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Back War with Russia Save as PDF
Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Foreword
  4. Preface
  5. Prologue
  6. PART ONE
  7. Kharkiv, Ukraine
  8. The President’s weekly defense and foreign policy meeting, The Kremlin, Moscow
  9. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC), Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Belgium
  10. Briefing Room, Boryspill Air Force Base, Ukraine
  11. The Kremlin, Moscow
  12. Washington, D.C.
  13. Residence of DSACEUR La Belle Alliance, Erbisoeul, Belgium
  14. North Atlantic Council Conference Room, NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  15. Banks of River Daugava, Riga, Latvia
  16. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  17. Riga, Latvia
  18. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  19. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  20. NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  21. National Armed Forces Joint HQ, Riga, Latvia
  22. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Mons, Belgium
  23. Central European Time 1600 hours, Eastern Standard Time, The White House, Washington, D.C.
  24. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  25. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  26. Camp David, Catoctin Mountains, Maryland
  27. British Embassy, 5, J.Alunana Street, Riga, Latvia
  28. The Russell Arms, Butler’s Cross, Buckinghamshire
  29. HMS Queen Elizabeth Middle Slip Jetty, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth
  30. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  31. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  32. Somewhere in the forest, Gauja National Park, Latvia
  33. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London
  34. HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Baltic Sea
  35. Control Room, Kilo Class submarine Krasnokamensk, Baltic Sea
  36. PART TWO
  37. Prime Minister’s Office, House of Commons, London
  38. The Presidential Dacha Barvikha, Odintsovsky District of Moscow Oblast
  39. The White House, Washington, D.C.
  40. NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium
  41. Gauja National Park Forest, Latvia
  42. PART THREE
  43. “The Tank,” Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
  44. North Atlantic Council NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  45. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Cheltenham, England
  46. GCHQ, Cheltenham, England
  47. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  48. Headquarters, Kaliningrad Special Region, Kaliningrad
  49. The President’s Office, The Kremlin, Moscow
  50. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  51. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  52. Command Bunker, Iskander Missile Battery Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad
  53. Over Wroclaw, Poland
  54. Forest north of Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  55. 25,000 feet above Kaliningrad
  56. Close to the Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  57. Epilogue
  58. Glossary
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Notes

Another explosion and another fireball told Bertinetti the second aircraft had also been hit. The sequence had been too quick for either pilot to have had a chance to pull the ejection handle and escape; exactly as had happened to his wingman and friend, Leroy, back in Ukraine. “Those were for you, Leroy,” Bertinetti muttered to himself.

“Ground, splash two,” said Bertinetti into his microphone. “Time for us to head for Aviano. But we’ll be back.”

There was no response from Lielvārde Air Base.

2330 hours, Sunday, May 21, 2017

Camp David, Catoctin Mountains, Maryland

THE VIP BLACKHAWK helicopter of the US Army’s 12th Aviation Battalion, the unit responsible for transporting the Washington power elite, circled over the forest in the dark, turned into the wind and then hovered before settling on the “H” of the landing site set high in the Catoctin Mountains of north Maryland, at Camp David, the presidential retreat.

As the rotors slowed and the engine closed down, General Abe MacWhite, sitting in the comfortable airline seat in the passenger compartment, spoke into the fixed microphone that went with the headsets he wore. “Thanks, Chief. Great flight . . . and sorry to disturb your weekend.”

“No problem, Sir,” came the response from the pilot. “That’s what we’re here for. We’ll be ready to take you back to DC when you’re done.”

Typical of the boss, thought Colonel Bear Smythson. He never forgets to thank the troops for what they do for him. That pilot would never have guessed the gravity of the news he was carrying to the President.

Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world had stood on the verge of nuclear Armageddon, the Soviets had pulled back at the eleventh hour. Today, however, the Russians had thrown caution and common sense to the winds and attacked three NATO countries without warning. It was going to take cool heads to ensure that nuclear missiles did not start flying and mutually assured destruction became a reality.

Bear had no doubt that MacWhite was the right man in the right place. Perhaps the only man who could extract America and the world from this horror. But what if the President disagreed? On such small matters as how the pair of them presented and explained the crisis to the President would such decisions be made. Unless she had absolute trust in MacWhite and his team, the President would not feel comfortable working with him. It would be difficult to overstate how much was going to depend on this meeting.

The side door slid open and MacWhite unbuckled his straps, then leaped out with the agility of a twenty-five-year-old, acknowledging as he did so the smart salute from the loadmaster.