Northern Fury- H-Hour

by Bart Gauvin

  “There was no way we could save them all,” her voice cracked. “The water was just full of people floating in their orange vests, you know? My helicopter’s big, but…but we can only fit so many in one trip. We’d pull as many as we could but there were always more. More faces looking up at us, begging us to take them too. And every time we came back fewer of them were alive. On my last flight,” Savage swallowed, trying to maintain her composure, “on my last flight, most of the people we picked up were already gone. Two died mid-flight.” Her voice trailed off, then she shook her head.

  Jack was about to put his notebook away and let her be, when she looked back up at him and said, with steel in her voice, “I don’t care what it takes. I’m getting a job hunting the bastards who did this. I don’t care if the Navy says I can’t do it because I’m a woman. I can fly a helicopter and hunt submarines as well as any man, and that’s what I’m going to do. You’ll see.”

  Jack had no doubt that he would see. The flint he saw in this petite woman’s icy blue eyes at that moment was enough to send chills up his spine. As an American, with his country now unexpectedly at war and under attack, he wished that their president had shown as much determination in his underwhelming, politically safe speech earlier in the day.

  After interviewing Savage, Jack had gathered with the exhausted rescue teams around a small television set up at one corner of the hangar. CNN was previewing the president’s much-anticipated address to the nation since the early afternoon, but world developments had continued to delay the speech. The most dramatic of these, in a day that had featured a continuous litany of dramatic news, was the attack on the Norwegian parliament. Jack didn’t know for sure, but he imagined that the bomb that destroyed the Storting had convinced the president to stay away from the Oval Office when he addressed the country an hour ago.

  Jack remembered his heart sinking as the president spoke.

  “My…my fellow Americans—” Right off the bat the man’s voice had faltered, as if he were unsure of even this, the most basic salutation American presidents gave to their people. “My fellow Americans,” the president repeated in a stronger voice. The words were all right, Jack thought as the speech went on. Soaring rhetoric worthy of Roosevelt or Churchill, but…but he comes across more as if he’s been insulted personally rather than as the standard bearer for the cause of freedom under siege in the world. He had looked around the hushed room to see if his fellow viewers betrayed any of the same thoughts, and the worried looks on the rescuers’ faces had told him that they did. As he looked around the shore and saw sea-encrusted bodies, he remembered the shaken rescue workers, all he could think was the president owed them, at the very least, courage.

  The middle part of the president’s speech had been the best, limited to a simple cataloging of Soviet attacks around the world. “As I speak, our brave men and women in uniform are fighting desperately against this new onslaught of darkness in the world.” For some reason, the cynical side of Jack’s brain had rebelled against accepting this particular bit of melodrama. New onslaught of darkness? “In Germany,” the chief executive continued, “they stand alongside our NATO allies to defend the freedom of that reunited country, where a massive Red Army is moving to threaten the great city of Berlin. Turkey and Norway have been invaded, and our naval and air forces stand ready to assist these two nations as they defend their sovereignty against this naked aggression. In Asia, our friends the Japanese are under threat, and in the Caribbean and Central America, Soviet vassals have struck at the very heart of world commerce, closing the Panama Canal to shipping. Here, on the very shores of our great country, American men and women have died by the thousands in what can only be described as a campaign of terrorism, the likes of which the world has never seen.”

  Again with the melodrama, Jack had thought. I wonder if Londoners who lived through the Blitz would agree that this is something new under the sun. Still, he wanted to believe in the truth of what his president was telling him.

  The end of the speech was the weakest part. Once again, the substance was right, Jack remembered, with words about winning through to the end, the triumph of light over darkness, of freedom over tyranny, and how the strength of the free world was now gathering, but they had been delivered in such a faltering style, and so rushed, that they lacked the necessary conviction.

  For some reason the whole speech had just felt hollow to Jack. The calming effect that citizens of the country needed right now was nowhere to be found. Millions of American families were sitting in their homes, and they were scared. The terrorist attacks here in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and the missile attacks all up and down both coasts, had brought this unexpected war home to the average American with a terrible swiftness that forced everyone to remember that, at any moment, they were only thirty minutes away from nuclear annihilation. They needed to hear and see strength from the leader of their country. His delivery communicated something else entirely. Several times the president stumbled over phrases, allowed his voice to quaver, he’d even wiped sweat from his brow. The man must really be rattled, Jack thought, knowing that the president was a seasoned politician, adept at using the camera to best effect. The contrast between the president and Lieutenant Savage, the Navy pilot with flint in her eyes was painful to behold.

  Not that Jack could blame the man for feeling shaken. CNN had been broadcasting footage all day, for all the world to see, of the chief executive and his family being hustled half-dressed out of the White House. In the video, black-suited Secret Service agents, guns drawn, dragged the First Family through the Rose Garden to a waiting Marine One, while the helicopter’s rotors whirled at full power, blowing leaves and agents’ ties every which way under low, gray skies. Later footage showed Air Force One hurtling down the runway at Andrews Air Force Base before lifting off and disappearing into the clouds. It was all very dramatic, very frightening, And very counterproductive, Jack thought.

