“This is Major John Long, operations officer of the 111th Bombardment Squadron, the unit that the aircrew and aircraft were assigned; he is the acting commander. The unit commander, Colonel Furness, is the aircraft commander of the backup aircraft and is en route back here.”
“Very well, General. What’s the latest on the crew?”
“Both crew members are alive,” Samson said. “One crew member is still unconscious. The crew was captured by local Russian militiamen and transferred to the Border Police, who are taking them to an unknown location, presumably a Border Police regional headquarters, possibly Belgorod.”
“The plane was destroyed in the crash, General Samson?” the President asked.
“Our telemetry indicates that the plane was completely destroyed, sir,” Samson replied.
“Telemetry?”
“We monitor hundreds of different parameters of every weapon system involved in our missions by satellite, sir.”
“Too bad you can’t monitor your human ‘weapon systems’ the same way, General,” Busick quipped.
“In fact, sir, we can,” Samson said. “We’re in constant voice contact with all of our personnel, and we monitor a range of readings on each one constantly by satellite.”
“You do?” the President asked incredulously. “You know where they are, what they say, whether their hearts are beating or not?”
“Exactly, Mr. President,” Samson said. “My staff has been monitoring them continuously during this mission. We are not currently in voice contact, but we are monitoring life signs and they are alive. We can also plot their positions with some degree of accuracy, and we’ve determined that they are indeed on the move.” Thorn’s eyebrows arched in amazement. “Their situation appears to be quite desperate. I’m aft-aid they’ve been captured and will be in the Russian military prisoner system shortly.”
“Amazing,” Busick gasped. “So you know exactly where they are right now?
Why don’t we just go in and get them, then?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Defense Secretary Goff said enthusiastically. He turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “General Venti?”
“General Samson’s cover mission included a number of contingency operations, including an armed rescue mission,” Venti said. “If I know General Samson and his staff, he’s got his folks moving already.”
“We do, sir,” Samson said. “We’re hoping that the forces controlling Dewey and Deverill are not regular military or paramilitaries, but reserves or local police. There are few regular army forces stationed on the Ukrainian border. If we launch a rescue mission before they are transferred to regular military control or taken out of the frontier region, we might be able to rescue them successfully.
“The Intelligence Support Agency cell that was successfully rescued by the Vampire bomber crew is safe on the ground in Ukraine at an airfield outside Kiev,” Samson went on. “They want permission to procure a helicopter and return to the shootdown area. They are the closest special-ops capable forces in the area — they can be on scene in about two hours, depending on what kind of transportation they procure. The next-nearest forces would be in Turkey, at least three hours away plus generation and briefing time.”
“We seem to have decided on an armed hostile infiltration action,” the President observed. No one replied. “I may sound incredibly naive here, gentlemen, but why don’t we just ask the Russians to give our people back to us?”
“I’m afraid we couldn’t expect too much help from the Russians once they found out who they had in their possession, sir,” Robert Goff said, trying hard not to look too shocked at the President’s seemingly childish question. “I mean, in a very real sense, our crews are hostiles, enemy attackers, just as if we were at war. They flew a strategic bomber inside Russia, shot down Russian aircraft, destroyed Russian military property. They don’t have any reason to be nice to us. I expect them to delay returning the crew until they have had ample time to interrogate them thoroughly. Then they’ll examine the wreckage and interrogate them some more about the technology they’ll undoubtedly find. They could be prisoners for a very, very long time.”
“The best opportunity to get them out is now, sir,” Venti stressed. “Although they appear to be taken by paramilitary forces, they’re still not in the hands of trained prison guards or professional soldiers. If we can get to them right now, we have the best chance of rescuing them.”
“And then once the crew is out of the Russians’ hands, we can do our own stalling technique,” Goff went on. “The Russians will have what’s left of the bomber, but they won’t have the crew. That’s far more important. They’ll ask a ton of questions, accuse us of everything under the sun, and condemn us for our warlike actions. But they won’t have anything.”
The President nodded, seemingly unconvinced. He looked up and saw General Samson deep in a discussion with a new officer that had entered the videoconference picture. The discussion they were having out of mike range appeared to be getting rather heated. “Problem, General Samson?” he asked. Samson looked at the camera, then jabbed his finger at the newcomer beside him. “General?”
“Maybe a potential problem,” Terrill Samson said. “Stand by one.” The President and his staff allowed Samson to confer with his staff for a couple of minutes. Samson was obviously struggling to retain control of his anger. Finally, he faced the camera once again and explained, “Sir, it seems that a rescue mission is already under way — in fact, the Vampire crew has already been recovered, alive.”
“What?” almost everyone in the Situation Room exclaimed.
“We didn’t authorize any rescue mission,” Vice President Busick said. “General Samson, I’ve had to put up with shenanigans from you boys in Dreamland for years. Is it happening again, even with Brad Elliott gone? Was this one of your patented stealth sneak attacks?”
“God, I hope not,” Venti murmured in exasperation. “What’s going on, Earthmover?”
“Easy, folks, easy,” the President said, keeping his hands folded before him, seemingly unflustered by this news. “A few minutes ago, you were going to recommend such a mission — now you’re upset because you all didn’t get to push the ‘go’ button. Continue, General Samson.”
General Samson took a deep breath and ran it down for the National Security Council staff. “Exactly as we were planning, the Intelligence Support Agency members who’d been taken to a base outside Kiev obtained use of a Ukrainian helicopter, penetrated Russian airspace, and located Dewey and Deverill using their personal microtransceivers,” Samson said.
“My God, that’s incredible,” Robert Goff exclaimed. “Amazing. Who organized this, General? You?”
“No, sir — my staff officers and the commanders on-scene,” Samson replied. “There is a complication, however. The Russian Federation Air Force is bearing down on them. They…” He paused, then said under his breath, “Genesis to Briggs … conference in McLanahan … conference in Luger … everyone, stand by.”
“General, am I to understand that you are actually talking to your men in the middle of some sort of combat rescue mission over Russia that is happening right now?” the President asked incredulously. “You are making some sort of global conference call and listening to what’s going on without a radio in your hand, a microphone to your lips, or a speaker?”
Samson had to pull himself away from eavesdropping on the firefight half a world away to respond to his commander-in-chief: “Yes … yes, sir. Part of my unit’s security infrastructure is a satellite tracking and communications system that is … is implanted into every member of my organization.”