Stand-To

CHAPTER 3

Nikoli had been dropped off outside 13 Kensington Palace Gardens, W8, the Russian Federations London Embassy.

Constantine had briefed him on the events that had caused him to desert his position at the Embassy and alert the West. Constantine had banked on the fact that the British military would not immediately inform the Russian authorities that they had ‘mislaid’ one of that countries servicemen. So far as Constantine knew there was nothing in official records connecting his second cousin removed, with himself. If there was then he had put his cousin in danger. Once Nikoli was conversant with the facts he had been allowed to make up his own mind, whether to go into hiding himself or return to his unit, the airborne division of the 6^th Guards Shock Army.

Constantine had only nodded his head in understanding as Nikoli chose the latter.

Apart from being introduced to him as simply Svetlana, nothing more was offered to explain her presence with Constantine. Nikoli had picked up on the subtle body language hints that his cousin and she were ‘together’, he had nonetheless teased his older cousin by flirting outrageously with this beautiful girl on the long journey south.

The Embassy staff had accepted his story of charming the beautiful Military Police captain into dropping him outside rather than into temporary detention at Wellington Barracks.

Unlike his compatriots who had been with other British units elsewhere in the country, Nikoli was delivered to Heathrow airport in an Embassy hired coach along with all unnecessary Embassy staff and dependants. The British bussed the Russians in their care to the airport in Army four-ton trucks.

As the Aeroflot flight had left the runway Nikoli took a last look at the British Isles through the window beside his seat and silently wished his friends in its Army, good health and a long life.

The grey light of pre-dawn greeted Colin’s opening eyes. He looked across at his sleeping wife, stroked her dark curly hair tenderly and reached over to cancel the bedside clocks alarm before it had chance to sound.

His head contained a dull ache, a legacy of their pre-deployment tradition of polishing off a bottle of bubbly and making out like teenagers. On the first occasion it had been a bottle of cheap pseudo champagne in a B&B before the invasion of Iraq. Janet’s surname had not been Probert at that time, it had become that within a month of his return, stood before the alter of her families local church, he in a scarlet tunic carrying brand new stripes and she in a catalogue bought dress carrying their first child, Karen. She hadn’t ‘shown’ on that occasion but her mother even now managed to serve up the shame that he had nearly caused her and the rest of her family. Fortunately Colin had always got along well with Janet’s father and brothers, so her Mum’s continued disapproval was easy to bear.

Young James had been conceived the night before Colin had left for Afghanistan. The genuine item had been the catalyst that had caused them to throw caution to the wind that night, not that Jimmy was a mistake of course, far from it, but before further tours Janet had ensured her diaphragm was in place before the cork popped.

Since his posting to Brecon Colin had made it home twice a month for long weekends, it didn’t count as being wholly in the loop on the parenting side and he was aware that Janet was doing more than her fair share. A year before she had landed a good job as a secretary for a law firm at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The firm had moved chambers to a plush office in Canary Wharf the previous January and Karen had become PA to one of the junior partners at the same time. She was now the highest earner in the household and the principle parent. Even had this possibility of war not raised its head he would not have sought a second term at the School of Infantry, Brecon.

He was about due for a promotion to WO1 slot, RQMS, QM (Tech) or that prime job within an infantry battalion, RSM, when Barry Stone eventually took over the job of GSM, Garrison Sergeant Major of London District. It would mean he was home each night but one step removed from what he loved most, being out in the weeds playing soldier. It was time he accepted that it was no longer fair on the family though.

Karen was entering that awkward stage in life, that of being a teenager and therefore susceptible to peer pressure and raging hormones.

He did not like her taste in boys or music (Janet had not revealed to him his daughters taste in skimpy ‘boy bait’ outfits. He still had that discovery to make all by himself),

Colin was honest enough to know he could easily sound like his own father had and accordingly he tried to curb the urge to lecture. He wasn’t entirely successful in masking his feelings, describing the boy band his daughters current heart throb sang with as a bunch of choreographed karaoke singers incapable of writing any of their own material or playing an instrument, which may have been true, but that had not earned him very much in the way of affection points.

Jimmy was still very much ‘all boy’, coming home with muddy knees and torn attire from climbing trees and playing with his friends in the nearby park. They had a few years breathing space before he entered the terrible teens.

Colin slipped from between the sheets and trod lightly around the bed to collect his towelling robe. Having slipped it on he bent down to check Janet still slept and satisfied, quietly left the bedroom.

At the faint sound of a shower Janet judged it safe to open her eyes. She had feigned sleep for much of the night, as she had done every single night before her husband left for active service in one part of the world or other.

She both welcomed, and hated this moment. The long hours’ laying there with pictures filling her imagination, none pleasant, were now past. She could lose herself in the domestic business of getting him fed, getting the kids up, breakfasted and ready for school.

She was exchanging the images for a countdown. The clock was running now to the moment he would step through the door, back into the military world that he loved so much and she so feared.

He’d always come back without a scratch before, maybe this time it would be different, maybe this time it would be her turn to try and look brave at the graveside, to try not to flinch but when the riflemen fired the salute over her soldiers grave.

She forced the thought away, dressed and went downstairs.

By the time Colin had showered, shaved and dressed the breakfast was on the table. He was seated before Karen appeared, looking rather sulky and put out, a clone of all teens at that time. The sulk deepened when her mother made her eat more than the half slice of toast she insisted was all she needed for the sake of her figure. Colin felt guilty about not being the one to make that move but he did not want his last day at home to be a quarrelsome one.

When Jimmy arrived it was in a rush, mimicking an aircraft engine and holding aloft a slightly battered Harrier jump jet he had made from a plastic construction kit. Colin caught him as he passed, sweeping him up and over before depositing him in his chair with a final ruffling of the permanently untidy mop of hair.

Jimmy shovelled breakfast cereal into his mouth and pulled a face at his sisters look of disdain at his table manners. He was considering flicking milk soggy sugar puffs at her when his father spoke.

“Sit up straight and mind your manners Jim, you’re not in a farmyard.”

“Yet.” Whispered Karen, loud enough for her brother to hear but he didn’t take the bait, he’d remembered something his friends had been talking about.

“Dad, are you going war fighting against the Germans” A diet of his dads old collection of boys comics had ensured that the bad guys were always the Jerries’ although sometimes it was the Japs in Jimmy’s young mind, not that he really knew where either ones country lay if you showed him a map of the world.

“No it’s not the Germans, they are our friends now. You had German friends too when we were in Fallingbostel, do you remember?” Jimmy had only been three at the time the battalion had last been stationed in Germany and his memories were hazy.

“Ian Wiggins says his Dad can’t get out the army now because there’s going to be a war.”

All movement out of the armed forces had been halted three days before. Colin felt slightly sorry for Pete Wiggins, a sergeant in the battalions signals platoon, he had a good job with an IT firm all lined up, no doubt the vacancy would have been filled by someone else before all the sabre rattling was done with.

Colin didn’t want to talk about the possibility of war; he did not need to look at his wife to know she felt the same way. Janet changed the subject with practised ease, enquiring about the quality of both offspring’s homework. It distracted as desired and breakfast was finished in near pleasant silence.

Janet drove, dropping the kids off early with friends whom they would walk the rest of the way to school with and then dropping Colin off in Petty France. They sat for several minutes looking at each other; finally he kissed her, hard, before leaving the car and striding towards the guardroom at the entrance to Wellington Barracks. She returned his wave when he turned briefly, before disappearing from view into the bowels of the barracks.

There was hollowness in her stomach when she let out the clutch and joined the early morning traffic, heading east towards her workplace.

Constantine was lying on their hotel bed watching television when Svetlana returned from the local newsagents. He turned to smile at her before he returned his attention to the trio of middle aged men discussing cars before an audience of adoring fans who apparently found even inane comments hilarious.

Shaking her head at the antics Svetlana had lain on her side of the bed with her back to the TV. As she had already scanned the pages of the Times for anything of interest she turned her attention to the crossword. Its completion took her a full fifteen minutes. With a snort of contempt she disposed of the clues one by one. 7 across had been ‘Emperor Constantine’, it made her smile as the Constantine next to her was anything but regal in bed, rampant yes, regal no.

9 across was ‘Carlisle’, and the coincidence gave her pause.

On completing the crossword she wrote in the margin of the paper and obstructed Constantine’s view of a celebrity guest spinning off a track in a reasonably priced car by holding the paper folded with the words and crossword in view.

“Is it me or is someone trying to tell us something?”

“I can see my rightful name and the name of a town that matches your previous name, but I do not understand the significance of the remainder?” he answered.

Svetlana explained about the three remaining words.

After a quick call to directory enquiries they collecting the car they had bought on Svetlana’s gold card in Southampton and headed for the M50 motorway.

The thing about ‘pay as you go’ cellular phones in the UK is that if you choose not to register them, not to claim the ten minutes free ‘talk-time’, no one can trace the users details. You can be though if someone has the facilities to triangulate from where a call is being made. Making a call at 70mph makes that triangulation more difficult though.

Once at the motorway Constantine headed north, passing two junctions before Svetlana made the call.

“Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard, can I help you?”

“Yes please, my name is Carlisle and I would like to speak to the Commissioner,” she told the police operator.

Looking at the notice on her console the operator followed its instructions.

“May I ask what it is in connection with?”

“Emperor Constantine, was his alliance with Licinius in AD312 really necessary or could he have defeated Maxentius on his own?”

“What… pardon?” the operator stammered.

Constantine nudged Svetlana in the ribs to stop her toying with the baffled operator.

“Just tell the Commissioner that Constantine is returning his call, please.”

“Hold the line please.” She was told.

After a few moments a male voice came online.

“Do I call you Christina?”

“Christina will be fine although I am impressed that you know that, and of your method of contacting us.”

Ignoring the pleasantries the commissioner cut to the chase.

“Mr President, the debugging of our system is making progress inasmuch as we know what areas are free of interference. I am not able to put a time reference on how long it will be until it is purged,” the NSA reported.

“How about Alaska, what went wrong at the Bering Straits?”

“Sir, it seems that there is increased traffic through the Straits, the reduction in the Polar ice caps is not limited to the Antarctic so best guess is that Kuznetsov came through during bad weather with a bunch of large merchies sir. We are still investigating however to ensure there are no bad apples.”

The president just nodded.

“Similar thing happened to the Brits with the Scharnhorst in the last war, right in their own backyard” offered General Shaw; the telephone in front of him rang.

“Excuse me, Mr President.” Henry masked the mouthpiece of the telephone to reduce anything the caller could hear in the background during their conversation. It was just simple operational security

“Ben.” Said the president. “You’re up, so how are we doing with running down the stray devices?”

“Sir, with the exception of the Muslim extremist groups whose asses we have been chasing for over six months, we have concluded that home grown terror groups are also involved. We have a lead on one particular bunch of white supremacists, and something big is in the wind with lots of email traffic. I have… or I had… an agent close to the leadership of Fascists of America. I pushed too hard Mr President and she took a chance too many.” Ben Dupre was looking at his hands as he spoke.

“What happened, Ben?” asked the president.

“Let’s just say she was found dead this morning and leave it at that please, at least for today sir,” Ben took a breath and continued.

“We and the ATF plan to hit all the groups we know of on the day before we know the devices are to be set off. We figure they will keep them close until the last minute for security reasons. All the targets are on high alert and road checks are still in place of course. If they think there’s no chance of getting through without being searched, Geiger counters waved over their stuff, they may back off and wait until another day. Gives us more time to track the things down”

“Sounds good, let me see the plan soonest please Ben,” after a second the chief executive asked his FBI Director, “I would like the deceased agents details too, please?”

Ben nodded, “Yes sir.”

General Shaw replaced his receiver.

“Mr President?”

The president nodded at the general.

“Something happening Henry?” The relationship between the president and the military had changed over several days; he no longer tolerated them as a necessary nuisance.

“Sir, there has been no contact with the submarine we sent to investigate the Chinese carrier for over 24hrs, that in itself would not be too great a cause for concern, she may not have been in a position to transmit for tactical or technical reasons. However, 7th Fleet and the Royal Navy Headquarters on Whale Island, Portsmouth, received a transmission from HMS Hood along with a recording she had uploaded. Hood’s sonar department heard activity from approximately where we would have expected the USS Commanche to be. Between 0121hrs and 0147hrs yesterday morning they recorded a surface vessel; a Krivak class destroyer performing high-speed dashes and reversing course. At 0145hrs there is the sound of two torpedoes being launched from a submerged submarine on a different bearing from that of the surface warship, this is immediately followed by the sound of a second submarine and she had her screw suddenly at high turn rate. Just under two minutes later there are two underwater explosions and the sounds of a submarine breaking up at depth.” After letting those present absorb what he had just said the general added.

“It may be unconnected with the Commanche sir, and unlikely as it is, due to the current rules of engagement, it may have been Commanche launching on another submarine… ” his voice trailed off.

“What action is being taken now?”

“Mr President, the composite light carrier group centred on HMS Prince of Wales arrived in Yokosuka three and a half hours ago and began taking on their full war loads. Their support vessels are topping off their stocks and they should be turned around and heading north in the next five hours. Their orders are to back up Hood and be in a strike position if called on. If they can get a look at the area of the sinking we may have more Intel. All Seventh Fleet vessels that have stocked and armed are standing out to sea. That order has been passed worldwide. The Hood broke contact with the Kuznetsov in order to transmit her message sir; she hopes to be back in position by this evening.”

“Thank you General, can you update us on the position of our reinforcement of Germany and the state of the movement of supplies to Europe.”

“Mr President, MAC, Military Airlift Command, is on schedule and although there has been some reluctance on the part of the main carriers to turn over their quota of aircraft for federal use, that is also underway. The first federalised shipping is taking on war supplies. 5th Armoured Division will entrain tomorrow at Fort Hood for Galveston and Texas City. Atlantic Fleet and 6^th Fleet units are arriving to take up duties as convoy escorts” He paused before continuing.

“The Royal Norwegian Navy, Royal Navy and the German Navy have between them seven submarines on station at the North Cape covering any egress into the Atlantic of Russian or Baltic states warships, there are surface ASW warship groups arriving on station as we speak.” General Shaw paused and looked closely at the president before asking.

“In view of recent events in the previously independent ex Warsaw Pact countries and what may have transpired in the North Pacific… Are there any changes in the ROE’s sir?”

After a moment’s pause he was answered with

“As we do not know what is occurring in those ports I have a local amendment. Before any open hostilities have occurred, any surface warship or surfaced submarine coming from there is to be ordered to return to its port. Any submerged submarine is to be attacked… I will answer to the UN if that does happen, I believe we have just cause… is that clear General?”

