by Gene Skellig
Amy looked to the west and saw the wreckage of a commuter aircraft stuck in the mud out on Spanish Banks. She felt the wind on her face and estimated that a westerly wind was blowing ten to twelve knots. The air felt as fresh and clean as the last time she had taken Janie-Lee sailing, about a month before. Thinking of that reminded Amy of something.
She led John and Janie-Lee to the garage-door at the northwest end of the building. The massive steel door was intact. John helped her turn a large wheel, rolling the sturdy door aside on its tracks. Inside, there was a large space that served as a repair shop for the Sailing center’s membership.
Cut off from the rest of the building by an internal concrete wall, the “Boat Bay” had been protected from the blast.
The messy appearance of masts and hulls lying around in pieces was just as Amy remembered from once hanging around and talking to an old dentist, Ted, as he worked on his cedar-hulled canoe. The canoe was broken into kindling now; a heavy sail-locker had toppled over onto it. But a few other hulls appeared intact.
They chose Queen of the Sea. The name made them laugh. The tiny sailboat was just large enough for four people, definitely not suited to the open ocean.
The small boat was clearly in good repair, with her bright green hull looking recently painted. It took them a while, but they soon figured out which of the masts fit the Queen. Once they got her onto a long two-wheeled boat dolly and pulled her outside, they had little difficulty erecting the mast. After finding the kick-up rudder and a sail bag with “Queen of the Sea” stitched on to it, John and Amy threaded the mainsheet up the mast to rig the mainsail, followed by the simple Jib.
After finding some life jackets in a storage locker, and throwing in the sack with the food and bottled water from the BDC, they eased the Queen down the ramp into the water. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon.
After fumbling around a bit trying to get the centerboard to swing down into place once they were afloat, she soon had the Queen moving along at a brisk fifteen knots. The winds were perfect for a cross-wind tack, cutting across the open waters of the Strait of Georgia. They were very cold six hours later when they reached Qualicum Beach. It had been was a rough ride.
They walked into town just as evening turned to night.The town was intact, and the street lights were on, but there was no road traffic or noise. There was trash blowing around on the streets, and no businesses were open.
John was coughing badly and was very weak by the time they reached the Arnott’s condo. Amy and Janie-Lee were also very tired but Amy felt a rush of hope and relief when she saw activity inside her parents’ main-floor condo. The hairless, zombie-like ghost of a man who let her inside bore only the slimmest resemblance to her father.
21
1720z
20 May: Day of NEW - NORAD
Major Rodney Stradins went out of his way to drive past the “Headingly Range” on his way to work, hoping to see some game in the open field near the 300-meter range. Looking north into the property he saw no activity in the firing pits. That was always a good sign at 0730 hours. With no such activity by this time, Rod knew that the Range would be inactive all day.
“Looks GOOOOD!” he said aloud to himself as he drove past the range. Rod was a hunter. His weapon of choice was a compound bow. As he turned towards the Base, he looked forward to returning in the late afternoon to hunt. He would take his time walking a km or so into the expansive property, staying near the tree line and moving quietly. Once far enough from the road he would select a gentle rise and find a patch of trees in which to set up his hide. He could sit for hours, listening to the sounds coming from the small critters in the forest, and watching the little struggles between birds, rodents, bugs and other life all around him. Then, when a rabbit or a mule deer wandered into the thirty yard or so range at which he was lethal with his bow, he would slowly draw back his binary-cam bow until he felt the wall of resistance and then ease back for that peak let-off he had mastered over his years of practice. He always enjoyed the strain in his biceps as he held off. He felt the rhythm of his own breathing and the small changes in the air currents playing out in the prairie grass around him as he waited for the perfect moment. And then WHAM! He would let loose his carbon-graphite arrow, almost feeling the impact his prey would experience as it was struck through the center of mass, becoming impaled as if by a bolt of lightning. Those were the moments he lived for, when he tested his mettle against the struggle for existence in nature.
