[chico20854]

May 10, 1998

The replica USS Constitution calls on Lisbon, discharging a cargo of electronic parts.

Unofficially,

In southern Ohio, the Hells Angels motorcycle gang launches a mirror operation to the one their West Coast brethren pulled in January, attacking the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison, from both the inside and outside. The under-supplied and inadequate guard force fights valiantly, but after nearly nine hours of running combat inside and outside the secure area the last of the corrections officers surrender. Despite orders from the gang's leadership the guards are executed by the inmates, and soon a second bloodletting commences as the bikers purge the inmate population of those that may prove problematic in the future.

Colonel Oleg Tumanski's Spetsnaz team in western England emerges from its winter hibernation, with new orders from GRU Moscow Center. While last year's operations were largely focused on pinprick attacks on critical points to hinder the British war effort, the team is now tasked with gathering strategic intelligence about conditions within the UK. This information will hopefully enable Soviet command to assess the likely level of British contribution to the war as well as provide post-strike damage assessment to permit planners to retarget surviving nuclear weapons should the nuclear exchange resume.

In many areas of southern Germany Pact forces have overrun the NATO outpost line and closed on the main line of resistance. The Italian 4th Army Corps, which was not informed of the offensive by Soviet commanders (who were concerned about disloyal Italian officers who may harbor pro-NATO sympathies leaking word of the offensive), hurriedly scrambles to reposition itself into an offensive posture.

The skies above the battlefront are suddenly relatively crowded with aircraft. While theatre-wide daily sortie counts in April averaged approximately a dozen by NATO and six by the Pact there are over 60 NATO fighter-bombers and interceptors airborne while Frontal Aviation and the Czechoslovakian Air Force get nearly 100 flights aloft. Some minor dogfighting occurs, with the loss of three MiGs and a Luftwaffe F-4 Phantom, but the emphasis of the operations are on support of ground troops.

CIA Agent David Hudson, driving a stolen Lada sedan, takes back and side roads in his evacuation from the USSR. He skirts the towns of Kalinin (the Tsarist Tver) and Novgorod, bluffing his way past the occasional MVD or local militia roadblock. (The stash of food and vodka comes in handy for this, as well as a small stash of gold coins provided long ago by the CIA).