Blue Dawn, 1994

36 – Bridges over the Volga


The third night of the Coalition bombing the Union is underway. Tactical and strategic attacks take place through the hours of darkness.

Over the Baltics, the RAF expends much effort in making air attacks against Union ground forces moving southwards towards the British Army. Jaguar GR1s and Tornado GR1s make bomb runs aplenty. There are some ‘spectaculars’ where laser-guided bombs (LGBs) are dropped in precision strikes against special targets yet the RAF isn’t exactly flush with LGBs in addition to the designators for those weapons. Britain should have brought more in the preceding years if it wants to do all that the Americans can. Tanks, infantry carriers and self-propelled artillery is targeted by the RAF. They drop standard high-explosive bombs as well as cluster munitions atop of them. Truck columns are gone after too: these will be carrying fuel, ammunition and other supplies. Getting these are more important than tanks in all honesty. There are air defences encountered. ALARM anti-radar missiles are fired towards them and bombs runs made. What the RAF would like to employ would be air-to-surface missiles to engage those from a distance. In recent years, there has been debate, and thus delay, over finding a capable weapon for such a role for aircraft such as the Jaguar and Tornado to use. With no progress made, there are none of them in service. The Americans use Mavericks in this role. F-15E Strike Eagles are in the skies over the Baltics alongside the RAF. These are flying from Poland but are a UK-based unit – the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing – and have been tasked tonight on operations over Estonia and Latvia. 48 TFW has gone through many LGBs itself in recent days and nights but they still have some and employ them like they do Mavericks and the HARM missile for shutting down Union air defence radars. Dumb bombs are dropped too, plenty of them. Everywhere that there are enemy ground forces on the move spotted – with observation and tracking coming from various means – the RAF and the US Air Force tries to blow them up. It is a big ask to do all of this. The Twenty–Eighth Army is pushing south though, ready to go into combat in the morning, and the mission is to do as much damage to them ahead of time. In daylight, there will be more strikes yet when the Union Army has closed-up upon the British, there will have to be close air support given and more care taken so as to not hit friendly forces. Not now. Explosions rock the Baltics as the hours go by. A lot of destruction is being caused to those on the ground but only tomorrow will it be known whether this is all enough.

In Belorussian and Ukrainian skies, the Americans are joined by the Canadians and their Eastern European allies. They are blasting spotted enemy ground units to ruin as well as engaging Union Air Force fighters which come up to challenge them. The F-188 Hornets in Canadian service have seen action before but on the third night of the air war, they really get involved. Bombs runs are made by them over the eastern reaches of Belarus and they also take part in fighter interception under orders from an AWACS directing ‘the show’. Ancient Sukhoi-15TM Flagons are spotted. These are big, pure-interceptors who really shouldn’t be trying to tangle with agile modern fighters. The Canadians out manoeuvre them and the missiles which the Flagons launch before returning fire successfully. Above the Ukraine, F-15 Eagles are involved in missile exchanges with many different Union fighters including Su-27 Flankers and MiG-29 Fulcrums. AWACS support remains key and the Union knows that. Avoiding the ongoing foray directly, coming up from the south, going first through neutral Romanian airspace and then into Hungary, are a flight of MiG-31 Foxhounds. Missiles are ripple launched from them towards an E-3 Sentry flying over Slovakia. The last time something similar was done, the Americans lost an AWACS and into the chaos the Union filled the skies with tactical fighters to take advantage. That airborne radar aircraft is lost tonight but there others in the sky and a much better response is made. While the Foxhounds make an escape, a sudden rush by the Union Air Force to fill the skies with strike aircraft sees many of them shot down and the whole attack broken up. Denying the enemy ground attack missions comes along the Coalition making their own ones. They drop bombs and fire missiles through these two Union republics, both of which are undergoing rebellions against Moscow in certain places. Airbases are targeted alongside their ground forces. Huge defeats have already been inflicted upon Gromov’s armies but there remain more ground forces to be attacked ahead of them being engaged in battles sure to be coming up soon. As is the case with the Twenty–Eighth Army in the Baltics, there are air defences to be overcome and also the enemy has to be located. Camouflage, lots of it, is being employed by the Union. That applies too to their tactical ballistic missile force. The hunt to find the mobile launchers goes on tonight like it has done since Operation Flaming Phoenix began. Reports come in of hits made but verification is hard to come by. There is no assurance which can be provided that this is successful.