Still thinking of his planned hunt, Major Stradins pulled into his parking spot on the golf-course side of the entrance to 1 Canadian Air Division Headquarters, which was also the HQ for the Canadian NORAD Region, CANR. After passing through security and entering the Canadian Air Operations Center, or CAOC, he glanced at the Wall of Knowledge. Everything looked routine.
Just two hours into his watch, however, Major Stradins realized that this watch was not going to be routine after all. His eyes were drawn to the flashing alert on one of the screens. Something was definitely going on. Major Stradins jotted down the time automatically, 1015hrs local – 1515 Zulu.
As the Intelligence Officer, or A2, prepared to brief the Battle Staff on the Air Force role in an incident taking place in Richmond, British Columbia, Major Stradins scanned his screens to ensure that he knew the disposition of CANR Air Assets.
For a moment he was unsure what the Twin Otter, “Vampire Five”, was doing up near Kugluktuk, but then recognized that the slowly moving icon was a “Ranger Re-supply” mission. The four-pack of CF135 Joint Strike Fighters and the air-tanker supporting them were still in Comox, on deployment from their home base in Alberta. Everything else was absolutely normal.
He then looked at the fish-tank display of the Canadian NORAD Region. The fish-tank was a three-dimension projection in the centre of the room which gave everybody a “God’s-eye view” of the continent. It was fed to CANR directly from Continental NORAD Region, in Colorado, through the newly installed “Strategic Information Management Operations Network”. The Americans had installed SIMON in all of their Command and Control facilities as part of a major “Net Centric Warfare” upgrade to all classified networks and command systems.
The Canadians now had SIMON as well, but preferred to rely on their existing equipment for Canadian-only operations.
As the A2 began, a new Icon appeared over Richmond, on the SIMON display, hovering like a dagger.
“There has been an incident in Joint Task Force Pacific’s Area of Operational Responsibility,” he began.
He was cut off by the Commander, Major-General Charnley, who had just entered the room and interrupted the briefing.
“Thank you, Alphie, I’ll give the short version,” said the Two-Star General, cutting off the A2. “Ladies and Gentlemen, an integrated RCMP - CF Task Force is being stood up in Vancouver in response to an emerging threat. Last night, an RCMP operation saw the arrest of twenty-seven members of a previously unknown Chinese gang. This uncovered intelligence indicating that hostile actions against Canada’s shipping and infrastructure may be imminent. The report, which the A2 will brief you on in more detail, is being investigated by this new Task Force under the code name OPERATION FINGER TRAP. The initial goal of FINGER TRAP is to determine if China is indeed involved. Admiral White has the Regional Command over at JTF Pacific. Full command stays with Canada Command and the Strategic Joint Staff at Star Top.
I think it needs to be stressed here and now that this is potentially an act of war. My intent is that we shall over-respond until we know otherwise.” The general went on to explain what he and Commander Continental Region NORAD, CONR, had agreed to in terms of NORAD assets and which Canadian air assets he would deploy. As both the Commander 1 Canadian Air Division and Commander CANR, General Charnley had all of Canada’s air assets potentially available to him.
In addition to sending four new CF135 Joint Strike Fighters to the area, he ordered follow-on fighters and A400M tankers along with maritime patrol air
craft from Canadian Forces Base Comox. He then ordered an increase in security at Canadian Air Force bases, and cancelled all leave. Major Stradins watched to see that all the squadrons had received and acknowledged their new orders via SIMON, and watched until their icons changed to “Unit Tasked”. While waiting, he noticed an unusual character momentarily appearing on one of the data pages hovering along the periphery of the SIMON display in the Fish Tank. He only saw it for an instant, but it looked like a “t” with a smaller “t” beside it. He did not recognize that it was the Chinese symbol for “Dragon”.
