“One thing I want to make sure we are clear on. Get the word to our troops that I want no incidents of harming civilians during this operation. Take the time to mark your targets and only go for the troops. I also don’t want to hear of anything that might smack as a war crime. We will treat all civilians with dignity and helpfulness. That’s why I ordered all that new equipment and have the engineers following the ground troops. We will not be the bad guys in this. We are doing this because we have been forced to and our goal is to bring back the peace. For every city and town we liberate, I want electricity restored and food brought in. I want doctors to treat the civilians along with the troops. We help the civilians get through the rest of this winter then continue on. Yes, I know there may be a few who will oppose us, but we can deal with that in a humanitarian way. It’s hard to hurt people who are trying to help you. Does everyone understand that?” Hammond insisted.
Moynahan grinned. “Been pushing that through to the troops since they got here. I will personally get involved if something comes up. I can’t speak for the others, but the troops on the ground know the score.”
“It’s the same for all of us,” said Sir Richard. “That message you sent spelled out things loud and clear. I know that the equipment you ordered to accomplish this will be going in right after the initial landings. The food will be the same as our troops eat. I even recommended that we let the civilians see that they are eating the same as the troops. It should make a difference.”
“Good. Have the Maxwell Panels been installed on all the equipment?”
“Everything,” said Ames. “I even have a small one on top of the Humvees. We’ve had to re-think how we do business, but this should make us invisible to their radars, missiles, aircraft, anything they might try and shoot at us. The word is to leave the things on and don’t turn them off. I did a test of my own. You can’t even lock onto a Humvee with anything once those things are installed. We’re going to clean house,” he said enthusiastically.
“Maybe, but I’m not going to count on all this. If it all works, great. If not, we are going to have to fight longer and harder than we have before,” said Hammond. “You all have done an amazing job of getting things together while keeping the Russians at bay. But now it’s all on us. We have the people, material and the support we need to do the job, but now we actually have to do it.” He turned to the meteorologist. “How does the weather look for all this?”
Colonel Jeffrey Standish scratched his chin. “Well, sir, considering it is the dead of winter and we are covering half the world, I would say the weather is pretty fair. On the day of departure the Black Sea area should be sunny with about a ten knot wind. Seas should be mildly choppy but not bad. Snow will be about a foot deep once ashore, which should not be an issue with our vehicles. In the Pacific, there will be overcast with a fifteen knot wind along the landing sites, but the waves shouldn’t be more than five or ten feet. The temperatures will be about minus five or so with a ferocious wind chill, but our troops have been provided with the gear they need to keep warm. Along the Polish frontier there will be clear skies with temps in the thirties. In all, the weather isn’t ideal, but given the season, it couldn’t get much better. Our only concern is in the Pacific where the weather can change at a moment’s notice, but the general outlook is favorable,” he said solemnly.
Hammond looked around the table. They had been working this out for three months and now the decision had to be made. “Gentlemen, now I feel like what Eisenhower felt just before D-Day. We have been planning and gathering for quite a while. We happy few are now truly a band of brothers. We know each other, we share all our confidences and we have sweat over the difficult tasks. We happy few must now make the ultimate decision. From what you are telling me, everything is in place, the scheduling is set and the weather is right to begin our push back into Russia. Our intelligence tells us that the Russian population is growing tired and weak from our efforts to shut down their power and food and blaming their own government for what has happened. Our radio broadcasts are keeping them informed of what has been happening and why. We have the technology we asked for to overwhelm our enemy. There is absolutely no reason not to launch Operation Arctic Wind and put the full force of our Allied forces against them. So, as the Commander of the Allied forces, I order you to go,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a message. “But to begin this operation I asked for a special prayer. It is my hope you will join with me,” Hammond said solemnly. He began to read.
“Heavenly Father,
We come into this world with a purpose,
a purpose to leave the world better than we found it,
because life is God’s gift to us,
and what we make out of it is our gift back to God.
Scripture tells us
there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for their brother.
That challenge is before us today.
We ask for the courage, dedication and strength to fulfill our destiny and purpose in this life, as we defend the rights of freedom and justice for all those in need.
So sail on shipmates,
for our course is true.
The voyage is short they say,
and have no fear of the rocks and reefs,
for God will guide our way.
In His name we pray,
Amen.”
Hammond didn’t read an additional phrase, “and thank God for the redheads,” which was a running joke between Father Danner and the crew of the Iowa. He knew the phrase was meant for him personally.
The men in the room all responded with their own “Amen,” and looked back at their Commander. “May God be with us in this task,” Hammond said.
The officers around the table got up and began making their way back to their staffs. The word went out within the hour and across half the globe, things began to move.
The operator was carefully watching his monitor for activity on the Russian satellite. After a pause, a special code suddenly appeared on the screen. “I have the code,” he called out.
As planned, after the code was completed, a button was pressed and a digital signal began uploading to the Russian satellite.
“Is it working?” asked a supervisor.
Without looking up from the screen the operator nodded. “I blocked the signal from Moscow and we are inserting our own. Just a few more seconds.”
In all it took three minutes to upload the data. The Russian code was still being sent for a few seconds after that, but it didn’t matter. As the data ended, there was another pause and the operator allowed the final sequence to be added. The operator sat back in his chair. “Done,” he said with a smile.
“How do we know they bought it?” the supervisor asked.
“The first sequence was the alert code. It told the satellite to accept the data. We inserted our own data at that point. The final sequence was the coded instruction to distribute it to the units. For all intents and purposes, the satellite will verify that it all came from Russian headquarters,” he said matter-of-factly. “Now every unit will sign in to the satellite and download their weapons control changes, and that will happen starting right about now,” he said.
Almost on cue the monitor screen began receiving requests for upload. The satellite system immediately began sending the changes to each unit requesting the data. From that point on, it only took thirty minutes for the whole process to be complete.