Shaw nodded and continued.

“Due to the threat still present to military targets by the suitcase bombs, the Air Force will be using several airfields abandoned by us in the reduction in force during the 90’s, rather than those that still exist. There are no PX’s or bowling alleys left but they are usable.”

“Thank you General… and now CIA, what you got in the situation in Eastern Europe?” asked the president.

“The Poles, Lithuanians and Belorussians have defeated the attempted coups in their countries but both report defections of units of their armed forces to the now pro-Russian countries on their borders. Those countries, like Russia, have otherwise sealed their borders. We believe we can trust the satellite images we have that show those countries are gearing up and uniting, I believe they will hold in place and allow the Russians to move up to them and they will then be in position to jump off westwards. Smaller than the old Red Army but if they came tomorrow we would be screwed sir.”

The president rubbed at his eyes and ordered a refill of coffee. It was a sign of his revised affections and current dependency on caffeine that he no longer drank from the White House china cups but from a mug bearing the crest of the United States Air force. Over the past couple of days the mug had been rotated with three others, Army, Navy and USMC.

“As of this morning all our consular and ambassadorial business in Russia is being dealt referred to the Swiss Embassy. Our consulates in St Petersburg, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg and the embassy at Bolshoy Devyatinskiy Pereulok have been closed.” He informed them.

“I will leave you to carry on in my absence as I still have the business of running the country… the one improvement in my duties these days is that I no longer have to smile for the cameras whilst meeting ‘Miss Hoocheekoo Falls Dairy Queen’ and the like.”

He surveyed those present and added.

“I can see I am going to have to fire you all and employ some ass kissers… you were meant to laugh at that!”

Sat beside the River Thames is the large glass, modern office building that is one of the centres of the United Kingdom Secret Intelligence Service. Thanks to Hollywood it is universally believed to be the address.

Referred to as ‘Box’ by some, and ‘500’ by others after the old postal address that was the only clue the public had of the location of the site, P.O Box 500. Thames House on Millbank is still the headquarters of Britain’s intelligence services.

There are no basement laboratories or proving grounds testing ballpoint pen flamethrowers though. What they do have however are intelligence gathering facilities beyond the abilities of a police forces own counter intelligence expertise and counter surveillance equipment to counter.

Marjorie Willet-Haugh ended one phone call and made another before taking the message pad she had written on and tore off not only the single page on which she had scribbled details but the top twenty pages. Spinning around in her large green leather swivel chair she fed the pages through a shredder and burnt the strips that resulted.

Turning off the M50 motorway Constantine followed Svetlana’s directions.

She wore dark glasses and her hair flowed like a mane over the back of the passenger seat where she sat with her stretch denim-clad legs tucked beneath her. She was reading from a road map purchased from a camping shop along with a few other items along with an Ordnance Survey map of the Forest of Dean. He glanced appreciatively at her, no longer wondering how she managed to breathe in jeans that tight, but glad only that she did.

Having telephoned their hotel from a public coin box they had paid the bill by credit card and mumbled about a family crisis preventing their return.

Both existed on a wardrobe that fitted into one medium sized case and two holdall's that they carried at all times. The case lived in the boot of their car.

Svetlana had listened carefully as the commissioner had spoken on the phone, weighing his words and gauging his honesty. She had ended the call to hold a council of war with Constantine. They had agreed to meet the commissioners contacts but on their terms. They would choose the ground and had called him back with their conditions.

Passing the town of Nailbridge they had eventually turned off the A4136 road and along a track into woodland until a padlocked gate had barred the way. It took Svetlana less than a minute to open the gate and once Constantine had driven the car through she used a lump of putty to disguise the damage the bolt croppers had caused.

The cars English ‘racing green’ colour scheme assisted their concealing it beneath trees.

“Was it just luck that you picked this car?” he asked and then looked at the despairing expression on her face.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, prior preparation and planning prevents poor performance,” he answered for her.

Slipping into their newly acquired purchases they picked a clearing and found a place to observe that offered cover to escape unseen if need be.

Reading off the digits on their cheap hill walkers GPS, Svetlana relayed the location of the clearing to the commissioner on her cellular and they both settled down to wait.

After just twenty-five minutes the beat of a helicopter approaching caused them to both huddle lower into the cover of the undergrowth.

Arriving over the clearing a civilian Jet Ranger began to slowly circle as if looking for the best angle in which to make its landing approach. Clamped above one of its landing struts was a fairly innocuous football sized object.

Inside the helicopter the heat sensor clamped above the strut picked out the two heat sources concealed below the brush. The helicopter pivoted so that the side cargo door faced toward the hiding place and its side door slid open into the locked position. From inside the cargo bay two gunners wearing goggles slaved to the heat sensor combined the weight of fire from their two M60 machine guns to tear through foliage, branches, newly purchased camouflage clothing, flesh and bone. The ammunition being used was not made up of all standard ball rounds. Every third round was a flechette sabot, once clear of the muzzle the cone of the round fell apart and the twelve arrow-like flechettes continued their supersonic journey. The helicopter backed off as the gunners reloaded with fresh 500 round belts and the pilot attempted to use the aircraft’s downwash to clear a view of the two shattered figures amongst the detritus of splintered wood, leaves and torn earth.

Looking to his right in alarm the Jet Rangers pilot banked left so suddenly the two gunners were sent sliding toward the open doorway. Before they reached it 30mm cannon shells raked their machine from cargo bay to cockpit and it continued banking ever more steeply left.

From his position peering between the two pilots of the Royal Air Force Lynx helicopter, Scott’s eyes were on the section of damaged woodland rather than their accompanying Army Air Corps AH-64 Apache or its target. Scott was cursing over and over and punching the back of the bulkhead. His two escorting SFOs were gawping out the side door at the stricken Jet Ranger as its left bank became a stall and it dropped through the tree canopy sideways in a cloud of splintered timber and shattered rotor blades.

Corporal Barnes was had been pouring over the American data since the previous night, he had about got to the point where all the digits were about to flow together into an unrecognisable blur. Time for more coffee he decided. Holding up five fingers he received a nod from the flight sergeant and made his way to the kettle. It was during the act of pouring the water into a plastic cup that he got that feeling, the feeling which is associated with the subconscious, telling you that you had looked right at something of significance and not recognised it for what it was.

Returning to his workstation he sipped his powdered coffee and waited for it to kick in and give him a clue.

Colin Probert and Stevie Osgood emerged from the WO & Sgt’s Mess lugging their bergens and fighting order over to waiting 4-ton trucks. In the past two days they had been buggered about from Wales to London. Without chance to unpack they were now off again, this time to Southampton and a ferry to Holland. If you think the two soldiers were hacked off you should have been a fly on the wall of their respective married quarters when the news was broken to Mrs Probert and Mrs Osgood.

In the confusion that followed Russia’s act of war against the UK, both soldiers had been posted to No. 7 (Composite) Company, Coldstream Guards at Wellington Barracks. 7 Company was the only standing remnant of 2CG, placed in suspended animation it really only existed on paper, to be reformed with reservists if necessary. 2CG never had a 7 Company, its companies were 1, 2 (Support), 3, 4 and Headquarter Company.

Wellington Barracks is home to the five regiments of Foot Guards, Companies that carry out the day-to-day Public Duties. Mounting Guard at the Royal Palaces and HM Tower of London and providing a Guard of Honour where required.

There is not a single unit within the British Army, which is up to full strength. The same goes for the Royal Marines. Not a single Royal Navy or Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship goes to sea with its ideal peacetime compliment or even full magazines. Not a single RAF Station or its Squadron’s meet the NATO manning or equipment requirements. Politicians would rather scrimp on the Ministry Of Defence budgets than choose a cheaper venue for an unnecessary junket at taxpayers’ expense.

So Colin, Oz and 7 Company were Germany bound along with the reservists who had so far been processed through, not to stand by as battlefield casualty replacements, but to go some way to bringing the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards up to full strength.

Having loaded their kit aboard they made their way over to the square where the Company was beginning to form up and fell in at the rear with the other newly arrived WOs and NCOs who, for the time being, constituted fifth wheels in the present orbat.

Before the RAF Lynx had touched the ground in the clearing Scott and his escorting firearms officers had leaped out. Both policemen landed, rolled and came up running with the ease of long practice. Scott did not some much land as splat. The Lynx lifted straight back up and began patrolling the area.

Neither officer directly approached the scene of violence; both took up firing positions and scanned the surroundings. The left knee of his relatively new Chino’s was smeared green and brown, a mixture of mud and grass stains, as Scott ran up favouring his left leg. Both bodies were so badly chewed up that neither was recognisable anymore as human. Breathing heavily Scott was circling the scene of carnage when his right foot snagged on something, his weakened left leg could not support his weight and he fell face first into the mess before him. With an exclamation of disgust he jerked away and wiped his right palm instinctively on his already grimed trouser leg to cleanse it of the blood and flesh it had landed in. Scott stopped in mid action and looked down; a piece of bloodied, clear cellophane was stuck to his trousers. With two fingers he gingerly peeled it off the material and turned it over, there was a portion of label attached to the plastic film.

“Sainsb?” he read aloud. He was motionless for moments as he looked hard at what lay before him and then at his foot to the object that had tripped him. Reaching into the mess for another plastic wrapped item his hand jerked back, it was warm to the touch. On his second attempt he caught it by the edge to draw it out; leaves and brush, stuffed into the now heavily punctured clothing snagged it. Prying it free he gave it a quick wipe and rendered the chemically self-heating meals instructions readable, in amongst the shredded clothes he thought he saw the remains of similar items. Scott got up, freed his foot from the green twine he’d stumbled over and saw it was attached at one end to the corner of a green backed heavy duty survival blanket lying to the side of the bloodied and torn camouflage clothing. He hobbled as he followed the twine the other way on its course deeper into the woodland. His escort moved position in order to provide cover if needed.

After seventy yards the twine disappeared below the thick carpet of dead leaves in that portion of the woodland. Scott jumped as the leaf carpet spoke to him in accented English.

“If you shoot at us we will shoot back… clear?”

Carefully Scott released the twine and held his hands clear of his body. His escorts sank to the ground and moved into cover.

With a rustle of leaves a female peeled back their own survival blanket that had masked their heat signature and smiled up at the bedraggled American. Beside her in the natural depression in the ground, a man was aiming a handgun at Scott’s face. From Intelligence photographs Scott recognised him as Bedonavich.

“Christina Carlisle?” Scott asked the girl.

“Sort of.” she replied.

Scott grinned,

“Just checking… I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on.”

Returning to the room and waving its occupants back into their seats the president lowered himself into his own chair and raised his empty mug. No ancillary staff was permitted in the room at times like these. A secret service agent took the mug and returned with it filled a minute later. Nodding his thanks the president turned to business. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I have some good news, bad news and not so bad news. As of lunchtime today we have the armed forces of France joining us, that’s an additional seven division corps worth of good news. The bad news is that Her Majesty’s Government in Great Britain is planning to sue for a separate peace the moment hostilities start.” With the exception of Terry Jones and General Shaw that was startling news to the rest of the room. The president allowed them a minute to vent their anger and surprise before calling them back to silence.

“The better news is that their PM is about to get a rude awakening… ooh, just about now I think!” he said smiling after glancing at the wall clock showing the time in London.

The prime minister was in conference with his inner cabinet and one other person in the Cabinet room at the rear of No.10. It was the same room where John Major had been in conference with his cabinet in 1991 when the Provisional IRA had rearranged the floral arrangements in the back garden adjacent to the room, using an improvised mortar.

Since the confrontation at New Scotland Yard his close protection team was no longer permitted in the building. Only when he emerged did they exit the vehicles in which they now were forced to wait and sleep in. Arrangements were underway with the Ministry of Defence to supply trained CP personnel to replace the police guard the PM’s had always been supplied with previously.

A copy of Jean Baptiste van Loo’s 1740 portrait of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, stared down from above the fireplace at the gathering as the present PM and his cabinet were being briefed on the state of the negotiations taking place in secret with the Russian Government. The doors were locked and the room was probably one of the securest in the land as regards electronic surveillance, as well as soundproofing of course. The 3-inch thick glass of the windows, installed after the 1991 attack only added to security of the room.

It came as somewhat of a surprise to the occupants, given the soundproofing, that a creaking sound could suddenly be heard from the doorway. All heads turned in that direction; in time to see the doorframes visibly bow away from the door. A loud bang then followed and the door crashed open.

A ‘Ghostbuster’ from the Metropolitan Police Technical Support Unit pulled away the hydraulic door opener he had been using to allow the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to enter. He paused to admire his handiwork before dropping a red painted door ram onto the carpet in the room; it landed with a very audible 'thud'. Removing his protective gauntlets and ignoring the shouts of protest from the occupants he declared

“Do you know something, I have always wanted to do that. They didn’t have them when I was a street copper; we used what we called a ‘size nine key’ in those days.”

Entering the room behind him were several other police officers and one of the most senior criminal court judges in the land along with the American ambassador and Art Petrucci.

“Prime Minister, listen carefully to what I have to say. As you are aware I am conducting a criminal investigation into the murder of six of my officers on the 22^nd March of this year in Rotherhithe, southeast London. You are also aware that I desired to trace two possible witnesses. Prime Minister I have received tape-recorded conversations between yourself and the head of the SIS, Marjorie Willet-Haugh.”

He paused to look across at the SIS Chief before again fixing the PM with a hard stare.

“A conversation in which you ordered her to find, kill and dispose of the bodies of the witnesses’ I sought. Those tapes have been examined and authenticated as genuine. I am therefore arresting you for conspiring to murder Constantine Bedonavich and Svetlana Vorsoff, both Russian nationals, in order to pervert the course of justice. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

Turning to indicate the two men beside him, the commissioner continued.

“You will recognise Sir John, the Ambassador and Mr Petrucci of course; they are here to witness this arrest.”

The commissioner then spoke to the PM’s wife who had sat quietly throughout and indicated a senior detective in the doorway.

“If you will accompany this officer he will take your written statement now, ma’am.”

The prime minister had risen from his chair, his face crimson with rage until the commissioner had spoken to his wife and mother of his children. The look she gave him before leaving the room spoke volumes in terms of contempt.

Sitting back down heavily the PM’s face was now ashen.

Following the discovery of the device in London it had been brought to AWRE to be examined fully and dismantled. The first task had been to ensure the weapon had no hidden surprises. Its initiation, arming and timing components were removed and the business begun of analysing the weapons design. This is a painstaking business, with 1960s, 70s, 80s original design and later upgrades along with cutting edge, present day technology married together. It would be easy to mistake a piece of hardware for something harmless, if a component of a nuclear device could ever be described as such, when in fact it is a booby trap or secondary trigger.

