Cauldron

CHAPTER 29 Inside Straight

Ross Huntington paced moodily back and forth, practically wearing a furrow in the carpet while paging through the latest batch of top-secret NSA signals intercepts delivered by special courier. When he’d first suggested to the President the idea of looking for weak points in the EurCon coalition, he’d been confident the research might actually lead somewhere. Now the job just seemed more like meaningless make-work than ever.

Physically he looked and felt better than he had in months. Nearly two weeks under the no-nonsense care provided by the President’s personal doctor had worked wonders. His chest pains, shortness of breath, and other danger signs had all faded or vanished entirely. After constant monitoring even his heart rate seemed relatively steady. But with every passing day, he grew more restless. Oh, the White House guest quarters he’d been assigned were comfortable, even luxurious, but he was tired of comfort and bored with bed rest. Although Dr. Pardolesi and the other medicos kept warning him that much of the improvement he sensed was illusory or fragile, Huntington felt fine — perfectly ready to go back to work.

After all, while he idled the hours away as a semi-invalid, events were passing him by. Twelve days were an eternity in a world on the edge of global war, and he desperately wanted to get back in synch before it was too late.

At least he wasn’t completely out of the loop. The President looked in on him from time to time for a quick chat and a rundown on major developments. And he still had access to the NSC’s classified daily intelligence summaries.

Huntington sighed. Taken together, those intelligence reports painted a grim picture of the military and political situation facing the United States and its allies. Despite recent victories in the air and at sea, they were still behind the power curve in Eastern Europe. In the north, EurCon’s armies were deep inside Poland — advancing against defenders who were rapidly running out of men, machines, and endurance. Several British and American “heavy” divisions were on their way, but even the closest convoys were still days away from Gdansk. To the south, half of Hungary lay under French and German occupation. In the center, the Czechs and Slovaks were hanging on by their fingernails — too hard-pressed themselves to send much aid elsewhere.

Even if Poland and the other countries could hold out long enough for aid to arrive, the Combined Forces faced the likely prospect of a prolonged and bloody ground campaign to roll EurCon back to its prewar borders. Tens of thousands were already dead on both sides, Huntington knew. How many more would have to die before the madmen in Paris and Berlin came to their senses?

Against that backdrop, yesterday’s Flash message from the CIA’s Moscow Station took on an even bleaker aspect. News of the secret Franco-Russian military talks had hit the President and his closest advisors like a sledgehammer right between the eyes. With good reason, too. Russian intervention would irretrievably tip the scales against the Combined Forces in eastern and central Europe. Even in her weakened state, Russia could throw nearly half a million soldiers into the field. Her navy was still the second most powerful in the world, and her slimmed-down air force included large numbers of sophisticated, highly capable fighters and fighter-bombers. More ominously, Russia retained a sizable stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. If she joined the fighting, the world would again face the specter of uncontrolled escalation to thermonuclear war.

Ever since the first closely guarded reports sent shock waves through official circles, both the NSC and the British War Cabinet had been meeting in almost continuous session, searching frantically for some way to break up the secret talks and keep Russia on the sidelines. So far, they’d had scant success. If the CIA’s initial reports were accurate, the French were offering Kaminov and his fellow marshals, military, economic, and political concessions that Washington and London could not possibly hope to match. Not without reawakening a monster that had prowled around the free world’s doors for nearly five decades, forever trying to claw and pry its way inside. Containing the old Soviet state’s imperial ambitions had cost the West many lives and trillions of dollars. Nobody in power now wanted to risk repeating the experience at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Huntington’s watch beeped, reminding him it was time to take the next dose of the medication Pardolesi had prescribed. He stopped pacing long enough to down one of the orange-colored pills from the bottle he carried in his pants pocket. Even a short acquaintance with the President’s doctor had soon convinced him that strict compliance with any reasonable orders would be his quickest ticket out of this gilded cage.

He thrust the medicine bottle back into his pocket and made an effort to concentrate on the job at hand. In dealing with the Russians, the President could count on advice from hundreds of better-qualified experts. His job right now was to keep searching for ways to unravel the European Confederation from the inside.

He skimmed through the collection of signals intercepts in growing frustration.

