The Great Deception (3 page)

...

As soon as President Alexander saw the
enemies first move (EMP attack) that's when instinct told him they
needed to jink and not stick around with these guys. He knew they
were outgunned and outmatched; therefore Operation Switchblade
would take its chances on the ground instead. The leader of the
free world was about to make a gamechanger decision. Not before
there were more casualties however.

"Punch out, punch out!" one copilot
frantically communicated to the other pilot in a two-seater seventh
generation jet that had just bought the farm. The man he spoke to
was unresponsive however; he had in fact been killed in action by
the tango's laser fire that managed to slice through his cockpit
section and incinerate his vital organs in the process.

The situation couldn’t have been any worse
for the good guys--even before the EMP shock wave hit. Then the
losses would really start to tally up.

Alexander couldn't take it anymore.

"Have we had enough downed planes?!" he
cried. His eyes narrowed in anger. "Ground the armada. Get 'em down
before this gets any messier," he growled to the Air Boss. "Roger
that Eagle Command," Mike Dumphree acknowledged with due deference
to chain of command.

Then Mike proactively said to the air
armada, "All groups tasked with escort of heavy-lift aircraft,
break off and get your fangs out. We're gonna light 'em up." Thomas
Harding who was in charge of the ground forces now joined the
chatter, giving coordinates to the flying fortresses (heavy-lift
aircraft) on where to land.

"You're gonna push the envelope and come in
hard. There is no time for a soft landing gentleman," he
stressed.

Meanwhile more FRN jets fell prey in the fur
ball of chaotic high-speed combat maneuvers with the enemy. Many
burned out of control, losing flight control…ultimately slamming
into skyscrapers below. Those that missed became large impact
craters in the highways. Smoke belched from the wreckage all across
the city's west side. The loss of life, both pilots and collateral
damage of citizens on the ground continued to escalate.

A tremendous groan suddenly filled the skies
as Scorpion's electromagnetic pulse defeated the thick alloy
shielding FRN used against such attacks. In a fleeting moment it
looked like all hope was lost.

--

Somewhere over the North Pacific--03:00
hours, April 24th, 2041

The three leaders from Britain, Russia, and
Germany were assisted into the airlock inside the Scorpion
AirCorvette
. From there they would be helped into the
submersible that would drop through the bomb-bay doors in the rear
section of the craft when it was time. There wasn't a whole lot of
chit-chat between the cast of characters. If communication was
desired, they all had their translucent Universal Articulators
which were worn like retainers in their mouths. These handy little
devices replaced artificial voice synthesizers as the new standard
for

universal translation by utilizing the
speaker's own vocal tract.

The Russian leader conversed with one of his
own aides in a low voice near the aft of the plane by the cargo
ramp in a little alcove under a side bulkhead. Two alcoves up from
the one the aforementioned characters occupied, the German and
British heads of state began to dialogue.

"Have you ever been to the war room before?"
the chancellor of Germany spoke in the British prime minister's own
native tongue.

"Yes Lothar, on one other occasion." The
British PM appeared a little tired, but that didn't seem to affect
his cordial disposition. Lothar Kirsch made a guttural noise in the
back of his throat.

"What was the nature of your first visit?"
The German head of state tried to hide his lack of trust for the
other man behind an innocent little smile.

"That's none of your business, chancellor,"
Jasper Turpin deflected. "I've come to see the dawning of a new age
today. I know the Lord of the Ages won't disappoint." Lothar
clutched the harness's buckle that went over his lap. He was
secretly angry at Jasper for denying him the information he had
requested. But this didn't come as a surprise. It only served to
add more brush strokes to further color his view on Jasper in a
negative light. What he sought to grapple with was the idea of
working together, in unity, as a one-world government when there
clearly were seeds of distrust sewn into the fabric of such a
weave-- because of rulers like Jasper Turpin.

"I hear S3 is going to be the new seat of
government for the established order...." Lothar changed subjects.
"Any thoughts?"

