“We have to remove him,” Prince Andrew replied.
Tom McMillan leaned in. “That’s why we brought the four of you here. This is a British problem, one we can’t solve. We want to know what we can do to help you.”
MP Rosie Hoyle cleared her throat. “First, I would probably move to have the PM brought up on charges of treason. We’ll obviously need a copy of this recording, so we can verify it. Once that has been done, the Ministry of Justice will want to hear it and then determine if they want to prosecute. I am confident they will. It’s clear that Chattem suggested several MPs be assassinated, and that happened — so there’s a clear link to the events that transpired. Then we have the cruise missile attack, and him agreeing to the separate peace deal, and subsequent withdrawal from the war. It’s cut and dried that he is guilty of high crimes.”
She pulled a stray hair away from her face. “The challenge I see is how will the public might react to this. People were already angry about the losses we had sustained in the war, and then they became angry when we pulled out from it. Once they learn of this recording, they will go absolutely barmy,” Hoyle asserted.
George Younger interjected, “We need to get this recording verified and then distributed to MI5 and MI6. We have to arrest Max Weldon before he knows we are on to him. He’s probably a veritable wealth of information that we desperately need to mine. I can guarantee, there are going to be a lot of other people involved in this soft coup that the Russians have essentially been able to pull off.”
Younger then turned to face the two royals. “Sirs, Ms. Hoyle is right. When this news breaks, it’s going to devastate the country. We’re going to need help from both of you in calming the people and helping to unify the country behind a new government. It may be difficult to explain why Britain will most likely return to the Alliance and become involved in the war again.”
The princes nodded.
“We’ll do our best to manage the mood of the people,” Prince Andrew stated.
The Brits and Americans continued to talk for a few more hours before the meeting ended. Once the British delegation left the Oval Office, Tom turned to the President. “That went about as well as I thought it would,” he said.
President Foss snorted. “We blindsided them. They have to act, especially now that they know we know what transpired. The bigger question is, how will the average person respond to the knowledge that their prime minister colluded with the Russians to become PM and withdraw the UK from the war?”
Before the two men could talk further, the President’s Chief of Staff, Josh Morgan, stepped into the room. “The delegation just left for Andrews,” he confirmed, “and the generals are also down in the war room and are ready for you.”
When Vice President Foss had been sworn in as the new President following the assassination of Gates, he’d brought his own chief of staff with him and replaced Gates’s man. It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked Gates’s Chief of Staff; he’d just wanted his own guy in the position. Josh Morgan was someone he’d worked with for many years, and he felt comfortable with him.
“I guess that’s our cue,” the President said. He, Tom, and JP got up and followed Morgan to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC. It had been unofficially dubbed “the war room” for a few months now, since nearly all the meetings in there revolved around the world war.
Walking to the elevator that would lead them to the subterranean room, Foss couldn’t help but marvel at how the engineers had had to build the new addition to the White House. With so many changes in technology, from fiber optics to wireless technologies, the Situation Room and the presidential bunker had gone through some major overhauls.
Walking into the PEOC, the President saw that his military leaders and advisors were standing next to their chairs, waiting for him to arrive. As Foss took his seat at the head of the table, everyone sat down. Then he motioned for Admiral Peter Meyers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to proceed.
The admiral stood and cleared his throat. “Mr. President, this is your evening brief of the war and where the situation currently stands. There are several key decisions that require your approval. I’ll go over those decision points as we reach them,” he said. Then he went through a quick outline for the briefing before beginning his presentation in detail, which was something President Foss had insisted upon. He was not a fan of the more freewheeling discussions that President Gates had been known for, and he preferred everything to be much more formal and organized.
Eventually, Admiral Meyers brought up some images of Europe on the screens. One map showed the latest Russian offensive, and where their army was driving toward. “The Russians launched their Armored Fist Campaign seven days ago. As you can see, the offensive was able to punch a hole in our lines at these three points,” explained Meyers, using a laser pointer to bring attention to the problem areas. “Presently, the Russians’ offensive has stalled in front of Rzeszow, Poland, roughly 160 kilometers from Kraków. In the north, the Russians broke through the French positions near Lublin. They’re falling back to a new defensive position roughly 60 kilometers from Warsaw. We’ve moved a joint Dutch-German brigade to reinforce the line there. We should be able to contain them roughly one hundred kilometers southeast of Warsaw while the French division regroups.
“In the north of Poland and Lithuania, we managed to stop the Russian offensive before it was able to really get going. Once we caught wind of their plans, we specifically went after the enemy’s fuel dumps. Without diesel and gasoline, their offensive ground to a halt before it really got going.”
The President interjected, “If you guys were able to knock out their fuel dumps in the north and this prevented their offensive from progressing there, then why were you not able to do the same thing in the south, where their larger army group is located?”
Admiral Meyers tipped his head to the side. “Mr. President, the army group in the south had significantly higher concentrations of surface-to-air missile systems and other air-defense assets,” he explained. “With the introduction of the Indian Army to the war, we’re facing a lot stiffer air defense. The Russians also concentrated a lot of the Indian armor units with their main offensive in the south, which greatly bolstered their offensive capability. We’ve moved the Ninth Army Group to stop the Russians in the south. With the bulk of V Corps comprising armor and mechanized infantry, they should have the armored force to handle the Russian and Indian armor units.”
The President grunted and then nodded.
Admiral Meyers paused a second. “Sir, with your permission, I’d like to move forward with inserting a Special Forces unit near the Caspian Sea to go after the Russian oil and natural gas pipelines,” he asserted. “We’d like to go after their ability to move the product to their factories. This will further grind their economy to a halt and reduce the likelihood they can sustain their offensive.”
President Foss looked at Meyers for a second, turning to gauge the mood of the other generals before replying. “I’m concerned that if we do this, the Russians will retaliate by hitting our pipelines in Alaska or the Midwest,” he began. “It’s bad enough that they blew up the petroleum facility in New York — that attack killed over 800 civilians. Besides, how would we even get our Special Forces or Navy SEALs to the Caspian Sea?”
“We would send a Romanian SOF unit in to make the attack. It would be them and the Georgians,” Meyers explained.
Tom jumped into the conversation. “And exactly how are you going to get the Azeris to allow a Georgian unit to operate off their coasts? Don’t they hate each other?”
“I believe you are mixing the Georgians up with the Armenians,” the President’s Chief of Staff asserted. “The Armenians and the Azeris are the ones that hate each other. The Georgians and the Azeris get along just fine.”