WAR (10 page)

              “Sean, thank you for your concern. I have to go now. Someone has to fight for our freedoms. Our ground forces haven’t shown up yet, we’re going to soften the invaders up for the Army or Marines. I was a Marine in the second Gulf war; remember my brothers and sisters, Semper Fi!”

              Jack hangs up the phone. He grabs his AR15, magazine bag, side arm, and militia hat. Outside his door are thirty-six of his friends. Jack says, “Ready to kick some Russian ass?”

              The others nod yes, they start making their way to the front. They are making their way to the sound of the fighting.  They slip onto the strip from Flamingo Road, in front of them they see forty Las Vegas police officers behind a barricade of cars and trucks exchanging fire with a platoon of Russian soldiers. The police see the militia members coming to join them, one says, “Go home. This isn’t a place for you.”

              Jack responds, “We’re here to help. We’re Americans. We’re the North Vegas Militia. We’re the reason for the second amendment.” Before Jack can complete his speech, Jack’s brothers and sisters start opening fire at the Russians who are surprised at the additional volume of fire coming their way. The police officer is happy to see the militia are firing with decent accuracy. He says, “OK, stay, but keep your heads down. There’s a platoon of them in front of us. Every once in a while they poke their heads up and try to advance on us. Here they come again.”

              This time, the police fire is joined by the militia, the Russians are taken by surprise. All are either killed or wounded in their charge. One of the police officers says, “I’ll never speak ill of you guys again, you most likely saved our lives. What are you planning on doing next?”

              Jack responds, “Kill more Russians. We can stay with you as you advance. We’ll provide you with additional firepower. We have plenty of ammo if you guys need some.”

              “How much is plenty?”

              Jack laughs, “We have over 5,000 rounds with us.”

              “That’s good, think we’re going to need it. We’ve been wondering when our troops are going to arrive.”

              Jack replies, “I’d guess within a couple of hours. They have to come from San Diego and the National Training Center. I think the Air Force or Navy fighters will be here any minute.” Before he can complete the sentence two dark gray planes fly silently over their heads, they see two cylinders drop from each plane, Jack and the police officer both yell, “GET DOWN! NAPALM!” The cylinders strike the street exploding in a wall of flames. The windows in the hotels along the strip are blown out, everything under the burning gas is burnt to a cinder. The four jets flash out from between the hotels, they bank to make another pass when six missiles chase the planes. All of the missiles fail to strike the planes. Jack dials the Wolf News Network from his cell, “This is Jack, I spoke with Sean about ten minutes ago, I want to send you a short video from my phone of a strike on the Russians.”

              “Do you own the video?”

              “Yes, I took it.”

              “OK, send it, when we review it, one of our people will contact you at this number.”

              Jack uploads the video which is on the air within two minutes. He gets a call from Sean’s producer asking him for his bank information. Phil clicks on his laptop depositing $20,000 into his account for the video. Jack says, “I’ll be sending you more soon.”

              Sean says, “We have a video from the Las Vegas Strip from Jack, who we recently spoke with.” Showing the video, Sean says, “That looks like a B2 and something I’ve never seen before; they just dropped napalm on a platoon of Russians.” One of the cameramen says loud enough for it to be picked up, “crispy critters.” A line which is repeated all evening.

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              President Grameniko calls General Chekov, “General, what’s your progress?”

              “Mr. President, we’re in the city, the Americans have been able to respond quicker than we projected. However, at this minute my people are rushing inside all of the major hotels. They’ll hold the people as hostages while the specialists rob the casinos. Our hackers will break into their networks. Once in, they’ll follow the plan to hack into their banks and transfer their funds to us. We should see a very pretty profit from this. There’s no way the Americans can dislodge us without massive damage to their casinos, hotels, and people.”

              “General, excellent. Keep the Americans focused on your position. I’m going to release phase 2 which should come as a very rude surprise to the Americans. We’ll talk again in an hour.”

              “Thank you, Mr. President.”

              Grameniko hangs up with Chekov while he presses number four speed dial on his phone, “Admiral, Phase 2 is approved, you may release your boats. Good hunting.”

              “Yes Mr. President. I will send the order right now.”

              The order is transmitted through the earth via an ultra low-end frequency sonar signal. Due to the very low transmission speed, only two letters can be sent. It takes ten minutes for the four new Yasen class submarines to receive the two letter code. Once decoded the four submarines slowly and very quietly rise off of the ocean floor just outside of the Norfolk Navy Base. These new submarines took over ten years to design and build. They are as quiet as the American Flight II Virginia class submarines. The four boats travel at only 5 knots in order to stay as silent as possible. They quietly enter the harbor mouth of the US Navy’s largest and most important Navy base. Each boat is armed with eight 650mm and two 550mm torpedo tubes. The boats communicate through a short range underwater laser system to coordinate targets. When all of the boats have acquired their targets, they launch all of their ready torpedoes. Forty deadly torpedoes race towards the US Navy’s fleet sitting at their docks. In seconds, the US Navy suffers its worst disaster in history. The US Navy lost most of their battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack that brought America into the Second World War, this attack cost America four of its eleven nuclear-powered carriers. Each carrier is hit by at least five torpedoes. In addition to the aircraft carriers, four cruisers, and ten destroyers, are also struck. The Russian boats reload as they turn around and quietly head into the Atlantic where they hope they’ll be able to disappear.

