by Ian Slater
Normally Soong would have been back with his battalion HQ staff and not so far forward with his troops, but the capture of A-7 Mountain had become a top priority of General Cheng’s, and indeed PLA photographers had been sent to record the event. The battle of the Black Dragon River, which Beijing was now calling it—”Black Dragon” having much stronger patriotic connotations than “Mount A-7”—was a misnomer, as southwest of the Amur hump near A-7 there was no Amur. But for Beijing the battle for A-7 came to symbolize the war for the Amur hump as a whole, and a victory on the mountain would be a showcase victory early in the war against the Americans.
Colonel Soong, now ordering up heavy mortars, was determined to lead the final attack. He was disappointed that there seemed to be so few dead about, no more than a dozen or so, suggesting that despite the distances involved from Chita to the northwest and from Khabarovsk to the east, the Americans might already have managed to withdraw most of the battery crews and spiked the guns. If so, the fierce battle so far might now suddenly give way to a hollow victory, one that, if the enemy had managed to be snatched from the surrounding Chinese battalions, would deny Cheng the crushing total victory he and Beijing so urgently desired. As if in answer, he heard a shout from a company commander off to his left, a long burst of AK-47 fire, and then the steady chump, chump, chump of a U.S. Marine Mk-19 throwing out high-velocity forty-millimeter antipersonnel/armor-piercing grenades from its linked belts no more than a thousand meters away, from some unseen clearing deep within the taiga.
At a rate of fire of over 350 rounds per minute, the American grenade gun was a deadly weapon in any situation. In defense it was particularly formidable, capable of breaking up the most determined infantry assault, its persistent dull thumping filling in the vacuum created by the temporary lull in 155mm artillery fire, the latter having dropped off in intensity under the ox-horn-shaped advance of the Shenyang army’s IX Corps.
Exhorting his men not to stop, Soong moved forward into an area of taiga that had the strange appearance of having suffered a forest fire without the trees being burned, as leaves and whole branches were shredded by the flaying shrapnel of the grenades. He heard a shuffle of air, felt the increasing pressure on his eardrums, and dove to ground, using the body of a dead comrade as protection. Only now could he properly see the American chopper wedged high in the branches of two trees, its shattered rotors no doubt responsible in part for the fallen foliage. When he saw a body in it move — the pilot’s — and a fall of snow, he instinctively raised his Kalashnikov, but it was the whole chopper moving.
Whether from concussion of the incoming 155mms or from the wind groaning through the trees, or both, the American helo slid, tail first, another foot or two, then stopped, its scraping noise against the branches barely ceasing before he spotted the body moving again against the angle at which the aircraft was leaning. Firing a long burst, Soong saw the body jerking in violent spasm, and watched the chopper suddenly plunge another ten feet, tail first, upended in the pine, the now dead pilot still in harness, head and arms dangling from the twisted fuselage, blood pouring from his neck, splattering the snow and branches beneath.
It wasn’t that Soong particularly hated Americans, that he hadn’t even thought of taking the American captive, but there were no real provisions for POWs. In Beijing’s opinion they cost too much.
As Soong’s battalion moved forward, taking out the grenade gun at high cost — over seventeen dead — the Shenyang infantry came across more American choppers that had been brought down by the highly effective ChiCom antiaircraft fire. Equally as deadly, in Soong’s view, was the fact that the enemy battery itself was so far from American air bases in Siberia, mat even after succeeding with hazardous air-to-air refueling, the would-be rescue helicopters could have had only enough petrol for several — no more than five to ten — minutes or so over the besieged summit. The upturned chopper in the trees nearest him moved again, and instinctively he raised his Kalashnikov and swung toward it, but the only thing moving was the chopper itself, a local gust sending the craft crashing down.
Advancing once again, Soong concluded from the relatively few enemy dead he was now seeing, and the failed chopper rescue, that Shenyang’s XVI Corps was on the tail of a panicked American withdrawal to A-7’s summit. He could have no idea that five thousand miles away across the Pacific, many in the continental United States itself were on the brink of such panic.
