Sic Semper Tyrannis (33 page)

“My God,” hissed Suthby.  “That’s an act of war!  What kind of intel do we have on this?”

“Sir,” said the Chairman.  “I was here at NORAD when it happened—the Iranians aimed for the fleet, I’ll bet my career on it.  They launched a couple of missiles during the initial phase of our attack on the Egyptian Air Force.  Came out of nowhere.  One was a dud and impacted the Eastern Med.  The other struck too close for home to the
Roosevelt
.  We weren’t sure if she survived or not, but if the nuke detonated on the surface…”

The Admiral filled in the blanks.  “An ICBM of the type Iran possesses detonating on the ocean’s surface—it would’ve wiped out most of the strike group.  Any survivors would probably be long dead by now from radiation sickness even if they managed to get into life rafts.  Our only hope is that it was a subsurface detonation.  In which case, we probably lost the two subs that were part of the strike group—depending on where they were—but as for the rest of the strike group…”

The Admiral shrugged, an especially disturbing gesture from a man whose face appeared so set in stone, weathered by the elements during a lifetime at sea.

Suthby had known from the beginning that the situation was dire—after all, he had orchestrated a large portion of it—he just hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad. 
How the hell am I gotta pull us out of this mess?
  He asked himself.
I’m still trying to play catch-up—I was never briefed on military matters or national security when I was head of FEMA.  This shit is all above my pay grade.

President Suthby frowned.  “Surely, gentlemen, these attacks on our forces overseas aren’t completely crippling, are they?”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs shook his head.  “Unfortunately, sir, my staff and I fear that it’s actually much worse than what we’ve been seeing.  The reports we’re getting are sporadic and widespread.  However, there are many elements of our armed forces overseas that have failed to report in at all—they seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth.  We’re still trying to track down each and every unit, but for the most part we have to assume that they have either been destroyed or captured.”

“Jesus,” whispered Suthby. 
I was wrong—it’s a hell of a lot worse than I thought…

“Sir, right now the largest single cohesive combat unit we control—with some measure of reliable communication—is the 7th Fleet, currently near Hawaii,” said the Admiral.  “The way I see it, we have two options.  One, we bring the fleet in as close to the California coast as possible to act as a defensive screen.  We’ve got two carrier strike groups—
Reagan
and
Nimitz
—and trust me, two carrier strike groups can be a formidable force.  They should be able to fend off just about anything anyone cares to throw at us at the moment from the Pacific.”

Suthby leaned forward in his chair, staring at the Admiral.  “And option two?”

The Admiral smiled again.  “Sir, there is a Chinese Army operating on American soil.  At the moment, the
Nimitz
Strike Group is in the western Pacific and is the single most destructive force on that side of the planet.  We could use it and send the Chinese a strong message.”

Suthby shuddered at the thought. 
Letting a carrier strike group slip the leash and attack some of the nations that have attacked America is one thing
, he told himself. 
Letting this Admiral turn what’s left of the navy against China is quite another.  If what they’re saying is true and there really is a Chinese army in the southwest, attacking them at this moment might make things much, much worse—considering the fact that we don’t really have anything else to back us up at the moment
. 

The President drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment, gathering his thoughts.  Daniel saved him.  “Admiral, as much as I would like to see bloody vengeance visited upon those sneaky bastards, I think the best course of action should be caution.”

Suthby snapped at the chance Daniel provided.  “Agreed.  If what you say is true, General,” Suthby said with a nod towards the Air Force Chief of Staff, “and we do have a Chinese army laying waste to the southwest, I think the prudent course of action would be to bring the
Nimitz
strike group close to shore.  We can   use its air power to attack that army in Arizona.”

“Gentlemen, our top priority is to defend America and protect her citizens.  Right now, her citizens are bleeding and dying in the southwest.  Worst case scenario, there’s nothing there and we wasted a week transporting a fleet across the Pacific Ocean.  In which case, they’re still be on the coast and able to defend California and intercept anything coming across the ocean to attack the mainland.  Best case, they can wipe out this army causing so much trouble for Arizona.”

The Admiral considered this for a moment.  His eyes never left the President’s.  He finally nodded.  “A wise course of action, sir.”