Had their present overtime budget not stood at zero the examination of the arming component would doubtless have taken place a few days earlier than it in fact did.

Stanley Bennett finished his task, the preliminary report on the ‘business end’ of the device that would now go for metallurgy analysis and then complete dismantlement. The core of the device would be reprocessed into fuel.

He made his way along to the department that was to do the analysis of the circuitry. As with everywhere else they had had their numbers pared down to the minimum. Genuine illness and disenchantment generated ‘flu’ and such meant that the departments were never crowded during working hours’. With nothing else to do until five Stan offered to help out his friend and colleague as Gupta Singh at last finished other tasks and began on the arming component. After one hour Gupta asked to see the suitcase body, and after seeing that Stan had indeed spoken the truth, that of its being a sealed unit when found, he sat in thought.

“There is no way for this weapon to be manually armed Stan,” he declared. Stan nodded, “The receiver is for microwave burst transmission, and the processor would be capable of coded reception and decryption, why?”

Gupta was frowning.

“There is no failsafe that I can find, nothing that permits its being disarmed,” he was thinking out loud now.

“The person planting it would arm it with a hand held transmitter I would think,” was all Stan could suggest.

“No, it would not work, if I knew the arming code I could demonstrate that nothing we have here would deliver the strength of pulse required… this is designed only to receive a powerful satellite transmission.” Unlike Gupta, Stan had been briefed on the strong possibility that this was but one of a hundred such devices. He hurried to the nearest telephone.

After four years of wearing civilian clothing, Colonel General Serge Alontov was again in the uniform of his country.

He was stood before his premier, waiting for his hand to be shaken and receipt of orders posting him to a command position once again.

“These are great times Serge, the rebirth of communism celebrated by the defeat of world capitalism,” he said solemnly.

“Comrade Premier, it was your vision, we merely assisted with putting the plan together and implementing it. In twelve hours’, thirty-seven minute’s time the satellite begins transmitting the arming code and detonation time. Nothing can stop them then. Provided the groups carrying out the attacks place them correctly the targets will be destroyed, even if they do not the shock and confusion of their detonations will demoralise the masses. Their servicemen abroad will be distracted by the news that their loved ones are under attack at home.”

“How is the determination of these groups, Serge?”

“They believe that they have total control of the weapons, the remote control sets we provided will tell them what they want to believe. Certainly the Muslims think they are striking a blow at the great Satan by damaging the White House and destroying a few buildings. The security forces seem to believe their road checks and restrictions will prevent the bombs exploding if they merely prevent the terrorists placing them at their targets.”

The Premier nodded in satisfaction,

“There may be a shortage of useful fools from the old times but equally stupid extremists have their uses too.” After a moment he held out a large envelope to Serge.

“Colonel General, the present commander of army Spetznaz forces is too good a man to replace and he is fully conversant with the fine detail his men’s missions, which you are not… however, I need an experienced senior officer to lead a large force of troops. You know the mission because your knowledge gave that phase of my plan feasibility.”

Serge stepped forward and took the orders from his hand. Stepping back a pace he saluted smartly and left the room.

In the anteroom without, Peridenko nodded cordially to Serge as the soldier emerged and a smile spread across the man’s face as he watched the broad shoulders depart for the last time, probably. Serge Alontov may not have a wife for the Premier to covet, but like the Jewish King David he had placed the soldier in the front rank. Men of Alontov’s calibre had to be shackled or eliminated lest they one day seek the throne for themselves. Sometimes I am so poetic it hurts thought Peridenko as he headed for the Premiers inner sanctum through the door held open by an aide.

There were many thoughtful faces in the room as Art Petrucci gave them the results of the Aldermaston AWRE examination of the London device over speakerphone. The full report was in the process of being transmitted for the technical brains to pick over but Arnie’s précis had provided food for thought to those present.

When he had finished the president thanked him and left the line open while his chief scientific advisor spoke.

“First thing that comes to mind sir is that we do not know if all the devices, if they exist, are all of the same design. The London bomb was a series up upgrades and new components added over thirty plus years. If it was originally a mass-produced weapon there is no guarantee that the remainder were upgraded the same way. Microwave communications were, after all, just chalked equations on a research facility blackboard in 1960. Originally they would have to be armed manually I would suggest.”

General Shaw spoke first.

“Excuse me Mr President; what the CSA said is all academic surely? We should assume the worst, that all the devices are of the London design… how do we stop them going off?” The CSA nodded, “Point taken, Russia has some 39 active satellites in orbit at the moment and another 12 we believe to be no longer functioning. The components the satellite would require to perform this task would be mission specific. They could not just dial into any commercial satellite and send it that way. Do we have the means to identify the satellite they will use or shut down all those 51 satellites?” The general was shaking his head

“We have four anti-satellite missiles on the inventory, the project was cancelled as too costly to justify more.”

“I thought as much. Then the only solution is to prevent them from going off where they would cause the most damage, it’s the best I can suggest.”

“Ben,” said the president,

“You have to bring forward your plan to hit the suspected groups, understood?”

“I’m on it, sir.” The FBI Director answered, reaching for the phone in front of him.

“Next thing… ” the president addressed the room, “… is it feasible to evacuate all the target areas?”

General Shaw cleared his throat and replied.

“It is only doable at six of the sites on US turf. If we did not have a deployment taking place it would be fourteen, but the evacuees would prevent our deploying units and supplies from reaching their ports of departure. The remaining eighteen are in the middle of towns and cities, where the hell do we put… ” he glanced at his notes before continuing

“… Ninety-eight million people. How do we feed and shelter them?” Letting out a sigh he continued.

“We have tentage and emergency relief stores capable of supporting 250,000 people for one month… and that’s all.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, it is inconceivable that there is no one in this room without a friend, relative or favourite stocks and bonds advisor, in one of the target areas.” The president was looking around the room as he spoke.

“You cannot, you must not, warn any of those people of the danger. I realise this is a heavy burden I am putting on some, if not all, of you. We cannot guard against the bombers and deal with the panic… do you understand?”

There was silence in the room.

“Do you understand?” he raised his voice as he repeated his instruction. There was a rumble of, Yes Mr President’s, from around the room, all the voices were subdued.

“In the meantime we need to work on preventing the signal from being sent. Should any device be detonated on our territory or that of our allies I am obliged to consider very seriously, the option of nuclear retaliation? If I do, it will not be two kiloton’s but twenty megatons I drop on Red Square and that sonofabitch will then reply in kind!” An aide interrupted the president by handing him a note. He thanked the aide and instructed his CSA.

“Joseph, you need to find out what our research people can suggest straight away.”

As he left the president informed the battle staff that the new PM of Great Britain was online for a videoconference and all turned to face the screen suspended from the far wall as it came to life.

“Congratulations on your office Mr Prime Minister.”

“Thank you Mr President, not the circumstances one would wish for in reaching number ten, but there you are.” He smiled wryly.

“I understand you have something of importance for us?”

“Yes we do, we believe we have located the site the Russians intend using to upload the arming codes to the satellite.”

In order to discover the extent of the damage to their satellite intelligence, friendly powers had been called on to assist in the cross-referencing of their data with that of the United States. As clever as it was the subversive program could not hope to perform its photographic sleight of hand across an area as vast as the Russian Federation and the seas off its coastline. Satellite images of static sites where projects were underway were relatively easy tasks for the program to disguise. New images showing the empty births of the semi completed nuclear powered carriers had the vessels images inserted. The busy shipyards were likewise altered to show them as deserted. The insertions and overlays all took place between the data download site and the photo interpreters’ terminals.

The Mao and Kuznetsov had followed a very exact course on their way to the north Pacific; the programmers could not predict their exact positions on each pass of the US satellites. The vagaries of tides and happenstance are too wild for mathematics to accurately predict, so the entire intended route was doctored in every frame from two months before their actual departure, as had the RORSAT data.

The NSA team, under its new boss, had passed on everything they had gleaned from the program inserted by the two fugitive employees and an analyst in Britain had made a discovery.

Amidst the masses of data existed a longitude and latitude that had only appeared three weeks before, on the desolate Arctic Archipelago of Zemlya Georga, once known as Franz Josef Land, north of Murmansk.

Files showed that the Soviet Union had established a meteorology and research station there in the 50s but it had been abandoned through lack of funding in 1990. Ironically, had the Russian planners relied solely upon simple camouflage on the ground at Zemlya Georga, the subterfuge would never have been discovered. Where the US images showed snow and ice on the 3^rd March, a British scientific survey’s images showed men anchoring a satellite dish.

The prime minister informed them that a Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules was departing RAF Luchars with members of the Royal Marine Commandos, Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre aboard. After a refuelling stop in Norway the marines would be flown below radar cover and dropped ten miles from their target. Their mission was not to simply destroy the site but to take out the dish before capturing the facility. Within the site would be the identity of the satellite the codes would be uploaded to.

The president and General Shaw exchanged glances whilst the new PM was speaking.

“Prime Minister,” began the president once the PM was finished. “Why were we not consulted before you authorised this… unilateral action?”

“Because time is of the essence and whereas your nation has twenty-four warheads hidden in it waiting to explode, my country, which is rather smaller than your state of Texas, has ten.”

The British PM gave them a moment to absorb those facts before he continued.

“We do not have an anti-satellite capability but you gentlemen do, so once our marines have obtained the satellite information it will be broadcast immediately. Can you be ready to attack the satellite in question once it is identified, you will have only about eight hours’ to prepare, is it enough?”

The general thought for a moment before stating.

“It will have to be.”

The PM smiled and nodded.

“If you will excuse me, I really do have much to do.”

As the connection ended General Shaw smiled. He had served on operations in southeast Asia with the current occupant of 10 Downing Street.

“You can’t go wrong with a marine at the helm, ex Special Forces guy too.”

The president raised an eyelid and the general added.

“Present company accepted of course.”

“Is it feasible that the Russian’s would have only one site, surely anyone with a portable satellite phone could send this?” was the president’s next question.

CIA’s Terry Jones answered him.

“You have to factor in the need for absolute secrecy sir, I imagine that the data would be contained on a disc or CD-ROM. You are going to want those kept under control and the best way to do that is to limit their numbers. Same goes for the personnel involved, limit their numbers, the fewer who know, the fewer who can blab.” The president was watching him and his mind working, looking for flaws in the argument. Terry continued.

“If you stick the personnel who are going to send it in some out of the way spot, you limit our chances of finding it and destroying it should we get wise to what’s in the wind.”

“Which we apparently have,” agreed the chief executive. “General?” he said turning his attention away from Terry Jones. Shaw was on the telephone to the air force. Finishing the call he explained what he had done.

“Sir, the original testing of the ALASATs was run out of Langley AFB; the R&D unit that was responsible no longer exists, so we are going to have to scramble to get a mission together in time.”

“Lead me through it Henry, what are the problems, is it the weapons?”

“No Mr President, the ALASAT, air launched anti-satellite missile is made up of proven technology. Basically it is uses an F-15 as the launch platform, the ALASAT is made up of current weapons components and the warhead. Lower stage is off a SRAM, short-range attack missile, married to an Altair III solid propellant second stage and a miniature vehicle warhead. No modified airframe is required; any F-15 can launch it. The pilot flies a set profile under ground control, the missile seeker head tells the pilot when it has acquired the target and he launches as he would an AGM. It was first successfully used to destroy a defunct P78-1 satellite. But that was back in ’85, a Congressional moratorium cancelled the program in ‘87, none of the original personnel are around any longer. I just ordered the air force to cut loose its best test pilot instructors from Edwards AFB; they’ve done the theory work on the launch technique. There isn’t going to be time to practice and they are enroute now in F-15s to upload the ALASATs. We have to knock out that satellite ASAP in case the Russians have a back-up site… I know I would.”

“I take it that ideally, more of an intelligence work-up should have been done?”

“Absolutely sir, but that would take time that we do not have. We cannot ask the Europeans or the Japanese to start manoeuvring satellites over Zemlya Georga to gain real time Intel, the Russian would see that and the game would be up. The Brits read it right; there really is no other option sir.”

The president didn’t like it but he had to agree.

“These Marines going in, they are Arctic specialists?”

Shaw pulled a face.

“I don’t like the term ‘specialist’, by definition it implies someone who knows more and more about less and less, until ultimately he knows nothing. No sir, the M&AW Cadre train to fight at altitude and in the cold. They were formed as part of ACE Mobile, earmarked to go behind Soviet lines should Norway be invaded. They are experts at working in sub-zero temperatures,” he explained.

“They all have got at least one Everest climb under their belts, without oxygen, and have hiked to one of the poles. When they are not on expeditions such as those they are instructing other marines in mountain and arctic warfare.”

“What can go wrong?”

“The aircraft may have to turn back through technical difficulties, they could crash if the weather is bad down low. They cannot fly over the weather, they would be seen and maybe shot down, either way the gig would be up.” The general glanced around the room.

“Once they are down, they have some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet to cross. They have to avoid detection and prevent the alarm being raised on the mainland when they take the place. If they can do all that, then there is the big what if,” pausing for a moment to take a sip of water.

“What if the satellite that receives the codes is not the transmitter, what if it is just a relay station or just the first of several relays passing the arming codes to the one satellite we need to neutralise?”

“Jesus Henry… next time I ask you what the difficulties are, just tell me Mr President, you really don’t want to know… ok?”

“Yes sir.”

“Is there anything else about this I should know?”

“Mr President, you really don’t want to know.”

There was a touch of frost in the air of the forest. The chill wind from Siberia that moaned through the conifers was helping to bring the temperature down and whip away the smoke issuing from the chimney of the smart stone and log dacha.

The only illumination in the main room came in the form of flickering light from the log fire. Its resulting shifting of light and shadow leant a romantic atmosphere to the room and emphasised the good looks and curves of the blonde who sat naked astride Peridenko. Sweat dampened her skin and it shone as if oiled. Beads of sweat ran down her pale skin as she panted and rode him. Her golden hair was only visible where it emerged from under the nun’s headdress that she wore. Her breath had begun to come as sobs as she came near to her climax.

“Not yet!” Peridenko snapped, and rolled her off him. Kneeling up, he moved in order that she could occupy the lambskin rug before the fire. She knelt on elbows and knees facing away from him, presenting him with two choices.

“You do not come before I do!” he ordered.

She was facing away from him so he took the opportunity to reach under the rug and removed an object that he draped it over his shoulders before putting his left hand on her hip as he lined up.