After two weeks spent scanning hundreds of bits and pieces of intelligence, his whole grand notion seemed more like a dead end than a road to victory. It wasn’t that the smaller member states were happy with their de facto masters — far from it. The airwaves and land lines back and forth between Paris and their national capitals were full of complaints of French arrogance. But bellyaching, bitching, and moaning were a far cry from action, and Huntington hadn’t yet been able to find a single opening worth exploiting. Few of the European governments had many illusions left about their position inside the Confederation, but none wanted to risk French or German wrath by openly breaking their signed agreements — especially when this war’s outcome still hung in the balance. Most seemed hopeful they could just hunker down, stay uninvolved in any combat, and let the whole unpleasant business pass them by. With their hands full in Eastern Europe, EurCon’s ruling circles had seemed perfectly willing to accept that attitude.

Until now.

Huntington froze, staring down at the document he’d just read. If the National Security Agency’s analysts were right, he was looking at the transcript of a conversation between Belgium’s Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.

Every day, the dozens of NSA-managed satellites and listening posts scattered around the world routinely intercepted huge volumes of radio, radiotelephone, telephone, telex, and fax transmissions. Ironically, evaluating this enormous flow of information was far more difficult than collecting it in the first place. Messages or conversations in the clear were stored and sorted by supercomputers programmed to hunt for hundreds of key words or phrases. Transmissions that were scrambled or coded in some fashion were automatically bucked up to special teams equipped with their own code-breaking computers. Nevertheless, although automation helped eliminate much of the preliminary “grunt work,” the thousands of human intelligence experts behind the machines were always swamped. Their work was often tedious, but sometimes they struck gold.

Huntington read the transcript again, this time more carefully, testing his first impressions. His eyebrows rose as his imagination added inflections and hidden meanings to the plain, black-and-white typescript in front of him. His every instinct sensed an opportunity here.

Huntington nodded to himself, convinced he was right. As the head of his own firm, he’d visited Belgium many times back when Brussels was the administrative center of the old EC. He knew many of the tiny country’s leading industrialists, financiers, and politicians personally. With a little pressure in the right places, this new display of French arrogance could be turned into one of the EurCon fault lines he’d been seeking. But could the United States and its allies move quickly enough to capitalize on it?

He laid the rest of the SIGINT data aside and picked up the phone. “This is Ross Huntington, I need to speak to the President… Yes, right away.”

An hour later, Ross Huntington sat in a chair facing the President’s imposing desk. Both General Reid Galloway and Walter Quinn flanked him, one on either side. After hearing his close friend and advisor’s plan through once by himself, the President had asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the CIA director to sit in while Huntington walked them through his supporting evidence, his deductions based on that evidence, and the high-stakes gamble he proposed. Harris Thurman hadn’t been invited, and the ultracautious, fence-sitting Secretary of State was conspicuous by his absence.

“Well, gentlemen?” the President asked after Huntington had finished laying out his case. “What do you think?”

Galloway stirred, looking up from his big, capable hands. “From a military point of view, what Ross suggests is perfectly feasible. It’ll play merry hell with our bombing schedule for a couple of days, but we’ve definitely got the aircraft and weapons in-theater to do the job and to do it damn thoroughly.” His voice trailed off.

“But?” the President pressed him.

“Frankly, sir, it’s what comes next that worries me.” The general nodded toward Huntington. “Sending any civilian, especially someone as high up as Ross, so deep into enemy territory strikes me as taking one hell of a big chance. I’m not sure the game’s worth the candle.”

Huntington spoke up. “Technically we’re not at war with Belgium, General.” He held up a hand to forestall any protest. “Oh, I know the Belgians are part of EurCon, but we’ve never recognized EurCon — not as a legitimate government. And we’ve never received a declaration of war from Brussels. So, legally, I can travel wherever I want — with a valid passport and visa.”

Galloway snorted. “Yeah. But we already know the French don’t give a damn about legality. If they get wind of what you’re up to, you can bet the DGSE will close in hard and fast, visa or no visa.”

Huntington nodded. “That’s why this whole affair has to be handled carefully and by me personally. Our embassy staff over there can’t do it. They’re probably tagged by French or German intelligence wherever they go. But I know the right people to contact — people I can trust to keep quiet.”

Galloway looked unconvinced. But then he shrugged. Debating imponderables wasn’t the general’s style. He preferred dealing in facts.

The President glanced at Quinn. “What about you, Walt? Any thoughts on this?”

“Yes, sir. I say it’s worth trying, risks and all.” The rotund CIA director surprised them all with his certainty. He explained. “So far we’ve been playing catch-up to the French and Germans, Mr. President. They shut off Poland’s oil and gas. We ship new supplies. They blow up a tanker. We provide naval escorts. They attack. We defend.”

Quinn leaned forward. “I think it’s high time we made the enemy dance to our tune. What Ross has in mind might just do the trick. If not, we haven’t lost much — just a little time and maybe some diplomatic face.”

