'Advance to Contact' (Armageddon's Song)

by Andy Farman

  Armageddon’s Song

  ‘Advance to Contact’

  Andy Farman

  Copyright © 201 3 Andy Farman

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 4315149

  ISBN-13: 978-1490380858

  Foreword

  My reason for sitting down and putting pen to paper was due to a lack of good military yarns in print at that time. I felt there were too many novels that although well written were almost totally American in outlook, giving only lip service to other nations services.

  There have also been too few novels of a major conflict that do not end with the wheeling out of ‘the secret weapon’ / super-secret technology (rather similar to the manner in which Greek playwrights ended the play with the involvement of ‘The Gods’). I am not sure if that is an over reliance in books on the superior technology aspect that became apparent during the Gulf War, or simply a deep desire to find an ending to the story. On that note I have to admit that before I began to write I would have used the term laziness on the part of those authors but after three years of trying to write, hold down a full time job and still have a life I am not so critical. I recognise that desire to just finish and have done with. I have not invoked any Gods in this, my first effort, at writing either to inspire the words to appear or to bring it to a sudden end. The weapons within the book are old or existing technology at the time of writing and with one exception the performance of those weapons is documented and public domain. I was unable to find any data on the effects of nuclear weapons detonated below the sea, and as such I admit to ‘winging it’ there.

  Since I began writing, the SA-80 rifle in UK forces use has undergone some major, and very expensive re-working. It is by no means perfect but it has improved in terms of reliability, however it hangs a large question mark over the wisdom of those politicians who ordered its original distribution and over the integrity of the senior officers who permitted it to happen.

  There are several novels that used World War 3 as the stage, most memorable for me have to be Harold Coyle’s ‘Team Yankee’, Tom Clancy’s ‘Red Storm Rising’ and Bob Forrest-Webb’s ‘Chieftains’. Bob’s book told the story from the viewpoint of the crew of a Royal Armoured Corp Chieftain tank, the only book about the British armed forces and it was superb.

  This book has many viewpoints but the principle ground war in Europe is centred around a British Army infantry battalion and my reasons were that are A/ I am British, and B/ I am a former infantryman who served at the time the Warsaw Pact posed a very real threat.

  There are heroes, heroines and villains from all sides of my fictitious global conflict and although you will pick up on my deep dislike of politicians I have even written a couple of good guys into their ranks – the laws of probability state they must exist somewhere, right?

  Attempting to create a tale of global conflict as depicted in the books with contemporary levels of forces, particularly the land battles in Europe and Australia was a non-starter.

  David Cameron’s declaration that the UK’s intelligence services abilities render British Armed Services unnecessary in order to justify further cutbacks was farcical and deluded as events since his taking office have shown. This did not save the Harrier fleet, regiments or warships though; it has not even provided aircraft for the new carriers either.

  Therefore, in this tale the equipment and formations of post-Cold War 1998 have been restored.

  I have never served in any navy or air force, let alone fought at sea or in the air, so please bear that in mind when you come across any errors because at the end of the day this book is only meant to be a means of harmless escapism.

  Excerpts

  The tanned man’s hand moved, the movement catching the major’s eye and Constantine shot him three times in quick succession, the bulky sound suppressor doing its job, the ejected spent cases ringing like chimes as they struck the old and burnished brass artillery shell casing that acted as an umbrella stand now, before clattering onto the polished oak floorboards and rolling away.

  Constantine rolled the body over, taking a hand and using a lifeless arm as a lever and avoiding the expanding pool of blood. Inside the man’s jacket were photographs, a copy of Constantine’s embassy ID picture, along with a photo of a topless Svetlana wearing a G-String and a grin, stood on a windsurfing trainer board on a beach, her instructor smiling smugly at the camera with his arms about her hips.

  His fingers left dark smudges on both and he straightened up, examining his fingers before wiping them on the side of his coat to remove the fake tan make-up that smeared them. It then occurred to him that he did not know if these two were alone.

  DEDICATION

  Three kids' bikes, ones called ‘Nugget’. My sister Susan’s first school bus, a blue double decker. Days out in Sherwood Forest and spotting The Bear on the way out and back. Pinky & Perky, Janet’s favourite. Cycling trips in the summer with Andrew and Diane. Clay pits. Shrimping in rock pools at low tide. Crab fishing at high tide. Listening to my sister Sue and her friend Diane (both age 8) discuss why no longer having privacy from the press would prevent them marrying John and Paul (Ringo and George were never contenders). Vulcans scrambling because of somewhere called Cuba. The Black Witch and Dusty Fogg. Cowboy, pirate and soldier games in which my two great sisters were always the ‘nurses’ and making the tea.

  Childhood memories of my terrific sisters.

  Dedicated to Sue Brackley and Janet Proud.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With thanks again to my Father, Ted Farman, to William Rowlinson and for insights into police firearms tactics and Nick Gill who has tried to re-tune an ageing brain with regard to proper punctuation and capitalisation, for which I am sincerely grateful, and whose experience of running RMP Traffic Posts on MSRs exceed mine.