After the loss of an F-117 over Moscow the previous night, those stealth aircraft don’t return to the Union’s capital tonight. There are still attacks made towards Moscow but the direct overhead bombing of such a strongly-defended target isn’t made on the third night. The F-117s will be back, just not tonight. Elsewhere across Russia is where the focus of targeted air strikes is now. Bombing of bridges over the Volga becomes the priority. That mighty river flows through Western Russia and is crossed at many points by road and rail links. The field armies which Gromov is pulling from the Urals Front to get between the Coalition and Moscow need to come over the Volga. Those bridges are being used in that effort and to the bridges American attacks go. Through Gorki, Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Tolyatti and Saratov, going downstream, these attacks come. There are air defences but they aren’t as strong nor capable as those found around Moscow. The F-117s are able to drop LGBs bang on target. Aircraft in the service of Primakov’s forces have previously raided the Volga bridges but failed to make an impact like the Americans now do. Over Gorki, the rail bridge which carries the Trans-Siberian Railway over the Volga here comes crashing down. Other fixed structures down the length of the Volga around those four other cities are hit. There are other crossings and new ones can be erected but this particular target pattern is followed because smaller bridges and temporary ones cannot carry the weight of traffic which these ones can. Moreover, these cities are transport nodes themselves where other road and rail links coverage upon, not just those ones coming from the Urals Front. Union reinforcement plans for their exposed Western Front will be stung hard.

There are B-52s over Siberia. Launches are made from the skies above where Primakov rules the roost of missiles flying westwards into Gromov’s territory. Previous cruise missile attacks from B-52s have been made from the west, the north and the south: tonight it is from the ‘backdoor’. ALCM missiles are launched as well as Popeyes. These are Israeli-produced weapons in American service though financed by the United States as part of the HAVE NAP programme to create a cruise missile with precision strike capabilities. Those Popeyes slam home into valuable targets across Western Russia: airbases and command posts especially. ALCMs crash into more targets too. While some are brought down by Union Air Force Foxhounds (designed for such a mission), others are devastating the airbases from where those particular aircraft are flying from. Also coming into Union airspace from over the Urals is a lone aircraft on a special flight. This is a SR-71 Blackbird. The high-speed reconnaissance jet avoids any interception efforts and makes several passes above areas where there is suspected to be the movement of Union field armies from out of the Urals but also elsewhere. Satellites can see much yet they can be fooled at times. The flight path and timing of an aircraft such as the Blackbird is unpredictable even to the cleverest of strategists following maskirovka methods to hide what is on the ground. A wealth of important intelligence is gained during flights made over Tatarstan and then through the Samara & Saratov Oblasts. Flying onwards south from there, the aircraft’s sensors will bring back images of military forces moving between Volgograd and the Eastern Ukraine. Gromov is pulling troops out of the areas of Kazakhstan under his control. They’re going to join the fight on the Western Front too. There was already intelligence on this but that is now confirmed by this aircraft’s final reconnaissance mission before it returns unharmed to Cyprus.

Something that cannot yet be done is to bomb those moving armies themselves. They are deep inside Western Russia and out of range of effective air attack against them like is being done to those in the Baltics, Belarus and the Ukraine. Delay and disruption can be caused, bombing the bridges over the Volga is a key part of that, but they are going to show up eventually. The question remains how far deep can Coalition ground forces get into the Union before they encounter them?


End of Part Two

Interlude


37 – Breadcrumbs


Bob has been in Siberia through most of July. He came over ahead of General Clark’s military liaison team and doesn’t report to them. Instead, Bob is assigned to a Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) unit operating under the direct command of that agency which is part of the US Intelligence Community. A former commissioned officer with US Army Counterintelligence, Bob is a civilian now. There is military discipline within the DIA though and Bob is under orders. Those are to observe and report on the combat capabilities of Primakov’s Union armies in Siberia and the Urals. Furthermore, should the opportunity arise, Bob is to seek out opportunities for recruitment of human intelligence sources among personnel serving in those armies. If there is someone whom Bob considers is of value, such a person is to be ‘stroked’, yet full-blown proper agent recruitment will subsequently take place by fellow DIA officers.

