Manifest Destiny: Fire on the Water

Copyright © 2012 by Steve Krueger.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0515-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0516-2 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012913024

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Abbott Press rev. date: 09/18/12

Contents

About this book

Characters

Preface

Part One   An uncertain peace

Prelude

1   Foxes and Hounds

2   Peace, order and good government

3   The Caliphate

4   The law of supply and demand

5   God is Great

6   Uneasy nights

7   Operation Aurora Liberty

8   The longest undefended border on earth

9   The last hours of peace

Part Two   An unnecessary war

10   Opening salvos

11   Exile

12   Refuge

13   Flight

14   An early Christmas present

15   Land fall

16   A government in exile

17   Second Shots

18   Unsafe crossings

19   Alliances

20   A night of a thousand details

21   A theft most grand

22   A temporary problem

23   The wrong place, wrong time

24   Attack plans

25   A desperate fight

26   Homecomings

27   Canada’s House

28   Ghost boat

29   God’s smiling vision

30   Mysteries

31   Submarine down

32   Be ready to move

33   New ordinance

34   Winter travels

35   Ahoy the boat!

36   Expect no warning

37   When we cry to thee

38   Fire on the water

39   They’ve done their worst

40   To the open sea

41   Without a trace

42   An unacceptable risk

The author

For my wife Florence

My editor, my confidant, my inspiration

And for all those Canadians who work to make this a better world

About this book

Clearly, this is a work of fiction. Because I am a journalist, however, it is based in fact and the current-day realities of the early years of the 21st century.

Most of the technologies, weapons, war ships and aircraft described in these pages exist and are either currently in service or in the final stages of development. The political alliances explored here are, at least, within the realm of possibility. So too are the catastrophic economic realities that would follow a Middle East oil war. They are based on real-world projections by a variety of international organizations. If anything, they may be too conservative.

I am a writer who spent decades reporting the news in Canada and the United States. I never served in the military. Journalists are, by craft, prodigious researchers, however, and I’ve used that skill to weave reality into fiction.

I have also been helped in researching and writing this complicated story by a number of members of the armed forces of both Canada and the United States. Their generous advice and feed back has helped me throughout this process, and given me both ideas and inspiration. I hope that the result is a fictional story that entertains and informs, with just enough realism and truth to leave readers with some insights into what could potentially be our difficult and challenging future.

Some of the Canadian dialog in this book appears with the accepted British/Canadian spellings, depending on the nationality of the speaker. For example, defense is written as defence in Canadian and British English.

I also want to recognize the assistance of my son Michael for his critical feedback on this story and his help with maps, and my son Kevin for his help with photography.

One final note. The times and dates throughout this story are either listed in local civilian time (such as EST for Eastern Standard Time) or in the military, 24-hour clock (such as 0400h PST). They have been calculated to reflect daily, real-time in the story telling.

Steve Krueger

2012

Manifest Destiny (n.) A policy of imperialistic expansion defended as necessary or benevolent. The 19th-century doctrine that the United States had the right and duty to expand throughout the North American continent.

Columbia University Press, 2005

…we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles…. Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Statement of Principles, Project for the New American Century, signed by, among others, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, June 3, 1997

A confidential document from the Task Force on the Future of North America confirms the Council of Canadians’ worst fears: Canada’s business elite are planning to push the country toward deeper integration with the United States…

Council of Canadians, February 14, 2005

Characters

Canadian military

Aboard HMCS Victoria

Commander Nils Hollingsworth, commanding officer

Lt. Commander Dan Meyers, first/executive officer

Lt. Adrian Ross, second officer

Lt. Jason Greene, third officer

Sub-Lieutenant Michel Hubbard

Sub-Lieutenant Giles Moore

Chief Marlon Grits Danforth, Engineering Division

Chief Stan Guns Lawson, Weapons Division

CFB Esquimalt

Commander Ian Pierce, Deputy Chief of Operations, Pacific Command

Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Mark Langston, stores keeper, Rocky Point Weapons Depot

Master Seaman Tom Culpepper, deputy logistics chief, Rocky Point Weapons Depot

Lt. Al Cox, instructor, Pacific Fleet Diving School

HMCS Ottawa

Lt. Commander Steve St. Denis, commanding officer

Lt. Leo Quon, 2nd officer

Lt. Cynthia Dooley, navigator

Queen Charlotte Islands

Major Blake O’Brian, commanding officer, CF Air Element, Skidegate

Sub-Lieutenant Tim Quinn, HMCS Nanaimo

Sub-Lieutenant Andy Brennan, HMCS Brandon

Sub-Lieutenant Mike Crowley, commanding officer, HMCS Yellowknife

Sub-Lieutenant Nancy Haynes, HMCS Edmonton

Canadian coalition government in exile (Normandy, France)

Prime Minister Luc Marchand (New Democratic Party)

Justin Turner, External Affairs Minister/Deputy Prime Minister (Canada First Party)

Pierre Lambert, trade and economic development minister (Bloc Quebecois)

Christina Anderson, resources and environment minister/UN Ambassador (Green Party)

Gen. George Turner (Ret.), defence minister

Gen. Brett Rogers, chief of staff, Free Canadian Forces

Jerome Stevenson, ambassador to China

Andres Voz, Premier of Quebec

Restored Canadian government (Ottawa)

Prime Minister Lucien Benoit (Liberal Party)

Governor General Winfred James

Opposition leader Mike Clark (Conservative)

Todd Rawlings, Alberta Premier

Allan Miller, Saskatchewan Premier

United States Government

Washington, DC

President Franklin Zimmer

Vice President Marcus Covington

Tom Nelson, Presidential Chief of Staff

Helen Winthrop, press secretary

Timothy Sutter, Secretary of State

Devon O’Brien, Secretary of Defense

Mike Kirby, Director, CIA

Dana Kennedy, incoming House Speaker (D)

US Joint Chiefs of Staff

Gen. Mathias Fletcher, USMC, chairman

Admiral Silas Bennett, USN

Gen. Lucas Turcott, USAF

Gen. Hiram Smith, USA

US military operational commanders

Gen. Abraham Larsen, commanding officer, 101st Airborne Regiment

Rear Admiral Peter Bradley, Pacific Commander, Operation Aurora Liberty

Vice Admiral Jack Shepherd, Commander Submarines, Pacific Fleet

Captain Tom Raykoff, special assignments officer, Submarine Fleet, Pacific

Master Chief Hiram Johnson, assistant to Raykoff

Master Chief Jim French, assistant to Raykoff

International figures

Gregor Patushkin, Minister of Trade, Russian Federation, Moscow

Daniel Chastelaine, Prime Minister, Republic of France

Lei Chan, First Deputy Foreign Secretary, People’s Republic of China

Julio Lopez, President of Mexico

Canadian Military ranks

For a simple guide to Canadian military ranks and insignia, go to:

http://rankmaven.tripod.com/canada.htm

Preface

Nations, like people, pride themselves on their good intentions.

If, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details, the challenge lies in translating those intentions into action.

Life is an ongoing bargaining session. Do we put money into the kid’s college fund or take that much needed winter vacation? I’m not feeling like working today so should I call in sick? Can I safely get through this intersection on this yellow light? Most of us tell ourselves that we are principled people, living honest and true lives. Generally, for most, that’s true.

That lifelong bargaining session with ourselves – weighing choices great and mundane – tests our self image.

The same is true of nations.

Leaders of democracies face the same kinds of decisions as individuals and families, except the choices between, for example, new weapons systems or new programs to improve inner-city education involve financial consequences that dwarf those faced by individuals.

The most important choices, however, go beyond dollars and cents.

What kind of example am I setting for my kids?

What kind of country will we be within the world community of nations?

That was the situation facing the United States of America in the opening years of the 21st century.

The war in Iraq had ended, and the end of combat in Afghanistan was in sight. Soldiers were receiving a well-earned welcome home, and a war-weary population was looking forward to a respite from the regular reports of American casualties.

Leaders, however, were still at war with one another over the true legacy of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Those attacks had left US political leaders with a pervasive sense of fear that drove their every decision. The collapse of the twin towers actually did achieve Osama Bin Laden’s goal: the self-confidence of America’s leaders was shattered.

They’d never imagined that kind of attack could happen. What other threats lie around them, threats they had never foreseen?

Fear is the natural condition of the human species.

We lack the speed necessary to escape danger. We pale in comparison to the wild beasts of nature in terms of pure power. We are physically unique in the world, standing fully erect on long legs, and regardless of our race, our skin pallor fails to blend in with any natural background.

In a world where a species is either a hunter or the hunted, our fear had guaranteed the survival of our species.

Fear survived our evolution, and still stalks our relations with one another.

Nations are often racked by fear, just as are their people.

Fear of invasion. Fear of famine. Fear of standing lost in the eyes of the world.

By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the world’s most seemingly powerful nations were consumed by a new fear that they dared not discuss.

The fear of lost expectations.

Part One 

An uncertain peace

Prelude

The joyous New Years Eve celebrations that ushered in 2014 masked a deep denial among the people of the United States.

Still struggling to recover from the worst economic disaster in 80 years, Americans could – at least – be thankful for the end of the decade long bloodbath in Iraq and the prospect of an approaching peace in Afghanistan. The twin military missions had killed more than 6,500 Americans and countless civilians. The threat of war with Iran that set the world on edge in 2012 had diminished in the face of punishing international economic sanctions cyber warfare attacks against Tehran. While still wary of potential terrorist attacks, for the first time since the 9-11 disasters, Americans largely felt safe.

Few were interested in tempering their contentment with the reality of a world that was far from being at peace.

As US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned five years before, the end of the Iraqi combat mission in 2011 soon saw a return of bloody sectarian fighting that rivaled the worst days that followed the fall of Saddam Hussein. Pleas from the Iraqi government in mid-2012 for a return of American forces fell on deaf ears among war-weary politicians and American voters alike in the middle of a divisive and bitter Presidential election campaign.

Fundamentalist Islamic regimes ruled Pakistan and Indonesia, thanks to well-orchestrated military coups that had toppled each country’s civilian government. Iran, still secretly developing its own nuclear weapons program, had emerged as the dominant military, economic and political power of the Middle East. India and China were faced with economic slowdowns that threatened the promise of economic prosperity that had placated their massive populations since the early 1990s. Worldwide, only the military arms industry seemed untouched by the fragile balance of world affairs. Far from slowing, it prospered as never before.

There was a sense that the world’s dominant super power could do little, that American influence had been marginalized by fast-moving events and a new and untested national political leadership.

After only four years in office, incumbent Barack Obama had suffered an historic electoral repudiation in the 2012 general election. Gathering less than 26 per cent of the popular vote, he couldn’t shake the perception among voters on both the left and right that he was too indecisive to solve the nation’s complex problems.

Even so, he almost survived the 2012 election because of the incredible disarray within the Republican Party. Hard-line elements of the TEA Party held the party’s convention hostage through four nomination ballots before a last-minute candidate was drafted by a pragmatic coalition of conservative and mainline Republicans.

Franklin Zimmer, the 45-year-old California Congressman from the 37th district south of Los Angeles, may have been the least-known Presidential candidate in American history. He’d earned his pro-business economic credentials as head of the Southern California Port Authority a decade earlier, leading one of the country’s largest-ever port revitalization projects. He moved into politics with a demonstrated record of job creation, something that endeared him to the struggling minority population of his district. During four terms in Congress, Zimmer consistently pushed a pro-growth agenda while paying just enough respect to the party’s vocal social conservative base. Popular with local voters, he’d earned little national attention, but he had also avoided alienating any of the key elements of the Grand Old Party.

With the party’s convention on the verge of collapse, a seemingly grass-roots movement floated Zimmer’s name as a possible compromise candidate. In fact, the supposed groundswell was organized and paid for by a secret coalition of energy, defense and trade groups desperate to regain control of the White House.

Weary delegates on all sides of the Republican perspective, reluctantly endorsed the Congressmen, in hopes that they would be able to sway the centrist to their respective side of the party’s internal debate.

Zimmer, a persuasive speaker backed by a team of skilled writers, proved to be a capable national campaigner. The fact that he had less than three months to both introduce himself to American voters, and to sell his campaign message, actually worked to his benefit. The brief campaign prevented opponents from delving too deeply into either his credentials or his political positions. Three months later, he comfortably defeated Obama to become only the second person to move directly from the House of Representatives to the White House.

