Lugasharmanaska said that succubae used to recruit the extremely religious by pretending to be angels.”
“That’s no surprise.” Leon Panetta wasn’t impressed. “False flag recruiting is as old as humanity. It all goes to show, if you’re going to betray your country, do it for the money. You’ll never have any idea who you’re really working for.”
The working group laughed. “Funny, that’s what Luga said as well. Problem is though, the FBI can’t use the list they wormed out of Branch. Since they got the list illegally, any arrest they make based on it will be illegal and any information they got from those arrests will also be illegal. So, they have to pretend it doesn’t exist. We’ve sent copies of it around the world though, if anybody on it turns up somewhere where the controls aren’t so tight, well, you know the rest.”
“That sounds like extraordinary rendition.” Holder was visibly angered.
“No, we’re saying if anybody on the list leaves the country voluntarily and goes somewhere by their own choice, that’s good for us. We’re not picking them off the streets and sending them. The law enforcement agencies are continuing their investigations from the admissible evidence and that’s quite productive. Anyway, we’ll see how well we can stop up the leaks to Heaven.”
“Doctor Surlethe, anything to tell us?”
“No good news, no, Sir. We have a portal signal from the Uriel rescue and we’re analyzing it now. Once we’ve done that, perhaps we can duplicate it.”
“We still haven’t got through to Heaven?”
“No Sir. After trying for more than a year, we’re still stuck. One thing Sir, not scientific. We’re coming up to the first anniversary of the victory over Hell. We ought to have a celebration, a big one. People are getting dispirited, tired of the hardship and deadlock. Some really good street parties, a few parades, lifting the meat ration for a week or so will work wonders.”
Obama nodded. “Good idea. We’ll announce it next week. Make it a three-day vacation and tell everybody there’ll be another when Heaven falls. Thank you people.”
Chapter Thirty Three
RAF Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire.
Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome had last been used by the Royal Air Force in 1962 when the 19th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron of the USAF and its RB-66Bs had moved out and the station had closed. Since 1972 the aerodrome had become privately owned and used for a number of uses; it had recently become famous as the home of Vulcan B. 2 XH558. Shortly after her first flight as once more an RAF bomber XH558’s home had been requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence, becoming home to the V-Bomber Flight and its four Vulcan B. 2s and two Victor K. 2s, and the RAF’s new Heavy Bomber Development Unit. The HBDU’s job was to prepare the RAF for the arrival of the B-1C Lancers that it had ordered from the Americans.
“What? Four aircraft in 2011?” Group Captain Martin Winters (he was still getting used to his new rank), the new Commanding Officer of the HBDU, shouted into his phone. “What are they doing, building them by hand?”
“That’s not so far from the truth. They had the production line tooling in storage but reconditioning it and setting it up was a seriously difficult job. Rockwell moved a lot faster than anybody had a right to expect as it is. Now, they’ve got to get long-lead components. They’re only moving as fast as they are because they’re drawing down on the spares inventory for the B-1Bs to bridge the gap.”
Winters fumed. “I thought that the Septics were supposed to be the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ and all that bullshit.”
“I’m sorry, Sir.” His contact at MoD Main Building replied. “But the Americans are starting production of the C model Lancer from scratch. It’s not a B-1B, it’s a modified and simplified B-1A. For the first six months they’ll only be producing one aircraft a month, rising to two six months after that. Best case scenario has the Americans operating eighteen new Lancers this time next year. Their first priority will be to replace the B-29s and B-50s, and replace the B-2s that were lost in the Whitman tornado. After that they’ll probably be happy enough to give us four aircraft for training purposes. There is some good news, they’ve also promised to allow our personnel to go on exchange to America so they can get some hands on experience with the B-1C.”
“Very nice of them I’m sure.” Winters replied, still far from happy. “I do hope that the Brass Hats and politicians are happy that the RAF’s bomber force will remain at four aircraft for the foreseeable future. Unless somebody else can come through with some spares.
“Between us Sir, the Brass have been trying that. They went to the Russians asking about Tu-95s and Tu- 160s.”
“Bears and Blackjacks? I don’t suppose….”
“Not a chance it turned out. Tu-160s are coming off the lines at one per month now, big increase on the pre- war one per year. They’re good birds, apparently our people were impressed, but the Russians want them all. As for the Tu-95s, they’re restarting the production line but they’re having the same problems as the Septics. That left the Chinese of course….”
“I don’t suppose they have anything we could use.”
“Oddly, they’ve got the most productive bomber line at the moment. The good news is that they’re churning six Xian H-6Ks off the line a month. The bad news is that the H-6K is a modified Tu-16. Some Rolls-Royce people are over there now. Back in the ‘80s, the Chinese were playing with an advanced H-6 with Spey engines, they called it the H-8. It never got anywhere but the Chinese are trying again and the guys from Roller are helping them. Again, you’re looking at years, not months. There’s nobody else, not at the moment. So, you’re on your own resources. How are they looking?”
Winter thought for a moment. “Well we might be able to get one, or maybe two more Vulcans flying, but that’s the limit, the remaining survivors are only good for spare parts. At least we’ll be able to retire the two Victors soon, now that our A330 tankers are in production.”
“You should hear the airlines moaning. It’s been almost two years since they got any new aircraft. Airbus are building as fast as they can but their entire output is going into military transports and aerial refuellers. Hell’s a big place and we’ve a lot of ground to cover out there. Anyway, talking of spare parts, Sir, the bosses would like to know what the situation is.”
“Could be better, could be worse.” Winters replied. “We’ve been lucky in that Rolls Royce still makes the Olympus engine for maritime and industrial uses. It wasn’t too difficult getting part of the production line switched over to engines for the Vulcan. Other components were more of a problem, though you’d be surprised how many Vulcan and Victor spare parts were sitting forgotten in RAF stores. At current sortie rates we’ve probably got enough to last six to eight months, by which time I hope new components will be in production.”
“The Rolls-Royce Conway engines of the Victor were more of a problem, they’re not in production any more and spares are in short supply, but so long as Airbus get their fingers out it shouldn’t be a great problem.”
“I’ll pass that along, Sir, thank you.”
Winters heard a click and knew that the connection had been severed. He replaced the receiver of his own phone and sat back in his chair wondering how he was going to draw up a training program for heavy bomber air and ground crew using six aircraft that had been designed in the 1950s; well challenges were what life in the Services was all about. Winters looked up at two pictures on his wall, one was a print of a new painting depicting XH558 flying through the skies of Hell, the other, of somewhat less artistic merit, was a photo-shopped picture of a B-1B Lancer in the markings of 617 Squadron. The latter had been hung up when there had been an early expectation of delivery of the Lancer B. 1 (as the RAF were planning to call the B-1C), now it just served to mock Winters.
He stood up and removed the picture from his wall and placed it in a drawer and locked it away.
Training Camp, 1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion (Demonic), Dis, Hell
“What a phalanx they would have made.” Aeneas looked sadly at the daemons who were sitting around cleaning their rifles. “Keep them shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx and they would have made chopped turds of everybody.”
“Even the Spartans?” Anderson enjoyed goading Aeneas.
“Even us.” One of the delights of teasing the Spartan was that he took everything so seriously.