Bob is in the process of stroking a potential agent on the night of July 31st, when the Coalition begins its opening offensive against Gromov’s Union. He’s in the Urals with Yuri far away from that fighting but within another war-zone where the opposing sides aren’t so clear cut.

For simplicity, the DIA – like the CIA and the Pentagon too – considers Gromov’s side in the civil war to be ‘Russians’ and those fighting for Primakov to be ‘Siberians’. Yuri, like so many of those east of the Urals, regard themselves as Russians though and object to such a labelling. Bob has been making an effort of calling Yuri and his comrades this side of the mountains Russians. It doesn’t make no difference to Bob but it sure has hell does to Yuri. This is all part of the stroking. Yuri is someone whom Bob believes could be an asset for the DIA. Whether he will be a willing co-operator or someone skilfully played to exploitation, Bob cannot be sure yet. A military intelligence officer himself, Yuri is with Primakov’s restructured FSB. Not only concerning itself with domestic counterintelligence and public security, the new FSB, with its headquarters in Novosibirsk, has a military intelligence branch which Siberians like him make a point out of saying is not another GRU. That latter organisation is the enemy, one so tied up with Gromov, and should the wrong name be used, Bob has already found out that causes problems. These Siberians are so temperamental! Their political identity, one which is quite dramatic, is in many ways about showing Americans such as Bob that they are the ‘good guys’. Gromov and his side of the civil war, which is now a full-scale global war, are the ‘bad guys’.

Yuri and Bob go with a Spetsnaz team tonight into the central section of the mountain range which divides Russia from Siberia and is now on the frontlines of both of those wars. The two of them are observers and here to watch the special forces soldiers attempt to take a nameless ridge away from enemy paratroopers. In the coming days, American soldiers and Green Berets too will be operating in this terrain when the commitment on the ground in the Urals by the US Armed Forces really gets going. There are others like Bob on the ground but with a different focus to his agent stroking agenda. In the midst of their operation, the Spetsnaz come under sustained shelling from mortars in the hands of those paratroopers. Yuri reacts first, grabbing Bob by the collar and dragging him to the ground. The two scramble into cover with both of them getting banged about during this. Yuri is also caught by mortar fragments. Bob finds himself quickly covered in the blood of the Siberian officer. It’s gushing from Yuri’s neck. He does what he can as his humanity drives him to act. This man saved his life and he tries to save his.

While Yuri bleeds, he also talks. He tells Bob something that the American never expected to hear. Yuri is at death’s door and this seems to be a deathbed confession, something that Bob believes that Yuri fears he must get off his chest before he goes to meet his maker. Finished with what he is saying, Yuri closes his eyes and seems content to die. Bob will have none of that. He fights to keep Yuri alive. There is anger in him, furious rage at what Yuri has told him, but Bob gets past that and does all that he can to keep this man alive. The mortars have ceased and a medic arrives. Yuri ends up in a helicopter evacuating casualties though Bob will only leave a few hours later.

The two of them emerge alive from the Urals. One has spilled a secret he should never have and the other has heard that.


There is a memorial wall at the DIA’s headquarters at Boiling AFB in the District of Columbia. A similar thing is located over at Langley in Virginia where the CIA has its headquarters with theirs better known in the public consciousness. Bob didn’t come to Siberia to end up with a star on that wall. His superior on the ground in the Siberian city of Omsk, a career spook named Stephen, isn’t pleased that Bob went so far forward like he did – into the middle of a full-on battle it turned out, one bigger than Bob thought it would be – and nearly became another entry among those who’ve given their lives in the field.

Bob tells Stephen what Yuri told him.