The 2012 US election came too late to save the Iraqis from themselves, however.

The fragile, American-brokered Iraqi democracy collapsed before the new administration in Washington was even sworn into office. The President and most of his cabinet were airlifted out of Baghdad in mid-January, 2013 in the last American military mission of the Iraqi war. The few junior ministers who chose not to flee the violence sweeping their country tried to form a government of national unity to bring order to their country but it collapsed amidst mounting sectarian violence. Finally, they turned to the nation’s traditional foe – Iran – for help.

On May 1st, 2013, Tehran responded. Tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers flooded across the border to end the internal fighting. They faced little military opposition. The new American President decided against ordering the 30,000 American soldiers still in the Gulf region to intervene. Ordering them into the fray would have been futile. Most of the Americans’ heavy armor was thousands of miles away in the US, undergoing repairs after the brutal battles of the Iraq mission. Thousands of other armored vehicles were in storage in a Kuwait desert, awaiting shipment back to repair depots in the US.

The Americans were done with Iraq.

The only meetings between Iraqi officials and the US focused on the removal of the several thousand American civilian contractors working in Baghdad’s surrounded Green Zone. Zimmer’s Vice President, Marcus Covington negotiated an agreement to allow the contractors to peacefully leave Iraq, under the protection of Iranian troops. A testament to the volatility of the Iraqi situation was the refusal of the US Secret Service to allow Covington to travel to Baghdad. The negotiations were conducted entirely by video conference, with the Vice President never leaving the safety of his Washington DC offices.

By the middle of July, the last of the Americans drove across the Kuwaiti border on route home.

Two weeks later, on August 1st, 2013, the West was shaken by the unlikely political unification of Iraq with its historic adversary, Iran. Led by a messianic Iman, Shiite Ayatollah Madhir Klostari, the new nation would be known as the Unified Islamic Federation.

The marriage of economic and military power did more to destabilize the region than anything since the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Quaking in the shadow of the new fundamentalist juggernaut, a half dozen other Middle Eastern nations quickly signed treaties affiliating themselves with the Federation.

Its power spread quickly through the Islamic world. Indonesia – home of the largest Moslem population on earth – almost immediately asked to become part of the new Islamic federation. Iran officially became a nuclear power two months later, when Pakistan followed suit. From Tunis to Syria, Arab nations – some of whom had gained a measure of democratic reform less than 24 months earlier – rushed to join the powerful new Islamic nation. In October, while two million pilgrims were making their Haj to Mecca, Islamic fundamentalists within the Saudi Army attacked Riyadh. The King and most of his family were butchered in their palaces.

Within 48 hours, the dissident soldiers surprised the world by swearing loyalty to Klostari, crossing sectarian and ethnic lines to unite with their traditional Persian adversaries in an unprecedented affiliation between Sunni and Shiites. Fearing what it saw as an inevitable absorption from all sides, even Kuwait’s pro-western ruling family joined the blossoming confederation. Claiming to have had a revelation that he was to reunite all of Islam and bring the world to the True Faith, Klostari proclaimed himself the "Caliph of Islam" and agreed to take over the Saudi throne and the de-facto leadership of the Arab world.

By the end of 2013, governments representing more than a half billion Moslems had sworn allegiance to Klostari. His new state became the dominant military force in the world’s most volatile region, and controlled more than four million square kilometers of the oil producing area of the Middle East. More importantly, it would control the production of more than 13 million barrels of oil a day – about 16 per cent of the world’s output – and would be the globe’s most important single source of oil.

Only the small, pro-western Persian Gulf states of Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates vocally opposed the new oil super power. Their resolve was backed up by the presence in the Gulf region of a sizable contingent of the US 5th Fleet, as well as the first operational squadrons of America’s most advanced warplanes.

World oil markets initially reacted to the emergence of the fundamentalist Islamic nation with eye-popping increases in the price of crude. Within 24 hours of the fall of the House of Saud, prices passed a record $200 a barrel. Stock markets from New York to Melbourne went into free fall. A world-wide economic depression seemed certain.

However, in late-December Klostari told a news conference broadcast live around the world that the Federation would guarantee the sale of as much oil as his country could produce, and that Iran was rolling back its price by 50 per cent. In return, he asked only for a promise by the United States to quickly phase out military and financial assistance to the nation of Israel, which he described as the only destabilizing influence left in a newly peaceful and harmonious Middle East. It was a condition that most US administrations would have rejected out of hand, but President Zimmer and his Vice President Covington, a former Louisiana governor with little love for what he privately called the Hebrew lobby, saw it as a simple question of economics.

It would be better to risk alienating the powerful American Jewish political lobby than have the nation’s economy driven into a recession – or worse – by ruinous oil prices.

Despite decades of animosity with fundamentalist Islam, Americans – faced with the prospect of a new economic crisis – eagerly accepted Klostari’s assurances. The peace and the prosperity that would come from a stable, affordable supply of oil would be worth the risk of taking the Imam at his word.

The political gamble appeared to have paid off. Within months of accepting the Iman’s offer, the US economy accelerated what had been a sluggish recovery from the lingering effects of the seemingly endless recession into an economic boom.

On July 1st, 2014, Zimmer and Covington welcomed to the White House a man Zimmer described as America’s new friend, Ayatollah Madhir Klostari, the Caliph of Islam.

Israel, now politically isolated from its historic American benefactor, did not share the US’s optimism. It believed that the new, unified Islamic state had one dominant, unspoken goal.

The annihilation of Israel.

1 

Foxes and Hounds

JANUARY 11, 2014, NORTHEASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

Silence is our friend and our salvation.

Commander Nils Hollingsworth remembered what his instructor at the Royal Canadian Navy’s submarine training program had said on his first day in class, 22 years earlier. It was a lesson he now both taught and lived by as commanding officer of HMCS Victoria, one of his country’s four aging and sometimes embattled diesel electric submarines.

The 42-year old, sandy-haired officer knew that how well he had taught his young officers and enlisted men might decide whether they would live or die in combat. The lessons would determine whether his 70-meter long boat – as submarines are known in NATO navies – and its 50-man crew would survive the hunt going on 175 meters above his head in the open waters of the Northeastern Pacific ocean.

