‘Lieutenant Hung?’ Chin asked — thinking he recognized the voice of a fellow platoon leader from his company.
‘What are you doing?’ a different voice whispered — ignoring his query.
‘Getting a drink of water,’ Chin answered. His own voice was lowered to a whisper. ‘What’s going on?’
There was silence from all sides.
‘Who the hell is he?’ someone else asked.
‘Some ox driver from nowhere,’ replied Lieutenant Hung, Chin was certain.
‘You go to school, ox driver?’ Chin was asked.
‘Yeah. Sure,’ Chin replied, immediately defensive. ‘Beijing Polytechnic.’
There were laughs. ‘From ox driver to tractor driver,’ someone remarked.
‘Your family buy your way into Officer Training, tractor boy?’ Chin said nothing. The man poked right at his most sensitive core. ‘I bet you’ve never been more than twenty kilometers from your momma till school. Just out there with mud between your toes raking in all that farm money, selling to…?’
He fell silent. Chin now understood what was going on. His anger was stored up after months of similar abuse from classmates during Officer Training. He and all the other boys from farming families always caught shit from these university snots. But they gave as good as they took in Chin’s estimation — taking rickshaws and eating at restaurants when on leave in the city. The farmers had money. The city kids were poor. That poverty bred jealousy.
‘Selling to who?’ Chin asked in the silence. Go on — say it! Chin thought hotly. Selling to the Block Committees. Selling to the Goddamn party officials. Say it!
‘Look, Chin, we didn’t mean anything by it, okay?’ Hung said. ‘Honestly. We were just giving you shit. No hard feelings?’
Chin knew he had them now. One mention of this little meeting and they’d all learn how heavy your legs get behind an ox team when mud gets caked up to your waist. Chin hadn’t been farther than the market before the polytechnic, but it had been far enough to see the local re-education camp along their route. It was filled with college pukes like them.
‘Hey, come on, Chin. What about it?’ another voice asked.
‘Fuck you all,’ Chin said as he got up and left the closet. Let them lose sleep tonight, he thought. He waited by the door to the lavatory, straining his ears to hear their insults. One word — even an obnoxious inflection in their voice — and he was going straight to the Company Commander.
But they didn’t mention him again. They spoke in low tones. The wobbling beam of a flashlight could be seen under the door. ‘All right,’ someone said. ‘Look this one up.’ The next word spoken was in a foreign language. ‘Un-al-ien-a-ble!’
After a few seconds, someone read, ‘ “Not capable of being transferred.” ’
‘Ah,’ Chin heard several voices say at the same time. ‘That makes sense,’ someone whispered. ‘Read it again.’
It was in English, Chin was almost positive. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…’
Chin listened, but he understood none of it. None of it but the word ‘unalienable’ — ‘not capable of being transferred.’ He went to bed wondering. What was it that was ‘unalienable’? What could not be transferred? Whatever it was, it was dangerous. Those college pukes were taking huge risks to read it.
His mind wandered as he lay there. What was it that couldn’t be transferred? He thought and thought, finally drifting off to sleep.
Clark sat inside the Humvee — the radio-telephone to his ear. The steady ‘swish-swish’ of the windshield wiper cleared the steadily falling snow. The driver idled the engine and the heater kept the vehicle warm. Clark worried at the rate that fuel was being expended. His was a mechanized army. During alerts, engines were run for several hours on cold days solely to ensure the vehicles would start when needed. It added up to consumption of enormous quantities of…
The clicking over the phone drew his attention. He’d failed all afternoon to get the President through ordinary channels, but there was always one line that remained open continuously.
‘National Military Command Center,’ the male operator said from “The Tank” on the third floor of the Pentagon.
‘This is General Clark, Commander-in-Chief USARPAC. Get me the President.’
‘One moment, sir.’
‘Hello?’ Clark heard a moment later.
‘This is General Clark,’ he repeated. ‘I need to speak to the President.’
‘He’s at a rally. He can’t come to the phone.’
‘Who is this?’ Clark asked quietly.
‘I’m the FEMA communications officer. We’re parked in the van outside the Alamodome.’
‘And isn’t your job to keep the President in constant communication with the national military command system?’
‘Yes. Yes, sir.’
‘And do you know who I am?’ Clark asked calmly.
‘You’re CINCUSARPAC?’
‘That’s right,’ Clark said, almost whispering now to control his anger. ‘Now, just stay with me on this. Check your manuals if you have to. There are only eight Major Commands. Is USARPAC one of them?’
‘Yessir, it is. I mean, I don’t have the list right in front of me, but I’m sure it’s on it.’
‘Good. Now what’s the significance of USARPAC being a Major Command and me being its commander?’
‘You… you can get me in a lotta trouble?’
Clark ground his teeth. ‘I have direct access to the President, and I want it now.’
There was a clicking sound, then the phone began to ring. On the third ring, Clark heard ‘Hello? shouted over a blaring band.
‘This is General Clark. I need to…’
‘What? Could you speak up?’
The Humvee’s driver glanced over his shoulder. Clark took a deep, steadying breath. ‘This is General Nate Clark! Get me President Marshall!’
‘He can’t come to the phone right now! Can I take a message?’
That was too much. Clark had left half a dozen urgent messages.
‘You get me the President, or I’ll have your Goddamn ass! You read me?
‘You’re the General Clark who has been faxing all those memos, right? Listen, has anything changed? They haven’t come across the border, have they?’
‘What? No, they haven’t come across!’
‘Good!’
There was a long pause.
‘Are you saying the President got my reports?’ Clark asked.
‘Of course he got your reports. He even read most of ’em.’
‘Well? What about my requests?’
‘What? For more troops? I’m afraid that’s not gonna happen tonight, General.’
It all suddenly seemed absurd. The whole fate of UNRUSFOR — of two hundred thousand soldiers — and perhaps the Asian continent for generations to come was hanging on the whim of a boy who would at most command a platoon in Clark’s army.
‘Does the President realize…?’ Clark hesitated, then started over. ‘There’s something called the Shenyang Army Group. They have three hundred and fifty thousand combat troops, and they’re moving into staging areas near the Russian border. And the Beijing Army Group has been moving north since…’
‘The President has taken care of it, General!’ the staffer interrupted. ‘He sent a cable to Beijing. Now tomorrow is Election Day, for Christ’s sake! You’ve gotta understand! Okay?’