“We, or rather the men on the ground behind enemy lines in the PRC, have met with a serious set-back and they have taken casualties.”
Leaning forward in his seat the President interrupted.
“Are they compromised?”
With a shake of the head Henry explained.
“There has been a great deal of snowfall in the past week out there, and the storm that had them socked in added a shit load more. The teams were scaling a rock face of about 500 feet in height when a passing PRC helicopter triggered an avalanche. Two men are dead including one of the team leaders, another three have injuries that will prevent them continuing, and in addition to this, three of the laser designators have been destroyed.”
The President breathed the Eff word.
“Can they continue as planned?”
“That’s a negative, sir.”
“How long do we have before we need to give them a revised plan?”
“It is not necessary sir; Major Dewar is going for the ICBM field. He has left two of the slightly injured behind to look after the fracture cases and he has taken the remainder, plus the remaining designators westwards toward the silos.”
“Is he authorised to make that decision, General?” The President had been trying to visualise the condition the teams were now in, and the adverse weather conditions they had encountered he assumed that with their losses the commander would have requested instructions.
“Firstly, he is the commander on the ground and knows their capabilities better than we do, and secondly he is British.” Henry shrugged.
“He doesn’t work for us Mister President.”
The President glared at Henry.
“You know I didn’t mean that General. This is a joint operation, but doesn’t he have to ask permission before he writes off half of the mission goals?”
General Shaw nodded an apology.
“It is a simple matter of arithmetic, and Dewar knows he doesn’t have enough to do both jobs anymore so he’s going to neutralise the greatest threat.”
“Okay then, okay. Is there anything else on that particular element of Equaliser?”
There was nothing more from China and Henry moved on to the North Pacific.
“In stark contrast to the previous item, I now have some feel good news for you, sir.”
The picture was quite hard to make out, mainly owing to the lack of light, but then a darker shape appeared from the left of the screen, travelling right across to disappear out the other side, but the President was unable to make out what it was.
“That was taken by HMS Hood and it has now been digitally cleaned up and enhanced.”
This time everyone could make out the shape of a submarine, and it was not one of their own vessels. It carried a conning tower similar in design to that of a Russian Delta III, but sat much further forward on the hull than on the Russian design, however, the flat topped SLBM compartment, sitting platform-like above the after hull was also a feature in keeping with a Delta.
“The Hood had a firing solution locked down twelve hours before they took these hull shots, but as you can appreciate it was necessary to get close enough to see if it was the Xia or the Chuntian, and they struck gold. They have returned now to tailing the Xia and are about four thousand metres from her.”
The President cleared his throat.
“General, I know you and Mister Jones have given me your assurances already, but are you absolutely certain that this is the only one that they’ve got?”
“Mister President, there was the Changzheng 6, which was also a converted Han but she was lost at sea in the eighties. They don’t have any more, sir.”
“Let’s hope.”
“Roger that.”
It was the best he could have hoped for and he had to settle for that.
“Has the Chuntian been located yet?”
“It cannot be entirely comfortable out there, sort of like being in the woods at night and knowing you are not alone, however Mister President, although we have not yet located the Chuntian, the Xia is now boxed on three sides. We can take her anytime we want and the skippers are one hundred per cent in agreement that they will find Chuntian before she finds them.”
Leaning back in his chair the President signalled for a refill of his coffee mug before speaking.
“So one part of Equaliser is in place, and Guillotine just awaits a location…or do you have something from Russia?”
“No Mr President, only to state that we have three RORSATs dedicated purely for Guillotine that are sat on pads ready to go and that India and Pakistan have begun sabre rattling at one another, as have the Vietnamese and Kampucheans. They have got to the stage where their artillery can be heard sounding off and the casualty reports are quite believable.”
The President was quiet for a while as he thought about the ‘What if’s’, the question marks associated with any operations chances of success or failure.
“What, if anything, can go wrong with those satellites” the President queried “…tropical storms? Sabotage?”
Henry shook his head but in a non-committal fashion.
“Sir, in order to guard against weather problems we will have one at Vandenberg and two on pads down south, on the Ariane launch pad and also on the Soyuz pad.”
The President gave a cold smile.
“Strangely fitting I feel…but please continue General.”
“Hurricanes up here or typhoons down there do not have predictable seasons any more, not since the nukes cooked off in the Atlantic so we are hedging our bets by covering for those eventualities. At worst we will have one RORSAT up when Major Nunro goes after the Premier’s scalp, but we are robbing Peter to pay Paul as it leaves only the smaller commercial European launch pad available down there, and of course Kennedy and Canaveral free for the normal business of keeping satellites up long enough to be effective over the battlefield.” Henry paused to glance at some notes for a second.
“Security is tight at our end and an indefinite lock down is in place but that is going to cause issues soon.”
The President frowned.
“How so?”
“The French have the benefit of a handy jungle and mangrove swamps full of things that will eat you, whereas we have troops on full alert with nothing to keep their highest level of alertness going indefinitely, and with the best will in the world and the best NCOs kicking ass, an unused knife will go dull through lack of use.”
Never having been in that situation the President could only take Henry’s word for it and so he moved along to the mock war between India and Pakistan.
“What are they firing at?”
“Nothing.” Henry shrugged. “Blank rounds only, but the media aren’t being allowed close enough to know the difference.”
“Okay, anything else?”
Henry cleared the screen and held up both hands, crossing his fingers and stating
“No, Mister President.”
The President accepted his coffee with a smile of thanks and consulted his wristwatch.
“Right then people, that will be all for now.” Henry stood along with the rest but felt the President looking at him.
“Stay a while General, I’d like to speak to you about Australia.” Henry regained his seat and sat with his hands together on the table in front of him.
Remembering something the President called over to Terry, halting him half way out the door.
“Oh, Mister Jones?”
Terry stepped aside to allow Ben to exit.
“Yes, sir?”