by James Rosone
General Norman from STRATCOM announced, “I second that recommendation. We certainly have our justification, sir.”
There was a short pause as the President talked briefly with General Markus. Finally, Sachs looked back to General Tibbets. “I agree, General,” he confirmed. “It’s time to hit back.”
Tibbets nodded. “Has General Markus advised you on some possible scenarios? Do you have a particular one you’d like to discuss?”
At this point, Tibbets had flipped open his launch book, which had a multitude of different attack options. He thumbed his way over to the China tab, revealing the target package names that had been preselected.
“Right now, I’m leaning towards Red Diamond Five,” Sachs responded. “What are your thoughts?”
Tibbets moved his finger down the page until he found the target package the President had suggested. Red Diamond Five was an attack on PLA Rocket Force silos, storage and launch facilities, command-and-control bunkers, and PLA group headquarters throughout the country.
Yeah, this should neutralize them from launching any further nuclear attacks on us, Tibbets thought.
General Tibbets looked back up at Sachs. “I concur, Mr. President. This is a well-measured response. It’ll hit them hard and send the right message.” He paused for a second before he added, “Mr. President, I highly recommend that you try to get through to the Russian president and inform him of what we’re about to do. I don’t want them to think this attack may be directed at them. Tell them we are retaliating against the Chinese attack on our soil, and although we don’t want to involve them in this issue, if they attempt to intercede or prevent us from striking back, we will not hesitate to attack them as well.”
“That’s a good call, General,” President Sachs answered. “Yes. I’ll place a call to him immediately. If that bastard tries to intervene, we’ll unleash our missiles on them. Let’s go ahead and get the ball rolling, Tibbets. I want to know when our response is on the way.” Then Sachs resumed his conversation with some of the others in the room with him.
Just as Tibbets was about to execute the President’s directive, Sachs added, “Oh and General, I want you to hit that dam. We warned them what would happen if they attacked us. They detonated a nuke on US soil and took out Guam. I want the Three Gorges Dam included in our response.”
*******
Guam
Andersen Air Force Base
Major Jillian Heinkel of the 11th Bomb Squadron grabbed for her flight helmet as she followed her copilot out the door of the building. As she burst through the door and onto the parking ramp of the flight line, she heard the air raid klaxons wailing. Their high-pitched scream swelled before fading out and then repeating the sequence.
Running towards her B-52H bomber, Heinkel saw that the ground crew was already pulling the engine covers off and removing the chocks from the wheels. Another airman rolled out the aircraft generation equipment and hooked it up to the plane, ready to give the engines the jolt of electricity they needed until the aircraft was able to provide its own power.
As Major Heinkel raced to her baby, the sudden roar of a bomber racing down the runway at full power only caused her to run harder. The two bombers that had been strip alert were already getting themselves airborne. She needed to hurry.
When she reached the ladder that would allow her to climb into the bomber, she had to wait a moment for her copilot, who had beat her to the aircraft, to finish getting in. Heinkel looked back. Behind her, the rest of the flight crew was huffing and puffing from the mad dash they had just made from the ready room.
Once she had climbed aboard the bomber, Major Heinkel raced up the second flight of steps to get to the flight deck. She practically jumped into her seat. Her copilot was already going through his reduced checklist to get them ready. Heinkel had just fastened her helmet on and attached it to the aircraft’s coms and life support system when she heard the first radio call.
“All Jiggs elements, this is not a drill! I say again, this is not a drill,” said the commanding voice of her squadron leader. “The command post is tracking multiple ballistic missiles inbound. All Jiggs elements are to get airborne and head to your rally points and await further orders.”
As Heinkel began flipping some power switches and prepared to start the main engines, her copilot asked, “What the hell is going on, Major? Missiles inbound?” His voice cracked and trembled with fear.
Without turning to look at the junior officer, Heinkel pushed the start button to activate her engines. “Hey, snap out of it,” she quipped. “Just do your job, and let’s get this bird airborne. We can talk about it once we’re off the ground. Right now, I need you focused on the task at hand, got it?” She knew she didn’t have time to get distracted or hold his hand through this crisis.
Moments later, the engines fired up. She revved them up a bit and then released the parking brakes, allowing them to start rolling down the parking ramp.
Major Heinkel depressed the talk button on her coms system. “This is Big Bella. We’re heading down taxiway One Alpha. Permission for immediate takeoff?”
A moment later, her radio crackled. “Tower to Big Bella. Permission granted. Hurry up. You don’t have much time until impact,” the voice said. Heinkel could hear the fear in the man’s voice even over the radio. She knew they were scared because whatever was headed their way, they weren’t going to be able to hide from it. At least she stood a chance of getting out of Dodge.
Heinkel turned the lumbering aircraft hard as she moved off the taxiway and onto the runway. She felt as though the plane almost tipped over to one side, and she knew the wing wheel was probably straining severely from the maneuver she had just done.
“Major! I’m showing a missile impact in less than sixty seconds!” called out the radar control officer below the flight deck.
