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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

“Prepare to move. Stand by to skirmish, then assault the camp on my order,” he spoke urgently into his radio, pausing to allow his men to ready themselves for the seventy-meter dash through the forest to the camp. “Move now!” Vronsky yelled.

He pulled himself up, his cramped, stiff limbs resisting, and dashed forward as his wingman put down fire from his AS Val assault rifle. As he did so he was aware, left and right, of two or three others moving with him; not enough though. Some of his men must be down already.

Then it was time to dive forward, roll into a firing position, take aim, spot no target but, nevertheless, fire off a couple of rounds at the forest camp; then quickly roll over and put more bursts of fire down as his wingman ran forward. As he prepared himself to dash forward again, he heard the unmistakable, high-pitched whine of a motocross bike in high gear.

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.