Fight Through

CHAPTER 3

The return to the subterranean haunts that had become the homes for the President since the Washington bombing was depressing for Henry Shaw. Rubbing shoulders again with proper, down to earth troops who said it as they found it without the addition of spin had been a breath of fresh air. He already missed being with those who performed their duty as required and without catering to hidden agendas.

A not quite junior aide had met Henry on his return and managed to be respectful whilst still giving off a distinct coolness toward him. It was only to be expected; Henry would not have been surprised had a posse of MPs brought him back from Europe to face the President’s wrath.

In stark contrast to the civilian, the marine guard had been more than happy to see him back. In their eyes the Corps top Marine had gone off to the battlefield instead of staying in a hardened shelter with the army, navy and air force brass. It was a simplistic and erroneous view of the situation, which unfairly slighted the other services, but since when did a Marine ever pass up on the chance to strut that little bit more in front of the rest of the armed forces?

The President looked up when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs entered the Situation Room, giving a perfunctory nod of welcome to Henry but his eyes held no warmth.

“Has General Carmine fully briefed you on what you missed while in Europe?”

He nodded.

“Yessir, Mister President.”

Henry took his seat and returned the greetings from CIA and FBI; apart from the service personnel at the table no one else so much as met his gaze. Terry Jones and Ben Dupre did not involve themselves in the office politics of whichever administration happened to be in power. They both knew Henry was on the Presidents’ shit list and they both knew why. They also quietly admired the Marine for the balls he had shown doing what they both believed to be only right and just.

Henry thought back to when he had last been in the presence of the President. It had only been a week ago, just seven days that had been filled with briefings and hurriedly arranged meetings before moving on, on to another headquarters or out of the way location.

Looking back on it now it seemed far, far longer.

The President cleared his throat, bringing Henry Shaw back to the present.

“General, will you now present your briefing please?”

ETO, the European Theatre of Operations, appeared on the screen set against the far wall. Henry centred the picture over the channel ports

“As you can see, units of the US 4^th Corps and Canadian 5^th Infantry Division have now begun leaving the forming up points outside the city ports and begun the drive towards Germany after delays in offloading due to air attacks, and in some cases sabotage of dockside facilities.” The view changed to show a map of the parallel routes the Corps would take across the Continent and into Germany on the same autobahns the Soviets were trying so hard to reach.

“4th Corps is leading as the Canadians are top heavy with leg infantry in trucks, but those are being dropped off along the way to secure bridges and key points against further Soviet airborne drops which would cut the service support routes.”

“Again.” The President grumbled.

“Precisely, Mr President” Henry said in agreement.

“The Canadians have four such battalions in two brigades who will retain a small degree of artillery support but the remainder of their two brigades’ artillery units, an armoured regiment and the two mechanised battalions, will proceed as part of the 4 Corps reserve.”

“What of their logistics and support units, General.” The President interrupted. “I do not see any of those?” his hand waved at the clusters of military symbols on the map.

“Rail priority has been given to ammunition and stores for units already at the front, and in particular the division straddling the autobahns to the channel ports, Mr President. The combat units are travelling by road and every MP, and every civilian cop we can muster is employed in keeping them moving and keeping refugees clear.”

Henry paused to briefly underline the situation.

“This is a race we are engaged in, and if we win it the reds will still be engaged in fighting other NATO units when they arrive and 4^th Corps can immediately launch a counter attack. If we lose then the Corps will take a defensive stance and we will again be reacting to the enemy instead of taking the fight to them.”

The picture on the screen altered as Henry brought up the image of the German battlefield, focusing initially on the units either side of the Saale and Elbe rivers. The symbols depicting the types and size of units, lined on both banks, coloured blue for NATO units and red for the Red Army, but there were far more red symbols stacked behind each other to the east than there were blue ones on the west.

Two red coloured parachute symbols still remained in place on the western banks, despite NATO’s best efforts to dislodge, and then annihilate them.

“Mister President, just before dawn this morning the Red Army began a massive rocket and artillery bombardment of NATO lines from north of Haldensleben, down to the southern suburbs of Magdeburg.”

He stepped closer to the screen, his back to the wall and gesturing with his right hand without looking, without needing to look as he had memorised each screen of the briefing.

“The units being targeted are the US 5^th and 12^th Mechanised Brigades, the British 1^st Armoured Brigade and the German 5^th Panzer Grenadier and 4^th Panzer Regiments.” Henry paused to look the men and women present.

“SACEUR informs me that by midnight tonight at the latest, those units will have ceased to be combat effective and the Red Army will in all probability begin an assault river crossing against minimal ground opposition.”

Grave looks were exchanged around the conference table, it was not unexpected news but that did not make it any easier of hear.

“General?”

Henry looked to his President, who had lowered his head to peer at him over the rim of his glasses.

“Yes, Mister President?”

“You have been to that sector have you not?”

Henry nodded in affirmation. “Yes sir, it was my first stop after meeting with General Allain.”

“Is there anything that could have been done, or was there anything left undone…anything you feel may have prevented this from happening?”

General Shaw had been to all the sectors, not just that one. He had met with the commanders of the units mentioned and also been to the positions to see for himself the state of the defences, the level of training evident amongst the troops, and of course to judge the morale of the men and women in the fighting positions. Henry had squatted in the bottoms of trenches and shivered with the cold along with humble riflemen, speaking in English with British, Dutch and their own troops, in passable bier hall German to Panzer Grenadiers and schoolboy French to Belgian infantrymen and French Foreign Legionnaires.

