“Thank you for coming so early in the morning, everyone,” began the President. “I’ve asked you all to be here today because I felt it was important to make sure the leaders of Congress know what was about to happen and why. As you know, there have been an unprecedented number of intelligence leaks since I have taken office. We have worked to address those leaks, and this morning is the first step in doing just that.”
The President paused and looked at the AG and FBI Director before continuing, “I’ve asked the Director of the FBI and the AG to be here to explain the facts of the case. The evidence has been collected, and now it’s time to walk you all through it. This is too big a deal for me to not bring your offices into the loop.”
Concern was written all over the faces in the room. They knew things had not been going well with the war in Ukraine, but this move had them wondering what shoe was about to drop.
The Director of the FBI and the AG began to lay out the evidence and case against the three congressmen and one senator who had been caught committing espionage against the country. At first, the Senate and Congressional minority leaders thought this was a partisan witch hunt, until they heard the audio records, watched the videos, and read the highlighted portions of both emails and text messages. As the President spoke, the reality of what happened began to set in. They could not believe that members of Congress could commit such an open act of treason against the people they had been elected to represent. The Speaker of the House was equally appalled that one of his caucus (a member who sat on the Armed Services Committee no less) had committed acts of espionage, especially during a war that resulted in US service members being killed. He was seething with anger.
They were further aghast by the number of other high-level government officials that had been identified in the dragnet. “What is being done about all of this?” asked the Speaker, horrified.
The AG answered, “These individuals are being arrested right now while this meeting is taking place. A press conference is being scheduled to take place within an hour, at which time, the President will announce the findings. The FBI Director and I will also speak to the press.”
The President looked intently at both of the party leaders. “I want to assure both sides that despite what we’ve learned today, the war is still going on. The country and our military still need your support. I ask that we put aside our differences and come together as one country, one people, to defeat the Russians and ensure the Chinese do not threaten our allies.”
Gates thought to himself, “Man, I hope the Congressional leaders can finally unite for the good of the country.”
As the meeting broke up, everyone headed to the White House press room to watch the President give his address. The media largely sat there in stunned silence, shocked by the information the President had just given them. Many suddenly realized they had been played by Russian intelligence, that they had unwittingly been a pawn of a foreign power. When the AG and the Director of the FBI laid out the evidence, it suddenly became clear how they had also been complicit in all of this.
Once the statements were complete, there was about fifteen seconds of complete silence. However, as soon as the first journalist raised their hand to start asking a question, the room erupted into a din of hungry wolves, each trying to speak over one another to get their words heard above the others. The Attorney General and the Director of the FBI managed to stay professional despite the ravenous crowd.
The American people were enraged by these revelations. On social media, the vast majority of the country was fuming, railing against the Russians and the Chinese for their involvement. People were demanding a response, calling for action. Most of all, people wanted revenge.
Pacific Pivot
Rear Admiral James Lomas was spoiling for a fight as the USS Carl Vinson raced towards Okinawa. His good friend, Rear Admiral Munch, had been killed the other day when the remnants of his carrier strike group had been destroyed in the Black Sea. It was bad enough to suffer the defeat of the Bush carrier group-losing his friend and several thousand sailors, many of whom he had served with, only added to the insult.
Unfortunately, his strike group was not being transferred to the Atlantic to fight the Russians. They had been ordered to leave San Diego and head for Okinawa. They were going to link up with the Reagan carrier strike group and bolster the US presence in the Pacific. If things did not turn into unmitigated conflict with the Chinese, then they may head up to the North Pacific and attack the Russian Pacific fleet. A couple of Russian submarines had already been sunk in the Pacific since the start of the war.
Captain Michael Richards, the captain of the Carl Vinson Supercarrier, walked up to the admiral, handing him a report that had just come in from one of their destroyers. “Sir, one of the destroyers is reporting a submarine contact, roughly sixty miles from our current position,” he announced.
Admiral Lomas took the report and digested the information quickly. Sixty miles was still outside their designated protective bubble. “Do we know if its Russian or Chinese?” he asked, hoping to get some better clarity on the threat.
“It appears to be Chinese. A Yuan-class, one of their newest and quietest diesel submarines. I ordered additional anti-submarine warfare (ASW) assets to the area,” the captain said, wanting to assure the Admiral that he was taking every precaution he could.
“Excellent job, Captain. Send a message over to the Reagan and let them know of the contact as well. I want to make sure they are tracking the submarine. The last thing we need is for one of our carriers to get ambushed by a Russian or Chinese submarine,” instructed the admiral.
Admiral Lomas turned to find his operations officer. “Commander Ryan, what is the status of the PLAN fleet in the area?” he asked, wanting to know if the Chinese had any serious naval assets nearby.
Commander Ryan had been the operations officer on the Carl Vinson for two years. Prior to that, he had done a tour at US Pacific Command. Much of his naval career had been spent in the Pacific, so he was well-versed in what the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was capable of.
“Sir, in our area, they appear to only have a handful of destroyers and roughly a dozen submarines,” Commander Ryan replied. “The majority of their ships, including their three carriers, are south of us off the coast of Vietnam, supporting their ground forces.” As he spoke, Ryan pointed out the locations of the various ships on the digital map board.
The admiral took a moment to zoom in on the different types of PLAN subs for himself. “Hmm…” he thought. “This seems odd.”
“Why do you suppose they have nearly all their advanced submarines up north here with us, as opposed to down south with the bulk of their fleet?” Lomas asked.
“I thought about that earlier today. The best assumption I could come up with is that they know their surface ships would not fare well against ours. It’s their submarines that can cause us some damage. They are most likely keeping their prized subs in our area, in case they feel a need to use them. Frankly Admiral, I do not believe them to be a threat right now. They have stripped most of the land-based aircraft from our area of responsibility and sent them down south to support their ground operations in Vietnam. If they were planning something against our fleet, I don’t think they would have stripped away so much of their land-based air support units along with nearly half of their sub fleet,” Commander Ryan responded. He sounded confident, but the admiral could tell that he was just offering up his best educated guess.