Victoria had been playing a lethal version of cat-and-mouse for better than five hours with a huge nuclear ballistic missile submarine that clearly held a massive technological superiority over his 20-year-old, former British Royal Navy Upholder class warship. The boomer that was stalking the Canadian boat was its technological superior, was more than twice as long, nearly twice as wide and carried more than 150 cruise missiles and torpedoes, each capable of mounting either a nuclear or conventional warhead. It was twice as fast as the Canadian sub and could dive ten times as deep. A nuclear power plant enabled it to remain submerged indefinitely. And, although it didn’t need the help, the big missile boat was backed up by two destroyers plying the surface of the search area. Each was probing the deep with their sophisticated anti submarine warfare (ASW) equipment in search of the Canadian sub.

Any change in course, range, depth or bearing to the target? Hollingsworth asked Sub-Lieutenant Giles Moore, the 24-year-old junior officer assigned as Victoria’s weapons officer.

Negative, replied Moore, as he scanned the plasma screens being monitored by the boat’s undersea warfare technician. Target is continuing to move away from us, running silent at 75 meters, 15 knots, 310 degrees, range 11,700 meters. Maintaining passive sonar, his towed array is still extended 600 meters aft of the target.

Very well, helm, come to course 3-1-0 and bring us up to 100 meters, just below the upper thermal layer, Hollingsworth quietly ordered. The invisible layers of the ocean, known as thermals, were difficult for sonar to penetrate with accuracy, and offered submarines much-needed protection. Mr. Moore, open outer torpedo doors and prepare tubes five and six for firing.

Hollingsworth listened with satisfaction as the junior officer repeated his order, and then silently watched to confirm that the members of his department executed them.

Victoria gently and silently rose through to the assigned depth, while the technician at the undersea warfare screen watched the readings indicating the target’s location.

Skipper, said Lt. Commander Dan Meyers, Victoria’s executive officer, computer has a firing solution.

Very well, said Hollingsworth. Confirm solution and prepare to engage.

Target changing course, depth and speed, reported the weapons technician with an edge of concern in his voice. Increasing speed, now passing 20 knots. Retracting her towed array. She’s going down, sharp descent, now passing 90 meters, coming to course 155, skipper. She’s turning towards us, range now 11,000 meters.

Shit, thought Hollingsworth. I don’t think they heard us but something gave us away. Either that, or his counterpart on the bridge of the enemy sub was a mind reader.

Where’s the lower thermal layer? he asked Meyers.

Last sounding had it at 190 meters, Commander.

Take us down to 200 meters, Mr. Meyers, said Hollingsworth as he ordered his boat down to its maximum safe operating depth. Maintain silent running.

The deck beneath his feet slanted sharply down as Victoria sought safety in the depths. Since its major overhaul three years earlier, the Canadian submarine had become one of the most silent warships in the world. Like the other advanced diesel-electric submarines produced by German, Swedish and French shipyards, it employed a broad array of noise-reducing measures. The variety of sound-absorbing tiles on Victoria’s hull, combined with advanced shock-absorbing mounts that connected her engineering spaces to the hull, had proven to be effective in turning the black submarine into a black hole in the ocean.

The survival of the boat and her crew depended on that happening again today.

Passing 190 meters and through the lower thermal, reported Lt. Jason Greene, standing in for Victoria’s injured Second Officer, left behind to recuperate in port from knee surgery. Sensors indicate we’re into cold, oxygen depleted waters, sir.

Very well, said Hollingsworth. Mr. Meyers, level off at 200 meters and come to new course 1-1-0. Make our speed six knots. Mr. Moore, where’s the target?

Sir, she’s heading down herself, now at 140 meters, speed 28 knots.

Her skipper is going to try to take a page from our book, said Hollingsworth. Mr. Meyers, bring us smartly to course 3-2-5. Mr. Moore, work out a new firing solution. I want to take a snap shot as the target comes through the thermal, before he has a chance to find us.

The young officer, with a surprisingly steady voice, repeated the order even as he punched in the targeting information to his computer.

Range to target when she breaks through the thermal will be 9,000 meters, said Moore.

Sir, said SLT Hubbard, no indication that she has gone active on her sonar.

They know that’d give them away, and I suspect that they are still hoping that we can’t track them through the thermal layer. They plan to pop out, go active, acquire us and take their own snap shot, said Hollingsworth.

Mr. Moore, let’s beat them to the punch and surprise them when they come out of the thermal,

Target will pass out of the thermal in 75 seconds, sir, said Moore.

Tubes five and six ready?

Aye, aye, skipper, said Moore. Outer doors open, tubes flooded, and ready to be fired in three… two… one.

Fire five! ordered Hollingsworth.

Five is away, said Meyers.

Five seconds later, Hollingsworth repeated the order for tube number six.

Weapons director has command of both torpedoes, sir, said Moore, as he watched the screen that indicated both torpedoes were obeying the directions given by the firing computer and transmitted over the thin, fibre-optic lines that connected the torpedo to Victoria. Five and six have acquired the target, are running independently and are locked on intercept coordinates. Impact in 42 seconds.

Mr. Meyers, said Hollingsworth quietly, Get us out of here. There are still two surface ships up there looking for us.

Aye, aye sir, repeated the boat’s second in command.

Time to intercept 20 seconds, said Moore.

Prepare to come to new course 180, Meyers ordered the helmsman, on my command, increase speed to full.

Ten seconds to target breaking thermal layer…nine…eight…THERE SHE IS, Moore said with the tone of excitement that was to be expected from the youngster as he watched his computer screen. Target passing out of the thermal. We have target lock. Impact in three…two…one.

A buzzer on Moore’s weapons computer sounded to confirm that the first torpedo had hit its target. Moments later, the buzzer sounded again, confirming that both MK 48 torpedoes fired by Victoria had found their mark.

Impact, impact! said Moore. Target hit by both weapons. Computer showing it losing speed and coming dead in the water. We got her, sir.

That we did, Mr. Moore, that we did, said Hollingsworth calmly as he looked over Moore’s shoulder at the big video screen.