It hadn’t been his brief to crawl through a frozen wasteland at night, to spend three hours just a rifle shot from a fortified pile of rubble that had once been a factory, but he saw it as his duty as a commander of troops to share some of the hazards faced by the men and women he had been ordered to send into harm’s way. The troops in that foxhole hadn’t known who he was until the next day, hours after he had departed for another sector of the line. For an hour he had listened to the sounds of a wounded man, a Soviet paratrooper, crying for his mother in those ruins on the perimeter of one of the Red Army footholds on the west bank of the Saale.

In all it had reinforced something he and a good friend had discussed and agreed upon many years before, and that was that the only person to have the moral right to send men and women to war was someone who had themselves been in harm’s way in the armed service of their country. If that simple fact became a matter of law then there would be far more talking around tables and fewer body bags, but that discussion had taken place in disreputable bar cum brothel in Southeast Asia, where even the flies had sense to swerve to avoid the bar girls. They had been young lieutenants then, and he at the end of a three-month attachment to his friends unit to see why Britain was winning its jungle war when at the same time America was losing hers.

Over many bottles of Tiger and in increasing degrees of intoxication the two men had written a new constitution on the backs of beer mats, built around the foundation of his friends somewhat slurred words

“You shouldn’t be in a position to start a fight unless you’ve been in one yourself…no high office without first joining the brown adrenaline club.”

A campaign slogan for their bid for world power had read ‘Vote for me, I’ve not only shit myself in battle…but look here I’ve even got the soiled shorts to prove it!’

Henry had left the next day to return to Saigon with a hell of a hangover and little recollection of the previous night’s events, his friend however had a better memory and over the years whenever they had bumped into one another and shared a drink or six he would speak whimsically of one day making ‘The Beer Mat Constitution’ into a reality, and had even worked out how it could be achieved.

When at last the wounded soldiers cries had faded and gone forever it had given Henry a greater determination, the co-author of the beer mat constitution may be dead at the bottom of the Irish Sea, but the idea was very much alive.

“Mister President, those men and women are outnumbered fifty to one, they have fought and held this long despite the inadequate equipment and war stocks their governments provided them to do the job, and the fact that they are about to be over run, and where the blame lies for that, is no fault of theirs.”

A pin could have been heard dropping in the seconds that followed, and Terry Jones was not alone in realising a line had just been crossed. The President had been questioning whether there was fault in the ability of the men and women in uniform at the battlefront, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had laid the blame squarely at the door of government.

The Joint Chiefs are free to criticise the Chief Executive, but on a one to one basis behind closed doors, not in front of onlookers even if they were on the staff.

The President became very still, and his eyes narrowed a fraction as he looked at his top soldier. Henry met the President’s gaze and held it calmly in the knowledge that if he were to be relieved now it would matter not one iota.

The President broke the silence.

“A simple yes or no would have sufficed, General.”

Henry went on to outline what they believed the enemy would do once they achieved a breakout.

“We expect the Third Shock Army to head for Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge and Antwerp, with their Sixth Shock Army following on behind through the breach and to then swing south west for the French ports. What remains of Second Shock and Tenth Tank army will probably hook left and right to roll up the rest of our lines. These are their last, first class outfits and they about used up their second-class units in keeping up the pressure on us and trying to force the rivers up to this point in time. Which leaves third class units to assist in the mopping up, whilst the fourth class…those manned by troops in their forties and early fifties, will in all probability be used to secure the lines of communication.”

The President had rested his elbows on the table before him, and his hands were clasped together, the fingers entwined and he rested his chin on the spire they formed.

“What, may I ask, does General Allain intend to do about that?” The President followed on before Henry could answer. “There is just a cobbled together, infantry heavy division sat in the way of god knows how many tanks so does he honestly believe that will hold them until our new Corps arrives on the scene?” with that he sat upright and raised a coffee mug to his lips while he waited for the answer.

Henry responded with four words.

With a snort that sent coffee splashing across the papers in front of him, the President choked in mid swallow. An aide hurried over and began mopping up the spilt coffee before him, and the President coughed whilst fishing out a handkerchief and dabbing at a growing stain on his shirt. Leaning to one side to see past the charring aide he stared at Henry.

“What?”

“He’s going to attack.” Henry Shaw repeated.

The President knew what forces were in Germany, and so he had to ask himself, and Henry, if SACEUR had taken leave of his senses.

“General Allain is quite sane Mr President; he is just faced with desperate choices at a desperate time.”

Turning back to the screen Henry continued his explanation by highlighting two NATO units sat slightly to the rear of their own lines and at either side of the expected breach.

“These two units, the 2^nd Canadian Mechanised Brigade and the French 8^th Armoured Brigade, are currently in hide positions and have been brought up to strength as far as possible as regard reinforcements and supplies. Once the lead enemy manoeuvre units have passed through the breach they will close it behind them, sealing the breach.”

“General?” The President was pointing the end of a pen towards the screen.

“If memory serves, that Canadian unit was over a hundred miles away two days ago and holding a section of the line to the north, and the French brigade was a lot further south, so who is in those positions now?”

“The King Alfonso XIII Light Infantry Legion Brigade relieved the Canadians in place thirty hours ago, and the Lusitania Light Armoured Cavalry Regiment took over from the French 8^th Armoured about this time yesterday. They are both Spanish rapid reaction units and as such carry little in the way of excess baggage so the move took very little time.”

The President was about to ask another question, clearly surprised that these moves and the Spanish units involved had not previously been even hinted at. He wasn’t certain that the Spanish units in question were even under SACEUR’s control. However, General Shaw had already turned away.

The map on the big screen panned back to encompass the south of Europe and the UK. Blue parachute symbols were clustered about the locations of airfields far from the fighting.

“Tomorrow morning at 0300hrs GMT, elements of the Belgian, Turkish, Greek, Spanish and Italian airborne forces, along with three battalions of the 82^nd and the British 1^st and 2^nd Parachute battalions will drop into occupied Germany to attack enemy airfields and supply lines.”

