She walked down Fifth Avenue like a tourist, how New Yorkers hated tourists. They gawked on the sidewalk and had their faces pointed to the sky. All the while, the locals just wanted to get to work. Inevitably this resulted in a collision. Some poor wife from Missouri gawking at the buildings ran smack into an investment banker in a hurry to get to his office. Coffee was spilled and words exchanged. This was New York after all. Some things never changed.
She kept walking. The guards tried to keep up. Of course the president had Natasha watched and guarded. He could not just let her have her freedom. She was too important to him. In addition, the head of the Security Service had his suspicions.
The President did not believe this. That is why he insisted that she be allowed to accompany him on this trip to the United Nations in New York.
So let her shop, he thought. Make her happy. There were benefits to be gained from a happy mistress.
She passed Bergdorf Goodman and crossed the street. She had in mind her real destination, Tiffany’s.
The two FSB agents followed her through the front glass doors into the store. The glass cases glittered with diamonds. How the women loved the little blue boxes. There were multiple levels with different items on each floor. The elevator was located at the rear of the building. Natasha headed straight for the lift. She waved to her guards as she entered the elevator to head to the higher floors, where the custom jewelry was.
They let her go. After all, where could she go? What goes up must come down they thought and moved their eyes to the front entrance. They would give her some time alone.
Natasha made eye contact with the elevator operator briefly. “What floor, madam?” he asked.
“The top.”
He smiled.
The elevator did not stop at the top floor of the store but kept going to the floor below the roof. She quickly exited the lift and sprinted up the stairs to the top of the building. The usual padlock to the roof had been opportunistically removed. The helicopter was landing, blowing her back against the stairway outer wall. Her handler grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. Time was of the essence. Natasha and the faux elevator operator jumped into the aircraft and slammed the doors shut. The pilot pulled pitch on the collective and dove down between the buildings to gain airspeed and then sped off into the coming night.
She was safe.
Chapter Nineteen
Eastern Europe
The Special Forces teams moved quickly once they were airlifted into position. For the most part they were operating in friendly countries, countries that Russia supplied with gas shipments, shipments via pipeline that is. Most of them were in the former Soviet Union. Getting inserted into the correct position was not as difficult as if they were in Russian territory. Primarily they were flown in but some were covertly inserted over ground.
The target areas were mostly in Eastern Europe, along the border with Russia. Europe was weakened substantially by the collapse of the Eurozone and the common currency. Economic growth was dramatically reduced as budgets crumbled. This left little room for expenditures on military readiness. In fact, this spending had disintegrated. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was no longer formidable. It still existed in name only, backed up by American and, to some extent, British military power. Europe had simply relied on American military power for too long and let its own capability atrophy.
The world sensed the weakness. NATO had maintained the balance of power on the continent for decades, no more. The old European nationalistic fervor began to rear its ugly head again. The economic pain was becoming too great for the populations to bear. The peace that had been kept for decades was unraveling.
The president figured that he had to take the lead here and deal with the international threats to his allies on the continent. They would possibly experience some short-term pain, which would damage their economies even further by his actions. However, the alternative was far worse, as he hoped many remembered from their elders at the beginning of the twentieth century. He hoped they remembered the sacrifices and the suffering endured. They may have to experience them again. The hard lessons may have to be relearned.
Europe had grown soft. They had grown soft on the cradle-to-grave welfare state. Free everything, education, health care, retirement, thirty-five-hour work week, holidays, et cetera. It was unsustainable. They could not come to grips with that fact.
Someone had to lead.
The main export of the Russian Federation was petroleum products, oil and natural gas. This export capability was delivered primarily via pipelines that transported the product into Eastern and Western Europe. The pipelines were numerous and when overlaid onto a map resembled a circuit diagram. When crossing the border from Russia, they created choke points that were highly vulnerable.
America made great strides in reducing its energy dependence on foreign supplies over the last few years with the development of shale gas deposits throughout the continental United States. She was now the Saudi Arabia of natural gas supplies. America also was now a net exporter of refined petroleum products. The industry was one bright spot in the U.S. economy.
Europe, however, had grown more and more dependent on Russian exports. It was dangerous.
There were multiple direct action teams inserted into various locations. They each carried the same type of backpack explosive devices. They were also highly trained in how to deploy and use them. The charges were set up in a matter of hours in a manner not to be detected by the naked eye. Primarily they were buried under the pipelines in unpopulated areas. A pipeline was a notoriously hard piece of infrastructure to guard and keep safe. If someone wanted to damage it, they most likely would be successful.