“Not a pretty sight at all.” A voice declared from the shadows. The blond let out a little yelp and pulled away from Peridenko to squat defensively on the floor facing toward the voice with her arms wrapped about herself.

Serge stepped out of the shadows; his face blacked with camouflage cream and clad in a one-piece camouflage coverall and paratroop jump boots. He wore a headset with its boom mike before his face. The AKM-74 assault rifle sat easily in his grip as weapons do in the hands of those practised and confident in their use.

Peridenko was knelt upright with his hands covering his manhood and his eyes darted about. He appeared to be considering calling for help but Serge saved him the bother.

“Bodyguards should be bodyguards, not gravediggers Anatoly Peridenko.” The assault rifle stayed unwaveringly on the naked man as Serge let go the stock to pick up a garment draped over a chair back. He regarded the Aeroflot uniform before looking at the girl and then to Peridenko.

“Ah yes,” he said as he recalled something said by the other on a flight to Beijing.

“I see that the curtains matched the carpet after all, Anatolly?”

“Did you come here to mock me or just to indulge in voyeurism Serge!” Peridenko snapped back.

“As it happens, I came here to kill you,” was the calm reply.

Peridenko stared.

“What… why?”

“Our Premier ordered it so; it seems he believes you will not be satisfied with being mere head of the KGB once more.” He smiled genially at the frightened man before adding.

“Actually I was going to kill you myself anyway. This way just adds some legitimacy to the affair.” He stepped sideways in order to check for possible weapons within Peridenko’s grasp.

“From here I go to take over my new command.” He said with a nod indicating his camouflage clothing.

“This was an addition written at the foot of my orders.”

Peridenko began to jabber and offer inducements but Serge ignored him, addressing the girl instead.

“Did he tell you the significance of the Christian nuns garment… no?” The girl merely shook her head.

“I imagine he offered you some inducement to overcome your reluctance at allowing a hairy slobbering pig to screw you?”

Peridenko snapped at him.

“Are you here to kill me or insult me?”

Serge regarded him for a moment before he answered.

“Unlike yourself Anatolly I do not kill for pleasure, I am not mocking you; I am justifying to myself the necessity of killing you in cold blood.” Again addressing the girl he said.

“I also imagine that he promised you a move to one of the runs with more potential, in the West?” He studied her for a moment. “Affluent money men, more generous of your favours than ours or the Chinese. Possibly even a posting on the ground in one of the airline offices in the West. There you would have the chance of escape from low wages and state built hovel with garbage on the landings and elevators that never work. Meet a nice wealthy man and become his mistress or his bride?” She looked at the floor in shame.

“Ah, I see, that was it… Anatolly is an exploiter of beautiful things by offering them their dreams, young lady.”

With quick steps he snatched the object from around Peridenko’s shoulders and retreated. Serge held up the length of cord with wooden toggle handles at both ends and the stranglers knot in the middle. “The lovely Miss O’Connor believed she had merely escaped a fate worse than death by refusing your offer, Anatolly.” Tossing the strangling cord into the flames he spoke briefly into the headset microphone in answer to some communication.

“Now where was I? ah yes, Miss O’Connor. Had she accepted I am afraid I would have killed you before your date had been kept. I rather liked her you know. The sort of girl you would hope your son would bring home to meet the parents, and far too nice a girl to partake of one of your special celebrations.”

Peridenko cursed at him.

The words had no effect.

“Your bodyguards are occupying the grave intended for this lovely young creature, Anatolly… how many others are buried out there in the trees?”

The girl at last realised what Peridenko had intended for her and scrabbled further away, open mouthed in shock and looking at her lover through horrified eyes.

Peridenko bared his teeth, glaring in hatred at the soldier but did not answer.

Serge was stood calmly watching him, the assault rifle held almost casually at the hip but the muzzle never leaving Peridenko. There was a tinge of sadness perhaps in his eyes. Not sadness for the man nor for the girl either, but for himself. Again he spoke, after a few seconds that had seemed far longer in the atmosphere of the room.

“No answer?… no matter.”

In the confined space the single shot was deafening thunder as he shot the crouching man in the face without raising the butt to his shoulder.

The girl screamed aloud and darted into a corner of the room. Tears and visible, mortal terror spoilt her looks as she huddled in the corner, attempting to make herself as small as possible as she pleaded for her life. One arm was outstretched toward the muzzle of the weapon he held, hand open, palm facing outwards as if she hoped to ward off the high velocity bullet’s that she knew would come.

Gathering her clothes from the chair with one hand, he applied the safety catch of the weapon with the other and let it hang, muzzle down by its harness.

Serge carried the clothing to the girl and knelt. Soothing her with his voice, the survivor of battles from Afghanistan to Chechnya stilled her tears if not her shaking, before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

“Did you find anything?” he addressed the two troopers who stood in the corridor. They nodded toward the bedroom and he entered to see they had found and opened Peridenko’s safe. He ignored the substantial bundles of high denomination US Dollars and rolls of gold coins for the moment. After a few minutes reading the documents from the safe he stuffed several printed sheets into an inner pocket of his coveralls and zipped it back up.

The wardrobe revealed a number of women’s outfits; Peridenko had apparently retained some of the more expensive clothing of the unfortunates he invited here when he had a special event to celebrate. He selected the two sable coats that he supposed had belonged to two, probably exceptionally attractive call girls now buried somewhere in the forest.

Stuffing a bundle of dollars and a roll of gold coins into one pocket of a sable coat, he left the bedroom with both the coats.

“Gather up the money.” He told one, and to the other.

“Collect all the watches and jewellery you can find and distribute it to the men who took part tonight.” He knocked on the living room door and waited a moment before entering. The girl was dressed but still trembling and looked at him with worried, uncertain eyes as he entered. He regarded her thin but relatively smart uniform overcoat and draped one of the sables over her shoulders and pressed the other into her hands.

“Do you have everything you came with?” Frowning in puzzlement at him the girl nodded.

“Come with me,” he ordered and walked from the room. Both his men waited.

“Take this young lady in my vehicle, see that she gets home safely and then rejoin us at the aerodrome,” he told one. When that man had departed the dacha with the girl in tow, Serge looked around him at the walls and expensive furnishings. To the remaining trooper he said simply.

“Burn it,” and strode out into the night.

The constant buffeting from the turbulent air above the waves had reduced most of the forty-two strong team of Royal Marines to states of misery.

Having emptied their stomachs into the vomit bags, some still experienced dry heaving. In the close confines of the aircraft, the cold, discomfort and stench of vomit had overshadowed any concerns the Royal Marine Commando’s may have had regarding the dangers involved in their mission.

After refuelling at Bodø in Norway, the 47 Squadron C-130 Hercules had flown out to sea before losing altitude and turning toward North Cape.

Squadron Leader Stewart Dunn and Flight Lieutenant Michelle Braithwaite had held the troop carrying aircraft fifty feet above the waves for almost four hours’. Instead of the light of dawn they had entered the half dark of the arctic day for this time of year. Below them the waves had given way to snow and ice and they now approached their initial point.

Sorties of RAF Jaguars and Royal Norwegian Air Force RF-16s, the reconnaissance version of the F-16 Fighting Falcon, were keeping the Russian radars busy. The C-130 would climb to the minimum height necessary to drop its load of men and equipment before descending again. Once on the ice the Marines would be on their own until they had evaded clear enough for extraction.

Down in the hold the RAF loadmaster’s donned arctic clothing, even though they themselves would not be leaving the aircraft and this warned the Marines who mentally prepared themselves.

Each Marine wore ‘Arctic Whites’; white trousers and hooded smocks made of thin parachute material covering multiple layers of warm clothing. Once they were on the ice and moving they would stop whenever they began to feel warm and remove one or two layers of their clothing. Layers go on and off prior to the marines getting too hot or too cold; it is a basic operating drill. In sub-zero temperatures it can be fatal to work up a sweat, because the sweat will soak into the clothing and freeze once they had stopped exerting themselves so exposure and pneumonia would soon follow.

Major Richard Dewar, RM, was no different from each and every one of his Marines in wanting nothing more than to escape the purgatory of their journey and leave the aircraft.

Red on, the sound of the engines altered as the pilots throttled up in preparation for a rapid climb to a safe jumping altitude. The marines in their two sticks stood up and hooked up. The business of buddy checking and last minute strap tightening commenced, their Bergen’s hampered their legs as they shuffled along and waited. The red lighting came on and transformed the interior, allowing the troops and ‘Loadies’ to still see without providing a beacon for unfriendly eyes. The dispatchers opened the side doors and the rear cargo ramp lowered. The merely cold air within plunged to sub-zero and all commands had to be conveyed by hand signal.

The Hercules banked slightly and climbed steeply.

Green on, and led by Major Dewar both sticks went out of the side doors, heavier equipment out of the rear.

Twenty-seven seconds after completing its climb the C-130 descended and turned through 160’ onto its egress route.

Hokkaido, the northern most island of Japan had slipped over the horizon astern of the Prince of Wales group during the night. The eight surface combat and three support vessels were under EMCON, electronic emission control, radios and radars on standby.

HMS Prince of Wales FA/2 Sea Harriers and ASW Merlin’s were on deck alert, as were the other ships in the group. One of her dedicated AEW Merlin’s was aloft and the other on deck alert along with the rest.

Further north HMS Hood was still trailing the Kuznetsov group, with the Chinese covert picket’s also heading north but unaware their perimeter had been breached.

The Russian Oscar II, SSGN Admiral Dumlev and her St Petersburg class SSK diesel escort Irkutsk, that Hood had detected, had already turned about. The northbound heading of the Prince of Wales group had not gone unreported by Chinese agents in Japan.

The Mao had ceased her constant circling and was heading south, her original timetable scrapped and her air group at varying stages of ability with regards carrier flight operations. In four hours’ time the Kuznetsov would turn about and slow, allowing the Mao group to join with her and her group in the early evening. In southern China, marines were rehearsing for their role in the invasion of Taiwan as were the airborne troops assigned to that operation and the assault and capture of Singapore.

Ben Dupre had a very personal interest in this particular operation, leaving his deputy in charge in Washington he had flown to New York State. Ben was not there to run the operation; he had a very able man in charge already. Once collected from the field where the Bureau helicopter had delivered him, a car dropped him in a small side road off the Route 84 near the Putnam County line. ATF, FBI and their SWAT command members were clustered around the vehicle employed as the mobile command post. Stood in the background was a USAF colonel, Ben shook hands all around and stood with the colonel to listen to the briefing.

The Fascists of America of had been infiltrated a year before by a young female agent who had moved up in the organisation hierarchy to close to the leadership. She had passed on to her handler a rumour she had heard that a foreign government had offered them assistance. The only stipulation, she had heard, was that in return for the FA attacking several targets of their choosing simultaneously with bombs they would supply, financial aid would be forthcoming. One such attack would be somewhere in New York City and she had learnt where the operation was to be staged from. The young woman had been requested to discover solid details, however, she had been found dead in a field instead. The circumstances of her death were not elaborated upon, at least two persons present at this briefing knew her personally and the agent in charge did not want this turning into a grudge match.

In nearby Wiccopie was a rented house containing five men, the plan was to enter and arrest the occupants. Authority had been obtained to block the landline telephone access and switch off the nearby cellular servers for the area whilst the operation was in progress. Surveillance on the premises and occupants had shown merely that they rarely ventured out and seemed to exist on a diet of pizza and fried chicken delivered to the door. A male and female agent, posing as a couple had rented the adjoining building and over the past thirty-six hours’ a SWAT team had moved in and removed a significant amount of the dividing wall. In addition they had inserted fibre optic lenses into minute holes to observe the activity in the main room. A laptop computer could be seen, it had been on permanently since the surveillance had begun. Messages were being passed in an innocuous fashion in a chat room, this occurred every four hours’ and the sender in the house referred to a copy of a school textbook before replying. Concluding that this was a security measure the agent in charge had decided not to interfere with the landline access as their subjects ‘leaving the room’ would sound alarm bells at the other end as their screen name disappeared from the list of those in the chat room. They obviously had a procedure for re-establishing contact in the event of being accidentally ‘knocked off’ the server, it had not happened whilst the surveillance had been in place so they had no idea what it would be. In all, fifty-two raids were taking place across mainland America, Alaska and Hawaii this morning. It was impossible to synchronise them, local conditions varied too much as they did here where the next security check was due in two hours’ twenty-two minutes, they would ‘go’ in two hours’ thirty.

“We don’t want the subjects to break the connection right after their next message, it would look too suspicious,” the agent explained. “Ideally we don’t want the connection broken at all.” The agent glanced briefly at the colonel before continuing.

“You are all aware that this operation is being mounted in response to a suspected terrorist bombing being planned and you are probably wondering why the hell I am repeating myself after your briefing last night?” Pointing to the rear he informed them.

“You will all recognise Director Dupre, however the good colonel beside him is from JNAIRT, the Joint Nuclear Accident and Incident Response Team. There is a possibility that the bombing is not intended to a conventional one and suffice to say, should we find anything in the address it will be dealt with by JNAIRT.” This raised a lot of eyebrows.

With nothing to do but wait, Ben looked at his watch and wondered what the weather was like at 80’N 49’E.

Having burrowed into a snowdrift Major Richard Dewar had poked a small hole through to the other side to allow him to observe the innocent looking mounds three hundred yards distant. Richard and his men had made their initial approach towed on skis behind snowmobiles, their exhausts heavily muffled to the extent that the performance was well below that advertised for sporty civilian models. Wind was beginning to whip across the landscape; ice particles carried by the wind fogged his vision through his binoculars whenever the wind gusted. The wind chill factor had also lowered the temperature to a balmy –32’. The half-light made it difficult to judge distance; Richard had to concentrate on focusing his eyes. As he looked at the edge of one mound he distinctly saw its edge move, confirming that camouflage netting was in partial use at least.

Putting the last touches to his orders he moved backwards on his belly to join his section commanders for his ‘O’ Group.

“Gentlemen, thank you all for joining me here at such short notice, I hope the bikini clad hotel staff met with your approval?”

It was not possible to make out the features of any of his men, white thermal head-overs masked their faces, they were items of essential clothing as much as they were personal camouflage items. “Orders… ”

The damage to the doorframe and door to the cabinet room had not yet been repaired. The room contained the new PM with his cabinet picked from the opposition parties, the leaders of those parties and the Metropolitan Police commissioner along with the heads of the armed forces. Collectively they were all mirroring scenes from similar rooms across the world. No one expected one hundred percent success from their countries military and police anti-terrorist operations today, but even the seizure of one device would mean saving the lives of tens of thousands over the coming years. Cancer related deaths resulting from the nuclear detonations could match, if not outstrip, the body count of the original detonation.