Henry paused before finishing and looked at all the faces peering from him to the screen.

“This is a one shot deal and there will be no reinforcement or re-supply.”

The President sat listening with raised eyebrows as Henry spoke, and when he had finished the President looked around the table.

“Why is it that this is first that I have heard of it? Why haven’t any of the European leaders spoken to me about this? Why General, was I not consulted?”

Henry gave him that answer.

“I think you will find sir that General Allain felt that the other leaders would only have seen it as throwing good money after bad, and would have wanted to preserve those forces for the defence of their own borders. He may also have felt that by consulting you sir, it would have put you in an awkward position.”

“No shit.” The President replied with much irony, and then as another thought occurred to him his brows knotted together in confusion.

“So how did he get those airborne units, General?”

“He didn’t consult the national leadership’s sir.”

Henry answered.

“Only the Generals’.”

What Henry had revealed was a deliberate subversion of the lawful chain of command in those countries, and the President could only assume that General Shaw had no part in it. As to the use of their own airborne the President did not have any cause to gripe, they were troops already ‘in theatre’ and under SACEUR’s command, as were 1 and 2 Para. Some of the Spanish and Italian unit symbols were centred over RAF Lyneham in England, as were Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch and Canadian air transport units, the means to carry those paratroopers to war. The President was at a loss as to why no one in the British Ministry of Defence had noticed a sizeable foreign force drawing rations.

“General Shaw, is the British government mixed up in this, are they colluding with SACEUR?”

Henry gave a short laugh.

“Mizz Foxten-Billings is so wrapped up achieving her own secret agenda she can’t see beyond her own little conspiracies, sir.”

The President looked hard at Henry Shaw, trying to judge the truth of his words. After a very long moment he gave up.

“Win or lose, the elected governments of those countries are gonna have that damn Canadian by the balls when this is over, and they’ll pin ‘em up right alongside the ones they cut off their own general staff’s.” The President shook his head slowly as he considered the fall-out which would surely come about.

“Mister President.” Henry Shaw interrupted the President’s chain of thought, bringing his eyes back to the end of the room.

“If the reds reach the coast then it is game over, and those governments won’t be able to touch him because some KGB troops will already have put him against a wall and shot him…but if it works and we stop them, do you really think Pierre Allain, or those general staffs, will give a flying fuck what the food will be like in whatever prison they may choose to toss them into?” The President and everyone else present were silent as Henry spoke, lecturing them as if they first graders who needed the rules explained.

“General Allan’s job is to defeat the enemy.” He went on. “That is a soldier’s job, and General Allain is one hell of a good soldier. He will be a sneaky sonofabitch if that is what it takes to save lives and do his duty, and if that means pissing off a few politicians, then so be it.”

Henry looked at everyone sat around the table.

“Pierre has more honour in a single finger nail then that silly English bitch has in both her little boy breasts.”

Terry Jones felt the President’s eyes upon him but his poker face remained in place. He had received a report from his chief of station in London, qualified by another from Paris that Henry Shaw had been getting about, probably by covert means during his fact finding mission to the embattled continent. Henry had even been present at the London police commissioners’ home when a veritable who’s who of military men and senior police officers, some of whom were retired, who had come calling. Art had cobbled together a hurried surveillance operation and had himself chosen to spend an uncomfortable night in a covert vehicle near the commissioner’s home rather than be present when the SAS arrested the cell responsible for Scott and Constantine’s deaths, which was indication in itself that his London stations chief had a gut feeling that something was amiss.

Terry had not had the chance to fully analyse the possibilities that the report could be indicating. There was every chance that Henry Shaw had been avoiding the time wasting that the meet and greets of announced visits would have entailed, but his presence in England at that gathering, and his apparent previous knowledge of SACEUR’s plans could put a very different spin on it. Had Terry known then what he had just discovered at this briefing then he may have read more into it if he had not also received information of a possible intelligence break through that had taken preference in the order of importance. That particular information was being analysed right now, and he could only give the President a heads up on what may, if it was genuine, be of considerable help to them. However, back in the here and now his President wanted answers.

“Mister Jones, did you know anything about this? Didn’t the Central Intelligence Agency have any hint that NATO armed forces were about to give their elected governments the finger and do their own thing?”

Now was the time he should have produced Art Petrucci’s report, but instead Terry shook his head.

“No Mister President, and to the best of my knowledge neither have the intelligence agencies of the European countries either.”

A very annoyed President looked back to the screen. He would consider what, if anything, he would do about this revelation after the briefings, and after a showdown he planned to have with General Shaw. A single sheet of paper lay inside a folder before him. The President had ordered it typed by a secretary but it was addressed to himself from Henry

“Okay then, let us move on.”

Henry briefly went over the events involving the destruction of the Soviet airborne brigade, chiefly because there was evidence that one of the Russian Premier’s shakers and movers in the starting of this war had been killed in the fighting.

“Serge Alontov was probably their most able airborne and Spetznaz commander; he had also performed a fair amount of intelligence and espionage work as a military attaché in London during the eighties. We also know that he entered the States illegally on at least two occasions in connection with Project October, which was a Cold War plan to cripple America on the outbreak of a war with the USSR, by espionage, sabotage and the assassination of key figures. We know he was a patriot and with his knowledge and experience he would be an obvious choice to carry through their plans. I believe Mister Jones has some related information on this for later in the briefing.”

“I am a little puzzled, General Shaw, as to what this man was doing in combat if he was such a close aide to their Premier?”

“Uriah, Mister President.” It was the first time Ben Dupre had spoken at the briefing. “Look up the Book of Samuel in the Old Testament. King David wanted to get rid of one of his generals without getting his own hands dirty, so he put Uriah in the front rank during a battle. It got him out of the way permanently.”

