Dispatches (2 page)

The remaining one hundred and fifty-six shells would arc over Narva, targeting a six-mile stretch of the Tallinn-St. Petersburg highway. Each specialty projectile carried two self-guided sub munitions, which independently detected and attacked enemy tanks or armored personnel carriers below. In practice, the smart munitions yielded a seven out of eight hit ratio, putting two hundred and seventy-three Russian tanks at risk of destruction.

The math was encouraging, but Colonel Saar wouldn’t survive long enough to measure the effects of his plan against the Russian tank brigade. It didn’t matter. He’d done his duty for Estonia. The rest was up to God—and the British Aerospace engineers that designed the ammunition.

Fifty-seven seconds after the Russians started jamming their communications, the sergeant seated next to him yelled triumphantly, “Spotters report multiple direct hits to the E20 Bridge! Too many to count!”

“Excellent work! We did it!” yelled Saar, the pride of their accomplishment momentarily overshadowing the inevitable.

He stole a glance at his watch. Sixty-two seconds. Saar never saw sixty-three. The first salvo of Russian 300 mm rockets exploded above the forest, showering his battalion with thousands of baseball-sized munitions. He heard the muted crackling of the first bomblets exploding in the trees, but nothing after that. His battalion essentially ceased to exist, along with most of the forest that sheltered it.

Chapter 2

Ferry Terminal D, Port of Tallin

Tallin, Estonia

Mari Saar pulled on her children’s overstuffed backpacks, reining them tight against her body. The three of them fought against the packed crowd as one shape, constantly expanding and contracting to press a few centimeters closer to the passenger gate. She should have known better than to try for one of the main Tallin passenger terminals, but her husband insisted that Terminal D had been reserved for military families. By the time she learned that plans to evacuate Estonian Defence Force dependents had been abandoned, it was too late to change plans. The buzzing swarm of panicked humanity surged in one direction—forward to the perceived safety of the ferries.

Her son cried out, turning to look up at her with tear-soaked eyes. Erik had been accidentally kicked, knocked down and hit in the face dozens of times over the past three hours as Mari struggled to shield him with her arms. She could barely reach over them because of the size of their backpacks. They’d stuffed the school packs with cold-weather clothing, energy bars and bottles of water until she could barely work the zippers. Her husband, Egan, had stressed the importance of carrying everything they needed in backpacks. Traditional luggage would be the first thing to be abandoned or lost in the struggle at the terminal, he had warned them. He’d been right about everything, except for Terminal D. Now she was fighting for enough space so her children could breathe.

At seven, Erik barely came up to her navel. Fortunately, Helina was taller and could somewhat hold her own, letting Mari focus on keeping her son off the ground. She wasn’t sure how much further Erik could continue like this. The look on his face told her not very long.

“We’re almost there, sweetie,” she said, forcing a big smile.

He pursed his lips and nodded, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks. Mari was glad that Erik couldn’t see over the crowd. An endless sea of wool hats, matted hair, backpacks and piggybacking children extended to the staircase leading to the third-floor departure gates. She dreaded the stairs. They almost didn’t make it up the last staircase. Helina kissed her fair-haired brother on the temple.

“It’s fine, Erik. We’ll be out of here soon,” she said, pushing against a dirty black backpack that hovered inches from his face.

“I miss Daddy,” he whimpered.

“Daddy’s fine. He’ll join us in Stockholm,” said Helina, her eyes meeting Mari’s for a moment.

They both knew the truth. Colonel Saar would undoubtedly be among the first Estonian soldiers to fight the Russians.

“Helina, how are you doing?” she said.

“Fine, Mom, but I need to go to the bathroom,” said Helina.

Mari didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t put any thought into how long they might be trapped, unable to move in any direction except forward. She scanned the yellow walls of the terminal, not spotting a bathroom nearby—not that it would have mattered. A few seconds later, her son looked back at her.

“I have to go too,” he said. “Really bad.”

“Soon, sweetie,” she said, rubbing his head through his gray hat. “Maybe it’s time to have something to eat. I’ll break open some candy.”

