Выбрать главу

He punched a few more keys.

“Anyway, elsewhere in the PTO, 25th Armoured Brigade, 6th Armoured Cavalry Regiment and 51st Infantry Brigade arrive in Australia tomorrow night from Korea, they are light a good deal of equipment that was destroyed in place. 8th Fighter Wing, from Kunsan AFB, is now at RAAF Tindall in the Northern Territories, south of Darwin. They are sharing with 75 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. The Aussies there are flying F/A-18 Hornets; the 8th has two squadrons of F-16 Falcons, so ordnance is compatible. We got a lot of their equipment out of Kunsan on RAAF, Indonesian, RNZAF and Singaporean transports, as well as our own so spares and ordnance-wise, the 8th are okay.” The screen view changed to that of Australia and General Shaw continued.

“The Aussies found evidence of seven planned amphibious landing sites, all along the eastern coast of Queensland and New South Wales. Our 5th Mech will be arriving in Brisbane in seven days; the Australians want them based there, for the time being anyway. 25th Armoured Brigade, 51st Infantry Brigade and 6th Armoured Cav Regiment are outside Melbourne, MAC, the Singaporeans, Indonesians, and the Royal Thai Airforce are busting a gut ferrying ammunition and spares from the States to them. We are also assisting the Royal Singapore Air Force units that escaped being overrun on the first day, only by being in East Timor at the time, it’s a squadron of C-130s, a half dozen Chinooks along with a mixed bag of RF-5S Tiger Eyes, F-16C and Ds. They arrived with only what they could throw aboard or was hanging off the hard points.”

“Every little bit helps Henry… what are the PRC doing now, where are their forces?”

“Japan and Taiwan have been occupied, as has the Island of Leyte in the Philippines. Fighting is very heavy on Luzon, the PRC are about twenty-five miles north of Manila. The Filipinos are making them pay for every yard… .but they are being ground down, the PLA are too big. Good news is that they didn’t get a foothold down south in the islands; the invasion of Cebu was defeated… utterly, with a little help from the Singaporeans who, quite by chance, were in the area at the time. It won’t end there though; the PLAN will try again. The second biggest island, Mindanao, hasn’t been touched… it’s got a big Muslim community and they have been trying for independence for years. I reckon the PRC are trying to strike a deal with the Muslim guerrilla forces, to join forces and attack the Philippine armed forces there from within and without on the promise of independence in return for base rights… at least until they own the Pacific and Asia.”

Taking a gulp of coffee the President shook his head as he listened to that last opinion and then interjected.

“If the Muslim’s have any sense they’ll see that a huge PRC presence will be even harder to kick out than the Fils, and they have no reason to trust China. If I were them, I’d throw in my lot with the Philippine government in return for independence when the war was won.”

“Do you want the bad news, Mr President?” General Shaw asked him.

“It would be pointless my saying no, now wouldn’t it?”

“We have lost contact with the enemy carrier group, since they launched their killer-sats our coverage has gone to hell. The PRC have launched another five of them… and four of ours and NATO’s RORSATs have now been taken out. However, the French have another three ready to go up at Guyana Space Centre, and we are launching three more on Titan boosters from Canaveral tonight. The F-15s are still carrying out launches against the enemy satellites, with about a 70 % success rate. We have taken eight of theirs off-line permanently… so it is not entirely one sided Mr President.”

“Anything else major on that front Henry, if not then let us move on?”

The screen changed again, this time to depict the ETO, the European theatre of operations.

“The fighting in Belorussia has ended, just before dawn this morning radio contact ended with the Belarus armed forces. Radio intercepts would seem to indicate that the Belarus fought and died in place, there was no mention of prisoners either.”

The President shook his head slightly; not able to fully comprehend that human beings could treat life with such contempt. After a moment he spoke.

“It is curious, is it not, that they exchanged prisoners in Leipzig and those men of ours that they had were treated according to the Geneva Convention?”

“I would assume that the Russian airborne division’s commander was allowed to fight the battle as he saw it… kinda hard to enforce policy on a unit behind the lines.” The General brought up the map of Germany

“Anyway, we have noticed something odd in Germany… as you can see we have realigned along our new line, enemy recon units have already caught up, they are now probing, to gain Intel whilst the main forces catch up. Probably by this time tomorrow the assault will again be underway… but if you look to the rear areas sir, you will notice only a third of their available air have moved up in a position to give close support. We don’t know why, could be a problem with aviation fuel, ordnance or spares… I am a pessimist, that way I’m never disappointed, so I am betting it is something sneaky they are hatching.”

The President leant forward, looking hard at the screen and the military symbols upon it, as if trying to divine the secrets the other side held.

Pechenga, northwest Russia: 0530hrs, 10th April.

Security was tight for a radius of 100 miles around the cluster of airbases, total radio silence was being enforced and police, ambulance and even the taxis that had them installed, were ordered to switch them off. The Russians wanted no loose lips mentioning the aircraft that had flown in that night.

Across the border in Norway, the Norwegian signals intelligence analysts were alerted, not by any unguarded transmissions, but by the total lack of them.

NATO had been informed the day before of the signals blackout and the pieces fell into place; SACUER now had a good idea as to where the missing aircraft had gone. Either Russia was planning an invasion of Scandinavia, or they were intending to put submarines into the Atlantic once more, replacing those sunk by NATO.

The four divisions the present convoys carried were not enough to make a marked change in the balance of firepower in Europe, they were due in port late the following night or sometime in the early hours of the next day, but the four others that had just left on the new convoys could make the difference.

Britain’s principal fast jet trainer, the BAE T. Mk1 Hawk has a wartime role as a point defence fighter. The eighty-eight aircraft in RAF service were quickly converted to this war role when hostilities with Russia looked imminent. They can carry only two AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles on under-wing hard points, and a 30mm Aden cannon pod on its centreline hard-points, but they are extremely manoeuvrable.