“We don’t have months,” came a voice from down the table. It was Hamilton Asher, Director of the FBI.
“Excuse me?” Baker responded indignantly. “This is a meeting of my National Security Council! If I have any questions about domestic counterintelligence, I’ll call on you.” Asher held his tongue. Baker turned to Cotler and said, “What about the rest of Seventh Corps?”
“I’m afraid it’s not very good, sir,” Cotler responded. Bill felt a chill wash over him. “The 29th Infantry Division — which is Army National Guard — was stretched out as a screening force along I-16. In the past few days their line was breeched by the Chinese and then closed back up again by some tough, tough counterattacks.”
By the word “tough” Bill understood Cotler to mean high casualty.
“The Chinese finally threw about six divisions of fresh troops against the line last night, and,” Cotler cleared his throat, “I’m sorry to report, Madam Vice President, Mr. President, that the 29th couldn’t hold. It was breeched in about half a dozen places and…”
Bill waited, but Cotler didn’t finish. Bill asked, “How much of the 29th will make it back to the Savannah River?” He waited. And he waited. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs shuffled some papers even though he obviously would find no answer there. Bill even waited some more until finally Admiral Thornton put a hand on Cotler’s forearm. “General?” Bill said. “Are you all right?”
Cotler cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I have a very dear… I… My grandson, my only grandson, is a scout platoon leader in the 29th, sir. I apologize again.” He kept on going before Bill could even open his mouth. “Nothing larger than a battalion-strength unit from the 29th will make it back to the Savannah. Some companies and platoons. Mostly squads down to individual soldiers.”
“General Cotler,” Bill finally said, “I didn’t know that you had a grandson.” He quickly added, “In the military. In the 29th. I hope that he’s okay. Have you…?” Something finally made him stop.
“He’s dead, sir,” Cotler reported.
“Oh, God,” Bill muttered in an unguarded tone. “General Cotler — Adam — you have my very, very deepest sympathies.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” the man was forced to reply.
“Do you need,” Bill asked, “you know, any time off? To be with your family?”
Although no trace of any expression was betrayed on Cotler’s face, to Bill the man pled for him to drop the subject.
Others obviously read the same thing in the man. Bob Moore — Baker’s secretary of defense — tossed Cotler an easy question. In a businesslike but low voice, he asked, “Are we going to declare Seventh Corps combat ineffective?”
Cotler said, “Yes, sir.” Secretary Moore took over the briefing. “Bill, with three intact ports — Mobile, and now Gulfport and Biloxi — the Chinese have already landed two point five million troops. Half of those are on roads in northern Georgia heading up the Eastern Seaboard. When they hit the Savannah River, they’ll outnumber our troops there ten or more to one. For that reason, we’ve cut roads running from the Savannah River straight back north to the next line of defense at the Santee and Saluda Rivers about sixty miles to the rear.”
“So,” Bill said, “we’re already planning for defeat at the Savannah River?” He was immediately disappointed with his tone. It was cheap sniping instead of a statesmanlike poise.
Moore ignored the remark, only making Baker feel worse.
“Current estimates,” General Cotler said, rejoining the briefing, “put the Chinese at the Santee and Saluda Rivers along I-26 in six to ten days, depending on how long we try to hold the Savannah River. The longer we hang on at the very end of the engagement, sir, when the line is about to break, the less orderly the withdrawal will be and the more units we’ll lose in the process. The same thing happened to the 29th along the Savannah-to-Macon line. If the Chinese cross the Savannah River before we’ve begun the process of pulling back, unit cohesion will be difficult to impossible to maintain. Units will be overtaken and captured whole. The roads that we are building will help get those units back safely, then we’ll destroy them as best we can.”
Baker nodded his agreement with the plans.
“Eighth Corps,” Cotler continued in a monotone that reminded all of the great loss he’d just suffered, “is manning the Savannah River. At the northwest end — around Hartwell Lake and sitting astride I-85—is the 40th Infantry Division, which is Army National Guard. To their left — around Columbia and blocking I-20—is the 37th Infantry Division, also a Guard unit. Then, to their left, is the 41st Infantry Division, which is, of course, regular army.”
Baker noted that Cotler used the words “of course.” Everyone in the room knew that the otherwise undistinguished, newly formed 41st Infantry Division was home to the president’s daughter.
“Finally,” Cotler said, “we committed Eight Corps’ reserves — the 31st Armored Brigade (Separate) — to plug the gap between the left flank of the 41st Infantry and the Chinese siege troops around Charleston and to block I-95.”
Baker nodded, clenching his jaw to silence the questions he wanted to ask about Stephie’s unit.
But Vice President Sobo asked. “Wasn’t Eight Corps hit pretty hard at Atlanta?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cotler answered. “Some battalions in the 37th and 41st took heavy casualties. But others withdrew unscathed. We’re rounding out the units that suffered the worst losses with replacements.”
The units with the worst losses, Bill thought, like Stephie’s. Cotler had reported the details of Stephie’s one and only bloody firefight in suburban Atlanta. The “engagement,” he had said, had lasted fewer than five minutes, but her platoon had suffered almost 50 percent casualties. Bill had called Stephie’s mother afterwards. He had been ready for the worst, but Rachel had been calm and drained of her previous vigor. “Please, Bill,” she had beseeched in a whisper at the end. She didn’t need to complete her plea. He was tempted to tell her that he had tried to talk Stephie into accepting a transfer to the rear, but that wouldn’t really have been true. He had merely given her the option, and even doing that had been a mistake.
“…have made contact with the 73rd Infantry Brigade (Separate) at Chattanooga, Tennessee,” Cotler continued. Bill tried to refocus. “Two and Three Corps are now both engaged in California, having completed transit of their lead combat elements directly from staging areas in Tennessee. Five Corps is blocking the Chinese from heading north between the Appalachians and the Mississippi and is getting significant pressure.” Those words, Bill knew—“significant pressure”—were not as bad as “tough” fighting in Cotler’s vernacular. “The Fifth is also covering the redeployment to the east and the west of the war stocks that we had amassed for Operation Anvilhead.”
As the briefing wore on, Baker grew more and more desperate. All of Florida and all but the northernmost slivers of Mississippi and Georgia had been abandoned. Southern politicians were already crying for Baker’s impeachment. Admiral Thornton warned that while the Chinese forces in Cuba were still blocked at the Bahamas from moving by sea directly up the East Coast, they could make a huge sweeping move out to sea from the Gulf or stage from long-distance as they had for the invasion of California. Over the weekend, the Chinese had seized the Azores in the Atlantic, which put them less than half as far from Philadelphia as the Japanese ports from which they had launched the invasion of the West Coast. The risk was that China could leapfrog American defensive lines with an amphibious landing to the army’s rear.