“Good, I’m glad you agree.  Admiral, make it happen.”  Suthby stood up, effectively ending the meeting.  “Gentlemen, I want updates every half-hour and any time a significant number of our troops arrive from overseas, I want to be informed immediately—no matter the time of day.  Understood?”

He received a chorus of “Yessir!” in reply.

Suthby watch them file out of the war room.  He sighed and sank back into his chair.  Staring at the map on the wall, he once again had to fight the urge to admit that he was in over his head. 

Is this really what I wanted?  To rule a country so beset by catastrophe and destruction?  If I do what’s necessary to save this nation, will there be anything left worth ruling?
 

He looked out the stack of papers on his desk and noticed the report that said 90% of all of America’s strategic nuclear weapons were still under direct control of the Armed Forces.  It seemed no matter what happened to America’s troops overseas, she still had the ability to obliterate entire nations with the push of a button.

Suthby smiled.

CHAPTER 23

Falcon Down

FALCON DRIVER LIEUTENANT COLONEL Caroline “Kitty” Edwards had to double check her targeting computer.  Just a moment ago she had delivered a 1000 pound JDAM on a Russian BTR.  The doomed vehicle had made its way toward one of a string of Army observation outposts along the Hudson River.  As she pulled up and away from the river and looped around to the west, the targeting computer chirped to tell her that all targets had vanished.

She ignored the dizzying blur of roads, trees, and buildings outside her canopy as she rolled the powerful single engine ground attack fighter into a hard right-banking turn. 

There you are…
  She had no trouble spotting the burned-out husk of the BTR belching black smoke into the crisp autumn sky.  Likewise, the remains of two transport trucks parked next to the wrecked personnel carrier were easy to see.  She glanced down at the blank HUD.

“What the hell?” She tried to lock-on manually but the damn computer fought her—it insisted there was nothing there to target.

“Joker Lead, this is Four—I just lost my targeting computer!
” said the voice of her wing man, Captain Tom Rivers, callsign “Geek”.

“Lead, this is Six—I got a glimpse of some funky interference or something before mine crapped out, too…”

“Lead copies all—Jokers, try to lock on manually,” Edwards commanded.  In frustration, she snapped her F-16E into a hard roll and roared over the Hudson, drawing some small arms fire in the process.  She hoped someone down there would target her plane, so the computer would
have
to recognize a threat.

“Joker Lead, Two, we still got tone up here,
” said the voice of her squadron XO, Major Wally Hendricks.  Wally’s six Falcons were operating north of her position, trying to counteract the Russian advance. 

On their way into the fight, Edwards had seen the Russians pouring out of tunnels halfway up Manhattan Island.  She knew the main force of Americans was anchored at the Holland tunnel where General Stapleton had set up his HQ.  She had split her fighter-wing and sent half with Wally.  She tasked Wally with stopping the Russian flanking maneuver and protecting the flank of the American ground troops along the Hudson.  Her planes would attempt to defend General Stapleton’s HQ.

“Copy that Hangman,” she grunted.  She rolled her fighter to the left.  She switched frequencies to contact the American ground forces and glanced down at the scrambling Russians below.

“Army, this is Joker Lead—all our targeting computers just tanked.  I think the Russians just applied some jamming gear…”

Before she heard a reply, the digital instrument displays in the cockpit blinked and jiggled before restarting.  Every alarm in her cockpit went off, creating a confusing symphony of electronic wails and whistles.  “What the hell?” she said. 

“Geek!  What happened?  My screens are all—” a sickening fear settled in her stomach as she pushed the stick hard over and the plane did not respond.  One of the louder alarms alerted her to the fact that the powerful General Electric F110 turbo fan engine that propelled her fighter through the skies had flamed out.  Without the computer guidance and electronic control system, without the power generated by the engine, she had no way to control the speeding fighter.  Her ailerons and flaps were all controlled electronically—Edwards’ F-16 took on the flying characteristics a large gray brick.

She fought the rising panic that was welling up inside her as the plane began to wobble in its flight path.  She kept trying to restart the engine and the targeting computer.  All the while she frantically called out over the radio for anyone who could hear: “This is Joker Lead, I’ve lost all power, lost all electronics, lost all controls.  I’m going in!  Mayday, mayday, mayday!” 

