Battlefield Russia

British Awakening

Prince Andrew felt the Gulfstream G650 lurch forward as it came to a halt inside a large hangar on Andrews Air Force Base. When the engines turned off, the flight crew opened the door, allowing the prince and the other British passengers to exit in relative secrecy. Once all ten passengers had exited the aircraft, they were guided to a helicopter nearby.

“She’ll take you the rest of the way to the White House,” said one of the men as he ushered them forward.

Prince Andrew scanned the scene, then nudged his brother. “Philip, check out the level of security. Not only do we have our own small contingent of bodyguards, but check out all of those dozens upon dozens of soldiers wearing full body armor who are guarding the facility. They are armed to the teeth.”

Prince Philip nodded but didn’t say anything. Prince Andrew figured his brother must not want to draw attention.

A moment later, they stepped onto the large Sikorsky VH-3D Sea King helicopter that was waiting for them. Prince Andrew and his brother exchanged glances of approval. This helicopter was plush and comfortable. As soon as everyone was aboard, the pilots spun up the engine.

“You hear that?” asked Prince Philip.

“What do you mean?” asked Prince Andrew.

“Exactly my point,” Philip explained. “You can barely tell the engine is running with all the soundproofing in here.”

Prince Andrew smiled. Both he and his brother were helicopter pilots themselves, so they knew a thing or two about flying.

Prince Philip turned to one of the American Secret Service agents. “Is this the same helicopter the President flies on?” he asked out of curiosity.

The agent turned to look at them and nodded. “The President sent his personal helicopter to come get you. Sorry for having you land at Andrews instead of Reagan International, but this airport is more secure and private.”

Prince Andrew suddenly realized that this meeting must be an even bigger deal than he’d originally thought if the President had sent his own helicopter. Besides, they were also accompanied by the former director of MI5 and a Tory MP.

“If Chattem found out about this meeting, he’d be piping mad,” Andrew thought. A smirk spread across his face.

When the helicopter flew over the White House, Andrew caught a glimpse of the outside. While a lot of tourists were snapping pictures of the iconic building, his eyes were immediately drawn to the one-meter-tall sandbag wall that had been built around the perimeter of the building. He also spotted several menacing-looking armored personnel carriers as well.

As Marine One circled the building and came in for a landing on the South Lawn, a sudden gust of wind hit them, bringing with it a torrent of rain. Once they had settled on the ground, Andrew noticed that the rotor blades wound down much faster than on a normal civilian model.

A couple of guards came walking over to the helicopters with umbrellas, ready to shepherd them to the portico and side entrance to the White House.

Once the British party made it into the building, they were led to a meeting room near the President's office.

One of the staffers at the White House brought them a tray filled with tea and light finger foods. “All right, gentlemen, wait here for a moment and we will let the President know that you have arrived.”

As the President waited for his British guests, he observed the shower pounding on the windows outside the Oval Office. A dark set of storm clouds had moved into the Washington area, providing some much-needed rain. The sudden tempest seemed a bit too symbolic of his mood at the moment.

“How do I tell these gentlemen that their PM cut a deal with the Russians?” he wondered. It still seemed almost bizarre to him that Chattem had made an agreement to withdraw armed forces from the war in exchange for his position of power.

Knock, knock.

The President looked up and saw the National Security Advisor, Tom McMillan, stick his head into the room. “Sir, our guests have arrived. Do you want me to bring them in?” he asked.

President Foss nodded, not saying a word. He was still trying to figure out what to say. Then he suddenly remembered that JP, his CIA Director, would also be there. JP had been so quiet as he’d sat on the couch, drinking his second cup of coffee and reading over documents to prepare, that Foss had actually forgotten he was in the room.

When the British contingent walked in, the usual greetings were exchanged. After all hands had been shaken, the President signaled that they should all take a seat. A few additional chairs were brought in to make sure there was enough room, but then the four British bodyguards found their way to the door to wait outside the room with the Secret Service agents. They had enough sense to know this needed to be a private meeting, even without being told.

George Younger, the former head of MI5, opened the discussion. He turned to his former counterpart, JP, and asked, “So, what is so hush-hush that you had the lot of us secretly whisked away from London to meet you here in Washington under such cloak-and-dagger means?”

The two young princes placed their cups of tea gently on the table in front of them and then leaned forward, obviously eager to hear the response.