Heinkel pushed the engine throttle all the way forward as she gave the engines as much power as she possibly could. Instantly, the massive bomber lurched forward as it sped down the runway, breaking every procedure in the book on how to take off without damaging the aircraft or its engines. Right now, she was just hoping and praying they had enough time to get off the runway before that missile hit. She also prayed it wasn’t a nuclear missile headed their direction, or none of this would matter—they’d be vaporized before they got far enough away.
Big Bella raced down the runway—palm trees and hangars whipping past her window with blinding speed. She felt the wings start to lift as her speed continued to climb. She pulled back on the wheel and felt the bomber’s nose start to lift up. It took a second or two more before she felt the plane leave the runway and begin to claw its way into the sky.
The landscape below her began to change as their bomber left the island and made it over the water. Her altimeter read five hundred feet and still climbing.
“Brace for impact!” shouted the radar operator moments later.
As Major Heinkel continued to will her aircraft further away from Andersen Air Force Base, everything suddenly whited out. What had moments before been a bright blue sky with a few clouds interspersed was suddenly bright as the sun. In that instant, Jillian Heinkel knew she was dead. They hadn’t made it far enough outside the blast wave.
Fractions of a second later, Big Bella was violently tossed through the air and then ripped apart by the force of the nuclear detonation.
*******
Johnston Atoll
Colonel Peng watched the horizon as he listened to 690 AM on the radio, a news talk station broadcasting out of Hawaii. Peng smiled when he heard the emergency alert noise, which reminded him of a fax signal, interrupted the broadcast.
“This is the emergency alert broadcasting system. This is not a test. All residents of the Hawaiian Islands are advised that a ballistic missile has been detected targeting the island chain. Again, this is not a test. Please seek immediate shelter and stay away from any glass windows. This has been a message from the emergency alert broadcasting system.”
Peng felt a feeling of glee considering the fear and panic that must be spreading across the islands. The people of Hawaii had nowhere to go and no way of avoiding the nuclear fire that was about to rain down on them.
“The missile to our south should be impacting shortly,” announced a young captain to the officers who had gathered around him.
They all looked to the south, waiting with bated breath for the flash that would indicate a successful detonation. They were more than eight hundred miles away, so the flash wouldn’t blind them, and the EMP wouldn’t reach them. The seconds ticked by anxiously. Then they saw a bright flash off in the horizon, like a prolonged lightning strike.
“I wish we could see the mushroom cloud,” commented one of the officers.
Turning to look at the soldier manning the computer terminal, Peng asked, “What about the other missile, the one north of Hawaii?”
The man had a perplexed look on his face. “Sir, it appears that all but one of the warheads were intercepted.”
Grunting at the info, Peng asked, “Do we know which one hit?”
The soldier nodded. “It looks like the EMP got through, but the others didn’t.”
Peng let out a sigh of relief. He knew the EMP would help them in their own attack. However, he had hoped one of the nukes would have nailed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. They really needed to take out those remaining carriers that were in port for repairs.
Sensing the other officers staring at him, waiting for his orders, Peng exclaimed, “Prepare our missiles to launch. The Americans may have taken a lot of our warheads out, but I’d wager they expended a lot of their missile interceptors to do it. That means more of our own missiles should have a better chance of getting through. I want our missiles ready to start firing in the next five minutes.”
With his orders issued, the Chinese prepared to land their second blow against the American fleet and naval facilities on Hawaii.
*******
Ojos Negros, Mexico
The air in the bunker felt warm and stifling as sweat ran down the side of General Han Lei’s face. He was nervous—more nervous than at any other time in his military career. His life trajectory rode on what would happen today.
As he rubbed his hands together, General Han could feel the sweat forming on them. He listened to the various news feeds and other data being supplied to them from around the world, but suddenly realized his right leg had started bouncing up and down under the table due to nerves. He surveyed the other faces of the 38th PLA Army Group around him—they all looked just as nervous—unsure if they were about to die in the next thirty minutes or if their ruse was really going to work.
When they had fired off their EMP missiles at California and Texas, they had known the Americans would retaliate. What they didn’t know was whether the Americans would try and hit them with their own EMP weapons or if they would attempt to burn them all to ash in a nuclear fireball.
For more than a week, they had been carefully moving most of their vehicles to a series of large abandoned warehouses in the city of Ojos Negros, some 97 miles south of the California border, and the town of Chihuahua, 235 miles south of El Paso, Texas. They were keeping their army close to where they had previously established a military encampment, hoping the Americans wouldn’t notice they’d moved their troops and equipment a few days before the EMP attack.
Meanwhile, they had worked with the Mexican government and army to build up massive military encampments around Guadalupe, north of the port city of Ensenada, and Galeana, near the Texas border, to make it appear like they were gearing up to attack from those two points. The Chinese and Mexicans had spent the last three weeks making those encampments appear to be the main staging areas for the 38th and 65th PLA Army Groups. Hundreds of radio transmissions were generated daily from the camps, along with other fake communications. They had even moved mock tanks and artillery by collaborating with news outlets and TV and movie producers to incorporate special effects and launch a coordinated disinformation campaign.
