“I won’t be here long today. I just came to do something that goes against my better judgment, but my superiors inform me that this is something we should do. You have another visitor. If you will come with me,” Phillip said as he stood up from the table.
They stood as one. Phillip knocked on the door and they walked from the cell turning right, making their way down the hall. They went through a door he had seen when he came here, and when he made his way outside for exercise, but had never passed through. “You will have 10 minutes,” the annoying American said.
Confused, he entered the room and found his son sitting there, waiting for him, “Son. It is good to see you.”
He did not want to use the boy’s real name, and in the process give away any information away they might not already have. He also spoke in his native tongue, knowing his son would understand, and hopefully annoying his captors at having to bring in a translator.
“Hello Father. I wish we had met again under better circumstances,” said the son, in English. That disturbed Dr. Joba at a level that Phillip would have enjoyed.
“I agree with you. I have heard some most disturbing things about your time here in America. Dating an American woman, for reasons beyond the carnal? Love letters? Eating Pork? Son, these are not things that a good follower would do,” scolded Dr. Joba.
He had always been like this with his children. Just telling them what they had done wrong and leaving it up to them to fix their behavior knowing his disappointment in them should be enough for them to want to correct their behavior.
“Father. That is your fight, not mine. I think what you have done is horrible. These people are not what we have been told,” his son retorted.
“Then you are no longer a son of mine, and I do not need my remaining time. Be gone with you,” he rose and proceeded back to his cell.
Once he was back in his cell he knelt to pray. He was glad his son had listened over the years, and was sure his message had gotten through. Hopefully his the boy would be successful in passing it along to the correct people along with the computer files the boy already had in his possession.
AP NEWS FLASH: Preliminary polling of US Senators, and likely voters for the next election, shows nearly unanimous support for Major Frank Banner to become the Vice President. His military record is largely classified, and given his past positions, this is not surprising. The Senators who have security clearances have reviewed it and unanimously say it is stellar. He is exactly the kind of man they would like to see in that job, given the conditions of the world today. Interestingly, news reports have come out recently saying that he is a registered independent and has never identified himself with one political party or the other since being registered to vote at the age of 18. There will be many interviews concerning his stance on many of the issues facing the Nation, but his confirmation is expected to occur quickly and smoothly.
AP ECONOMIC NEWS FLASH: Economists are now saying that without relief from the continually increasing gas prices the economy will become crippled, far worse than it already has been. It could remain that way for years, if not decades to come. Today the President has opened up all public land to drilling for oil, much to the dismay of the environmentalists. The President’s spokesperson has said that every precaution will be taken to protect the environment, but the drilling must be done for the good of the country. The administration has also issued thirty new permits to build nuclear power plants, believing, in the long run, this will help with the energy needs of the country in some densely populated areas. Given the recent attacks some are questioning this move towards the use of nuclear power, however given the current economic conditions these projects are expected to move forward without protests.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The President, Chief of Staff Johnson, The Secretary of Defense, the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Major Banner were present in the situation room to monitor the largest air strike in the history of man. This battle would dwarf the previous strike, and put to shame the D-Day, invasion just because of the bombing capacity of the newer bombers versus what was available in World War 2. They hoped that this battle would avoid a full-fledged 3rd World War.
There were three hundred bombers of various types, and almost every fighter aircraft in the US inventory, including the recently retired, and now reactivated F-117A stealth fighter. These would be in the air all at the same time. If this didn’t convince them to negotiate, nothing would.
The F-22 was a better aircraft, and stealthier than the F-117A, but they needed as many air frames as possible in the air to get the shock effect they were looking for.
“Gentlemen, Mr. President, the first flights are taking off,” stated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The monitors started coming to life with various views from the cockpits windows of some of the first planes off the ground. Those will be the first planes to strike targets, or run into trouble.
The enemy had what little remained of their radar sites on and scanning the sky, knowing that something was brewing. The US had kept up pressure, with less intense bombing raids for days. Suddenly, three hours ago, the raids had stopped, and all of the US radar went dark. This caused the enemy radar to come on at full strength. The Iranian military leaders were obviously confused by the change.
The break was going to turn out to be the lull before the storm.
The first set of aircraft were the stealthiest aircraft in the inventory. It was their mission to take out the few remaining radar sites. This would allow the large bombers to fly in and out of the region at will. The challenge was that the enemy was spread across multiple nations with a variety of capabilities.
The General pointed to the center most screen, “If everyone will watch right here, you will start seeing their radar sites dropping off-line as we hit them with our long range missiles.”
Almost on cue, one by one the enemy radar went offline making way for the main armada to go in and destroy their ground forces. The only concern now was that, without a follow on ground invasion they had to destroy all military hardware by air. They could stop them momentarily but they couldn’t hold the ground. The ground troops were not remotely close to ready to go into the region.
The enemy had gotten their remaining Air Forces up and kept their internal radar units off hoping they would be a larger challenge, although not impossible to be located.
The AWACs would found them with only a few moments of searching.
Now was the time the F-22s went to work.
The screen showed the two Air Forces headed toward one another.
The F-22s fired from a long distance out. Their missiles had a far superior range, and once locked on almost never failed to be fatal. A large number of the Iranian, and their Allied Air Force assets could be seen falling off the screen. The enemy just kept coming.
As they got in close enough the Americans started having difficulty.
“General, we are losing a large number our fighters. Do we have an operational security problem? Could they have hacked us again, just like they did with our locator beacons?” The President was obviously disturbed at losing people.
“No sir. Their fighters just don’t stop coming no matter how many we blow out of the air, and their numbers are still formidable. We will lose some of our guys, but we have rescue teams in the area to look for survivors. Many of what you see us losing will actually have pilots ejecting before it is too late,” answered the General.