The Fall of Night

Chapter Forty-Three: Mr Luong Goes to Washington

Washington DC, USA

The paranoia of the Secret Service had only increased a thousand-fold, Ambassador Andrew Luong realised, as he entered the Security Zone around Washington DC. These days, there were only a few regular air flights to Washington directly; only the highest ranking military officers and congressmen were permitted to enter the area of airspace surrounding the centre of America. Twenty-three years of seemingly endless conflict against a determined and multi-faceted enemy had left the American people all-too-aware of their own vulnerability; while Europe soul-searched over the creation of a European Identity Card, Americans not only had cards, but other tricks as well; no one could be allowed near the world’s number one terrorist target without their identity being checked and rechecked. Luong, once one of America’s most important Ambassadors, was no exception; they treated him like a suspect right from the start.

Some elements of the paranoia seemed ridiculous, Luong knew; there was a reason for everything. They checked his blood, the implants hidden under his neck, and his eye-patterns, before escorting him into a secure room and ordering him to undress, inspecting each and every body cavity before presenting him with a White House issue suit — ill-fitting and very uncomfortable — and escorting him through a line of heavy weapons into the heart of the American Government. One enterprising terrorist had literally managed to make a vest that had exploded when it reached a certain temperature; the attack had come far too close to success and it would never be allowed to happen again. The White House, the Senate, and the Pentagon were all secured; the workers either lived in them, or they went through the security precautions every time they entered or left the compound.

He smiled as they reached the White House; it was no surprise that the vast majority of Americans chose to telecommute these days, assuming that they weren’t one of the unlucky ones drafted into the army. America had full conscription for the war, but not all of the males could be taken for the army; a third of the male population served in one of the armed services, volunteers first, then those who would benefit from a term in the services. It had had an effect; public health was up and crime figures were down. The problem was that America was vastly overstretched and, as he had said to Langford, not well disposed towards Europe.

CNN, which had become more right-wing than Fox following the horrific murder of several of its journalists, had reported on some of the demonstrations. Spanish, Irish and German Americans had demonstrated for helping their countries, but there had been counter-marches of Americans who remembered two long wars to save Europe from itself, only to be rewarded with scorn, disdain, and droll comments about empires. Luong knew that America had made mistakes, including allying itself with Saudi Arabia, but they had meant well; wasn’t that enough?

It wasn't. European media had looked for the worst and found it; even some American media had followed the same path of endlessly nitpicking and ignoring all the good that had been done. He was sure that the Shias in Saudi Arabia had welcomed the Americans who had protected them from the mobs that had set out to kill them all, but no, the media had focused on protests at the American presence, because the Shias didn’t trust the Americans. Luong didn’t blame them, but he blamed the media; the Shias had thought they were going to be abandoned like so many other allies of America. And then Iran, and then Mike Collins, and then…

“The President will see you now,” the President’s personal assistant said. She was young, Japanese-American, and pretty enough to send heads turning everywhere. If it had been any other President, there would have been suspicions that she did more than just type, but they couldn’t say that about President Kirkpatrick. “Please will you come with me?”

The White House had been refurbished after a terrorist missile had destroyed the original Oval Office. The new one was a strange mixture of comfortable, authoritarian, and high-tech, all concentrated in the figure of the slight woman who rose from behind her desk to greet Luong. Her presence was almost overwhelming; it was easy to see why she had a seventy percent approval rating, few would dare vote against her. Luong himself had voted for her.

President Joan Kirkpatrick was slight, but carried herself with immense dignity and gravitas; her long red hair was curled up neatly into a teacher’s bun and perched on her head, her eyes were both smiling and thoughtful at the same time. She looked like everyone’s favourite teacher; she was around forty years old, and looked around fifty. It had been six months since Luong had seen her in the flesh and the change worried him; she had grown older, with grey hairs appearing in her bun.

“Welcome back to the United States,” the President said, without further ado. She was a Republican, but that meant less these days; she had also expected to sail comfortably into her second term in office before the Russians had launched their war. “I’m very relieved to see that you made it out safely when so many others didn’t have a chance.”

“Thank you, Madam President,” Luong said. The President had been married and then had become a widow; her husband had died on the Kennedy when it had gone down near Iran. There was no questioning her determination to fight the war to the bitter end. “I’m glad to be here.”