CHAPTER NINTEEN
“…My fellow Americans, nothing is more repugnant to our sense of justice and fair play than the curtailing of individual rights. But the unprecedented and coordinated enemy attacks on our ports and other bases within the United States not only constitute a grave threat to the vital supply lines to our troops in Siberia, but also constitute a grave threat to all of us here at home.”
When Trainor reached the press room, another aide, a younger man, wide-eyed and pasty-faced from the cataclysm of bad news that was spewing through the White House fax machines, asked, “What the hell are they doing? I mean — the military attacks, yes, but now we’ve got news of forest fires in California, the southwest. Man-made. I mean what the hell do they hope to achieve by—”
“Chaos,” answered Trainor simply. “On a scale we’ve never seen before.” Trainor glanced up at the bank of press room TVs. It was probably the first presidential speech in years written entirely by the chief executive himself.
“…This administration therefore has no alternative but to invoke the Emergency Powers Act. Under this act, stricter access and exit controls for all U.S. ports, civil and military facilities and bases will immediately be put into effect. These are already in operation in most of our bases around the world, but they will be extended to all bases in Hawaii and within the continental United States itself. This will mean that normal policing, arrest, and detention procedures will have to be shortened so as to best use our limited resources and manpower in combating sabotage within.”
The president was looking straight at his audience. “I realize this will involve inconveniences for many of us, and the implementation of restrictions on individual liberty, which is as repugnant to you as it is to me. But there are times, and this is one of them, when, if a free society is to remain free, it must be prepared to expect as much from those at home as those we send to do our battles abroad— for those at home to do as much as they can to support and protect those brave men and women who are at this very moment fighting and dying in Siberia and on the sea lanes leading to that embattled place.
“…And so, beginning at ten p.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow, the following federal agencies will be authorized to use extraordinary measures to meet the threat of extraordinary times. The Federal Bureau of Investigation…”
A sound man, earphones comically high on his head, cords trailing behind him, appeared from the dark fringe of the klieg lights and handed another sheaf of papers to Trainor, returning from the press room. The Wisconsin sub “farm,” a vast acreage of VLF — very low frequency— aerial array for contacting submarines at sea, had been attacked. Apparently, a pack of stray dogs and cats had been let loose at several points on the northern side, setting vibration and heat sensors off, diverting most of the security guards’ attention from the real point of entry on the southern perimeter, which had been penetrated by saboteurs; someone later reported having seen a weather forecast news chopper in the area. In any event, the demolition on the farm for the second time in the war was such that already nine of the North Pacific sub fleet, including the USS Reagan, had not received their burst messages updating the positions of submarine friends and foes.
Hawkeye TACAMOS — take charge and move out aircraft — had been ordered aloft from the West Coast stations to take over the always tricky task of making radio contact with the subs at their next rendezvous points. But it was always more complicated than it seemed. The Hawkeyes’ rotodomes’ 360-degree sweeps had ranges of up to three hundred miles, with overlap patterns so they could cover all nine subs
that had already missed their first call, together with the overlap patterns necessary to reach another six nuclear subs in the Pacific due for call-in within the next twelve hours. This meant the endurance of the half-dozen allocated planes and their crews would be stretched to the limit — that quite simply, some of the subs would not be reached. Meanwhile, a large Siberian fleet was now in the process of gathering in the fog-shrouded seas where the Kuro Siwo, or Japanese current, meets the ice-cold waters south of the Aleutians.
* * *
The New York Times argued that the president was “overreacting” to the sabotage, while the Washington Post editorial agreed with the adoption of the Emergency Powers Act, the Post tempering its approval, however, with the warning that “emergency contingency planning must not usurp reasoned restraint,” that there was a danger of the restriction of individual liberties becoming a “habit all too easy for a majority to accept as the new norm.” The Washington Post also joined the Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the L.A. Times, and other major newspapers in recommending that an “oversight body” representing all segments of society should be established as soon as possible to monitor the Emergency Powers Act.
While looking soberly concerned, “wholeheartedly” welcoming the idea of oversight committees, the country’s police chiefs were ecstatic, but played it down in front of the press conferences.
