by James Rosone
Dekker smiled and thanked the locals in what little Spanish he knew.
The gunships made a quick pass of the area before settling into a high orbit over them, while the Chinooks landed in a nearby field.
The crew chiefs for the birds got out and took up a defensive position while they waited for the Rangers to head toward them and climb aboard. The platoon’s medic and a few of the others helped to carry Engle’s body to the helicopter. They also brought the prisoners with them; they’d be interrogated back at the base to see what else they knew.
When the helicopter started to lift off, Dekker looked out the rear, back at the village they’d just cleared. Cuba was a beautiful country. In a way, it was almost like Hawaii, only it was substantially larger. There were large mountain ranges that traversed much of the landmass, surrounded by rice patties, sugarcane fields, and other tropical fruit trees and plants.
Maybe one day this place will be safe enough for us Americans to live here, thought Dekker. He could totally picture himself and his family living there after he retired.
*******
2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment
Havana, Cuba
Specialist Leslie Sabo Jr. saw his friends heading toward a restaurant that also had outdoor seating—someplace called La Cocina de Esteban.
“Come on, Sabo. Let’s check this place out. I’m hungry and I’m not about to try a pub crawl across Havana on an empty stomach,” Specialist Landy exclaimed excitedly as he headed towards the restaurant.
“Hell, yeah. This place looks awesome, and whatever they’re cooking has to be better than what they’ve been feeding us at the chow hall,” Private Ailes added. The guys clearly had their eyes on an outdoor table.
Sabo did have to admit, the food smelled amazing. “OK, fine. Let’s start the night off here. But I still want to try a few other places tonight. This is the first time we’ve gotten any liberty to explore the city, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend my entire forty-eight-hour pass in one place.”
His three friends smiled as they took a seat. They were in uniform, armed with their sidearms but nothing else.
The city was relatively peaceful and calm now that the fighting across the country had largely ended. Food and an influx of US dollars and good-paying jobs had helped to keep the peace as a transitional government was being formed.
When a waitress came by, Sabo and Ailes did all the talking since they were both fluent in Spanish. They started out with two beers each and some appetizers. An hour and three beers later, they were all feeling pretty buzzed and relaxed.
“Do you think they’ll keep our battalion here, or do you think we’re going to go El Salvador or Venezuela next?” Ailes asked.
The others stopped laughing and joking around as they looked at Ailes. It was the first serious moment any of them had had since they’d started their liberty.
Sabo searched Ailes’s face. He was new to their unit, part of the group of replacements fresh from basic training. He hadn’t been with them during the initial invasion of the island.
“Ailes, we’re part of the 101st Air Assault Division. I highly doubt they’ll keep us here doing occupation duty,” said Sabo. “We’re one of the Army’s elite divisions. While I don’t know if they’ll send us to Central or South America, I can safely tell you this—when the new President gives the word go for new military operations, you can bet your paycheck we’ll be one of the divisions leading the charge.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Hey, Sabo. You mind if we join you guys?” asked an American voice from behind them.
Sabo turned to see who it was and smiled. It was their fire team leader, Sergeant Lakers. He was a good guy and generally liked by everyone.
“Hell yeah, Sergeant Lakers,” Sabo replied. Then with a wink, he added, “You still owe me a beer.” He stood up and pulled another table over to join theirs.
At that moment, he suddenly realized Staff Sergeant Peters was with Lakers. Ugh, not him, Sabo thought. Nobody liked Peters—he was a real hard-ass and treated anyone who wasn’t a sergeant like dirt.
“Thanks, Sabo. Peters and I saw you guys over here and figured we’d join you. How’s the food here?”
“Well, we’ve only ordered appetizers so far, but they’ve been great,” Sabo replied. “Our dinner should arrive soon.” Peters took a seat opposite him, and Sabo tried to maintain a straight face.
Since Ailes was new to the unit as well as to the Army, he hadn’t picked up on the nuances of the situation yet. “Staff Sergeant Peters, do you know if our battalion is going to stay here or go to Central or South America?” he asked.
The others gave Ailes the stink eye for asking the question. “What? I’m curious, and maybe he knows,” Ailes countered in reply to the dirty looks he was getting.
Peters drained most of his beer before looking at Ailes, then the rest of them. “What makes you think I know any more than the rest of you?”
This admission seemed to have caught Ailes by surprise. To him, anyone with as high a rank as staff sergeant was probably in the loop when it came to big decisions like this. Little did he know that most NCOs had little to do with deciding where their units went. That was officer country.
Peters sighed. “I heard from the captain the new President is most likely going to continue the current administration’s war strategy of removing the Chinese from our sphere of influence. I don’t know when, but chances are the battalion will be back in action in the near future, so I’d drink up and enjoy the liberty while you can. Once we ship off to the next destination, it may be a while before we’re able to have some downtime like this.”
Ailes had an intense look on his young face as he took in the information. “You think because we’re an air assault division, we might go to El Salvador instead of the Caribbean?”
“What makes you think the Army would want us to go to El Salvador?” Sergeant Lakers asked as he joined the conversation.