Jasper mentally steeled himself to conceal
the true identity of his affections. Almost certainly he wished the
capital of the new world order would be along the Thames in the UK
instead of Sector Three in North America.

"I've always thought highly of the District
of

Columbia. It was born for greatness," Jasper
Turpin lied.

The German chancellor compressed his lips
together. "Yes, indeed. My impression, also."

"Then today should go well," Jasper was
quick to say.

"I hope so. I'd sure like to hear what Igor
has to say though."

...

Igor Orloff, president of Russia, wasn't a
man to trifle with. The fifty-six-year-old dominated talks at
roundtables and summits the world over. He had perfected the power
grab when he shook hands with his gripper always overlapping the
other ruler's. His body language communicated great pride and
confidence. What really tops the list of quality leadership
attributes for this man, though, would be his perceptive mind that
could see through any smokescreen, red herring,
diversion...anything.

Russia's Chairman of the Government, or the
land's number two, went with Igor to Scorpion's war room that
morning. President Orloff was hardly ever seen without his right
hand man. The two men now discussed domestic concerns under the
sepia-red glow of the aircraft's interior lighting. They sat side
by side on a low bench situated in a little recess tucked into the
plane's side. Both were buckled in until told otherwise.

Grigory stretched his legs. "So nice of them
to transport us in the cargo hold of a military jet."

Igor smiled at his aide's quip. "What? I
thought you missed travelling like this. The

KGB flew much worse planes than this."

Grigory Sliva folded his arms at the mention
of his history. He'd like to forget the missions he flew all over
Eastern Europe with Russia's syndicate intelligence agency. There
was one memory however that strangely surfaced in Sliva's head in
the moment. It was an assignment he had done more than fifteen
years ago in Kosovo.

The thin man winced.

His hands would be forever stained red from
a life of past sins: the countless victims that fell to the
skillful dagger or quick trigger continued to haunt the Russian
leader. Nothing he did to medicate would erase the undying stigma
that went with him as he climbed the rungs of Russia's ladder to
power.

"Aren't we near our lay-over?" the aide
humorously referred to the drop into the ocean as such.

The Russian president followed Grigory's
gaze to the capsule that sat no more than ten feet away. It looked
like a space vehicle ready to escape earth's orbit and head to
mars.

"Let's get on with it," Igor said, his
impatience growing. "I want to meet this great man I've heard about
in whispers." "Some say he's not even a man," Grigory said with a
wink.

Igor laughed and paused. "No, he's a man
alright, but he's also something else. I believe," the leader began
to say as he traced his red beard with his fingers from the lip to
below his jutting chin, "that this man is the one long foretold
about. He has a unique mark."

The president's aide then held up his
fingers, forming the symbol that has been commonly known to mean
A-Okay, however, in other circles it represented something of an
entirely different realm. Three little numbers.

--

The Middle East in 2041 looked something
like this: a dominate United Islamic Caliphate surrounding little,
but not defenseless Israel. And as history dictated, the bitter
struggle between the devout jihadists and Jews continued on into
the late first half of the twenty-first century.

Many attempts to wipe the Zionists off the
face of the earth had failed up to this point. Nuclear holocausts
never occurred...biological warfare fizzled. Israel had mastered
the art of preemptive military strike to erase any possibility of a
mass genocide of their own people. At the center of their survival
was the famed Mossad agency. It was second to none. With sleeper
cells on every corner of the globe, satellites over every strategic
hot spot, and a very capable defense force, Israel wasn't going
anywhere...yet.

--

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Out of the tribe of Quraysh rose a great
leader to rule the millions of Muslims spread far and wide across
the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and Horn of Africa (which
included northeastern African nations also). In the second decade
of the twenty-first century the call went out from the militant
groups of Islam (aka Mujahideens) and political parties of Islamic
states for the Muslim world to unite under one caliphate, or Second
Ottoman Empire.

