‘My name is General Clark.’ Gordon’s eyes shot up to him. ‘What…?’ Gordon began, but then coughed. Clark poured some of what used to be ice water into a paper cup. Gordon drank and cleared his throat. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to talk to you about the war, sir. Nobody knows I’m here.’
The room was empty. Gordon looked Clark up and down. He was shaven and appeared clean, but he looked exhausted. ‘I’m listening,’ Gordon said.
The general pulled his chair over to the bed and sat. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mr President. But what I’m about to say may mean the difference between winning and losing this war.’
‘Is this about the change in strategy?’
Clark nodded. ‘It’s a mistake.’
Gordon took as deep a breath as he could risk — just short of the point of pain. ‘This is outside my area of expertise, general. The Joint Chiefs have recommended that we take a more aggressive approach.’
‘I know, sir. But it’s wrong. The coalition will fall apart. The Germans, maybe even the French will withdraw. The casualties will skyrocket on both sides, but we can’t sustain the losses… politically. The American people won’t tolerate them. We’ll be forced to negotiate a ceasefire and pull out.’
‘You’re asking me to reject the unanimous advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and accept your opinion? General Clark, no offense… but I don’t even know you. They had charts and maps and quotes from Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz. It was a helluva show. Made it sound like… well, maybe you were too hesitant.’
Gordon studied the soldier. He seemed unfazed by the words. He spoke slowly, and with conviction. ‘We have the best army in the world. The soldiers and equipment are unequaled anywhere. But there’s only so much they can do in the face of five-to-one numerical inferiority. We have to rely for the time being on the inherent tactical advantage of defense over offense. We have to entrench, dig in, and then pummel the attackers with our firepower. We’ve got air superiority, so we know where they are and can hit them virtually at will. But if we come out of those holes, Mr President, our casualty rates skyrocket. And for what? The territorial gains would be minimal.’
‘But what about morale? I thought it was lagging because of the defensive strategy.’
‘It’s lagging, sir, because this is a winter war in Siberia. A land war on the Asian continent against the Chinese army. They’re barely holding on, Mr President. To ask those men to crawl out of their holes and attack now would be disastrous.’
Gordon felt a sinking feeling. The man was, it seemed, just as he’d been described — timid. Generals were supposed to say things like, ‘All seems lost, so I’m attacking.’ But this man wasn’t like that.
‘I’m sorry, General Clark. I’m not going to bullshit you. I’m not convinced.’
‘Would you give me one chance, sir? Would you let me tell you what I propose?’ Gordon nodded, waiting. ‘The Chinese have given up trying to take Vladivostok in the east, Khabarovsk in the center, and Svobodny in the west. They’re pushing instead for our only remaining east-west rail connection in the north. I propose using existing ground forces in-theater to stop the Chinese south of that line. We’ll pound their main supply routes from the air round the clock. All the while we’re building up war stocks and massing reinforcements along the rail line. We’ll mass two more corps — one American arriving from the east by sea and rail; one European arriving by rail from the west — to add to the one we’ve got in the field.’
Gordon interrupted with a question. ‘How will the Chinese not know what we’re doing?’
‘Sun Tzu said it first, sir. “All war is based on deception.” If the Chinese haven’t pulled back into defensible positions before we launch our massive, set-piece attack, the war’s over. We have mobility. They don’t. And they have no way of seeing the attack coming. With no space-based or aerial reconnaissance assets left, their battlefield intelligence is purely tactical — thirty kilometers beyond their lines, at most.’
‘They have CNN,’ Gordon noted.
‘CNN and all the other media are a major part of our strategic deception plan, Mr President. That plan is to make everyone think we’re losing the war. Since the Chinese will know we’re staging somewhere, we’ll make them think it’s for the limited purpose of relieving Khabarovsk and Birobidzhan. While we’re staging for the main attack farther west, we’ll set up decoy bases in Komsomolsk — north of Khabarovsk. Mock fuel dumps, trucks, armored vehicles, multispectoral close-combat decoys. Fake headquarters will broadcast huge volumes of encrypted radio traffic. The western media is an asset we can use to create the impression that the most we could be planning is to liberate Birobidzhan.’
‘And how would we win this war, general?’ Gordon asked.
‘We invade China,’ Clark replied simply. ‘Strike straight into Manchuria from the Northern rail line and from Vladivostok.’ Clark stared back at him with an unwavering gaze. ‘Mr President, when the Chinese invaded, our mission changed. War is simple. War is about extreme commitment. On the individual level, it’s about killing or being killed. On the national level, it’s about total victory, or total defeat. And nothing short of taking the war to the enemy will win it. We’ve got to go into northern China. Cut the roads. Take the cities. Rock the Chinese back on their heels so hard that the war is ended on our terms. Decisiveness, Mr President. It’s a quality all great leaders possess. Before you take a risk, you must stand to gain something of commensurate importance. Going from defense to offense is to risk everything. Therefore total victory must be what we stand to gain.’
Gordon looked the man over one last time. Clark’s war-winning counterattack happened to fit perfectly with Gordon’s plan. He was also the first military man to propose a plan for total victory. But there was still one more piece that had to fit. ‘Just when would this counterattack come?’ Gordon asked.
‘The timing is tricky, Mr President. For the plan to work, the Chinese supply network has to be exhausted, and all of our stocks and reinforcements have to be in place at precisely the same time. Plus, there’s the terrain and weather. For ten days when the ice melts the rivers are unbridgeable. And if we wait too long, the rivers flood and the ground turns to mud.’
‘When, General Clark?’ Gordon tried again.
‘Mid- to late April, sir.’
Gordon smiled. The answer struck the mark. ‘Then I approve the plan.’ Clark looked up in surprise. ‘You will launch the counterattack on April 14th.’ Clark appeared confused. ‘April 14th, General Clark. Four days before my State of the Union address. Five days before the War Powers Act vote. But let’s not tell anyone we’ve agreed on that date. Understand? It’s just between the two of us.’
Clark understood. He nodded slowly. As commander-in-chief of UNRUSFOR he always looked at the big picture. He was beginning to get a feel for an even larger perspective still.
Roger Stempel fumbled with the antacids his doctor had prescribed. He was tired. His head pounded. The metal foil simply wouldn’t tear. He quickly grew angry. He stopped himself and leaned heavily on the bathroom’s vanity top. Taking deep breaths, he calmed himself. He was a wreck, and the list of medical complications from the stress he was under was growing. His wife was having lunch with her sister. If he had a heart attack now, he’d die alone. Like Harold, a voice whispered.
Roger winced and covered his face. He shook his head and dragged his hands down his cheeks. His eyes shone back at him from the mirror, blood-red.