The President briefly introduced the other men in the room, and then motioned for Luong to begin his story, which he did as quickly as he could. He outlined the warnings, such as they were, the chaos that had enveloped London, and the news that the Russians had invaded Poland and then Denmark. He explained what had happened to Colonel Seth Fanaroff, who was being debriefed at the Pentagon, and how badly EUROFOR had been hurt by the Russians.

“I don’t understand how they’re moving so quickly,” General McDowell said. The President’s Chief of Staff was a former tank driver himself. “We had problems in Iraq and Iran because we ran out of fuel.”

“They captured stocks, apparently, and pressed drivers into service,” Luong said. “There will be places that have hardly felt the touch of the Russian boot yet, but… it’s amazing how far you can move if no one is trying to slow you down.”

McDowell scowled. “What I want to know is how the hell they — and we — missed it?” He snapped. “They had a massive build up and no one even fucking — begging your pardon, madam — noticed!”

CIA looked uncomfortable. “We did notice,” he admitted. “We didn’t realise that the Russians had their eye on all of Europe; we thought, from the information that we were getting from Russia, that they were posturing to ensure that they had a favourable deal from the Ukraine when the country finally managed to solve its problems. They did it before, and at least three other times; the Poles just ended up being treated as the nation of boys who called wolf.”

McDowell looked unconvinced. “And our spy satellites?”

“The Russians don’t have satellites as good as ours, but they do have a very good idea of what works and what doesn’t,” CIA said. “They hid the sheer scale of the build up from us; by the time we had a handle on it, it was too late. Our human intelligence sources were either lied to or have been turned; there is no other explanation.”

“Morons,” McDowell muttered. “You couldn’t anticipate my fist if it was right in front of your face.”

Luong shook his head slowly. They both had good points; Intelligence was often about guessing from incomplete information, rather than knowing every last detail before it was too late. Dictator-led regimes were very good at security; it was quite possible that the spies had been sending information they believed to be true, rather than simply being Russian double-agents. There was no way to know; heads would be rolling back at Langley for that failure.

“These points can be addressed later,” the President said, tapping the table for quiet. It fell very quickly. “The important question is simple; what do we do about it?”

Luong took a long breath. “The British have formally asked for our help, along with the Irish,” he said. He spoke rapidly and well, covering all of the issues; the British needed help now. “They’re short on everything,” he said, finally. “If they don’t get help soon, they will almost certainly fall when the Russians come over the Channel.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” McDowell said. “We looked at the problem back during the bad old days of the Cold War. It’s not like crossing a river.”

“The British are certain that the Russians have the capability,” Luong said sharply. “In a week, or however long it takes the Russians to get organised, they will launch the Second Battle of Britain; the difference being that they will almost certainly succeed in forcing the RAF to expend its remaining aircraft and units, while grinding away at the Royal Navy with bombers and missiles. There will be nowhere for the British to hide; they don’t have the SHORAD assets needed to cover all of their bases, or indeed their cities. It will take time, but time is on the side of the Russians…

“Once they have air cover, they will move in using the transports we have tracked them moving down the coast,” he continued. “Unless the British get very lucky, they will gain a foothold on British soil and expand their foothold towards London. Once that happens, it’s just a matter of time before Britain falls.”

There was a long pause.

The President broke it. “Opinions?”

“I have never pretended to be a politician,” McDowell said. “I understand that civilian control of the military is supposed to be absolute. However, it is my duty to bring certain points to the President’s attention.”

“Go on,” the President said.

“At the moment, we have heavily committed in Korea, and in fact we have two additional divisions heading there to reinforce III Corps after the losses they took in the battle for Seoul,” McDowell said. “If we can hold on, we can break the North Korean Army once and for all, and this time, we won’t have to worry about Chinese intervention in the north. Kang may go nuts and try to use his nukes, but with the FIELD GREEN system in place, that is no longer the threat it once was… I must stress, however, that the forces in Korea have been in a war zone for a month and they are faltering; they need reinforcements, not the removal of more of their units.

