WAR (13 page)

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President Grameniko orders troops to leave the bunker to retrieve the leaflets. When Grameniko reads the leaflets, he explodes in anger. “I want to strike America, find me a way!”

Marshal Zarkov whispers to his staff who check their laptops, they pass a handwritten note back to the Marshal who reads it saying, “Mr. President, we have some cruise missile submarines and a few bomber bases left which can strike the Americans. However, I have to ask you not to do so. They easily destroyed our strategic silos, they knew where our mobile missiles were located; they were even able to take out our boats in the Kara Sea Bastion. Sir, if you launch at the Americans they will strike our cities. Their KEW weapons move so quickly; we can’t intercept them. We’ll lose Moscow and millions of people.”

“Marshal, what did they use to hit us with? Where were the missiles launched from?”

“Mr. President, there were reports from the GRU and FSB that the Americans had developed a space weapon they code named ‘Thor’s Hammer.’ It’s a very simple system. On one hand, I’m not sure it should be classified as a weapon since it has no explosives in it. Think of a tank SABOT round, the Hammer is a long rod of depleted uranium. They are launched out of a satellite that sits in high orbit, 25,000 miles up. The Hammer is ejected by compressed gas; the computer aims the Hammer at a spot on Earth. The kinetic energy exceeds that of a nuke; they are perfect for taking out buried bunkers. They can penetrate over 1,000 feet of compacted Earth and fifty feet of steel reinforced cement. They must have some sort of GPS guidance that gives them pinpoint accuracy. Look at the images of the damage. They usually hit dead center of our silos. There’s not a bunker anywhere in the world that can survive a KEW strike. Even their NORAD Mountain could be taken out by a KEW strike.”

“Why don’t we have this system?”

“Mr. President, it’s very expensive, when we presented it to you; you rejected it as something out of a science-fiction story.”

“Was it explained to me that the Americans were building such a system?”

“Sir, we didn’t know for sure they were building it.”

“I think we’re safe to strike back at them; surely they used up all of their space weapons, and we should be able to hit them with our bombers and cruise missiles.”

“Mr. President, please don’t launch another attack. If they have more weapons, we’ll be next on their target list. Even this buried bunker can be taken out by one of their KEW weapons.”

“Bullshit, nothing can touch this bunker. It was designed to survive a direct hit by a 350KT nuclear weapon. We are safe here.”

“Sir, what about the people in Moscow above us? If the KEW weapons strike us, they will kill many of our people.”

“Who cares about them? We’re fighting for much more than a few people. We’re fighting to ensure the Motherland survives and is viable as one of the world leaders.”

“Mr. President, I beg you not to launch an attack against the American cities. They will strike back taking our cities out. President Brownstone set their new policy that any terrorist organization that strikes one of their cities will lose their country.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“Sir, yes they would. Please trust me.”

“Marshal, I’ll compromise with you, we’ll hold the cruise missiles while we launch our second front attack on the USA, our army should be in position soon to take Washington, DC. We’ll quickly invade and capture their capital before they can respond. Issue the orders to launch the second front.”

“Yes Mr. President. A wise decision sir.”

Chapter 8

Beverly Hills has been turned into an armed camp. Police, DepLIES agents, and Russian troops have blocked off all access to the streets within ten blocks of the Gray House. Those who live within four blocks of the Gray House, are forced out of their homes, they are told they can’t return until the current hostilities are completed. They’re told this is to protect them in case the USA sends their air force to bomb the Gray House and the bombs miss, they could strike the homes nearby. Surface to air missiles are being towed to the city to protect the LSA government home and offices. The world famous Rodeo Drive has been turned into a mess area for the security troops. The Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hilton Hotel have been taken over as temporary homes for the residents kicked out of their homes. Beverly Hills High School’s gym is turned into a temporary home for many of the hired help in Beverly Hills. The Beverly Hills Hotel and High School are both allowed to use their generators to provide electrical power for those forced from their homes.  Colonel Grover’s team is stopped before they can get within ten blocks. The security forces in Beverly Hills have acquired generators from stores and homes to provide electrical power. These are connected directly to bright highway construction type lights which illuminate a four-block area around the Gray House. The lights overlap, canceling any shadows of anyone attempting to breach the security zone around the Gray House. Colonel Grover whispers, “Damn, look at the security. You’d think there’s a war on or someone is going to try to kill President Bloomberg.”

