by Ira Tabankin
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. I’ll prepare our forces to be ready to launch on your order.”
“Thank you.”
@@@@@
President Bentley stares at the hotline wanting it to ring and is also dreading the call he knows is coming. When the phone rings, his hand hovers over the handset, on the fourth ring he takes a deep breath, lifting the phone with his left hand, his right-hand hovers over the ‘enter’ key on his laptop which will send the attack order to the military.
“President Bentley.”
“Mr. President, thank you for sending us the recordings from your AWACS. We are sorry for attacking your command and control airplane and fighters. Your recordings have been verified by our people. You’re correct, you didn’t shoot down President Putin. The FSB tracked the attackers to Saudi Arabia. We have overhead images I’m sending you to show you the F15s sitting on the Saudi runway, still hot from their flight. Something we don’t understand is we’ve seen a vehicle blow up on the runway. The FSB thinks they killed the six pilots so they couldn’t talk.”
“I’ll have the CIA and NSA review your recordings and images. Can we have one hour.”
“Of course. One hour from now, mark.”
“Confirmed. Thank you, Minister.”
The hotline was already dead before he hung it up. President Bentley picks up his regular phone,
“Connect me to the Director of the CIA, NSA and Secretary of Defense right now. Send each a copy of the file that the Russian Defense Minister just sent me.”
“Yes, sir.”
When all parties are on the line, President Bentley asks,
“Have you been able to confirm their images?”
The Director of the CIA responds,
“Yes, sir. The fighters came from the Caliphate, they made it look like we did it.”
“I want you to join me on the call in thirty minutes with the Russian Defense Minister.”
As the minute hand strikes twelve, the hotline rings,
“Mr. President, what did your experts think of our images?”
“They’re on the phone with us, they agree with you.”
“Mr. President we would like to propose a change to the war plan, we want to propose a massive nuclear strike versus a conventional invasion.”
Pausing, President Bentley shakes his head.
“Minister, could you please send me your plan so I can review it. Frankly, I didn’t consider a nuclear strike as being on the table. We’ve been working for months on a conventional multinational attack, I’m not sure my people will go along with using nuclear weapons. Won’t we destroy the environment, spread massive amounts of fallout across the world and possibly destroy their oil supplies.”
“Mr. President, please review our plan.”
“Can we have twenty-four hours to review it?”
“Of course. Let’s plan on speaking tomorrow at the same time.”
“Thank you.”
The President’s staff sits around his desk with shocked looks on their faces, the Secretary of Defense nods his head.
“Sir, it makes sense. We got our asses kicked the last time we tried to invade the Caliphate, we lost thousands of tanks and tens of thousands of people. We lost more people in one week than we did in thirteen years of fighting there before. The people won’t accept another bloodbath, they want revenge, they don’t want body bags coming home. If you can assure the country the use of nuclear weapons is to ensure there won’t be any more body bags coming home, they’ll support you.”
“I’m not sure. I think the left will move to impeach me for destroying the environment, they’ll claim I’m causing Global Warming and spreading nuclear fallout around the world.”
“Sir, we can prove that’s not reality.”
“Perception is reality; reality is what the damn media drums into the people’s heads.”
The Director of the CIA looks around the room, he straightens his tie,
“Sir, I believe our options are to sign a peace treaty which we know they’ll break before the ink is dry on the paper. Or invade per the current war plan and accept tens of thousands of causalities or adopt the Russian plan and finish the job the Crusaders started over a thousand years ago.”
President Bentley gets up to pace the new Oval Office,
“Isn’t there another way?”
The Secretary of Defense shakes his head, sir, the reality is at the end of the day, it’s either going to be them or us. They’ve refused to live and let live. It’s either we convert to Islam or they’ll kill us or we kill them. There aren’t any other options.”
“Aren’t there? Isn’t there anything we can do short of a massive nuclear strike. Will we have to strike every country in the Caliphate? There are over twenty countries, we’re talking about just under a fifth of the world! Do we even have enough weapons to cover them?”
“Sir, we have thousands of weapons in storage we can have our planes deliver, the Russians also have thousands, none of us know how many the Israelis have, plus there are the UK’s.”
“My GOD, you’re talking about twenty thousand weapons! Twenty thousand, each, hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima weapons. My God, we’ll be killing over a hundred million, my legacy will be the President, who killed hundreds of millions, I’ll replace Hitler as the world’s most hated mass murderer. I can’t decide right now. I want each of you to look for other options, there has to be something we can do other than turning a fifth of the world into an unlivable barren wasteland.”
