“The Arms reduction treaty between what was the Russian Federation after devolvement of the Warsaw Pact, and the West, have little bearing on today”. On the screen, footage was shown of NATO army’s tanks being destroyed in front of Russian military observers. Lines of United States tactical and strategic warplanes in the Nevada desert, laid out in rows to enable counting by Russian surveillance satellites. US Navy ‘Boomers’, the ballistic missile submarines being stripped of offensive hardware and mothballed, or decommissioned. “They have dispensed with all but the minimum of protection, and in that they are begrudging. The British Army of the Rhine, for example, its disbanded regular unit’s equipment was to be used in upgrading poorly equipped reservist forces of their own country. Instead it was sold to third world countries. Not content with that, their Territorial Army armoured units were stripped of what little armour they did possess, none of it heavy and also sold. These units were re-equipped with ‘Multi-role combat vehicles’. In reality, Jeeps with a machine gun stuck on them, gentlemen!” The laughter that statement provoked was derisory.
“The minefields and tank traps we both laid at the border of East and Western Europe has gone. NATOs nearest tactical nuclear weapon to that border is in the county of Wiltshire in England. There are no more warriors in the West’s governments. America’s president is a drunken playboy in the pay of big business concerns. The premier of France is financially corrupt; the Italian is obsessed with teenage prostitutes and Britain’s premier, who felt himself too good to wear his countries uniform as a young man, does not shirk at sending those that do wear it into harm’s way, in order to play at being a world statesman”. Alontov spat out that last word with contempt. Although the NATO army’s had always been ‘the enemy’ he empathised with their servicemen and respected their abilities, to do otherwise would have been foolish. He had spent an enjoyable two years as a military attaché to the embassy in London in the mid 1980’s. The British Army had described itself then, with some justification, as the best-trained and worst equipped army in the world. Posing as a tourist he had at times visited pubs frequented by soldiers, sailors and airmen of that country, in main the fighting core of which, with their varying levels of education, joined willingly from the council estates of the United Kingdom. All had been committed to holding the line, whilst not prepared to wager on the outcome had the Red Army rolled westward.
A later assignment to the United States, on that occasion as an ‘illegal’, had given him a similar opinion of that nations fighting men and women. Louder and more brash than their cousins ‘across the pond’, as they termed the Atlantic Ocean. They had nonetheless convinced him that a war against a NATO back then, would have been a hard fight.
“Comrades, moving into position now are one hundred, small, tactical thermonuclear weapons. Although too small to be ‘city killers’ those that are targeted against such will tear the hearts out of them. If you will turn your attention back to the screen you will observe the effects of one device against the city of San Francisco in the United States of America”.
When formulating their plans it had been decided that as ‘A picture paints a thousand words’ a high tech demonstration would assist in swaying the sceptics.
“For operational security purposes each scenario, including the one you are about to view, have been hidden in plain sight within a seeming innocent computer game demo, so please bear with us. The effects and end result are scientifically correct… but I think we can promise that the game will not be available in the shops by Christmas.” He added with a wry smile.
A number of independent computer game designers had been first examined for feasibility purposes and then dismissed. Eventually a young effervescent redhead had been the final choice. Anatoly Peridenko, former KGB head under the final government of the old CCCP, was in charge of security for the project and found her at Caltech. After her graduation from that noted centre of learning she had been hired by a front company and brought to Moscow. Alicia O’Connor gave lie to the myth of all ‘shed heads’ being Geeks. From her flashing green fourth generation Irish American eyes to the tip of her toes she looked out of place at a workstation. Alicia had thought she was employed by an embryo Russian game company attempting to crack the virtual reality game market. There had been nothing to cause her to question her employer’s motives in wanting only what were in effect 100 doomsday scenes of technically correct real life locations. She had been convinced by handlers that they were necessary in generating interest by financial backers in order to obtain the funds needed to produce an ass kicking game product. Posing as the ‘Silent partners’, Alontov and Peridenko had been present in the bogus boardroom when she had presented the completed project. On that occasion the city had been Sydney, Australia. The two conspirators had looked at one another as the end credits scrolled up on the screen. Scepticism had been present in both pairs of eyes, which was until the vivacious Miss O’Connor had taken the floor.
“Too flashy” Serge had said in flawless English. Alicia had given him a considering glance before asking
“Too flashy for whom, exactly?” He considered the security aspects of his reply before deciding it was a minimal risk.
“Our intended financiers are Chinese”.
She had shrugged and stated.
“Don’t you think it would appeal to their sense of the dramatic?” Peridenko had burst out with a guffaw of laughter, soon joined by Serge despite himself. All he could think of were the wasted months on this project because this pretty, young American ‘beach bunny’ thought inscrutable Oriental’s could be dramatic! Thinking back to that day Alontov could clearly remember the lovely Miss O’Connor sitting totally unfazed by these two men laughing at her best efforts.
Both men had calmed down enough to dab handkerchiefs at eyes damp with mirth when she then stated quite simply
“Those guys probably invented the theatre, they sure as fuck invented gunpowder and fireworks… .of course they know dramatic”. Both men had frozen in place; two pairs of eyes fixed on her smugly smiling face.
Sold to the guys in the black hats!
Here in the Politburo offices, Miss O’Connor's handiwork began with the approach to the planet from behind earth’s moon. It was not to Alontov’s down to earth soldiers taste but it was not for his benefit anyway. Skimming the Moon’s surface the viewer approached the Earth at dazzling speed. The largely blue planet filled the screen before the viewers were plunged through clouds and there before them lay the Californian coastline with the entrance to San Francisco Bay rapidly approaching at its centre. Swooping under the Golden Gate Bridge, passing over the carrier USS John F Kennedy as she steamed toward her waiting escorts and the Pacific Ocean, her flight deck bare of the combat aircraft, which would fly on once she, was at sea. A Coast Guard cutter escorting her on the way out of the bay.
The viewers were sped East past Marina and Fort Manson. A hard right turn South over Fisherman’s Wharf actually had at least one elderly Politburo member grasps at the table’s edge for support. Alontov saw the head of Marshal Lo Chang, commander of the People’s Liberation Army turn to regard him with the ghost of a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth, and a look that said it all.