The Last Crusade (27 page)

The F15s begin turning, which at twice the speed of sound is a long curve, the Russian missiles arrive a moment later, killing all of the F15s. The AWACS sees the F15s shot down. She also sees Russian missiles heading to her. She broadcasts she’s under attack by the Russians when two missiles strike the large radar dome mounted on top of the plane, tearing it off, it takes part of the plane’s fuselage with it. The AWACS noses over spinning out of control. The last thing the mission commander did was to upload their radar recordings to a MilSat so someone would know what happened.

While the American AWACS is dying, the Caliphate fighters are being refueled, their pilots are bragging which of their missiles killed the Russian President. Nine hours and two additional refueling’s later they land in Saudi Arabia. Their crew people assist them up from their planes. The six pilots get into a van which is to take them to the office to debrief them. The van got half way to the office building when a bomb under the van explodes killing all six of the pilots. Dead people tell no tales.

The Russian Defense Minister is furious, he lifts the Hotline,

“Mr. President, can you in one sentence tell me why I shouldn’t unleash our nuclear arsenal at you? You assassinated our President when he was on a mission to plan our joint attack. Many of my generals want me to unleash our weapons against you. We were putting aside our differences, you invited President Putin to Philadelphia when you planned the entire time to kill him where our radar coverage is poor due to the curve of the planet.”

“We didn’t do it!”

“HA! My generals said that’s the first thing you’d say. How do you explain six of your F15s shot President Putin’s plane down and we had to turn around and shot your six F15 fighters down? We also shot down your AWACS, which directed your fighters to our plane. I’m sure you can confirm the loss of your AWACS and your fighters.”

“We didn’t do it! I confirm the loss of our AWACS and the fighters. Our proof is we have the radar recordings from the AWACS, I’m happy to share them with you.”

“How do I know you haven’t doctored them?”

“Your experts will be able to prove the tapes are untouched.”

“Send the recordings. If they prove what you say, I’ll hold my forces if my experts say the recordings were doctored, I’m going to order a massive launch.”

“I understand. To prove my honesty, I’m not going to increase our alert status. You know when we change our DEFCON status, you’ll see we aren’t going to change the status for our strategic forces.”

“I’ll call you back after we review the recordings.”

“Thank you for holding your launch order.”

“Mr. President, if you killed President Putin, you and the rest of your countrymen will die within an hour. The Russian people demand payment for the death of their beloved President.”

“I understand. I promise you, we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“We’ll see.”

President Bentley calls the CNO,

“Admiral, how many Trident boats are at sea?”

“Sir, we’ve kept ten at sea since the war.”

“How many boats could launch in an emergency?”

“The ten at sea and one in port.”

“Can you place the boats on alert without the Russians or Caliphate knowing it?”

“Yes, sir. What about our attack boats and carrier battle groups?”

“It must remain top secret. If the Russians learn of it, they’ll strike us.”

“Sir, only the captains of the boats will know.”

“Issue the order.”

“Sir, what target?”

“Strategic target, Russia.”

“Sir?”

“They believe we brought down Putin’s plane. They’ve threatened to attack us. I gave them my word I wouldn’t place our nuclear forces on alert. I won’t place the Air Force on alert. However, I refuse to be stupid and naked. Which is why I’m calling you.”

“Will do. Sir, we’ve loaded nukes on the carriers again which can multiply the number of warheads we have to counter strike them with.”

“What target list are the Trident’s current aimed at?”

“The Caliphate.”

Pausing a minute which the CNO thinks is an hour, the President says,

“Issue the order.”

“Yes, sir.” 

@@@@@

Field Marshal Nikola and the Defense Minister study the American AWACS radar recordings and voice recordings. Nikola shakes his head,

“If these recordings haven’t been altered the Americans are telling the truth, you can hear it from the voice of the radar operator and mission commander. They are surprised by the other fighters approaching and firing on our planes. We can hear them order their own fighters to investigate AFTER our planes were attacked. Someone else hit our fighters. The only other people who use the American F15s are, Israel, who wouldn’t shoot our plane down, they’ve been assisting us, the Japanese, who have signed new treaties with us. The third party is the Caliphate. My guess is the Caliphate painted their planes to look like the Americans and somehow got their hands on the Americans IFF codes.”

“That wouldn’t be hard. The Americans are fools when it comes to their computer security.”

“Minister, what are your orders?”

“Prepare our nuclear forces for an attack on the Caliphate.”

“What do you think the American’s will say?”

“I’ll know in a couple of minutes, I’m going to call President Bentley. I believe the time has come to end the Caliphate forever.”

“I agree. Do you think Israel; Egypt or NATO will have any issues?”

“No, I believe they’ll be happy to be done with the animals. If we don’t destroy them all now, we’ll be fighting them on our own streets.”

“Minister, our military commanders believe the risks for a conventional attack are too high, the only way to ensure their destruction is to vaporize them, we need to send them all to meet their God. Let him deal with them.”

“I personally agree with you. I’ll call you right after I speak with the American President.”

“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. I’ll prepare our forces to be ready to launch on your order.”

“Thank you.”

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President Bentley stares at the hotline wanting it to ring and is also dreading the call he knows is coming. When the phone rings, his hand hovers over the handset, on the fourth ring he takes a deep breath, lifting the phone with his left hand, his right-hand hovers over the ‘enter’ key on his laptop which will send the attack order to the military.