“At the same time, we have a number of units heavily committed across the Middle East, fighting a low-intensity war against various rag-headed factions,” McDowell continued. The President scowled; as a woman, she was regarded with scorn and outright hatred by the more lunatic of the factions, some of whom had pronounced her a transvestite because they couldn’t understand how she wielded the power of a man. “The game-play is basically simple; where we are strong, there is peace, where we are weak…

“Oh, we’re making progress,” he admitted, “we’re helping our allies to build up their own forces and in around ten more years, we might even win the war in the Middle East. The sad thing is that the Russians may have done us a favour; their invasion and how they treat known terrorists means that they have done what the European Union refused to do, cut off the funding for the terror factions. The end of the war is finally in sight…”

“At the cost of thousands of European lives,” Luong said softly. “Democratic states; democracy, the political movement that we are trying to encourage… lost forever in Europe under the Russians.”

McDowell held up a hand. “If I may finish?” Luong scowled, but nodded grimly, privately promising himself that he would fight tooth and nail. “The main rapid reaction force here in the States was the Airborne unit, which we dispatched post-haste to Iceland at their request. We have a handful of National Guard units that are assisting the border patrols and units in Cuba that are holding the island down while the Cuban exiles make good little Americans of them. The long and short of the matter, Madam President, is that the most we can spare is a handful of units, none of which can be moved over to Britain in time to be useful.”

He sighed. “We had plans drawn up for a rapid reinforcing of American soldiers in Europe during the Cold War,” he concluded. “They included supplies that were pre-positioned in Britain and Germany; these days, we don’t have anything in Britain that can be used beyond a handful of isolated airfields the British kept in mothballs and have reactivated for their current predicament. It would take weeks to move a serious force into Britain, months, if not years, if you want to reverse the conquest of Europe. It can’t be done.”

The President looked up at him. “There’s nothing that we can do?”

“We can send the British some of our supplies — I understand that Canada is doing that already; problem is they don’t have a serious army or serious stockpiles — and we can take in refugees if the British want to try to evacuate some of their population,” McDowell said. “We have the Clinton sailing near Peru; we can move her down to the Falklands and cover the islands, ensuring that the British don’t get knifed in the back by Argentina, therefore allowing the British to withdraw their task force quicker. We can continue to supply them with intelligence and perhaps even transfer a handful of aircraft to them, but… I think that that would be scraping the barrel.”

The President glanced at her assistant. “Stephanie, I want to see the Argentinean Ambassador and read him the riot act as quickly as possible,” she said. “Right after this meeting, if possible; tell him that it’s urgent. Are there any other considerations…?”

“Only that an intervention in Europe, even for Ireland, would be politically disastrous,” Ambassador Eugene Lockwood said. He had been the Ambassador to France and had been lucky enough to be in America before the war had begun, sending insurgents to attack the embassy and butcher all the staff. Luong didn’t like him much; Lockwood had ambitions of becoming President himself one day. “The heat on the Hill makes that clear; senators and congressmen are hearing things like thousands upon thousands of Americans died in two world wars… to make the world safe for the French to take cheap shots at us. They go into their cafes, eat Freedom Fries, and remember how the French and the European Union ensured that American blood would be shed in the Middle East.”

He glared around the room. “The trade wars, the economic conflicts, the loss of Britain as a dependable ally… all was caused by the European Union,” he snapped. “The General claims that the Russians may have cut off the terrorists; their very public offer to hand over whoever we wanted from Europe has been cheered on the streets. The average Joe and Jane Public would like nothing more than to see Brussels reminded of just how bad the world can be; a few years sucking Russian cock will do that for them. Why waste American lives on helping them when the Russians will collapse in a few years anyway?”

Luong stared at him. “Because they might end up as a threat to us?”

“How can they?” Lockwood asked. “They are going to have to spend years bringing Europe into their empire, and there will be resistance; hell, we can even encourage it for them. After the Europeans start resisting, it won’t be long before the Russian Federation — the New Russian Empire — collapses under its own weight.”

“I have made a decision,” the President said. Luong saw her taut face and knew that the news was not going to be good. “General, I want you to see to sending the British as much in the way of supplies as we can, and accepting refugees as well. Have the NRO continue to send them intelligence, including the latest communications intercepts; they have to know everything.”

CIA opened his mouth; the President glared at him, and he closed it again. “We will do as much as we can for them,” she said. “Once we end the war in the Middle East, perhaps then there will be a chance to settle scores with Russia, and repay our debt to the British. Andrew…”

“I understand,” Luong said. It was real-politic at its shameless worst. “I just wish there was a better way.”