War with Russia

“And I’m heading back to link up with my guys at the embassy. Good luck and I hope we meet again,” he said to Bertinetti, who watched as he turned and walked out of the Operations Center with the striking blonde girl. He anticipated that the other F-16s would be landing soon. Given the new sense of palpable concern in the Operations Center, his gut instinct told him that they couldn’t come fast enough.

At that moment the radar picture in the Air Operations Coordination Center, the digital map image in the Operations Center and all the computers flickered, faded and then went black. The watch keeper spoke into his microphone. But there was nothing. He tried his telephone. Again nothing. The hackers had struck again.

The lights flickered and went out. In the dark they heard a generator kick in somewhere and a faint wall light slowly pierced the darkness. “Let’s go,” exclaimed Bertinetti. “NOW!”

0100 hours, Sunday, May 21, 2017

Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia

IT HAD BEEN a tortuous drive from Riga thanks to the chaos caused by the latest cyber-attack. Bertinetti had left the Latvian Armed Forces Joint Command HQ with Teteris, the Lielvārde Air Base commander, in a desperate hurry to get back to the airfield. The radar picture they’d seen in the Air Operations Command Ops Room, before it had gone blank, was ominous. It had shown a major concentration of radar icons around Pskov, the Russian aviation base 175 kilometers east of Riga, and Bertinetti wanted to reassure himself that the remainder of his F-16s—which were expected any minute now—were refueled, armed and ready to go in the event of a surprise Russian attack. As they finally drove through the main gate of the air base at one o’clock in the morning, the loud wailing of sirens shattered the quiet of the night.

“That’s the attack signal! I’ve got to get to my command post!” Teteris was already accelerating past the gate guard who, recognizing him, waved him through, a look of near panic on his face as he clearly wondered what on earth was happening. Screeching to a halt and not bothering to shut the car door, Teteris ran into the Station HQ.

Bertinetti followed him, mind racing. If the base was under imminent Russian attack, he had to get himself and his jets airborne and out of Latvia. Much as it galled him to cut and run, he’d had it drummed into him on being tasked to this assignment that his mission was to deter an attack, and if Russian and American pilots went head-to-head in combat, then a potential world war might follow.

One look in the Ops Room was enough for Bertinetti. The picture, remoted in from the Contingency Response Group’s field radar outside and unaffected by the cyber-attack, showed a series of red dots winking fifty kilometers to the east of the runway perimeter; given their slow speed and numbers, they were most likely Russian helicopters en masse. Ominously, and closing in on the air base, were several rapidly moving dots. They could only be high-speed aircraft, probably ground-attack jets, whose task would be to destroy the air defenses before the airborne assault.

A figure in US Air Force combat uniform wearing the silver eagle of a colonel appeared at his elbow. It was the commander of the 435th Contingency Response Group and he spoke urgently. “In case you’re wondering where your buddies are, Bertinetti, your F-16s were turned back when we picked up the attack warning.”

Bertinetti turned to him, aghast.

“Orders direct from US Air Force Europe, Ramstein. The President doesn’t want to start World War Three. We were sent here to stop the bastards coming over the border… and it’s too late for that now.”

Bertinetti protested. “But, Sir. Latvia’s coming under attack, so we’re all being attacked. I thought that was what NATO was all about. What kind of signal does it send to the world if Americans are seen to be running away, when we should be protecting an ally?”

“Steady, Bertinetti,” responded the colonel as calmly as he could. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret. I’ve had my orders and the others have been turned around. And that’s that. You’re to get airborne as quickly as you can… And that’s an order. I ordered your wingman to head back without you. He refused and I respected that decision, as I know you fly in pairs and you would be very much more vulnerable on your own, so I let him stay. But Ramstein want you back in Aviano ASAP… In one piece. Understood?”

Bertinetti heard the roar of a fast jet starting up, but said nothing.

“That’s Mike Ryan getting ready to leave,” said the colonel, changing the subject. “There’s a vehicle waiting to take you to the hardened shelter and your aircraft is already prepped. That radar picture gives you all the briefing you need… Now go!”

“And what about you, Sir?” Bertinetti asked.

“We’ll take our chances.”