The President nodded slowly and rocked back in his own big, leather chair, thinking over what he’d been told. When he looked up, his gaze fastened on his old friend’s face. “How about it, Ross? You’re sure you’re up to this?”

“I feel fine, Mr. President,” Huntington said with as much conviction as he could muster. He was determined not to let ill-health or fear sideline him again. Though he didn’t harbor any illusions about being irreplaceable, he was pretty sure that none of the State Department’s bright-eyed boys had the inside knowledge and official anonymity that would be needed to pull this thing off successfully.

The faint trace of a smile flashed across the President’s weary face. “Could you get a doctor’s note to prove that, Ross?”

Huntington shrugged noncommittally. “Given enough time, I could. But do you really want me to go doc-hunting? Now?”

The President laughed softly. “No, I guess not.” His smile faded, replaced by the firm-jawed, determined look that signaled his mind was made up. “Okay, gentlemen, I’m sold.”

He turned to Galloway. “Issue the necessary orders, General. I want the military side of this operation in gear within thirty-six hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

The President swiveled his chair to one side and punched the intercom button on his black phone. “Maria? I need you to make some arrangements for me. Ready? First, rustle up an air force flight for Mr. Huntington. Where? To London. After you’ve done that, get on the horn to Number 10 Downing Street. Fix up a time this afternoon our time for a secure-channel videoconference with the Prime Minister.” He looked at Huntington over the phone. “Better get packed, Ross. You’ll be on your way just as soon as I hang up.”

Huntington grinned. “Yes, Mr. President.” He stood up, amazed by the sudden surge of energy coursing through his body. In some strange way, the prospect of another important mission made him feel ten years younger. After months of watching Paris and Berlin wreak havoc on America’s friends and allies, he was going to get the chance to wreak a little havoc of his own.

Metz lies almost two hundred miles east of Paris, close to the border with Germany and Luxembourg. Nestled in the Moselle River valley, the town stands on the northern edge of Lorraine — a countryside of rustic farmland and rusting heavy industry, a land marked by more than a thousand years of war. Down through the centuries, knights in surcoats and chain mail, the Sun King’s proud musketeers, Napoleon’s grumbling foot soldiers and dashing cavalrymen, the Kaiser’s spike-helmeted infantry, Hitler’s grim, merciless panzers, and the GIs of George Patton’s Third Army had fought and bled from one end of the province to the other. Metz had seen its share of those battles.

Now a web of military installations, headquarters, and supply depots sprawled in an untidy arc around the town’s western suburbs. Among others, Metz was the permanent headquarters site for the First French Army and France’s northeast military defense region.

Although most of EurCon’s combat troops were fighting in Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic, Metz was still swarming with military activity. Its storehouses and repair facilities bustled as French soldiers and civilian contractors labored overtime — shipping the munitions, spare parts, and other supplies needed by their comrades in the field.

Their jobs had little to do with direct combat, but they knew how important their work was. Without supplies and maintenance, any but the most primitive army would grind to a halt in days. So the men who manned the Metz logistics centers thanked their lucky stars that they had an important job to do — especially one that did not routinely involve getting shot at.

Of course, there were air raids. Since the air war over France escalated, Metz had been hit twice by American bombers. But the damage and casualties inflicted by both raids had been relatively light — certainly nothing compared to the carnage at the front. No, most of the French soldiers were happy with their assignment, even if it meant toiling in round-the-clock shifts. Few of them were glad to hear they were about to be freed for combat duty by units of the Belgian Army. Camp rumors said the Belgians would arrive within the next twenty-four hours, and for once the camp rumors were right.

But America’s airmen got there first.

It was just before dawn when air raid sirens sounded across the city. Even as crews ran to man their missile and gun batteries, explosions split the darkness, silhouetting weapons and men. A few defenders caught angular outlines against the sky, and recognized F-117 stealth fighters.

Almost before the sirens finished wailing, the black jets were gone. Only the air defenses had been attacked, but they had been thoroughly and systematically pulverized. The Americans had used laser-guided bombs and cluster weapons to smash each battery’s weapons, early warning radars, control bunkers, and ammunition storage sites.

American bombs had also flattened the fire department, leaving nothing but piles of broken concrete and shredded metal. Understanding the implications, the French general commanding the base tried desperately to rebuild his shattered defenses. He wasn’t given enough time.

Moments after the F-117s disappeared, forty B-1B Lancers roared overhead, hugging the earth. With the air defenses destroyed, there could be no warning. Anyone caught out in the open could only throw himself flat and hope to be spared.