The PM himself was no stranger to being at the sharp end of operations. Of all the politicians sat in the room with him, he was the only one present who had served his country in uniform. One of the telephones before him was exclusively for the result of his marine’s mission at Zemlya Georga.

According to the clock on the wall the first premises, in Wolverhampton, was about to be assaulted. All in all he would have felt far happier had he been on the ice with the marines than sat waiting.

The two surviving buildings from the old facility, abandoned to the elements twelve years before, had been patched up to keep out the weather. The buildings faced one another with about twenty feet between them. A colonel and his 2 i/c, a lieutenant, commanded an eight-man security team and two technicians responsible for operating and maintaining the satellite transmitter and radio equipment. In the weeks they had been confined here the colonel had remained aloof from everyone, leaving the running of things to the lieutenant. The colonel ate and slept in the smaller building with the communications equipment, apart from attending to the call of nature at the one chemical toilet they had; he never left the building. When the colonel did venture out he ensured that the key to the small safe beside the communications gear was around his neck on a chain. The troops had dug communications trenches in order to stay below ground level when out in the open, with both buildings almost buried by the snow it was a simple procedure to also transform the appearance of the site with cam nets, providing overhead cover from view. Three fighting positions had been prepared to provide security but with only the lieutenant and eight men it was not possible to keep them all manned. Remaining on sentry in sub-zero temperatures cannot be safely achieved for periods of over thirty minutes at a time. Once a man comes indoors again he has to care for his weapons and equipment. All snow and ice has to be removed before it melts, rounds have to be removed from magazines, weapons stripped and all cleaned to ensure moisture does not freeze them to inoperability when next exposed to the elements.

With only nine men available, only one position was kept manned for 24 hours’ a day, two sentries occupied it at a time and every fifteen minutes one was relieved.

Major Dewar had sent two men to perform a close target recce, they had sketch mapped the layout, noted the sentry change over period and correctly identified the buildings functions. With these details to hand Major Dewar had briefed his men.

‘Silent noise’ emitted by the Royal Marines signallers kit was preventing any radio or microwave transmission or reception from the Russian position without alerting them. The marines two gun groups and sniper had moved into covering positions prior to the assault group moving to their jump off points.

Sliding below the cam nets and positioning themselves atop the communication trenches walls by both buildings the marines awaited the next sentry change. Lying immobile upon the snow sapped the warmth from the marines as they waited, threatening to trigger the body’s automatic defence of protecting the core organs by restricting blood flow to their limbs.

The outer door to both buildings opened simultaneously as sods law dictated that a communications technician would choose that moment to relieve himself in the toilet in the other building. With both buildings facing one another it meant both the sentry going on duty and the technician saw the danger to the other at about the same time as the Royal Marines Commandos slid down into the trench behind their respective man. The wind muffled the noise as mittened hands covered mouths and two knives were thrust home into the target's larynxes.

In the sentry’s position an impatient soldier looked down the communication trench for his relief. He was about to use the field telephone link to hurry the man up when a figure, huddled against the wind came into view.

Corporal Rory Alladay, RM, was not happy about his task, but the stakes were high and that did not leave any room for humanitarianism, at a range of eight feet he raised his weapon and opened fire on the Russian soldiers stood close together in the fighting position.

At both entrances to the two buildings the outer and inner doors were wrenched open. Grenades preceded the way into the living quarters, Lance Corporal Micky Field crouched beside the outer door until the grenades had gone off, then he rose and pushed at the inward opening outer door but the blast had jammed it shut. With another marine they both forced the door open and found the inner door half hanging off. As the marine with him came in view of the rooms dark interior there was a burst of automatic fire that pinned Micky beneath his colleague who had been hit in the head and chest, dying without a sound. The grenades had destroyed the lighting within the building and whilst Micky scrambled to disentangle himself a CS gas grenade was lobbed deep into the room whilst marines in the communication trench began firing into the room, with no target visible they were firing blind. He had just freed himself when an object thrown from inside the room hit the wall between the inner and outer doors and landed beside him. Micky had a split second of recognition before the Russian fragmentation grenade exploded.

Major Dewar had received confirmation that the building containing the communications equipment had been taken without casualties; however he had four men down at the second building. With no intelligence as to the opposition facing them, the M&AW Cadre had arrived fully prepared to take on a larger opposition force; he was however not prepared to lose any of his men to no purpose. Both his gun groups opened fire, providing cover as the two marines wounded by the grenade that had killed Micky were extracted from the communications trench. L/Cpl Field along with the first marine to be killed were left in place.

The 66mm LAW is no longer in general service with British forces; its inability to defeat the armour of a modern MBT caused its replacement. A ‘66’ may not be able to fulfil its intended role but as a one shot piece of artillery it remains as a handy piece of kit for special forces, not that the M&AW Cadre would be pretentious enough to call themselves such.

In the communications building the satellite gear was moved to the far wall, protected by the bodies of the technician and Russian colonel draped across them before the marines withdrew, once clear the accommodation building was destroyed with two 66s.

Some fifteen minutes later the safe had been opened and Major Dewar pocketed a CD rom disc from inside and handed his signaller a series of times, bearings and angles above the horizon to transmit.

In the living room of the house, Audey Lee Mallory did not notice the smell of stale air from sweaty bodies and cigarettes as he watched a football game on the television. Keeping an eye on the laptops screen whilst monitoring their police scanner and watching the game too, was one of his subordinates. The other three members of the team were sleeping in the back room, two because they had pulled the night shift, one because he was drunk.

Audey was the product of a poor background and misspent school years, as were the others in the house with him today. Audey was one of those people who did not blame himself for the low wage jobs that had been his lot since leaving school; it was far easier to blame someone else.

He had been ripe for recruitment to the FA, an organisation that blamed blacks and Jew’s for all their woes. Their solution and recipe for an all-white America was the overthrow of the very organisation that kept blacks and Jew’s interests ahead of their own, the elected government.

The Audey’s of the world were not the sole membership of the FA, you can excuse to an extent Audey’s discontent, but the others, the hierarchy are harder to understand. In the same way it is difficult to understand how intelligent, well educated men and women, could believe an approaching comet was really a space ship, come to pluck they alone from the planets face and suicide was the way to passport control, so too is understanding how similarly gifted people can believe in the inbreeding of fascism.

FA had in their leadership, men and women with letters after their names.

Audey and Co were the foot soldiers, awaiting the code word that would signal the delivery of very powerful explosive devices to varying targets nationwide. Audey’s group was delivering their device to the banking centre of New York. The suitcase and remote control were concealed in the basement along with an impressive arsenal of small arms, which Audey had decided they would use once the bomb had exploded to create some more mayhem along Wall Street.

The latest security check had been sent some minutes before and the laptop operator decided to use the time out in the game as opportunity to take a leak.

Audey leant back and stretched, his head turned toward the sidewall as he did so. He paused and starred at the sidewall, he had not noticed that it had a bulge in it before, only a slight one but there just the same. Rising from the sofa and crossing the room he put his hand upon it and pushed.

Ben Dupre could not resist being in at the kill, he was not a part of the operational command structure and wanted to be the first to speak to his deceased agents ‘boyfriend’, one Audey Lee Mallory.

He was in the neighbouring house to that of the FA suspects, amongst members of one of his organisation's SWAT teams. Unlike them he was not clad in body armour and packing an MP5. They may have been ‘loaded for bear’ but Ben had only his elderly but trusty .38 revolver. It was no longer FBI issue but as the organisations chief he felt he could bend the rules, after all, he was never likely to have to use it.

The plan of action was to have an ATF agent deliver a Pizza to the front door as both persons in the living room would then be drawn away from the laptop. The fact that one had not been ordered would not be critical; it was merely a diversion.

Once both suspects were engaged at the door the entry teams would crash through the dividing wall and the rear windows to the bedrooms. The rear entry team was still a hundred metres away awaiting the approach of the deliveryman before moving to their assault positions.

The ATF agent was not due for five more minutes when the agent monitoring the surveillance cameras warned everyone something was awry.

“Shit… Target One has seen something… approaching the wall now.” The SWAT members clutched their MP5s more firmly and starred at the two sections of wall they had prepared for fast entry.

With a tearing sound a hand and forearm appeared through one of the entry points. Ben was the first to react, in two strides he was at the wall and grabbed the arm firmly in both hands, bracing himself he pulled with all his strength, dragging the rest of the arm and its owner through the wall shouting

“Go, go, go!”

Ben had Audey on the floor and the surveillance tech left his seat to kneel on Audey’s back and seize the other arm, one of the SWAT team squeezed past them to enter the hole into the suspects address, treading on Audey’s legs that still protruded through to the other side.

By the other prepared entry point, another agent threw himself bodily at the wall, bursting through to the other side.

The laptop operator halted his journey to the john when he heard the crash as Audey was dragged through the wall. His Colt .45 preceded the way as he re-entered the living room and saw the first two SWAT members coming through the wall. Double tapping off two rounds at each man he scored two hits, one on each, neither round penetrated but both agents were temporarily out of the fight. Coming out of the left hand hole the agent was hit on the side of the head, the Kevlar helmet deflected the heavy round but the agents head was snapped to the side with the force of the impact, temporarily paralysing him and giving him whiplash that would last for weeks.

The second agent was hit in the chest, his chest rigs ballistic plate stopped the shot from causing the fatal injury that would otherwise have resulted, however the kinetic energy from the round was transferred to his upper body, severely winded, he sat down hard, blocking the next agent to emerge from the right hand hole.

In the bedroom the three sleepers were awoken by the gunfire and grabbed their weapons. One moved the curtains aside to check the rear of the premises and immediately saw the rear entry team sprinting toward the back garden, the two rounds he snapped off broke the windows glass pane and caused them to scatter into cover whilst still 50m away.

The two other occupants of the bedroom were peering down the hall apprehensively, weapons at the ready.

In the living room, the laptop operator leaped for the keyboard. The right hand hole was blocked by the tangle of limbs consisting of the shot agent and the man behind. No one else had tried to squeeze past Ben; the two FBI agents and their prisoner were still blocking the way.

From his position knelt in the hole, Ben, looked over his shoulder into the next living room and saw the laptop operator move. When he was asked about it later, he stated that it was almost an out of body experience, as if he was a mere spectator looking through his own eyes as his body took over, drew his elderly .38 and aimed at the leaping suspect. He did not even recall hearing the shots but was aware of the revolvers kick as he aimed and fired, all in one movement. His men were proud of him, their boss, The Chief, had quick drawn and rapid fired two rounds from an old revolver, which hit a moving man in both the chest and head. Ben stated he felt as if he was still under remote control when he had then gone through the hole, leading the way for the rest of that entry team, and shouted to the last three to surrender, which they had.

Ben left the address on his own straight afterwards, stepping aside for the medics and other officers running up to the house, before walking down the street. A hundred yards along he turned into an alleyway, after glancing around briefly for onlookers he had bent over and vomited up the contents of his stomach onto the alleys floor. A law enforcement officer for over twenty years, he had drawn his weapon on half a dozen occasions but never fired in anger until today.

With over 8200 hours’ flying time between them on over forty different types, Major Glenn Morton and his wingman, Major Al Barrichello, USAF, were two of the most experienced pilots in the Air Force. It was for that reason that they were today entrusted with half of the United States inventory of ALASATs.

For the past three hours’ their two F-15C Eagles had been orbiting the desert at 18000 feet with a KC-135 tanker on call for their exclusive use.

Glenn had spent the time going over his pre-launch checklist for the fifteen year old weapon slung below his aircraft and was now as confident as he could be in launching a weapon he had only read of before today. The hot sun was sweating a few pounds off him as they traced their racetrack pattern above the desert. He was passing the time by performing calculus in his head when their controller sent them to top up their tanks from the KC-135. Once both had tanked and were clear the controller called them again

“Trident One and Two turn right to 220’, climb to 36000 feet and standby, we have a target for you.” Glenn gave Al a quick look as he held position on his wing before answering.

“Roger, Tridents turning to 220’ and climbing to 36000.”

The aircraft performed a tactical split putting them 500 feet apart, because after all, their weapons were not just fifteen years old; they were fifteen-year-old weapons provided by the lowest bidder.

Their Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 turbo fans carried the aircraft aloft with little audible effort and levelled off at the ordered height.

“Trident One and Two maintain heading and go weapons hot.”

“Roger, Tridents maintaining 220 and going weapons hot.”

The controller began relaying intercept instructions. Going to full afterburner both aircraft accelerated to 1,370 knots, Glenn and Al went through their checklists and armed the weapons before pulling up into a 55-degree climb. Both weapons would be launched to increase the probability of a ‘kill’ on the fast approaching Russian satellite. Glenn was passing through 83400 feet when he heard the tone indicating the ALASATs seeker had acquired a solid lock on the satellite, all he had to do was keep the aircraft at its present attitude and let the computers do the rest. At 84120 feet the lower stage, intended for an AGM 90 SRAM, boosted the ALASAT away from the F-15. Above Glenn the blackness of space beckoned and he almost forgot to close his eyes against the glare of the missiles motor as it raced toward the stygian blackness ahead. As briefed, Glenn banked before throttling back and rolling inverted, allowing gravity to do the rest. At 50000 he pulled back into a gradual decent. Al warned him he was joining with him and Glenn was disquieted to see the other still had his ALASAT.

“Oops.”

Thirty miles from Nellis however the controller had a smile in his voice.

“Trident One, space command reports a solid kill on the target.”

Now that was going to make an interesting entry in his logbook.

Everyone present stood as the president entered.

“Sit… you’re wasting energy and I don’t know about you people but lack of sleep is making me light headed just walking… don’t look so surprised, it’s the sedan chair bearers day off.” Taking his seat he asked.

“I heard we got a satellite, was it the one we needed to kill?”

Looking up from his notes the CSA told him.

“Unfortunately Mr President there is no way of knowing at this time.”

The President was silent for a moment.

“Did we learn anything from this Zemlya Georga place, any clue as to whether there was a satellite relay to another from the one we took out?”

“We are none the wiser sir, no.”

“And no better informed either it would seem!” The president snapped at him in frustration. He took a deep breath before looking at his CSA again.

“Please accept my apology Joseph that was uncalled for.” The CSA nodded and smiled sadly in understanding.

“Andrea, you’re up, what’s the situation with the raids?” he addressed the FBI deputy Director.