Edwards knew by the stunning silence that either her radio was not transmitting or she was not able to hear the replies of her fellow pilots.  Either way, a cold, calculating part of her brain—well-trained over her long distinguished career as a pilot—told her that she only had a few seconds before she had to pull the ring and eject.

Her crippled F-16 started to roll to the left and sailed over the Hudson River, heading downtown.  The moment before she looked down at her dead instruments for the final time, she saw something odd sticking off the top of a skyscraper.  It looked like the biggest radio tower she’d ever seen.  There were all kinds of equipment and people swarming around its base.  It looked like it had been slapped on top of the building—recently.  The jet wobbled in the air as her computer’s oddly accented female voice whined, “
Pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up…
”

She tore her eyes off the strange radio tower and tried one more time to start the engine.  A gust of wind buffeted the dying aircraft and it began a slow steady spiral down towards the ground.  Instinct told her now was her last chance.  She reached down between her legs and grabbed the divided yellow-black metal ring.  She pulled up and back as hard as she could. 

Edwards felt more than heard a series of loud bangs.  There was a bright flash on both sides of her peripheral vision.  The next thing she knew she felt the cold wind outside her aircraft slap her in the face. 

Edwards felt like her entire body was being pressed down through the seat of her flight suit as her back took the brunt of the force involved in the ejection process.  She watched in disbelief as the cockpit fell away from her in a heartbeat and then all she heard was the roar of the wind rushing past her helmet.  For a split second she was completely weightless, suspended at the top of her ejection arc, yet not quite falling.  The seat flew off, pulled by its own parachute.  Her parachute opened and after a smooth jerk, she found herself drifting over the surreal landscape below.  Her back throbbed and her neck felt like she’d been in a car accident, but she was alive.  The same could not be said for her plane. 

Edwards gasped as the bitter wind abused her face.  The parachute twisted and she was able to see the burning ruins of what was once the picturesque New York City skyline.  The blanket of smoke hanging over the city went straight up and then ballooned out in all directions.  Looking down, she saw tiny Russians on the eastern bank of the Hudson scrambling to get out of the way as her plane careened down towards their position uncontrolled.  She smiled, secure in the knowledge that even though she’d lost her plane, she would at least take out another vehicle that belong to the Russian invaders. 

Drifting east through the smoke of a city on fire, she could see that odd radio tower again.  It looked so out of place.  There were definitely people scurrying around the base and even more down on the street.  She could see several military vehicles down there.
What the hell
is
that?  Is that what killed my bird?

A shot rang out from the streets below and her heart skipped a beat.  She glanced down over the tops of her boots at the ground a few hundred feet below.  She was going to land in Russian occupied territory.  There were several figures milling about, watching her descent with some excitement.  From her vantage point, she could tell they were all armed with rifles.  Spotlights lit up the smoke around her as she drifted into the noxious clouds swirling through the concrete canyon of downtown Manhattan.

“Oh, this is not good…”

GENERAL STAPLETON STOOD ON the embankment with his hands on his hips and surveyed the damage caused by the repulse of the first Russian attack.  His command center had barely survived.  His headquarters was in a smoldering ruins, he had lost about 20 good men, and the Holland Tunnel entrance was completely destroyed.  While that prohibited the Russians from making another assault in this direction, it also stopped him from launching his own planned assault on downtown New York City.

The Air National Guard had done one thing and that had been to put an effective and immediate stop to the first Russian advance on his position.  After that, it turned into a comedy of errors. 

One of the F-16s had soared over the Russian lines blowing up vehicles and dispersing troops.  As it lined up for another attack, however, its wings had started to wobble, flares started spitting out the things ass and then it slowly started to spiral in towards the Russian position like a wounded duck.  General Stapleton assumed at first it was just the pilot showing off.  He was, after all, a simple infantryman at heart.

The maneuver certainly looked fancy enough to be some sort of stunt, to his eyes.  He saw the pilot eject and watched as the airplane soared straight down and crashed into the Russian lines.  He knew then something had gone terribly wrong, because it wasn’t the only airplane to do that.  He’d watched in horror as three of the six F-16s fell out of the sky.   It was as if they had suddenly given up the will to fly.  Almost as soon as the airstrike had begun, it was over. 