Coming to course 180, increasing speed to 20 knots, maintaining 200 meters depth, reported the first officer. Surface contacts show no sign that they have spotted us, maintaining their original headings on active search.

Nils Hollingsworth smiled.

Well done. Mr. Meyers, he said evenly. That completes our exercise. Secure from battle stations and take us up to 18 meters. Prepare to raise the communication mast.

Aye, aye, skipper, said Meyers as he turned to relay the order to the maneuvering watch.

With some satisfaction, Nils Hollingsworth watched the weapons screen as the symbol representing his target – the US nuclear ballistic missile submarine Nevada – began to rise as well, matching Victoria’s rate of ascent.

The six foot, 200-pound submarine commander knew that he’d soon be collecting another bottle of the superb Gentleman Jack Daniels premium bourbon from his friend, Captain Tom Raykoff, who commanded Nevada’s Gold Crew. It was one of two identical ship’s companies that alternated the at-sea deployments that kept the ballistic missile boats in constant operation. The prize of high-quality whisky had become a tradition in the training duals between the Canadian and American submariners that shared the deep training waters off Canada’s Vancouver Island and Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

If the Americans could find and electronically sink Victoria, Hollingsworth had to provide a bottle of Seagram’s Crown Royal premium Canadian whisky for his opposing Captain. If Victoria prevailed, either by eluding detection or by sinking the hunter, the Americans had to send over a bottle of the Tennessee distillers’ finest product.

So far, in 22 exercises, Hollingsworth had been required to buy only two bottles of Canadian whisky for his American friends.

On the mantle of the modest home he shared with his wife of 19 years, Anna, and his sons Griffith and Sam in Sidney, a suburb just north of the British Columbia capital of Victoria, were 20 unopened bottles of Jack Daniels finest product. Hollingsworth was yet to crack open a single one of his trophies, but looking over the array of liquor never failed to put a smile on his face.

The contests between Victoria and her bigger and supposedly far superior American competition should not have even been a fair fight.

The four Canadian boats were traded to Canada by Great Britain for long-term access to an armored warfare training center in Alberta. Beginning in 2008, each boat underwent a costly major overhaul that bordered on a complete reconstruction. The result was a boat so silent that the Canadian diesel electrics could only be found if her Captain made a serious mistake or if a shipboard malfunction gave away her position.

Known throughout NATO as Canada’s swap meet submarines, they were actually quieter than the most modern nuclear boats. Atomic reactors require complex cooling pumps that, while virtually silent, can be detected by modern underwater sensors. Subs like Victoria, that use the century-old diesel electric propulsion technology, run on all-but-silent battery-powered electric motors.

The Canadian boats – three assigned to the Atlantic and Victoria assigned to the Pacific – had emerged as Canada’s most lethal strategic weapons.

In the changing reality of international politics, submarines that could control the sea or limit access to the confined approaches to essential harbors had taken on an unexpected new importance.

While they were reluctant to ever admit it, even veteran surface fleet sailors knew that submarines had become the most threatening naval weapons in the world. One former US Navy chief of operations described the nuclear powered attack subs in his command as the killer arrow in the quiver of available weapons systems. He also recognized the threat posed by the new generations of silent diesel electric boats, pointing out that more than 40 countries were operating more than 600 submarines in the world’s oceans.

As far back as 2008, he warned his political bosses that the boats were, in his words, not bush league submarines and said that even those that were operated by some Third World governments were very capable weapons.

The exercises off the northern Pacific coast were designed to test some of those capabilities and to try to help the Canadian and American Navies develop workable approaches for dealing with the developing threat posed by the profusion of high tech submarines they increasingly faced.

2 

Peace, order and good government

For the first time in the country’s 149-year history, Canada’s federal government was led by neither the Liberal nor Conservative parties. Their grasp on the reigns of national power had been broken by two scandals that had each filled voters with revulsion, but for very different reasons.

The first all but destroyed the venerable Conservative party. A March, 2013, email that had been circulated to members of the governing Tory parliamentary caucus was leaked to a prominent columnist at the Toronto Star. It was found to include more than 40 digital images of 11 Tory cabinet ministers taking part in sexual orgies involving very young children. The reporter, after copying the files, turned them over to the RCMP, which quickly conducted a raid on Party offices in the House of Commons. Arrests under Canada’s strict anti-child pornography laws quickly followed, and a quarter of the party caucus – including Prime Minister Stephen Harper – resigned in revulsion.

With the Tory majority suddenly eviscerated, a non-confidence motion forced Governor General Winfred James to dissolve Parliament and call a federal election for April 15th,, 2013. The Liberal Party, under new leader Lucien Benoit, rebounded from its 2011 electoral annihilation to form a minority government.

The second scandal four months later would vault the neophyte leader of a brand new party into prominence, and radically change the political landscape of the country.

Justin Turner had been proclaimed as the leader of the Canada First Party during its founding convention in November of 2012. The 34 year old son of a retired Canadian army general, Turner had quickly risen to a full partnership in Shearwater, Canada’s largest bond trading company. He was fluent in English, French, Russian and Mandarin, and had grown up on Canadian military bases around the world.

His doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto – Gentle Imperialism – became a best-selling book, arguing that Canada should export its values of fairness and equality to the world as way to help insure peace and security for all people. A passionate nationalist, he’d been a logical choice to lead a party that most dismissed as more of a rump public interest group more interested in sovereignty issues than elected politics.

That changed abruptly when a bulky envelope was shoved through the mail slot of Turner’s Ottawa home. It would shake Canadian politics to its core.

The Continental Energy Partnership

A blueprint for economic integration for the benefit of Canada and the United States

Attached to the 56-page document was a note explaining that the Prime Minister, Lucien Benoit, had secretly been to Washington several times in the past two months, to negotiate directly with the American President, Frank Zimmer. The Americans were worried that their supply of affordable oil was in jeopardy because of the rise of the new fundamentalist government in the oil rich Middle East. Canada had the world’s largest known oil reserves – primarily locked in the Alberta oil sands – and the U.S. wanted guaranteed access to that resource.

The document itself outlined the details. In return for that exclusive access, the Americans would bankroll the full development of the oil sands, including the construction of four massive twin pipelines connecting the sands to U.S. refining and distribution systems. American financing for a nuclear power reactor that was needed to generate electricity to power the extraction operations would be guaranteed. The oil sands would be granted an emergency waiver from US greenhouse gas emission laws, so the oil could be exported tax-free to American refineries.

