Josh Morgan’s left eyebrow rose conspicuously. “If they know that, then why are they launching this offensive?” he retorted. “Why wouldn’t they try and hold those forces back to defend their border and make our counterattack more costly?”
“The same thing was asked during the Battle of the Bulge during World War II,” Meyers responded. “In reality, the Nazis would have been better served by using those forces to defend the Rhine. They could have prevented the Allies from crossing the river for many more months. Instead, they chose to launch this last major offensive in hopes of cutting our forces off in the Low Countries, to grab the supplies at Antwerp, and to throw the Allied army into disarray. They truly believed that offensive would have altered the course of the war, or at least put them in a better position to negotiate a peace deal. I believe the Russians and Indians are of the same mindset with this current offensive. If they can divide our forces and thrust deep into Europe, they believe they’ll be able to fracture the Alliance further and give them a better position at the negotiation table.”
“The only way we’re ending this war is when Petrov surrenders,” Foss reiterated. “I agree with President Gates — the Petrov regime needs to be removed and a new government installed, one that is willing to be a part of the global community and not a belligerent bully.”
He paused for a moment, looking at the tired and worn out faces of his military advisors. He knew they were doing their best with what they’d been given. The fact that they’d somehow held the military together after all it had been through was a testament to their skill and ingenuity. As he stood, he added, “You all have done an amazing job executing the war. Please pass along my thanks to the others, and let’s end this war… Tomorrow is election day, a day that may force us to make some changes in how we prosecute the war. One year from now starts the next presidential election cycle. I know it’s a tall order, but I’d like us to work toward concluding this war by this time next year. The last thing our nation and the world needs is a sustained global war during a US presidential election.” With that, President Foss stood and left the room to attend to other matters of state.
From Georgia, With Love
The weather had recently turned cold and miserable in the relatively sleepy seaside town of Makhachkala. Major Gogaza pulled another cigarette out from his pack, stopping briefly while he cupped his hands against the wind to light it. He took a long pull to make sure the tobacco stayed lit. Gogaza let the smoke fill his lungs and reveled in the feeling as his body absorbed the nicotine. Then he continued his leisurely walk near the trainyard. Looking past the fence, he saw the petrol tanks and the network of pipes that connected them to the offshore oil rigs in the Caspian Sea.
Major Gogaza made a mental note of the security around the facility, noting the pair of soldiers casually walking a German shepherd along the perimeter. The fence itself was nothing too remarkable — a single-layer fence roughly six feet in height with three strings of barbed wire in a forked pattern on the top. It was designed to look tough, but it wouldn’t keep an intruder out. Returning his gaze to the sidewalk and street he was meandering down, Gogaza spotted a small coffee shop and decided this would be a good place to stop and observe the guard schedule for a while.
Seeing an empty seat next to the front window, he slipped into the café and placed his windbreaker on the chair, along with a copy of the local paper. He then placed an order for a macchiato and a local baked delicacy and settled into his seat to read the daily paper. Gogaza spent a total of 72 minutes there. To be safe, he ordered a refill on the macchiato and downed a second pastry. While he was there, he noted that a pair of guards walked past the perimeter with a dog roughly twenty minutes apart. He stayed long enough to see four pairs of guards and dogs walk past the fence at nearly the exact same interval, with almost no variation.
Major Gogaza smiled to himself. “These guys are either bored or sloppy,” he thought.
After leaving the café, Gogaza took a very meandering route back to the house that had been rented for his team to use for this operation. The structure was dilapidated, but it would serve its purpose of not attracting attention to the ten Georgian Special Operations soldiers who were staying in it.
Three days went by as Major Gogaza’s team surveilled the target of their operation. They developed a series of plans and discussed everything that could go wrong with each scenario. Then they constructed and ran through the alternative plans. It became clear that the best way for them to gain entry into the facility and accomplish their mission in the stated timeframe was for them to cut a hole in the fence near a section of shrubs on the northern side of the facility, then move quickly to place their explosives at the base of the storage tanks. A separate two-man team would infiltrate at a different point and look to blow up the pumping station to the pipeline.
Gogaza pointed to three of his team members. “You three will need to stay behind to provide sniper overwatch on this small crest,” he ordered, pointing to a map. “It has a perfect vantage point to observe the fence we will be breaching.”
“Yes, Sir,” they responded.
“That gives us two snipers and one spotter,” Major Gogaza continued. “If all goes according to plan, we will destroy the pumping facility, three million barrels of oil, and a critical junction in the pipeline. That will put a serious dent in the Russian petroleum business.”
They all smiled, excited to be a part of degrading the Russian capability to support this horrible war.
The night air was cool. Cloud cover obscured the moon, which, for Major Gogaza’s team, couldn’t have turned out any better. They had driven to a small dirt road that was less than a few hundred meters from the perimeter fence they had chosen to infiltrate. All of them did a mic check to make sure that their throat radios were operational; they could clearly hear each other whispering as if they were talking right next to each other in a normal tone of voice. Then his men adjusted their night vision goggles before they exited the two vans. The special operators quietly snuck out of the vehicles and moved quickly and stealthily through the small trees and underbrush until they reached the fence.
The two-man team that was going to gain entry further down the perimeter drove their vehicle down the road another two kilometers until they reached their own infiltration point. Once there, they would wait for their overwatch team to let them know it was safe to cut the fence and move to place their explosives near the pumping terminal.
While Major Gogaza desperately wanted to penetrate the facility with his men, he knew he could serve them better by staying with the sniper team and managing the small surveillance drone they had brought with them. When the rest of the team got close to the fence line, he and the sniper team split off from the rest of the group.
Once they reached the hill, the snipers immediately unslung their packs and went to work setting up their rifles and other equipment. They removed the thermal-resistant blankets they would cover themselves with to prevent their body heat from showing up on any infrared or thermal security cameras. Before Gogaza crawled under one of the large blankets with his sniper team, he pulled the small surveillance drone out of the backpack, quickly unfolding it and turning the power on. Once the system check was complete and the drone was paired with the controller, he turned the little engine on, pulled his arm back and threw it for all his worth into the air.