Winds of War 8 Red Dog by William C. Dietz

Author:William C. Dietz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2023-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Superbase Tabqa

Like a hundred and fifty of the other officers and senior noncoms, Soto and Jones had been ordered to attend what was described as “an operational briefing” at 0800, and to “bring your brain.” That was how Major Albro put it, and Soto knew what he meant.

Most mega briefings were about security, comportment, and sexual hygiene. So Albro was trying to alert his company officers to the fact that something special was in the works.

Soto could tell that other people were aware of it too, because she could feel the tension in the air as the two of them followed some army officers into the auditorium. It was a cavernous space, located two stories underground, and theoretically safe from missile strikes.

The seats assigned to Charlie Company were toward the rear of the room, behind ranks of senior officers and civilians with ID cards dangling from their necks. Government officials? Spooks? Diplomats? All of the above most likely.

A full bird colonel served as master of ceremonies, urged people to find their seats, and looked nervous. Once the audience was settled in, he introduced himself. “My name is Colonel Watkins. And, for those of you don’t know, I’m in charge of security here at Superbase Tabqa.

“And yes, I know about the infestation of jerboas (nocturnal rats). But, since they aren’t aligned with the Axis, they’re someone else’s problem.”

That got a laugh, since every person in the room had at least seen the pests, and most had been forced to deal with them.

“But we aren’t here to talk about rats,” Watkins said, as his expression darkened. “Not that kind anyway. Lieutenant General Alan Kelly will explain.”

Soto had heard of “Machine Gun” Kelly, but had never seen the man before. He was tall, lanky, and possessed of “the thing.” Meaning the kind of charisma that can fill a room, or an auditorium, and grab everyone’s attention.

And sure enough, Kelly was packing his famous H&K MP7 in a thigh holster. “Good morning. And, welcome to the interdisciplinary, multinational initiative called ‘Operation Scimitar.’

“What is it? Scimitar is a strategic plan to defend ourselves from a well-coordinated attack by a coalition of enemies that is about to come our way from the west, the south, and the east. Their goal is to inflict massive casualties on our forces and push us north into Turkey.”

That produced all sorts of the responses—most of which were variations on “Holy shit,” “What the fuck?” and “No way.”

Kelly waited for the reactions to dissipate. Then he nodded. “Yes. For those of us who are paid to consider such things, I have to admit that a joint attack by hostile forces is an unexpected development, since the deep divisions in the Muslim world have been enough to prevent unified action in the past.

“But, even though six different factors are required to generate a tropical storm, they align occasionally, and the results can be devastating. And the same thing is true of war. So, here’s the situation.

“As you know the Syrian Khalaf regime, which is based in Damascus, has a strategic relationship with Iran.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.