The Fall of Night

Chapter Forty-Five: The Final Countdown

Near Brussels, Belgium

“I cannot say that I am happy about it,” General Aleksandr Borisovich Shalenko said, very calmly. “How many have died in the brief confrontations with the steel of our power?”

“How many of them were worth anything?” FSB General Vasiliy Alekseyevich Rybak countered. He had been placed in overall command of the occupation of Europe, leaving Shalenko in command of the forces massing along the west coast for the final stage of the campaign. “How many of them were actually inclined to help us, or at least to obey? Dissent is one thing; outright disobedience is another.”

Shalenko said nothing. “We have to establish ourselves as The Boss and make sure that all of Europe knows it,” Rybak said, looking up at the third man in the room. “You may have taken the girls out of the camps we established for the Arabs, but overall, you know that there was no choice; order had to be maintained.”

“And others will be driven to try to fight us,” Shalenko said, irritated. “The supply lines are still quite flimsy; a capable insurgency in Germany would force us to postpone the campaign for several months, perhaps long enough for the British to convince the Americans to interfere, or…”

“There was little choice,” President Aleksandr Sergeyevich Nekrasov. The Russian President leaned forward, his face steeped with gravity; both men had protested loudly at his decision to visit Brussels. If the British found out about it in time, they might decide that the target was worth expending their remaining cruise missiles on an assassination attempt. The President was the one man Russia could not afford to lose. Without him, the new world order might totter… it might even fall. “We could not allow our supply lines to be limited even for a moment.”

Shalenko nodded grimly. In many ways, the Russian control over France and parts of Germany had been an illusion, in the early days. The supply lines had been far too long, and even if most of the fight had gone out of the French, and their Arab enemies, the Russians had been running a serious risk. The plan hadn’t worked perfectly, but in the end… it had worked well enough. It was Spain that might prove a later problem; the multi-sided war raging there was sending thousands of refugees into France, all of whom had to be registered and put to work. Even a month after the Battle of Lorraine, the Russian grip on some parts of France was weaker than he would like, and there were entire armies lost somewhere within the mountains of Scandinavia. They dared not have their supply line disrupted… and they dared not create an insurgency in their rear; for the first time, Shalenko understood the problems that had faced European politicians since the first wave of immigration to Europe.

“There are even signs that large parts of the population is happier under us for the moment,” Rybak pressed, taking his advantage and running with it. “They have law and order on their streets, the Muslims make scapegoats for all their ills… and they’re actually stripped of red tape, taxes and all the nonsense that the European Union created to limit productivity. Many of the older ones were even sick of the protesters and their protests…”

“Those who haven’t lost people to your… men,” Shalenko injected.

“And they’re quite happy to help us,” Rybak continued. “The teams examining the European technical base and working on using it for our own advantage are working fairly quickly and developing other possibilities from it for later use. The Americans snatched the ESA launching base in South America — wisely, as we had hoped that one of our allies there would pick up on it — but the remainder survived fairly intact. Large wages, perks and rewards… they should be back to full productivity soon.”

He paused; the President invited him to continue with a raised eyebrow. “Italy took the worst damage and the worst bloodshed; bloodshed by native Italians, as opposed to immigrants and Arab soldiers,” Rybak said. Shalenko smiled thinly; the Algerians and Libyans had probably worked out that they had been screwed by now, but what were they going to do about it? Complain to the Americans? The United Nations? “By the time we got there, the Pope was thinking about committing suicide to avoid falling into the hands of one faction or another; our paratroopers saved his life and made him our prisoner. His support was invaluable, but Italy will be the poorest of the new territories for a long time. In time, however, they will be back to full productivity as well.”

“Good,” Nekrasov said shortly. He shared a thin smile with Shalenko; both men knew that the President’s judgement about the Americans and the United Nations had been correct. The Americans had furiously denounced the invasion, but they had limited themselves to seizing Iceland and trying to send some supplies to the British, both expected. Rumour had it that the Canadians were sending some of the Eurofighters they had purchased from Europe to the British, but Shalenko doubted that that would get very far; the Canadians had their own worries about Russia. “That brings us to the final issue; Operation Morskoi Lev.”

Shalenko smiled. He had chosen the name himself. He felt that it suited. “We have continued air raids against the British bases and naval facilities since we drove them into the sea at Ostend,” he said. They had also put thousands of Arabic men to work as forced labour, clearing up the damage caused by heavy fighting right across the region, as well as moving out the population. Most of the citizens now had identity cards; unsurprisingly, the process had slowed slightly as the Russians had found themselves working on other problems. The one attempt by the Arabs to resist had been treated with deadly force; the survivors learned the lesson and worked. Besides, they had been promised access to their womenfolk if they worked hard. “The results have been quite promising.”

