“Now I hadn't thought of that,” Ron admitted.
“If that's your first act, and it's a good one, I'm almost afraid to ask for the second,” I said. “But bombing them won't keep them from bombing us. Have you got something that will?”
“The second operation helps with that, and also assists the Confederates' entry into Virginia,” Ron answered. “We've done a little recon at the Oceana Naval Air Base and at Langley Air Force Base, near Norfolk. One of our guys got into both, driving a beer delivery truck. You know a beer truck will never be stopped on an air base. Anyway, they've got the planes lined up wing-tip to wing-tip in nice straight rows on both bases, so they look pretty. I've got four teams down there with an 81 mm mortar each, and they can just walk their fire up and down the rows. I figure they can take half, maybe three-quarters of those aircraft out.”
“Not bad,” I said, “but the feds will still have plenty of aircraft. That will disrupt them for a few days, maybe a week, but no more.”
“We know that, which is why we have a third operation planned,” Ron replied. “The target is the other base where most of the sorties against us are flown from, Dover, in Delaware. We're gonna hit the single most vulnerable point on any air base: the Officers' Club on Friday night.”
“Now that's better,” I reflected. “Pilots are a great deal harder to replace than aircraft. How many of the fly-boys do you expect to wipe out, and how are you going to blow the place?”
“Our intel is that there are usually 100 to 150 aircrew, pilots and NFOs, at the Club on the average Friday night. But we're not going to blow it. We're going to take those guys and bring them home.”
“Home? What do you mean? I don't get it,” I said.
“Here,” Ron replied. “We're going to bring them here, to the N.C. When we take the place, we're going to hold the federal aircrew hostage and demand a transport aircraft to bring them here. When they get here, they'll serve as hostages. We'll chain one to every locomotive, every factory, every strategically important target, so if the feds hit those targets, they'll kill their own men. My guess is that the federal government will order them to do that, but their pilots' accuracy will diminish drastically.”
“I love it! I love it! That's brilliant! Ron, if you make that one work, you'll get the Blue Max!” I cried. “Skorzeny himself would shake your hand if you can pull it off. Is that the kind of thinking they taught you Scout/Sniper guys?”
“We didn't write it with the runes for nothing,” Ron said.
“OK, my answer on all three is GO! And the ideas are good enough I'll back you up even if they don't work,” I said.
“Aye aye, sir,” Ron replied. “And they will work, subject to the old German artilleryman's caution: all is in vain if an angel pisses in the touchhole.”
This time, the angels were on the side of the smaller battalions. One of the trucks broke down, and we'd overlooked the railroad bridge which was sloppy map work on our part, but otherwise the attack on the Washington bridges did what it was supposed to. It triggered the move of Confederate forces into Virginia and that state's joining the Confederacy, which made Washington untenable for the federal government.
The feds picked Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as the new federal capital. Not only did the move prove disruptive, they lost their local support base of government employees, most of whom couldn't move because there was no place to put them. Deprived of the federal payroll, much of northern Virginia became a ghost town. The Pentagon was turned into the world's largest nursing home, specializing in patients with Alzheimer's. It wasn't much of a change. In the former District of Columbia, the Capitol and the White House were vandalized, partly burned and finally taken over by bums and crack heads as places to squat. Having ruined the nation, they became ruins themselves.
The mortar crews at Langley found the aircraft still parked in tidy rows and walked their fire from one end to the other. They destroyed about fifty airplanes.
At Dover, our team of special operators found almost 300 guys in the club. It seems the base CO had called a meeting of all aircrew for a mandatory lecture on sexual harassment, in response to a complaint by the bar girl that some pilots had been looking at her. It took two C-17s to carry them all to Portland. The feds howled when we staked them out at all the worthwhile air targets, but the tactic worked even better than we expected. When President Warner ordered the air attacks continued, the remaining American pilots simply refused to fly. The air campaign was over.
As Father Dimitri had promised, the Russians took care of the threat of a naval blockade. On July 4, 150 miles outside Portland, the American destroyer USS Gonzalez ordered the Russian freighter Belyy Rossii to stop. The ship, which was loaded with RPGs, machine guns and ammunition intended for us, refused. The American ship put a five-inch round into the Belyy Rossii's bridge, killing the captain and seven crew members. Ninety seconds later the Gonzalez was blown out of the water by three torpedoes from the Russian submarine which had been escorting the White Russia.
In Washington, where the federal government was beginning the process of packing to move, the Navy demanded immediate and forceful military action against Russia. President Warner, remembering the Trent Affair in the first American Civil War, demurred. “One war at a time, gentlemen, as President Lincoln said,” were his words to the JCS. It was a wise decision, but it effectively took the U.S. Navy out of the war against us.
That left us to face the renowned 42nd Division (as it continued to be called by everybody except the American Secretary of Defense). That wasn't a threat, it was an opportunity.
The deployment of our own forces was complete. The militia was mobilized in western and southern Vermont and southern New Hampshire, to provide a web within which the regular forces would maneuver and to guard against an attack up I-91.
