“In all the tests, they were never detected by any radar or sensors, not even our advanced stuff. It’s highly unlikely that the Russians will be able to detect these prior to impact. Upon impact, they will register on every sensor on the planet.” Major Tom replied flatly. “The Russians will have plenty of holes to investigate before they find the one your space ship inhabits,” Major Tom assured the General.
Byrd pushed his lower lip up with his index finger and squinted his eyes as if he were pondering the meaning of life, which he was in a way. “Dial back the yield on each of them to between two and three kilotons. Mix it up so that the explosions are not all the exact same size. Make all of the distances from each other different. I don’t want an obvious pattern.”
“Yes Sir, impact in two minutes.”
“When will the Impegi crash?”
“One minute and fifteen seconds.”
“Close enough. the Russians will have a complete cluster fuck on their hands. This will buy us hours, if not days, before they figure it out,” commented Byrd.
He glanced over at a startled Major Tom, “Well, today did not go as planned. I guess I better call the President and let him know I just nuked Russia.”
“Better you than me,” Major Tom said, shaking his head as he turned to go back to his lab.
“Where do you think you are going?” growled Byrd. “You just nuked Russia. Finish what you started. You run the command center while I go call the President.”
“Yes Sir,” said the Major.
Byrd turned and walked into his personal office at the back of the command center. Major Tom could see him picking up a red phone through the transparent glass walls.
Standing at the rear of the command center with his back to Byrd, he looked over the dozen or so officers in the room, some of them outranked him. All of them had more experience. “What the hell am I doing? I’m just an engineer,” He thought to himself.
What was that phrase he had heard, when you wanted a status report? Oh, Yeah, “Sit Rep,” he called out.
“Ten seconds to Impegi’s impact,” someone from the front of the room responded.
“It appears multiple shuttles or escape pods were launched. Fifty seconds to first missile’s impact,” was the reply from the officer sitting nearest to him.
Shuttles, that means survivors. That means the TEPNOS cannot detonate near the shuttles.
“Will any of the shuttle’s trajectories place them near one of the TEPNOS blast zones?” Asked Major Tom.
“Five of the missiles are hundreds of miles from the shuttles’ projected trajectory. However, one of TEPNOS may impact within 100 miles of the shuttles. . .”
“Impegi has crashed,” interrupted another officer.
“Forty seconds till TEPNOS impact.”
Forty seconds. That was not enough time to change the missiles trajectory, in any meaningful way.
“Terminate the TEPNOS nearest the shuttle craft,” yelled Tom.
“Terminated,” The special weapons targeting officer reported.
“Pull up all satellite coverage of Magadan,” Tom spat out quickly.
The huge display monitors before the command center lit up with images of explosions and mushroom clouds forming over Far East Russia. The ever-expanding cloud of dust and debris slowly spread over the Magadan district, hiding the impact craters from view.
“All weapons detonated in uninhabited areas. Death toll will be due primarily to secondary causes, such as falls, heart attacks and the like,” reported an officer.
Shortly after final impact, Byrd returned.
“How is the President?” Major Tom asked.
“Pissed off,” as expected, “These idiot politicians think they are in charge. Don’t worry Major. No president has challenged MJ-12. Well, at least not since Dealey Plaza.”
Major Tom sucked in a deep breath as he realized that he still had a lot to learn.
CHAPTER NINE
Vosges Mountains, France
October 1944
Sergeant Dale Matthews sat in the deep fox hole that he had dug two days earlier, taking a final long drag on his last government-issued cigarette. He flicked the still smoldering, burnt stub into the puddle of freezing water pooling up around his boots. The other men and he had not eaten in nearly three days, and they were running low on ammunition. A few days earlier, the Germans had cut them off from the rest of their division and any opportunity to resupply. They had been ordered to “dig in” by Division, and were told that it would take several days for reinforcements to arrive due to the terrible weather and improvised road blocks set by the Germans. Up to this point, attempts to deliver food, ammunition, and medical supplies by air drop had failed.
Adam, one of Dale’s foxhole mates, scrambled out of the muddy hole, keeping low, to gather a small tin bowl he had laid out to gather rain water. “I don’t trust those damn Nazi’s not to poison the creek, just to spite us,” he grumbled.
“They use the same creek as us for drinking,” Dale objected, “It would kill them, too.”
“They could be getting water supplied to them from their rear. We are trapped with no other source. They poison the water and wait. We die, they win.”
Dale could not argue with that logic. He pushed his tin coffee cup out of the fox hole. “I see your point.”
“Does it ever stop raining here? I’m freezing, don’t think I can feel my feet anymore,” Tom Brown complained from another fox hole a few feet away. Tom, short with an olive complexion, was starting to go bald at a young age. Most of the squad was from Texas, but Tom was originally from New York.
“It’s a wonder the rain even makes it all the way down to the ground. The trees are so thick; sunlight barely makes it through,” Adam said. Overcast skies and dense tree cover had been hidden the sun for days.
“You got any . . .” Tom was interrupted by a loud explosion directly over their heads. Tom and the others instinctively dove deep into their fox holes. The German artillery was set to explode 100 feet above ground, upon contact with the tree tops. The exploding shell would rain down fiery shrapnel on their heads and shoulders.
They heard a scream from 20 meters away. They knew an American had been hit. Dale looked up from his fox hole to see if it was anyone in his squad. They had learned to cover up their fox holes with branches to shield from exploding shrapnel. The branches were not a perfect defense, but it was the best they could muster under these conditions.
Tom’s foxhole buddy, Steve, stuck his head out from the branches covering his muddy hole and asked, “Whatever happened to the patrol they sent out last night?”
“Only five of the forty-eight men returned this morning. Krauts ambushed them,” Dale hollered back over the pouring rain.
“Damn Nazi’s,” Steve spat.
“I heard the lieutenant saying we were completely surrounded by a full division of Kraut.” Tom snarled.
“I don’t think it’s a full division, maybe a battalion or two.” Dale replied.
“But, we don’t really know. That’s the problem,” Adam complained.
Another loud explosion. Dale reached for his weapon, a Thompson machine gun, and peered out of his foxhole into the thick forest looking for signs of advancing German troops. On his hands and knees, Dale pulled himself to the edge of his foxhole and positioned himself, so that if he saw an approaching German, he could easily rise to a crouching position to fire his machine gun. Dale preferred the 20-round box magazine to the larger 100-round drum because the drum was heavier and more difficult to maneuver. Thompson had produced several models of the famous machinegun; earlier designs allowed for either a drum or straight magazine. The most recent design, made for the military, only allowed the straight magazine to attach.