The NORAD Command Center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs was also abuzz with the intelligence report from Richmond, but the four-star general in command of NORAD and US NORTHCOM, General Adams, knew that the Canadian commander in Winnipeg would prosecute their incident exactly as any other NORAD Battle Commander would. General Adams had learned over the years that while the Canadian military did not have vast stockpiles of military armaments and was relatively puny in terms of available platforms and personnel, they made up for it by their excellent coordination, professionalism, and attention to detail. Nevertheless, Continental NORAD Region was also spun up to a higher readiness posture and an incident summary was being prepared for the Joint Chiefs and the White House. It would take some time for the report to work its way to the Executive Branch.
By 1625Z, additional information from JTF-P confirmed that Chinese involvement was probable. The RCMP had arrested two more Chinese nationals in the expanding network of OPERATION FINGER TRAP. The arrested men appeared to be members of the People’s Liberation Army “on leave” in Canada. The Task Force reported that the arrested Chinese personnel were refusing to talk. They would not even explain why they were in Canada, nor why each of them had large sums of cash and gold coins. The prisoners each had a cyanide-tooth which the RCMP had not discovered until one of the men activated his capsule and died.
The Estimated Time of Departure of the CP-140 maritime patrol aircraft which had been assigned to support FINGER TRAP was for a 1650Z launch from 19 Wing Comox, with an on-station time of 2030Z in the North Pacific. The CP140 was armed with four torpedoes, a full load of sonobuoys and twelve hours endurance. The mission was to sweep a large area of the North Pacific, recording all ships within the Canadian sector, with an emphasis on Chinese flagged vessels. Just as Major Stradins noticed the change of status of the DEMON 54 maritime patrol aircraft, indicating that it had launched on time. Then the entire Battle Staff was shocked into silence.
“SIMON Tech, confirm that this is a live feed!” General Charnley demanded with a sense of urgency and a higher pitch in his voice than Maj Stradins had ever heard before.
“Yes, Sir! This is real.”
“What the hell?” Major Stradins remarked, as he looked at the lines appearing along the perimeter of the fish-bowl projection provided by SIMON. “These are inbound missile tracks?” he asked, knowing the answer would be yes.
“There are 247 inbound tracks, all in excess of air-breathing speeds. Point-of-origin analysis confirms launches from Russian ICBM sites. Hold-on! Now it’s 495 tracks, and counting. These are confirmed missiles, Sir!”
“We’re getting the impact projections now, Sir.” The SIMON Tech reported, as everybody looked to see the dotted lines from the numerous missile icons that were approaching from three sides. A massive number of inbound missile tracks could be seen converging on targets throughout North America.
General Charnley was in a heated telephone conversation with his counterpart in Colorado Springs and the noise level in the CAOC was rising quickly when someone turned up the audio feed from US STRATCOM, at Offutt AFB, Nebraska.
“Attack Profiler indicates First Strike! They're going after our eyes and ears with the first 440 tracks... 560 tracks in a second wave are targeting our ICBM sites, C4IR, and military bases... Another 310 tracks in a third wave will strike population centers and critical infrastructure... Each of these tracks contains up to three MIRVs... Sir, this is consistent with the Russian First Strike Strategic Target List,” the Weapons-Effect technician in Nebraska reported.
For a good five seconds there was total silence in the CAOC. A First Strike nuclear attack from the Russian Federation was simply impossible to believe, but the SIMON system had several redundant algorithms which ensured that a computer error or war game could not result in a false alarm going undetected.
“Russia? Not the Chinese?” Stradins broke the silence.
“The indications of Chinese activity could have been some kind of deception operation meant to dislocate and confuse us,” advised the A2.
At the NORAD / US NORTHCOM Command Center, General Adams had exhausted any possibility that the inbound tracks were in error. He was forced to accept the reality of the situation when one of his Battle Staff interrupted him.
“Sir, we have a Video Teleconference link coming up with General Crossman at USSTRATCOM. The VTL will include all of the Joint Chiefs and the Executive Branch, and all ten Unified Commands. You need to be in the CP right now, Sir.”
