by Ira Tabankin
“Men, hurry, time is moving quickly, we’ve got to hurry, we have to check in on the technician’s original schedule.”
Four miles ahead is the Russian’s goal, a Minuteman III missile silo. Pulling up to the electrified fence, the Russians use the ID badges from the Air Force technicians to enter the site. The captain checks in the manuals in the truck to learn how to open the silo cover. He sends two of his men to check-in and inform the two Air Force officers in the missile launch capsule, 100 feet underground that they’re going to take missile number six off-line to update the missile’s guidance system. The Russian’s real task is to rig the warhead to explode in the silo. The explosion won’t kill more than a handful of people - the goal of their mission is to increase world opinion that the USA can’t be trusted to care for its nuclear weapons. Presidents Reid and Puten have a press program ready to launch as soon as the warhead explodes.
President Puten plans to decapitate America and disarm it. First he plans to have President Brownstone arrested at The Hague and then turned up the heat by exploding one of the American strategic missiles and warheads. He plans to push the story that since the break up of America, the loss of so many trained key people means America can no longer care for their WMD. Puten is preparing on sending thousands of special troops to take America’s WMD away, disarming America without a leader, leaving Russia to rule the world.
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“General Voldodin, President Brownstone is in the air, our team has arrived at the missile silo, our forces are standing by at Red Banner 2. We have twenty-two submarines off the American East Coast tracking the American Navy. We are waiting for the code word to move to condition Red Banner 1.”
“General Lodensdin, your staff has done very well. As soon as we receive the signal that the captain has completed his task, we’ll issue the release. Remember, we don’t want to start a nuclear war between us and the Americans, we only want them to allow us to disarm them. President Puten will make his speech shortly after the captain completes his mission.”
“General, our forces are standing by to complete our goal.”
“I assume the captain doesn’t know what the actual result of his mission will be?”
“No sir, he has no idea he’s actually going to set off the warhead.”
“Very good, all we can do now is wait for the nuclear dentition indication.”
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Kathy and I wandered the Jamestown settlement. Wherever we looked, we saw signs and posters both pro and con President Obsma’s elevation to Sainthood. This is starting to tear apart the country worse even than the split between the LSA/USA. “Honey, how can anyone with any brain cells really think Obsma should be made a Saint? Unless they think, he’s a Saint for Satan.”
“Brad, there are, millions who think he did a good job. He was the first African-American president.”
“His skin color doesn’t and shouldn’t have anything to do with it. He could have and promised to bring the country together; he did the opposite. I may not have liked his policies…”
“May not? Don’t start that now, every time he was on TV, you had changed the channel before you threw something at the set.”
“OK, yes, I didn’t like him. But, he could have reduced race issues versus increasing them. He could have done more to reduce race tensions than any other President. Instead, he turned up the heat. He pushed the country to the edge of a race war. I admit, I didn’t like him, but I did have hope when he was elected he could accomplish what no one else could. I don’t know who started this Sainthood bullshit, but whoever started it, is very smart. He got the entire world to focus on the sainthood issue. He pulled it off within a few days. Whoever it is could sell ice to Eskimos. He must be working for Reid because he’s tearing us apart.”
“Do you think the Pope will support it?”
Laughing so hard I start coughing, “I respect this pope, I like the way he tries to bring the church to the poor and how he addresses issues head on. He’s a regular guy who isn’t swayed by the office and title. I don’t see how he could accept Obsma’s sainthood. It goes against everything he stands for. I could see some of the other Popes selling out, but not this one. If he does sell out I think, it will damage the church. You’re Catholic, what do you think?”
“I agree with you, I think the Pope should come out and denounce the movement. Hey, look at that little shop, let’s check it out.”
“We don’t have any room at home for more old stuff, I’m old enough to cover everything you want in the way of antiques.”
Approaching the store, I stop in mid-step by the bright yellow sign in the window “#saintObsma," “I’ve had enough, let’s go someplace else or for a ride. I can’t take any more of this BS.”
“I think you’re right. You’re getting too worked up and stressed out by all of this. We are supposed to have fun without the stress.”
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The drug cartels issue a reward of $500 million in either cash or product for the head of President Brownstone. Within minutes, the internet carries the story around the world. Sitting in the ready room at Las Palmas - Gando Air Base, a Spanish Air Force base, four pilots read the message. “Captain Aguliar, we can do this, we know his flight plan, we fly the same planes as the US Navy. I tell you; we can do this; we repaint our planes to look like the US Navy, we intercept Air Force One in international air while jamming all of the RF spectrum. They won’t be able to call for help, we’ll be on them before they know what happened. We use our gun cameras to record the kill; we collect the $500 million, take our planes and disappear. We’ll go to some island or a nice South American country where we’ll never be found. We’ll live like kings.”
“Jose, let me look at the charts, you’ve made many good points; I agree we might be able to get away with it. We need to find out the daily code word from our friend in their Navy and the IFF code. We have to understand, if we even try this; we can’t come home again. Not ever. The American military will hunt us forever. We’ll never stop having to look over our shoulders.”
