by Andy Farman
Once he had finished with matters he could not possibly foist onto someone else, the president left his staff to continue business in his absence and went to his room.
When he was not engaged in national business, the president was living in a 10’x10’ concrete room that had once been the domain of an air force colonel. His personal physician had recommended that he have eight hours’ sleep a day and his secret service detail were enforcing it. They were not pulling their side arms as a threat to ensure he followed doctors’ orders; they were more insidious than that, they played on his conscience, reminding him that his country needed him alert, not psychotic. The chief executive was curious as to the living conditions of an ordinary airmen, when this base had been a part of the nation’s nuclear deterrent, he rather imagined that the airman was not paid nearly enough if it meant living in anything more grim than this room. The First Lady and his children were up in the Rockies at another location and he missed them. The short calls on the videophone hardly qualified as a family relationship and he did not have any photographs of them here, all of those were back in the half-demolished White House. The grey walls of his room were devoid of any adornment apart from a framed instruction on fire drills and the ceiling light was little more than a bulb and toughened glass with a wire guard.
Seven hours’ later the president was in that room when a knock on the door awoke him. It was an hour before his sleep period was due to end but he had slept solidly until just then. He had not bothered to undress other than to remove his jacket, so he swung his feet to the floor before standing and slipping the jacket back on.
“Come, but if you aren’t a troop of dancing girls with laid back moral values, it will be a very brief interview!”
Terry Jones entered with an apologetic look on his face, behind him was a man whom the president had seen before but could not place the name.
“I foolishly left my tambourine and veils in the office Mr President, sorry about that.”
“I’m not,” replied the president to the CIA Director, and held out his hand to the man who had accompanied him.
“I am sure we have met sir, but I cannot place the name?”
Dark eyed with tiredness, rumpled and unshaven, the man shook the proffered hand.
“Scott Tafler, Mr President…we met last week in the situation room, I explained why I thought we were going to be attacked.”
“Jeez, was it only a week ago, it seems like months.” He gestured to the bed, motioning them to sit whilst pulling up the tubular framed chair that constituted one third of the furniture in the room.
“I presumed that you chose this venue, because you have something particularly sensitive for me, Terry?”
“Sir, I sent Scott to London to contact the Russians who blew the whistle on the bomb plot. He debriefed them but there was nothing more they knew that could assist us. Perhaps I should let Scott explain why we are here now, sir.”
At the president’s nod, Scott began.
“In Russia, they have reformed their intelligence service and again named it the KGB; we know that one of the principle plotters was given the position as its chief, which was Anatolly Peridenko Mr President. However, he only held office for less than a day; the word is that he is dead at the Premiers orders.”
Looking over at Terry Jones, the president raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Peridenko was a resourceful and ambitious man sir, the Premier is the same, and he probably eliminated what he saw as a future threat to his own office.”
“Please carry on Scott; I hope you are going to tell me that one of the Russians who assisted us has been chosen as Peridenko’s replacement?”
“No sir, the new chief is Elena Torneski, a very capable woman who has until now been restricted by the ‘glass ceiling’ of their intelligence community. It is her ability and apparent acceptance of limited promotion that would seem to be why the Premier has chosen her.”
The president nodded,
“I am guessing that you see a possible advantage here. Is she on our pay roll?”
Scott shook his head.
“No sir, but she spent some years recruiting new talent, in fact it was she who recruited Svetlana Vorsoff, one of our friends in England. Miss Vorsoff was originally recruited to be what is known as a ‘Sparrow’, politely speaking, Sparrows use their feminine charm’s for the State in an espionage role. Torneski obviously revised her opinion of Svetlana’s potential and had her transferred to the directorate responsible for deep cover operatives, ‘sleepers’ if you like. I have gotten to know her fairly well over the past few days, and I would agree that as bed-bait for unwary westerners on business in Russia it would have been a great waste of an intelligent and very able young lady. Svetlana states that she and Elena Torneski became friends and that friendship was current until the time this crisis arose, although they have had no contact for over two years. She is confident that Torneski will listen to her and help end this madness.” He removed a folder containing two files from his attaché case and passed it over. The president speed-read the summaries on Torneski and Vorsoff before studying the photographs, his eyebrows shot up and he removed a photograph of Vorsoff as nature intended, holding it up for the two CIA men.
“Scott, next time you stop by, leave this old fart behind and bring her,” he said, inclining his head at the CIA director. He replaced the photo and handed back the folder.
“On second thoughts, don’t. The way my lucks running the First Lady will walk in and my greeting to her will be ‘Darling, it’s not what you think’…anyway, please carry on with what you were saying.”
“Mr President, as you are aware, the Russian Premier has not been seen since the attack started. Obviously he is in a secure location somewhere, and if anyone is likely to know the location, it will be his chief of intelligence, and knowing where he is could be of immense value. He is apparently the driving force behind all this and if we could take him out, we may see a resolution, an end to the war,” added Terry Jones.
“To know that, we have to know who else was involved and who in the military is for and who is against it…you are thinking about engineering a coup, of course.” The chief executive made the remark as a statement rather than a question.