The DepLIES filed paperwork designating the Rodeo Drive area as a safety and medical zone requiring electrical use. The paperwork was sent to the USA, where a mid-level Department of Justice bureaucrat approved the request thus providing the security teams with additional electrical power to power computers, printers, and more lights.

Grover’s team smirks at the Colonel’s well-known lack of a sense of humor. Captain Black whispers, “Colonel, I suggest we pull back. Maybe see if we can merge with the hired help to get some information about the area. Even if we called for an Aurora over flight, we wouldn't be able to see enough detail to plan an attack on the Gray House.”

“Captain, good idea. Let’s pull back now and return tomorrow before dawn. Let’s see if the help goes to the homes or if they stay in the school gym tomorrow.”

“Yes sir.

Grover reviews all of the surveillance reports, he thinks out loud,
Maybe we should call in a precision bombing run. I don’t see how to break through their security without a running firefight that could harm a lot of innocents. We would also have to make sure Bloomberg is home if we called in a bombing mission. The optics would be really bad for us if we bombed the Gray House and he’s not even there. We’ll be giving him a platform to tell his people he survived the worst we could throw at him. We’ll be trying to take him out while making him stronger. If we killed a group of innocents, he'd use the images against us. He’d rally additional international support against us. I’d love to arrange a gas explosion for the entire street, he’ll blame us. A gas explosion will be much harder to prove who caused it. Another dream would be to find a way to set off an earthquake to demolish the Gray House. I have to think about how, or if it’s possible to create an earthquake without it pointing to us.
“Guys, let’s leave four on recon duty while the rest of us withdraw to the safe house. We have some planning to do.”

Grover’s team silently slips out of Beverly Hills.

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Venezuela agrees to honor their treaty with the LSA, They send their most experienced field commander, General Aguilera, who fought in Africa and in battles across South America, to lead five battalions of troops to America’s southern border. Their plan is to repair the drug cartel’s bridge which they’ll use to cross into Arizona. General Aguilera sends two platoons in advance to check the condition of the bridge. Sargent Jose Herndiez reports to his General, “Jefe, the North Americans are doing us a major favor; they are repairing the bridge. If we delay our advance four or five days, they may finish the repair on the bridge for us. We’ll be able just to crush their feeble attempts to guard it; we’ll be able to enter the weak underbelly of America while their focus is on their sin city.”

“Sargent, a very good idea. Tell the men we will rest here for five days. We’ll let our good neighbors repair the bridge so we can capture it intact.” The Venezuelans make camp; they post guards and string barbed wire around their tents to keep the locals from trying to sneak in and steal their supplies. The problem that concerns General Aguilera the most is the local cartels who have been watching his convoy for the previous two weeks. There’s been one short and fierce battle between the Venezuela’s point group and the Mexican drug cartels. The cartels thought they were tough; they’re used to winning every battle they fought because they’d never fought a real opponent. They laughed at the Venezuelans; they laughed until they started the battle against a real army who crushed the cartel troops. 

A small remote controlled model airplane carrying an HD camera flies over the Venezuelans; it’s being controlled by an Arizona militia hidden on the America side of the border. The small UAV was assembled from parts of a remote controlled toy and an RC airplane. The militia commander, Jake Crossing, sat in his tent looking at the images being sent back from the small UAV, he calls out over his shoulder, “Rob, we’ve got a problem here. It looks like we’ve got an entire army sitting on the other side of the border. We better get some help over here right away. There’s too many of them for us to handle on our own.”

“Jake, how much help, do you figure we need?”

