by James Rosone
“I see, General,” said Tibbets. “For the time being, I want you to hold in place. Don’t launch your attack tonight. I’m going to talk to the President and propose something.” Tibbets paused before confirming, “You said his government had ordered him to turn the cities into fortresses?”
General Ridgeway depressed the talk button on the radio. “Yes, sir. That’s what he said. If you ask me, he didn’t seem pleased with it, but he’s a soldier, and my impression is he’ll do as he’s told.”
“So, if we can convince his government to order him to surrender, he’ll surrender. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I believe so.”
“OK. I think I have an idea then. I’m pretty sure I know how to bring an end to this conflict a lot sooner than I had first thought. Continue to stand by, General.”
With that, the conversation was ended, leaving Ridgeway wondering what Tibbets meant.
*******
Cheyenne Mountain
NORAD
General Tibbets took a seat at his desk and turned on his SECRET Tanberg. He dialed General Markus’s line, hoping he’d be at his desk.
A second later, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ image appeared on the screen, looking tired and haggard from the pressures of his job.
“Adrian, it’s Joe. We need to talk,” said Tibbets.
General Markus seemed somewhat deflated, as if he couldn’t handle the thought of one more problem. “What’s going on, Joe?” he asked tepidly.
“It’s Chicago. General Ridgeway made contact with the German division commander in the city. The Kraut told him he was under orders from his government not to surrender. He also said they’ve been under orders to turn every city and suburb into a meat grinder. When our forces had to withdraw, we made it a point to declare the cities open to spare the population from being caught in the crossfire. This division, however, has the opposite approach.”
General Markus shook his head in anger and frustration. “What are your suggestions, Joe? I mean, I can see about sending more infantry to your position, but we’re being pressed hard in the southwest right now.”
“We need to change the minds of the German high command and their Chancellor. They need to order him to surrender,” insisted General Tibbets.
“And how do you propose we do that?” asked General Markus skeptically. “We don’t exactly have a lot of resources in the European theater we can use.”
“See if the President can get them to order their surrender. If they don’t, then bomb one of their cities. If they are going turn Chicago into rubble, then let’s make sure they know we can turn one of their cities into rubble in exchange.”
General Markus coughed. The idea was hard to stomach.
“Our goal here is to save the lives of civilians and both our forces,” Tibbets insisted. “There is no reason why the German division shouldn’t surrender. They’re cut off, surrounded, and their back is against Lake Michigan. There is no hope of them breaking out. I don’t want to have to kill everyone in that division, but we aren’t being left with a lot of options here.”
General Markus sighed and made a sour face. “I’ll talk to the President about it. I…um, I’m not comfortable with this option. But I agree with you, we have tens of thousands of civilians at risk right now, and I’m not wanting to sacrifice them when there is an alternative that can save them.”
The call ended. General Tibbets hoped the Germans would see reason and not force the Americans to do something more drastic.
*******
Dyess Air Force Base
Standing inside the enclosed hangar, Colonel Webb of the 9th Bomb Squadron completed his final preflight checklist of America’s newest global strike weapon, the highly secretive B-21 Raider.
As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the B-21 was years away from production, let alone being combat-ready. Specially designed leaks of testing mishaps, budget problems, production delays and other selective details had been dropped in certain circles to help spread the misinformation. It had worked, too.
Webb had just signed off on the checklist when one of the bomb techs walked up to him.
“Sir, all weapons have been loaded and are ready for your final inspection,” announced the technical sergeant. He motioned for Webb to follow him over to the bomb bay doors, which were still open.
As they approached, Colonel Webb saw four other airmen standing at ease while they waited for him to review their work. He nodded toward them as he began his inspection. He knew they had really worked hard getting the bomber ready on such short notice.
Webb gently glided his hand over the nose of the two-thousand-pound bomb. He used a small light to check a few things inside the cavernous space that made up the bomb bay. The weapons had been loaded onto specially designed racks to allow the internal bay to hold as many of them as possible. When it came time to release them, they’d fall systematically, ensuring a clean release. He’d then turn his bomber around and head home.
Turning to look at the technical sergeant and his crew, Webb said, “Thank you, airmen, for your hard work. I’m impressed you got this bird ready on such short notice. I know you don’t know where I’m headed, and it’s probably best you don’t. This mission I’m about to embark upon will save the lives of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of Americans. Your country owes you a debt of gratitude. When I return, the beers at the Dyess Club are on me.”
When he finished his little speech, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a B-21 Raider challenge coin. It had an image of the bomber on one side, and his colonel’s eagle as the commander on the other. The command had just gotten them last week, and this was the first time he’d ever given them out. He made sure each of them got one, then made sure they understood the importance of not talking about this mission or their aircraft.
“Colonel, sir…we’re ready,” announced his co-pilot, who’d stuck his head out of the entrance to the bomber.