  And last but not least thank you to the very charming Tracey Elvik who showed Svetlana how to be elegant and effervescent, all in the same breath.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nevada desert, 250 miles from Las Vegas: 1611hrs, same day

  The atmosphere had a taste of staleness about it thought the President, and felt damp against his skin. Whatever timetable the Secret Service had for moving him about for safety’s sake had been pre-empted by the morning’s attacks. At the very next window between Chinese and Russian satellite passes, the President had been moved to another secure site.

  The power had been switched on only minutes before his arrival and dustsheets covered everything.

  He stood briefly within his new bedchamber and decided that it was identical to the one he had left behind in North Dakota, in all its bleak, functional austerity. The military did not seem able to find the middle ground between minimalism and downright depressing.

  So far, today had all the makings of being a real crappy 24hrs.

  A knock on the door dismissed his critical thoughts on living conditions as a secret service agent appeared on his answering,

  “Come.”

  “Mr President, General Shaw is online, you will want to speak to him ASAP, sir.”

  Without bothering to remove his topcoat, he followed the agent out of the room and down the corridor. His chief scientific officer was present in the room, speaking to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who looked grim as he peered out of the video monitor. The CSO vacated the chair for the boss and stood to one side, but the President stood in front of the chair without sitting and nodded at the general.

  “Mr President, Space Command have detected two nuclear events in the PTO, the PTO being the Pacific Theatre of Operations…both events occurred at a height of approximately ten thousand feet above sea level, and within ten seconds of detonation fireballs six
kilometres in radius had been produced. From this, we estimate that the weapons were of four to six megatons yield.”

  “City killers?” Said the President as he now slowly sat down.

  “I have prayed that those bastards would stick to battlefield sized weapons…or just stop using the filthy things altogether.” His face flushed with anger. “They are not afraid of us are they General? Not one bit!”

  The general said nothing in reply.

  “Where were the bombs?”

  “One was above the southern tip of Taiwan where the ground fighting was concentrated. There is a small sized town there called Ch’e-ch’eng, but the target was most likely Taiwanese forces that have been bottled up by the PRC…I am sorry Mr President, but the other was directly above Taipei.”

  “Their own people!” Uttered the chief executive.

  “Genetically and ethnically, if not politically…yes sir.”

  “What damage did they do?” He next asked.

  “Sir, these weapons are many times more powerful than the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several hundred times larger than the DC bomb, do you want the details?” Asked the CSO.

  The President nodded.

  “Go on Joseph.”

  “First of all these were airbursts, and so their effects would have magnified the damage.”

  “Excuse my ignorance, please Joseph, I used to teach English Lit not physics. How does being, to all effects ‘off target’, by about three kilometres make the effects worse rather than lessening the damage?”

  “You are thinking in kinetic energy terms rather than geo-thermal sir, but even so you are getting it wrong because by detonating high above the earth, the planet’s surface acts as a mirror to the thermal output, containing the heat and sustaining it. The heat from the explosion is hottest at the moment of detonation and, in fact, heat dissipation begins to occur at one thousandth of a second later. If the planet had not been there, then the fireball would only have achieved half the size that it did. Also, by exploding above the surface there are no geographic features to interfere with the following blast wave, no hills to provide dead ground to the energetic forces.” The CSO sounded as if he were giving a lecture to an audience of freshman students.

  “Take a sledgehammer and swing it golf club style at a domino it may break it, it will certainly knock it across the room, but if you placed that domino on an anvil and struck it from above with the same force, you will shatter it utterly against the anvil’s unyielding surface. The earth is the anvil in this case Mr President.”

  “Have we had a satellite pass since the attacks, General?”

  “No sir, however I think the CSO will concur that we will see complete devastation extending beyond the city limits…” Henry Shaw turned from the screen to speak to someone out of view before turning back.

  “Mr President…we have just received via the Australian Ministry of Defence, air refuelling requests from Japanese aircraft enroute to Davao in the Philippines that intend to continue on to Australia. They state that Japan has surrendered unconditionally as result of the nuclear attacks on Taiwan.”

  “It never rains but it pours…”

  “That’s just the PTO sir; we have problems in Europe too, which will involve you doing your head of state stuff with other heads of state.”

  Other screens had gone live while they had been speaking and the President glanced at the wall clock. It was about time for the scheduled videoconference.

  “Ok, we will get to that…and to the response to the PRC ICBM threat, we need to take their missiles out in a way that is not guaranteed to start a full blown nuclear exchange between us. Doubtless you have some ideas on that Henry, above and beyond what we have previously explored?”

