It took him a second to realise he was down on the ground and still alive, and he ran his hands over himself as he sought injuries. He felt pain in his chest whenever he breathed; shrapnel from an exploding cannon shell had come through the side of the cockpit but struck the 9mm Berretta he wore in the shoulder harness. The pistol had probably saved his life in a way not intended by the manufacturer, but it would never fire again. Arndeker was peppered with minor wounds from tiny pieces of shrapnel, including shards of Perspex but he was ninety nine per cent good to go, in body at least. There was nothing to prevent the flight surgeon from applying some sticking plasters and marking him fit for duty. He removed the Beretta from its holster and stared at it, perhaps he couldn’t put a round through some fleshy part of his body but maybe he could bludgeon a knee cap, and then they couldn’t make him fly again could they, at least not for a while?
He heard the pounding of feet approaching and looked over his shoulder. Men were running toward him, running past the dispersals in which sat the twisted and the charred skeletons of two A-10s. The blast walls on three sides had not protected them from the liquid fire of napalm.
The wreckage of his own F-16 belched smoke and flame a few hundred metres away and at the opposite end of the runway the Gripen burned fiercely, whilst in the field beyond was another burning F-16, that of his wingman. He was a squadron commander without a squadron, a pilot without an aircraft to fly or any nerve remaining to fight. The nearest man was too close now for him to be able to incapacitate himself without what he saw as his own cowardice being plainly obvious. He allowed the damaged firearm to fall from his fingers and sat, with shoulders slumped in abject despair.
The stresses of this day of days showed upon everyone present in the room.
All stood as the President entered and took his seat, waving everyone down.
“Sit, everyone please sit.”
General Shaw remained upstanding, his briefing notes laid out before him with thick red marker pen annotations here and there.
“Mr President?”
“Go ahead General.” The President wagged a message slip in his hand.
“I got this a couple of minutes ago so start with Guiana, how bad is it and how badly does it screw up Guillotine?”
A map of South America appeared on the screen behind Henry and he cleared his throat.
“As you are aware Mr President, the ESA facility on the equator has been attacked but it was not a result of a security leak?”
Henry addressed the President’s question by bringing up the aerial photographs of the surfaced Typhoon and Kilo. His eyes flicked momentarily to the CIA director but Terry ignored the look.
“No Mr President, there is no possible way that this attack could have been put together within the timeframe of our formulating Guillotine.” He pointed to the huge Russian submarine.
“This is a Typhoon, that is to say that ‘Typhoon’ is NATO’s designation for Russia’s largest class of submarines carrying ICBMs. However this one has been extensively modified to provide at sea refuelling and replenishment for diesel electric submarines such as this Kilo class beside it.”
The picture altered to the computer enhanced photograph that clearly showed the fuelling hose connecting both vessels.
The next photograph was of the submersible upon the Kilo’s rear casing.
“These were taken a week ago by an Argentinian P3 Orion out of Tierra del Fuego which attacked and sank both vessels. But the sinking’s were only made public after a delay of several days.”
The President stared long and hard at the photograph on the screen.
“What is the sailing time for a diesel submarine from China?”
“Three to four weeks the cross the Pacific with refuelling along the way, Mr President.” Henry replied.
“The conversion of the Typhoon was most certainly carried out pre-war sir, so it is entirely possible that this was being planned as long ago as two years.” He did not need to add that the infiltration by Chinese intelligence agents had made discovery of this preparation by the NSA or CIA highly unlikely.
At last the President nodded, satisfied that their best hope was not already doomed.
“The attack failed and we can still provide satellite support, sir.” General Shaw assured him.
“I spent a half hour on the phone with the French Premier.” The President said. “I have to say that I was having trouble reading his reaction. I expected Gallic rage but he was surprisingly reticent for someone who has almost had some of his sovereign territory nuked, he certainly seems to be taking it better than I did.” The President had a gut feeling that the French were not likely to just shrug off a nuclear attack, even one that had been defeated.
“Our people in Russia almost had the difficulty factor of their mission doubled Joseph, so look at it from that angle instead.” The President took a sip of water.
“Now, as you will notice there are just we few of us members of the choir present, so go ahead Terry, the floor is all yours?”
Terry smiled at the President.
“Did you ever get one of those discs through the mail from a company offering free Internet time, where you load the disc into your PC and it connects you to the company’s server?”
It had taken a little longer than Terry Jones had predicted for the secrets of the CD-ROM to give themselves up.
The President nodded in agreement to Terry’s question of course; there had been a time when the things had been a modern day plague with the postman delivering the unsolicited offerings from various competing companies almost daily.
“Well this disc lets us in through a backdoor to the PRC’s space and satellite program.” Terry held the item aloft.
“Is this true?”
“Yes sir, indeed it is, however as a spook I prefer this feature………..” The plasma screen on the wall of the briefing room had been showing western Germany and the positions of the opposing units; it now changed to depict the Philippines and events there from the Peoples Republic’s perspective.
“Oh my word…” The President found himself on his feet without consciously rising from his seat.
“How are we seeing this, how is this possible…can we look at all area’s their forces are engaged in?”
“Each operation is password protected but they can be cracked, as we have in fact already begun to do.” Terry pointed out.
“The late and probably very little lamented Comrade Peridenko, was no fool Mister President. I have already said that I think he was planning a coup, and I now think he was planning on dissolving the partnership with China once he had attained the Premiership. This disc could give a wise man one hell of an advantage.”
The President’s response to his CIA chief’s observation was one of unsubtle sarcasm.
“Oh really, you think!”
Terry had been in the business far too long to let something as minor as a President’s sarcastic retorts faze him.
“Yes sir, I do.” Terry responded. “Just as I know that he could just as easily have blown the whole deal by being too obvious, because if the PRC get the slightest suspicion that someone is reading their mail, they’ll change their access codes and encryption in a New York minute.”
The President was quiet for a moment as he thought about that and Terry allowed him the time to let it sink in before gesturing toward the screen.