’t an email address for the secret SIPR network, but there was a phone number for her.
He pointed at the number and Bryan picked up the green-stickered, unclassified phone. After a few minutes of talking to someone on the other end he hung up the phone and frowned.
“What is it?”
“The info can’t be passed over unclassified phones and it won’t even meet the criteria for the red box,” Bryan stated, using the JOC slang for the secret computer network.
They had three different classifications of systems in the JOC: the green unclassified network, the red secret network and the purple coalition network. There were other systems that required higher classifications, but James hadn’t seen any of them in use outside of the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“So, what’s that mean?”
“She’s going to come over here from Fort McNair to discuss it with us,” Commander Hollinsworth replied. “In the meantime, she told us to read up on Operation Highjump.”
“Highjump?”
“Yeah,” he answered, the frown deepening into a scowl. “More specifically, she said to read the conspiracy theories behind the operation, not the official histories.”
“Conspiracy theories?” James asked skeptically. “Like the tinfoil hat-wearing, 9/11 was an inside job, kind of conspiracy theories?”
“I guess so. Do a search for it real quick before the shift changeover brief.”
James did as he was asked and the two of them read the first website that came up as a hit.
“Whoa…” Bryan muttered.
“Hey, James,” Major Johansen stated, ambling up to the North American desk. “Ready for the brief?” He paused, then looked at his desk area where Bryan sat. “What’s up, buddy? You’re in my seat.”
“Uh, sir?” James looked to the commander for guidance.
Bryan nodded and stood up,
saying, “Major, I’ve got some bad news for you.”
“Johansen!” Colonel Carpenter shouted upon seeing the major. “You’re fired. Get out of my operations center.”
FIVE
24 December 1946
4 miles off the coast of Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica
“Sir, the Western Task Force reports that they’ve reached the Amundsen Sea and are preparing their landing craft to put soldiers onto the ice.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Rear Admiral Cruzen replied and took another sip of coffee from the mug on the table in front of him. Perry Como’s record Merry Christmas Music, released just before the task force embarked, played softly in the background of his cabin. It helped to lighten the admiral’s mood, pretending the permeating cold was part of the holiday ambience and not an environmental factor that the diesel heaters couldn’t overcome.
“What’s the latest report from Dufek?” he asked his intelligence officer.
“The Eastern Task Force checked in this morning, bouncing their radio signal off the Mount Olympus. They are three hundred and fifty nautical miles from their initial staging point off Prydz Bay.”
“Are they still making thirty knots?”
The commander checked his notes. “Yes, sir. They anticipate making the bay by this evening, tomorrow morning at the latest.”
Cruzen did the math in his head and turned to his operations officer. “If they’re three hundred and fifty miles out, they should be ten hours from their destination. I want Captain Dufek scouting that ice shelf first thing in the morning.”
Commander Jenkins cleared his throat. “Sir, tomorrow is Christmas. Do you want the men to launch the operation?”
“Did I stutter, Chris? As long as the weather holds, I want operations to commence in the east no later than tomorrow morning. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll send the order immediately.”
“Good.” The admiral’s face softened and he gestured toward the record player. “Look, I understand that it’s Christmas. The sooner we get this mission over, the sooner everyone can go back to their families.”