by James Rosone
This turn of events perplexed everyone in the room. It made no sense for the Allies to try and land forces that far north, at the start of the very long northern Russian winter. The White Sea, if not patrolled heavily by icebreakers, was frozen over for most of the winter.
Scratching his beard, General Egorkin asked, “How many troops are estimated to be in the Allied landing force?”
The admiral flipped through a couple of papers to find the number. “Eh the British committed two divisions, the Canadians one division, the French one division, the Brazilians one division, and the Americans two divisions. So, roughly 70,000 troops.”
“So, we’ll have seventy thousand soldiers in northern Russia?” Egorkin verified.
Admiral Petrukhin nodded.
Egorkin held up a hand up to forestall any disagreement or outburst by anyone else. “This is a good thing,” he asserted. “These soldiers are roughly 1,100 kilometers from St. Petersburg, and 1,200 kilometers from Moscow. They’re also going to be socked in for at least four months during the winter, which is just now starting in northern Russia. The Allies will have to keep these forces fed and supplied during that four-month period, which will be incredibly hard to do considering much of the White Sea freezes over during the winter. No, gentlemen, this landing is not a disaster, it’s a blessing in disguise. It will drain critical resources from the Allies’ army in Europe, which will only help our cause. Those 70,000 soldiers that will capture Arkhangelsk will be 70,000 soldiers we won’t have to face in Europe.” A genuine smile spread across his face and he leaned back in his chair, putting his arms behind his head briefly.
Petrov grunted. “I don’t think I’d thought of it that way, General. You bring up a very valid point. What forces do we have there to defend the city right now?” he inquired.
“Not much, Mr. President. We never thought the Americans would invade that far north, so we don’t have a lot of units in that area. We have roughly one brigade of soldiers in that district,” answered Egorkin. “They are ready to defend the beaches if you’d like them to.”
The president shook his head. “No, General. Don’t have them die meeting the enemy at the shore. Have them plan on fighting an insurgency throughout the winter. Let’s make them bleed, General,” Petrov said with fire in his eyes.
Changing subjects, he asked, “What’s going on in Ukraine? Last night you informed me that the Allies had launched some sort of new operation into Belarus.”
Egorkin sighed. Instead of taking the question himself, he nodded toward Lieutenant General Mikhail Chayko, the ground force commander in Europe, to answer.
Clearing his throat before responding, General Chayko started, “Mr. President, the Allies made use of the newly arrived British forces and secured several key road junctions in Belarus and Ukraine. This was quickly followed by an all-out assault by the American Fifth Corps, which was recently augmented with an American armored division and a British armored brigade. They successfully punched a hole through my lines at Brest, Belarus, and are presently driving toward Lutsk and Rivne, Ukraine. It’s a 280-kilometer drive to their objective. Surprisingly, during the last twelve hours, they’ve managed to travel a little more than half of that distance. At their current pace, they will reach Rivne by tonight.”
The generals and admirals looked at the map and the projected path of the Americans. It quickly became apparent that this would place a substantial number of troops more than three hundred kilometers behind their front lines. It would effectively cut off the supply lines to their army group along the Polish-Ukraine border and threaten to isolate more than 380,000 Russian and Indian troops.
Petrov leaned forward, his eyes locked on to General Chayko’s. “What are your plans for dealing with this force in your rear area, General?”
Chayko suddenly looked sweaty. He used a finger to stretch his collar at the neck. “With your permission, Mr. President, I plan on wiping them out, and then continuing to hold the current battle lines through the winter,” he said.
Taking the bait, Petrov asked, “You said with my permission—what are you asking permission to use to wipe the Americans out? And don’t tell me it’s a nuclear weapon. We’ve already determined that any nuclear attack would result in a nuclear attack on our own forces.”
Leaning forward as he replied, Chayko said, “I’d like permission to deploy our Novichok-5 nerve gas and saturate the American positions in Rivne once they arrive. The attack will devastate their ability to operate as an effective fighting force. My reserve divisions stationed in Zhytomyr will then move in and finish the enemy off.”
Minister Kozlov interjected, “Mr. President, I must adamantly disagree with General Chayko. If we use this weapon in the quantities that will be needed to kill this military unit, we will also kill 500,000 civilians—maybe even more. I know the war isn’t turning out how we had hoped, but we can’t stoop to this level. We cannot use this weapon!”
Petrov was taken aback. Kozlov was speaking with more conviction than he had ever shown in any previous meeting.
Chayko jumped back into the conversation, countering, “If we don’t use this weapon now, the Allies will force me to give up our current positions or be cut off from our supply lines and encircled. This needs to be a military decision, Mr. President, not a diplomatic one. If we don’t do this, then we’re going to have to give up our current positions and withdraw. It’ll mean giving up more than 400 kilometers of captured land—land my soldiers have fought and bled over for the past year to give Minister Kozlov the time and bargaining position he said he needed to get a negotiated peace settlement.”