JP opened his folder and produced some documents he’d planned to give as handouts. As he began to pass them out, he explained, “We brought you here under these circumstances because what we are about to brief you on is incredibly sensitive in nature, and frankly, we’re not sure how to proceed. We are seeking your guidance.”

The Brits looked at each other with perplexed expressions.

JP continued. “We have a deep cover agent in Russia who acquired some rather interesting information about the Prime Minister.” He held up a hand to stop any questions. “The document you now have in front of you is a dossier on Max Weldon, a Managing Director for the Rothschild Group. If you will continue to peruse the information, you’ll find that he is also known as Maksim Sokolov and belongs to the Russian Federal Security Service. Take a few moments to briefly scan the pages before you — I’m sure you will all come to the same conclusion that we have, that this Max fellow is a grave threat.”

Pages rustled as everyone rifled through the dossiers.

After a moment, Younger looked up. “Prior to being forced out of MI5, I knew of this character. We’d known about him for some time. Our continued hope was that he would lead us to some big fish, and we could find someone to turn and then get them to start feeding him false information. Why are you Yanks so interested in him now?” he asked.

JP then pulled up some images on his Microsoft Surface Pro, turning the tablet around so everyone could see the series of images that showed Chattem moving across London, wearing a variety of different disguises and ultimately ending his escapade at the Oxford Cambridge Club. He then played a video that showed the two men arriving at the same hotel room.

“They arrived separately, of course,” conceded JP, “but they were clearly meeting to discuss something.”

“Do you have audio of the meeting?” inquired MP Rosie Hoyle, the opposition leader in the House of Commons.

“We do, but not from the video. The FSB would have detected such a device if we’d used one that could record and store both audio and video. The recording we have was taken by Maksim Sokolov himself, probably to use as blackmail at a later date and time. Between the video and the audio recording, you can piece together what is happening pretty well. Our analysts have run their voices through our recognition software, and we came back with 100 % matches.”

JP then proceeded to pull a small digital recorder from the breast pocket of his jacket. As he placed the device on the center table between them, he hit the play button.

The group sat there listening intently to the two of them talk. At first, it seemed to proceed innocently enough as Max asked Chattem what his position on the war would be if he became the PM. However, when the conversation turned to what would need to happen in order for him to obtain the position of prime minister and Chattem specifically mentioned the assassination of several Tory MPs and a cruise missile attack against their country, their jaws hit the floor.

When the recording was done, the President looked at his guests, who were obviously in a state of shock. “Now that we have acquired this information and shared it with you, what are we supposed to do with it?” he asked.

“That traitorous bastard,” Prince Philip said under his breath.

“We have to remove him,” Prince Andrew replied.

Tom McMillan leaned in. “That’s why we brought the four of you here. This is a British problem, one we can’t solve. We want to know what we can do to help you.”

MP Rosie Hoyle cleared her throat. “First, I would probably move to have the PM brought up on charges of treason. We’ll obviously need a copy of this recording, so we can verify it. Once that has been done, the Ministry of Justice will want to hear it and then determine if they want to prosecute. I am confident they will. It’s clear that Chattem suggested several MPs be assassinated, and that happened — so there’s a clear link to the events that transpired. Then we have the cruise missile attack, and him agreeing to the separate peace deal, and subsequent withdrawal from the war. It’s cut and dried that he is guilty of high crimes.”

She pulled a stray hair away from her face. “The challenge I see is how will the public might react to this. People were already angry about the losses we had sustained in the war, and then they became angry when we pulled out from it. Once they learn of this recording, they will go absolutely barmy,” Hoyle asserted.

George Younger interjected, “We need to get this recording verified and then distributed to MI5 and MI6. We have to arrest Max Weldon before he knows we are on to him. He’s probably a veritable wealth of information that we desperately need to mine. I can guarantee, there are going to be a lot of other people involved in this soft coup that the Russians have essentially been able to pull off.”

Younger then turned to face the two royals. “Sirs, Ms. Hoyle is right. When this news breaks, it’s going to devastate the country. We’re going to need help from both of you in calming the people and helping to unify the country behind a new government. It may be difficult to explain why Britain will most likely return to the Alliance and become involved in the war again.”

The princes nodded.

“We’ll do our best to manage the mood of the people,” Prince Andrew stated.