“Captain, if we have the IFF code, they’ll assume we’re Navy planes sent to escort them. Two of us fly escort, two stay low hidden in the noise and weeds where their radar can’t see us. At the right time, the two low planes go to afterburner and attack from below Air Force One. We can do this and be gone before anyone realizes it. If anything, the Americans will think their own Navy attacked their President. They’ll think it was an internal battle between their forces.”
“Let’s tell the base commander we’re going to plan a quick reaction training flight of four planes, arm three of them with two drop tanks, and four missiles. The fourth should be an electronic jamming model with just drop tanks. If we are going to pull this off, we don’t have much time.”
“Captain, I’ll contact our friend, I’ll tell him we are going to be flying in the Med close to their ships, we don’t want any issues between us. Hence why we want their IFF code.”
“Very good idea, we have a lot of work to do and not much time. I’ll call the plane captain to prep the planes.”
“Captain, I’ll call you in twenty minutes.”
“Ernesto, I have another idea, after we shoot down Air Force One, two of our planes fly a profile that will look like two of us attacked the other two. We play a mock dog fight. In the middle of a dogfight, all four of or planes nose over and head towards the ocean. All call in saying we’ve been hit and are going down. When we get below the radar, we level off and fly to the island to refuel.”
“You’re going to have to find the island very quickly and have fuel ready. We’re not going to be able to leave anyone alive at the base where we refuel. We can’t leave any witnesses to tell anyone we were there or in which direction we flew.”
“Find a base we’ve used before, we’re going to need all of the drop tanks we can increase our range. It would be good if our refueling stop also had extra missiles to rearm us.”
“Captain, I’ll get on thi
s right now. We store weapons and fuel on some islands in case of war.”
Captain Aguilar calls the base commander to suggest a quick reaction training flight. The base commander likes the idea; he quickly approves the plan. As soon as the base commander hangs up, Captain Aguilar picks up the base radio handset. “Juan, we are going to do a quick reaction training flight with four Hornets, the commander has agreed to arm the Hornets fully. How quickly can you get them ready?”
“Captain, we have two on ready five, we can have the other two ready in thirty minutes. Did you say fully armed?”
“Yes, armed for air to air.”
“I’ll get my people on them; I need the commander’s written approval to load live weapons.”
“Check your laptop, it’s already there.”
“Captain, I have to go, we have a lot of work to do in a very short time if you’re going to make your schedule.”
Four F/A 18 Hornet fighters are swarmed with Spanish Air Force people, fueling, arming and checking every detail on the planes. Drop tanks are installed and fueled. Live armed missiles are taken out of the weapon's facility, checked and bolted to the planes underwing weapon's rails.
Captain Aguilar is thinking to himself, “That went better than I expected, we won’t be able to repaint them, not enough time and it will raise too many questions. We’ll have to rely on our approach speed and IFF to confuse the Americans.”
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Cruising at 45,000 feet and flying at 535 MPH ground speed, Air Force One is flying to Europe. Tonight it’s being escorted by four US Air Force F 22 Raptor fighters. Each is armed with two short range and two long range air to air missiles. The Raptor is the world’s most-advanced fighter. The fighters have orders to keep everyone away from Air Force One. They’ve been authorized to use force if necessary to ensure the President doesn’t encounter any threats.
President Brownstone, Paul, Dave, Rash, Ted, Randy and Sara are sitting in the conference room discussing how the next few days are going to unroll. Sara is in mid-sentence when the alarms in Air Force One sound, the conference room door is pushed open, two Secret Service agents enter the room, the alert phone rings next to the president. Every mouth in the conference room closes in mid-word. President Brownstone picks up the red handset, “President Brownstone here.”
“Mr. President, General Sanders, CICNORAD, we have an NUDET (Nuclear Detonation) in America.”
“WHAT? Please repeat that, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Mr. President, to repeat, this is General Sanders, CICNORAD, we have an NUDET in America.”
The conference room is deadly silent. No one wants to say what’s on their mind.
“General, where was it? Was there any indication of a launch?”
“Mr. President, the NUDET was just outside Minot North Dakoda. At one of our Minuteman silos.”
“Are you telling me, it was one of our warheads?”
“Sir, on the surface it appears something happened during routine maintenance in the silo. The technical crew arrived without any issues; they had the correct daily code word and password. The security team following them didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. The crew in the launch capsule was watching the techs open the silo, they reported everything looked normal when all of a sudden the warhead exploded. It went off with a full yield of 350 KT. The silo, and everything within a 5 mile circle is gone. There is a fallout cloud moving to the east. On my authority, I’ve placed all of our forces on DEFCON 2.”
“General, please send us all of the information as soon as you get it.”
The staff in the conference room is shocked, Ted says, “I don’t buy this, we’ve never had an accident like this in 50 years. I’d like to have the backgrounds on all of the techs double checked.”
Before Ted can continue, the pilot calls the President, “Mr. President, we have received orders to assume DEFCON 2, no drill. The Navy is sending up four Hornets to increase our escort strength. What are your orders?”
“Major, how much fuel do we have? Can we turn back and make it?”
“Sir, we can do so if you decide within the next thirty minutes.”
