John Miller stood looking out the window at the city that surrounded him. The sun was setting behind some hazy clouds, and this gave off beautiful shades of red, like a large red wave crashing through the sky. He thought to himself I wonder what creates those colors, and then smiled because he knew Claudia would know.

Claudia was John's 11 year old daughter and boy was she smart. She spent her days reading all the time. She devoured books at an incredible rate. In the past couple of years she had transitioned from reading popular fiction for kids to reading about science. She loved everything about science and was quite curious about how the world around her worked.

Claudia and John had talked about the sky before, and in those conversations it was John who was asking the questions and Claudia who was answering them. She had explained to him about things like the angle of the sun in the sky and Rayleigh scattering. John wasn't even sure he could spell Rayleigh scattering much less understand what it was.

In any case it sure did look beautiful right now. This didn't seem to match the situation on the ground however. John was still awaiting further updates on the situation. In the meantime John had made contact with congress, but currently they were keeping everything under a lid. They did not want to panic the American public anymore than they already did.

"General do we have any new information on their position?"

"Negative sir. We have no clue where they are at the moment. They have done a good job of covering their tracks so far."

John thought about all the technological advancements that had happened in his lifetime. And yet here they were, unable to track down a group of Chinese soldiers, it felt a bit surreal.

"Joni you speak Mandarin, did you happen to pick anything up from those soldiers in the room?" John asked.

General Howard had a stunned look on his face.

"Ma'am, you speak Mandarin?"

"Yes I picked it up when I was stationed in South Korea. It was useful to be able to talk with the Chinese people who crossed the border."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Well I am thoroughly impressed, and if I had known that we would have come to you sooner."

"Well, I didn't pick up everything, only bits and pieces of their conversations. Something that seemed to come up a lot, that I didn't understand too much was Red Tide. But another thing they talked a lot about was Russia. Also they seem to have performed some sort of coup in China, I think."

"Really ma'am? We have no indications that anything happened in China."

"General I want you to check on our informal diplomatic links in China. See if you can get any more information on this. I imagine even if something did happen in China there wouldn't be any official acknowledgement, for the same reason there won't be any official acknowledgement here."

"Yes sir, I will get on it right away."

"Also what is the status of the Code Blue team?"

"Sir they are canvassing, but so far they have a few leads they are trying to check up on quickly."

"Are you sure that Code Blue could handle these guys General? I mean I saw how those guys fought, they wiped out the entire secret service detail in a swift manner."

"Sir Code Blue can manage any threats, that is what it was built for."

"How large is the Code Blue team general?"

"About 6000 strong, why?"

"I would like you to split them, I want to send 2000 to Russia to check up on this. I mean what could they be planning in Russia?"

"Well sir, supposing it is true that they have already hit China, and we know they have hit us, Russia is just another country with loads of nuclear weapons."

"Have you recovered the football general?"

"No sir we have not."

"Oh dear God please help us..."

John grabbed ahold of Joni and Claudia who were near to him and pulled them both into a family hug. Claudia hadn't been paying attention to the conversation at all, engrossed by her book. John was glad she hadn't heard that part, he didn't want her to worry. But now John was very, very worried.

"Joni I think it is time for the whole family to pray. Would you mind grabbing Erik and my parents?"

"No, not at all John."

"Thanks babe."

After Joni left the room taking Claudia with her, John walked over close to general Howard. He looked at him closely dressed in full military garb. The general was a short dark skinned man and sported a bald head. He was quite fit, especially for his advanced years, likely this could be attributed to his long daily runs and strenuous exercise routine.

"General, we need to move as fast as possible if they have the nuclear football. How are we going to proceed?"

"Sir we are moving as fast as we can. They made it significantly more difficult by hitting the CIA and the NSA to slow our intelligence gathering efforts. But the full force of the military will be at your disposal for this."

"I think general, our only hope is going to be Code Blue. Any other group will just be slaughtered. And I am not sure 6000 is enough."

"I have viewed the training of the Code Blue operators myself sir. I can assure you they can handle any threat, no matter how dangerous."

"For the sake of the nation, nay the sake of the world, I hope you are right general."