The Brits and Americans continued to talk for a few more hours before the meeting ended. Once the British delegation left the Oval Office, Tom turned to the President. “That went about as well as I thought it would,” he said.

President Foss snorted. “We blindsided them. They have to act, especially now that they know we know what transpired. The bigger question is, how will the average person respond to the knowledge that their prime minister colluded with the Russians to become PM and withdraw the UK from the war?”

Before the two men could talk further, the President’s Chief of Staff, Josh Morgan, stepped into the room. “The delegation just left for Andrews,” he confirmed, “and the generals are also down in the war room and are ready for you.”

When Vice President Foss had been sworn in as the new President following the assassination of Gates, he’d brought his own chief of staff with him and replaced Gates’s man. It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked Gates’s Chief of Staff; he’d just wanted his own guy in the position. Josh Morgan was someone he’d worked with for many years, and he felt comfortable with him.

“I guess that’s our cue,” the President said. He, Tom, and JP got up and followed Morgan to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC. It had been unofficially dubbed “the war room” for a few months now, since nearly all the meetings in there revolved around the world war.

Walking to the elevator that would lead them to the subterranean room, Foss couldn’t help but marvel at how the engineers had had to build the new addition to the White House. With so many changes in technology, from fiber optics to wireless technologies, the Situation Room and the presidential bunker had gone through some major overhauls.

Walking into the PEOC, the President saw that his military leaders and advisors were standing next to their chairs, waiting for him to arrive. As Foss took his seat at the head of the table, everyone sat down. Then he motioned for Admiral Peter Meyers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to proceed.

The admiral stood and cleared his throat. “Mr. President, this is your evening brief of the war and where the situation currently stands. There are several key decisions that require your approval. I’ll go over those decision points as we reach them,” he said. Then he went through a quick outline for the briefing before beginning his presentation in detail, which was something President Foss had insisted upon. He was not a fan of the more freewheeling discussions that President Gates had been known for, and he preferred everything to be much more formal and organized.

Eventually, Admiral Meyers brought up some images of Europe on the screens. One map showed the latest Russian offensive, and where their army was driving toward. “The Russians launched their Armored Fist Campaign seven days ago. As you can see, the offensive was able to punch a hole in our lines at these three points,” explained Meyers, using a laser pointer to bring attention to the problem areas. “Presently, the Russians’ offensive has stalled in front of Rzeszow, Poland, roughly 160 kilometers from Kraków. In the north, the Russians broke through the French positions near Lublin. They’re falling back to a new defensive position roughly 60 kilometers from Warsaw. We’ve moved a joint Dutch-German brigade to reinforce the line there. We should be able to contain them roughly one hundred kilometers southeast of Warsaw while the French division regroups.

“In the north of Poland and Lithuania, we managed to stop the Russian offensive before it was able to really get going. Once we caught wind of their plans, we specifically went after the enemy’s fuel dumps. Without diesel and gasoline, their offensive ground to a halt before it really got going.”

The President interjected, “If you guys were able to knock out their fuel dumps in the north and this prevented their offensive from progressing there, then why were you not able to do the same thing in the south, where their larger army group is located?”

Admiral Meyers tipped his head to the side. “Mr. President, the army group in the south had significantly higher concentrations of surface-to-air missile systems and other air-defense assets,” he explained. “With the introduction of the Indian Army to the war, we’re facing a lot stiffer air defense. The Russians also concentrated a lot of the Indian armor units with their main offensive in the south, which greatly bolstered their offensive capability. We’ve moved the Ninth Army Group to stop the Russians in the south. With the bulk of V Corps comprising armor and mechanized infantry, they should have the armored force to handle the Russian and Indian armor units.”

The President grunted and then nodded.

Admiral Meyers paused a second. “Sir, with your permission, I’d like to move forward with inserting a Special Forces unit near the Caspian Sea to go after the Russian oil and natural gas pipelines,” he asserted. “We’d like to go after their ability to move the product to their factories. This will further grind their economy to a halt and reduce the likelihood they can sustain their offensive.”

President Foss looked at Meyers for a second, turning to gauge the mood of the other generals before replying. “I’m concerned that if we do this, the Russians will retaliate by hitting our pipelines in Alaska or the Midwest,” he began. “It’s bad enough that they blew up the petroleum facility in New York — that attack killed over 800 civilians. Besides, how would we even get our Special Forces or Navy SEALs to the Caspian Sea?”

