“General?”
“Get me maps. Lots of maps.”
“Maps to what, sir?”
“Everything. I want maps of every place you can find.” He turned to the aide sitting at the desk, placed his hands on his hips and just stared him down.”
“Uhm, yes sir. Right away sir.”
Within the hour, the table was covered with every type of map anyone could find, maps that spanned the surface of the globe were taped together forming a hodge-podge earth. Someone even brought a map of the near side of the moon. Hey, orders were orders. The commander of the Alaskan theater pulled the table away from the wall into the center of the room. Then, he began to circle. He walked in silence for several minutes before someone summoned the nerve to ask what he was doing.
“Give me a marker, Lieutenant.” A nod from his junior officer was quickly supplemented with a large, black Sharpie. “What’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Tonney sir.”
“Lieutenant, you a smart cookie?”
“Top of my class, sir. I’d like to think so.”
“Well, mister top of my class, you’ve got a new job to do.”
“Sir?”
“Tonney, you’re about to get access to some very important information.” General Foxx leaned over and put a big, black X on the coast where the bomber went down. “I want you to co-ordinate all the incidents of Russian incursion over the last six months.
“That shouldn’t be too hard sir. There can’t be too many of them in Alaska.”
“I’m not just talking Alaska, son,” Foxx said as he leaned in over the table. “I’m talking, everywhere in the world.”
“Good evening, Mr. President.” Nikolay Muratov extended his arm, but felt the cool reception. He nodded as he sat down in the couch across from Edwin Kiger.
“Ambassador, we have a situation.”
“We do?”
“I would hope your government would not have left one so important as you in the dark, Mr. Ambassador,” Martin Powell replied.
“Nikolay, are you not aware of what has happened in Alaska?”
“I am not, Mr. President.” The Russian ambassador pushed against the arm of the couch as he squirmed into his seat. “My government must not think it is important.”
“Mr. Ambassador, the downing of an American fighter over the coast of Alaska by Russian warplanes is hardly a non-event.”
“Easy, Martin,” POTUS replied as he held up his hand. The president uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Nikolay, if I were you, I’d get hold of someone really quickly. I am, outraged that your country is so flippant that they would have failed to inform you of this.”
“I am sorry, Mr. President. I know not, flippant.”
“I’ll get you a dictionary, Mr. Ambass…” Martin stopped at POTUS’ raised hand. He was getting heated.
“Nikolay, I want to make this very clear. I will not stand for any, and I mean any, incursion into United States airspace.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Let me finish,” POTUS replied as he sat back into the seat. “Any violation of this will result in the most dire of consequences.”
“Mr. President, I will certainly pass along your words to my government. I certainly hope this will not have an adverse effect on the upcoming state function in a number of days. My country has always wished to respect international boundaries.”
“Like in the Ukraine?” Martin responded. That drew a wince from the ambassador.
“Please do so, Nikolay,” POTUS replied. “Good day.”
The Russian ambassador was escorted from the Oval Office by a Marine guard. A thoughtful touch arranged by the chief of staff.
“Well, I think that put him on the defensive, Martin.”
“I would say so, sir. It would be difficult to believe he knew nothing about it.”
“Oh, I’m sure he knows Martin, or at least he knows something.”
“Perhaps it was an oversight to leave him off the list of people to call.”
“Not in this world, or any other, Martin.” POTUS turned as he looked at his aide. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“No sir,” Martin replied. “Not really. It was just a thought.”
“General Goraya is on the line.”
“General, it is good that you called me.”
“Da, Andrey. Things did not go well on this mission. The American pilots are back to their cowboy ways.”
“It is unfortunate yes, but we live in a world of unfortunate events. We must make the most of them.” Andrey leaned forward as his elbows dug into his desk.“ President Novichkov is furious with the American’s reaction.”
“I would think so. What does he propose?”
“The Americans should see that we will not back down, that we will stand up to them. He wants to show them we operate from a position of strength, that we should show them we will not be cowed, that we have just as much right to the skies as they do, or any nation of the world.”
“Da. Our president sees the world as it should be. It is, unfortunately, not always so. What does he propose?”
Lieutenant Donny T., as he was generally referred to, spent the next several days pouring over military dispatches, satellite data, intel analysis, raw computer data and nearly anything else General Foxx could get his hands on, through proper channels or not. He was even able to ‘acquire’ Navy records from the Seventh Fleet out of Yokosuka, Japan. Though he always thought himself a quick study, he was taken aback by the sheer flood of data he was dealing with. Most he was able to sift through, knowing it was garbage, but he kept it around. Trends, he was looking for trends.
“What do you have, Tonney?” General Foxx scanned the pile of scotch tape and markers as he strolled around the table. He looked up as another pile of papers was summarily dropped onto a metal desk against the wall with a resounding thud. Lieutenant Tonney rolled his eyes at the sound. “I thought you were tough, Tonney.”
“Sir. I just need a bit of sleep, sir.”
“You’ll have plenty of that when this is all done. Anything new?”
Tonney didn’t answer right away, he went straight to the map and started scribbling with a red marker.
“I thought you just used a black marker, son?”
“There are too many things to keep track of, General.” Donny T. straightened, bending slightly backward, his hands on the back of his hips. “Black is for those operations that seem historically normal, or at least not out of the ordinary as far as Russian ops go. Red is for operations that seem to appear outside of their historical scope.”
“There’s a lot of writing on this map.”
“Yes sir.” Tonney crossed his arms as he looked over his view of the world. “Once you see it all written out, there sure are a ton of operations going on around the world.”
“Always has been, son. It’s what we do.”
“Sir, why didn’t we do this in the tactical center?”
“Easy answer, Tonney.” Foxx pulled on his cigar and rolled the smoke around his mouth before letting it slip into the purified air. “Tactical doesn’t give us the full picture since it only shows our theater of operations. Besides, they won’t let me smoke in there.”
Tonney nearly laughed before he realized General Foxx was serious. He began circling the table as well, taking in the whole picture. He knew this really didn’t matter. He could see the same thing from any angle, but it at least felt like it helped. He reached the bottom of the world and stood beside his commander.
“I see some patterns, General.” Tonney pointed to the red areas in the Alaskan command theater. “Outside of the incursion into Alaska, there are others that stand out.”