  Jack did some quick math with the timestamp on the video. One of the rescue crews told him earlier that the QE 2 wasn’t the only shipwreck off Long Island, that several ships had been hit at around the same time, just after nine in the morning. If his information about the missile strikes offshore was correct, and if the timestamp on the video was correct, that meant that the president was boarding Marine One several minutes after the Soviet strike. The implication was clear. If they so intended, the Soviets could have easily conducted a decapitating nuclear strike on Washington D.C.

  Jack shivered at the thought, a reaction that probably mirrored the president’s. The man was only human, after all.

  Worse than the fumbled speech itself, a broadcasting glitch showed the nation and the global audience that the address was from Air Force One and not the Oval Office. The President of the United States didn’t even feel safe enough to broadcast a live address to his nation from the White House. If the president doesn’t feel safe, why should anyone? Jack wondered.

  The evidence to the fact that no one, no one, could feel safe was lying in cold, grisly rows in front of him on the sand. Jack had seen enough, or at least enough for the story he was formulating for tomorrow’s paper. He jotted some final notes on his pad, then stuffed pencil and paper into his sport coat and turned to walk back up the beach.

  In the yellow light of the makeshift command center in the lobby of a beach front resort, exhausted police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and volunteers sat on the lobby’s couches and on the floor lining the walls. Many eyes were closed after a physically and emotionally draining day. The Coast Guard had called off the rescue operation an hour ago. Jack overheard two Coasties talking about an attack at their HQ over in New Jersey, but he didn’t know quite what to believe anymore. The tinny voice of a portable AM radio was broadcasting the latest war news from around the world into the now-quiet lobby. Jack wasn’t sure he recognized the world that the newsman on the radio was describing.

  Spying a telephon
e at the hotel desk, Jack walked over and dialed his editor’s desk from memory. The lines were now open, surprisingly. They’d been jammed all day, overwhelmed by loved ones desperate for news from the city.

  He dialed Bill’s desk at Times Tower.

  “Yeah?” Bill answered.

  “Bill? Jack,” the reporter answered. “I’ve got a story for you. A big one. The cruise ship you heard about? It was the Queen Elizabeth 2. Two thousand people on board, or more. The death toll is going to be big for this one” Jack went on a few minutes more.

  “Phew!” Bill whistled, not unhappily. “Modern-day Lusitania on our hands! This is just what we need for the front page under the fold for tomorrow. I’ll pass you off to Jeannie. You can dictate your copy to her.”

  Jack didn’t appreciate his editor’s glib response, but that was the news business. High death tolls meant good payrolls, which was one of the less savory parts of journalism. War was big business for newspapers and TV news ratings, but for Jack, these stories were too short-sighted. He wanted to tell the important stories, the stories of how people overcame the horrible situation they found themselves in. A corpse didn’t let him do that.

  Bill came back on the line after Jack finished dictating his story.

  “Say Jack,” Bill said, “I’ve got another assignment for you. Should be right up your alley. Defense Department called and they want our list of reporters for the combat press pool. Some sort of new idea, ‘embedded reporters,’ or something like that, like we were doing in Bosnia last year. Probably a military idea to keep us from squawking too much.”

  Jack felt his heart begin to race, “Where am I going?” It went without saying that he would accept the assignment.

  “Jack, my boy, we’re sending you off to war again!” Bill said in a teasing tone. “You know the Pentagon likes to keep their cards close. Could be anywhere, Germany, Turkey, Norway,” Bill trailed off and Jack could picture the old guy waving his hand in the air. “Wherever Uncle Sam decides to send you,” Bill was saying, “you’ll be leaving from Norfolk.”

  The reporter let out an annoyed breath. After everything he’d seen in the past several hours, he wasn’t in the mood for Bill’s uncharacteristic and unfunny joshing.

  CHAPTER 91

  2105 EST, Sunday 13 February 1994

  0205 Zulu, 14 February

  US Coast Guard Sandy Hook Station, Ft. Hancock, New Jersey

  JIM INGALLS LET out an exhausted breath as he pushed open the front door of the watch center and walked outside into the chill darkness of the New Jersey night. The door didn’t shut completely behind him, compliments of a Russian bullet that had shattered the door frame, but he hardly noticed. The gun battle felt like a lifetime ago. With so much happening, Ingalls couldn’t quite make sense of it all. He paused in the darkness, savoring the cool air and the quiet after a full day of chaos.

  His shift had lasted only three hours longer than it would have in peacetime. Of course, that didn’t mean that he could go home. Members of his shift were setting up cots in one of the conference rooms, preparing for the long haul. Ingalls had just briefed his counterpart on the incoming shift, the station chief, about the current situation. He was starting to feel the illusion that they were getting things under control. Lieutenant Shin reported that the Navy was flying some people up with a plan to outfit one of the harbor tugs as a minesweeper to proof the channel. Until that happened, nothing would be entering or leaving New York Harbor.

  Of course his fleeting feeling of control vanished when the shift change brief moved on to the rescue operations. The entire afternoon made him feel like one of those performers keeping plates spinning at the top of long poles. Except when the plates fell in this line of work, people died, and a lot of people had died on his watch today.

