“Yes, Mr. President.” Apparently Thurman wasn’t quite ready to surrender completely. “Before we send more war matériel to Poland, we should at least make sure the other European states understand our intentions. Substantial arms shipments without full notification could provoke a dreadful misunderstanding. Surely that’s a risk we don’t want to run.”
“Agreed. What do you have in mind?”
“Well…” The Secretary of State fiddled with his pipe, obviously at something of a loss. “A public statement would be helpful. Or perhaps you could talk to the French ambassador. He represents EurCon interests here.”
“No.” The President’s eyes narrowed. “I will not meet with any representative of a government that has murdered American citizens and destroyed American property.”
Other NSC members growled their agreement.
“Then perhaps I could call the ambassador in to…”
The President shook his head again. “I don’t want any official, high-level contacts, Harris. Not while these people are essentially waging a covert war against us.”
“Then how are we supposed to communicate with EurCon, Mr. President?”
“Unofficially. Unofficially and through the back door, Mr. Secretary.”
The irritated look on Thurman’s face confirmed what Huntington had half suspected all along. The State Department’s patrician chief often cared more about his own prestige inside the cabinet and the Beltway than he did about effective policy. But if the President didn’t want to use the diplomats to convey his message, that left only one other route and one other messenger.
Huntington sat up straighter as the President turned toward him, hoping he could mask his fatigue.
“How about it, Ross?”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded firmly. “I can make another trip.”
Major General Jerzy Novachik stood still facing east, watching the western edge of a small patch of forest near the German border. He shaded his eyes with an open hand, squinting against the rising sun. He resisted the temptation to check his watch again. Predawn maneuvers were always tough to coordinate. Showing his impatience would only make his staff nervous without achieving anything useful.
Startled by a sudden noise from deeper inside the woods, birds exploded into the air in a mass of black, fluttering wings. Now.
Fourteen M1 Abrams tanks howled out of the forest, moving in line abreast at high speed. Mud sprayed out behind them, thrown high by their clattering tracks. Novachik could see helmets silhouetted in open hatches on top of each tank’s low, squat turret.
Good, he thought. The company’s tank commanders were on the ball, risking shell fragments and sniper bullets while they scanned the terrain around them for signs of the enemy. The temptation to sit snug and secure inside a buttoned-up armored vehicle was always strong. It was also almost always dangerous.
With the hatches closed, tank crews were almost blind and deaf — especially when moving through woods. And what they didn’t see could very often kill them.
As the M1s cleared the treeline, Novachik heard one of his staff officers snap out an order. “Activate!”
Five hundred meters north of the charging tanks, several rows of cardboard targets popped up off the ground. Some bore Leopard 2 silhouettes. Others showed Marder APCs. Like other officers in Poland’s army, the general didn’t believe in screwing around with generic labels. He knew his likely enemies.
Almost before the last target flipped up, the M1s were reacting. Turrets whined right, slewing around to bring their 120mm guns to bear. The whole line wheeled north — still moving at close to sixty kilometers an hour.
Crack!
An M1 fired — disappearing for just an instant as it thundered through the smoke from its own gun. As it reappeared, more tanks opened up, pumping shell after shell into the mass of pop-up targets.
They stopped shooting almost before the sounds of the first volley finished echoing across the open field. The M1s changed front again, sliding back into a line headed west.
Novachik raised his binoculars, zeroing in on the target area. Fantastic. The silhouettes were gone — every one knocked back down onto the torn, shell-churned ground.
“Exercise complete, sir.”
He smiled genially at the young officer who had organized this display. “So I see, Henryk. Very impressive.” He meant it. The M1’s ability to fire accurately while on the move put it light-years ahead of the T-72s and T-55s that equipped the rest of his division. Unfortunately the 5th Mechanized still only had enough of the American armored vehicles to outfit one of its five reorganized tank battalions. There were reports that more U.S. equipment was on the way, but the Polish general knew he couldn’t count on getting it. If war came, whether deliberately or accidentally, he would have to fight his battles with a mix of disparate weapons and tactics.
Novachik turned to the short, black-haired American officer standing next to him. “And what did you think, Major?”
After nearly six months in Poland, Major Bill Takei was picking up the language fast. “A solid performance, sir. Your troops are learning how to use their new equipment almost faster than I can teach them.”
“I’m very glad to hear it.” Novachik studied the Japanese-American closer. He’d worked with Novachik and his men closely, certain that they would have to use this equipment and their training, somewhere, sometime.
The “Hell on Wheels” armored division combat patch on the younger man’s shoulder showed that he had seen action during the Desert Storm campaign. And whenever he smiled, a thin, faint tracery of scar tissue showed on the right side of his face, climbing from his cheek almost all the way up to his eye. It was a strange feeling to command a man who had actually fought in a war while all he’d ever done was practice for one.
Americans like Takei were working throughout the Polish Army and Air Force, trying to blend American equipment and tactics with their Soviet predecessors into something that would meet uniquely Polish needs.
Followed by a gaggle of staff officers and other observers, the two men walked back across the muddy, rutted field toward a parked column of GAZ jeeps and Humvees. As his boots sank into the soft ground, Novachik wondered how Takei’s lightning-swift war of sweeping movement, blinding sandstorms, and burning oil might compare with one fought in this soft, green, confining landscape. It would be bloodier here, he thought grimly. Much bloodier.
CHAPTER 14
Narrow Margin
European developments dominated CNN’s afternoon news wrap-up.
“Furious at Washington’s plans to ship more arms to Poland and the Czech Republic, the European Confederation’s fledgling Foreign Secretariat issued a stinging condemnation at a hastily called press conference in Paris.”
The camera view cut away from the Atlanta anchor desk to a prerecorded clip taped hours earlier outside the French Foreign Ministry. Sheltered from a spring drizzle by umbrellas held aloft by his aides, an unidentified official stood reading a prepared statement in French. An English-accented voice translated his angry words for American viewers. “The Confederation utterly rejects this latest cynical attempt by the United States to inject itself in Europe’s internal affairs. At a time of unfortunate rising tensions, it is an act of madness to ship more weapons to a region already bristling with arms. If this regrettable confrontation explodes out of hand, it will be the United States itself which has furnished the gasoline and struck the match…”
The scene shifted to a military airfield identified by caption only as being somewhere in “Northern Germany.” Crewmen could be seen working on several camouflaged warplanes, while other jets taxied past them in the background. Patrolling soldiers and guard dogs were visible near a barbed-wire fence in the distance. An off-camera reporter narrated this segment. “While its diplomats express their outrage at the administration’s actions, the EurCon Defense Secretariat is taking sterner measures. CNN has learned that several squadrons of German and French combat aircraft have been placed on a higher state of alert. A high-ranking Secretariat official characterizes this as a ’sound precautionary move, given the large number of American warships now operating so close to our northern coast.’”