The oil sands would become, in effect, the gas tank for the American economy well into the 21st and 22nd centuries.

Canadians would be given first priority on all oil sands jobs…as would Canadian construction companies. It was a painless concession for the Americans, the report said, because far more workers and contractors would be needed to develop the oil sands than Canada could provide. There’d be jobs for thousands of American workers as well.

The U.S. would allow the complete integration of their domestic economic markets with Canada. That meant a free flow of capital, business and people between the two nations. This, the report suggested, would generate even more, non-oil sands jobs for Canadians, creating products for sale in the U.S.

The U.S. dollar would become a new continental currency.

And Canada would combine its Armed Forces into that of the U.S., gaining access to equipment and technologies that Canada could never afford on its own. Canadian military units would be assigned to internal security work, and individual Canadian military personnel would be allowed to transfer to US-led units if they wanted foreign postings.

For Lucien Benoit, the deal was an ambitious win-win situation. It would lead to incredible job creation and the rapid growth of Canadian businesses, while sacrificing little. After all, as Benoit himself had hand written in the margin on page 29, this only acknowledges the current reality – there is little uniquely Canadian left anymore to give up.

After confirming the authenticity of the document – and obtaining flight logs for the government jet that Benoit had used for his secret trips to Washington DC – Justin Turner released the document at a Parliament Hill news conference.

BULLETIN/FLASH

January 6, 2014

Opposition leaks Federal energy and economic proposal

Ottawa (CP) – The fledgling Canada First Party has released what it says is a secret plan, already approved by Prime Minister Lucien Benoit, to virtually merge the Canadian and American economies.

Party leader Justin Turner said the proposal, entitled the Continental Energy Program or CEP, was negotiated over the past nine months in secret meetings in Washington DC between the Prime Minister and U.S. President Franklin Zimmer.

The document released by Turner would give the U.S. guaranteed, exclusive access to production from the Alberta oil sands, at reduced prices, for the next 100 years. In return, most economic barriers between Canada and the US would be dropped, granting the right for Canadians to cross into the U.S. to work and live. As well, the U.S. dollar would become a continental currency, requiring the abolition of the Looney.

Liberal party insiders say they’d never heard of the CEP and suggested that it had been fabricated by the leader of the new party, as an attempt to draw attention to what they describe as his unpopular nationalist political message.

(More later)

Justin Turner released the report at 10 a.m., three hours before Parliament resumed sitting after its winter break. The document dominated question period, with opposition MPs demanding answers and government ministers avoiding comment.

Prime Minister Benoit was absent from the House. His office said he would comment on the story after a caucus meeting, scheduled for six o’clock that evening.

Benoit didn’t emerge from what members would later describe as an acrimonious session until well past 8 p.m. The caucus whip made certain all his members shuffled out through a rear door to avoid the reporters crowding the corridor outside.

The Prime Minister stepped up to a podium filled with microphones.

Thank you for waiting this evening, said Benoit. "This is an important night for our country, and I am glad you are here to share it with me.

My young friend, Mr. Turner, has done that which the young are wont to do to their elders. He has stolen my thunder, Benoit said with a chuckle.

"I was going to announce completion of the Continental Energy Program at the end of this week. But, as you know, good news travels fast and someone saw fit to share it with Mr. Turner.

"It is unfortunate and a disservice to Canada, though, that he chose to do so in a manner which totally misrepresents its letter and spirit.

"This is not a sell-out of Canada. This is an enhancement of Canada’s economic power, and a way to solidify Canada’s place in the world order. Instead of blowing in the international economic winds like a dry leaf, we will be a key, vital and fully integrated part of setting the course of the world economy.

"By combining the depth of our natural resources with the might of the United States economy, we become a full partner with the world’s only remaining super power. Our people will be allowed to cross the border at will, to work or vacation or retire where ever they want.

"Our products will pass seamlessly over the busiest border in the world, and our port systems will be fully integrated to insure the smoothest possible movement of commodities.

"We will streamline regulations to give business a level playing field across the continent. Because we share common security concerns, our militaries will function together around the world, in defense of our common interests.

"Our dollar will no longer be subject to the wild and destabilizing swings in value. As partners in this new economy, we will share the same currency.

"We are not surrendering our country. Parliament will still meet under the red and white maple leaf flag. The governor general will still be our head of state. We will not swear allegiance to the flag of the United States. We will remain Canadians. We are not forsaking the first words of the Section 1 of the Constitution Act that defines the role of our national government, to insure ‘Peace, Order and Good Government’. Under this agreement, the only difference will be that we will have a far more powerful and secure economy.

When he says otherwise, Mr. Turner is simply not telling the truth.

For the next month, Benoit’s minority government – already weakened by the evisceration of the Conservatives who had supported it – remained on the defensive. Led by Canada First, the opposition parties brought the work of Parliament to a grinding halt. Even many in Benoit’s own party bolted, with a dozen walking away from their caucus to sit as independents..

When the Liberal government’s budget went down to defeat on a straight party vote on May 13th, Canadians headed for the polls for the second time in six months. In a televised address, Prime Minister Benoit told Canadians he regretted the necessity of inflicting another election campaign on the public but that the future of the nation was at stake.

THE VANCOUVER SUN JUNE 16, 2014

Canada’s closest vote ever?

MINORITY GOVERNMENT CERTAIN BUT POLLS SAY RACE TOO CLOSE TO PREDICT WHO WILL LEAD

By Stephen Maplethorpe

OTTAWA (CP) Deeply divided Canadians head to the polls today in an election that most likely will not break the political log jam that has handcuffed Parliament for the last two months.

In fact, late polls suggest the vote could muddy the waters even more, with a minority government a certainty but with the question of who will lead still unresolved.

Canadians probably have never been this energized and polarized, said David Moore, political science professor at Queens University.

And the question of the Continental Energy Partnership is at the heart of it all. It’s an incredibly complex question that has proven to defy politicians’ abilities to simplify.

See Political Chaos, page two

The result of the vote left citizens and pundits alike scratching their heads.