He tapped the display in the bunker, hoping again that the British had no idea where it was; it was a tempting target without Nekrasov’s presence. “The largest force the British have deployed against us was twelve aircraft at a time; their numbers have been falling sharply to the point that several of our probes and raids were completely unopposed. We focused our efforts on the bases they were using to resupply their aircraft and forced them to fight; they must be running out of energy by now. They’re definitely conserving advanced weapons; only a handful of missiles were fired over the last week.”

“Perhaps they’ve run out,” Rybak said. “They can hardly have an unlimited supply, even with American help… and the Americans can’t have an unlimited supply either.”

Shalenko scowled. One thing they hadn’t anticipated had been the Americans taking over security duties for the Falklands; they had hoped that the British would either be challenged by the Argentines, forcing them into a desperate and futile struggle against superior forces, or pull out their task force and allow the Argentines to take over the Falklands without a fight. The Americans had told the Argentines flatly that the Falklands were under their protection and any attempt to alter the balance of power would be severely punished. The presence of a large American carrier nearby added teeth to the threat; the Argentines had reluctantly backed off, for the time being.

“Wishful thinking,” he said, dismissing the hope. “If they know what we’re planning, they will save everything for the most dangerous part of any landing operation, the moment when the troops are being unloaded. Once they are certain that we are not bluffing, they will throw everything they have into the battle, where it will be destroyed, terminating the RAF once and for all. Our air supremacy will ensure that the landing zones remain secure, and then we will probe up towards London. At some point, we will meet the remainder of the British Army… and crush it.”

He had given serious thought to landing elsewhere; Rybak put his thoughts into words. “Should we not attempt to avoid a major battle until we have a large force on the ground?”

“I thought about that,” Shalenko admitted. The plan had been hashed over, time and time again, stripped out as many of the variables as possible. There would be surprises — no campaign was ever fought without surprises — but he hoped that most of them would be limited. “The problem is that we have to crush the British Army; the British will have had time to burn records and destroy bases and generally make it impossible for us to be sure who has military experience, or not. If we can kill them all, or at least catch them quickly, then we won’t have to worry about an insurgency later.”

Rybak smiled coldly. The different Russian services had watched the American struggles in Iraq and later Iran with the greatest of interest, leaning different lessons for different services. The army had learned about tanks that could be used for fighting insurgents, the navy had learned about cruise missiles, the air force had learned about heavy bombing… and the FSB had learned how much trouble former soldiers could cause. The remaining soldiers in Europe, surrendered or captured, would be sent to Siberia; let them work there or die.

Shalenko followed his thoughts. Europe was being quietly purged of elements the Russians disliked, or openly loathed, a long list ranging from former right-wing and left-wing leaders, to media reporters. Some were being given offers they couldn’t refuse — work for the Russians or go to Siberia, or a work gang, or meet a bullet in the back of their heads — or were simply eliminated to terminate whatever problems they might have posed. The population at large was unaware of the tectonic shifts occurring under their feet; the absence of most media channels — replaced with a bland diet of soaps and television shows — hid much from their eyes… and even the news from America was mainly sensationalist. Europeans saw the talking heads on CNN and FOX and GNN and knew that America had abandoned them; many of them would seek ways to please the Russians, rather than opposing them.

And the streets were safe. The Russians had made it clear what had happened to the prisoners who had fallen into their hands, including the death sentence for the dangerous criminals. Many who had been allowed to roam free discovered that the Russians were watching for them; they had the records from Interpol and Europol and used them mercilessly, arresting and executing known serious criminals. Crime was lower than it had ever been… and that too was popular. As long as serious incidents could be kept down…

“Operation Morskoi Lev,” Nekrasov said, drawing his attention back to the matter at hand. His brief moment of distraction made Rybak smile; the FSB officer understood nothing of the true art of war. “General; how are the preparations for the invasion?”

The use of his rank was a quiet warning; Nekrasov wanted to talk to the General, not to the friend. “The preparations proceed apace,” Shalenko said, calmly. “We have twelve divisions prepared for the crossing, using mainly captured European shipping and some of our own ships that we used in Denmark, all based at the cleared ports here. The British have launched several attempts to disrupt the process, but we have enough radars and missile launchers around the ports to make such attempts costly. All, but one, of the aircraft involved in the final attack were wiped out.”