“Major, alert our escort, turn around; we’re going home. Tell the escort to be alert for anything out of the ordinary. Tell them to take no chances.”
“Yes sir.”
“Mr. President, communications, we have an urgent call from President Puten.”
“Put him on.”
“President Puten, I assume your calling about the nuclear explosion.”
“President Brownstone, yes I am. Why did you break the test treaty? This is the first time in 50 years one of us has exploded a weapon above ground. This is a very serious breach. The peace loving people Russian people are extremely concerned by this overt display of hostility.”
“President Puten, it wasn’t a test, nor was it an underground test that went wrong, it was an accident. I don’t know what happened yet. I’m turning around and heading back to Washington, DC, as soon as I learn what happened I contact you.”
“President Brownstone, I understand that one of your missiles blew up in its silo. Do you lack the most-basic security on your WMDs? Please, I hope you’re not going to tell me your nuclear weapons are live and armed in their silos?”
“President Puten, our weapons are not armed in their silos, like yours, ours require release codes and the missile must be at certain locations in space before the warhead arms.”
“Then can you explain how your weapon exploded?”
“Right now I can’t. We’re on our way back to get the details. As soon as I get to the bottom of what happened I’ll contact you.”
“Mr. President, I have no option but to put my strategic forces on Red Banner alert 1. We have to protect ourselves from your potential unexpected firing your missiles at us. I really pray you didn’t set off the explosion so that you can launch a surprise attack at the Motherland while claiming it was an accident. Mr. President, if our satellites see one of your missile's launch from anywhere, we will assume you’re launching a preemptive attack on us. We’ll respond in force and destroy America. I will accept no excuses; one missile launching will cause to launch on warning. We will turn America into radioactive dust pile.”
“President Puten, it’s not safe to have a launch on warning policy. Any satellite or computer can make a mistake, or its software can crash if you launch we are going to have to launch, we’ll jointly destroy the world.”
“Our computers wouldn’t mistake a launch for one of your software errors. Do you think we allow Maxsoft to write our operating systems?”
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“Mr. President, what happened in America? I thought our team was supposed to create a dirty bomb, not explode the warhead. None of our people escaped. I think the FSB gave our team leader the wrong codes and information.”
“General, I’ll look into what happened.”
President Puten hung up the telephone with Marshal of the Russian Federation. Puten looked at the Russian Foreign minister, smiling, he said, “That was a very good plan. Dead men tell no tales, none will ever be found, they were all turned to dust in the wind.”
“Now let’s push the United Nations to take action against the irresponsible Americans.”
Chapter 11
Air Force One starts a banking turn of 180 degrees to return to Washington, one of the F22s notices four new fighters quickly climbing towards Air Force One from low altitude. “Raptor one to Raptor flight, four unknowns rising quickly on course 280, speed Mach .85, Raptor three and four check them out, if they cross within fifty miles of the boss take them down, repeat, Raptors three and four, you are weapons free if they cross fifty miles.”
Rash looks up from his laptop, “Mr. President, the drug cartel has increased the bounty on you $100 million to $500 million. Sir, the Secret Service, issued a report they found the truck that was used for the mortar attack against the House. They were able to pull three fingerprints that led them to a gro
up used by the cartels as enforcers. The Secret Service is concerned that the attempts on your life will increase with their new bounty.
Ted looks up from his tablet, “Crap, this is going to cause every nutcase in the world to come out into the daylight. Are we ready for this?”
Rash responds, “As if they’re not already out, how about the mortar attack against the House before we left?”
Before the President or anyone else can respond, the phone in the conference rings with the pilot’s ringtone.
“Pilot to the conference room.”
“Major, this is the President, what’s up?”
“Sir, you and everyone in the conference with you ought to buckle up, we may be taking hard evasive action, we have four bogies rising from low altitude headed for us. Raptors three and four are going to check them out.”
“Isn’t the Navy sending additional escorts?”
“Sir, the planes we thought were the Navy aren’t. Somehow someone got their hands on the Navy’s IFF code.”
“Major, thanks, the Raptors will get them; nothing flying can beat a Raptor when in its element.”
“Mr. President, I hope so, because I’m on this plane with you.”
“Major, have you ever seen the report when Raptors battled F15 Eagles?”
“No sir, can’t say that I have.”
“Last year at Red Flag in Nevada, the Raptors shot down every plane they faced. As long as the Raptors stayed more than 20 miles away, they never lost. Whoever the boogies are, they’re going to get a big surprise very soon. They won’t even see the Raptors before the AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium Range Anti Air Missile) arrive taking the boogies down. The F15s, which were our first line and best fighter before the Raptor, lost every encounter. The closest competitor the Raptors had was the new Eurofighter, and even then, the Eurofighters had to be within twenty miles to have a chance.
The two Raptors turn towards the incoming flight of four unknowns. They accelerate to Mach 1.5 without using their afterburners. Raptors can super-cruise, flying supersonic without having to use their afterburner, saving fuel. The Raptor’s radar and IR sensors can “see” the incoming fighters before the Spanish Hornets see the Raptors. The F22s are true stealth fighters. “Raptor 3 to lead”