Colonel Webb nodded, then climbed inside. He made his way over to the cockpit, sat down, and did his best to make his body comfortable for the long flight.
Now that the ordnance inspection had been completed, his co-pilot, Major Hawkey, closed the bomb bay doors. He went through his own checklist, making sure all systems were ‘green’ before he turned to Webb and announced, “We’re ready for engine start.”
Webb fastened his helmet in place, making sure it was hooked up to their communications system and internal life support equipment. Then he called the control tower, letting them know they were ready for engine ignition and requesting permission to start the aircraft and leave the hangar.
Once permission was granted, the hangar doors were opened, revealing a pitch-black night sky. There was heavy cloud cover, which blotted out the moon and stars. Most of the base’s lights near the parking ramp and the runway were also off, to help further hide the fact that they were gearing up to take flight.
This was Colonel Webb’s third combat mission of this war. His first mission had been against the Russian capital of Moscow, and his second mission had been to deliver America’s nuclear response to China. Now, they were being used to carry out a terror mission. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but he knew the lives of a lot of civilians in Chicago depended on him succeeding.
Five minutes later, their plane, dubbed Black Death, was at the end of the runway, like a cocked pistol waiting to be fired. Having received their final authorization for takeoff, they powered up the engines and raced down the blackened runway. About three-quarters of the way down, Major Hawkey pulled back on the controls, and the Raider took to the skies.
He turned the aircraft to head toward the Atlantic. They would top off their fuel tanks a few hundred miles off the East Coast before they’d head toward their target. Once they delivered their message to Europe, they’d be met in the middle of the Atlantic by a second refueler to give them enough fuel to make it back to Dyess.
*******
Washington, D.C
.
White House
Situation Room
President Sachs watched the path of the B-21 on his computer monitor as it left US air space and began its long journey across the ocean. Even at Mach 1.3, it would still take them many hours to reach their target. Those long hours would give him more time to contemplate the situation. The more he thought about the orders he’d issued, the sicker to his stomach he felt.
When he’d spoken to the German Chancellor, he’d given him his warning and asked that calmer heads prevail. The Chancellor had insisted that his military advisors believed their division was still in good shape and could continue to fight on for many more weeks. He’d also insisted that they weren’t going to end their involvement in the UN peacekeeping mission or yield to Sachs’s demands.
With no other obvious choice, President Sachs had ordered the Air Force to do its best to level the German city of Hamburg. That was twelve hours ago. Now, they had a bomber on its way to do just that, and Sachs felt like he was going to throw up.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with several other advisors, had all agreed that while this was a deplorable act, it could save the lives of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands or more Americans in Chicago. If they were successful in getting the Germans to surrender their forces, it might even collapse the entire UN peacekeeping force in the north.
Still, Sachs couldn’t help but feel like he’d go down in history as a monster for ordering this strike. He looked down at the casualty projections in Hamburg and shook his head in anger and disgust that it had come down to this.
He was already having nightmares, knowing that he had ordered the death of millions of Chinese citizens when they blew up the Three Gorges Dam. The images he saw on the news and YouTube haunted him. The knowledge that his order had caused all that death and misery was almost more than he could bear.
However, when Sachs saw the images of the nuclear destruction in Arizona and Oklahoma, part of him just wanted to kill every person in China. He loathed these feelings of hate, regret, sorrow, and anger that put him on an emotional roller coaster. Sachs wanted nothing more than for this nightmare to end and get the new election going so he could hand these duties off to the next person, but he knew that couldn’t happen until the country was once again united.
I won’t be the last American president, he determined. That distinction will go to someone else.
As he returned his attention to the aerial image of the surrounding area of Hamburg, an idea popped into Sachs’s head. He turned to General Markus.
“General, I have a proposal,” he announced.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he waited for the President to share more information.
“If we go through with this attack, we may achieve our goal, but we are going to get crucified in the press and with the international community. We’re already being taken to task with our response to China. I think if we do this, we’re going to damage our standing in the world beyond repair. They’ll view us as a threat that must be stopped at all costs.”
The others in the room held their comments, but Sachs could see many of them silently agreed with him by the looks on their faces.
“Let’s change their target and go after one specific piece of their infrastructure.”
Leaning forward, General Markus asked, “What do you have in mind, Mr. President?”
Sachs pulled out the map of Hamburg out that he had been looking at and pointed to a location on it.
“This report says one of the buildings that’ll be hit by the current mission is this power plant. That got me to thinking—what if we specifically went after the German power grid?” he asked.
“You mean we intentionally take out their power plants?” Markus queried.
“Exactly. We can hit their five largest generating plants on this mission and then tell the Chancellor if he doesn’t order the division in Chicago to surrender, we’ll destroy another five power plants, and we’ll continue to destroy five plants every day until the surrender,” the President offered. He felt like this might be a decent compromise to destroying an entire city and hoped the general would agree.
