“What about the Air Force?”
General Foote nodded. “All in place and ready. We have lost about thirty of our front line aircraft since this started. I called up the Warthogs and a few others, but most of our operations are currently being accomplished by the Predators and other drones. They are stealthy and can get in a little more effectively than using manned aircraft. The Supreme Commander just asked for an all-out effort against a column ducking down through Slovakia. They will be on it within an hour. They are on trains and running through mountains so they won’t be the easiest to hit, but we’ll take care of it. According to the current plan, we will begin going in and striking targets just before D-Day. It will be an all-out effort. We will punch holes in the lines along with the Army’s localized drones and the armored spearheads will follow. Just keep in mind, because of the wide area of effort in the planning, we will be spread pretty thin. I won’t be able to hit all the targets, but between all of us, we should keep things pretty much covered. The only thing we have to worry about is their fighters. They have a ton of them and could overwhelm us. I am placing our hopes on our stealth capabilities and the new panels being set into the skin of our aircraft. We’ll keep our fingers crossed,” he said.
“How is that working out, by the way?” the President asked.
Foote chuckled. “My guys are having wet dreams with the idea they can’t be seen. From what I understand the Navy is going all out too.”
“He’s right. I’ll have those panels on my ships by the time they sail next week. Admiral Hustvedt himself flew out in one of the trackers and tried to find one of the equipped ships. They never found a thing on radar. He only found the ships when his pilot visually saw the wakes. That would put him well within a missile envelope. That young friend of Hammond has made a lot of friends in the Navy,” said Johnson.
“Mister President, we are all ready for the kick off. You and I discussed a few other things the other day and I’m glad the NSA and CIA are here to maybe cover this,” Black said.
“Yes, I talked over a few things with our intelligence people and they can now brief on their plans,” said the President turning to look at a couple of people at the end of the table.
Patricia Reed had been with the NSA for nearly twenty years. Starting as an analyst, she had worked her way to a Deputy Director position. She looked forward to sharing her part. “Mister President, Joint Chiefs, most people don’t know that since this started, the United States has been under a cyber-attack as well. We have been getting a lot of stuff coming in from Russian sources. Luckily, we have so far been able to prevent hacks and viruses. The latest was directed at the Pentagon internet and computer systems which would allow a dump of military data to a place in St. Petersburg. I won’t go into details, but right now they think they have successfully hacked into the system and are retrieving data. In reality, we are controlling the data they receive. The same is going on in one of the Navy systems. On a more positive side, our people are now into their military hardware programs. It seems that once a week each command’s computer systems call into the central computer system to receive any updates in programming for their onboard computers. We also are locked into their central command headquarters where they issue command orders for each commander down to the unit level. It’s like a central messaging system. Right now, we are doing nothing. But twenty four hours prior to D-Day, we will be taking over those systems and recalibrating their computers and command orders. The nice thing is, they will be able to send out orders and changes, but we will be intercepting them and making small changes to throw them off. We are hoping they will think it is a human error on their part. Our work will not happen all the time and things should appear as normal,” she said. “Since they started this mess, they will get to feel the pain of what we can do to them.”
“Are you limited to these two areas?” asked General Foote.
Reed grinned. “No, sir, there are others, but you know we aren’t supposed to share everything we can do,” she said with a wink. The people in the room chuckled.
“Now how about the CIA?” asked the President.
Todd Graham stood. “As many of you know, last week, the Russians shot down the KH-14 over that part of Europe. They also tried to intercept our Eyeball system in place. We were successful in stopping that intercept. Under the President’s orders, beginning one day before the kickoff, we will target and destroy every Russian satellite over the Earth. This means their communications, weather, tracking, spy satellites and any other piece of hardware in space will be destroyed. That alone should give the Russians a few things to think about. We estimate it will reduce their communications effectiveness by about eighty percent. It will also piggyback onto the NSA efforts, because we will hit the communications satellites after the updates and orders have been transmitted. This will force them to transmit updates via high frequency radio or single side band. That will be much more difficult for them to do and will make it easier for us to disrupt,” he said.
“Isn’t this a violation of treaty?” asked one of the men.
“We are in a war. Treaties don’t mean much when people are pulling triggers. If someone pushes the point, we have all the data that shows the Russians violated it first, and that we are justified in our actions,” said Graham.
The president held up his hand. “I do have a finding. My decision. It’s my hope that these two efforts will be beneficial to our forces over there. These agencies are also conducting operations on their own, but the commanders in Europe are aware of their efforts. You need to know about these two in your planning. Now, are there any questions?”
“What about the extra fallout and space debris all these hits will make?” asked General Black.
“Without going into details, we shouldn’t have any. There should be no bits and pieces flailing around that might hit our own systems,” said Graham. There were nods around the table.
“Quick question about our Link 16. I am relying heavily on its remaining operational. Are we prepared to protect those assets?” asked the CNO.
“We have a special team of people watching for any incursions into that system in particular,” said Reed. “Now that the patch has been issued to convert the Eyeball data into the military data systems at the fleet level, we should be able to keep it running indefinitely.”
“On our side, the Eyeballs are protected and we have systems to protect the other military satellites. The data is transmitted via laser and that should make hacking and interference efforts almost impossible,” said Graham.
“Famous last words,” said Black.
Graham smiled and nodded. “Yea, I almost hated to say that, but in this case, we have been working to protect our systems against such things for years. I have people on the consoles who can make changes in a moment’s notice. If something does get through, we will be there to stop it,” he reassured the group.
Additional questions were asked around the group, but the general consensus was that the United States would be ready. The President looked around the table one last time. “Very well. The operational plans are a go. Everything is being turned over to the Supreme Commander. It will be his decision on when to ultimately kick this thing off. I continue to urge everyone to put all your efforts into supporting the Supreme Commander. He needs all the help he can get. Our job is to see that he has what he needs. Thank you all for your hard work,” he said as he rose from the table. O’Bannon went around the table and thanked everyone there.