Once the charges were in place, the teams evaded detection and escaped from the area on foot to a designated landing zone. The teams were then exfiltrated twelve hours later by the same CV-22 aircraft that brought them in.
Eleuthera, Bahamas
Connor awoke not knowing where he was. The only thing for certain was the horrible feeling in his head. He felt as though his temples were in a vice. His tongue felt like a dry sponge. And he was sweating, way too much.
The Bahamian sun slowly peeked its way through the window into the bedroom where he lay sleeping on the floor. He was still fully dressed. The geckos began to chirp.
They make such an annoying sound, he decided as consciousness began to return.
He picked himself off the floor clumsily and stumbled into the bathroom to the toilet to relieve himself. He recoiled at the puke strewn all over the floor where he had missed the toilet the night before. Ignoring the smell, Connor drank forever from the sink trying to rehydrate himself. It was no use. Then he made his way to the front door.
He had arrived on the island late the day before. The President had called on the carrier and asked him where he wanted to go. The world was spinning by him. He did not feel part of his surroundings. He let go.
Connor told the president he wanted to go to his beach house on Eleuthera and be alone, so the president made it happen. He flew by helicopter from the USS Bataan direct to the island, landing on the road in front of his house. He didn’t even remember the flight, just bits and pieces. If the circumstances were not so depressing, he might have been amused.
He had immediately jumped in his truck and drove to the bar where he had met Kate. The memories were vivid. I miss her. He felt alone, completely alone. He had called his office and left instructions not to be disturbed for a while. It wouldn’t have mattered; the phone had been left at the house on purpose.
The emotional pain was intense. He had allowed himself to get close.
Never again, he vowed.
Maybe it was time to do something different, he thought. He had enough money. Did he need the stress of the markets anymore? The volatility was crazy the last few years. This w
as a young man’s game.
The question remained unanswered as he stared at the sea. The breaking of the waves along the beach provided a comforting rhythm.
He drank by himself at the bar. The locals knew well enough to leave him alone. They could tell he needed his privacy. Even the bartender gave him his distance.
Somehow he made it back to his villa. All he knew was he didn’t drive. The keys were left in his mailbox. His SUV was outside in the driveway.
Somebody took pity on me, he mused.
His head pounded as he made his way out of the house the next morning, but that pain paled in comparison to the sorrow in his heart.
“Tragedy strikes Connor again!” he cynically laughed as he made his way to the beach, tearing off his clothes as he walked. He lowered himself in the water and just floated face down, occasionally coming up for air. He was oblivious to the world.
Oval Office
President Walker picked up the phone once the red light started to flash, and he knew he was connected. He knew the Russian president spoke fluent English. He had advantages and disadvantages in this conflict with the Russian Federation. He hoped to play his cards right.
The Russian economy was stagnating. They had not learned the lessons of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Although, the Russian president was brilliant in allowing the public to have their own lives up to a point, which lessened the tensions and for the most part prevented outbursts of public anger, his government was still controlling the economy from the top down. A few well-placed incarcerations for life as well as the targeted murder of journalists or competitors for power made his point nicely. The people knew where the boundary lay.
Most important industries were under state control. This prevented the creation of new and important technologies. Entrepreneurship was limited by these policies. Corruption was rampant.
Since the severe depression in 2008, the economy grew very slowly and was highly dependent on energy, wheat, and other commodities. The concurrent global slowdown due to the overreaching of the Western welfare state exacerbated the problem. The Russian president could not afford a slowdown of his energy exports. They were the economy’s engine. They were what kept the people happy. They were what kept the peace internally. They were what kept him in power.
The Russian president was ruthless but also a pragmatist. President Walker was depending on this trait.
He listened for a moment and then spoke.
“Mr. President,” he began. President Walker was angry. He hoped that anger came through over the phone. “I don’t want to play around here. We both know what you have been doing. Please do not try to argue or deny it.”
There was silence on the other end then two words.
“Go on.” The accent and the coldness were unmistakable. There was no doubt who was on the other end of the line.
“You have been acting in concert with other countries to inflict damage to the economy of the United States.” President Walker waited but there was no response.
He continued.
“I want you to listen to me clearly. I also can inflict damage against the economy of your country. Yours is a resource-driven system, it is not very diversified. Your main export and the lifeblood of your economy is energy. Most of it is sent through pipelines into Eastern and Western Europe. These pipelines are very vulnerable. I can shut them down for a very long time. I can shut them down permanently. In fact you need to know the assets to accomplish this task are in place. All I need to do is make a phone call. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President, I believe we are,” the Russian president answered.