Looking back at General Shaw a moment, the President lowered his voice.

“Don’t tempt me Benjamin,” he growled before then returning his attention once more to Terry Jones.

“I assume the late Comrade Alontov did not leave a grieving Bathsheba for that bastard to covet though, and this was his way of disposing of future threats to his leadership?”

“Wife and only child, a son aged two years, killed by a drunk driver while he was serving in Afghanistan, sir. He never remarried.” Terry did not have to refer to any notes on Serge’s private life, there was little to tell.

“It would seem the Russian Premier was merely cleaning house, sir.”

The President grunted before gesturing at Henry to move on, and five minutes later having finished the brief that this particular audience were cleared for, he relinquished his spot to a navy officer and returned to his seat.

The President already knew about the PLAN invasion fleet in the Indian Ocean, having been summoned from his bed for a video conference with the Australian PM three hours after its discovery. One of Admiral Gee’s staff, an earnest and slightly bookish looking officer took them through the preparations Australia was making, and the progress of the Nimitz battle group to get underway and intercept it.

“Mister President, at the outbreak of war you may recall that the USS Nimitz was undergoing refit. She left the yards with a great deal of work unfinished and with over a hundred civilian workers still aboard, who have continued that work whilst she was enroute to Australia and it is in fact still on-going whilst she is tied up in Sydney. She also left without her full complement of crew or a complete air wing, so we have had a ways to go to restore her to full combat readiness. Personnel and aircraft have been flown out to Australia where her air wing is dispersed for the moment to bolster the Aussies air defence, but another two, three days at the most should see the Nimitz and Bonhomme Richard putting back to sea.” The briefer was unused to the President’s ways, and columns of facts and figures replaced the view on-screen of the Pacific Theatre of Operations.

“Owing to a shortage in naval airframes, particularly of the latest model of F-14, we have had to refurbish and hurriedly add upgrades to mothballed aircraft from storage at the boneyard, which we are still in the process of flying out to her. However, if I can draw your attention to the graph I am just putting up on the screen…you can see that the speed at which these airframes are being refurbished, is increasing exponentially as the work crews become more proficient with practice, and…”

The President cleared his throat loudly, interrupting the officer in mid flow.

“Commander, er…Donnelly?”

Caught unawares the officer blinked and gaped at the President before fully turning from the screen to face him.

“It’s Donkley, sir.”

“Did Admiral Gee leave you any notes before he left?”

The commander looked confused

“Erm… like his itinerary, sir?”

The President smiled tightly.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a piece of paper with the heading, ‘What pisses the President off most’. It would be a short list, I’m sure. However, somewhere near the top would have been Facts, Figures, Statistics and Graphs…just keep to the good stuff and I’m sure we will get along fine, Commander.”

For a long second the briefer was motionless

“The good stuff?”

“Anything that doesn’t make me feel that I am being forced to watch an Open University math and chemistry programme.”

The briefer didn’t watch British TV, but he got the message anyway and after somewhat regretfully turning over half a dozen pages of notes, the graph was replaced by the Pacific once more.

“USS John C Stennis and the USS Constellation battle groups have left the Hawaiian Islands along with the USS Essex, USS Boxer and the amphibious assault vessels of 2^nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, but it is likely that any landings may already have taken place by the time they arrive. USS Saratoga and USS Kitty Hawk are in the final stages of reactivation from the reserve fleet and will be ready to accompany the 1^st and 4^th MEB’s, which are forming up at San Diego. All three MEB’s will constitute the 1^st Marine Landing Division for any future offensive moves in PTO. Units of the Royal Australian, Royal New Zealand and allied navies are proceeding at best speed from their former positions covering the Pacific approaches to Australia, however it is doubtful that they will be in a position to intercept before the invasion fleet nears land.”

The President interrupted once more. “Any intelligence as to which part of the coast they are aiming for?”

“No sir, their course is still due south, as of last reports at noon today.” Commander Donkley moved back to his prepared text.

“We have detached the USS San Sebastian from the battle group and she is also making best speed to intercept and assist HMAS Hooper. The Hooper is currently experiencing difficulties with her sonar suite and as such at risk of detection, or losing contact.”

“How long before Nimitz can get underway?”

“She will not clear port for several more days Mister President”

An hour later the room had cleared of all those without the need to know the rest of the briefings topics, leaving Terry Jones with the floor.

His first item was not one of great secrecy, but it was not of sufficient import for the previous session, however it was of personal interest to the President, Henry Shaw and of course himself.

“I received news several hours ago that the cell that carried out the killings of Scott Tafler, Major Bedonavich and the two British police officers, has been arrested after a raid by the Special Air Service. They are all Russian, all are KGB Spetznaz forces officers………”

The President cut him off mid-sentence.

“Do they know that we want them?”

“Mister President, they do know and they also point out that the killings took place on British soil.”

“Those bastards not only killed an American intelligence agent, but they also killed two of the people responsible for ensuring we did not lose the war before it had even started. I hope their Home Secretary realises that?” He was determined that the United States was going to have its pound of flesh, and he wasn’t prepared to standby whilst the individuals concerned sat in a warm cell for the next twenty years. Terry Jones did not give a direct reply, but continued with what he had been in the process of saying.

“After the raid the building was thoroughly searched, and the police found pretty conclusive evidence that the same cell were responsible for the missile attacks on London, Portsmouth and the oil refinery at Canvey Island.” Terry paused for a moment.

“Over a thousand people alone died when Canary Wharf collapsed, so when the Met Commissioner promised me they would hang for it once they’d been tried, I believed him, sir.”

