“If my men capture him,” Beria told Cherkashin, “I’ll make sure they hand him over to you.”
“And my men,” Abramov assured him, “will do the same.”
It was near dusk, and before it got too dark, Abramov wanted to inspect the Sixth’s tank commanders and make sure everyone was maintaining high alert. And with Cherkashin’s mention of tank ammunition, he wanted to quiz the gunners to make certain that in addition to HE rounds, they would have enough armor-piercing Sabot rounds with which to repel the Americans who, because of ABC’s first-rate camouflage, would be coming in blind, if they’d be coming at all. Many at ABC’s Lake Khanka complex believed that after all the huffing and puffing in Washington was over, there would be no attack, that the Americans were all talk. As Abramov walked outside, as expected he couldn’t see any tanks, and the marshland waters were turning golden in the fading sun.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the lower decks of the Wasp-class helo-carrier-transport Yorktown, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, under the command of Colonel Jack Tibbet, was being assembled. The air was thick with the smell of oil and the shuddering roar of engines and giant exhaust fans as Tibbet’s marines reviewed last-minute details prior to going topside to hear the mission commander, General Freeman, give his pre-op address. There was an understandable expectation that the general, if not being outright contrite after the humiliation of losing the terrorists’ trail, would at least be apologetic about having to put the MEU in harm’s way because of his foul-up at Priest Lake back home. In both the foreign anti-American press and the left-of-center liberal press at home, he was being portrayed, despite his earlier accomplishments and battle honors, as a “loser.”
As he slowly, reluctantly, shuffled his way in the confusion of the lower deck toward the elevator, young Peter Norton, the son of Robert Norton, Freeman’s former second-in-command from his Russia days, was one of those marines who weren’t looking forward to what must be the general’s mea culpa. To have the terrorists’ “AMERICANS SUCK” note flashed around the world by Al Jazeera was bad enough, but to have the man who had failed the mission bare himself in front of the men and women he was now expected to lead fearlessly into battle was something that no marine wanted to either hear or witness. It was a violation of strict marine tradition to go into a battle zone under anyone but their own, even if Freeman was an ex — full general of the army.
But if there was one thing that the American-led war against terrorism all over the world had taught the marines and every other branch of the armed services, it was that traditional ways of doing things often had to be overruled in the interest of expediency. Yorktown was the nearest MEU ready to go; it had been as simple as that.
There was a somber mood throughout the ship and little of the light banter that normally preceded an MEU op. Everyone knew that Freeman’s foray into this rebel-held Russian territory could be Freeman’s Folly if what was euphemistically referred to as “unsettled weather” conspired with the crack Russian defenders whose forebears, in their ubiquitous T-34s, had stopped the German Panzers in the terrible massed winter battles of 1943 and 1944.
Peter Norton, harboring the chilling possibility of having to drive his 6,000-pound cargo-carrying Hummer in the vicinity of the rebel Russian tanks, was in the grip of an ice-cold fear. Having been demoted from full-combat-marine status to combat driver, he was depressed enough already without having to think about being thrust into or anywhere near a heavily defended enemy position. He had begun experiencing the chest-gripping, profuse-sweating, “I’m going to die” anxiety attacks a few months before. Out of concern for his own well-being and as a machine gunner aboard one of the MEU’s ground team’s armored Hummers, he had dutifully reported to sick bay, and the panic attacks had quickly been brought under control by a daily dose of ten milligrams of the anti-anxiety medication Paxil. But he had not been sufficiently alert to the fact that the navy, into whose organization the marines were integrated, remains the most tradition-bound of the armed services. As well as being the most “senior” service, it remains deeply suspicious of “shrinks,” whether they be psychologists or psychiatrists. In Peter Norton’s case, the navy was even more rattled by the acronym PIUS — possible instability under stress.
Peter hadn’t told any of his marine buddies about his connection with Freeman. Nor had he tried to use his father or Freeman, who it was unlikely even knew he was on the Yorktown, to pull strings to overturn the damning psychological profile that he was sure had cost him promotion and a reduction in pay. When he heard the criticism of Freeman aboard Yorktown, Peter was even more convinced that he had done the right thing in not owning up to any connection to the man whom most of Peter’s marine buddies resented having been placed in overall command of the MEU. But he did regret reporting the panic attacks. Though nothing was said to him directly, Norton found his responsibilities further decreased, and when the mission was announced, his official designation was no longer combat driver but standby support driver. And the only reason he had been assigned this job as a food-supply driver in Colonel Tibbet’s battalion HQ was that the armed forces were spread so thinly in the far-flung world war against terrorism that all trained personnel, including drivers, were scarce.
In the tightly packed, claustrophobic, fuel-laden atmosphere on the vehicle decks he was finding it difficult to breathe. He felt the old, chest-gripping fear rising in him and, as a psychological diversionary tactic, began checking his stack of dark brown, plastic-wrapped MAMEs, marine meals, which, as cold rations designed out of the marine battle lab in Quantico, Virginia, were far superior to the usual MREs, meals ready-to-eat, which troops frequently threw away because what the MREs provided in nutrients, they lacked in taste. Colonel Tibbet passed by, the tall, lean marine commanding officer, nodding to Norton on his way. Then he stopped and turned on his heel. “Norton? Peter Norton? Right?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Peter, with some timidity.
“You were the guy who suggested we stock up on — what was it, Mars bars, for the next combat ration?”
“Yessir,” replied Peter obediently, then typically added, “but it wasn’t my idea, sir. It was General Freeman’s.”
“Freeman’s?” said Tibbet with obvious surprise. “You know General Freeman?”
“No, sir. Well, not personally, but he sent a memo to the quartermaster general after he’d found out how the Brits on the ships during the Falklands War passed on all their rations and went instead for Mars bars.”
Tibbet was nodding knowingly. “Huh — sugar surge, I guess. Makes sense. But General Freeman should’ve recommended Hershey bars.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tibbet moved on toward the TOW anti-tank-missile-loaded Humvees that would be airlifted by one of the Yorktown’s Super Stallions, unless there was interference in the assemblage of the air force from the Yorktown by foreign aircraft. In such a case the Yorktown’s marine V-STOL Harriers would provide a potent protective screen for the MEU force. The Harriers were tasked with going in to destroy what the MEU S-2 intel chief had been convinced by McCain’s signal exploitation space and by HUMINT routed to the McCain by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Shanghai trade office was a Russian complex near Lake Khanka and its marshlands.
There was a problem, however, with the SATPIX. It showed an H-shaped building but no anti-aircraft emplacements, and a mobile AA battery was everyone’s nightmare on such an op — that is, one of the nightmares.