The remaining three F-16s circled well west of the Hudson and one of the pilots had explained they’d lost all contact with the other fighters after electronics failures had been reported.  The last thing Stapleton had heard, the lead pilot—the first to go down—had radioed in some kind of strange Russian jamming that not only affected radar, but the planes’ electronics as well.

“That’s one hell of a jamming device, to be able to the knock planes out of the sky like that…” he muttered to himself.  Over his shoulder, he called, “I saw a parachute in the smoke over there.  We get the pilot back?” 

He heard the major radio that question up to the remaining F-16s that were circling the Hudson like angry hornets.  One of their own had gone down—their squadron leader, no less—into enemy held territory.  General Stapleton knew exactly how he’d feel under the same circumstances.  Something had to be done.  Now.

He focused his binoculars across the river to the two ferries and a handful of smaller boats that were lined up on the docks on the far side.  It looked to him like the Russians were preparing to cross the river.  Damn fools.

“Now
that
,” said Colonel Vinsen as he crested the top of the embankment, “is just plain crazy.”  He stood next to Stapleton looking across the river with his own binoculars.  “It’s suicidal.  They know we hold this bank.  Why the hell are they trying to send infantry across?  They have no air support.”

“It may not matter,” muttered Stapleton, eyes still on the boats across the river.  He could just barely make out the figures milling around on the docks.  “Whatever knocked our planes out of the sky, the Air Force hasn’t been able to get past the river.  If our planes can’t get in there, we may as well not even have them.”

“I’ll have the men deploy at the positions you marked out,” said Vinsen.  He lowered his field glasses.  “Armor should be returning soon.  I’ll have them positioned back across the interstate and out of range of anything Ivan might have.”

“Poor man’s artillery,” grunted Stapleton.

“You betcha.”

Stapleton nodded his consent.  “Well, let’s bring the division up and prepare for the assault.  I want the bulk of our forces to the north.  We lost three outposts up there—I’m not in a mood to let the sons of bitches get away with it.”

“Yes, sir.  I’ve already dispatched the cavalry.  They’ll loop around to the west and come in from behind to secure what’s left of those tunnels the Russians used earlier.”

“Very well.”  Stapleton lowered his own field glasses and turned to climb down off of the embankment.  “Have our top recon squad form up by the tunnel entrance.”  He glanced up at the smoke filled sky.  “Those pilots saved our asses—the least we can do is go rescue…” he turned around.  “Who was in that plane?”

“Uh,” said Major Winston.  She looked at a sheet of paper in her hands, smeared with blood.  “Lieutenant Colonel Caroline Edwards.  Fifteen-year veteran, three tours in the Sandbox.  She’s decorated, sir.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” muttered the general.  “We’re sure as hell not letting
her
stay over there.”

“No, sir,” growled the Colonel.  “I know just who to send.”

“Do it.  I want us in and out, clear?  We’ll hit ‘em with the tanks and make a fine diversion.”  He handed the field glasses off to one of his staff and then called out, “Lieutenant, get me NORAD on the line.  I need to talk to the President.” 

There was a good chance, he worried, that if the Russians somehow managed to break through his lines, they’d pour into eastern New York and have free reign in the state.  He’d been out of the loop for too long and didn’t know how many—if any—units had arrived from overseas.  He also didn’t know who the hell was in charge and who would be sending reinforcements his way.  However, he knew that he had to swallow his pride and contact that S.O.B. claiming to be the president if he was going to get anything else done offensively.

Damn all politicians
, he thought to himself darkly.

As the lieutenant returned with a sat phone in hand, a shout went up from one of the sentries on top of the embankment.

“Ships!  We got us a fleet, out there, sir!”

“Of
course
we do,” Stapleton growled.  He remounted the embankment grumbling about old soldiers and bad knees.  Slightly winded but standing astride the top of the river wall once more, he looked in the direction that the soldier was pointing.  Sure enough, off in the distance on the horizon several shapes appeared.  Big ships.