The huge, swept-wing bombers laid patterns of death across the military compounds outside Metz. Each plane carried fifty-six 500-pound bombs, and from two hundred feet, they might as well have been placed by hand. Deadly accurate, devastating in their numbers, the Lancers disappeared as suddenly as they came. Behind them, warehouses, freight yards, and repair facilities lay in ruins.

Even as the smoke still boiled out of the bombs’ explosions, the stunned French troops turned in horror to see more bombers flying toward them. These were not the sculpted shapes of B-1s, but thin-winged, slab-sided B-52s. More explosions rippled across the military compounds — leveling almost any building larger than a guardhouse. Even the water and sewage treatment plants were shambles.

Those few surviving SAM and antiaircraft batteries that did try to attack the bombers were quickly smothered by Wild Weasels and other escorting planes. Two squadrons of F-15s kept close watch on the operation, while further out, U.S. Navy Tomcats made free-ranging sweeps — hunting down the few EurCon interceptors that tried to interfere.

When the B-52s turned for home, the sun was still not completely over the horizon. Battered survivors pulled themselves from the wreckage. Some turned back to help those who were still trapped. Others, driven mad by the noise and confusion, wandered at random through a sea of smoke and fire.

About an hour later, with most of the explosion-churned dust blown away and some of the fires burned out, the sirens wailed again. Too exhausted to run, the survivors were spared an attack this time. Instead, a lone American reconnaissance aircraft, heavily escorted, swept overhead, photographing the devastated logistics complex. Those on the ground breathed a small sigh of relief, even as they cursed the enemy plane. This poststrike reconnaissance flight should be the final note in a deadly song.

Four squadrons of U.S. Navy attack aircraft, escorted by another four fighter squadrons, hit Metz again just around noon. Soldiers, already battered and stressed by a morning of terror, collapsed or cried or fled. Their comrades dragged them to shelters if they had the strength.

With measured aggression, the Navy Intruders and Hornets carefully blasted every remaining structure with a shred of value. Only the hospital and civilian housing tracts were again spared. By the time the strike was over, half an hour later, they stood alone in a Hiroshima landscape.

The skies were barely clear when another formation appeared. The exhausted defenders could only cower, as straight and level, and completely unmolested, U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles streaked overhead and released their own payloads. As if sowing a freshly plowed field, they scattered mines and delayed-action bomblets everywhere. The lethal devices would drastically slow down any attempt to rebuild, or even clear the wreckage.

Admiral Jack Ward stood above the flight deck in an open gallery on George Washington’s island, watching the last of the second wave land. Standing at the railing, enduring noise so loud he could feel it in his teeth, it was satisfying to see a jet slam into the deck on landing. Each one was a little piece of good news, a happy ending for some pilot’s mission. He’d counted the planes as they landed, and felt some of his anxiety lift with each successful recovery.

They’d been lucky. His strike force had only lost two planes, both to ground fire. A Hornet pilot had been hit while suppressing an antiaircraft gun, and, according to his wingman, had simply continued his dive and smashed into the ground. French gunners had also nicked an A-6 Intruder, but her two crewmen had nursed the stricken attack jet back out over the North Sea before ejecting. And both men were already on their way home to the carrier after being scooped up by a waiting search-and-rescue helicopter.

Just as the last plane, an S-3 Viking serving as an in-flight tanker, caught the wire, Ward felt the wind shift.

Washington and Roosevelt were turning north, bending on as much speed as their massive engines could produce.

Metz lay well inland, almost two hundred miles south of the coast, almost at the limit of a carrier plane’s effective range. To give his pilots more time over the target, Ward had ordered the carriers to move in, close to the coast. The fast nighttime run, followed by a dawn launch, had cost him a sleepless night, but it was worth the risk. Several of his pilots had made it back low on fuel. If he hadn’t ordered his ships in, his aircraft losses might have been far higher.

Ward gripped the railing tighter. But why had he been forced to run the risk at all? So far inland, Metz was in air force territory, and Ward would have been perfectly happy to let them have it. Land-based B-1s or B-2s could reach it easily. In fact, a strike by just the heavy bombers would have disrupted the base for a week.

So why had Washington specifically ordered him to use the combined strengths of two aircraft carriers against Metz, as part of the most destructive raid he had ever seen? From a strictly military point of view, the orders didn’t make much sense.