The President was not as convinced as Terry Jones, but that was something he would take up with the prime minister himself, always providing of course that the United Kingdom wasn’t a newly conquered Soviet state, in a month or so. There was nothing further to be said on the subject and Terry Jones had inserted a USB into the drive running the plasma screen, he was now waiting for a signal to begin his briefing proper.

“Okay, Mister Jones…what else do you have for me?”

In the entire time that the war had been in progress these were the first images the President had really looked at. He was either far too tired or occupied with the business of running a country at war to have much inclination to watch the tube.

The news agencies war correspondents footage appeared several times a day on TV, and it was almost constantly on cable, but such was the agreement his government had forced upon the networks there was nothing truly graphic. Americans could no longer watch news from virtually any source they chose, since the Internet had been locked down as it, and all forms of communications, had come under tight Federal control.

Early in the war the news agencies had of course screamed blue murder when the emergency powers had come into play and they had taken their argument before a Supreme Court judge. As an ex — serviceman, and the father of two sons and a daughter who were in war zones, the judge had listened to their hackneyed argument that ‘the people have a right to know’, and after due consideration, which lasted all of thirty seconds, he had announced his decision.

“A wife has the right not to know she is a widow because you first showed her kids their Father’s body ‘live and as it happens’ on national television…case dismissed!”

As the battalion of lawyers had stood to leave, confident that their employers would find certain ways to circumvent the ruling, the judge had banged his gavel once more to get their attention.

“And before you go people, that gentleman at the back of the court tells me that selling uncensored footage to an agency in a neutral country would be a very bad idea.” Having filed past the figure in air force blue wearing the rank and insignia of a colonel in the USAF Space Command, they had duly conveyed the judge’s comments to the network chiefs.

Twenty-four hours later a two billion dollar satellite owned by a Brazilian network had been broadcasting a live report from a well-known US network correspondent of the fighting at Leipzig airport when the satellite went off the air permanently.

After that incident the US networks couldn’t even give away uncensored footage.

Pressing the key, the plasma screen had filled with the image of combats aftermath. Idly noting that the picture taker had not been a professional photographer, the President took in the scene.

British infantrymen and Soviet paratroopers lay in those postures that only the dead can achieve whilst American troops either stood about either watching the cameraman work, or were in the background gently lifting the bodies of the dead Brits they had soldiered alongside of into body bags. The angle changed with the next half dozen shots, and the President got the feeling he was watching a crime scene being recorded. The last four photographs were of a Soviet paratrooper; two were of him lying on a forest floor, quite obviously dead. An American paratrooper was knelt behind in the last two, propping up the body. The young American was looking into the camera as he held the corpses head steady for the picture, and the President found himself staring at the living man rather than the subject of the photograph.

“How old is he?” he asked quietly, almost in a whisper.

“Forty nine, Mr President.” Terry answered.

“No Terry, I mean the 82^nd trooper.”

Terry paused, taken back momentarily before consulting photocopied sheets of information. Everything connected with the incident had been recorded in long hand, and even a list of all the allied troops involved, the dead and the living, was available.

“I believe that is Specialist First Class Tony Beckett, US Army Reserve and a New York cop. He is twenty four, and he was responsible for evidencing the incident.”

“His eyes look older.” Said the President, looking hard at the tired face, streaked with dirt and camouflage cream.

“He looks a little like your son, Henry,” but General Shaw didn’t reply, he also was looking at the screen but his mind was far away with the USS Nimitz battle group in Australia, where both his son and daughter were right now.

“Is that young man still alive, Terry?”

He got a nod in reply.

“He is in New York having accompanied the body and the evidence stateside. I believe he is currently on a twenty four hour pass before returning to his unit.”

The President looked again at the young American before turning his attention is the dead Russian paratrooper.

“So if this guy is Colonel General Alontov, where are the rank badges, and what proof do we have that this is him and not a set up?”

The next two pictures were of the same dead Russian, but this time he was laid out naked on a slab.

Without a beating heart to circulate the blood about the body it had settled, drawn downwards by gravity to give his back a purple, mottled look, whilst the rest of him wore the pallor of death.

“The finger prints taken from the corpse in the forest, and again in New York match the several sets we had already acquired from his time in London and the States.”

Terry elected to skip the rest of the photos of the post mortem that had been a necessary part of the investigation.

“That was the easy bit, Mister President.”

Scanned images of the first of the pages recovered from the forest appeared on the screen alongside the English translation.

“The hard part is deciding if this is disinformation…” The screen changed again to another page, where several well-known names appeared along with their code names and contact details.

“…or if at least one of these names has been feeding the enemy details of what he has been privy to on senate oversight committees for the past decade?”

A light on the top of the telephone receiver in front of Henry Shaw began to blink and he picked it up, identifying himself in a low voice before covering the mouthpiece so he could listen to the caller without any of the briefing being overheard at the other end of the line.

Scrolling through all but the last two pages bearing Peridenko’s writing, Terry revealed eighty-three names of men and women of many nationalities, and resident in neutral countries as well as the warring ones.

The President recognised more than a few of the names and others he had actually met at one time or another. Before he had gained the presidency two of those individuals had been on first names terms with him, although in the business sense rather than social.

“So what are we going to do about this, arrest the ones in this country and inform the other governments?”

“Neither, Mr President.” In the world of espionage there was very little that was black and white, in fact the best they could really manage was various shades of grey.

“This list, if genuine, is by no means every agent they have in the world, if indeed they are agents, and we may never know why it was written or why a soldier had it hidden in his clothing.” Terry went on to explain.

“Handwriting analysis proves that this was written by Anatoly Peridenko, but is it his list of his best agents, his worst agents or is this the membership list for an online dungeons and dragons web ring?” The President was pondering over Terry’s words, listening to his spymaster.