“On my way, Colonel. General Peters, you have control,” General Adams said as he and some key staff left for the small Command Post adjacent to the Command Center at Peterson AFB.
Seconds later, General Adams was in his CP. He saw most of his peers from the other Commands on the screens and noticed that the President had not yet arrived in the Situation Room. Most of the Joint Chiefs had already assembled in a secure VTC briefing room in the Pentagon.
“Where is SHARPSHOOTER?” asked General Crossman from his Command Center deep under Offutt AFB, in Nebraska.
“Sharpshooter” was the name the White House Communications Agency has assigned to President Parker. “Sharpshooter” had been selected because the president was a gun enthusiast. She had been very popular as the Governor of Montana, and had often been seen on TV with a rifle or shot-gun in her hands. The President loved the monicker. She believed it reinforced the fact that she was Commander–in-Chief. The nickname was widely known and used publicly, which bolstered her image as a Second Amendment loving, gun-toting pioneer.
“She’s being brought in to the conference, but it may be a few minutes, Sir. She’s having tea with the Australian PM.President Parker smiled at the young USMC Captain who normally sat arrow-straight with just a telephone and notepad on his small, 18th Century French desk in the corridor outside the Oval Office. The impeccably dressed Marine bent his neck down so that his mouth was a few inches from her ear.
“Madame President, SHOELACE.” Her expression dropped. By discretely speaking that brevity code-word into her ear, the Marine Captain had told her that she should drop whatever she was doing and move immediately to the Situation Room.
Sharpshooter had selected the code-word herself. It was meaningful and therefore memorable to her. As a child, she had often been annoyed when her mother would make such a big deal about her running around the ranch with her shoelaces untied. So it was easy to remember that “shoelace” meant that she had to get over to the Situation Room and be told what the big deal was. Usually it was just another intelligence briefing on some new risk that would never actually happen, but she understood the requirement to respond immediately to critical situations, as long as the procedure was not abused.
One minute later, as an aide explained to the Australian PM that the President had been called away on urgent business, Sharpshooter settled into her chair at the head of the table in the Situation Room. The military officers assembled in the room were subject-matter experts and stand-ins for the Commanders. The actual Joint Chiefs were usually ensconced in their offices at the Pentagon. By the number of officers that had been thrown together to assist her, Sharpshooter immediately understood that there actually was a big deal to deal with.
The military men were all looking nervously at the plasma screens arrayed along the side walls. As she looked at the screens herself, she understood why. “Is this an exercise?” she demanded, before the Air Force Co
lonel could even start the briefing. “Uhh, no Ma'am!” he stammered, then started the brief.
“Madame President, we have the Secretary of Defense and the Commanders or Deputies of all ten Combatant Commands on the various screens on the left wall,” he gestured un-necessarily. “As you can see, the right wall has the strategic plot and our global forces disposition, as per normal setup. On the central screen, General Crossman at US Strategic Command will take it from here.”
Turning her face to the camera that she knew was in the center of the far wall, President Parker looked into the camera lens, thereby looking each of the Combatant Commanders in the eye on the screens in their various briefing rooms.
“Proceed, General Crossman.”
Commander USSTRATCOM wore a lot of hats. He commanded US Army Forces Strategic Command, at Redstone Armory, Alabama; Fleet Forces Command, at Norfolk, Virginia; Marine Corp Forces US Strategic Command, at Quantico Virginia; and Air Force Space Command, at Vandenberg AFB, California. This gave General Crossman unified command over all forms of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, Global Missile Defense, Navy Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, Marine Corps Strategic Capabilities, Space and ICBM Forces, Ballistic Missile Warning, Global Positioning System, Defense Satellite Communications Systems, Space Shuttle Range Support, Satellite Tracking, Solar Flare Warnings, Defense Meteorological Support, and all Atlas II, Delta II, Titan II & IV launch vehicles. General Crossman spoke with authority.