“I don’t know. I guess I figured with there being a lot of islands and whatnot, the Marines might be the ones to clear them out. El Salvador is kind of mountainous jungle. Our type of operations would do great. We get flown in, fight the enemy, then fly out,” Ailes said nonchalantly, like he’d already seen action and knew how things worked.
“Private, when the decision is made, I’m sure they’ll tell us. Right now, we’re all on liberty and none of us want to talk about Army stuff. We want to eat some good food, drink too much alcohol, get drunk, and get laid. So why don’t you stuff it with the work talk and let us enjoy our evening?” Staff Sergeant Peters growled. Then he downed the remnants of his second beer.
Chapter Twenty
First Day
White House, Situation Room
Washington, D.C.
Blain Wilson kept his gaze fixed on the President. This was her second full day in office and her first official war briefing in the Situation Room. As the different service chiefs provided their briefs, he could tell it was starting to overwhelm her.
Wilson interjected before the Chief of Naval Operations could continue. “Madam President, if you need us to slow down, we can. I know this is a bit of information overload. We can spread some of this over a few days if you’d like,” he offered.
President Delgado smiled as she shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, Blain. I think as President, I owe it to our service members to get up to speed now and not over a few days. Let’s keep it going, though I’ll certainly take a fresh cup of coffee,” she replied, raising her empty cup up to signal she’d like a refill.
An aide brought a fresh pot in and started making the rounds while Admiral Jeremiah Lawrence continued his brief. “As you can see, Madam President, the NATO task force successfully engaged and sank the remaining Chinese naval force in the Indian Ocean. There may be a sub or two still lurking out there, but the surface fleet has been neutralized.
“During the last two months, the NATO task force, made up of German, Ita
lian, Dutch, and Greek forces, sank four Chinese and three Iranian subs, as well as fourteen Chinese surface combatants and nineteen Iranian surface ships. On a good note, the Germans and Italians are ninety-nine percent sure one of the subs sunk was China’s newest sub—that Type 095A or Long March sub that’s been causing us all sorts of problems. This is that new weapon they unveiled during the opening hours of the war.”
President Delgado held a hand up. “Admiral, Mr. Wilson has gotten me up to speed on the Type 095A,” she interjected. “What I’d like to know a bit more about are these Iranian ship losses. When did this take place, and what’s really going on there? This hasn’t been in any of the Presidential Daily Briefings.”
The CNO looked like he’d just bitten down on a sour lemon at the question. “Well, Madam President, I can’t speak to what the CIA’s been briefing you on. What we’ve been told by the NATO task force is they didn’t encounter any Iranian ships until the day after the main battles happened between them and the Chinese. As the task force moved along the coast of Yemen and then Oman, that’s when they started to encounter more Iranian naval forces.
“The main battle that appears to have kicked things off happened when the task force was moving to the Said Bin Sultan Naval Base in the Gulf of Oman. They were going to take on provisions and conduct some repairs before moving further into the Indian Ocean. That’s when the first of a series of attacks occurred, roughly six days ago. Then, the day before you were sworn in, the German, Italian, Dutch, and Greek warships went on the offensive. It’s been a bit of a hot mess the last forty-eight hours. I believe General Yeager might know more about what NATO as a whole plans to do next.” The CNO paused to see what questions she might still have.
The President blew some air out of her lips as she canted her head to the side. “So, let me get this straight, Admiral—the Europeans defended themselves from an Iranian attack that sank a couple of their warships. That subsequently led to an escalation with the Iranians, resulting in them sinking half their navy. The Iranians then went after more of their forces wherever they could find them, and NATO now finds itself in a full-blown war with Iran, which, according to Article Five, means they are at war with us as well. Good grief—what a way to start my first term as President. War in the Caribbean, Middle East and Asia all at the same time.”
None of the military members said anything in reply to her statement. They sat there straight-faced and stoic for the moment. For most of them, this was only the second or third time they had even met her. Everyone was still waiting to see what kind of commander-in-chief she was going to be.
Seeing that none of the generals appeared to be adding anything to the conversation, Blain felt he should add something. “Madam President, up until the day you were sworn into office, Secretary Riley had been attempting to get all sides to agree to a cease-fire. That obviously didn’t happen. Once the new Secretary of State is officially confirmed, they can probably finish pursuing where she left off.”
“Thank you, Blain. That’s probably worth doing. We should try to limit the number of nations involved in this war, not expand it. Admiral, what’s the situation in the Caribbean? What threats do the Chinese and/or Venezuelans still pose to us down there?”
Admiral Lawrence changed a couple of slides on the PowerPoint presentation to bring up the Caribbean. “Madam President, with the help of the British, French, and Spanish navies, we have forced the remaining enemy warships to positions near the Venezuelan coast, where they now operate under an umbrella of antiship and air-defense systems. It’s not a large force, but until we can clear more of the ground-based systems, we can’t finish off the remaining warships.”
“Fair enough, Admiral. What are your suggestions for how we go about doing that?”