“We would send a Romanian SOF unit in to make the attack. It would be them and the Georgians,” Meyers explained.

Tom jumped into the conversation. “And exactly how are you going to get the Azeris to allow a Georgian unit to operate off their coasts? Don’t they hate each other?”

“I believe you are mixing the Georgians up with the Armenians,” the President’s Chief of Staff asserted. “The Armenians and the Azeris are the ones that hate each other. The Georgians and the Azeris get along just fine.”

“Ok. Let them be the ones to carry out the attack,” said the President hesitantly. Then he unfolded his arms before changing the topic. “I want to move to Taiwan,” he said. “How are the landings progressing?”

The staffers changed the maps to show Taiwan. The scene looked like a hot mess with a swarm of red and blue icons all over the place and arrows to match.

Clearing his throat before proceeding, Admiral Meyers began, “Forty-eight hours ago, we began the liberation of Taiwan. The force we landed in Taitung City on the southeast side of the island has secured our first beachhead. The Australian Army captured the city while our paratroopers secured the enemy air base and the city airport. The paratroopers are now moving to secure the mountains that overlooked the valley and city below. Once this area is captured, it’s going to create a safe corridor for us to position ground-attack aircraft and helicopters. It’ll also provide us with a buffer zone to start landing more heavy armor units. As we get more troops ashore, they’ll move up Highway 9 and the coastal highways to link up with our northern force.”

Meyers hit a button to zoom into a different area of the map. “Moving to the landings further north — we hit Yulan County with multiple landing points, so our forces wouldn’t be bunched up.” He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Our forces are taking a beating there right now, Sir. We’re two days into the landings, and the Marines have only captured roughly a kilometer inland in some areas, and as far as six kilometers in others. We’re in the process of moving more naval and air assets to support the ground attack now—”

The President interrupted, “—What’s the holdup? Why are our forces still stuck on the shoreline?”

“The city of Yulan sits in kind of a low-lying basin if you will. On nearly all sides, it’s surrounded by large ridgelines and mountains. The PLA has built a series of bunker complexes throughout this area, and they’re able to rain down a lot of death and destruction on our forces. Our Marines have to fight their way to the ridgelines and mountains, and then fight their way into these bunker and tunnel complexes to clear them out. It’s going to take us a little while to root them out and secure the area. Depending on how many soldiers the PLA wants to commit to this battle, it could take us several weeks or even a month,” he replied.

The President squirmed in his seat uncomfortably, then seemed to be lost in thought for a moment.

After an awkward pause, the President had a look as though a lightbulb had just gone off in his head. “Admiral, when my father was in World War II, he said they had some guys in their unit that used to use flamethrowers against these bunker complexes,” he explained. “I don’t mean to micromanage, but are we using some of these older weapons that worked well during the past wars to help solve this problem?” Foss clearly wanted to look for a way to contribute to the effort rather than just giving permission for the generals to do something.

General Kyle Stirewalt, the Chief of Staff of the Army, jumped in to answer this question before anyone else could. “We are using some of the older weapons of the past, Mr. President. However, we also have some newer stuff we are using as well. I will admit, at first, we didn’t realize how difficult of a problem these bunker complexes would be. We’d been hitting them with bunker-busting bombs, but some of these complexes are dug so deeply into the mountains that they aren’t easily destroyed. While we may demolish an entrance or outer bunker, we haven’t been effectively striking deep inside them. Short of using a nuclear-tipped weapon, it’s hard to reach that far down. So, yes, Sir, we have started to reissue flamethrowers again — albeit, much safer and better versions of those weapons, but yes, we are reissuing them. Another new weapon we’re also looking at using is gas.”

The President stiffened when Stirewalt mentioned the word gas, but he didn’t stop the general from speaking, and neither did anyone else.

“We’re going to try an experiment down in the south to see how it will work,” the general explained. “The type of gas we’re going to test is called SP-5. When a person breathes it in, it immediately renders them unconscious for several hours. It won’t kill them, but it will put them to sleep for a while. Our intention is not to slaughter everyone inside the bunker if we can avoid it, but rather to render them incapacitated until our troops can get inside and take them prisoner.”