General Markus let a giant breath out through pursed lips. Then he looked at the other Air Force general in the room with him. “What are your thoughts, Frank? Can the Raider use their current payload to accomplish the change in mission, or do they need to come home to rearm?”
“Eh. The ordnance they are carrying isn’t ideal for this mission, but it’ll certainly do the job. That said, we’re not going to be able to hit five targets, not with this current loadout configuration.”
“Why not?” countered the President.
General Frank Ayers explained, “The Raider is dropping these bombs from some pretty high altitudes, and these are essentially unguided dumb bombs. There’s no way for us to make sure each of them hits the right target. Our goal with this mission wasn’t precision—it was to cause fear and destruction. Right now, the payload consists of six sticks of five two-thousand-pound bombs. If you’ll give us an hour, Mr. President, we can figure out which power plant we could effectively take offline with the least number of civilian casualties given the Raider’s current payload.”
The President silently nodded, and the group went to work making the requested change to the mission package. Meanwhile, the B-21 continued on its original mission to Germany.
Ninety minutes later, the group reconvened. Several Air Force members walked to the front of the room and presented the President with an alternate target to bomb.
“Sir, we’ve looked at multiple power plants,” General Ayers began. “We’ve decided that the best one to attack, given the plane’s current payload and your direction to minimize casualties, is the Niederaussem Power Station located in Bergheim. It’s Germany’s second-largest coal plant, situated near the Dutch and Belgian border in northern Germany. It produces 3,864 megawatts of power on a daily basis.
“The second plant we’ve suggested to attack is the Neurath Power Station, located in Grevenbroich. It isn’t far from the first target, so it wouldn’t be out of the way for the Raider to hit it. This station produces 4,300 megawatts. Taking the two of them out would remove 7,864 megawatts of power production in northern Germany.”
Sachs nodded his approval.
“Mr. President, if you’d like to continue this strategy of taking out coal plants, we will refit the Raider with JDAMs so that we can be a lot more precise on follow-on missions. Chances are, we’ll be able to hit between ten and fifteen power plants on a single B-21 mission with the right ordnance.”
“Hopefully, the Germans will come to their senses and not make us have to carry out any more of these types of attacks,” countered the President.
*******
Mid-Atlantic
Colonel Webb looked at the EAM message they’d just received from the National Military Command Center. He had Major Hawkey check twice to make sure it was legit. It was.
To Webb’s surprise and relief, their target had changed. Instead of attacking the city of Hamburg—a mission that he knew would have resulted in the death of hundreds and probably thousands of people—they’d now been given a new purpose.
“I like this target a lot better than our original one,” Hawkey stated bluntly after they’d sent their reply to the Pentagon to acknowledge the change.
Colonel Webb turned to look at his partner. “I agree, but we would have carried out our original orders.” He paused. “But, yes, I think this is a better target given our current payload.”
The two of them rode in silence for another thirty minutes. They had topped off their tanks when they received the mission change. They still had another six hours in the air. It was a long flight, even at the increased speed.
Seeing they had some time, Webb finally told Hawkey, “I’m going to do my best to catch a catnap for a couple of hours.”
“All right. I guess it’ll be my turn on the way home,
eh?” joked Hawkey. The round trip on this mission was about twenty-eight hours of continuous flight. They had to make sure they took some time to get a few hours of sleep if they wanted to stay sharp. Given, the plane could mostly fly itself, but someone needed to stay awake in case something happened, or they received another change in their orders.
The hours dragged on as they got closer and closer to their first target. When they turned and flew over the North Sea, Major Hawkey woke Colonel Webb back up.
“We’ve got a lot of enemy search radar activity,” he alerted him. “I also see a handful of enemy aircraft on the radar scope, flying combat patrols along the coast.”
Colonel Webb tapped his chair. “OK, Raider, we’re trusting you to keep us hidden right now,” he said encouragingly, as if speaking to a pet.
When they neared the first target, they descended to a lower altitude, roughly ten thousand feet, and reduced their speed. This way, their bombs would be held in a much tighter group to ensure the facility was destroyed. Had they been carrying JDAMs, they probably could have parked one or two bombs into a critical section of the plant and called it a day.
A few minutes from weapons release, their threat board showed no apparent signs of danger in the immediate area. Colonel Webb went through the weapons release checklist, making sure they hadn’t missed anything or skipped any steps. Less than sixty seconds from the target, he opened the bomb bay doors and made sure the bombs were ready for release.
When the targeting computer said they were over the target, they released their three sticks of five bombs each. In less than twenty seconds, thirty thousand pounds of high explosives had been dropped on Germany’s largest coal power plant.
After closing the bomb bay doors, Major Hawkey applied more power to the engines and pulled up so they climbed in altitude. Now, they’d head to their second target and repeat the process. If things went according to plan, they’d be able to get out of the area before the Germans or anyone else could scramble any fighters to try and hunt them down.