Despite the EurCon jamming, the Eagle’s radar had already locked onto a target, almost seventy miles out. Now if he could just keep himself and his flight alive long enough to close the range.
Under his oxygen mask, Tad Wojcik started sweating. This was going to be a hard day.
The Loire River, the longest in France, seemed designed by God to frustrate those who coveted its waters for recreation or for commerce. Quicksand, whirlpools, and swirling, strong currents made the Loire too dangerous for swimming or for shipping cargoes between the towns and cities lining its banks. The river was something to look at, not something to use.
At least not for most.
But there were a few, some of those born and bred beside its levees, for whom the Loire held few terrors. They had learned to “read” the river and each of its capricious moods. They knew its traps and they knew the safe passages between each watery snare.
Jacques Liboge was such a man. Still supple despite his sixty-six years, he rose early almost every day to fish in the Loire. As a boy, it had been a way to help feed his family during the war. After that, he had kept on fishing — for the peace it offered as much as the food.
This Sunday morning, as he tramped down the path to the tiny boat tied to a small wooden dock, he could tell the day would be a warm one. The river coiled west toward the distant ocean, its surface as smooth and unruffled as glass. It was still dark, so he was careful of his footing as he loaded his tackle and sat down. Then, with sure, swift motions born of long habit, Liboge cast off, picked up the oars, and glided easily out onto the river.
To the south, the land rose gradually, decked with vineyards and bright yellow sunflowers. His farm, now run by his sons, and those of his neighbors were to the north. Cows grazed placidly in small pastures, cropping the grass beneath fruit trees.
The Liboge farm wasn’t a large place, just a few dozen acres. The farmhouse was two hundred years old, built by his ancestors. He resembled the house, square and gray and a little weather-beaten, but strong and solid. There were thousands of farms like Liboge’s in France, and thousands of farmers as well.
He fished, enjoying the soft, muted light as it crept into the Loire valley. First there were shapes where there had been only darkness, then the shapes had shadows, and finally color blossomed, spilling east with the rising sun.
Liboge sat quietly content. He’d already caught several fine fish. Now all he had to do was decide between staying out on the river while they were biting and rowing back to start his chores. Church bells pealed in the distance. The village priest was summoning his congregation to early morning mass. The old fisherman cocked his head to listen and smiled lazily, knowing his wife would be furious if he missed the service. Then he shrugged. God would understand. After all, had not Saint Peter himself been a fisherman? And had not God made this perfect day and the fish who seemed so eager to strike at his lures?
A sound, something between a roar and a whine, shattered the morning’s peace. He looked up from his rod just in time to see a dark shape race past him, only a few dozen meters above his head. Surprised, he dropped his rod, fumbled for it, and gripped it tightly just as another went by. A third followed the first two only seconds later.
This time his eyes tracked the slender, finned shape as it flew down the length of the valley, neatly turning to follow the winding river as it passed over an old abandoned windmill.
A fourth made the same turn in exactly the same place, and another after that. In all, Liboge counted twelve of the missiles — because that was what they must be. He had seen enough aircraft during the war, and these were simply too small to hold a pilot.
They were flying east, up the river. France was at war again. Were these enemy weapons? If so, at least his own village was safe.
After the last missile disappeared to the east, Liboge put down his tackle and grabbed his small boat’s oars. Rowing quickly, he headed for the dock. He would tell the mayor. Yes, the mayor would surely know what to do.
The Tomahawk cruise missiles flew in single file, hugging the river valley. Landmarks like the ruined windmill were useful checkpoints for each missile’s guidance systems as it matched stored images of the landscape with what it actually saw.
All twelve of these missiles, fired from a single U.S. submarine a hundred miles off the Atlantic coast, followed the same route. Normally they would have been split into smaller groups — flying two or three separate paths to reduce the risk of interception. But the men who had planned this mission in London were swamped. They had only had time to lay out one track for each target.
In this case, it didn’t matter. EurCon radars, even the American-built E-3s in French service, couldn’t pick out the twelve tiny, RAM-coated missiles hugging the river valley. Most of France’s eyes were turned east or north anyway.
When they were seen by farmer Liboge, the first Tomahawk was just four minutes from its target. It continued to use the Loire as a highway, flying just high enough to clear the occasional bridge or other structure on its banks.-
Ten miles from Tours, the cruise missile banked sharply right, then climbed for a moment to fix its position one last time against the landscape. This time, the scene included its target, a Thompson-CSF factory complex. Part of a massive French defense conglomerate, this site was responsible for the manufacture and repair of fighter radars.
Each Tomahawk’s specific aiming point had been picked by an American industrial expert — a man who had years of experience in building and running similar facilities. Asked to select twelve vital locations from satellite photos, he’d marked the production line, parts storage, critical machine-tools sheds, and other areas.
Carrying a thousand-pound warhead, the first missile slammed into the plant’s executive offices. The explosion and fire that followed did not destroy radar components themselves. They wrecked something even more important — the computers containing the factory’s design data and manufacturing records. Their loss would cripple any attempt to resume production.
One after the other, the eleven Tomahawks trailing behind it popped up and then dove into the factory complex. Successive blasts gutted the plant and shattered windows all over Tours.
By the time the twelfth warhead detonated, three of the factory’s five vast buildings were reduced to piles of mangled steel and shattered concrete. The other two were burning. Dozens of highly skilled workers lay dead or badly injured in the rubble. Although it was early morning and a Sunday to boot, three shifts had been working night and day to supply EurCon’s military needs.
Led by Desaix and his cronies, France had already bloodied half of Europe trying to bring it under EurCon control. The United States wanted the French people to know they would pay the price for their government’s aggression.
An American reconnaissance satellite passed overhead later that morning. The images it data-linked down allowed intelligence analysts to report that Thompson-CSF’s Tours facility had been eighty percent destroyed. Reconstruction time was estimated at six months for the first production line alone. Bringing the full plant back into operation would take the French at least three years and cost tens of millions of dollars.
Liboge’s report of the missiles he had sighted reached the French Air Force about the same time that damage assessment photos were laid on the President’s desk in Washington, D.C.