Foss let out a short breath and smiled once he learned the general wasn’t proposing they use some sort of WMD. He would’ve shut that down in a New York minute if that had been Stirewalt’s intention. But a gas that would render a person incapacitated until they could be taken prisoner, that was something he could live with, especially if it saved American lives.

“OK, General, you have my permission to move forward with that option,” Foss responded. “However, I want to know immediately how effective it is, understood? If it does work, let’s see if we can look to incorporate it in some other manner that might allow us to incapacitate the enemy elsewhere. Perhaps we can find a way to end this war soon without it getting any further out of control.”

Foss turned to eye Admiral Meyers. “What are we going to do about India? They’ve sided with the Eastern Alliance, and that’s a problem for us. With India and China inexplicably working together now, nearly half of the world’s population is now at war with the West. Our troops are already fighting each other in the Russian Far East and now in Europe. What are our options?”

Katelyn Mackie, the President's Chief Cyberwarfare Advisor, responded, “We’re working on that right now, Mr. President. Our hackers are going after their logistical network and doing what they can to infiltrate their network-connected technologies to shut down various segments of their economy. We’re pinpointing our efforts to disrupt the production of war materials that are dependent on one or more components — for example, a special computer component used in a surface-to-air-missile that’s also used in a tank, or an aircraft. If we’re lucky, we can cause a shortage of the part, or hamper the production of the part entirely. We’re also looking for ways to insert malware code or kill codes into the software or hardware of the components of these types of systems. It’s a very technical process, but it will have an effect on their ability to produce their war materials and to sustain the war long-term.”

Admiral Meyers added, “While the introduction of Indian troops in Russia has complicated things, I’d like to note that we handed them a crushing defeat in Siberia over the summer. I won’t dismiss their impact in Europe, but it’s been a year since former president Gates reinstituted the draft. It had been slow at first, getting troops trained and to the front lines. However, they’re now starting to show up in much larger numbers. In Siberia, our forces have hunkered down for the winter. We’re still sending replacements for the losses they took, but they’re nearly back to one hundred percent strength. In Korea and northern China, we’ve also suspended our offensive operations for the time being. We’re consolidating our gains and continuing to hit them with precision-guided strikes with our B-2s and B-1s.

“Our focus now is on supporting the liberation of Taiwan, and Russia,” Meyers continued. “The US Ninth Army in Europe has now surpassed 280,000 soldiers. The Fifth Army, which is still marshaling in France, has now reached 195,000 soldiers. This latest attack by the Russians and Indians is a last gasp, a desperate gamble on their parts to put us on defense. We may lose ground, but it’ll be recaptured in the coming months. The Russians know that, and the Indians know that,” he concluded.

Josh Morgan’s left eyebrow rose conspicuously. “If they know that, then why are they launching this offensive?” he retorted. “Why wouldn’t they try and hold those forces back to defend their border and make our counterattack more costly?”

“The same thing was asked during the Battle of the Bulge during World War II,” Meyers responded. “In reality, the Nazis would have been better served by using those forces to defend the Rhine. They could have prevented the Allies from crossing the river for many more months. Instead, they chose to launch this last major offensive in hopes of cutting our forces off in the Low Countries, to grab the supplies at Antwerp, and to throw the Allied army into disarray. They truly believed that offensive would have altered the course of the war, or at least put them in a better position to negotiate a peace deal. I believe the Russians and Indians are of the same mindset with this current offensive. If they can divide our forces and thrust deep into Europe, they believe they’ll be able to fracture the Alliance further and give them a better position at the negotiation table.”

“The only way we’re ending this war is when Petrov surrenders,” Foss reiterated. “I agree with President Gates — the Petrov regime needs to be removed and a new government installed, one that is willing to be a part of the global community and not a belligerent bully.”

He paused for a moment, looking at the tired and worn out faces of his military advisors. He knew they were doing their best with what they’d been given. The fact that they’d somehow held the military together after all it had been through was a testament to their skill and ingenuity. As he stood, he added, “You all have done an amazing job executing the war. Please pass along my thanks to the others, and let’s end this war… Tomorrow is election day, a day that may force us to make some changes in how we prosecute the war. One year from now starts the next presidential election cycle. I know it’s a tall order, but I’d like us to work toward concluding this war by this time next year. The last thing our nation and the world needs is a sustained global war during a US presidential election.” With that, President Foss stood and left the room to attend to other matters of state.