…

In 2035 under the inspiration he was the
chosen one to represent Allah's authority on earth, Rehan Khalil
rode into the capital of the new kingdom on a donkey. Millions had
gathered to witness this historic moment...security was high. Miles
of the highway 271 had been shut down to secure a safe parade route
for the king and his entourage.

All the highways and byways looping their
way through downtown were under the jurisdiction of the United
Islamic Caliphate's (UIC) Supreme Guard units. It was these
troopers that cordoned off all the city's major arteries: they
controlled the flow. Anybody who wanted to punch their way through
security would need to do it with the assistance of a small
army.

Jeddah rose to prominence in the Arab world
through oil dollars. Not only that, but because of her central
location in the Middle East she became the largest commercial
center, eventually surpassing even Dubai in the late 2020s.
Strategically positioned in close proximity to the Red Sea, this
port city served the global economy in a big way. Much of the
freight on big tankers passed through her waters headed for Africa,
the Middle East, or Europe.

The crown jewel of the newly-formed

Islamic caliphate even began to build an
elevator to space where orbital platforms had large space shuttles
docked at them, ready to transport freight and paying customers in
unprecedented efficiency.

That day the Muslim world showed up big to
witness their human representation of Allah's authority on earth.
Waving green banners and flags with a white star and crescent
symbol emblazoned on it signaled to the watching world a United
Islamic Caliphate was rising out of the desert...and

Jeddah was at the center of it all.

--

Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

--Proverbs 11:14

April 20th, 2041

The Mossad stamped that Proverb as their
motto. They sought to give Israel's leaders guidance through good
counsel in order to arrive at informed decisions.

…

Five stealth helicopters' blades thwacked
against the night air around them. These birds of war were headed
to the former Republic of Moldova which had been grafted back into
the Russian empire after World War III (circa 2018).

External fuel tanks hung from the pylons
under the wings of the Block XX Blackhawk stealth choppers; though
the extra load it carried may have increased its overall radar
cross-section, the ancient but heavily modified helicopters would
need it to make the hop over the Black Sea.

The most dangerous part of the flight would
be the brief exposure to Odesa's launchers that lie in wait for
aircraft daring enough to enter its domain. The good news: Ukraine
wasn't their end destination...only a very skinny sliver of it
stood in the way of Moldova's southeastern section which they were
headed to. However, the flip side of that coin being the
Blackhawk's weak countermeasures to anti-aircraft missile
launchers. If the stealth didn't have its desired effect on enemy
radar, it would be lights out for the Israelis.

...

Four agents bundled together in the back of
one of the choppers. The airframe shuddered a little at an altitude
of five thousand feet going two hundred and thirty knots. The
pilots were really pushing the envelope. Meanwhile the rest of the
crew were engaged in a rousing game of blackjack-except for Seth
Markov.

Seth held an enviable background. Some said
he was over-qualified to be a

Mossad operative. He studied chemistry and
physics at Israel's oldest college: TechnionIsrael Institute of
Technology. Next up, he did his graduate studies at none other than
MIT: graduating with a Masters of Science in Mechanical
Engineering.

For his physical regimen he dead-lifted five
hundred pounds (eight reps in six sets), swam a quarter mile, ran a
5k in 16 minutes....Now you get the idea. Later in the day he'd
spar with Israeli Commandos (think Navy Seals) until he bruised all
his ribs and/or partially blacked out. What made Seth the ultimate
fighting machine though were his skills in the deadly martial art
called Kraw Maga. One simply didn't outlast his moves. Death would
be the only conclusion to a match. Seth's record was perfect, too:
many had perished from his lethal blows.

He had no equal, except the fictional
character Jason Bourne perhaps. Seth Markov was so rounded in every
area there was literally no situation he wasn't prepared for.
Because of his educational background, he was mentally equipped to
think his way out of any dilemma like a living-breathing
MacGyver.