“Uh, most of the Army, these guys got tanks, towed artillery, and mortars. There must be 10,000 people, most likely even more. They’re just sitting on their side of the border. I bet they're waiting for the bridge to be repaired. Rob, get on the horn and find us some help. Get the rest of the boys to start digging trenches and preparing firing positions. We’re about to get a load of crap landing on us. Maybe the Air Force can bomb them before they cross the border. If they get across the river, we’ve got nothing to stop their tanks and armored vehicles. Fort Huachuca is the only local Army base, but it’s an intelligence center, maybe they can send us some people, also call Luke Air Force base. They’ve got fighters. Put out the red alert, DEFCON 1 notice for all of the state’s militias. Make it URGENT. Those guys can get here within a couple of days.”

One of the Venezuelan’s soldiers keep hearing a buzzing noise, at first he thought it was some large insect that was buzzing him, he looked up, noticing the sunlight reflect off of something small in the sky. He pointed it out to others; none knew what they were seeing when a captain came by to see what was going on. He looked up where the troops were looking, the captain brought his binoculars to his eyes, he focused on the small UAV, he said, “Shit, it’s a UAV, someone shoot it quickly before it can report on us.” Two men grab their AK74s, firing on auto, it takes four magazines worth of ammo for one of the men to hit the UAV.  The troops cheered bringing it down. On the other side of the river, Jake watches the men trying to shoot his UAV down, Jake yelled, “We are about to lose our eye in the sky, do we have another?” Before any could respond, the bullets rip the UAV apart. Jake said, “Well they know we know they are there. They don’t know who we are. We need to look like a much larger force than we are. Rig some screens to drag behind the trucks, run them around the back side of the camp to generate a lot of dust, from afar they will think we have a lot of people, pull the mufflers off the trucks, they’ll sound like we have more of them than we do. Light up as many camp fires as we can, light up some of the 50 gallon drums, set up as many tents as we have. I want us to look like we’re a 5,000 man camp. We’ve got to hurry, if I were their commander, I’d send people across the border tonight to check us out.”

Everyone in the militia camp runs following Jakes orders. In a few hours, the camp looks like it houses many thousands of troops. Crew served weapons are manned by uniforms stuffed with straw. From a distance, it looks like the border is covered with machine guns and automatic grenade launchers. Trucks drive back and forth behind a small hill sending up large dust clouds, making it look like there are hundreds of vehicles at the camp. As the sun sets Jake has his people wearing all black, their skin is blacked out, twenty-five of them are on the Mexican side of the border armed with silenced ARs and silenced handguns. They’re hoping to capture the recon squad they know has to be coming soon, to take a look at their camp. Jake hopes to overpower and take some members of the recon squad captive to get information from them.

Jake’s radio operator runs into Jake’s tent, “Jake, I’ve got a Colonel Ricks at Luke on the line.”

Jake takes the handset, “Colonel, this is the Jake Crossing from the Southern Arizona Militia. We’re sitting in a camp on the border; we sent a small homemade UAV across the border where we found a large army sitting on the Mexican side. We need some help.”

“Jake, this is Colonel Ricks. We appreciate your people being our trip line. I understand your people discovered something across the border.” 

“Colonel Ricks, you might say that. We sent a UAV across the border not expecting to find anything; boy were we surprised. We found an entire army sitting on their asses across the border.” 

“Jake, can you send me the images and video your UAV sent you? We’d like to review it.”

“Colonel, we can do that, I need your email or an FTP site to post it too. The video files are large files. We didn’t record sound. The images are not great because we built the bird from a combination of different RC model planes.”

“Jake, don’t worry about the quality. I’ll have my IT people give you a site to post the videos to. I’ll call you back in about twenty minutes after we review your images. For your information, I have already ordered a couple of F16s and F35s to be armed and placed on hot standby. If your images prove out, you’ll have your air support. Do any of your people have experience as forward air controllers or experience calling in artillery?”