Meanwhile, both army groups had been dispersed into a couple of other cities further away. General Han had chosen to hunker down with the 38th Army Group in a series of caves and bunkers while their vehicles were hidden in specially designed warehouses that would protect them from the effects of the EMP.
“I sure hope the Americans don’t find us,” one of the officers commented nervously.
Turning to look at his men, General Han puffed his chest out a bit as he spoke, attempting to project more confidence than he currently felt. “We have done all we can. Our fate has already been decided. We will either live and fight, or we will die today. If the Americans do attack and we survive, I’m going to need you to rally your men quickly to retrieve our equipment and get it ready to move. Our orders are to invade America in forty-eight hours.”
*******
California-Mexico Border
Naval Outlying Landing Field, Imperial Beach
Corporal Isaacs of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit looked at the control panel of the V-22 Osprey. He held his breath as he depressed the power button. A second later, he was rewarded by a series of buttons lighting up and the whirring sound of the generator starting the engine.
Looking out the cockpit, he flashed a quick thumbs-up and smiled to the others outside. After swapping out a circuit board that wasn’t as hardened as the manufacturer had led the Marines to believe, they were back in business.
Shortly after the Chinese had detonated the EMP, the mechanics that were responsible for the maintenance of the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 163 swiftly ran through a systems check of the squadron’s V-22 Ospreys. They soon discovered that a few control boards responsible for providing the engines and the rest of the aircraft with power had shorted out. Fortunately for them, this was a part that often had problems, so their supply section kept a lot of them on hand. They were doubly lucky in that the supply building had been hardened against EMPs back during the Cold War era.
As the aircraft mechanics went to work getting the squadron’s helicopters operational again, the motor pool mechanics likewise did their best to prepare the 3/5 Marines’ LAVs, AAVs, and JLTVs for combat. No one knew for sure when the Chinese would attack, but after they had hit the area with an EMP, it was only a matter of when, not if.
*******
Staff Sergeant Mack saw Lance Corporal Pyro shifting uncomfortably in his peripheral vision. “Staff Sergeant, you really think the Chinese are going to invade soon?” Pyro asked.
Mack lifted his head to look at his troop more carefully before he spat a stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “Does it matter, Pyro?” he asked dismissively. “I’d rather be shooting and killing Chinese than stuck pulling garrison duty in LA or dealing with those CDF militia types.”
“My friend that works over at headquarters told me the Chinese nuked one of our carrier strike groups—took the Reagan right out.”
Staff Sergeant Mack ignored the comment. He’d spotted movement over to the side and had pulled his field glasses back up to his eyes.
“What do you see?” Pyro asked nervously.
“Three o’clock, about twenty meters past the fence—I think I spotted a soldier.”
Looking through the more advanced spotter scope, Pyro scanned the dilapidated buildings, alleyways, and homes that were near the border wall. “Got it,” he confirmed. “You’re right. It looks like a soldier. He’s wearing some kind of body armor. You want me to send up the drone?”
“No. They’ll hear it. But I’m calling this in,” Mack said. Then he reached down to hit the talk button on his radio.
“Loki Six, this is Loki One Six. We’ve got movement along the border. Sector Three Delta. How copy?”
A few seconds went by before they got a reply.
“One Six, this is Loki Six. Copy that. Movement in sector Three Delta. What do you have for us?”
“Tell them I now see six soldiers,” Pyro called out as he continued to look thr
ough his spotter scope. “It looks like two of them are setting up some optics on the roof of that building just to the left of the blue liquor store.”
Mack passed on the message before he asked, “Do you want us to attack these guys or continue to observe and report?” Truthfully, Sergeant Mack hoped they’d be given permission to engage them. He didn’t like the idea of another sniper team setting up a position a few hundred meters away from him. The slightest movement on their part could result in a bullet.
A minute went by this time before they got a reply.
“One-Six, you’re cleared to engage. Report back when you’ve neutralized the hostiles.”
Kicking Pyro’s foot slightly, Mack whispered, “We’re cleared to attack. Let’s figure out where they’re all at before we take out that team on the roof. I don’t want to start shooting and suddenly find out there’s a damn platoon of them nearby, and we just didn’t see them.”
Lance Corporal Pyro nodded and went back to looking for enemy soldiers in his scope. While Pyro was busy, Mack decided to crawl out of his position and make sure the rest of his squad knew what was going on.
When Sergeant Mack found their resident sharpshooter, Private First Class Tapper, he smiled. “Tapper, just the man I was looking for,” Mack remarked. “I want you to set up your long gun next to Pyro. If we can, I’d like to try and take these guys out with our long guns so we can avoid attracting more attention than necessary.”
Tapper nodded and dutifully went to work. Soon, they were both sitting next to Lance Corporal Pyro, scanning for additional targets. Unexpectedly, a single shot rang out. None of Mack’s soldiers took their eyes off the targets in front of them, but they heard the radio squawk. The friendly sniper team further down the line and to their left was engaging a target.