Jose seemed to creak as he turned bloodshot eyes on him. The green scarf wound tightly around Jose’s neck had become singed at the ends. That had happened outside Portage when the gun-breach had become hot from endless firing.
Stan felt a squeeze around his heart as looked into his friend’s eyes. They were haunted, with a faraway gaze. It was as if Jose had vacated the premises for a time, finding real life too much to handle.
It had only been several weeks ago that the HETS had hauled their Abrams out of the armory. Since reaching Cooper Landing, they’d been fighting almost non-stop. Now they were back where they’d started, but missing most of the company. Three battered Abrams had returned. Once, there had been ten. Two of the tanks could still run on their own power, but just barely. The third M1A2 had been towed back. Stan could remember countless company barbecues and the bowling leagues. Most of those men were now dead. A few were badly mutilated and in the Army hospital. During the retreat, Stan had seen hundreds of burning vehicles, helicopters, and hundreds more dead or bloody body-pieces lying in the snow. Most of those who had fought and survived the retreat looked like Jose.
Stan better understood Civil War General Sherman. The man had said, “War is Hell.” In Alaska, it wasn’t a biblical Hell, but a Viking Niflheim of ice, snow and shrieking storms.
Thinking of storms, of the hail pounding the armory, Stan stirred and managed a bitter smile. He clapped Jose on the shoulder. “Do you hear that out there?”
Slowly, awareness returned to Jose’s eyes. He nodded.
“The storm is our ally,” said Stan. “No one can move and certainly no one can fight in that. You go get some sleep. You look terrible.”
Jose’s mouth creaked open as he muttered, “First, I must help with the tanks. I must make sure they’re ready for tomorrow.”
Stan stifled a yawn. He was so tired, just deep down achy. Yet he nodded. He’d help with the tanks, too. His dead friends, his living ones, his wife and his dad—
One of the armory’s barn-sized doors creaked open. Snow howled in, and a freezing wind whistled through the armory so Stan shivered. He hated this ultra cold for days on end. He’d never known he could hate and loathe something so badly. There had been too many days in the snow fighting under horrible conditions. Several of his toes had turned blue, and it had been agonizing reheating them back into life. If they’d turned black, a surgeon would have amputated them. A lot of Alaskans—too many of them Militiamen—had lost fingers, toes, noses and ears during this winter war. Deep in his mind, Stan could still hear the screams of the dying. The exploding shells, the hammering machine guns….
A big truck roared and slowly entered the armory as snow swirled around it. Behind the truck on a towline came a battered Stryker. Once the two vehicles were inside, men jumped out of the truck and closed the big door. The icy cold no longer swirled everywhere, but it hammered and pelted for admittance.
The men from the truck moved toward Stan. They were tired-looking mechanics with grease on their parkas, particularly their sleeves.
“You guys ready?” one of the grease monkeys asked. He was a young man with a week’s growth of whispers.
Stan had to concentrate in order to speak. The weariness in his bones was making his eyelids droop. “I want my tanks ready to go as soon as the storm lets up.”
“That’s our orders, too,” the mechanic said. “We work until we drop.”
Stan nodded. He was just about ready to drop himself. “Let’s start with that tank.”
The mechanic shook his head. “No, not you, Captain. You help us by showing us the worst problems. Then you go and get some sleep. You look like crap.”
“Now see here—”
“No,” said another man, climbing out of the Stryker.
Stan had to blink several times. He knew the man. It was Brigadier General Hector Ramos.
“You see here, Captain,” said Ramos. The general had black and blue circles around his eyes, but there was still a strange brightness to them. “You’re being attached to what’s left of the 1st Stryker Brigade. It isn’t much, either. I lost my 105s somewhere and I’ve heard we’re almost out of TOW2s. My men are exhausted. I can see by your face that you are, too. This storm won’t last forever. When it’s done, I want you well rested and eager to go. Your tanks are going to be the heart of what’s left of my brigade.”
Stan wasn’t sure he liked hearing that. It sounded too much like what Major Williams had once said outside of Cooper Landing. And that hadn’t ended so well. Stan frowned as he summoned his remaining energy.
“I’m glad to see you’re still among the living, General.”
“Me, too, Professor. I’d like to chat, but I have too much to do. We’re getting a respite with this storm, but no more than that. When it’s done, we’re going to slug it out with a million Chinese.”
“As many as that?” asked Stan.
“Maybe not quite,” said Ramos, “but it feels like it. No matter how many we kill—and I’ve been killing a lot of them—they just keep coming. Now go on. Go home and sleep in your bed for a change. Then get ready for the fight of your life.”
Stan stared at the small general. He had questions for the man. Instead of asking any, though, he yawned. Before he slumped over, he needed to show the mechanics things about the three Abrams.
“All right,” he told the chief mechanic. “If you’ll step over here, I’ll show you the first problem….”
-16-
Ice War
General Shin Nung of the Chinese Cross-Polar Taskforce paced outside on the pack ice between several of his snowtanks. Impotent anger gripped him. It had for several weeks now. Why had they even given him command of the taskforce if they allowed East Lightning Commissar Ping veto power over his decisions?
The commissar was militarily a fool, not to mention a coward. The Americans had used a nuclear torpedo, destroying a forward supply base. Chinese submarines now hunted the Americans under the pack ice. So far, it had kept the enemy from using another such weapon. Meanwhile, American Special Forces driving snowmobiles had raided other supply dumps. Those teams likely also spotted for the submarines.
Because of nuclear weapons, Nung’s fighters and bombers flew from base camps hundreds of kilometers away from where they should be. It took them longer to reach the North Slope now and engage the American aircraft. Because of the distance, the Chinese planes had a much shorter window over the targets. Nung had ordered the airstrips moved closer, but the Air Force general in charge of the planes had refused, saying he couldn’t risk it until the American snowmobile teams were destroyed. Foolishly and by now predictably, Commissar Ping had agreed with the man’s cowardly decision.
Nung had an insane desire to draw his pistol and empty the clip into the ice. Despite the nuclear-tipped torpedo and snowmobiles, Commissar Ping had insisted they follow Army doctrine on a cross-polar assault.
Yet why bother with forward supply dumps now? It would have been better by far to allow the supplies to gather in one location four hundred kilometers from the coast. Once the tail coiled up and the formations gathered, they would spring to Dead Horse and ANWR. It was a risk, and the American submarines might find the large base and launch their torpedoes. But with everything in one locale, every spotter and helicopter could comb the ice for the snowmobile teams. Locate and destroy. As it was, the crafty Americans used the many seams between small formations to slip here and there. To be sure, they had killed seven such snowmobile teams already, but the American submarines kept launching more.
Taunting Commissar Ping had insisted they scatter the taskforce in order to make it difficult for the Americans to take them out with a single blow. What had happened instead was a hopeless muddle, with too much fuel used scattering units and transshipping supplies back and forth in a useless game of chess with the Americans. Now supplies were drying up and they were no closer to the Alaskan coast.