We knew the first enemy objective was Burlington, where they intended to turn inland away from Lake Champlain and follow I-89 to the Vermont capital, Montpelier. After a thorough reconnaissance, the General Staff determined that we would attempt to pocket the 42nd Division around Vergennes, trapping them between Otter and Lewis Creeks with their backs to Lake Champlain.
Accordingly, we moved a regiment of light infantry, with our few artillery pieces, into the area along Lewis Creek, stretching east to Monkton Ridge. Their mission was to prevent any advance north. They did not entrench, but set up a mobile defense in depth based on small teams that could ambush enemy infantry and call in fire on enemy vehicles. Another light infantry regiment plus the local militia held the eastern flank from West Rutland, along Lake Bomoseen and Lake Hortonia, through Middlebury to Monkton Ridge. Their mission was to prevent the enemy from going east. Vergennes lay too far west to cover, so we evacuated the population and garrisoned it with light infantry who had been trained in urban combat. They expected to fight cut off from our other forces. Operationally, their mission was to draw as many enemy as possible into the area and hold them while we encircled.
I established the headquarters of the General Staff in Middlebury, about fifteen miles from where Lewis Creek empties into Lake Champlain. Here was stationed our Mobile Force, under John Ross. It consisted of his Marine battalion on dirt bikes, both of our light armor regiments, our heavy armor regiment with its T-34 tanks, and a regiment of motorized infantry. The mission of the Mobile Force was to undertake the actual encirclement of the 42nd Division. That was the Schwerpunkt of the whole operation.
The 42nd Division had been mobilized in late June, but had done virtually no training. Its encampment, at and around Camp Smith on the Hudson River, had been a circus of drugs, drinking, and debauchery. After three white officers were murdered, most of the rest went home; blacks were promoted from the ranks to replace them. On July 10, three Death Battalions of gang members were added to the division, which turned mere chaos into complete pandemonium. Finally, on the 21st of July, 2028, the monster started crawling north.
For the New York towns in its path—towns on supposedly friendly soil—t
he passage of the 42nd Division was an envelopment by hell. Stores were looted. Whites were mugged, raped, or shot. Homes, barns and businesses were burned. The division's march was a traveling riot.
Since the federal government could not control the internet, the images of rape and pillage were broadcast into every American home. Secretary of Defense Mowukuu, when asked to explain the depredations of her division on its own citizenry, replied truthfully that they were no worse than what the people who made up the division had been doing for many years in the areas where they lived. Most Americans failed to find that reassuring.
Vermont actually got off easier than New York. We had evacuated the towns we knew the 42nd would pass through. The remaining homes and businesses were put to the torch, but none of our civilians were hurt and most movable property was saved.
Our militia was sure they could hold a line against an invasion as pathetic as this one, and they were right. But I would not let them, because I didn't want to stop the 42nd Division. I wanted to destroy it. Once they understood that, they went along.
On July 31, the lead element of the enemy force hit the forward edge of our defense in front of Lewis Creek. We let them penetrate as far as the creek itself, then started chewing them up in small ambushes. The main body of the division did exactly as we hoped when it hit resistance in Vergennes. It figured this would be the decisive battle, and halted while its reserves came up. On the morning of August 2, I told John Ross to attack.
John put the T-34s right up front, figuring they would cause “tank terror” among the drunken, untrained, undisciplined horde. They did, and the enemy fled back toward the Lake. By the evening of the 2nd the encirclement was complete.
That same afternoon, I went out to find John. He was down by the southern end of the pocket, figuring that if a breakout was attempted that was where it would come.
When I stuck my head into Ross's CP, which was a single command version of the LAV, I was almost impaled by a German spiked helmet coming out. Below the helmet was a vast, rotund figure that could only be Bill Kraft, clad in the dark blue uniform of a 19th century Prussian officer. Down the trouser legs ran the wine-red stripe of an officer of the Prussian General Staff. I must have done a double-take, because Kraft looked at me and said, “Don't you remember why I turned down your kind offer to join the Christian Marine Corps?”
I had to think back a bit, but I did remember. Bill had said, “I wear a different uniform.” Now I knew which one.
“We were wiped off the map in 1947.” Bill said, “but Prussia is more than a place. As Hegel understood, it is also an ideal. Prussians still exist, and so does the Prussian Army, a bit of it anyway. Now, it's fighting again, here, for what it always fought for: for our old culture, against barbarism. Someday, we will win.”
“Well, this is a good start,” I replied, with what I thought was suitable New England understatement.
“It's only that,” Bill said. “What do you intend to do next?”
At that point John Ross stuck his head out of the LAV. “We've just gotten a radio message from someone claiming to be the commander of the 42nd Division. They want to surrender.”
“I guess that answers your question, Bill. It's over, and we can go home,” I added.
“Wrong answer,” Bill shot back. “All that means is you've won a tactical victory. The operational question is, what are you going to do with it?”
I saw immediately that Kraft was right. I'd gotten too wrapped up in the immediate situation and was failing to think big–a serious mistake for a General Staff officer.
“Since you are our Prussian advisor, can I start by asking your advice?” I responded.