They leave the President alone in the Oval Office. He tells his Chief of Staff, I’m going to the residence, call me if something urgent comes up. Find my priest, send him to the residence.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Tell my wife I want to see her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 14
President Bentley is hugging his wife when there’s a knock on the door,
“Come in. Father Patrick, thank you for coming so quickly.”
“My son, what can I do for you?”
“Father, I need some advice, I have a decision I have to make, one that frankly scares me. I was prepared to launch another conventional Crusade when the Caliphate assassinated President Putin. Our allies, the Russians, want to strike the Caliphate using a massive nuclear strike.”
“My son, when you say massive, how massive?”
“Completely cover the Caliphate with nuclear weapons, kill everyone.”
“EVERYONE? There are over five hundred million souls in the Caliphate!”
“Now you understand my dilemma.”
“My son, I can’t condone death on this scale, not even against the Caliphate. I know what Pope Francis II and Pope Joseph said, I realize they’ve both declared the Mahdi, an agent of Satan.”
“If I follow the conventional attack, we will end up with tens of thousands of American dead, we may defeat the Caliphate, only to have them surface in a generation or two, causing us to invade again. We could be faced with Crusade after Crusade, not unlike the Middle Ages, when we’re done, the war will go on until one or the other is killed off.”
“My son, do we have time? I’d like to pray on it and ask the Holy Father for his advice.”
“Father, I have less than twenty-four hours to respond.”
“I understand. I’ll be back with you as quickly as possible.”
The First Lady, who overheard the discussion with the Father Patrick shakes,
“Honey, over five hundred million? There’s no way to save some of them? Women and children? Will they suffer?”
“I hope not. We’re trying to plan an attack which blankets most of the Caliphate with blasts which hopefully will kill them very quickly.”
“Honey, five hundred million? God will never forgive you. You’ll be the largest mass murderer in history.”
“I know. That’s why this is so hard for me. My options are to send thousands of body bags home or bury m
illions of Muslims. If we don’t stop them now, we’ll be fighting them until we kill them or they kill all of us. They’ll never rest, they believe they’re on a holy mission. Logic, treaties mean nothing to them, they’ll sign anything that buys them time to grow powerful enough to take us down.”
“Isn’t there a way to cripple them, then send in the tanks to capture them. Maybe we can educate their children, turn them around, give them good foster homes in the West.”
“So many of their children are already conditioned, I worry about sending their children into our homes, the day may come when their children turn on their foster parents, killing them in their sleep. We’d be facing a huge religious war on our own main street. They believe their mission is to bring forth the end of days. They’re dealing with their religion and emotion; we’re trying to negotiate using logic. My old man always told me, when emotion enters the room, logic exits. They won’t listen to logic and we don’t understand their religion. We’re stuck staring at each other across the plains of Megiddo where the Bible tells us the final battle will be fought. They want the final battle, we don’t. How do we negotiate with such people?”
“Tell them what the alternative is? Tell them they have to agree to an honest agreement or we’ll destroy them? I have one question; one you may not have thought to ask.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Can you be sure this isn’t all part of God’s plan? Maybe he wants the Crusade to become the final war, one where he can return to save the world.”
“I didn’t consider that, you got me with this question. I need to think it over, do you have any other thoughts?”
“Why can’t you look them in the eyes and lay out what’s coming if they don’t play ball?”
“They won’t believe we have the balls to kill them. They have them to kill us, we’ve proven over many years we want an agreement more than we want peace. We sign treaties, we live by them, they laugh in our faces while using the time to prepare to kill more of us. Their religion teaches them to lie and deceive us, how could anyone trust them?”
“Honey, there has to be another way. There has to be. Have you called Pope Joseph?”
“Not yet. I was going to give Father Patrick time to speak with him.”
“I suggest you call him yourself.”
@@@@@
Pope Joseph is listening to Father Patrick when he’s interrupted by his aide informing him President Bentley is on the secure phone.
“Father, I’ll call you back, I have a call I need to take.”
“Your Holiness, of course.”
Pressing the secure button on his phone, he hears a warbling tone on his phone and the President’s phone sync. “Mr. President, I just spoke with Father Patrick, I know why you’re calling. Shall we discuss the issue that’s bothering you?”
“You’re Holiness, my wife raised an interesting question, she asked if this might not be part of God’s plan?”
