by Andy Farman
After an hour they were led into the camp to the first row of containers nearest the gate and shoved non-too gently inside by their escort. It was Spartan, to say the least, with a single desk and chair upon which sat a Caucasian male in Russian naval uniform. The shoulder boards looked impressive but Reg was no expert on the enemy’s rank titles.
The Russian officer was busy writing in a ledger and did not immediately look up, but when he did so they looked on a face that was intelligent and wore a kindly expression.
In remarkably good English the officer explained where they were and also what their current circumstances were with regard to the Geneva Convention. He then asked them for their names, numbers and what vessel they were off.
Commander Hollis answered first.
“I am sorry sir, but we can give you only our name, rank and serial numbers. As the Camp Commandant I hope you can understand our position?”
There was a pause followed by the appearance of a slightly wry smile by the Russian.
“I am not the Camp Commandant, I am merely the senior ranking prisoner.” explained Vice Admiral Karl Putchev.
Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma.
Tuesday 30th October, 0900hrs
The previous week had been very much one of successes followed by reversals. Having found that the NATO membership in Europe was continuing the fight under its various military leaderships it had then become apparent that the previous, democratically elected governments, had been prepared to make their excuses and depart the stage, abandoning the USA now that their borders were again safe. If the President had ever allowed himself to believe that genuine trust and friendship existed between national leaders, then this had been a rude shock. Theodore Kirkland, as it happened, was disappointed on a personal level but as a politician he had harboured no such illusions. The military men had their own code of loyalty but he was saddened and staving off the self-loathing for another time because he knew what would occur shortly after this war was eventually won. The politician’s code would eventually be triumphant and bring about a return of the old status quo.
The first briefing of the day was very much Russia related.
The President was the last to arrive having learned of the death of Jacqueline Shaw and required some privacy and a telephone. Henry Shaw was at the family home with his youngest son, Ryan, who was back from Parris Island on compassionate leave. It had to be a very empty, very lonely house now with three of the Shaw family suddenly gone forever. The President had kept the telephone to his ear for fifty rings, he counted each one of them, but Henry wasn’t picking up.
“My apologies for a tardy start to the day.” the President said as he took his seat and produced a pair of spectacles from a case. “Bear with me please; I have been living underground so long that I’ve turned into a damned mole.”
He knew everyone in the room except the civilian stood patiently before them, and from the notes he held in his hand the President felt safe to assume this was the criminal psychologist or behavioural whatever, who worked for Terry Jones.
“Dr Ben-got, is that how you pronounce your name?”
“Ben-go, Mr President, but I answer to any number of pronunciations when the audience is senior to me, which is often.”
“My apology once more Doctor, please start in your own time.”
The likeness of Premier Elena Torneski appeared on the plasma screen behind him.
The President had expected a lot of psychologist’s long words and references to syndrome this, or that, with a mention of bed wetting here and there but Austin Bengot had been with the agency as a consultant for a while. He presented a report with mumbo-jumbo at a level that a non-tabloid newspaper reader could understand, balanced with that of an intelligence analyst. If he was by nature a self-opinionated expert, he wisely left that facet at home when he had come to work that day.
Someone somewhere had managed to find information in a very short time in order for Austin Bengot to present to the President. Elena Torneski was a very dangerous individual in situations of conflict. She was a control freak and sociopath with abandonment issues, a sadist with no discernable conscience who was in denial of her own masochistic traits. There were two eye witness accounts of her apparent nervous disposition and fear of firearms and violence, whilst three others described completely the opposite. She would manipulate the opinions of others with apparent ease in order to put them off their guard. Finally, of course, Dr Bengot came to what the President and Terry Jones already knew of the woman they now had to deal with as leader of the Russian Federation. The human character springs from the most basic source and like it or lump it, a person’s sexuality shapes their psyche.
“It always seems to come down to this common denominator doesn't it, Doctor?”
“Depending on whom you read, Carl Jung or Erica Jong.” The psychoanalyst said with a wry smile. “Nature, the psyche and individuality…a gene’s way of taking ground, holding it, and wearing a cool tee shirt no other gene has as it does so.
Up on the screen there appeared a surveillance photo, quite possibly one ordered by Torneski’s predecessors, either KGB or in the office of Premier. Walking away from the camera was apparently Torneski on the beach at a Black Sea resort and behind her, a noticeably subservient one pace behind, were two young ladies in G-strings with identical hair and the tattoo on the right side.
“You will have read or heard previously that her companions all have an identical tattoo, the dog’s paws, on the right buttock.”
This was certainly the case with Svetlana, and two former associates they knew of who, unlike Svetlana, had not managed to avoid the beatings and gang rape when they had abandoned Torneski. The copies of hospital records and photographs of their injuries had been acquired and added to the Torneski file.
“The tattoo is Premier Torneski’s marking of these girls as being her personal property for life.”
