War with Russia

A number of “pops” sounded nearby. Then white smoke started billowing up around him, obscuring the forest, making identifying anything impossible. Bloody smoke grenades, he thought, all part of their escape plan.

Next moment, and through a gap in the smoke, he spotted a Honda motocross bike roaring past. It had a Latvian driver but there was a differently dressed soldier riding pillion. For a moment his eyes locked with the passenger, who stared at him, frowned and then loosed off a couple of wildly aimed bursts of fire from what looked to be a British-issue rifle.

Before Vronsky could return fire, the bike careered around a corner further along the narrow track and, next instant, was lost to sight among the trees.

Vronsky’s photographic memory kicked in, despite the mayhem all around him: dark-haired, bearded, late twenties, unfamiliar combat uniform, standard British army SA80 rifle; he must be British. Then disappointment and anger hit him like a double punch to the solar plexus.

That’s my quarry and he’s escaped…!

PART THREE Riposte

1200 hours, Thursday, July 5, 2017

“The Tank,” Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

THE JOINT CHIEFS’ Conference Room, known universally as “The Tank,” was silent as the briefer outlined the detail of the plan to President Lynn Turner Dillon. Colonel Bear Smythson sat in his usual hardbacked chair, pushed up against the wall; not a main participant, but a silent observer. Flanking the President at the broad conference table in the utilitarian surroundings, much like any other conference room in a budget-conscious corporate office, sat the gray-suited Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor Abe MacWhite, together with General Marty McCann, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and, finally the Chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and US Marine Corps; the elite group of men who commanded and directed America’s war machine.

Bear reflected on the events since the world had been turned upside down early on that May morning, two long and sleep-deprived months ago. Whatever the sacrifices demanded of him and his family as a result of his commitment to this job, he was all too conscious that, once again, he was in the extraordinary position of being a witness to history, as he listened to the briefer explain the plan to expel Russia from the Baltic states.

Next the briefer detailed the impressive forces that had been assembled, a testament to America’s still vast military might: 6th Fleet and 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force were now poised at sea off eastern Denmark, and 4th Infantry Division had been transported across the Atlantic, disembarked at Bremerhaven, linked up with the armored brigades from Germany and was in transit to the Polish training area at Drawsko Pomorskie. The 18th Airborne Corps, around 40,000 men and women in total, was now forward based in the UK, while Special Operations Forces Command had inserted a number of ODAs—Operational Detachment Alpha, the twelve-man basic unit of American SOF—into the three Baltic states, which were working closely with the Forest Brothers. As for air forces, an air armada had been assembled across Western Europe and was at full readiness.

“What are our allies putting into the fight?” asked Dillon.

McCann stepped in and answered the question. “Ma’am, I’m pleased to say that our allies are stepping up to the mark. The British have put their 16th Air Assault Brigade under command of 82nd Airborne Division, which is now training in the UK. They’ve also managed to put together a small division using one of their armored brigades and a French light-armored brigade. It’s undersized, but potent—and at least they’re joining the party.

“As for the Germans, they’ve offered us 1st Panzer Division, which now includes a Polish brigade. All that has been taken under command of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, that’s the British-led NATO high-readiness force, which brings in nineteen other allies. The bottom line is that these forces, together with a number of smaller units offered by different allies, amount to a useful contribution. We’ll still need to underpin them and it’s a hotchpotch of forces that have rarely worked together, let alone fought together, but we can’t complain that our allies have not tried to deliver. And the fact that Europe is united over this is going to be very important for the political endgame.”

The President nodded. “And what about the Russians. Have they thinned out in Kaliningrad?”