“The bottom line is, we arrest no one today and we tell no other government today. It would only take one slip up, one mistake, for this knowledge to be compromised. As it is we can watch these people and assess this list’s value, and if they are working for the enemy camp then we can use that knowledge to control them, the information they have access to, or we can even feed them what we want them to see. Either way, it is of no immediate use to us knowing if…” Terry looked up the screen.

“…if for instance, ‘Tuscan Ranger’ is a KGB master spy or the equivalent of Woody Allen as 007.”

“Or just,” Put in Ben Dupre, “A fifth level Barbarian warrior with level two spell casting abilities.”

The President shook his head slowly.

“It’s bad enough that we could have been penetrated so seriously, but now I know we’re in trouble if my FBI chief is familiar with nerdy role playing games.”

Ben shrugged as Terry chuckled, but then the President returned to the business at hand.

“So, it’s a case of, better the spy you know than the spy you don’t, then?”

Terry nodded in agreement, which hardly pleased the chief executive.

“So is that it?”

“No Mister President, there is more and I believe that it could possibly be of practical use to us, if not against the new Soviet Union, then certainly against the PRC.” He brought up on the screen the last two page of Peridenko’s list, and these bore names of individuals from the PRC, North Korea, and all the countries of the new Soviet Union, including Russia.

“If I were a gambling man, I would be willing to bet all my money that Peridenko had plans to achieve high office, and had already put into place the means to acquire the Premiership.”

The names on the screen were all military men, and all in prominent positions in their countries armed forces.

“Which I think you will agree indicates an element of foresight and forward planning.” He highlighted a trio of Chinese officers.

“For instance, if you weren’t willing to share power with your principle ally then the positions these characters hold could give you the knife to stick into the PRC’s proverbial back.” One name in particular stood out due to his apparent position in the Peoples Republics equivalent of America’s National Security Agency.

The Chinese text appeared and with it a translation. Terry removed from an inside pocket a copy of the CD Rom which Serge had carried, placing it before him on the conference table.

“Alontov also carried a CD Rom sewn into his clothing and this is booby trapped with some very aggressive viruses, however despite this and the fact that the software and hardware to play this are rather specialised, NSA is confident that they can tell us what the hell it is exactly within a few more hours.”

The rest of the room were looking at the translation, but most of it was apparently referring to the CD Rom.

“Mister Jones, why would he be carrying a CD and not a USB? And do we have any ideas what it does?”

“The first is simple sir; a CD is more resistant to electro-magnetic pulse, EMP, than a USB. Secondly, there is a chance that this disc is something that may get us access to somewhere that would be of advantage to us. I cannot say more than that at the moment, because we just don’t know for certain.”

Lord knows we could do with some luck, thought the President.

“So what are we going to call this thing? And who will have access?”

“The codename for the CD’s location and its standalone systems is ‘Church’. All matters related to the contents of the CD will be known as Choir Practice, and we in this room, plus the three specialists who are cracking the CD, are ‘The Choir’.”

“Spare me!” grunted the President, disparagingly under his breath.

“Is there an issue with the choice of code name, sir?”

“No, I am sure that is adequate, Mr Jones…but I won’t hang up the bunting until we know more.”

He looked across at Henry who was replacing the telephone receiver.

“General Shaw, are you ready with the Guillotine and Equaliser updates?”

Terry cleared the screen and ejected his disc, handing the floor back to the CJC.

Henry placed his own disc in the drive, bringing up Gansu Province and zooming in the picture on to a range of mountains southwest of the Gobi desert.

“We, or rather the men on the ground behind enemy lines in the PRC, have met with a serious set-back and they have taken casualties.”

Leaning forward in his seat the President interrupted.

“Are they compromised?”

With a shake of the head Henry explained.

“There has been a great deal of snowfall in the past week out there, and the storm that had them socked in added a shit load more. The teams were scaling a rock face of about 500 feet in height when a passing PRC helicopter triggered an avalanche. Two men are dead including one of the team leaders, another three have injuries that will prevent them continuing, and in addition to this, three of the laser designators have been destroyed.”

The President breathed the Eff word.

“Can they continue as planned?”

“That’s a negative, sir.”

“How long do we have before we need to give them a revised plan?”

“It is not necessary sir; Major Dewar is going for the ICBM field. He has left two of the slightly injured behind to look after the fracture cases and he has taken the remainder, plus the remaining designators westwards toward the silos.”

“Is he authorised to make that decision, General?” The President had been trying to visualise the condition the teams were now in, and the adverse weather conditions they had encountered he assumed that with their losses the commander would have requested instructions.

“Firstly, he is the commander on the ground and knows their capabilities better than we do, and secondly he is British.” Henry shrugged.

“He doesn’t work for us Mister President.”

The President glared at Henry.

“You know I didn’t mean that General. This is a joint operation, but doesn’t he have to ask permission before he writes off half of the mission goals?”

General Shaw nodded an apology.

“It is a simple matter of arithmetic, and Dewar knows he doesn’t have enough to do both jobs anymore so he’s going to neutralise the greatest threat.”

“Okay then, okay. Is there anything else on that particular element of Equaliser?”

There was nothing more from China and Henry moved on to the North Pacific.

“In stark contrast to the previous item, I now have some feel good news for you, sir.”

The picture was quite hard to make out, mainly owing to the lack of light, but then a darker shape appeared from the left of the screen, travelling right across to disappear out the other side, but the President was unable to make out what it was.

“That was taken by HMS Hood and it has now been digitally cleaned up and enhanced.”

This time everyone could make out the shape of a submarine, and it was not one of their own vessels. It carried a conning tower similar in design to that of a Russian Delta III, but sat much further forward on the hull than on the Russian design, however, the flat topped SLBM compartment, sitting platform-like above the after hull was also a feature in keeping with a Delta.