“I can see a hell of a lot of ‘what ifs’ in the offing Terry but I would appreciate you keeping me up to speed with any developments. You came here to speak to me so as to keep this operation black of course?” he said to the CIA chief.
“As pitch, sir.”
“Good,” he remarked. “What do you need?”
Terry Jones put his hand inside his jacket and removed several sheets of paper, which he handed over.
“Hand written,” remarked the president as he took out a pair of spectacles from his pocket, shook them open one handed and put them on.
“Good, let’s keep it this way as much as possible…” he nodded toward the glowing laptop computer on the nightstand.
“…I swear that things watching me sometimes, ever since they got into the NSA computers I keep wondering what else they’ve done that we don’t know about.”
He was silent as he read both sides of the half dozen sheets. Removing his glasses he handed the pages back.
“You’ve obviously already put a lot of thought into this, right down to anticipating the reluctance of the Air Force cutting loose a Nighthawk crew at a time like this. I like it Terry, who did you have in mind?”
“Actually sir, this is all Scott’s doing. He flew back from London yesterday with his plan and drove all night to get here and pitch it to me.”
The president was impressed.
“No shit…that would account for you looking even more beat up than I am?” he smiled at Tafler.
“I was hoping to get you to stick around, it would have diverted my surgeon’s attention from me. I’ve read your theory, now talk me through it please?”
“It is just an idea right now, but you didn’t laugh in my face when you just read the outline.
Obviously the feasibility has to be gone into by someone more qualified than myself, but loading up a 2 megaton warhead on a SRAM into a Nighthawk, and flying it into Russia is going to require refuelling using buddy stores along the way, that means other Nighthawks being involved. The aircraft will have to be virtually full of fuel when it lands there, which means diverting resources from the main effort?”
“Why don’t you let me worry about prying them free for one night, carry on please Scott.”
“Saddam Hussain moved about a hell of a lot during the Gulf War, it made targeting him almost impossible. We know that Russia has at least four hardened shelters for its politburo in time of war, so we have to assume the possibility that the current leadership could be playing Saddam's shell game too. We still have ICBMs, not many but we still have them, I’m guessing that you would not use them against the Premiers shelter even if you were certain he was there?”
The president shook his head vigorously.
“Both they and the PRC have ICBMs, they would see the launch and they would counter-strike, probably massively.”
“Correct sir, so we use a method of delivery that they cannot detect and one that is close enough to strike before the target moves again…if they are shifting around from shelter to shelter.”
There was silence for a moment as the president thought it through, looking for loopholes, before deciding he did not know enough.
“I got to this office by kissing babies, having good teeth and telling more credible lies than the other guy. Intelligence is not a pre-requisite for holding either high or low office in government. That’s why I have a damn good staff and the JCS to do the thinking for me,” he said with a rueful smile.
“Let me ask them before I give my blessing, carry on with the preparations in the meantime…what is the protection like at these Russian shelters?”
Terry Jones answered that one.
“One and a half megaton direct hit, three megaton near-miss, sir.”
“And what qualifies as a near miss?”
“Two miles Mr President.”
“Can’t we stage out of Germany, Britain or Alaska…why Russia?”
“It would take too long to launch from Ramstein, they would have to fly a huge detour to avoid radars and defences on the battlefield. The same goes for the UK; it took twelve hours’ just to get into position to knock down the Russian A50 that they had covering Belorussia on the first day. The distance from Alaska to Moscow is comparable to flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles and back. We only get one shot at this sir.” The CIA Director stated earnestly.
“I don’t want this turning into a debacle like the Delta Force rescue mission in Iran did, back in the seventies.”
“Sir, we have an F-15 pilot who is F-117A qualified but temporarily unfit for combat duties in fast jets, due to strain injuries after an ejection yesterday. We have identified an out of the way strip that is suitable for putting down on, three hundred miles from Moscow, and we have assets who can meet them and assist with vehicles and safe houses. Added to the fact that the crew are female, they aren’t likely to draw attention as a man would.”
“How so?” queried the president.
“All males between seventeen and forty-five have been called up for military service in Russia; they are now all in uniform. The only exceptions are deserters, draft dodgers and essential industry workers. The police are very active in stopping all hale and hearty males in civilian clothes, to discover which of those categories they fill.”
“I never thought of that. Have you got a right seat picked?”
“Yes sir, Captain Patricia Dudley, she was in R&D until this morning working on the Nighthawk X, the testbed for future F-117 upgrades. I took the liberty of having her posted to Europe as a battlefield casualty replacement; she will be in London tonight.”
“Okay, so who is the pilot?”
“Major Caroline Nunro, she was shot down south of Leipzig yesterday.”
The president laughed.
“The air forces own pugilistic pin-up…good choice. Have you ordered her to volunteer yet?”
Scott did not know what the president was referring to, but he answered.
“No sir, she is in transit to London as we speak. The cover story is that she injured her back punching out and will be attached to USAFs PR department until she gets her flight status back and we have not yet told her the real reason.”