His hand traced the map. “Colonel Aliyev and his men will be landed first, here,” he said, tapping a location on the map near Dover. “We don’t anticipate that the British will leave the port in a useable condition, hence the pre-prepared jetties that we copied from the D-Day invasion years ago; they will be moved over to secured beaches once we have cleared them of mines and other surprises, and then the heavy units will be landed.”

He spoke quickly as he outlined the other elements of the plan. “We have over five hundred bombers in position, one hundred of them under the command of Admiral Daniel Sulkin and tasked to destroy the remainder of the Royal Navy’s fleet, should it attempt to engage our forces on the surface. Admiral Wilkinson is still ten days away from Britain and in any case flew off his aircraft a week ago; we do not feel that he will attempt to interfere… and if he does, we have the capability to destroy his fleet. The main British naval threat will come from submarines; to counter we have brought along our own submarines and ASW craft, and mines. It may be costly, as they will do what the Taiwanese did, years ago, and concentrate on the transports, but we will land a large force.

“The remaining bombers have their own targets,” he concluded. “We have been chipping away at the British transport network; commandos inserted on the ground will be tasked with directing some of the bombers onto British reinforcements and other targets of opportunity, while others will blast British targets we have left alone to lull them into a false sense of security. Once we have total air superiority, we will be able to expand our control and advance towards London for the final battle.”

“There is a British civilian population in Dover,” Rybak said, needling him. There was a mischievous tone in his voice, quietly taking a verbal sally at Shalenko; the FSB and the Russian Army would never be friends. The secret to controlling Russia was to ensure that the FSB and the Army were used to keep the other in check permanently; President Nekrasov was a master of the art. “How do you intend to handle it?”

“The intelligence reports claim that the British have evacuated most of their citizens from the area,” Shalenko answered. “They are not going to be a problem, although we may have to burn Dover rather than take the time to lay siege or accept the death toll involved in storming the city. Once we take London, your forces can fan out and secure the remainder of the country; some of my planners believe that the British will keep evacuating people to Ireland as long as they can, and then get them to America. They have some additional shipping, although less each trip; we’re putting pressure on some of the shipping lines to close their operations with Britain.”

Nekrasov nodded curtly; the Russians had made it clear that the seas around Europe were a war zone and any shipping that went in without permission did so at serious risk of being sunk without warning. The United Nations had tried to challenge it, but the Americans weren’t willing to interfere, and the Turks had led a chorus of African nations that felt Europe deserved everything that was coming to it. In the long term, the Turks would start wondering what the Russians might have in mind for them, but for a few more years, they would be neutral in Russia’s favour. The Japanese had protested the Russian declaration of a free-fire war zone, but they were in no position to press the issue; like the Americans, they were wrapped up in Korea and had their interests in China. A very quiet agreement had been proposed; the Russians would say nothing about Japanese plans to guarantee safe zones in China — occupation in all, but name — if the Japanese didn’t press the issue of the sea-lanes.

“Which brings us to the final conclusion,” Nekrasov said. He smiled tiredly down at his two generals. Shalenko knew what he was about to ask before he asked the question; they had tried hard to answer it. “Can the operation succeed?”

Shalenko weighed all of the factors in his mind a final time. “The operation can succeed,” he said, and meant it. The entire plan had been wargamed several times, looking for every possible variable and unknown factor, giving the British far more firepower than they could possibly have, just to be sure that nothing was overlooked. The only real danger was tactical nuclear weapons, and the Russians had made that issue clear to the British Ambassador in Washington; the use of tactical nukes would be responded to with strategic weapons against British cities. It was the only communication that they had had with the British; they had refused to be ‘reasonable’ about the future. “The losses may be higher than we predict, but the operation can succeed.”

Nekrasov nodded once. It dawned on Shalenko that the President was concerned about the final step in the campaign, the final stage of the conquest of Europe. A failure could dispel the newfound impression of Russian soldiers as invincible; it could lead to resistance rising up right across Europe and being brutally crushed… if it could be crushed. The Poles had a long history of rebellions against occupying powers… and while the European Union had helpfully managed to restrict the number of guns in civilian hands, there were still Polish soldiers out there, with Polish criminals armed with illegal weapons. A failure could be disastrous.

Operation Morskoi Lev would not fail.

Nekrasov steepled his fingers. “General Shalenko — Alex — I hereby grant you permission to proceed with Operation Morskoi Lev at the earliest possible moment,” he said. Shalenko understood; when Nekrasov delegated, he delegated all the way. Shalenko was the man on the spot, the one with the understanding of what was happening that no one, even Nekrasov, could grasp back in Moscow. “Launch the invasion of Great Britain.”