“The Hood had a firing solution locked down twelve hours before they took these hull shots, but as you can appreciate it was necessary to get close enough to see if it was the Xia or the Chuntian, and they struck gold. They have returned now to tailing the Xia and are about four thousand metres from her.”

The President cleared his throat.

“General, I know you and Mister Jones have given me your assurances already, but are you absolutely certain that this is the only one that they’ve got?”

“Mister President, there was the Changzheng 6, which was also a converted Han but she was lost at sea in the eighties. They don’t have any more, sir.”

“Let’s hope.”

“Roger that.”

It was the best he could have hoped for and he had to settle for that.

“Has the Chuntian been located yet?”

“It cannot be entirely comfortable out there, sort of like being in the woods at night and knowing you are not alone, however Mister President, although we have not yet located the Chuntian, the Xia is now boxed on three sides. We can take her anytime we want and the skippers are one hundred per cent in agreement that they will find Chuntian before she finds them.”

Leaning back in his chair the President signalled for a refill of his coffee mug before speaking.

“So one part of Equaliser is in place, and Guillotine just awaits a location…or do you have something from Russia?”

“No Mr President, only to state that we have three RORSATs dedicated purely for Guillotine that are sat on pads ready to go and that India and Pakistan have begun sabre rattling at one another, as have the Vietnamese and Kampucheans. They have got to the stage where their artillery can be heard sounding off and the casualty reports are quite believable.”

The President was quiet for a while as he thought about the ‘What if’s’, the question marks associated with any operations chances of success or failure.

“What, if anything, can go wrong with those satellites” the President queried “…tropical storms? Sabotage?”

Henry shook his head but in a non-committal fashion.

“Sir, in order to guard against weather problems we will have one at Vandenberg and two on pads down south, on the Ariane launch pad and also on the Soyuz pad.”

The President gave a cold smile.

“Strangely fitting I feel…but please continue General.”

“Hurricanes up here or typhoons down there do not have predictable seasons any more, not since the nukes cooked off in the Atlantic so we are hedging our bets by covering for those eventualities. At worst we will have one RORSAT up when Major Nunro goes after the Premier’s scalp, but we are robbing Peter to pay Paul as it leaves only the smaller commercial European launch pad available down there, and of course Kennedy and Canaveral free for the normal business of keeping satellites up long enough to be effective over the battlefield.” Henry paused to glance at some notes for a second.

“Security is tight at our end and an indefinite lock down is in place but that is going to cause issues soon.”

The President frowned.

“How so?”

“The French have the benefit of a handy jungle and mangrove swamps full of things that will eat you, whereas we have troops on full alert with nothing to keep their highest level of alertness going indefinitely, and with the best will in the world and the best NCOs kicking ass, an unused knife will go dull through lack of use.”

Never having been in that situation the President could only take Henry’s word for it and so he moved along to the mock war between India and Pakistan.

“What are they firing at?”

“Nothing.” Henry shrugged. “Blank rounds only, but the media aren’t being allowed close enough to know the difference.”

“Okay, anything else?”

Henry cleared the screen and held up both hands, crossing his fingers and stating

“No, Mister President.”

The President accepted his coffee with a smile of thanks and consulted his wristwatch.

“Right then people, that will be all for now.” Henry stood along with the rest but felt the President looking at him.

“Stay a while General, I’d like to speak to you about Australia.” Henry regained his seat and sat with his hands together on the table in front of him.

Remembering something the President called over to Terry, halting him half way out the door.

“Oh, Mister Jones?”

Terry stepped aside to allow Ben to exit.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do your people have a contact number for SFC Beckett?”

“Yes sir, Mister President?” Terry nodded.

“Good, extend his leave to forty eight hours and then get him on a plane here. I’d like to meet him before he returns overseas.”

Terry hesitated.

“Why, sir?”

“Why not?” Putting his mug down he turned sideways in his seat to face the door.

“I have not met anyone who was directly involved in the fighting yet, and so I would like to speak to this young man about his experiences…and I am after all the Commander-in-Chief so I can do stuff like that, and you as a minion should obey without question and back away to the door, bowing as you go to see it is done.”

Terry smiled.

“I thought the bowing minion thing was the reason we threw off the yoke of imperialism?”

“I thought it was because we didn’t want to pay for the war against Napoleon?”

“I’m pretty sure bowing and scraping played a big part, Mr President.”

The President dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Whatever.”

His Secret Service Agent was stood inside the door, hands crossed in front and seemingly taking no interest in the goings on of government.

“Mike?”

“Yes, Mr President?”

“Could you give us a moment; I want a private word with General Shaw.”

“Certainly Mr President, I will be right outside.”

The doors closed, shutting them off from the outside world for a while.

“That was a nice thing you did just then, Mr President.”

Moving his folder into the centre of the table in front of him, the President looked back at Henry.

“Why, because I didn’t want Mike to witness what I am about to say?”

Henry shook his head.

“No sir, keeping that young 82^nd man, Beckett, away from Germany when the Reds hit his unit.”

“I thought you believed that everyone should do their share, no matter what their status in life, General?”

Henry had been fairly sure the showdown couldn’t be far off when he had read the Washington Post three days ago. It had been a two day old copy and although an article on a Congressman’s daughter starting boot camp had been on page five, he had begun to look over his shoulder for a high ranking military policeman, and an armed escort walking with purpose toward him.

Fishing a copy of Das Spiegel from out of his briefcase he slid it along the table to the President.

“Centre spread, Mr President.”

Opening the magazine the President read the article’s headline and looked at the glossy photos of rich American’s enjoying the snow in Aspen.

The article was in German but President read aloud in English.