“Do yourself a favour Scott, ask nicely and watch her right…or you’ll look even worse than you do now!”
“Sir?”
Fulham, north London: Same time.
It had taken well over forty-eight hours’ for news of the wars outbreak to become more than supposition by the media. When Janet had watched the breakfast television news reader announce that NATO forces had come under sustained attack during the previous afternoon she had felt sick at first, and then anger at the vagueness, the generalisations of the reports. There was no news of which units had been involved or even how NATO had fared.
Karen looked at her Mum’s expression and asked if her Dad was okay? Jimmy looked at his sister like she was cracked. His expression said it all, of course their Daddy was okay, he was Dad and therefore immortal.
She bundled them off to school and made her way to work where she had tried to push it all into a back room of her consciousness and lock the door, but it was the main topic of conversation amongst her colleagues and the boss had allowed a television to be turned on in the office and tuned to Sky News. Nevertheless she shut out the constant updates, the weary drone of retired soldiers wheeled in to give their opinions as ‘experts’ on the subject. She did a good job on the whole but in the late morning she looked up from her desk and noticed that although her colleagues were focussed on the TV screen they were consciously avoiding looking at her.
“In Germany, NATO took the brunt of an attack by sixteen Soviet armoured divisions supported by heavy air and artillery which employed chemical weapons…” stated a newsreader. “and we are receiving reports that overnight a number of units, including British, sustained heavy casualties.”
It took a large dose of self-control to continue working as normal. The news for the nation grew worse as government sources eked out the real details in small packages. All the better to dispense the news of national disaster and the worsening of the situation for the West. The use of nuclear weapons by the soviets to breach the naval line at the North Cape would not be released for a week. Britain’s exact naval losses on the first day of the war would not become public knowledge for weeks.
Northeast Passage, Barents Sea: Same time.
The single screw of the Royal Navy’s diesel powered hunter/killer (SSK) submarine HMS Ulysses turned slowly, edging the vessel along at one knot, sixty feet below the turbulent surface of the Barents Sea, 2.38 miles northeast of the fishing village of Tysp-Navolok, on the Poluostrov Rybachiy peninsular. The traitorous coastal tides and numerous offshore wrecks, many uncharted by the west, made the going tricky even in peacetime. Ulysses Type 2026 towed array had been secured when they reach the 100 fathom mark.
Towed arrays this close inshore was far less effective than in the deep ocean, and a hazard to the vessel in the shallower water. There is far too much noise for the system to process, but that ambient noise made the vessel harder to hear as well.
One thousand yards to the northeast of them a Russian Kilo class diesel-electric boat was making five knots for thirty minute periods and then drifting and listening for another thirty. Ulysses had heard her, just, whilst she had been moving, but had the British submarine been a few minutes later, or earlier it could have been a completely different story.
Twenty miles to the north, the Royal Navy SSN, HMS Temeraire awaited the small diesel boats return, her sonar department were listening hard for her, or any trouble, but the shoreline was too noisy for them to be aware of events.
This close to the major military district around Murmansk, Russian coastal security was tight, apart from
the Kilo, there were three surface combat vessels with twenty miles of their position, one Mirazh class patrol vessel, a Krivak III frigate and a Grisha V corvette. It was focusing both of the Royal Navy captain’s minds wonderfully, but not doing a great deal of good for Ulysses skippers’ digestive system. Forty-seven men, not counting himself, were relying on him doing it right, getting them in and then getting them out.
“Sonar…how longs he been moving now?”
“Twenty-one minutes…Now, sir.”
“Thank you.” He wanted a little more water above them and he still had plenty beneath their keel at this point.
“Five down, seventy feet…ease the bubble if you will, Cox’n.”
As the boat steadied at the new depth, the captain checked the chronometer.
“Engines, all stop, absolute silence everyone, let’s not break the boredom of an otherwise monotonous day for him.”
The captain looked hard at the chart with the outline of the estimated western edge of the minefield guarding the approaches to the Kola Inlet. The current was going to move the 2,400-ton submarine uncomfortable close to it in the next thirty minutes, but so long as it stayed at its present rate and the Kilo moved on again as usual they should have a safe margin of 700m.
A minute later, sonar signalled that the Kilo’s barely perceptible electric motor had ceased and his eyes drifted to the clock.
Exactly thirty minutes later the captain’s heart rate eased slightly when sonar reported the Kilo was again making way, but it only lasted a moment.
“Captain, sonar…….aspect change on the Kilo sir, she’s turning…..she’s coming around to port….now bearing zero zero seven degrees, course one eight zero, depth one hundred feet, speed five knots!”
The captain felt several sets of eyes on him now, the Russian was coming toward them and even if it wasn’t because they had been detected, it meant they could drift onto a mine in the next hour. He looked again at the chart, even if the Admiralty had erred on the side of caution when marking the fields bounds, another hour could put them well beyond the line on the chart. He viewed it logically, if they got underway, they were screwed, if they fired on the Kilo, they were screwed, but if they didn’t hit a mine then they would make it. It all depended on how much accuracy had been applied in the marking of their chart.