His eyes lit up briefly as she dug into her coat pocket for the chocolate bar she had been parceling out to the kids for the past hour. She snapped off a large piece and handed it to Erik, breaking off another for Helina. Even at eleven years old, the allure of chocolate hadn’t worn off her daughter. The kids seemed placated for the moment, while she checked her smartphone for messages. Her parents had made it to Riga by car, though she wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse for them. They lived on the southern coast of Estonia, on the Bay of Riga, and Mari begged them to drive south immediately. At least Riga put them farther away from the Russian hordes. Nothing from Egan, which didn’t surprise her.

The lights flickered in the terminal, followed by a sudden rumbling as military jets flew over the port. She hoped they were friendly jets, but somehow knew this was wishful thinking. The crowd pressed tighter around them, causing Erik to moan. His chocolate-stained mouth quivered as the smell of urine hit the air.

“I couldn’t help it, Mommy,” he said, turning his head to escape the backpack pushing into his face.

Mari wanted to scream at the young man in front of them. She’d asked him to reverse the backpack twice already, but he’d just shook his head and mumbled something about it being her fault for having kids.

“It’s all right, Erik. Next time make sure you pee on the man in front of you,” she said, shoving the black backpack as hard as she could.

She instantly regretted her action, seeing that it caused a ripple effect in the crowd. The man spun around and raised a fist, his hand hesitating. Mari stepped in front of her children.

“I’m very sorry,” she said forcefully. “But your backpack has hit my son’s face nonstop since we started. I wish you would wear it on the front of your body. Just until we get on the ferry.”

“You should have thought of that before having a bunch of illegitimate kids.” He snickered.

“My husband is the commanding officer of an artillery battalion stationed at the border,” she stated. “Why haven’t you reported to your Defence League unit? The reserves were called up weeks ago. I don’t see anything wrong with you.”

“What’s the point of dying in a frozen foxhole on the border? Fucking stupid if you ask me,” he replied, keeping his hand up as if he might hit her.

A thick hand grabbed his wrist. “Her husband is on the border, buying the rest of us time to escape. It’s a time-honored tradition called sacrifice. Something your generation doesn’t know the first thing about.”

A stocky man with graying hair, dressed in a thick, gray and orange weatherproof jacket, held the man’s wrist in place.

“Now you will reverse the backpack, or I will beat you senseless and let them walk over you. Your choice,” he said.

“Fine,” said the young man. “I guess this is how your generation solves things.”

“That’s right,” he said, nodding at Mari as the guy carefully removed his backpack.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No. Thank you,” the older man said, squeezing between the young man and Mari. “Get behind your kids again, and I’ll make sure you have smooth sailing for the rest of the trip.”

She noticed that he carried no backpack or luggage.

“You’re not carrying anything?” she said.

“I didn’t have time. My daughter is at Stockholm University. I have to be on this ferry,” he said.

“Let me know if you need water or food. We have plenty to last the trip—if we ever get on the ferry,” she said.

“We’ll get on. It’s moving slowly because there’s only one ferry at the terminal, and they’re loading it carefully. All of the ferries will be here shortly. Right now they’re waiting,” said the man.

“Waiting for what?” she said.

He leaned back and whispered, “Waiting for NATO to sink the Russian blockade.”

“What? How could you know that?” she whispered back.

“Because my son is a lieutenant at the Miinisadam Naval Base a few kilometers from here. I dropped him off before coming here. All hell is breaking loose out there. I’m pretty sure we just heard our own jets fly over.”

“God help us,” she said, hugging her children.

“God—and people like your husband and my son,” he said.

“Say a prayer for them, children,” said Mari, buoyed by a complete stranger’s kindness.

Chapter 3

Baltic Sea

Fifty-two miles north of Gotland, Sweden

Through the night-vision-enhanced visor on her flight helmet, Lieutenant Commander Robyn Faulks watched the coastline slip past her F/A-18F Super Hornet. At three hundred and ten knots, the light green strip was long gone when she glanced right. She caught a glimpse of another attack aircraft in her flight of six Hornets. In less than a minute, they’d deliver their payload and turn for the Swedish coast, disappearing just as quickly.