The designated sites were targeted for a long time. The Iranian regime was a thorn in the American side for decades now. From the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran, the Iranians were on a slow but deliberate march to destroy Israel and of course the Great Satan, the United States of America. They had achieved much in this quest. They had asserted themselves throughout the Middle East as a sponsor of terrorism and as a regional military power. They had built an atomic energy program with help from the Russians and others, which was on the verge of giving them a nuclear-armed capability.
The targets on the American military’s watch list in country had long been verified and reverified as conditions changed over the decades.
The president and the intelligence infrastructure felt they had very good information on where in Iran the nuclear materials and facilities were located. The question was really just what weapon to use to destroy them.
Several years before, the Central Intelligence Agency was very successful in sidelining the centrifuges used to enrich uranium in Iranian possession. They brilliantly inserted a computer virus that caused the devices to spin out of control and destroy themselves. This set the Iranian nuclear program back several years. In fact the Iranians were still dealing with the lingering effects from the problem.
In addition, the Israeli Mossad was effective in killing many of the scientists working on the Iranian program. But the program still existed and was very dangerous and close to being successful.
President Walker made it very clear to the secretary of defense and his general staff. In addition to their military capability, he wanted the Iranian nuclear facilities destroyed completely. He wanted options on how to do this and the probability of success with each.
There were twenty-five nuclear targets in all. All of them were hardened for years deep underground; the bunker walls were said to be sixty feet thick. Conventional weapons had a limited probability of success. The sites were very fortified. However, the president was determined not to leave a nuclear-capable Iran, so he left open the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons.
He was prepared to use them. They were fairly low tonnage and would be shaped to send the charge deep underground. The sites would be destroyed and the collateral damage would be minimal. Most of these sites were located away from major population centers anyway. To the president it was an easy choice. Kill or be killed. He had no doubt that as long as Iran was governed by an Islamist regime, bent on destroying the United States and Israel, they would continue to try to harm his country. Threats were no longer appropriate. They had drawn first blood.
There was the issue that the United States had signed a no-first-use treaty against countries that did not possess nuclear weapons. However, he did not care. If he had to use them, he would.
Indeed, he did not want to set a precedent regarding first use, so conventional warheads would be attempted. The United States was perfecting the art of bunker buster bombs for decades now. The technology was very far advanced. The military specifically developed conventional weapons for these targets. Each site would be struck multiple times under this method.
He had already moved multiple carrier battle groups into position. In addition, Air Force assets were on alert and being prepositioned as well.
He received the report from the Department of Defense on his options. He chose using conventional weapons against Iran to destroy their nuclear facilities. If they were not effective, then he would have to make another decision for follow-on attack. Then he knelt down by his desk and said a prayer.
Washington, D.C.
White House
President Walker was calm as he sat at his desk in the Oval Office. He was dressed in a dark gray suit with a red power tie. The flags were furled behind him. The lights showed bright. He looked very presidential. The Oval Office setting always gave its owner a sense of power no other competitor could match. It created instant respect. The president was counting on the seriousness of his intentions coming through.
The red light was flashing in front of him to his side, counting down the seconds. The teleprompter was ready. He knew what he was going to say, but his staff insisted on the teleprompter. He wasn’t going to use it. His press aid was counting the seconds down and mout
hing them. “Three, two, one, go!”
He calmly looked into the camera and waited a few seconds, the suspense building. The networks were notified thirty minutes earlier he would be making a speech. No one knew what was happening. Reporters were still excitedly streaming into the briefing room.
“My fellow Americans,” he said calmly and somberly. “it is my duty to inform you that we have been attacked by a group of international powers. This attack did not come primarily in the form of military aggression, although you know of the Iranian conflict. This attack came in an economic form. There has been a coordinated effort to destroy the United States economy by raising interest rates to an unsustainable level and drive this country further into debt. We believe the Iranian aggression was part of this effort.”
The president paused again for effect.
After a few moments he spoke again.
“I consider this economic aggression an act of war.”
He let those words sink in.
“This effort was put forth by an alliance of nations, including China, Russia, and the Iranian Islamic regime. There are possibly others involved, but our intelligence has not confirmed those as yet.”
The gravity of the situation was starting to hit home. People across the world were mesmerized at the spectacle unfolding.
He continued.
“I have asked Congress to prepare a declaration of war on China, Russia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. If this aggression continues, the act will be passed into law.”
There was a gasp in the room.
“I have ordered the United States Navy to blockade the ports of Iran. I have placed our nuclear forces on DEFCON 3, and I have ordered the United States Air Force to obliterate the military capability of Iran. This is underway as we speak.”
They could hear a pin drop the room was so quiet. Even the reporters were speechless, not even writing in their notebooks.