11:55 P.M. PDT, JUNE 16, CBC TV NEWS SPECIAL

The balding, veteran anchorman was wearing his best authoritative if slightly bemused expression as he wrapped up the nine hour long live broadcast.

"After a bitter and acrimonious four week campaign, there is no clear winner in the 2014 federal election. With all of the ballots now counted across the country…Canadians really have no idea who their next Prime Minister will be.

"Here are the standings as the nation goes to sleep tonight:

"A total of 158 seats are required to form a government.

"Prime Minister Benoit’s Liberals lost 30 MPs and are left with a narrow plurality, with 114 seats in the new House…the opposition Conservatives, under new leader Mike Clark, have been repudiated by voters in the wake of the child sex scandal that rocked the party caucus six months ago…they lost 81 seats. Only 17 Tory MPs are returning to the House.

"The New Democrats have ridden the popularity of their new, charismatic Quebecois leader Luc Marchand to their best-ever result…they gained an unprecedented 60 seats, and with 102 members, the party’s support will be required by anyone trying to form a government. The Bloc Quebecois took 33 seats in Quebec…a significant improvement over their total in the last election.

"The big story of the night, however, is that two new left-leaning parties will play what could be pivotal roles in the new Parliament. The Canada First Party, under political neophyte Justin Turner, elected 29 members to the House, a startling success for a party built from scratch in just seven months. Christina Anderson’s Green Party, which until now had to be content with a single seat, elected 19 MPs.

"The next few days are sure to be filled with political intrigue and deal making, as the leaders jockey for partners with whom they might be able to fashion a government. Right now it appears that the Liberals are going to need a lot of help to form a government. With the personal defeat of Prime Minister Lucien Benoit in his Quebec riding, the party will have to either select a new leader, or parachute Benoit into another riding in a by-election.

It will be an uphill battle for the Liberals to maintain power. Both NDP leader Marchand and BQ leader Pierre Lambert have already said that their support would be contingent on the scrapping of the Continental Energy Partnership. Benoit has already rejected both demands.

No other potential coalitions seem obvious at this point, the anchor concluded. Only time will tell how this ongoing and seemingly never ending political drama plays out.

The ensuing week was, indeed, filled with political intrigue as politicians tried to broker a deal to create a new government. No one was willing to compromise on the issue of the CEP. Even the behind-the-scenes deal-making of the powerful economic interests that had long manipulated the country’s political life failed. Finally, the sitting leaders of Canada’s two oldest, mainline political parties could only throw up their hands and turn matters over to the Queen’s Representative, Governor General Winfred James, for a solution.

James wasted little time in resolving the question.

JUNE 23, 2014, CALGARY HERALD

It’s a new day – coalition to form government

GOV. GENERAL TO ASK NDP,

CANADA FIRST, GREENS, BQ

TO FORM NEW GOVERNMENT

John Kincade

Calgary Herald

Ottawa (June 16) – After a full week of unsuccessful negotiation, arm twisting and partisan wrangling, Governor General Winfred James has called New Democratic Party leader Luc Marchand to a meeting to formally ask him to form a coalition federal government.

The 56 year-old bachelor NDP leader, who is completing his fourth term in the Commons, has accepted the invitation and is to meet with the Queen’s representative at 4 o’clock this afternoon in Ottawa. He has asked for national television time for an address to the country this evening. He’s expected to announce his cabinet at that time, as well as make a plea for national unity.

For its part, the Liberal party has announced that one of its newly-elected MPs, Serge Joyal, is resigning, just days after his election. The party is asking Prime Minister Marchand to quickly call a byelection in Joyal’s Winnipeg North riding. Defeated Prime Minister Lucien Benoit is intending to seek the seat. He will remain as party leader until that vote.

Many expected the coalition would be, at best, shaky. How would a hard-line Social Democrat and career politician like Luc Marchand find common ground with an economic nationalist and international investment banker like Justin Turner, an ardent Quebec separatist and former dockworkers organizer like Pierre Lambert, and an equally ardent environmentalist and scientist like Professor Christina Anderson?

Paul Ryan, the US ambassador to Canada, called reporters to the US embassy, to warn Canadians that any decision to scrap the Energy Partnership would all but destroy their nation’s economy. With a strident tone that reminded many of an angry school master lecturing a backward student, Ryan predicted that Canadians would quickly regret the decision by their new government.

3 

The Caliphate

Ayatollah Madhir Klostari confirmed Israel’s worst fears in an internationally-televised speech a month after his historic trip to the White House. He delivered his closely-watched address in a lavish room in the fortress of the former Saudi Royal Family outside Riyadh.

As the Caliph of Islam, Peace be On You. he began, "I come to you from this extravagant, decadent example of how the corrupted leaders of our people squandered the wealth bestowed upon His people by the Blessed Prophet. Instead of truly sharing that gift, as is required in the Holy Koran, they held it close to their breasts, to benefit only themselves and their immediate families. Praise Be to His Holy Name, the Prophet has interceded with God to remedy this wrong.

"That remedy, completed in His Holy Name by my hand, is making life far better for His people, across our precious lands. It is His wish to see His people live with equity and abundance.

However, he said gravely, "I am also aware that these changes have caused unease among those with whom we only seek friendship, the people of the industrialized West.

"You need us to continue to supply the oil the Prophet has entrusted to us so that your families will continue to prosper. In turn, we need you to help us provide better and fairer lives for His people. Together, we can help one another to live better in this world.

"Even though most of you do not yet share with us our assurance in the Truth of the Prophet, I want you to know that I have promised your leaders that we bear no enmity toward you. The Prophet has said that you are blameless because you have not yet been given the opportunity to understand His Holy Word. That will change in His time.

"There is one matter, though, that I must discuss with you now. Many of your nations have made the support of Satan’s hand tool, Israel, a critical part of their foreign policies. In recent years your governments have wrongly threatened us with war should His people take just action to rid our Holy Lands of this evil blight.

"We desire to live in peace with all people…except for the Satanic nation of Israel and the people who oppress His people in Palestine.

Our nation has the same right as any other to set its own foreign policies, according to what we deem to be right, moral and just. Accordingly we are determined, in His Name, to rid our Holy Land of this blight. This is our sovereign right, and we will bow to no nation in our determination to achieve the cleansing of our Holy Lands.