“I thought it was just some fashionable kink?” the President questioned.
“No sir, she is branding them.” Dr Bengot explained. “Premier Torneski sees herself as the Alpha Male.”
The President stared at the psychologist, wondering if he was joking, or even screwing with him as head doctors are wont to do, to see how a person reacts. He looked next at the image of Torneski on the screen and concluded that Dr Bengot had been entirely serious. He shuddered at the thought of what ‘earning’ that tattoo may have entailed but preferred to think on it as coincidental. At the end of the day some things were just best left unknown.
“Let’s move on, Doctor.” he instructed. “You will have noticed I presume that these partners she chooses share certain physical traits?”
“I am afraid that you are not entirely correct in that assumption, sir.” Dr Bengot brought up several photographs of young women who were all attractive but their looks were of a variance.
“The green eyes and chestnut hair, the sculpture of the chin and cheek bones, the shape of the mouth…?” the doctor asked, turning to look over at the President with a questioning expression.
“Precisely, Doctor.”
“That is a fairly recent occurrence, within the last few years in fact, and it points to an obsession, so I would assume that someone, somewhere is ‘The one that got away’, of course.”
Terry Jones looked over at the President, habitually, and effortlessly, doing so in a way that Dr Bengot failed to notice.
The President noted the expression in the CIA chiefs eyes, even if his face gave nothing away.
“You mentioned ownership for life, I believe?”
“Indeed, they are her toys, she does not share and neither is Premier Torneski the forgiving and forgetting type. Mr President.”
“She gets mad and she gets even too?”
“It is not such an unusual trait.” Austin Bengot stated. “I have been divorced four times, so I speak from experience.”
“Really?” the President exclaimed, and then added with a mischievous smile. “Is there a techn
ical term, probably in Latin, for multiple marriages, Doctor?”
“Libido.”
The President laughed aloud.
“Well you are working for entirely the wrong people if you intend to make those maintenance payments and also eat for the entire month too.”
The President next asked as to the best method of manipulating a personality such as the new Premiers.
“With extreme caution sir, because should Premier Torneski discover, or even suspect that is being played, the response is likely to be violent.”
Dr Bengot concluded his briefing and made to leave when the President stopped him with a final question.
“We have an operative who was once close to the new Premier.” the President said. “Would she be more or less at risk now that Torneski is in a very powerful position?”
“Did your operative require reconstructive facial surgery at some point after their relationship?”
“No, definitely not.” stated the President, removing a photograph from Svetlana’s file and sliding it across.
“Ah” remarked the doctor after a moment studying the picture, before glancing at the rear of the print to read the words, and in particular the date that her lover of the moment had written with a flourish in biro.
“The one that got away…” Dr Bengot said with absolute certainty. “…and the first appearance of the tattoo, it would seem.”
Austin Bengot handed back the photograph.
“In answer to your question as to the risk this young woman now faces, well Premier Torneski no longer has anyone who could offer censure, she answers to no one Mr President, and therefore it follows that this lovely young creature, your operative, is now in more danger than ever.”
The President again looked across at Terry Jones.
The CIA chief left the room, needing to telephone Sir Richard Tennant in private.
“Mr President?” Austin asked. “By any chance is this operative aware that she is the object of this obsession?”
“I have no idea, doctor.”
The President meant to ask Terry Jones that question but it slipped by, buried under the weight of other pressing matters.
Dr Bengot departed but the face of Elena remained on the screen as Terry Jones returned to deliver his agencies findings with regard to the delay in bringing the Red Army in Germany to heel.
“Mr President, the best thing about having someone in power who is disliked by their own people as much as they are by the opposition parties, is the wealth of dirt that is freely offered up on them.” Terry stated.
“At the time of the former Premiers death the Red Army in Germany was expected to succeed without any requirement of battlefield nuclear weapons being deployed. It was Torneski herself who introduced to him the notion that the weapons were needed, obviously in order to effect a quick exit from the Premiers side and alert us to his whereabouts. Torneski was well aware that had nuclear weapons been used against us then France would certainly have launched an immediate nuclear counter strike even if we and Britain had not.”
The President nodded agreement.
“However, Torneski immediately seized power from the Deputy Premier and had the General Staff and Front Commanders replaced with her own people, and applied the spurs, not the brakes.”
On the screen there now appeared messages to the new Front Commander from Torneski ordering full chemical weapon use of all stocks available.
“Where did these documents originate and how satisfied are you with their authenticity?”
Terry handed across a binder. Just because everyone in the room was cleared to be there, did not mean that they had to know every detail that he knew.
The President read for a minute before returning the binder.
“So she took our money and still tried to stiff us.” he grumbled. “Well that is politics, I suppose.”
“There is something else too sir.”
The President noted the tone and braced himself for bad news.
“Go on?”