“Sir, all thirty-two operations went off as briefed, we have recovered seven devices and may have solid leads on two more, all the seven we got were near their suspected targets. The others raids were either dry holes, nothing to connect the people we got… at this stage, some of the others were too far from the targets on the list, they may have been moved in preparation for an imminent ‘go’ signal,” taking a breath she read from her notes.

“Sixty two individuals are in custody, we already have their legal beagles becoming vocal,” she looked at the president and stated.

“All suspects are being kept incommunicado whilst they are interviewed; once that is done they will be put into military custody, same as Al-Qaeda.”

The president nodded.

“What’s their make-up, Ben briefed me on the groups, where these people from?”

The deputy scanned the sheets in front of her.

“Five different groups were targeted, four white radical and one Islamic extremist, most we hit on spec using information already in existence to obtain the warrants, the rest under homeland defence warrants. Three of the recovered devices were in the possession of FA people. I’m assuming their targets were New York, San Diego and Tampa. The other four were also white, loosely linked to FA, the Islamics were all negative.”

“I couldn’t care too much about the white trash, personally I think as they wanted to tear up the constitution they should have a taste of what life’s like without it,” he focused on her.

“If all there was on the Islamics was a dislike of their being Muslim then I want them cut loose soonest… ok?”

The DDI updated them all on the worldwide hunt for the devices. “The results tend to reflect the size of the country with how sophisticated their anti-terrorist intelligence make up is. Only twenty-nine recovered worldwide,” he gazed solemnly at the Chief Executive.

“Something of interest though, three more recovered in the UK, large gun battle still going on near Aldergrove airport in Northern Ireland, I suspect someone jumped the gun. One case was recovered at the perimeter; three dead and four wounded security personnel and five terrorists dead or captured so far. They had a remote control, eighties technology and Russian manufacture… according to London the timer on the remote showed it should have detonated already?”

“I assume that the case has not been examined yet, is their team from AWRE enroute?” CSA asked.

“Apparently a ferry has been requisitioned and crewed by Royal Navy personnel, as cases are recovered they are flown there for AWRE to deal with, the ferry is out in the North Sea.”

CSA nodded to DDI.

“Thank you, when it is examined we will know more, whether it is a dud or whether we got the right satellite,” he concluded.

Turning to State.

“What’s happening in London, any transitional problems?” he asked.

“The people woke up next morning with a new government; the story was that the old PM had a breakdown.”

“Won’t they wonder why his deputy didn’t just take over?” asked General Shaw.

“Unfortunately it has been suspected by some and known by others, that the cabinet was kept weak in order that that guy could feel strong,” answered the president.

“In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is King,” remarked the general.

“What will happen to him?” he enquired.

Terry Jones answered that.

“Art Petrucci is quite thick with the police commissioner there. The guy didn’t pull the trigger on the officers who were killed but he was prepared to overlook that and the nuclear bomb plot. Moscow passed him a request from that Peridenko guy and as we know he ordered the killings of the two who may have saved all our asses, in order to curry favour. His governments already fallen and a coalition party is at the helm now, so there is no question of sweeping it under the carpet ‘for the public good’. Once this crisis is over the commissioner is going to lean on the Lord Chancellor for a treason charge on top of the conspiracy to murder,” he said before adding, “Our two friends had nothing new for us, by the way.”

“Well at the very least we have our combined thanks for them, and for the ex-PM’s wife also” the president said.

The Secret Service chief cleared his throat before speaking.

“Mr President, getting back to the bombs, there are still seventeen outstanding. I recommend that the listed staff evacuate as per the existing contingency plans and we should do it now.”

The president shook his head.

“No, I’m staying. I want the vice president to go in my place but I want my family out of here. At some time in the next four days a lot of people are possibly going to die. I cannot keep secret what we know and hide. Keeping a lid on this is going to be tough enough without explaining why the Chief Executive is already in a fall-out shelter!”

“Air Force One, Mr President,” corrected Secret Service.

“I know what I meant… jeez!” the president returned in exasperation.

“Okay,” he said after a moment.

“No time like the present, call in Marine One and let’s get the show on the road.”

Despite the president’s entreaty, someone sent a text message and it snowballed from there. The public was aware of a general threat; it had been in the news for days.

The six possible evacuation sites were all military targets with reasonably small civilian communities nearby, which is to say ‘small’ as in not city sized. Fort Hood was one, the non-combatants relocated to another military facility, mothballed since the reduction in force program. Their exodus did not affect the combatants on their way to war, as the railroads were the means by which the equipment travelled to the ports. Some troops would go that way too but most would go by air and were heading to the airport for the journey east.

Heck and a small party went with their kit on the train journey in order to assist the loading. 5th US Armoured Division was to be embarked at two ports, close by to one another, separated only by the waterway between, at Beaumont and Texas City. The vehicles and stores went off on more than one train; they went in what the British Forces call ‘Packets’. Heck and his contingent were sad to be leaving America; they had all had a good laugh there, made some good mates but not seen as much as they would have liked of the continent.

Someone, probably a Rifleman or a Trooper called their unit, the Queen Elizabeth Combat Team one night in a bar and the name stuck amongst the Brits. Some of their American cousins however referred to them, unwisely, as ‘Those Queens’ on another night in another bar. As the unit was too small to qualify for a sergeant major in the orbat, the Green Jackets platoon sergeant ‘riffed’ in a series of male, and a female, soldier to face Heck’s displeasure the next day.

“LetRyeLetRyeLetRye… Mark time… HALT… Left turn!” The verdict was the same for each case.

“Do you elect my award or court martial?” None were foolish enough to elect for the latter and all received the same punishment. “Fined one dollar… march out… next case.” A US Army Artillery units commander had been present to observe and he turned steadily more puce with each award. After the last case had been riffed out, the American captain had let rip. His men had been the ones making the defamatory remarks.

“I fined my guys more than that!”

“Well your chaps do get paid more after all,” Heck countered.

Lost for words the captain blurted the first thing that came to mind. “We bailed your asses out twice, in both world wars!”

“On both the first and second test matches you turned up late for the third innings and Germany was ahead by five runs… we’d already taken two wickets… storming googlies at that, and one out for LBW too!”

Totally lost for words but convinced he was in the presence of a lunatic uttering gibberish the artillery captain had departed.

“Well I thought that went rather well, didn’t you?” he asked Tony McMarn and Daniel King who had been sat at the back of the office for ‘Company Orders’. Lt McMarn was eating the edge of his beret to stop laughing and Daniel was mentally burying Anglo American relations.

On this dull grey morning the trains heading for the ports slowed to a halt long before the tracks separated to the north of the cities limits. Waiting is an art soon mastered by servicemen the world over. There was no point worrying about this stoppage, certainly nothing to warrant straying along the track in the drizzle for. If anyone came along shouting about their still being far from the docks, well no matter, they had a train driver to blame and being a civilian was immune to military bollockings and probably deserved shooting for being paid more than them anyway.

Heck, Tony and Danny, who was still ‘tagging along’ as liaison were catching up on sleep, as soldiers do in daylight, with their berets or other head gear over their faces.

Far ahead, a favourite niece of a VIP had been sent a text in the early hours’ to get in the car and drive west ASAP. Within an hour the number of people warned and sworn to secrecy increased exponentially until the local TV and Radio got the word. By the time the first of the trains reached a crossing outside the city there was a panicked mass fleeing the city. A Winnebago ignored the crossing sign and tried to beat the train across the track. The derailed engine sat atop the remains of the vehicle and the family of five occupants. Panicked drivers, road rage shootings and insufficient road widths caused other accidents and hold-ups on the other routes from the city.

Ambulance and Fire & Rescue vehicles tried to respond but were trapped in the lines of slow or non-moving vehicles. The Police didn’t respond as they had no one available who wasn’t already fully committed with the log jammed traffic and looting that had begun.

The north Pacific was just as inhospitable as it had been since they had come aboard. Captain Hong had sailed these waters and see it far worse, his sailors were all experienced seamen, some with many more years in these waters than himself, he felt himself lucky to have such an excellent company of men. Looking about him he saw that his bridge crew were already gaining in competency, but this was a relatively easy function compared with other areas of the ship, the nuclear power plant department for instance, they were reliant upon the skill of their Russian tutors to run the department and pass on the skills needed to run and maintain it. His Chief Engineer had never seen a nuclear power plant before coming aboard; he spent most of his time with his head in a book and a Russian engineer schooling him. Fortunately the rest of the ship was not so far removed from what his other departments were used to. He was far less certain about his pilots and so were their Russian instructors, the original eight days preparation was highly optimistic, he knew that he had too many pilots barely competent at landing in good weather, in daylight, on the Russian training runway. When he had received his orders to prepare for combat operations in four days he had almost snapped at Marshal Lo Chang over the secure channel when he had requested verbal confirmation. The PRC was not forgiving of its citizens, in uniform or out when it came to refusal or failure, Captain Hong had no option but to apologise for bothering the Marshal once his new orders were confirmed.

The Admiral who was to command the carrier group was enroute to join the ship now, although he had been appointed at the same time as Hong he had not chosen to grace them with his presence until today. Hong was somewhat surprised by the choice of the man, he was sponsored by the defence minister but far from being the most experienced choice to command such an important asset in time of war.

Vice Admiral Putchev came onto the bridge and smiled as he saw Hong.

“Captain, I have come to wish you farewell before I depart. It seems your Admiral does not feel the need for advice, I am leaving on the same aircraft that delivers him.”

Hong was shocked.

“But Admiral, we have still much to learn. Admiral Li has no experience with air operations or carrier tactics!”

Putchev shrugged and watched as an Antonov-140 AWACS was catapulted from the deck.

Hong joined him.

“Sir, Admiral Li has less experience than other officers who could have been given this command.”

“I think you mean that he has managed to attain his rank through influence rather than his seamanship or command abilities, Captain” he looked at Hong.

“True?”

Hong checked that they were not likely to be overheard before he answered.

“True.”

“I have left a report for Admiral Li, stating that you and your crew have surpassed my expectations… but in my opinion are a month short of being combat ready.” Putchev looked aft to observe a SU-27KUB trainer that was making a rather hesitant approach, the daylight was fading fast and that was likely to worry any inexperienced carrier pilot.

“He is too high,” he told Hong. The aircraft was indeed too high; the pilot attempted to correct by throttling back further but sank too fast and poured on power and retracted his tail hook. The Sukhoi touched down and raced the length of the flight deck as the pilot boltered and went around to try again.

“He will likely be worse the next time around, it will be even darker then,” he said aloud.

The next SU-27 pilot however was apparently made of sterner stuff, the approach was smooth and the trap went well, catching the two wire.

“I thought that was one of my pilot instructors for a moment.” Putchev said to the Chinese captain.

Hong smiled ruefully.

“Lieutenant Shen, if only all my pilots were such quick learners.” He remarked.

“The lieutenant is a remarkably good pilot Captain, your other pilots are also very good or they would not be aboard this ship, he just learnt faster.”

A messenger saluted and informed them that the two aircraft carrying the new Admiral and his staff were inbound, ETA fifteen minutes.

“I will take my leave of you Captain,” said Putchev “May we all soon live in… less interesting times.”

Hong grinned.

“Until we meet again sir.” holding out his hand.

“Until we meet again,” agreed Putchev, shaking his hand.

Circling around once more to attempt to land, Major Lee was conscious of his instructor sat beside him talking him through it yet again. The SU-27KUB, Korabelny Uchebno Boevoy, the ship borne combat trainer, again followed the pattern.

“Try not think of it as a ship at sea Major, if you can pretend that it’s just a small landing field were some idiot built the tower too close to the runway, it may help.” Lee took a deep breath and began his approach once more.

Lieutenant Fu Shen was standing on the side of the deck to watch his squadron commander when the aircraft handler shooed him away. The deck of an aircraft carrier is a busy and dangerous place, so he entered the island, heading for where he could observe, he arrived in time to see Major Lee catch the four wire.

As the handlers rushed about to clear the deck Shen saw an Antonov An-72 make its approach. Its two high wing turbo-fans made it look top heavy and ungainly, though the man at the controls was obviously a seasoned aviator, as the Americans termed carrier pilots. Smoothly the pilot brought his aircraft in, catching the two wire. To Shen’s disbelief, the AN-72 almost stopped dead in its tracks, instead of a less harsh transition. Time slowed down as the tail section and port wing separated from the rest of the fuselage. The sheared wing hit the deck in a cloud of debris, spilling fuel that ignited before cart wheeling away over the side, burning fuel trailing behind it. Shen continued to watch in horror as the rest of the transport, its remaining engine at full power, stood on its nose gear and accelerated. The belly gear was clear of the deck when the nose gear collapsed and the aircraft flipped over and disappeared after its wing, over the edge of the flight deck.

Fire fighting foam was pumped across the deck, dousing the flames as the Mao’s ready KA-29 helicopter spooled up and took off, circling back to search for survivors. Captain Hong stood upon the bridge mentally hoping that the aircraft had been the one carrying the Admiral.

Forty minutes later the ‘T’ shaped tail fin of the crashed transport had been manhandled over the side and the second transport landed. Admiral Li’s face was expressionless as he ignored Vice Admiral Putchev’s salute to demand an explanation. Captain Hong had guessed the cause correctly when he witnessed the accident, the junior lieutenant in the arrester gear department had confirmed that the wrong settings had been made. The gear had been set for too great a weight, stopping the transport dead and over straining its airframe. The Admirals personal guard of marines had travelled with him and stood at his rear and sides, weapons at the ready, as if this had been a deliberate attack upon the man.

“My luggage was aboard that aircraft, Captain. Fetch me the man responsible and his officer.”

Hong gaped at him for a split second before barking orders to his First Lieutenant. His luggage? There were eighteen men aboard that transport, none had survived!

Five minutes later the young lieutenant and a rating in his 30s, a seaman of much experience appeared. The Admirals Flag Lieutenant and two marines dragged the men to the side of the flight deck where the aircraft had disappeared; neither man realised what was going on until the marines cocked their weapons. The young officers eyes grew large and the rating looked to his captain with an appeal on his lips when his body and that of the Ratings folded and fell backwards into the sea upon the impact of the marines almost point blank fire.

The two Arab and two Americans were over an hour late getting to the chosen ambush site on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, two miles from the White House.

All in all it is quite admirable that of all those persons in the Situation Room when the president had burdened them with the need for secrecy, only one had broken that trust.

National media had broadcast the story of the exodus from Texas City. The O’Connor list had never been publicised so the nation as a whole had been on edge. The live pictures from Texas had triggered some, not all, into loading up their vehicles and heading out of the city. Panic begets panic and others joined the flight, jamming the roads with the heaviest outgoing traffic ever seen for this time of day.

