Chicago?'
'We have concluded that none of the bodies found inside the house are that of William Tomlinson. We must surmise he escaped,' he said angrily.
'Mr. President, my people have come up with several pieces of information that will be important to this meeting. I ask that close attention be paid to the military aspects of what is said because the shortages the secretary of defense spoke of are a very serious problem if what we think is happening is accurate.'
The president nodded.
'Several of you know Colonel Jack Collins. Colonel, explain what you have uncovered on the Coalition and its whereabouts, please.'
As briefly as possible, Jack explained what they had learned about the Coalition thus far. He explained the confrontation and failure at Pearl Harbor and the results of Dahlia's interrogation. Then came the shocker.
'In essence, the Coalition is going to strike at the Chinese and Russian nations within a short time frame. We have traced the Coalition hierarchy to a base on Crete, and this base is heavily defended.'
'Ken, we need intelligence on this Crete operation as soon as possible,' the president said.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs nodded. 'I will order photo recon overflights immediately.'
'May I recommend satellite surveillance only, or we may tip our hand that we know where they are,' Collins stated from the Ethiopian consulate.
'General, this will involve retasking a few satellites. You better get Space Command on it right away,' the president ordered.
'Now, Jack, do we have any ideas on how we can assault the island with the few assets we have in the area?' Niles asked.
'A nuclear strike is out of the question because of the civilian population. Even if we could manage evacuating the populace, we believe the Coalition operation is under ground--very deep under ground, where air strikes are not possible. I'm afraid we have to do this the hard way.'
'Colonel Collins, on Dr. Compton's recommendation, I am placing you in command of all operations
The president didn't say it outright, but he had just ordered the planning stage for the invasion of Atlantis.
PART FOUR
ATLANTIS
14
Major General Ton Shi Quang was looking at the opportunity of a lifetime. The Americans had retreated without a shot fired, leaving positions that had been prepared since the end of the conflict in the 1950s.
Thus far, he had been on the phone no fewer than five times to the Great Leader himself, telling him that he could make an offensive run right around the Americans and destroy the South Korean army, which was sitting up defensive positions two hundred miles farther south. The American Second Infantry Division would be completely cut off, where they would die or be forced to surrender.
Of course, Quang knew that he wouldn't be there for the great victory or when the Americans started lobbing nuclear weapons onto his troops. Instead, he would be far from the battle zone, waiting for his Coalition partners to make him a very, very rich man.
Still, the Great Leader was hesitant, as if the Americans were starting to get the full truth through to his addled brain. He could not allow Kim to fade in his desire to get retribution for the earthquakes. The Chinese and the Russians had swayed him in order to allow things to settle over the last two days. General Quang now had to start the war in earnest, which was what he was being paid for.
He studied the intelligence reports and matched them with the large sand table. The Americans had left close to two thousand troops behind to guard combat engineers who were undoubtedly laying traps and tank obstacles to slow him down. As commander in the field, he had the option and the right to attack these troops if he thought them a danger for any future attack.
'Colonel,' he said as he looked at the terrain just across the border.
'Sir,' the thin officer said, standing at attention.
'I want a three-tank-brigade thrust in sectors three, eight, and thirteen. Catch the Americans unaware before they can finish with their traps. I want the men and equipment they leave behind destroyed. Then order the brigades to hold position south of the border.'
The colonel could not hide the shock on his face. He stepped up to the sand table and looked at the positions the general had ordered taken.
'Are we acting on orders from Pyongyang?'
'My orders are defensive in nature, Colonel. I do not need Pyongyang's permission. From this moment on, we will observe radio blackout. We'll receive only.'
'But, General--'
'Carry out your orders, Colonel, or I will find an officer who will!'
The colonel saluted and left the bunker. If he hadn't known better, he would have believed that the general was starting it, rather than trying to prevent it.
The war was now on, whether Kim Jong Il or China wanted it or not.
The computer center was abuzz as the crystal-clear imagery of Crete started coming in from two KH-11 Blackbirds in geosynchronous orbit over the Mediterranean. Europa was a great help in her microsecond washing of the pictures, which cleaned them up to maximum enhancement. The pictures were being relayed to Jack, Carl, Ryan, and Mendenhall in Ethiopia. The images of the bright blue waters looked inviting until they saw the tracks in the sand and large tents and metal buildings at the island's southern end. Camouflage netting hid equipment that stretched for fifteen kilometers around the centermost portion of Crete, but it was the tracks in the sand that had Jack's attention.
'What do you think, Jack?' Everett asked.
'Not good, swabby, not good at all,' he answered, and then he hit the intercom for the direct link to the Pentagon. 'General Caulfield, do you see the tracks leading to the camo netting, satellite designation one through sixteen?' Europa had designated the sixteen centerline camouflage nets as 1 through 16 and the figures popped up on the monitors in red.
Collins and the general had seen enough of the tracks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to recognize them immediately.
'I would say we have good old-fashion SAMs underneath the netting.'
'I agree,' said Caulfield.
'General, the plan for taking the beach could become very costly.'
Caulfield had worked out his end of the plan with the navy and marines and knew that it was hasty but as good as they could get with the current Mediterranean assets.
Jack had informed Niles that he and his element would concentrate on the Egyptian tunnel they had discovered on the bronze-plate hologram; they were hoping that it led to the Coalition. The theory was that the tunnel had once been used for secret travel and survival of their hierarchy. The linguists, along with Carmichael and Martha, had been working nonstop to decipher the details of the map.
'It will be very costly, Colonel, but while we're keeping their heads down at the front door, your team just may slip in through the back door.'
'Agent Dahlia has indicated that the Coalition has at least a brigade-size force for beach defense and a minimum of thirty advanced warplanes hidden somewhere in the region. Has the navy decided what other surface assets they can give us?'
'We have the Royal Navy, but not much else.'