“President Bentley.”

“Mr. President, thank you for sending us the recordings from your AWACS. We are sorry for attacking your command and control airplane and fighters. Your recordings have been verified by our people. You’re correct, you didn’t shoot down President Putin. The FSB tracked the attackers to Saudi Arabia. We have overhead images I’m sending you to show you the F15s sitting on the Saudi runway, still hot from their flight. Something we don’t understand is we’ve seen a vehicle blow up on the runway. The FSB thinks they killed the six pilots so they couldn’t talk.”

“I’ll have the CIA and NSA review your recordings and images. Can we have one hour.”

“Of course. One hour from now, mark.”

“Confirmed. Thank you, Minister.”

The hotline was already dead before he hung it up. President Bentley picks up his regular phone,

“Connect me to the Director of the CIA, NSA and Secretary of Defense right now. Send each a copy of the file that the Russian Defense Minister just sent me.”

“Yes, sir.”

When all parties are on the line, President Bentley asks,

“Have you been able to confirm their images?”

The Director of the CIA responds,

“Yes, sir. The fighters came from the Caliphate, they made it look like we did it.”

“I want you to join me on the call in thirty minutes with the Russian Defense Minister.”

As the minute hand strikes twelve, the hotline rings,

“Mr. President, what did your experts think of our images?”

“They’re on the phone with us, they agree with you.”

“Mr. President we would like to propose a change to the war plan, we want to propose a massive nuclear strike versus a conventional invasion.”

Pausing, President Bentley shakes his head.

“Minister, could you please send me your plan so I can review it. Frankly, I didn’t consider a nuclear strike as being on the table. We’ve been working for months on a conventional multinational attack, I’m not sure my people will go along with using nuclear weapons. Won’t we destroy the environment, spread massive amounts of fallout across the world and possibly destroy their oil supplies.”

“Mr. President, please review our plan.”

“Can we have twenty-four hours to review it?”

“Of course. Let’s plan on speaking tomorrow at the same time.”

“Thank you.”

The President’s staff sits around his desk with shocked looks on their faces, the Secretary of Defense nods his head.

“Sir, it makes sense. We got our asses kicked the last time we tried to invade the Caliphate, we lost thousands of tanks and tens of thousands of people. We lost more people in one week than we did in thirteen years of fighting there before. The people won’t accept another bloodbath, they want revenge, they don’t want body bags coming home. If you can assure the country the use of nuclear weapons is to ensure there won’t be any more body bags coming home, they’ll support you.”

“I’m not sure. I think the left will move to impeach me for destroying the environment, they’ll claim I’m causing Global Warming and spreading nuclear fallout around the world.”

“Sir, we can prove that’s not reality.”

“Perception is reality; reality is what the damn media drums into the people’s heads.”

The Director of the CIA looks around the room, he straightens his tie,

“Sir, I believe our options are to sign a peace treaty which we know they’ll break before the ink is dry on the paper. Or invade per the current war plan and accept tens of thousands of causalities or adopt the Russian plan and finish the job the Crusaders started over a thousand years ago.”

President Bentley gets up to pace the new Oval Office,

“Isn’t there another way?”

The Secretary of Defense shakes his head, sir, the reality is at the end of the day, it’s either going to be them or us. They’ve refused to live and let live. It’s either we convert to Islam or they’ll kill us or we kill them. There aren’t any other options.”

“Aren’t there? Isn’t there anything we can do short of a massive nuclear strike. Will we have to strike every country in the Caliphate? There are over twenty countries, we’re talking about just under a fifth of the world! Do we even have enough weapons to cover them?”

“Sir, we have thousands of weapons in storage we can have our planes deliver, the Russians also have thousands, none of us know how many the Israelis have, plus there are the UK’s.”

“My GOD, you’re talking about twenty thousand weapons! Twenty thousand, each, hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima weapons. My God, we’ll be killing over a hundred million, my legacy will be the President, who killed hundreds of millions, I’ll replace Hitler as the world’s most hated mass murderer. I can’t decide right now. I want each of you to look for other options, there has to be something we can do other than turning a fifth of the world into an unlivable barren wasteland.”

They leave the President alone in the Oval Office. He tells his Chief of Staff, I’m going to the residence, call me if something urgent comes up. Find my priest, send him to the residence.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Tell my wife I want to see her.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chapter 14

President Bentley is hugging his wife when there’s a knock on the door,

“Come in. Father Patrick, thank you for coming so quickly.”

“My son, what can I do for you?”

“Father, I need some advice, I have a decision I have to make, one that frankly scares me. I was prepared to launch another conventional Crusade when the Caliphate assassinated President Putin. Our allies, the Russians, want to strike the Caliphate using a massive nuclear strike.”

“My son, when you say massive, how massive?”

“Completely cover the Caliphate with nuclear weapons, kill everyone.”

“EVERYONE? There are over five hundred million souls in the Caliphate!”

“Now you understand my dilemma.”

“My son, I can’t condone death on this scale, not even against the Caliphate. I know what Pope Francis II and Pope Joseph said, I realize they’ve both declared the Mahdi, an agent of Satan.”

“If I follow the conventional attack, we will end up with tens of thousands of American dead, we may defeat the Caliphate, only to have them surface in a generation or two, causing us to invade again. We could be faced with Crusade after Crusade, not unlike the Middle Ages, when we’re done, the war will go on until one or the other is killed off.”