‘What’s too dangerous is what’s comin’ this way! Now lady, there’s no way — no how — you’re stayin’ here!’ He left.
‘What an asshole!’ she said. Men laughed. They all stood on or near their fighting steps. Woody’s camera whirred. More shells rumbled through the sky. She ran out in front of Woody, having to rely on the camera’s built-in mike. ‘Have you been told what is happening?’ she asked a soldier. ‘We were told the Chinese were thirty miles from here.’
‘One of our patrols ran into one of their patrols,’ he said. He kept turning to look at the camera. ‘It’s just sorta… escallatin.’
‘But how could they get so close without us knowing? With satellites and spy planes and…?’
‘There’s only one way to know where the enemy is, ma’am. That’s to bump into him. That’s what patrols do. That’s how we know they’re comin’.’
Kate glanced to make sure Woody got the sound bite. He wasn’t there! ‘Shit!’ Kate snapped. She found him around a turn in the zig-zagging trench. He was hovering above the German adviser and two kneeling Americans. Their heads bowed. Their eyes closed. One was muttering Hail Marys. One clenched a tiny, homemade cross — short strips of leather bound by string.
Kate couldn’t help herself. She balled up her fist and pumped her arm in the air. Yes! she thought. Before they got to the Humvee, she’d composed the words for her voiceover.
Clark wasn’t much for theatrics, but he was playing this for all it was worth. He’d left most of his senior officers out of the planning. He’d been ordered to wait until the last ally had committed. That had occurred the night before. ‘Are they all there?’ he asked Major Reed, who nodded. Clark took a deep breath, tugged down on his BDU blouse, and straightened his back. He turned to ensure that his aides all stood ready behind him. ‘Okay, let’s do this.’
He opened the door and entered. Conversations in a half-dozen languages fell quiet as the national commanders of the various UNRUSFOR contingents turned their attention to the procession of American officers. Clark was at its head. As he sat, his aides arrayed easels in a semicircle behind him. The maps remained covered with an opaque plastic sheet.
‘Good morning, and thank you all for coming,’ Clark began. ‘I am fully aware of the internal debates each of you has been having with your capitals ever since I returned from Washington. And I apologize for not consulting with you earlier. But I am also informed that your political leadership and mine have agreed to broad strategic plans for prosecution of this war to its conclusion. Therefore, I am here this morning to issue the operation order. The plan’s code name is Winter Harvest.’
Clark could hear the theater map being uncovered behind him. Reed had hit his cue perfectly. Everyone’s eyes turned to the map. To the two sweeping blue arrows stabbing deep into the heart of Manchuria.
‘To put it simply,’ Nate said, ‘we will marshal and hold in reserve every soldier and weapon that arrives in theater from this point forward. We will hold our current lines with units currently in the field. And in a little under two months, we’ll strike the Chinese with everything we’ve got.’
He didn’t tell them the deadline for the counterattack was April 14th. After all, he reasoned, Davis could be convinced of a better time, if necessary. But he knew he’d made a pact. Davis was issuing statements vigorously defending Nate. Neither Ferguson nor Dekker had interfered much in his planning.
Reed stood at the map wielding a pointer. He’d gotten little sleep the past week. The fatigue prevented Clark from measuring the effects of combat on the man. ‘The first column,’ Nate began, ‘will move west from Vladivostok toward Kirin, China. The second will move south from the Trans-Siberian Railway west of Urgal. Its objective is also Kirin. The objective of Winter Harvest is to pocket the entire offensive threat of the People’s Liberation Army between the twin pincers… and destroy that threat.’
Heads turned. ‘Any questions?’ Clark asked.
‘How will we maintain operational security?’ the British Deputy Commander said. ‘The world press is running rampant throughout the theater.’
‘Our strategic deception plan,’ Clark answered, ‘is this — we are defeated. We are barely clinging to our positions. We are reeling under the weight of unstoppable Chinese assaults. Our troops are dispirited and demoralized. In short, they pose no’ Clark said slowly, ‘offensive threat whatsoever. That shouldn’t be too much of a leap for our news media to make.’
There was laughter — a release of pent-up, nervous tension.
‘The Chinese will know,’ the Dutch commander commented. ‘They won’t be swayed by news reports.’
‘We intend,’ Nate replied, ‘to begin vigorously demonstrating against China from the sea. We’ll sail U.S. Marine amphibious forces up and down the Chinese coast. Put SEAL teams on their beaches. They’ll gather intell on beach gradients, sand firmness, minefields, troop dispositions. Only one of those landing ships, however, will be loaded with Marines. It will also carry the press.’
Amid the laughter, a British officer noted, ‘The empty ships will ride high in the water.’
‘We’ll offload the Marines and equipment at Vladivostok. They’ll fight with the southern prong of the advance into China. We’ll load Russian trucks filled with rocks as ballast.’
‘Where will you hold landing exercises for the press?’ the grinning German officer asked.
‘Korea. It’ll be the best-trained amphibious assault battalion in Marine history.’ More laughter. ‘In addition to achieving strategic surprise, we hope to tie down at least thirty Chinese divisions along the coast.’
‘What will the dummy target be?’ the French general asked.
‘Hong Kong,’ Clark replied.
‘What about the flanks of the main attack?’ the French general asked. It was a far more serious challenge. He waggled his finger at the twin arrows, which extended far into northern China. ‘You don’t seem to broaden the neck of those advances at all. Once UNRUSFOR crosses the Amur and Ussuri into China — if we can cross them — the PLA is going to pull everything back. Those troops will be positioned to attack straight into the flanks of our advances.’
‘We will make it across- the rivers,’ Clark replied. ‘The Chinese won’t. We will put at least one armored corps across in each prong before the ice breaks. Once the ice breaks, my engineers tell me that no bridging equipment made can stand the flow. The People’s Liberation Army will be stranded on the Russian side for ten days. In those ten days, we will win the war.’
When Kartsev returned from the bathroom, he froze in the door to his office. Someone had been there. A letter sat in the middle of his desk chair. All was still.
He chided himself for being so anxious and walked around to his desk. He returned to his running, subvocal conversation with himself — half mumbled aloud — but then looked up startled. For a moment, he thought he’d seen the door open a few inches.
He tried to steady himself. Why worry about such things? No force on earth could change the outcome if his complex system of reward and terror failed. Besides, whispered a voice, that end is inevitable.
Kartsev smiled. It was a voice with which he was well acquainted. It had been his counsel on many a long, cold Siberian night. Most people, he knew, shut out those awful whispers which arose from the dark recesses of their heads. Kartsev, however, listened attentively. They had served him well for they spoke terrible truths. Truths about the nature of man. About himself.