“The information that Anatolly Peridenko ordered the murder of our people in Scotland, it seems certain that it originated from Elena Torneski.”
“And?”
“False, Mr President.” Terry stated. “One of the team now in custody in Britain just blew the whistle on it. The aim of the mission was the abduction of Svetlana Vorsoff and her delivery to the person who ordered the operation.”
“Elena Torneski?”
“Correct Mr President, but she had already departed for Russia. They did not know that of course so they wanted Major Bedonavich alive in order to learn her whereabouts, by means of extreme persuasion of course.”
“Is that the current euphemism for torture, these days?” the question was rhetorical and he went on. “So do we know what happened at the house, that morning?”
“We do indeed sir; this guy was one of the snatch team. Major Bedonavich made a fight of it after everyone else was dead, but he knew what was in store for him when they had him cornered on the bridge; he jumped in front of that train rather than talk.”
A long silence ensued as the President considered all this fresh information.
“Maybe not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but that bitch is going down.”
General Randolph Carmine had already briefed the President on the Russian warships that remained with the Chinese fleet. Satellite surveillance had discovered a large Prisoner-of-War compound outside Port Kembla where the majority of those behind the wire wore Russian naval uniforms. It must have come as something of a shock to the Chinese when against all odds Russia had lost the war for Europe and ceased hostilities. Their remaining enemy had however rolled with the blow, cut the Russians off from any communications with their own command and then seized the Russian Pacific Fleet ships that accompanied the invasion force. Several days had followed with flights from China delivering naval personnel to Mactan and their onward transfer to the fleet.
It highlighted just how adaptable the People’s Republic of China was but they were all of them, the President included; now kicking themselves over the lost opportunity. The disastrous and costly attack on the invasion fleet by the allied air and naval forces could have had a very different outcome if the allies had known the warships were basically running on half strength crews for several days. An attack when the fleet was in turmoil could have made all their current plans unnecessary. Always providing that they won the war there were going to be armchair tacticians and mediocre historians milking this one for decades to come.
Terry Jones, Joe Levi and Sally Peters were the only ones remaining seated an hour later as ‘Choir Practice’ took place behind sealed doors.
“General Carmine, I am about ready for some good news for once, so I am hoping that you can oblige.”
The General nodded affirmation.
“Mr President, in Australia the Chinese 3rd Army’s 1st Corps landed successfully, as expected, unfortunately, but they also almost pulled off a flanking movement that would have been impossible to counter had it not been for a determined rearguard action by the Australians.”
The Moruya landings had almost worked in opening a fast road to the capital, and they spent a little while going over future possible moves by the Chinese before getting down to the business of ‘Church’.
Operation Evensong was a huge gamble and its failure, and also its success, would end the intelligence windfall contained within the CD found in the combat smock of the dead paratrooper, Colonel General Serge Alontov.
“The Chinese 1st Corps did as expected, landing in the face of sparse defences and making a dash for the capital. Australia’s unique topography worked in our favour, and will continue to do so as allied troops carry the fight to the enemy with patrol actions until the arrival of the real convoys from Europe, Matins.”
“Patrol actions, against four mechanised divisions?”
“It has already begun Mr President, for example, a pair of snipers with the Coldstream Guards are making the very nec
essary function of taking a dump, one of deadly hazard now for the soldiers of the PLAN’s 1st Marines. Ten dead in three days, so the Chinese grunts are taking a dump in their trenches instead.” General stated. “It is hot weather, it’s unsanitary, it’s a drain on both morale and resources, as you can see.” A translation of a daily sitrep by that unit showed a fairly heavy level of ammunition expenditure in response to the snipers single shots.
“It is only a matter of time before self-inflicted wounds start showing up on the medical reports.” General Carmine explained. “And when that happens to a unit, then its combat effectiveness is on a downward curve.”
Satellite images, courtesy of the ‘Church’ software showed each units position and status. The 1st Corps of China’s People’s Liberation Army had gone defensive.
Much of the coastal plain of New South Wales was now in the hands of the Chinese but even their 3rd Army’s First Corps lacked the bulk to force the mountain passes, as they had seen.
For four days the fleet sat just off the coast as the troop ships, Ro-Ro ferries and tank landing ships unloaded at Port Kembla, but on the fifth morning the sun had risen on a very different seascape, the fleet had departed in the night. 1st Corps of China’s 3rd Army was on its own with just a single carrier air wing’s worth of support operating off airstrips on land.
“They are waiting for the other two corps to arrive, for 2 Corps to resume the attack, possibly from fresh landings that bypass the mountains, but it’s a hell of a long drive from Melbourne to Canberra for an armoured army.” he said, indicating the coast to the west of that city. “Their 3rd Corp is the least able, combat wise, and would be required to hold the ground the other two corps had taken, and of course protect the logistics chain.”