  “Yes sir, we do.” The general’s use of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ highlighted the difference in the thinking of soldiers and politicians. Had a politician said ‘I’ in the same context, it could be assumed he had every intention of taking full credit for someone else’s idea or effort. Had the same politician said ‘we’ or ‘they’, he was giving himself a degree of separation should whatever the scheme was, go wrong. General Shaw said ‘we’ because it was something that was not of his sole creation, or that he stood by the creator(s) as their commander, and as such was prepared to take the blame if it failed. When an idea was put before him that he saw as flawed he would either say so and send them away to think about it before trying again, or fix the ‘genius’ with a critical look, asking.

  “Son, shall I ring the infirmary and tell them you are on the way for an illegal substance test, or are you going to get your head out of your ass and think this thing through properly…” Whilst tapping the offending material with a finger.

  “Because if that’s the case, you’ve managed to get brown matter in your ear and that’s screwing up the grey matter’s logic process!”

  Turning to one of the agents the President asked. “John…is there any coffee?”

  The agent nodded apologetically.

  “Just Grunt Juice sir…at the moment.”

  The freeze-dried coffee granules that went into the ration packs were not the ideal choice of the Java connoisseur, but that was all that they had here.

  “That’s all right…did you know that the Spartan Generals would only eat what their men ate…that way they knew how much stamina the men had for the campaign?” He removed his topcoat and loosened his tie.

  “I guess it has gone full circle…it is the way it should be I suppose…lets drink what the boys and girls doing the fighting and dying are having.” clapping the agent on the back.

  The new ‘war room’ had banks of portable monitors and a large foldable plasma screen that had been brought with them from Dakota and technicians were putting the final touches to connecting it all up.

  The President had new aides since the Washington bomb, for the first two days in North Dakota his secret service detail had performed a myriad of tasks that they were not trained to do until the new boys and girls had arrived.

  The White House staff who had remained with the President after the rest of the battle staff and their personnel had been evacuated, had suffered 100% casualties with half dying in the nuclear blast and the remainder being injured to varying extents. The President felt badly about not being able to visit the survivors in person, he had to let the Vice President perform that duty.

  That lunchtime, just prior to their relocation CNN had televised an interview with a man the President considered to be a buffoon of the first order a man who believed politics was all about damning the other party's policies and actions, no matter what the subject. He had now stated on national television that the troops should be brought home to guard the homeland whilst the war was fought to its conclusion by the rest of the world. Once that had happened, he confidently stated, they could work together with the countries of the world, no matter how much the borders had since changed. It was time for America to take care of America, he had announced in his closing statement and it sounded like a campaign slogan.

  When the interview had finished the President turned to those present.

  “Somewhere out there is a village that’s shy one idiot!” The next item had riled the Chief Executive far more, news teams in and around Washington DC had already picked up on the scandal they had dubbed ‘Shell shocked and suing.’ Lawyers taking advantage of the situation and the vulnerability of the victims of the bombing to get rich quick. This last had caused the President to summon his chief legal advisor for a brief meeting.

  Armed with a mug of granulated coffee, the President took his seat before the bank of screens. Before him on the table were the folders he had brought with him, stuffed with fax copies and emails. His new legal advisor hurried into the room and placed a single sheet of paper before the President before taking a seat at the back of the room. After reading what was before him the President turned and nodded his thanks before facing the screens as the videoconference got underway. Terry Jones
was missing and a deputy on screen in his place. Imogen Hill apologised for Mr Jones' absence, informing the President that he would be with them soon, adding that something had just come to light that had caused his delay.

  Glancing down briefly once more at the sheet before him, the President began.

  “Before we get down to business ladies and gentlemen, there is a matter I want cleared up at home…Dr McManus,” he addressed Justice. “On April 15th 1863, President Lincoln issue General Order 100, the instructions for the Government of Armies in the Field. In effect it placed this country in a state of martial law, correct?”

  Dr McManus nodded in agreement before speaking.

  “Yes sir, when the Southern States left the Union he no longer had a quorum to conduct the business of government under the constitution.”

  “We no longer have enough members of Congress alive at this moment to form such a quorum…and so I have decided to invoke Lincoln’s General Order 100, this country is now under martial law.”

  “Sir…”

  “I know doctor, when Lincoln issued that order we were in a civil war, but this country is now in another war…and is under attack.”

  He looked at the faces on the video screens.

  “The first thing I want to do is accelerate order around the refugee camps and in the DC area. Article 7 states that all property and persons are subject to that law, and I want every single sonofabitch vulture hanging around the victims and relatives, policed up out of the camps and hospitals and put to work burying the dead. They aren’t fulfilling a useful function toward the national good so give them one. Pay them minimum wages if they do work, fine them if they don’t, in addition, anyone who refuses to work is not entitled to rations or clothing other than what they are wearing. No shelter, no heat, no medical aid. I also want the media there when they are rounded up; I want their relatives and neighbours to see their faces. Confiscate all claim forms but give them receipts, it won’t do them any good because I’m freezing all damage claims except those processed through government. What I would really, really like to do is enact Henry VI, part 2…”