“America’s rich and the beautiful aren’t training for arctic warfare here, they are partying whilst members of their own countries lowest wage brackets are dying on the firing line………….”

He closed the magazine and pushed it back.

“You have an issue with this, General Shaw?”

“I have several issues, Mr President. That one vies for the top slot with my other pet bug bear.”

“Which is?”

“Millionaire football players, Mr President. Despite earning more in one year, than an entire team of scientists trying to find the cure for cancer will ever see in their lives…they strike for even more pay.”

Henry was toying with him and he knew it, but he played along anyway.

“General, there is a football season and there is a baseball season, but there are no biology or chemistry seasons that millions will pay good money to watch, but if there was then we would have millionaire test tube jockeys by the score. This is not an ideal world, or hadn’t you noticed?”

Henry ignored the reply and continued on.

“My other ‘issue’ dates back to March 3^rd 1863. President Lincoln signed the Federal Draft Act in the full knowledge that there was a clause included that allowed the rich to dodge military service for the sum of $300.” He fixed the President with an enquiring look.

“What’s the going price today Mr President?”

“You are being simplistic, General.” He took a sip of coffee and Henry sat waiting.

“The reason we, as a democracy, win wars is because we make a trade off. Some people, those with the means, build the weapons we need and others use them. They keep the wheels turning by doing what it takes to keep the unions sweet and looking the other way while corners are cut. If you piss off those with means you don’t get the same cooperation.”

Henry countered, speaking very deliberately.

“Or the funds for the war chest come election time.”

“For your information General, I have goals just as you have goals, and before I leave this office I would like to see full education, education for one hundred per cent of the population, and the poverty line knocked back another five per cent if not eliminated altogether.” The President’s face was becoming flushed.

“I do not happen to like even a small fraction of the people I have to deal with in order to get even the smallest worth of good out of the shit I have to put my seal to.”

Henry sat back and regarded his commander in chief.

“You are the President, and you tell them that you serve the will of the people and what’s good for the people is good for them.” The President was shaking his head at the naivety of the man.

“Do you know how much it costs just to get nominated? Let alone run an election campaign?”

Henry didn’t respond, but it wasn’t because he didn’t know, it was because he didn’t care.

“It’s a fallacy that ‘just anyone can be President’. You have to get sponsors to foot the bill, and they all have agenda’s.”

“Mr President, we have reached a point where a line must be drawn. As the leader of democracy you are supposed to be the last word in integrity, yet you sold your soul to get here.” It was the last straw for the President, who was well aware of the situation without having to be reminded of it. His temper had been held in check up to this point, but now it snapped as he swept away the mug before him with a violent sweep of the hand.

“God dammit Henry…you’re a Marine, and you took an oath and so you do not ever, ever, play politics while you are in that uniform!” The coffee mug flew across the room, shattering against the wall.

With a bang the door flew open and Mike took a step inside. Balanced on the balls of his feet and in a half crouch, he had his jacket open and a hand on his firearm. He took in the room and then focused on Henry, his eyes narrowing slightly. Behind him stood two Marines, their hands were on the cocking levers of the M-16s they held.

Raising his hands the President calmed them.

“It’s okay, it’s okay…. just an accident”

Henry had remained seated and calm, as unruffled by the exhibition of temper as he was at being considered a physical threat to the President in the eyes of the Secret Service.

When they had backed out of the room and the door was again closed the President took a deep breath and allowed the anger to settle.

“My eldest son got his call up papers today. He turned eighteen just three days ago and his mother is pissed as hell at me. Added to which, some long standing friends of ours have stopped calling her since their sons and daughters got call up papers, she’s pissed at me about that as well.”

“I was eighteen when I first put this uniform on, Mr President.”

“You volunteered and there wasn’t a war going on at the time.”

“The advisors were in Vietnam and the writing was already on the wall.” Henry sighed.

“If it’s any consolation, my father was entirely pissed at me.”

“Why, he fought in Europe and again in Korea?”

“He had a saying Mr President, what do you call a rifleman with a six figure checking account…a member of the National Guard. He was done with fighting wars for the benefit of all, when a noticeable percentage of the ‘all’ consistently failed to show up to do their bit. He thought the time had come for the poor working stiffs to stay at home in front of a TV and see how the rich boys handled it on their own for once. There were a few times over there where I thought he had a point.”

“You didn’t stop your son and daughter joining the service, though?”

“They had the chance to listen to their fathers and their grandfathers’ experiences and views. It’s a free country, and after listening they both entered following college. Matthew joined the Corps and Natalie the Navy.”

The President knew this, but he didn’t know where they both were.

“Matt’s the CO of VMA 223 aboard the Bonhomme Richard, and Natty is in Sydney too as TAO on the Orange County.”

“Bonhomme Richard was damaged in the first missile attack on Japan and was in dock at Sasebo when Japan surrendered wasn’t she?” asked the President. “And Orange County is providing air defence for both the Nimitz and Bonhomme Richard while the Aussies fix them up in Woolloomooloo Navy Yard?”

“Yessir, Bonhomme Richard is in the dry dock there and they aren’t going anywhere until the rest of the Nimitz group arrives.”

Only part of the Nimitz combat group had sailed with the carrier, the remainder were making their way with Essex or were stood out to sea as a precaution.

The President smiled, pleased with himself for remembering weeks old briefing items despite the masses of information that flowed in constantly for his eyes.

“Is your father still alive?”

“No sir, we lost him in ’92, a few months after my mother passed away, but I think he was proud of the way his grandchildren turned out.” Henry looked the President in the eye.

“My youngest is in the same draft as your son Mr President; they are both going to Parris Island.”

The President opened his folder and looked at the single sheet that lay within. He stayed that way for a moment before closing the folder and standing.

“I think we are done for now, General.”