They’d launched from the USS
George H. Bush
nearly eight hours ago, stopping at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall to refuel and wait for the final mission “green light.” They didn’t wait for long; the pilots and flight officers rushed to their aircraft less than two hours after arriving. They left with a pair of KC-135 refueling aircraft, the last strategic aircraft still stationed in Europe. The flying “gas stations” topped them off north of Denmark and returned to the protective cover of the United Kingdom’s air defense zone. With the secret approval of the Swedish government, the Hornets flew a low-level profile over the sleeping country, heading toward the Baltic.

Her helmet-integrated HUD flashed a thirty-second warning, which she knew would be seen by the flight officer seated behind her. The mission profile required the strictest emissions control (EMCON) standards, prohibiting the use of radar, radio gear or internal communications circuits. Silencing the internal link was overkill, but mission planners didn’t want any of the pilots “fat fingering” the wrong button and giving the Russians an excuse to escalate tensions.

Still, allies were allies, and the United States wasn’t going to turn its back on NATO. The two stealth missiles attached to her wing pylons were a testament to their continued commitment. Twenty seconds. In her HUD, she saw the missiles’ status change to “Armed.” A string of secondary symbols confirmed that latest targeting data uploads had been received less than a minute ago, ensuring that the missiles would reach their targets without using radar.

Capable of autonomous targeting, the LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) would use a combination of radar, infrared signature and electronic intercept data provided by Finnish sensors to independently detect and track their targets—ensuring the simultaneous delivery of each one-thousand-pound warhead. Only one missile was needed per ship, since the Russian’s Baltic Fleet consisted of nothing heavier than a Sovremenny class destroyer. A reserve missile would loiter twenty miles away from the first Russian vessel, just in case one of the ships got lucky. Within the span of seconds, the naval blockade of the Baltic States would be lifted.
Ten seconds to launch.

She watched the countdown timer, giving a thumbs-up to her flight officer when it hit zero. The aircraft shuddered, adjusting to the sudden reduction in weight. A brilliant yellow-green flash filled her visor, as the LRASM’s booster propelled the cruise missile ahead of the Hornet. The light faded as it pulled away, the missile travelling two hundred knots faster than her aircraft. A second shaking, followed by another night-vision bloom confirmed the successful launch of their final missile. She counted a dozen successful booster ignitions before the last LSARMs were swallowed by the night.

Her HUD displayed a Time-To-Target (TTT) of twenty-eight minutes. They’d be long gone before the Russian ships hit the bottom of the Baltic. Faulks eased her aircraft into a shallow turn, proud that the United States was not out of the fight.

“Red Dragon Redux”

Chapter 4

USS
GRAVELY
(DDG-107) off the coast of Delaware

Early December, 2019

Lieutenant Commander Gayle Thompson stared into the darkness beyond the starboard bridge wing. The frigid air stung her face, forcing her to squint against the wind created by the ship’s transit. Not even the horizon was discernible.

There’s nothing out there,
she thought
.

She still couldn’t fathom the sheer absence of shipping traffic outside of the Delaware Channel. Four months into the crisis, and the humanitarian aid from Europe had trickled to nothing—not that it had ever really started. Russian aggression across the Eastern European front started within a month of the EMP attack against the United States, effectively drawing NATO into a quagmire of idle military threats and useless political posturing across Europe. One former Soviet satellite nation after another fell to bloodless coups, or in some cases, Blitzkrieg-like attacks. The brief battle in Estonia had been particularly bloody, for both sides. In less than a week, Russian Federation borders extended to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. NATO didn’t expect the Russians to stop, not with the United States out of the picture.

Tensions at sea had returned to Cold War levels, an era Thompson had never experienced during her eleven-year career. Few of the sailors onboard
Gravely
remembered the days when a constant, low-grade fear of the Soviets ruled the sea. NATO and Soviet seaborne units played endless games of cat and mouse, the contest occasionally turning deadly. The Russian surface navy posed little threat in 2019, the supremacy myth surrounding their missile-bristling warships was busted more than two decades earlier. The same couldn’t be said about their submarine force, which was why
Gravely
had spent the past one hundred and four of the past one hundred and eight days at sea. A four-day stop to reload weapons at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station represented the crew’s only break since the “event.”