‘Including transportation,’ Kate added in almost a whisper. ‘… including transport,’ Clark appended to his memo. The clerk looked up from his notepad. When Kate nodded and smiled, Clark sent the sergeant off to type it up. ‘Now,’ Clark said, ‘if you’ll please wait outside for the memo, I have to hold a press conference in half an hour. Then, God willing, I can actually get back to running this war. Okay?’
Kate held out her hand. ‘I truly appreciate your assistance, General Clark.’ He shook her hand. ‘You won’t be disappointed with my reports.’
Clark nodded politely and she left. He returned to his notes. The phone rang. It was the president. The clerk brought the memo in. Nate signed it and mouthed, ‘Give it to her.’
‘Are you ready for your big show?’ President Davis asked.
‘Yes, sir!’ Clark replied. ‘But you’re a hard act to follow, if I might say. That was one helluva speech you gave.’
Davis laughed. ‘I kind of liked it myself.’
‘What’s the reaction on the Hill?’ Clark asked.
‘Apparently, the faxes, e-mails and voice mails are running twelve-to-one in favor of winning this thing militarily. That’s why I want you to go out there and give ’em hell, General Clark. Don’t hold anything back. I want the people to believe we can win. I want you to walk out there and convince everyone that it’s possible.’
‘But, Mr President, there’s still a lot that can go wrong. We only have the equivalent of about a division across the Amur — bits and pieces of half a dozen units from as many countries. If that ice breaks now…’
‘I know all that, Nate. But you have a job to do — a mission. That mission is to rally the country around this war so we can be freed — politically — to win it. You know how to fire your soldiers up to go do the fighting. But what you and I need to do now is to convince our countrymen that this counter-attack is already a success. Nothing generates support like victory. I want you to get behind the wheel and jam your foot on the gas. The bandwagon may be half-empty now, but I want people chasing it to hop on. Just put your worries aside for thirty minutes, Nate. Enjoy for a moment what you and your men have accomplished out there! And be sure to let the press see that enjoyment.’
It all ran against the grain of Nate’s character. To shut out his concerns about stranding men deep inside China. To overlook his exposed flanks and rear. To cease fretting over the unexpected cold front that wreaked havoc on air combat and supply. But Clark said, ‘Yes, sir,’ in reply to the President. ‘I’ll be watching,’ said Davis before he hung up.
‘What’re you doing here?’ the CNN correspondent asked Kate as she entered the briefing room. Woody found his acquaintances among the cameramen. ‘I thought you were being Rambette out in the field with the great unwashed.’
Kate smiled. The woman had a reputation for dangerous assignments. Kate’s smile turned to a grin when she noticed the woman’s flak jacket. It always looked more impressive when you wore a bullet-proof vest even if you were safe under reinforced concrete.
Kate spotted the senior NBC correspondent. ‘I’m on my way back out,’ she said to the CNN reporter. ‘I just dropped by for a little talk with General Clark.’ Kate headed across the room to her colleague without waiting for the surprised woman’s reply. ‘Listen,’ she whispered to the man, who covered the Pentagon during times of peace. ‘I want you to call New York and tell them I’m going to the front — to the hottest action of the war. I should get back in a few days and put the story together.’ He nodded, thinking. ‘If I could help… If you wanta just send the tapes back, I could do some editing.’
‘I’m not talking footage here, Frank! I’m talking story!’
‘I understand. But you know the drill. If the story’s even a day late, it’s stale — footage or not. You miss the window and it’s a Discovery Channel documentary for all that hard work. It’s ten thousand viewers instead of ten million.’
‘I’ll edit the story in the field if I have to!’
‘Oka-ay. Jeeze! I was just offering.’
Clark appeared on stage. The reporters quickly headed for their seats. Kate made her way to the back to find Woody. In the process, she passed half a dozen reporters staring into minicams. They were all introducing the momentous briefing. In French, and German, and English, and Dutch — all were wrapping up and turning their attention to the podium.
‘Woody!’ Kate said. He was whispering something to a man behind a studio-size camera. The man grinned broadly as Woody shoved something into his pocket. It was a bundle of joints wrapped in a rubber band. ‘Woody!’ Kate whispered. She drew a ‘sh-sh-sh!’ from a nearby reporter.
Kate tilted her head toward the door. Woody joined her there.
‘Good morning,’ Clark’s deep voice boomed. Kate and Woody both turned. The briefing room was still. ‘I come to report to you a great victory.’ Two aides lifted the gray plastic sheet off a wall-sized map. There were gasps and a general disturbance when the map was revealed.
There were the two blue prongs Kate had seen in Clark’s office. On this map, however, something was different. One more deception in Clark’s plan of disinformation. There was no tiny island of blue near the Chinese city of Tangyuan.
Nate saw Kate Dunn and her cameraman leave. But he was distracted by the stir the map had caused. As he’d expected, the picture was worth a thousand words. And he was under orders to squeeze every ounce of theater out of the briefing.
‘UNRUSFOR forces,’ he continued loudly, ‘have pushed south of the Amur River into China from the west,’ again there was a burst of noise, ‘and west into China from the Vladivostok region, making the results of Operation Winter Harvest… spectacular. The most dramatic successes lie in the west.’ The silver tip of Reed’s pointer tapped the map. ‘In sixty hours, UNRUSFOR has advanced over three hundred kilometers — almost two hundred miles.’ Reed moved the pointer to the large sea of red. ‘In the process, they have flanked and enveloped over two hundred thousand Chinese troops.’
The room was filled with excited chatter.
‘In the east, the results on the map appear less dramatic.’ Reed swung his pointer to the bloody fighting around Vladivostok. ‘But something equally significant is occurring there. Chinese lines that had stabilized in the first days of the war have crumbled. Field commanders report no fewer than four main belts of defenses have been breached. Elsewhere,’ Clark continued as Reed’s pointer moved to the center, ‘units based here in Khabarovsk and at the long-surrounded airbase at Birobidzhan report break-outs in their individual drives south for the Amur River.’ Reed’s pointer brushed across the small blue darts to the south. ‘Casualties so far have been lighter than expected — on both sides. As of two hours ago, field commanders report over forty thousand Chinese troops taken prisoner.’
That completed the story of widespread success.
‘As you must all understand, due to concerns about operational security I must conclude this briefing here. But let me take this opportunity to give you one personal observation.’ He leaned over the podium. ‘No war should ever be popular. War is a terrible and ugly waste. But when all efforts at peacemaking have failed — when all the diplomats have given it their best but come up short — you ultimately have two choices. You can cut and run — ceding the field to the enemy — or you can fight. Now I know for many months people have voiced noisy opposition to this war. And that’s good. It’s healthy. It is precisely at times such as these that the right to express your opinions is paramount. But now that the truth is finally out — now that all can see what our plans were to win this war — perhaps the debate can reflect the new military reality. Perhaps the dialogue in the public forum can be as informed and enlightened as that in the war’s inner councils has been. This,’ Clark said — wheeling on the map with a sweep of his arm — ‘is what we’ve planned to do all along. And it’s been successful beyond our wildest dreams!’ He had them. Every face was raised to his. Pens were frozen on pads. Cameras rolled. ‘There’s still more fighting to come. But one fact should be evident from this map. The People’s Liberation Army has been defeated in the field. The entire invasion force will be captured and disarmed. We will win this war.’