Nikoli had collected the survivors from five aircraft that had been shot down before reaching their DZ’s, sixty-seven men, correction, thirty-five men now that the village had fallen, with which to delay the enemy.
All he could hope to do now was make a fighting withdrawal until they reached the first airborne brigade at its blocking point.
The large Boeing in its blue and white livery was virtually empty; its five passengers were the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Senator Rickham and their aides. The parties occupied opposite ends of the aircraft and General Shaw had no wish for the seating arrangements to alter, so it was with some exasperation he reacted to Rickham’s appearance at his end. The aircraft had intended landing in the UK and collecting the politicians, doing a quick turn around and returning. Henry had waved off suggestions that they should have an escort across the Atlantic and back.
“From Europe to the US certainly, but that’s it. A no fly zone around the aircraft will suffice for the route in.” Mid way across the ocean they received news that their intended passengers were in Germany, not England, so the flight plan changed.
“Shaw, there are fighters on our wings; they appeared about ten minutes ago… are you attempting to intimidate me?”
Henry glanced out of the window, seeing not US aircraft but German Tornados, and managed to refrain from grinning in anticipation.
Rickham’s two aides had trailed dutifully after him, to Henry they looked more like whipping boys and girls than PAs, and the general suspected it was Rickham’s ability to bully then that had been the deciding factor in the senator s selection of them.
“Why would you think that I would want to intimidate you senator?”
“Because it’s the only thing that motivates Neanderthal’s, and so you think that it must be the same for everyone else.” he snapped back.
Henry kept his tone light.
“These would be the same Neanderthal’s that are the only thing keeping you from being forced to speak Russian… or Chinese, depending on who occupies the United States first, if we lose?”
“Don’t get smart with me Shaw… and you can address me as Sir!”
“Actually senator, I can’t… but to get back to the fighter escort, what makes you think that they would obey orders from me?”
Rickham turned puce.
“You’re the goddamned chairman Shaw; send them away… right now!”
“I’m afraid senator that the German air force does not take orders from American generals.”
Rickham opened his mouth to speak and then stopped, ducking down to peer out at the Tornados.
“What the hell are they doing out here!”
“It is not out here to them, we are entering German airspace.”
It took a second for that to factor in with the senator. “Shaw, we’re supposed to collection the Europeans from some place called Northolt, what’s going on?”
“At this critical time the British PM and the German Chancellor are seeing for themselves how their men are holding up, so we are landing at RAF Gütersloh and meeting them there.” A full two hours ago an airman had informed him of the change of destination, and General Shaw had told him to save his shoe leather and return to the communications centre. Henry had lied to the young man about informing the senator because he wanted to see his eyes when he realised he was in a war zone.
“Don’t worry its all of ten minutes away from the front… as the Flanker flies.” Henry smiled cheerily at the politician who had turned a worrying shade of grey, and now turned and pushed his aides unceremoniously out of the way as he hurried back to his seat.
The news that the aircraft was coming was kept as a closely guarded secret by the military, the ‘Air Force One’ call sign was only used when the President was aboard so the next available military flight number was used. Civilians have radar screens too, and the establishing of a safe corridor to Germany, along with a fighter escort gave the game away. One air traffic controller at Reims ATC took a break, and made a call on his mobile phone from the car park of the air traffic control centre.
As ballsey as the US president had revealed himself to be, no one in the KGB really thought for one moment that the President would come so close to the front, in so visible a manner.
Nevertheless, they scramble activated a sleeper cell once the destination became obvious.
There was almost absolute silence aboard the USS Twin Towers; men spoke in whispers as they went about their business. Captain Pitt was in sonar with a headset on, staring unseeingly at a mug of coffee before him on the commandeered workstation. He had been sat there with his shoulders hunched in concentration for over an hour, he hadn’t acknowledged the sailor who had placed the mug there, and he hadn’t touched it. A film had formed on its surface and it had grown cold. They had been in company with a Canadian vessel, the diesel submarine HMCS Victoria, until the Canadian went ahead to increase the chances of interception. That had been four hours before, and then seventy minutes ago there had been the sound of a torpedo in the water, followed by a submerged explosion and breaking up noises. Since then there had been nothing but the normal sounds of the sea, no clue as to what had occurred.
His head rose an inch as he heard something, and he looked sharply at the operator next to him.
“I don’t think it’s the Canadian, sir.” He consulted the digital read-outs before him but pulled a face. “Too far off to get a range or bearing Captain. Roughly east northeast is the best I can do.”
The faint sound, carried across ten miles of ocean by freak thermal eddies faded out.
“Jeez, those Canadians build quiet boats.”
“They didn’t build them.” Rick Pitt murmured. “HMCS Victoria used to be HMS Unseen, they were the Upholder class, built by the Brits and then sold almost as soon as they had been launched.”
The young sonar operator frowned.
“Why the hell did they want to go and pull a dumb stunt like that… those boats are ghosts?”
“Asshole's with more braid than brains or integrity, toadying to bigger assholes in government… ” his voice tailed off as something again sounded from across the horizon.
Pitt wasn’t the expert here, and he was looking at the expert but saying nothing and waiting to be told what it was he was hearing.
“That’s a short sprint and a knuckle… nuclear plant, not the Canadian diesel… bearing zero eight zero degrees, maybe fifteen thousand yards, give or take.” The young man eventually told him. A ‘knuckle’ is a noisy area of turbulence caused by a fast moving submarine making a radical turn, and the Captain didn’t think it likely that the enemy had done it out of boredom.
“Transients Captain” the operator murmured. “A torpedo in the water… there’s another one… and yet another.” He glanced at his panel. “Different bearings, zero seven seven degrees, zero eight zero and zero eight five degrees… differing high pitch screw sounds, two are Russian… we got us a gunfight out there, sir!”
It got quite noisy in the headsets and the sonarman kept him informed as best he could as to who was doing what. “Someone’s runnin’… it’s the Nuke, an Alpha I reckon… noise makers… more noise makers… that’s the Canadian… can’t hear the third sucker, but there’s definitely three boats out there… that’s a knuckle… hull poppin’, someone’s going up… now they’ve stopped… transient, Victoria got another one off ”
Captain Pitt closed his eyes, trying to picture what was going on out there. There were now four torpedoes in the water, all acoustic and re-attacking if they got dummied. As much as he would have liked to have been in a position to assist the Canadians, submarine warfare doesn’t work like that. There is no IFF, identification friend or foe devices underwater, no easy way of telling who was who, and torpedoes are not exactly discriminating in whom they sink. A furball below the waves between multiple antagonists would undoubtedly result in friendly fire deaths, what the Brits called ‘blue on blues’.