              Hell explodes in Norfolk. Ships are burning, stored munitions in the ships are exploding which expands the destruction to the piers. Burning debris lands on the warehouses which line the piers, setting them on fire, causing the loss of much needed equipment to repair the damaged ships and to resupply them. While alarms sound all over Norfolk, ten Spetsnaz slip into the navy’s weapons storage facility in Yorktown, Virginia. The Russian Special Forces are able to overpower the few Navy shore patrol officers on duty. They break into and plant explosives in the weapons depot bunkers before slipping away in the night. Twenty minutes later the explosives detonate causing the stored weapons in the bunkers to explode. The resulting fires and explosions close Interstate 64, hundreds are killed. Fire and rescue equipment needed at Norfolk is stalled by the massive explosions at Yorktown. The local population feels the explosions through the soles of their feet at the same time they hear about the attack on Norfolk. They see a huge mushroom cloud over Yorktown. Windows ten miles from the depot shatter. Many think they’ve been attacked with nuclear weapons. Tens of thousands leave their homes to escape the area fearing the entire peninsula will come under attack. Thousands of refugees block the roads in the Norfolk, Yorktown, and the Williamsburg areas. Help is stalled getting into the area by the refugees blocking highway 64.

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              Presidents Rand and Brownstone are reviewing the reports from Las Vegas when the initial reports flood in from Norfolk and Yorktown. President Brownstone says, “Confirm every base is locked down and on THREATCON DELTA, flush every available ship to sea.”

              President Rand replies, “I thought that happened normally when we declared DEFCON 1.”

              President Brownstone says, “The military knows about the attack in Vegas, they weren’t expecting an attack on the east coast. They got caught with their pants down. I think you should fire the local Admiral, who didn’t flush his fleet and get everything else we have to sea. Find and sink the subs that hit us. I think the time’s come to plan a series of attacks on Russia to pay them back.”

              “Rod, are you suggesting we resort to the nuclear option?”

              “Not yet, I won’t promise we won’t use them. I suggest we hit some of Grameniko’s targets.”

              “I agree. I’ll see what the Air Force can come up with.”

              “Paul, make it a series of attacks, make Grameniko pay for what he just did.”

              The President’s computer pings with a message, he clicks on it. Both presidents read a message from the air force pilots who attacked the Russians in Las Vegas. “No Russian forces visible.  Have made many passes over the city. SLIF and FLIR show large number of people in casinos and warm equipment in casino-hotel lobbies. Small battles broke out on the Strip. LEOs with local support against invaders, our napalm killed the invaders.”

              Rod says, “Shit.”

              Paul looks at his friend asking, “What’s wrong?”

              “Grameniko’s plan is very clear. He attacked Vegas to take the people who work and stay in the hotels hostage. I bet he’s got a squad of special computer hackers breaking into the casinos bank accounts. Grameniko hopes to steal a couple of billion dollars.”

              “NSA for the block?”

              “Agree, NSA for the block.”

              President Rand calls the Director of the NSA, “Admiral, the Russians are trying to hack the casinos in Las Vegas and steal their assets, can your people cyber-attack and block their efforts?”

              “Mr. President, when we saw the attack I figured what they were after, we put our best team on it. I’ve been in touch with those casino owners we were able to reach. We’re working with them to block access. We’ve helped a couple by inserting a worm that generates a new password every couple of nanoseconds until a special line of code is inserted in their systems.”

              “Keep up the good work.”

Chapter 6

              The USA headlines scream, “WAR.” Red banners flash across almost every website. Social media sites are filled with posts. Some posters say they’ve seen invaders in their home towns, others report they’re ready to defend their homes. Stores experience a run on food, water and OTC medications. Lines form at gun stores which are forced to limit the number of guns and the number of boxes of ammo each customer can purchase. Background checks which used to take minutes stretch into hours, then days. Gun stores tell their customers they’ll be called when they can come pick up their guns after their background check clears. Sales between individuals soar, as prices increase hourly. Companies making survival food see a 500% increase in their orders within an hour of the invasion being reported. Construction companies are booked solid with orders for shelters and bunkers. Within a week, concrete starts to run short. Panic buying is driving prices up hourly. Big box stores sell out of camping equipment within an hour of opening.

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              Sean looks into the center camera saying, “Tonight we have a special guest, a close friend who invited me to join him for breakfast tomorrow.  I asked him to join us this evening and to be honest with you, I was surprised he agreed. America, please welcome Rash Linebacker to the Sean Hannd show.”

Rash walks onto the set saying, “Good evening Sean, and everyone in America, today is the worst day in our history. We just learned that the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Navy’s weapons depot at Yorktown, Virginia, has been attacked. The entire peninsula is in a state of emergency. The explosions caused large mushroom clouds. Tens of thousands are fleeing the area over fears of a nuclear attack, which I can state with 100% certainty are false, no nuclear weapons were used.  First responders from as far away as Georgia are on the way to Norfolk to offer assistance.

“The LSA, with help from Russia, poisoned our children in seven towns. President Rand responded by hacking into and shutting down both countries’ electrical grids. I understand that the President was going to turn the electrical power back on after they had suffered for thirty days. President Bloomberg decided we committed an act of war against the LSA; he asked President Grameniko for assistance per their existing treaty. The two of them decided to invade us. They should have learned that attacking us is not a good way to get us to do what they want us to do. I was the press secretary under President Brownstone when he decided to use small nuclear weapons against the home of the terrorists. I can confirm that President Rand has asked President Brownstone and President Cruise for support. I can confirm that President Brownstone is in the White House, and President Cruise is in transit to Washington, D.C. If I were President Grameniko or Bloomberg, I’d be very concerned to know that the previous two presidents are in the White House advising President Rand. I can only imagine what those three are thinking up. President Brownstone isn’t known as a forgiving man. Remember he isn’t and never was a career politician. He spent most of his adult life in the US Marine Corps.”