They all noticed the increased security at the White House; it would have been hard not to observe that the Marine guards were all now wearing full combat armor, and the Wolverines scattered around the grounds were rather conspicuous. Clearly, the President had increased security. The NSA Director was the one with the best inside knowledge of why the precautions were most likely being made; they had picked up some intel about the Japanese and Indian Ambassadors, and he had a reasonable theory regarding the purpose of their visit earlier.
As the group of senior advisors arrived in the PEOC briefing room, they all took their seats at the pyramid-shaped table. The President, already seated at the head, surveyed the group briefly before he began the meeting.
“Thank you everyone for rushing here to the White House. As you all can guess, something major has just happened that, once again, is going to make the war a lot more difficult to win. I have increased security at the White House, within the capital, and at major infrastructural nodes across the country, until we gain a better understanding of the new threat. I want to bring you up to speed on what has transpired these last five hours. An hour ago, I had a meeting with the Ambassadors of Japan and India, who arrived together. They each handed me an official Declaration of War against the United States. Their reasoning for why they declared war at this point is not going to change the fact that they have already taken hostile actions against our forces and our country.”
The President saw some people were surprised, others just nodded, knowing this was a possibility. “After consultation with Admiral Casey, and General Gardner out on the West Coast, we have determined that the cyber-attack that temporarily crippled our defense communications system was launched by the Chinese and Japanese cyber warfare groups via our shared communications network with the Japanese Defense Force. The JDF had worked an elaborate rouse to lure our forces into an attack on the Chinese naval forces near Hawaii. This ruse was developed over many months and we fell for it, completely.”
President Stein locked eyes with Admiral Juliano, then nodded his head, asking him to continue briefing on this point without saying anything. The admiral nodded in acknowledgement. “It appears the Chinese, with the help of our former allies, sunk four of our five Swordfish underwater drones. Then the Japanese and Chinese fleets sank nine of our ten warships, and managed to shoot down four of our six F41 Arch Angel fighters.”
The room was so silent that the sound of each person breathing suddenly seemed loud.
Turning to Director Perez from DHS, the President asked, “Jorge, would you please bring everyone up to speed on what has transpired at several of our airports?”
Director Perez began to lay out the situation. “Gentlemen, Ladies, just before the communications blackout, several dozen commercial aircraft originating from Japan had either landed or were in the final approaches to their landing at some of our busiest international airports. Our best reports of what happened have come out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and Hartsford-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The plane that landed in Chicago was the first one to arrive and dock at a terminal. Once there, a group of heavily armed Asian men wearing DHS uniforms emerged from the aircraft and made their way through the terminal to the parking garages, where vans were waiting for them to rush them off to what we assume are safe houses.”
Janet Smart queried, “So, to confirm, these were definitely Japanese Special Forces?”
“Yes, absolutely,” replied Jorge, pulling up a picture of a dead body next to a Japanese SFGp unit patch.
He continued, “While making their way out of the terminal, they encountered several of our airport security teams and a massive shootout followed. The police and TSA anti-terrorism groups engaged the enemy soldiers and killed several of their members, but not before taking heavy casualties themselves. Surveillance cameras and eye witness reports lead us to believe that close to 70 of the attackers did manage to escape the airport and make it to vans that were waiting for them in the parking garage. Police forces were able to intercept two of those vans before they left the property of the airport, which resulted in another shootout. They managed to keep those soldiers contained until help was able to arrive and then they finished them off.”
Mike Rogers asked, “So how many of them were killed in that shootout? I mean, I just want to know how many armed JDF guys are loose near the city of Chicago.”
“There were about a dozen soldiers in the vans that we took down, so I guess that leaves about 58 of these men still out there,” Jorge replied. He took a swig of water from the bottle in front of him, and then continued with the briefing, “After the extraordinary events that took place, the TSA agent in charge of O’Hare made a call to alert all U.S. airports and advise them to either deny the landing of all flights from Japan, or delay their arrivals to the terminals so that additional security forces could get in place. Additional quick reaction forces and police units were immediately rushed to the airports as well.”
Jorge gestured towards Admiral Rice, “We have the Air Force to thank for a huge win here.”
Rice nodded, “Yes indeed. Our fighter jets were able to intercept six commercial aircraft attempting to land in New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Seattle, San Diego and Houston. They shot them down. The planes crashed near the airports, causing some damage resulting in some civilian casualties, but we are certain that those planes held additional Japanese Special Forces.”
Director Perez picked the briefing back up, putting a map on the holographic screen. “Nine other commercial aircraft were able to land and dock at other airport terminals. In four of the locations that they landed (Philadelphia, Miami, St. Louis, and Phoenix), a large percentage of the JDF forces were able to make it through the airports after fighting their way through the security forces. We estimate between 40–50 SFGp survivors at each location. The other five groups were thoroughly pinned down at the airports of Boston, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis and San Francisco and are currently being engaged. We believe that they will shortly be completely wiped out.”
Jorge changed the map and then continued, “We were tracking additional aircraft heading to other major metropolitan airports, but it appears that four of the Japanese pilots caught wind of the situation on the ground and rerouted to smaller municipal airports. As you can see on the maps, we had airplanes land at Gary, Indiana, Prescott in Arizona, Richmond, Virginia, and Victoria, Texas. Unfortunately, security at those sites had not been reinforced, and the SFGp was able to unload their troops there, almost without incident. Since these were not planned landing sites, there were no vehicles waiting to help them escape, so they stole maintenance vans to transport themselves away from the airports there. And Admiral Casey, before you ask — yes, we do have BOLOs out on those vans.”
The image switched again and Admiral Rice picked back up. “Two other aircraft were identified by our air defense systems and shot down while they were headed to other municipal fields. Those locations were more remote, and the airplane wreckage did not cause any casualties or major property damage based on our most recent assessments.”