“The oligarchy in Berlin are desperate dictators.”
“With no intention whatsoever of surrendering to avoid an apocalypse. They’ve proven that time and again. Like desperate dictators everywhere, they care nothing for the lives of their own citizens. Their intention all along has been to use the threat of apocalypse to get the U.S. to back down.”
“Would we do that? Back down? Ever?”
“If events continue as they have, voters may force Congress to offer an armistice. Let the Axis have Europe and Africa. Let the United Kingdom fend for themselves and go under. That’s exactly what Berlin and Johannesburg have been gunning for all along. Their envoys in Sweden prod ours, then they talk to the international media when we refuse, make Washington look like the heavies, the ones who drag out the war. Put enough pressure on the American public, that pressure gets passed to Capitol Hill. They’d override the President’s veto, we’d have peace of a sort, with our war leader gone from the White House in disgrace. Forget Election Day 2012. Armistice means impeachment. Escapist pacifism quickly takes firm hold.”
“That’s a grim picture.”
“Especially since the Axis wouldn’t be satisfied to just keep what they got. They’d use that lopsided peace to squash the U.S. economically, flush our remaining prestige down the toilet, put a noose of diplomatic isolation around our neck, build up their military might, and eventually have another major stab at the parts of the world they don’t yet control.”
Harley scratched his jaw. “Agreeing to an armistice is a snare, an illusion? It only delays the inevitable?”
“Very much so. Thorough wargame simulations have been performed in the past few months, to see where things could possibly go from here.” Jeffrey tapped the thick hard-copy orders on the desk. “Several independent sets of players and computer models were used, including at the Naval War College. I was assigned to their simulations department before I wangled a transfer to Challenger. I can testify that those folks do objective, reliable, conclusive work. They’re the best.”
“I know. They have a world-class reputation.”
“Other war colleges, private think tanks, consulting firms, were also involved. They all came up with similar results.”
“Which were?…”
“Suppose we continue the war, with the aim to unseat the Axis leadership. How do we do it, and what happens when we try? A D-day-like assault across the English Channel, after a big buildup in Great Britain, is out of the question with tactical nukes in play. Ditto for an amphibious push from North Africa using the Med. And a land-route invasion of Germany, through the Middle East or Asia, will certainly cause the German regime to introduce widespread tactical nuclear weapons on land to defeat our oncoming offensive, no matter how broad the front along which we and our allies attack, and no matter how severe the collateral damage and civilian deaths.”
“Lord.”
“Worse. Following a period of armistice with America if one is indeed arranged, their second wave of aggression would be just as murderous. The juiciest prizes left for grabs, with Russia continuing as Germany’s pseudo-neutral friend, would be the big countries in the Middle East and Asia. With a whole different lineup of targets and objectives then, cross-ocean sea lanes wouldn’t have today’s significance. Tactical nuclear weapons would come into use offensively and defensively, unlimited, on land…. In either of the two potential scenarios, continuing to prosecute the war or granting an armistice, according to our planners the ultimate outcome remains the same. With so many countries getting involved and so much destruction and slaughter in main population centers, the conflict is certain to escalate into wholesale thermonuclear war. The U.S., Russia, China, Israel, Japan, everybody else. Hundreds of millions dead right away, maybe billions, and billions more not long after that if there’s a nuclear winter. The end of modern civilization, maybe the end of humanity.” Jeffrey tapped his orders again to emphasize the reality of what he’d been told in such harsh terms in writing.
“So what do we do?” Harley asked. “Why doesn’t the Pentagon glass Germany right now? Preempt?”
“Because Russia brought Germany under her own thermonuclear umbrella. Even if Russia broke that promise and held her fire, us glassing Germany would kill tens of millions of innocents outside German borders from fallout alone. Because Russia’s command-and-control systems are so gimpy, they might think our missiles were coming at them, and launch a massive retaliatory strike… at America. Because Germany has cruise missiles with fission warheads hiding at sea, which would come in low and fast and nuke the whole U.S. East Coast, and Gulf Coast, and reach inland past the Mississippi. Tens of millions more dead.”
“So what do we do?” Bell repeated Harley’s question.
“We perform our mission. There is a third scenario. One and only one alternative to Apocalypse Soon or Apocalypse Later. We take Kurzin and his men to Siberia, where they pretend to be Germans pretending to be Russians, infiltrate a missile silo field, take control of several brand-new SS-Twenty-seven ICBMs with one-megaton warheads, and launch them at the United States.”
Chapter 11
Bell and Harley were horrified. “What?” Meltzer blurted.
“I have documentation, Captains Harley and Bell, which you can authenticate with your own emergency-action-message codes. This way you can satisfy yourselves that these are valid, legal orders from our commander in chief…. The goal is to appear to try to start a nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S., and leave ironclad forensic clues that German operatives, disguised as Russian extremists, did it.”
Harley fidgeted nervously. Bell squirmed in his seat. Meltzer chewed his lip so hard that Jeffrey thought his teeth might break the skin.
“There’s finely reasoned method in this madness. If the commando squadron, and I, succeed in our assigned roles, and Carter’s stealth holds up, the missiles that take off from Siberian silos, fully armed by technicians from Kurzin’s team, will detonate long before they actually land on American soil. Instead, the warheads will be set to go off outside the atmosphere over Russia. The radiation from the blasts will dissipate into the already-radioactive Van Allen belts surrounding our planet, and from there be blown by the solar wind safely away into deep space. The Greater Moscow area will be blanketed by a nonlethal but extremely damaging electromagnetic pulse. This much we know from tests performed in the late nineteen-fifties and early sixties…. Russia, hurting, panic-stricken at the thought of American vengeance and outraged at German treachery, will at a minimum withdraw all support from the Axis, and she might well, of sheer necessity, join the Allied side. That would leave Berlin isolated, cut off from strategic sustenance. On the ropes, with the Boers withering on the vine at the far southern tip of Africa. The Axis leaders, knowing that they’re not at fault but being unable to prove to Russia that we so cold-bloodedly framed them, would also have been sent a stinging message. One with plausible deniability, but unmistakable, about what ruthless risk-takers Americans are once sufficiently provoked, thus destroying the Axis sense of control and undermining their power. An amnesty, if the oligarchs step down at that juncture, could neatly wrap up the war.”
Harley sputtered. “Would we give those sons of bitches an amnesty after all this? Let them walk, after starting a premeditated tactical nuclear war?”