  “Everything all right, sir?” Ingalls heard from the darkness to his left.

  He turned and saw the dark silhouette of the National Guard platoon sergeant, Martinez, remembered Ingalls.

  “Not really,” Ingalls answered the man. He didn’t want to have a conversation right now, but felt obligated to ask, “Everything alright with you, Sergeant?”

  He heard Martinez grunt, then parrot, “Not really,” in response.

  Ingalls smiled at that. “We’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t we, Sergeant Martinez?” he asked, breaking the ice.

  “We have at that, sir,” Martinez said wearily.

  Ingalls saw the other man reach into the breast pocket and take out a white paper package. A second later a small flame illuminated Martinez’s face with yellow light as the soldier lit up a cigarette. Ingalls watched him take a drag. Then Martinez gestured towards him with the pack.

  “Smoke?” he offered.

  “You know these things will kill you, don’t you?” Ingalls asked as he accepted. Using the tired old joke seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

  “These and a few billion other things,” Martinez said as he handed his lighter over, using the tired old response with ease. Both men lapsed into silence, reflecting grimly on their own mortality in this new, very frightening world.

  “Sergeant Martinez, can I ask you a question?” Ingalls said.

  “Shoot, sir,” the NCO answered, drawing in another lungful of tobacco smoke.

  “You lost a man today protecting us. We’re grateful, by the way, but,” he paused, picturing the back of the ambulance taking Lieutenant Kirby’s body away. He’d seen the tears in Martinez’s eyes that the old sergeant had tried to hide. “How do you move on, keep going?”

  “What do you mean, sir?” Martinez asked, almost sounding annoyed. “You just do. Not like you’ve really got a choice.”

  “I mean,” Ingalls went on, feeling a little sheepish now, “that I just got done spending fourteen hours trying to save probably twenty-five-hundred people that the Russians managed to dump into the drink today. I poured everything that I am into it, and at the end of the day I still let more than half of them die.” Now Ingalls’ voice turned heated. “I couldn’t get any help from the damned Navy, either. When those two ships from Norfolk got here, the Hayler and the Sides, did they start pulling people out of the water? No! They went tearing off east with Mahan on some wild goose chase for those submarines. Still haven’t found any of ’em, either. They sure let a lot of people die of exposure while they pissed around, though,” he concluded bitterly.

  Looking over at Martinez he knew he’d said too much. The NCO was shifting uncomfortably on his feet, but Ingalls needed to get this off his chest. He needed to talk to someone about his guilt.

  “How do you move on, sir,” Martinez answered after a minute, sidestepping Ingalls’ frustration with the Navy, “Well, you gotta remember it was the enemy that killed all those people. Not you. Not the sailors on those ships out there. You all are working to save them. Just like my Lieutenant was working to save you.” With that Martinez fell silent.

  “So,” Ingalls prodded, “does remembering that the Russians killed your people and not you make you feel any better?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then how do we move forward from here?” Ingalls asked again.

  “You wake up tomorrow,” Martinez answered, “and you keep trying to save people. You can bet the Russians aren’t done trying to kill them.”

  Ingalls nodded again, accepting the mild rebuke.

  “A lot more people are going to die before this is all done, aren’t they, Sergeant?” he asked the other man.

  “Yep,” answered Martinez.

  They both fell silent again, puffing on their cigarettes. The men smoked together in silence until they only had nubs left. Then Ingalls dropped his butt on the pavement, ground it with his heel and said, “Well, Sergeant, in that case I better get some rest. It’s going to be another long day tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 92

  0810 MSK, Monday 14 February 1994 />
  0510 Zulu

  Main Ministry of Defense Building, Arbatskaya Square, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

  “—AND THAT WILL conclude my assessment of the German front, tovarich President,” Marshal Rosla said as he and Medvedev leaned over the huge map of Europe. Other members of the Red Army’s general staff—Stavka in both Russian and American parlance—clustered around their president and defense minister, though the constellation of generals and admirals made sure not to crowd their chiefs too closely.

  “To summarize,” Rosla continued, “our attacks are proceeding as planned. We have made slow progress against the American V Corps in central Germany. Their counterattacks have been very sharp, as expected, and I do not anticipate any great successes in that sector. In the north, however, in the former East Germany, initial indications show that the British I Corps and the German III Corps are moving forward to meet our northward thrust from Czechoslovakia to Berlin. We should know for certain in the coming days if they have fallen into the sack we are opening for them, but as I say, conditions look promising.”

  Rosla paused, allowing his president to study the situation for a few moments. Medvedev’s eyes wandered over the dozens of red and blue markers that adorned the room-sized chart. The strategic geometry of the war in Central Europe had changed radically since the reunification of Germany, and not at all in the USSR’s favor. Medvedev’s goal was to modify it again, creating conditions that would assure the safety of his country from the German threat for at least another generation. Soviet-controlled territory in Central Europe consisted of the knife-like westward protrusion that was the unhappily Socialist state of Czechoslovakia. That country had served for three years now as a staging ground for the combined weight of Red Army forces that used to occupy both East Germany and Czechoslovakia.