The four Islamic extremists were still some half-mile distant from the outer cordons protecting the White House when they had sighted the van ahead and deliberately bumped the vans rear. The van driver had left the van, muttering away in annoyance as he went to inspect the damage. To his surprise, one of the occupants of the car that had hit the rear of his van wore the same company uniform. He was even more surprised when a handgun was pushed into his ribs and he was told to smile. Curious glances by onlookers and motorists did not note anything amiss when the two men in the company livery entered the rear of the van. Ahmed Mohazir jabbed the long needle of a syringe into the van drivers’ chest and depressed the plunger; injected in the heart with a massive dose of heroin it killed the legitimate driver instantly.

Ahmed had prepared himself for this day, considered himself honoured and blessed by Allah in being chosen, when the suitcase was slid into the back of the van Ahmed hid it amongst the produce before climbing into the driver’s seat. Reaching under his jacket, he removed the bulky remote control from where it was strapped; fully extending its antennae he dialled in the arming code and pressed transmit. The weapon was now armed and required only that he lift the spring-loaded arm that protected the switch and depress it. He pushed the remote out of sight beneath his jacket and reattached the straps holding it to his torso. With his friends following on behind he headed toward the first of the Police and National Guard checkpoints.

Ahmed sighted the checkpoint before 6^th Street NW. The National Guardsmen were pulling over all vehicles that wanted to proceed and from what he could see most were turned away. The vehicles that remained were being searched thoroughly beside the road and they included two other vehicles that he knew from their reconnaissance, made regular deliveries at the end of this road. Something had changed since their last intelligence gathering foray a four days before, Ahmed wondered if they could have been betrayed?

Beyond the cement filled barrels and coils of barbed wire, two Humvee’s were parked at staggered angles, creating a chicane that cleared vehicles were forced to drive slowly around, insurance against vehicles crashing through. Ahmed saw the weak spot; both vehicles should have been positioned pointing into the centre of the street, the nearer of the two vehicles was not, its lighter rear end barred the way.

Ahmed counted six policemen and twelve soldiers at the checkpoint, one soldier was manning an M-60 machine gun atop the furthest Humvee, he was alone and did not have the weapon in his shoulder, ready to fire.

Using his cellular Ahmed called his friends in their car behind; he said few words before ending the call.

The line of vehicles before him shortened until he was next in line, a policeman approached him, and the circular motion he made with his hand meant he wanted the side window wound down before he reached Ahmed.

Ahmed stopped the van and smiled at the officer, reaching across for the clipboard on the dash as his friends exited their car behind the van. Their first target was the M-60 gunner who dropped away from his weapon when struck by the rounds fired from the passengers two AR-15s. The driver knelt beside his cars open door and fired short bursts from an elderly British made Sterling sub machine gun, hitting the officer at the vans window in the upper legs and scattering those others on his side of the vehicle.

With the threat from the M-60 removed Ahmed floored the accelerator, he had only forty yards to build up enough momentum to knock aside the nearer Humvee and aimed to deliver a glancing blow to its rear.

In the road behind him the initial shock had worn off those manning the checkpoint and fire was being returned at the three young Arabs beside the car.

Reality and Hollywood are two totally different worlds, as Ahmed discovered as the front end of the van struck the Humvee. The National Guard vehicle moved but only a few feet, the van however stopped dead and the engine stalled, Ahmed was flung forward against the steering wheel where the remote control box broke the lower two ribs either side of his sternum.

Two hundred yards ahead the next checkpoint had been alerted by the sound of firing, the soldiers and police officers there had taken up firing positions, sighting on the van.

Steam and water were pouring from the vans crushed radiator as a winded Ahmed tried to restart the van; he was cursing as he pumped the accelerator but ducked with a start as the windscreen shattered. High velocity rounds made a loud cracking sound as they passed close to him; he could feel the impact of the rounds hitting the van as the vibration was transmitted through the steering wheel.

He wished that the White House could have been closer but the government buildings either side of the van would have to suffice as he muttered.

“Allah Akbah!” and depressed the switch on the remote.

In the White House the president risen at 0800hrs with the benefit of just four hours’ sleep to top up his depleting internal batteries. His doctor, an Admiral, was concerned that his charge was approaching a collapse, the president’s caffeine intake was screwing up his system and he had been genuinely angry when he confiscated a packet of caffeine tablet’s from off the top of the Oval office desk.

This morning the president had showered and gone down to the kitchens to eat breakfast with the kitchen staff and his secret service bodyguards, he saw no point in the staff putting themselves out for a relatively empty residence.

They were all sat together in a quite informal relaxed atmosphere; one of the longest serving chefs was recounting a story about a banquet, during a previous administration and the antics of an extremely drunk Latin diplomat whose intake had rendered the then president’s mother-in-law irresistible in his eyes.

“Jesus!” said the president at one point in the story.

“There is a photo of her around somewhere… she is truly scary!” The laughter around the table was at its height when the lights went out.

The armed forces of the country had been arrayed along a roughly NW/SE line behind the Dnieper and Byerazino rivers. Unlike NATO armies the Belorussians had large stocks of both anti-tank and anti-personnel mines which they had spent the last two days planting in the earth on crossing approaches and near likely FUPs, forming up points, that an enemy might choose.

Since before the nomadic Khazari first wandered these lands in the 5^th century the line of rivers had been a boundary and a defence. The rich, fertile earth had witnessed much conflict, the most recent being in the 1940’s. The Russians had defended from the east bank as the German Panzer armies sought ambitiously to conquer as far as the distant Bering Straits in 1941. Those same German Armies defended the opposite bank in 1943 when their enterprise failed and the Russians taught them the meaning of ‘pay back’.

Satellite Intel provided by NATO showed them three Army Groups coming their way. Amongst the mix of units opposing them were their own pro-Communist units now under Russian control, their defection had reduced the loyal Belorussian forces by 27 % on the ground and 48 % in the air.

Lithuania, Belorussia and Poland had requested NATO forces move forward into their countries to support them but NATO was in no position to go anywhere at present. Had NATO forces been suited and booted, ready to go, at that time they would probably have still chosen to make their stand in Germany anyway, where they knew the ground intimately. NATO offered the three countries more solid flanks to depend upon; if their forces fell back into Germany prior to the opening shots being fired. Not unexpectedly they all declined, choosing to defend their own soil. The NATO Commander did not press the offer more diligently, because as cold and callous as it may sound; the doomed country's armies would buy him a little time longer to organise. What NATO did promise was air support, intending where possible to thin out the New Red Army before their ground forces met east of Berlin.

When units of the 2^nd Panzer Division, Armeegruppe ‘Mitte’ in 1943 had limped back to the west bank of the Dnieper River from their defeat in the biggest tank battle in history, Kursk, their soldiers had dug in at the exact spot where the Belorussian 1^st Motor Rifle Regiment now waited. Radio intercepts in the night had warned them the enemy was now poised. The Belorussian soldiers stood-to in the pre-dawn darkness, glimpsing the shades of armies long gone in the river mists that coiled and flowed over their fighting positions.

The ghosts faded with the coming of the sun that burnt off the mists from the river. The night chill gave way to peaceful lulling warmth as morning gave way to afternoon.

Dozing soldiers came to wakefulness as three pairs of SU-25 ground attack aircraft screamed over at low level, heading west with under-slung ordnance in view.

The Commander of the Belorussian land forces was speaking with his staff as a printer in a nearby vehicle was noisily churning out a satellite photo being uploaded to them from Washington, after just a few seconds the printer stopped. An operator checked the equipment’s digital readout for error messages that would explain the interrupted down-feed, seeing none he slapped the side of the machine as one does with a misbehaving TV set. The data stream from America had stopped the moment Ahmed Mohazir had pressed the button in the crashed van with National Guardsmen firing on him.

Sarah Mintakis and Nigel Curtis were making their way into Terminal 1 behind a trail of disgruntled, tired and argumentative passengers from their Boeing 747–400. Qantas flight QF320 wasn’t going anywhere tonight, certainly not on to Sydney until the engine fault that caused their return to the Terminal had been rectified.

Emerging into the main concourse the Qantas ground staff took charge of the passengers and began the business of arranging hotels and transport. As cabin crew they already knew when their transport would arrive, they had over an hour to kill and chose to head for the smoking lounge, passing the water feature with the bird song so real you found yourself gazing up toward the roof for a glimpse of brilliant plumage. The smoking lounge, the only place in the airport where nicotine addicts from around the globe could rub shoulders, share their first, or last cigarette for another few thousand miles. Even the generally reserved English would nod and smile amiably at total strangers in the lounge as they broke their enforced fast for the mild narcotic.

Pushing through the doors of the glass-enclosed refuge of the stubborn, they continued through to the outside platform. The heat of the day still lingered along with Changi’s unique aroma of humid jungle undergrowth and jet exhaust. Leaning over the guardrail sharing gossip and cigarettes, they had their backs to the terminal and missed seeing airport staff and police rushing about. It was only when Nigel stopped in mid-sentence, eyes fixed on something above that Sarah looked too. Masses of parachutes, hundreds of parachutes, were drifting earthwards.

General Shaw exited from the cabin where the vice president was cosseted and shook his head in annoyance. They had been aloft for over five hours’ now since the bomb had gone off. The armed forces were at DefCon One and the ROE worldwide was weapons free.

B-52s that had arrived in England the day before were uploading for their first mission, a strike against the new Red Army. At Ramstein AFB in Germany the first of several wild weasel missions was standing by for NATO to challenge for air superiority over Lithuanian and Belorussia.

Poland appeared to be being bypassed but four divisions of reservists were threatening their border and preventing them providing support for Lithuania or Belorussia. However, Shaw knew already that the Poles were preparing to attack, not defend.

In Australia, their navy had surprised a PLAN mini sub on the surface close in shore, there were marker beacons on board which they suspected were to assist a future amphibious landing. Two navy helicopters were presently prosecuting a faint contact, which may be the mother ship of the mini sub.

Russia's plan had been exposed and the Russians knew that that West had known. Of course it was only to be expected the Russians would bring their timetable forward, they had precious other choice.

Five goddamn hours’ up here and yet that wimpy little shit still wouldn’t let them land. The man doesn’t need more time to ‘Assess the situation’ he needs time to grow a backbone, thought Shaw.

Returning to the main cabin he sat down with the CSA and NSA director.

“What’s he say?” asked NSA.

“He says it’s too soon and wants hard Intel that there aren’t suitcases waiting to go off at every field big enough to accept us.”

“Well… .” began NSA, “… .he is in charge now, at least until the engineers have extracted the president.”

Air Force One had been orbiting above the Atlantic at 0900hrs local time in Washington in company with a flight of Navy F-14As and their own KC-131 tanker. The joint chiefs and civil emergency staffs were aboard another converted Boeing 747 several hundred miles away, known as ‘Kneecap’, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post’s communications were in a constant state of high volume traffic.

As far as the timing and target aspect of the terrorist attacks, as gleaned from the O’Connor female, it had seemed to have panned out. Granted that the Irish terrorist timetable had given them another four days grace, however the White House had lost its famous dome, along with a large portion of the roof. The wing nearest the explosion had completely collapsed, burying the kitchen level under tons of rubble. The Army Corps of Engineers were on scene and clearing the debris in order to rescue the president and staff who were the only ones at the White House that morning to escape with only minor injury.

Fires were still burning in Washington where the damage to America’s capital was massive. The FBI headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Justice Department, National Archives along with the great museums and National Gallery were gone. Initial casualty estimates were four thousand, dead or missing and the hospitals were flooded with burn and blast injuries. The nuclear footprint, which is the shape of the fallout effected area, was to the northeast, effecting over forty city blocks but that number would increase as more of the irradiated dust filtered down from the stratosphere.

An air force sergeant handed the general a message sheet.

“Oh sweet lord… Taiwan and Japan are under long range conventional missile attack from China and an airborne assault is underway at Singapore!” He told them before striding purposefully toward the vice presidents compartment; he had not reached it before being handed three more sheets of bad news by another air force sergeant.

“Mr Vice President,” he began. “Both China and Russia have begun open hostilities. At 0930hrs Washington time, four nuclear devices, of approximately 6 kilotons yield each, were detonated off the North Cape. NATO had a submarine picket in place guarding against Russia and their allies SSN, SSGN and SSBN boats from breaking out into the Atlantic. As result we have lost contact with four of our boats, HMS Cutlass and HMS Debonair were almost on top of two of the devices. The Royal Norwegian Navies Ula and Poland’s Wilk are the other two boats. Three other NATO submarines suffered varying amounts of damage.” The vice president made no comment so General Shaw continued.

“NATO suspects that these were pre-positioned mines. Fifteen minutes after the attacks on the picket boats the surface combat task force which was backing up the boats came under air attack from TU-160 ‘Blackjack’ bombers with heavy fighter CAP support.” Shaw paused, determined to get some reaction from the man.

“What happened?” was all he got.

“Of a total of nine NATO ships in the task force, one destroyer and two frigates, USS MacGowan, the German frigates Koln and Berlin were lost with all hands, another frigate, the French Tours later sank after the crew were forced to abandon her. The light carrier HMS Invincible was severely damaged and is under tow. All the remaining vessels received damage but are still combat effective although HMS Ardent has Invincible in tow until an ocean going tug can reach her, however… ” he paused for a second.

“There is a breakout by enemy submarines in process into the Atlantic, Invincible may not make it.”

The vice president looked confused, Shaw expected him to ask what was being done about the breakout and what efforts had been made to defeat the airstrike.

“The Sea Harriers from Invincible accounted for four Blackjacks and two Floggers but all but two were knocked down by the enemy CAP. SAM’s got another two Blackjacks and the two Harriers recovered to Bodø in Norway.” Shaw went on to report the attacks on Japan and Taiwan, airborne invasion of Singapore and possible preparations by China to invade Australia.

“Mr Vice President, CNN is right now broadcasting this; we have to get this thing on the ground and start running the country. If the president is still incapacitated then you need to speak to the nation and our allies. I would suggest that 40,000 feet over the Atlantic is not the most reassuring place to do that from, do you?”

The Vice President took a deep breath and wiped a hand over his face before answering.

“You are absolutely correct General. This has all come as a hell of a shock to me. I never anticipated being in this position, not really.” He stood and straightened his jacket.

“Ok, I’ll speak to the battle staff while you tell the pilot to put us down.”

Good, thought Shaw, I suppose we all get there at our own speeds and the man was at least making an effort at last.