Within days, the speech began to drive a wedge between oil-thirsty Westerners – particularly the Americans – and the stubborn Israelis.

Israeli leaders knew they were facing the direst threat to the survival of their country since it was created by the United Nations more than 60 years before.

Faced with quickly-vanishing support in the halls of American government, the Israeli government embarked on a desperate gamble.

It would tie Israel’s survival to that of the United States.

From the beginning, American support had been the keystone of Israeli survival, but maintaining the disarray among its Arab neighbors was nearly as critical. For decades, successive Israeli governments had secretly financed political movements that kept its neighbors in seemingly perpetual turmoil. Jerusalem knew that it had little to fear from its neighbors, as long as they remained mired in medieval feudalism, internal fighting, sectarian violence and systemic corruption that concentrated vast wealth in the hands of a few dictatorial families.

With dissidents poised to take power in several Middle Eastern nations, Israeli aid helped undermine the Arab Spring revolts of 2011. Popular uprisings created the kind of chaos that were in the best interest of Israel, but that benefit would be lost if actual democratic regimes emerged from the unrest. The unification of most Middle Eastern nations under the banner of Islamic fundamentalism, therefore, was the realization of Israel’s worst nightmare.

Israeli intelligence quickly found evidence that the new nation was deploying the new Iranian Fajr-4 medium-range missile. The Tehran-developed and built systems were a significant technical advancement for the Islamic forces. While based on the design of the North Korean Shahab-3 medium range ballistic missile, the Iranian missile utilized rudimentary stealth technology and a micro-processor that ran an in-flight electronic jamming program. The missile had an effective range of almost 1,200 miles, giving it the ability to hit Israel, as well as reach NATO staging facilities in Turkey, Greece and Italy.

Of even greater concern was the type of punch the missiles could deliver.

With the help of the new fundamentalist leaders of Pakistan, Iranian scientists had covertly continued the development of domestically-produced nuclear warheads, despite promises to the United Nations that it would abandon the effort. Israeli intelligence believed a handful of relatively small nuclear weapons, probably fewer than five, were already in Iranian hands. A full arsenal of home-grown Islamic weapons would be operational by 2020.

But the Islamic Federation had no intention of waiting that long. The Israelis knew that Tehran had successfully been able to purchase three multiple warhead nuclear weapons from a rogue ex-Russian defense ministry bureaucrat who had successfully sought the means to retire to a warm climate. Each warhead contained 10 separate 500-kiloton nuclear warheads. When disassembled, those weapons could be married to the new Iranian missiles to create 30 immediately-functional atomic weapons.

Tehran opted to hide the missiles in plain sight. Each weapon and its launcher was mounted on the same kind of heavy trucks used in the Iranian oil fields. From the air or from space, it was all but impossible to separate them from the hundreds of heavy vehicles used in the nation’s oil fields.

Israel demanded action from United Nations, to no avail. When Jerusalem asked its allies in Washington DC to help, President Zimmer said he needed more proof. He reminded Jerusalem about what had happened when President Bush had gone to war in Iraq on the false assurances of Iraqi dissidents that Saddam had the ABCs of modern warfare: atomic, biological and chemical weapons.

Israel was on its own. Its leaders and its people had known all along that they would one day have to face the ultimate test alone. That day had come.

The Masada Plan, born in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and named for the site of the mass suicide of Israel’s first martyrs, was activated.

Its origins dated back to the mid 1980s, before the first Gulf War. Israel had long possessed a nuclear arsenal, one that most researchers believed involved 50 or so nuclear weapons. Most were low-yield tactical warheads designed to be dropped from fighters, fired from conventional field artillery or on short range missiles as a defense of last resort.

In the mid 1980s the country prepared for another kind of war, one that might require an overwhelming, cataclysmic strategic strike. The target would not be attacking armies but the governments that controlled them.

In order to deliver the weapons, Israeli agents stole American cruise missile technology in the mid 1980s. By the time of the first Gulf War, a few of the missiles, each carrying a nuclear warhead, were secretly available for use. Only the intervention of the first President Bush, and his personal promise to obliterate the Iraqi army in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack on Israel, had prevented Jerusalem from settling the issue before the first Americans crossed into Kuwait.

It was the prospect of an Iranian first-strike nuclear capability that spurred a fateful decision. If Israel now was facing a nuclear-armed and unified Islamic army, it needed a weapon that would prevent the almost instant annihilation of its people. It would be Israel’s new Jericho VI stealth cruise missiles, considered by many military leaders as the most sophisticated in the world. By the time Klostari issued his internationally broadcast threat, Israel had 160 nuclear-tipped Jerichos concealed in launch canisters hidden in its sprawling deserts and connected by deeply-buried fibre-optic lines to a secret underground command center. Another 60 warheads were ready to be loaded aboard combat jets and the country’s Dolphin diesel-electric submarines. Most were pre-targeted on a city or military base within the Islamic Federation.

The real deterrent of the plan, however, wasn’t the threat posed to Arab and Persian cities and armies. The Prime Minister of Israel spelled that out during a secret trip to see President Zimmer.

Mr. President, said the Israeli leader, "we have asked you and the rest of the civilized world to do something to prevent the Islamic Federation from incinerating our people. Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

If Arab and Persian forces mount a nuclear attack against my country, we will respond with a massive and history-changing counter attack. Israel will defend itself with the immediate launch of pre-emptive nuclear strikes against every oil field and oil port of the Islamic Federation throughout the Persian Gulf, Middle East and North Africa.

Zimmer sat in stunned silence for a half minute before erupting.

You sonofabitch! he roared. If you did that, you might as well nuke us as well as every other industrial democracy! We’ve always been there for you, paying your bills, going to war to save your asses. This is how you repay us?

I am fully aware of what this would mean to your country, Mr. President, said the Israeli PM. The fate of America is your priority. Mine is the preservation of the people of Israel. We have asked you to stop the Islamic Federation, and you have not acted. Now, if Israel dies, the rest of the world will die with us.

It took all of Frank Zimmer’s self-control to marginally contain the rage he felt at Israel’s overt blackmailing of the United States. The continued flow of reasonably-priced Middle Eastern oil to American industry and homes depended on maintaining peace