“My son, everything is God’s plan. Nothing happens that isn’t part of his master plan.”
“Your Holiness, does he want us to attack the Caliphate to bring forth the battle of Armageddon? Am I playing a part in his theater? Was this all ordained?”
“Of course, it was.”
“Then, by killing hundreds of millions, I’m doing God’s work? I won’t be condemned to hell for all time for killing so many?”
“My son, the Bible teaches us there’s a difference between murder and killing to protect life. Isn’t it true by using nuclear weapons, you’ll be saving millions? Isn’t it true by handling the Caliphate now, you’re saving future generations the pain of having to deal with them? You’re not committing murder. God will understand.”
“You’re Holiness, I’m not feeling well about this decision.”
“My son, pray on it, I’m sure our Lord will show you the right path.”
“Thank you. I’ll call you back with my decision.”
“My son, I’ll be here.”
President Bentley sits in the residence staring into a dark corner of the room, he’s interrupted by an aide knocking on the door,
“Mr. President?”
“Yes, come in. What do you need.”
“Sir, I have the inventory report you requested.”
“Ah, our remaining strategic inventory?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, thank you, where do we stand?”
“Sir, we fired most of our land-based Minuteman missiles, two-thirds of our silos were destroyed. There is some good news. We had removed the Minutemen from five-hundred silos, those silos weren’t touched, they can be brought on line and loaded with either Minuteman or the fifty Peacekeeper missiles we have in storage.”
“Let me see if I understand what you just said, we have five-hundred empty sealed silos which can be brought back on line, plus around one hundred undamaged silos?”
“Sir, undamaged from the war, they were damaged from the rocket engines which burned the insides of the silos.”
“How long will it take to bring them back on line and load the empty silos?”
Pausing, the aide looks down,
“Sir, six to eight months, assuming teams are available to work twenty-four hours a day and we ignore most of the safety regulations.”
“What other resources do we have?”
“We have over three hundred Trident 1 missiles, but no way to launch them, none of the old submarines are usable. We converted four of them into cruise missile submarines which would take over a year per boat to convert back. We have five-hundred Minutemen missiles, fifty Peacekeepers, five hundred nuclear-armed land attack cruise missiles, and two thousand additional warheads.”
“I think we need a review committee which can think outside of the box, people who’ve never seen a box. It should be made up of both military and the contractors who make the strategic systems. We need to get them working on the problem today. If we’re going to attack the Caliphate with nuclear weapons, we need a way to deliver them. We don’t have a year. If we’re going to move forward with the attack, we’re going to need the weapons ready for use ASAP, I want a real schedule, not one of the normal contractor studies where we throw money at them to do another study.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
“I’m going to call the Russians.”
Picking up the hotline, which automatically connects him to the Russian Defense Minister,
“Minister, I’ve thought long and hard about your proposal, I’ve had my people perform a quick inventory of our available weapons systems, we have many more weapons than we do delivery systems. I just asked my Chief of Staff to form a working group to figure out how we can use the systems we have.”
“Mr. President, could any of our weapon’s experts be of assistance?”
“Minister, I’m not sure yet, can you give us five days to get the working group looking into the problem?”
“Of course, if it will help you, I can put four of our experts on a plane with two hours’ notice.”
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll call you back in forty-eight hours to give you an update. How many of your strategic systems survived?”
“Mr. President, one of our advantages is we never throw anything away. You’re about to say you helped us destroy many weapons under SALT 1 and 2, that’s true, on the other hand, we had more weapons that you knew. We also designed most of our missiles for different launching systems, most can be launched from mobile launchers which are easily reloaded. Many years ago you looked into similar launch systems and you gave them up. Our silo-launched missiles are also different from yours. Most of ours are cold fired while yours are hot fired. You thought if it ever came to having to fire, everything was lost, the war, the future would be over. We designed our silos to be reloaded. You copied it with your Peacekeepers and quickly dropped the design.”
“I’m learning we gave up on many good ideas.”
Laughing, the Minister smiles,
&nbs
p; “Our money and blackmail made it easy to control many of your Congresspeople and Senators.”
“Great to know now. You’re the cause of our limited launch capability.”
“Yes, we are. In the depths of the Cold War, who would have thought we’d be allies again?”
“We’re now united in a common cause. We’re here to help you with anything we can do to help you bring your systems back online. We know almost everything about your systems, the KGB and FSB were very good at learning the details of your systems.”