"General how in the hell did they get helicopters in there without us knowing?" John Miller asked.
"Well sir, it appears that they brought in several large trucks, which were positioned a bit away from where the action was going to be. Since they can move so much faster than normal humans they knew they would be able to get out quickly." General Howard answered.
"Clever these guys are. They didn't do that here though. Why?" John wondered aloud.
"Well I think that they knew the situation was different here. Here it was easier for them to slip away under the confusion and simply use vehicles. In Russia you have to deal with the undercover military personnel and it would get messier to escape via car. Anyways they didn't fly too far and from what we can tell they had vehicles awaiting there when they arrived." General Howard stated.
"So they escaped is what you are telling me general?" John asked.
"It appears so sir. Though they weren't able to kill all drone footage like they did before. It seems they left in a hurry once they realized there were troops that could hold their own against them." General Howard beamed, proud of his troops.
"What is the final casualty count, both sides?"
"The terrorists lost 452, and we lost 389 sir."
"Hmm and we had the upper hand in that scenario, we had the surprise factor." John stated.
"Well yes sir but they had the numbers, at least until the second wave arrived."
"That is true." John reluctantly agreed.
"Sir we have the Russian president on the line now, and the translator is here."
"Thank you general." John replied, turning to the screen.
The Russian President began to speak, and the translator relayed the message aloud.
"Mr. President, I am truly grateful for the actions of your soldiers. If not for their bravery and superior ability I might not be standing before you."
"Might not?" John thought to himself. Of course you wouldn't be, they would have you under lock and key and be cracking your nuclear codes!
"I don't mean to be overly pushy, but I need your permission to allow my jets to operate in Russian airspace. That is how you can thank me." John stated in a matter of fact tone.
"Do you not think our people will find it strange if American jets are flying in our airspace Mr. President?"
"I don't give a damn what your people think. Lie to them like you always do for all I care. Tell them it is the Russian jets running training exercises or whatever crazy story you want to tell them. But I want my jets in there do you understand?" John said impatiently.
"You have our airspace Mr. President, but only for 10 hours. Then your jets need to get out or I will have them shot down."
"Thank you, I will relay that message to our military." John replied.
"I am only doing this because I am grateful to your men. Do not push your luck. We will have an official story shortly." The Russian President said as he hung up the video conference.
"Well general we have some breathing room to operate now. But they have a head start." John said, turning to general Howard and patting his translator on the shoulder.
"Yes sir, we are scrambling the jets as we speak. Some were already in the air awaiting instruction." General Howard explained.
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John looked at the Russian translator. She was quite young and split the difference between being slender and being overweight. She had long blond hair that she wore straight and reached down past her shoulders.
"Thank you young lady. As you know none of this leaves the room." John told her with a smile.
"Of course sir." She replied, returning the smile as she exited the room.
John paced around the room for a moment, thinking to himself. What are they going to do now? Have we thwarted their plans enough? Are they still planning on using the nukes anyway? Can they break into our system?
All of these questions rattled around in John's head. It began to make him feel a bit dizzy. John took a seat in his makeshift office and quickly downed a half a cup of coffee. He hoped this would help his headache, he hadn't had caffeine in quite a while.
"General what do you make of the smaller group? I mean what do you think the chances are that the leader of these terrorist soldiers is with the small group or do you feel he is with the larger group?" John asked
"Sir we don't ha...."
"I am asking you to speculate general."
"Yes sir. Well sir if it was me and I felt the entire mission was on the line, I would be with that group." General Howard speculated.
"I would be too general. So that may be the key to cutting off the head of this thing. How many Code Blue soldiers did we send on that mission?" John asked.
"Well sir, we sent 100 to track down that group."
"Good, do we have a status report?"
"Yes sir, it seems they have headed far North. It is possible they are going all the way into Canada, but we do not know for sure. We believe they are still in pursuit of the pro-American group for lack of a better term." General Howard answered.
"Ha, I like terming them the pro-American group. Very nice general."
"Uh sir, we have another transmission coming in, it seems to be members of the Senate intelligence committee."
"I will take the call general." John said moving back to the large screen in the room.
"Mr. President, we have just received footage of the incident in Russia. It seems that there is something you have not been telling us." Senator Hawkins stated, without so much as a hello.
"Hi there Senator Hawkins, nice to see you too." John mocked.
"We do not have time for niceties John. You know I have been one...."
"One of my biggest allies in the Senate, yes I know this Senator. So I will get right to the point. We are dealing with a superhuman threat, and we have a secret superhuman program to deal with threats. So we decided to let it loose. I know it was witho..."
"It wasn't just without permission John, it was without our knowledge that the program even existed and that is the problem." Senator Hawkins stated, cutting John off.
"Yes Senator, this program has been kept a secret, but it has been kept a secret for 18 years. It didn't start with me. In fact, no one seems to even know how it started. Even people who have been working on this program for the last 18 years don't seem to know how it was started. The only people who have ever had knowledge of it are the previous Presidents, myself and a handful of people who have been directly involved in it. The funding came directly from military funds."
"This is not OK John, it may be the military's fault, but you shouldn't have kept it from us either. But we don't have time to waste arguing about it now. Is there anything we should know now?"
"Yes Senator, we are moving jets into Russia, with the Russian President's blessing. We are trying to track down a large group of the terrorists. A much smaller group, sized around 30 has been roaming the U.S., headed toward the Canadian border in Northern New York. We have a smaller squad of about 100 Code Blue soldiers chasing them." John explained to the Senator.
"OK John, you have our full blessing, I think." Senator Hawkins said turning to the other committee members. They all were shaking their head yes.
"So you saw that, you have this committee's blessing to proceed. You need to talk with the house committee as well though. We will make sure the rest of the Senate is on board on this end."
"Thank you Senator." John replied.
"When this whole thing is over, I expect a full explanation John, and I expect general Howard to be at the closed hearing, do you understand?" Senator Hawkins asked.
"Yes I understand Senator." John answered.
The screen went black, indicating that the Senate committee had left the meeting.
"Well it looks like you are going to be in some trouble general." John said.
"I am fully prepared for the consequences Mr. President."
"OK, I don't think I got your full status report on the small group heading for the Canadian border." John said, faintly remembering what they had been discussing before.
"Yes sir, uh hold on. It seems like something is happening right now sir. Can you pull it up on the screen." General Howard yelled to one of the technicians.
John and general Howard looked at the screen together. They were looking through one of the body cameras the Code Blue soldiers were wearing. They could see billowing black smoke rising against the morning sunlight.
"Sir it appears there was some kind of explosion." General Howard explained.
"Send the Code Blue men in. I bet $1,000 those terrorists are there. That looks like smoke from burning tires." John said.
"Yes sir, giving the order to engage now."