The meeting then shifted from a civil discussion of what to do next to an outright shouting match, with insults and threats of violence between the differing parties being screamed at full volume. Petrov sat back for a moment, not saying anything and just listening to the chaos unfold.
Essentially any suggestion of using a WMD, whether nuclear or chemical, seemed to cause this heated divide among his generals. He bristled thinking about what Vasilek would have said to him if he were there, that they could cause a “fissure” within the military that he might not recover from.
“Well, that traitor’s brains are still splattered against the wall outside my building,” Petrov thought, dismissing the idea that Vasilek’s opinion should have any meaning to him.
This arguing had gone on long enough. He held up his hand up to settle everyone down. “As much as I want to use these weapons to defeat the Allies, I fear their use would necessitate an overwhelming response by the Americans,” he announced.
Half the room suddenly seemed very happy while the other half glared at him. Petrov took a deep breath in and slowly let it out through his nose. “General Chayko, I don’t believe we should give up our hard-fought ground willingly. That said, looking at the map, I don’t see any other course of action. However, that doesn’t mean we have to give the enemy anything useful as we withdraw.”
General Chayko’s left eyebrow rose skeptically, but he said nothing.
“Here’s what I want to happen,” President Petrov began. “I want our forces to begin a staged withdrawal back to Kiev. As our forces retreat, I want any captured electrical substations, powerplants and major power distribution nodes destroyed. I want any critical roads, railways, and bridges demolished as our forces fall back. I want us to do to the Allies what we did to the Nazis during World War II and initiate a scorched-earth policy. We can create a humanitarian crisis far worse than using chemical weapons. With the coming winter, the Allies will suddenly find themselves responsible for taking care of the Ukrainian people, who will struggle during the winter weather with no electricity, natural gas, rail or road infrastructure across their country. If the Allies won’t come to some sort of end to this war, then we will reduce the rest of Ukraine to nothing as we withdraw back to our own borders.” An evil look filled his eyes.
“If they won’t end the war on our terms, then we will have no mercy. They will wish they
had ended it when they had the chance,” he thought.
Operational Security
Pushkino, Russia
The kettle on the stove whistled as the water started to boil, letting Alexei Kasyanov know it was ready. He quickly got up and turned the burner off. He pulled a mug out of the cabinet, stuffed his metal tea ball with leaves and plopped it into the water. With his tea brewing, returned to his previous task, logging into the internet through a complicated series of proxy servers that masked his activity and changed his IP address.
Looking at the latest news reports, he was heartened to see the Allies had successfully landed a substantial military force in the White Sea, capturing the city of Arkhangelsk. “The invasion of this historic Russian city would play well on his evening broadcast,” he thought as he wrote a few notes down on his pad of paper. Another article from the BBC talked about the Russian withdrawal from most of eastern Ukraine. It showed a number of maps of the Russian retreat and the new battle lines near Kiev. It also talked extensively about how the Russian and Indian armies were systematically destroying the infrastructure of Ukraine as they retreated back to the Russian borders.
A soft knock broke Alexei from his train of thought. He looked up and saw Gunther Brinkbaumer, his BND handler, and Mitch Lowe, his CIA handler, both standing near the rear door of the small house. He walked over and quickly unlocked it, letting them both in. As he walked inside, Mitch dusted the snow off his shoulders and unwrapped his scarf, hanging it on the hook near the door.
Smiling, Alexei said, “This must be important if you both are here to see me.”
Mitch nodded, and without saying anything, he guided them down the stairs to the basement quiet room, which was impervious to electronic eavesdropping. While they were talking, the two sentries on the first floor would continue to look cautiously outside, making sure there was nothing suspicious, while a third man would watch a set of cameras that monitored the surrounding neighborhood. Security for Alexei was of paramount concern to Mitch, and something neither he nor the CIA chinsed on. They had even rented a house two doors down with a direct-action team inside, ready to pounce in case an unwanted visit appeared to be imminent. Not to mention they had several alternate locations they could move Alexei to should the need arise.
As the three of them sat down on the chairs in the “quiet room,” Mitch started by asking, “How did the meeting go yesterday with your new source?”
Alexei smiled. Mitch and Gunther knew this guy could be the linchpin to making a coup work, and they were more than eager for information about him. “I know I haven’t told you a lot about this new source, and I suppose it’s time I come clean and tell you exactly who he is. The man I’ve been in contact with is Oleg Zolotov, the head of the FSO and Petrov’s security detail.” He watched amusedly as Mitch and Gunther’s mouths dropped to the floor.
Gunther was the first to respond. “How did you two make contact? Does he know where you’re staying? Is this location still safe?” he asked, speaking quickly and nervously.
“I can’t believe you actually met this guy face-to-face last night,” Mitch said, speaking in a tone that was a mix of horrified and angry. “Had I known who you were meeting with, I never would have agreed to let you go without backup.”