“Strategically, just as restoring the union is the federal government's objective, ours is fracturing it further,” he replied. “I think this battle, and the conduct of the 42nd Division on its march here, gives us an opportunity to bring New York state into the Northern Confederation.”
“Do we want New York in the Confederation?” I asked. “We want people who share our traditional values, and I'm not sure they do.”
“Most of the people in upstate New York do,” Kraft responded. “We don't want New York City. But most of upstate is conservative, and it is also rich in land and industry. It would be an asset.”
“OK, then, how do we go about it?” I inquired.
“You are Chief of the General Staff. You should be able to answer that question. I gave you a hint of where to start,” Kraft replied in good Prussian style.
I took some time to ponder the matter, while Herr Oberst i.G. Kraft filled a fresh pipe and Ross prepared to move up to meet with the 42nd's commander. I knew what Bill Kraft meant by his hint: the reference to the 42nd's conduct on its march. The people who lived in the area it passed through hated its guts. Now, the 42nd was ours. Bingo!
“I guess the first thing we do is turn what's left of the 42nd over to the people of New York,” I said to Bill.
“Right,” he replied. “That takes the moral high ground. We become the agents of justice.”
“I suspect they'll hang every one of them from the nearest tree,” I said.
“Right again, and that will split them from the federal government,” Kraft said. “The feds will scream that they're all guilty of murder, which means their own government will be a threat to them. What do we do then?”
“We move in to protect them from their own government.”
“I think you've got it,” Kraft concluded.
It worked out pretty much the way we had outlined it. It took us a couple days to round up the POWs. Then, with one light armored regiment and two motorized infantry battalions, we escorted them back in to New York. We followed the 42nd's own route of advance in reverse, and along the way we dropped off batches of POWs for the locals to deal with as they saw fit. Mostly, they saw fit to slaughter them on the spot. CNN covered the whole thing, and after what people had seen of the division during its advance, most Americans cheered.
By the 5th of August, we were in Rensselaer, just a few miles up the Hudson from the state capital at Albany. We had about 1,000 POWs left.
That evening, President Adams delivered a televised speech to his nation. After denouncing the vigilante justice taken by the New Yorkers as the usual “hateful racist” stuff, he promised that “this government will not rest until every American citizen who participated in this lynching is brought to justice. I have directed the FBI to move in force into New York state as soon as the military situation permits.” So every New Yorker knew that the forces of the Northern Confederation were now their best protection.
Just after midnight, Governor Adams rang me up on the satellite phone. “John, Governor Fratacelli of New York just called. He and his cabinet are prepared to secede from the union if we can protect them. What should I tell him?”
“The federals don't have any significant forces in position to invade New York,” I replied. “If they are prepared to mobilize their state to fight, we can protect them in the interim. But what about New York City? We sure don't want that.”
“Neither do they,” he replied. “I've already discussed that with him. We cannot decide on admitting them into the Confederation. New Hampshire and Vermont would have to vote on that, as would the people of Maine. But New York does want in, and it also knows it can't get in unless it dumps Babylon on the Hudson. They are ready to do that.”
“Then tell him I can have a battalion in Albany by daylight.”
“Do it,” Governor Adams ordered. So we did.
By the time the legislature met to hear the governor at ten in the morning on the 6th of August, our troops were patrolling the city. The legislature, with the images of the 42nd Division's march fresh in its mind, voted overwhelmingly to secede. In an ingenious move, they gave the city of New York to Puerto Rico, on the grounds that it had far more in common with that place than with the rest of the people of the state of New York. Puerto Rico was too smart to take it, but at least New York state was free
of it.
I brought up two more motorized infantry battalions to secure the new border, which was set at the George Washington bridge. Following the vote for secession, the governor mobilized the Guard, called upon the local militias to help defend the state and began setting up a state military. Unlike the Northern Confederation, the New York Guard included a potent air force: a whole wing of F-16s, trained in ground support.
In the east, the federals were now reduced to a narrow belt made up of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware, connected by a thread through New York City with Connecticut and Massachusetts. That connection was lost on July 15, when Connecticut seceded.
On July 18, I received a discreet inquiry from the Confederate military staff in Richmond. Would we be interested in a joint offensive on Harrisburg? Quietly, they had been moving strong mobile forces into the Shenandoah Valley, preparing to roll north.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I scheduled a meeting with Governor Adams on the 19th to discuss the Confederates’ offer. I saw no reason to refuse it. So far, the war with the federal government had been going just as we planned it, at small cost to ourselves. When that happens, a General Staff officer should become wary. War never works that way for very long.
My phone rang at 7:19 on the morning of the 19th. The officer in charge of the governor's security detail was on the other end. “John, I've got bad news,” he said, breathing heavily and obviously shaken up. “Governor Adams is dead. He was shot just six steps outside the Governor's mansion, as he left to meet you down at Mel's. It was obviously a professional job. He took one round in the head from a .50 caliber sniper rifle. We didn't hear a report, so the weapon was either silenced or it was a long-range shot or both.”
I was stunned; John Adams was a competent leader and also a good friend. But I knew this was war, and stunned or not I had to think. “How do you know it was a .50?” I asked.
Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War Page 16