“I’d like to make use of our subs, for starters. Let them try and get in close and sink a few of them. Also, I think it may be time to look at leveraging the Archangels. They were built specifically to go after difficult targets like this. I mean, even if we use our Loyal Wingman UCAVs, we’re going to lose a lot of them just trying to thin the area out of SAMs.”
President Delgado furrowed her brow. “Archangels?”
Blain blushed. “You and I have a briefing about that program after this meeting has concluded, but the admiral is right. This is the perfect mission for them. I’ll explain what they are during our meeting so we can continue on here.”
The President nodded. She didn’t press the issue. She turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Admiral, once these Archangels are deployed, will our forces be ready to secure the skies over Venezuela and the island territories the Chinese have recently captured?”
Admiral Thiel hesitated for just a moment. Blain saw that the President noticed his hesitation too.
“If you give us the order, Madam President, we’ll execute it,” Thiel finally replied. “However, I would like to recommend we hold off just a couple of months and wait. Aside from giving you more time to get your cabinet appointed, both the Air Force and the Navy are in the process of fielding some new weapon platforms that will change the dynamics of the air war.
“As you are aware, both the Navy and Air Force took a beating during the first weeks of fighting over Cuba. We lost a lot of irreplaceable aircraft, namely F-22s and more than a few dozen F-35s.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement, Admiral,” President Delgado interjected. “I don’t want to dwell on that right now. But I’d sure like an explanation for how that happened later. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what we’re doing to address this problem?”
Clearing his throat, Admiral Thiel explained, “The Air Force secretly fielded our sixth-generation stealth aircraft just prior to the war—that’s what Archangel is. It’s called the F/S-36 Archangel, and it’s going to revolutionize air and low-earth orbit warfare. We didn’t deploy them during the Cuba campaign as we needed to gain a better understanding of what kind of air-defense systems the Chinese had, and we’re still fine-tuning the aircraft.
“In regard to the Chinese air-defense weapons, we knew they’d created their own version of the Russian S-400 and even S-500 systems. What we did not know was exactly how effective they were. It appears they’ve found a way to see through our current generation of stealth aircraft, which is why we took a number of losses to the F-22 and F-35s.”
“How exactly did they do that?” the President pressed, leaning forward.
“Stealth doesn’t mean invisible,” Thiel countered. “It just means that instead of the aircraft showing up on radar as a plane, it has the signature of a baseball. That’s what makes it hard to track. In the case of the F-22 and F-35, they show up more as the size of a golf ball or maybe a ping-pong ball. Moving at their speeds, altitude, and distance, it’s incredibly hard for a radar to obtain a lock on them. If our aircraft encounter a single search radar, then chances are they won’t be found, but when the Chinese placed dozens of these radars in a tight cluster, they were able to use the different radar locations and varied frequencies to triangulate roughly where our aircraft were. They then knew where to look and turned on some additional high-powered systems that found them.”
Wilson saw the President cross her arms and figured he’d try to intervene before they went down a rabbit hole of questions. “The way we’re countering this, Madam President, is we send a lone aircraft in to attract the enemy radars. Once we locate where they are, we use one of our B-2s a couple hundred miles away or a destroyer off the coast to fire a standoff missile to take the radar site out. As soon as we started implementing this new strategy over Cuba, the tide of the air war changed decisively in our favor over the course of a week.”
Delgado smiled. “You read my mind, Mr. Wilson, thank you. I was going to ask how we planned on overcoming that problem, but it appears you guys have already figured it out. So, that brings me to my next question. Do we address what’s going on in El Salvador first, or tackle Venezuela?”
Admiral Thiel turned to Wilson. “Do you
want to go over some of the options we had been working on this past week?”
Wilson nodded; he knew the President best. The options might be better presented by him than the service chiefs, who were still learning their way around the new administration.
“We’ve been going over a number of different options on who to deal with first and how to best go about it—what we’ve settled on is a bit of a multipronged approach,” Wilson explained. “We know we need to go after the surface-to-air missile threat in Venezuela and begin recapturing some of the islands they’ve seized, but we also know we’re not ready for a full-on invasion of the country.”
Standing up, he walked over to a map of the area on the wall and pointed to a few locations. “Our recommendation is we have the Navy and Air Force begin to use the Loyal Wingman program to start going after the enemy air defenses and whittling them down after the Archangels have flown a few sorties over the area. While that’s taking place, we can work to support the French and British as they look to liberate a few of their territories that were recently seized.
“It’s going to take us some time to get ready to launch an invasion of Venezuela. In the meantime, we’d like to recommend we move to liberate and remove the Chinese forces from El Salvador before they’re able to expand their footprint in the area any further than they already have.”
The President steepled her fingers. “OK, so if we move in this direction, how do you propose we tackle El Salvador while not getting ourselves bogged down and unable to support operations against Venezuela?”
“We’ve thought about that as well, Madam President. It’s going to take us some time to go after the Chinese surface-to-air defenses so we can support a ground operation. While that’s happening, we want to move III Corps to Cartagena, Colombia, where we can offload the bulk of their tanks and heavy equipment at the ports. Then they’ll link up with the Colombian forces near their shared border. This will give us a ground force to invade with, in addition to a likely seaborne assault.”