Metz was an important French Army base, and obliterating it certainly hurt the EurCon cause. The forces that had been concentrated on it, though, could have smashed a dozen targets. Normally planes operating off his carriers in the North Sea hit three, four, or even five targets each, every single day, systematically working their way down a carefully planned list. Organizing this grand air extravaganza had thrown a day-long monkey wrench into his bombing campaign.

What was happening along the rest of the North Sea and Baltic coasts while they pounded this one army base? True, they’d already neutralized the entire network of EurCon bases and ports, but without constant pressure, EurCon’s naval and air forces would start to recover.

Ward shook his head impatiently. EurCon was getting a twenty-four-hour respite, thanks to direct orders from Washington. He just hoped that the annihilation of Metz was worth that price.

Backlit by the late afternoon sun, two Puma helicopters in civilian markings clattered low over the rolling, gray-green waters of the North Sea. Only one of the two helicopters carried passengers. The second was a backup transport equipped with a diver and rescue hoist in case the first had to ditch.

Inside the lead helicopter, Ross Huntington finished studying the poststrike recon photos he’d been handed just before takeoff and slid them back into his briefcase. He glanced up and saw a look of horrified fascination on the face of one of the two Secret Service agents assigned to escort him on this mission.

“Christ” — the agent leaned closer, shouting over the Puma’s engine noise — ”I’ve heard of bombing places back to the Stone Age… I didn’t know you could go back any further!”

Huntington nodded somberly. He’d never before been directly responsible for instigating so much death and destruction, and he didn’t like the feeling. His whole life had been spent building things up, not tearing them down.

A new voice crackled over his earphones. “Puma Lead, this is Guardian. Four bogies bearing zero nine five, forty miles and closing.”

The helicopter’s pilot, a uniformed Royal Army Air Corps warrant officer, acknowledged the orbiting E-3 Sentry’s transmission, then glanced over his shoulder at Huntington. “Here we go, sir. If the Belgians are playing it straight, that’s our escort through the no-fire corridor for their SAMs. If not…”He shrugged. “It’s a long swim back to England.”

Three minutes later, four F-16 Falcons in Belgian Air Force markings streaked toward them from over the horizon, flashed overhead, and circled back — visibly slowing as they slid in beside the helicopters to make a visual identification.

Huntington stared out the side window at the nearest fighter, noting the pilot’s head turned toward him, faceless behind a visored helmet. The Puma’s copilot flashed the helicopter’s navigation lights on and off in Morse code. This close to French airspace, nobody wanted to make any radio transmissions that weren’t strictly necessary.

Apparently satisfied, the F-16s accelerated back to their normal cruising speed and took station above and behind them, weaving back and forth to keep pace with the slower British helicopters. They flew east toward the distant Belgian coast, gray and featureless beneath a growing cloudbank.

The Pumas crossed the coast at high speed, skimmed low over a wide, firm, sandy beach, and climbed to clear the rows of brightly painted villas that made De Haan a favorite holiday resort during peacetime. For a minute, they flew inland, still escorted by the F-16s — flying above a flat, open countryside crisscrossed by narrow, tree-lined canals. A gray stone chateau loomed ahead, surrounded by a vast expanse of open, green lawns.

Huntington craned his neck, trying to get a better view of their destination. He and his family had once spent a very pleasant two weeks at that chateau as the guests of a Belgian industrialist. Isolated and easily guarded, the estate should make a perfect covert meeting place.

Flying slower now, the British helicopters lost altitude again, flared out, and touched down next to the main building. Soldiers wearing the camouflage battle dress and maroon berets of Belgium’s elite Para-Commando Regiment surrounded both Pumas, wary but not openly hostile.

Huntington took a deep breath to calm himself, slid the helicopter’s side door open, and stepped down onto Belgian soil. A small band of civilians stood waiting for him. With a small flutter of relief, he recognized an old friend, Emile Demblon, an official in the Belgian Ministry of Trade, among them.

Demblon hurried forward. “Ross! I am glad to see you safe and well!”

“Thanks, Emile.” Huntington shook the smaller man’s outstretched hand. “We’re set?”

Demblon nodded. “Yes. Everything is in readiness.”

Heart pounding, Huntington followed his friend across the lawn and into the chateau. The U.S. Secret Service agents, Belgian soldiers, and other civilians trailed them at a discreet distance.

Demblon came to a sturdy oak door and opened it with a flourish, revealing a small, elegantly appointed study. “In here, my friend.”

With a sudden surge of excitement, Huntington recognized the trim, dapper man waiting inside. Belgium’s Prime Minister had come to the rendezvous himself. The first cracks in EurCon were starting to widen.