Returning home for the first time in three days, Joseph Ludowej entered his family’s apartment on Allee Jerozolimskie and immediately noticed something amiss. As the defence ministers personal secretary he had been far too busy to telephone since late in the night three days before, telling his wife that the country’s situation appeared desperate and he would be home when he could. His wife was a loving and understanding woman, the perfect wife and ideal mother to their three daughters. Standing inside the apartments main door he noticed that the atmosphere was cold, as if the home was emptied of its occupants. Normally the family Cocker Spaniel, Sofia, would have come bounding up to welcome him home, but there was no excited barking and scrabbling of nails on the tile floor, no sound of voices either, or even the TV.

He placed his briefcase on the floor beside the coat stand, then paused to listen midway through removing his overcoat.

“Karena, girls?”

There was no answer to his query. Weariness hung heavily about him as he completed the act of removing his overcoat. Perhaps Karena had taken the girls out for the evening, or to stay with her parents near Stupsk on the coast and no message had reached him. Many were leaving the cities as invasion once more threatened the small nation. He had been excluded, as were all the aides and personal secretary’s, from the meetings where the threat from the suitcase bombs had been discussed. When he had learnt of the plot just a few hours’ ago he had felt physically sick; the thought of losing his family in a nuclear holocaust did not bear thinking of. He loved his country but his family, Karena, eight year old Tamsin, Lucia aged six and little two year old Lulu, were his life.

The living room was empty and no notes were perched beside the telephone. He checked the bedrooms, bathroom and lastly the kitchen. All the rooms had been neat and tidy, the beds were made, no clothing was missing and all the suitcases were still in the hallway cupboard.

In the kitchen he saw the first sign that something evil had visited during his absence. A dark, thick line led from the lower edge of the oven door, as if something had overflowed from the baking tray within. The trail led to the floor where it had pooled but not yet fully congealed, being only a few hours’ since it had been spilt. Joseph had opened the oven door, gasped in horror and sat down heavily. The Cocker Spaniels head had been completely severed from its body and the complete carcass stuffed inside where gravity had drawn out the blood from the inverted body. Moments later the telephone rang.

1CG, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, were dug in on the reverse slope of a hillside overlooking the River Wesernitz between the small towns of Barraute and Muhlsdorf, two companies up, one back, covering a frontage of over a mile. 1CG was at the centre of 3 (UK) Mechanised Brigades one up, two back, line. To the brigades left was a German armoured brigade and to the right another mechanised brigade, this one being Canadian.

At the tip of 1CG’s line, a west/east oriented hill, there were forward positions prepared for infantry to provide direct fire but these were ‘cammed up’, camouflaged and empty. The Royal Engineers had cleared some fields of fire on the opposite bank to assist the battalion direct fire against any frontal crossing.

Direct fire support was going to be provided from the ridge to the Guards rear in the forested ground dominating the road that appeared to be on the likely axis the enemy forces in Czechoslovakia would take toward Dresden. No. 1 Company was on the left covering Barraute with a platoon fortifying the small hamlet across the river from the town. The Royal Engineers had mined the bridge to blow along with the west bank. The western riverbank was very low and invited an assault by armour. The Commanding Officer, Lt Col Hupperd-Lowe had placed a Milan Section from the Anti-Tank Platoon at the rear of the small copse between the river and the road which cut behind into the forest. The Milan crews were dug in deep with good overhead cover and had also prepared several positions inside the copse they would occupy after any preparatory barrage had worked it over. He desperately needed anti-tank mines to cover his left flank between the riverbank and the wood line but Britain had destroyed much of their stocks so that the previous PM could strut his stuff as a world leader, leading by example. Lt Col Hupperd-Lowe had dispatched five trucks from the MT section to Poland to collect anti-tank mines from a colonel whose acquaintance he had made on a recent combined exercise with the polish army. The Poles had a glut of the things; all were of old Soviet manufacture and they were now put to good use against their former owners.

A Squadron of the Kings Royal Hussars, Challenger IIs were well to the rear, with several fighting positions dug forward for each of their tanks to go hull down in. They would not move into those position until the word was given to do so.

A Battery of 12 Regiment RA, Royal Artillery, 108 Self-Propelled High Velocity Missile Systems (SP HVM) and Blowpipe and Rapier anti-aircraft missiles were the battalion’s principal air defence means. Two Blowpipe shoulder launched weapons were with each rifle company and sited in well-camouflaged positions about the area. The battalion recce platoon was forward of the battalion area along with the West Yorkshire Yeomanry, a TAVR unit in Landrovers. Had this taken place just a few years ago, the Yeomanry would have had the benefit of Scimitar, Striker and Spartan CVR (T) fast tracked armoured vehicles. Mexico now owned those vehicles and the Yeomanry’s open topped, soft skinned ‘Rovers’ were far inferior. The only plus they had were the Milan posts on the wheeled vehicles. The CVR (T)s 30mm Rarden cannons could not defeat a MBTs armour, Milan could. The Regulars always refer to the part-time soldiers of Britain’s reserves as ‘Weekend Warriors’, and other even less flattering derivatives thereof, however they were performing a task vital to the Guards battalion, reporting on the enemy moves as they fell back. Also out ahead of them were a mobile Section from the battalion Anti-Tank Platoon, they had prepared several possible tank ambush sites in likely spots, incorporating mines. When the enemy came, the plan was for them to converge on the best one, dictated by the enemy moves, and liaising with the Army Air Corps Lynx and Apache helicopters they would stage one planned ambush before dispersing and harassing the enemy armour as the platoon withdrew to the battalion lines.

The CO had worked out a good plan with the FAC, forward air controller, he had from the RAF, and they would be sharing the air assets with 2LI on their left and 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders on their right.

The brigade had in depth, a TAVR battalion, 7^th/8^th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Despite traditional rivalry the Coldstreamers CO was more than happy to have these regiments as neighbours.

His own battalion was now up to strength with some to spare, having ‘stolen’ 7 Company from 2CG, which was after all in suspended animation; it existed only on paper, to be reformed by reservists. 2CG were being reformed now in the UK, but future events would dictate whether it took the field as a unit or merely supplied replacements. Many of the men now in fighting positions had left the regular army but now found themselves back, and they had to make the transition away from their ‘civvy’ way of thinking and back to professional soldiering once more. This transition was not going easily for some; they didn’t want to be there and made no bones about it, in some cases some old fashioned ‘little chats’ by NCOs had been needed to assist the transitional process.

The brigades support company, mortar platoon commanders and the Royal Artillery heavy battery’s had thrashed out a fire plan that was comprehensive. The RA had been busy with laser range finders all along the brigade front, DFs, defensive fires, had been plotted and marked. If they enemy did not cooperate by using the plotted sites then those same sites acted as reference points for calling in adjusted fire.

32 Regiment RA, a divisional asset, could be called upon if the brigade recce troops found a sufficiently juicy target for that regiments MLRS, multiple launch rocket system, to perform the devastating ‘grid square removal’.

40 Field Regiment RA’s AS90 self-propelled 155mm guns would provide their main exterior fire support augmenting the battalion’s own light 51mm and medium 81mm mortars.

The CO of 1CG could also employ the battalion’s Warrior AFVs with their 30mm Rarden cannon against enemy APCs and infantry, however, he was not foolish enough to believe the fight was going to be fought and won on this spot. Optimistically he hoped to hold for 48 hours but knew it was likely to be nearer 24. He wanted to preserve his AFVs for the withdrawal to fresh positions when the time came.

Although the battalion had good crews on its Milan’s and NLAW, light anti-armour weapons. The Hussars Challenger IIs had British Aerospace L30, 120mm rifled CHARM main guns and would be the principle tank killer in the coming fight. The CO had never worked with these particular ‘tankies’ before and had several meetings with the squadrons OC, outside of the formal briefings. He was confident the squadron commander, Major Darcy was on the ball and the squadron were anxious to show what they could accomplish.

2 Company, 1CG had an arcing front that went from the forested slopes at the Battalion’s centre to Muhlsdorf. The platoon in the town had a limited view owing to a railway embankment that skirted the flood plain whilst following the line of the river. Beyond that embankment was tank country and the enemy could punch his MBTs and APCs right past Muhlsdorf and into the 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders at Liebethal. That was where the railway curved south and the enemy armour would have to mount the embankment at the end of its charge across the flood plain. 2 Company had OPs dug into the embankment to provide it some eyes.

If the enemy took the quick route bypassing Muhlsdorf, or using it to flank the forested hill that dominated the highway, then the RAF and MLRS would have a field day. If however, they came through Lohmen, the town to the Battalion’s east and chose to fight through Muhlsdorf to gain the western bank there, 2 Company and the Hussars would have a fight and a half on their hands.

CSM Colin Probert had arrived in the Battalion to find he was still a fifth wheel, as was Stevie Osgood. The battalion had its full quota of WO2s and sergeants, but the CO recognised that only the best infantrymen are chosen to instruct at Brecon, so he had Colin commanding the battalion spares, now numbering forty-six, as a QRF, quick reaction force.

At this moment in time Colin had a slight problem, thirty-three of his oversized ‘platoon’ were reservists, the longest had been out of the Army seven years but whereas most were knuckling down with varying degrees of determination, there was a hard core of malcontents. It was the job of the section commanders to change the ways of these born again civilians, and they had the support of the platoon sergeants and platoon commanders in making it happen.

On the day that the Arab terrorists bombed Washington, Colin was summoned to an ‘O’ Group with the CO, he entered the COs FV 435 armoured command vehicle having unloaded his weapons outside. As a common sense rule, salutes and ‘pulling the feet in’ are dispensed with when the battalion is in its tactical role, you do not point out the officers for enemy snipers… unless of course the man is a total wanker! Colin knew the CO from when he himself had been a Buckshee Guardsman and the CO his platoon commander.

“Take a pew Sarn’t Major, I have a task for you.” He said as Colin stooped to enter the cramped space.

Colin got out his notebook and made ready, the CO had a map ready on the board beside him.

“At about lunchtime the first enemy units crossed the border into Germany, as expected these are recce troops and elements have advanced to within sight of Lohmen to our east. The snipers from Recce Platoon have been watching a BRM-1K recce vehicle and its crew in the woods north of Lohmen.”

Colin had a nasty feeling he knew where this was leading, if the vehicle and crew were bothersome the CO could have it taken out by a variety of means, without the PBI, poor bloody infantry, having to go anywhere near it. Colin knew the BRM-1K was the reconnaissance variant of the BMP, a good piece of kit but getting on a bit. It had a PSNR-5K Battlefield Surveillance Radar, NATO code-named it a ‘TALL MIKE’ radar, mounted in the rear part of the turret. The vehicle also has an IMP mine detector, DKRM-1 laser rangefinder and ARRS-1 location device. It was the battlefield radar and the ARRS-1, which would be of concern to Colin, if he had guessed what the CO wanted. The radar would pick them up if they stalked it, and if they knocked it out the ARRS-1 would alert the enemy main force immediately when it was destroyed. They could be dropping artillery down the back of his neck within minutes.

The CO finished his lead up with.

“There is an officer with it, at present the vehicle is cammed up in the wood somewhere and the crew in OPs.” Pointing out exactly where on the map, the CO told him.

“The officer is about here, two men with him. It’s the furthest OP from the wood so its radar may not be covering them.” He had said ‘may not’ because there was some debate as to what ranges the TALL MIKE radar had.

Preliminaries dispensed with; Lt Col Hupperd-Lowe launched into his ‘Orders’ proper.

HMS Hood had just received its ‘weapons free’ ROE via its trailing antennae, the captain informed the crew that they were now at a state of war with China, Russia and the former Warsaw Pact states that had re-joined the old Soviet fold. The news of the pre-positioned nuclear mines by North Cape had come as a blow to many, they had mates aboard the two missing RN submarines and some had wives who were friends with wives of the missing men. Devonport was going to be a very sad place.

Hood was now ordered to attack all enemy shipping, with enemy warships as priority targets. She already had tabs on the only two known carriers and her captain could think of no better way of avenging their shipmates.

As the Kuznetsov Group had steamed north, hugging the coastline, the Hood’s captain had trailed along southeast of them and still undetected within the picket boat sonar screen and where he had sea room if the unexpected occurred. It was a wise choice, because when the Kuznetsov had come about and slowed he had not had to sprint out of the way, making unnecessary noise. The Kuznetsov’s move had been a mystery until their hydrophones had detected the Mao Group coming down from the north.

Hood also heard the Russian Oscar and St Petersburg class submarines when they turned and the Irkutsk had come up to snorkel depth, using her diesels fed with air through the snorkel. She had charged her batteries and sprinted south with her missile boat charge, Admiral Dumlev.

Hood had reported all these events to Whale Island and Hawaii; she was now beginning her stalk of the carriers. The captain had ordered one Harpoon anti-shipping cruise missile loaded and the remaining tubes assigned the 60knot Spearfish torpedoes, which he intended using to start his attack, creeping them in at first at low speed from an oblique angle. Once the tubes were reloaded it would be with the UGM-84, 0.8 Mach speed Harpoons. They would be loosed as a salvo and the action would be repeated with a second salvo of Harpoons, before reloading with one Harpoon and the remainder of its 533mm tubes with the Spearfish once more.

The problem with using Harpoons was that if they were spotted as they broke the surface, they gave away the position of the submarine. The Hood’s captain intended approaching from the north and launching his Spearfish southeast, letting them run at low speed, once abeam the enemy ships he would turn them west, still closing at slow speed until the weapons electronic brains acquired targets, he would wait as long as he dared before accelerating them in at 70 knots. He knew that the ASW screen would detect them at some point, he just hoped that all eyes would be looking anywhere but north when he launched his Harpoon salvo.

Further south, the Prince of Wales Group, alerted by the Hood’s message had turned east and was still at EMCON but the RN Lynx, Merlin’s and USN Seahawk ASW helicopters, were ranging ahead and on the flanks, in passive sonar operations. The Prince of Wales FA/2 Sea Harriers were still on deck alert, configured for air defence despite an appeal by the pilots to fly an anti-shipping strike against the enemy carriers. The nine RN Fleet Air Arm Sea Harriers were no match for the Mao’s and Kuznetsov’s combined air groups.

To seaward of the combined carrier groups, the Akula class attack submarine Gegarin had earlier come close to the surface, using the picket’s cover to raise her ESM mast to sniff the airwaves for anything of interest. She had remained on this listening watch for three hours’ and had caught the Hood’s scent as she transmitted a burst transmission. It wasn’t much but it had sent the Akula off on a fresh hunt.