Stephen doesn’t believe it. No, it cannot be true. Such a thing is impossible, he tells Bob, and Yuri was trying to stroke you instead. Bob sticks to his guns though. He is convinced that Yuri is telling the truth about what he did in America at the beginning of July. The details which Yuri gave… The two DIA officers agree that Bob should, as per agency policy, right up a full report for their higher-ups on this and he also should talk with Yuri once again. Stephen still refuses to accept what Bob has been told is true but is weary of being the one left holding the bag if the very worst should happen and it turns out that actually Yuri was telling the truth. A product of agency bureaucracy and politics, he covers his own backside by passing on this information to Boiling in the correct manner.

Bob goes to see Yuri the next day. It is the afternoon of August 2nd. News from afar is that Coalition armies are charging forwards through the western reaches of the Union though here in the east, the Siberians aren’t managing to make headway with Primakov’s renewed Urals offensive. Bob doubts that the arrival of American forces, boots on the ground and air support too, will make any real difference here. He hopes to be proved wrong on that though. As to Yuri, he is being treated at a medical facility in Tyumen, where Bob’s own countrymen are arriving. There is a Siberian military field hospital where treatment is being given to him and Bob hopes to see Yuri there before the FSB are sure to move him to one of their own facilities. They are likely to take him back to Novosibirsk and out of Bob’s reach. He has to act now. Entry for Bob into the hospital is complicated but achievable. He tricks his way in and onto the ward where he is told Yuri is.

Yuri isn’t there.

Bob gets a lead-induced brain haemorrhage in the back of the head and then is thrown from a two-storey window.

Stephen drops dead from a sudden heart attack.

There’s an intelligence package which has already gone out in the diplomatic bag though, flying from Omsk to Novosibirsk and onto Washington. A disappearance, a murder & defenestration and a fatal poisoning will not stop others from beginning to follow the breadcrumbs of a trail laid.

That trail will lead the United States on the path to discovering who really was behind the assassination of their president.

Thank you.
Oh, it was FSB trying to silence the leak, not realising that Stephen covered his own behind by sending out unconfirmed intel just in case.
All the evidence the Americans have - the shooter, an accomplice, nuggets of intel - points to that killing being the work of Moscow. They received independent verification of intent and motive which made sense. To the White House, and the whole country, Gromov's Union did this.
This revelation, and it isn't quite there yet, will be said by many to be a lie, a falsehood spread by Moscow. Some will keep digging though: the ones who had doubts first of all about how the killing was just too damn convenient!

What happens when all is revealed, I'm still not sure. Any of those options you present seem possible.
Whatever I do, it'll be something spectacular. 

They'll go mad. Duped like fools. The Brits, Canadian, Norwegians and Eastern Euros will all be hopping mad... that is if Washington decides to tell them, or anyone, and buries it instead. Primakov could get a taste of his own medicine: SEALs through his bedroom window wearing Union Spetsnaz uniform etc.





All sorts of fights are possible, it depends upon what is revealed and what isn't.
I'm still thinking on how the reaction will be, and when, but nothing will go easy.
To be lied to is one thing, but the US is risking nuclear war, will be taking massive casualties and has brought allies into all of this. Something will likely have to be done.
The shelling incident with the revelation was on the night the war started. The disappearance and killings in Siberia happened in the following days, up to where we are in the story. There would always have been people questioning the whole thing, those who would have been shouted at for not being team players when the Administration is so firmly set on war, who will already have something to work with alongside that intel package coming out of Siberia. They'll dig and look at the whole thing again. It will all take time though and figures in some agencies will try to stop them rather than see the boat rocked. It'll get to the White House in the end though.
Silencing the leak like it was done with killings was the wrong thing to do but someone hit the panic button. While they are digging for info in Washington, they'll be digging graves in Novosibirsk to bury the secret further.
None of this is finished yet!


There is a big force in Kuwait and the Gulf though North Korea is another threat - the 1994 nuclear crisis is different from OTL but still a factor (plus they stole Union Nvay tactical nukes too!) - and US forces are near there. Primakov has some forces in the Far East but minimal ones due to the late June / early July Union offensive in the Urals which hurt his forces. If the Americans want to, they could take the risk of leaving NK uncovered and go after the Novosibirsk regime a la Lehman Doctrine... but that would be quite something to do when they are fighting in the West too.