Alexei waved his hands as if to dismiss their concerns. “When I met with him, he told me the key to seizing power was getting Grigory Sobolev on board,” he answered. “Oleg said if we can convince Sobolev that a coup can work, then the two of them could make it happen and bring an end to the war.”
There was a moment of tense silence. Mitch leaned forward in his chair. “Is this a deal you would accept, and your supporters?” he asked. “If not, then there’s no point in moving forward. The coup needs to hold the country together, not splinter it into regional warlords.”
Alexei had wanted to become President, but he also wanted to see his country succeed and become a thriving democracy. If he had to back a dictator for a couple of years and accept an occupying force, he’d do it. “It’s not the grand plan I had envisioned,” he admitted, “but it’s probably the only plan that realistically would work. I back it, and I’ll do my best to make sure my supporters do as well.”
Mitch looked at Gunther who shrugged, then turned his attention back to Alexei. “OK, I’ll brief this back to Washington and work to get approval from the President. Until I get confirmation from Foss, don’t communicate further with Oleg. We want to make sure we have our i’s dotted and our t’s crossed before you talk with him again. We don’t know what kind of surveillance he’s under, and we don’t want to risk them finding you.”
With the official business taken care of, Mitch and Gunther left to head back to their own safe house and transmit what they had discussed back to Washington and Berlin. It would now be up to the President and his team to determine if this was an acceptable end to the war or if they would press for a full dismantling of Russia.
World on Fire
Washington, D.C.
White House
The midterm elections were finally over, and by all accounts, President Foss should have been elated. Traditionally, the ruling party tends to lose seats in the election. However, when it became known who was responsible for the assassination of Gates and the political motivations behind the attack, the election had turned decisively in Foss’s party’s favor, giving them a supermajority in both the House and the Senate, at least for the next two years.
Still, Foss was immensely saddened by the turn of events. He had personally never envisioned himself becoming President. He’d wanted to be the guy behind the scenes helping to get things done, not the primary political target of the opposition party and the relentless personal attacks by the pundits and other talking heads in Washington and around the country.
“I have no idea how Gates was able to weather this kind of public beratement, let alone this catastrophic war that is consuming the world,” he thought.
He looked down at the report in front of him to distract himself but ended up scratching his head in confusion. He still couldn’t understand what could possibly make the Indian government willingly choose to join the Eastern Alliance. It made no economic, military, or political sense.
He read through the bullet points and the highlighted portions of the brief. The overarching tone of the report suggested that the alignment of India with the Eastern Alliance had more to do with the perception that the US and Europe were in a considerably weakened state, and that if Russia and China pushed hard enough, the West would collapse, leaving them as the new world powers. By joining the Eastern Alliance, India must have believed that they were throwing their lot in with the winning side and stood to gain from an American defeat.
Before he could finish reading through the details, his Chief of Staff, Josh Morgan, walked into his study. “Are you ready for our guest?” he asked.
The President nodded, knowing he’d probably get more answers from the people he was about to meet than from reading a report put together by the CIA. Josh had pulled some strings to make this consultation happen so quickly.
In walked Aneesh Dayal, the US Ambassador to India, Vivek Chopra, a prominent businessman from New York who was deeply involved in the Indian-American community, and Neal Biswal, a cofounder of a major Silicon Valley IT company.
President Foss stood and walked toward his guests. He shook their hands and gestured for them to take a seat on the couches and chairs in the center of the room. He had wanted to meet with them in his private study as opposed to the Oval Office because he wanted the setting to be informal and more inviting. He needed honest answers if they were going to figure out how they were going to handle India.
“Thank you all for meeting with me on such short notice,” he said.
A steward finished pouring everyone the drink they’d requested, and a sandwich tray was also brought in and placed on the table in front of them. It was lunchtime, and Foss figured breaking bread with people, even those who adamantly disa
greed with his politics, was a way to open things up.
“When the President requests a meeting to speak with you, you meet with him,” Vivek replied with a smile as he helped himself to a half an egg sandwich.
The President returned the smile briefly. “I’m struggling with some aspects of this war,” he began. “Mainly, how did America find itself at war with India? We’ve traditionally had good relations with India. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what happened that changed that dynamic.”
“I’m not a good person to ask that question, Mr. President,” answered Neal Biswal. “Most of my friends and employees were killed when the nuclear missile hit the Bay Area. The only reason my family and I are alive is because we were vacationing at Disney World in Florida when the attack happened. I believe this war started because your predecessor was a bloviating idiot who didn’t know what he was doing. I think India is at war with America because they see America as a global threat to world peace, and after our defeats in Europe and Asia, they saw an opportunity to pile on and take us out.” Neal Biswal spoke with anger and heat. His beliefs, and those of his company, were well known to the President, but Foss had still wanted his perspective.
“You don’t believe North Korea or China bear any blame for launching the nuclear weapon that destroyed Oakland?” the President bristled. Although he’d known what to expect from Neal, he was still shocked that the man before him blamed Gates for the destruction of Oakland when he had done everything in his power to save it.