For the first time since the Vietnam War, editorial offices raged with argument — calm debate no longer possible in the atmosphere of growing panic — about whether or not to release certain stories and sow further fear. One holdout was Peter Ovan, the editor of a small New Hampshire daily, the Logan Examiner. The short, balding editor argued that a tip he’d received, confirmed by a second source, about a small team of arsonists who had been able to start a fire that gutted the Lockheed Stealth fighter plant at Burbank, California, should be told to the American people. “If the government can’t protect one of our most vital defense plants,” argued Ovan, “then what hope’ve we got?”
“Hell,” responded the Pentagon chief of PR, “anyone can start a fire, Mr. Ovan.”
“That supposed to comfort me, Major?” responded Ovan, shifting the phone from one shoulder to another, tearing off a fax of a reported sniper attack on the approach road to the “secret” Savannah River atomic weapons production plant in South Carolina. It was a better story, in Ovan’s opinion, for the truth was that if he wanted to nail the administration for incompetence, the Stealth fire story wasn’t the best. Besides, he’d already run a column on the open secret among the pilots of the 450th Tactical Group at Nelles Air Force Base in Nevada that the twin-engined multimillion-dollar Stealth fighter, with swept wings and V tail, had been flown at night since 1983 and was responsible for many UFO sightings over the mountains and deserts of the western United States. More importantly, in the pilots’ opinion, it was perhaps the most overrated plane in history. Inherently unstable and therefore remarkably maneuverable, kept on the edge by its computers, the Stealth fighter hadn’t proved to be the ultimate “radar evader” after all. The Soviets had designed low frequency detection sets that could pick up the fighters almost as quickly as they could the Stealth B-2 bomber. It was one of the reasons the B-52 program had been drastically cut, ostensibly for “economic reasons.”
As it turned out, Ovan didn’t run either the Stealth or the Savannah River sniper stories in the Logan Examiner, for at 9:00 a.m., just before he was to go to press, his wife rang, saying there was an urgent Federal Express overnight courier envelope for him from Washington, D.C.
Cautious by nature, and made more so, given the rash of reported crazies and sabotage, Ovan asked his wife the sender’s address. He could hear the rustle of Ida handling the plastic envelope. “Ida! Don’t open it!”
“I’m not. I’m looking for an — it’s from a Mr. Carlisle. Internal Revenue Service, Washington.”
“Since when do the IRS use courier?” Ovan asked.
“Since most of the phones aren’t working,” said Ida.
“All right, have Billy run it down here. I’ll go over it with the rod.” He meant the metal detector he kept in the office as a precaution against crank mail.
“You be careful,” said Ida. “All this violence in New York.” To Ida, all violence happened in New York— another country. “I think you should call the sheriff’s office.”
Ovan considered it for a moment, his pride battling the pressure of his deadline. Still, the IRS gave him a turn. Rumor was, everyone gets audited sometime. “All right. Have Billy take it to the sheriff’s office first.”
Seventeen minutes later the local police car pulled up outside the Logan Examiner. When the sheriff walked in, Ovan was busy tapping the computer keys, selecting type size for the leader.
“Pete, we opened your package.”
“Then I guess it wasn’t a bomb?” Ovan replied wryly.
“Sort of.”
Ovan’s fingers stopped on the keyboard. “What you mean, ‘sort of’?”
The sheriff opened the plastic bag and showed him. It was a fish wrapped in an old copy of the Logan Examiner.
Ovan’s hands came off the keys. “You tell Ida about this?”
“No one ‘cept the deputy. I told your Billy to stay up at the station.”
“You checked the sender?” asked Ovan. “Carlisle— IRS?”
“Yep. Put a radio call through all the way to Washington. Phones there aren’t working too good.”
“Well?” said Ovan impatiently.
“No such person. Besides, Pete, IRS don’t send dead fish.”
“How ‘bout live ones?” reparteed Ovan, but he didn’t think it was funny himself. He thanked the sheriff for calling personally, asking him not to tell Billy.
Ovan’s assistant, a young, freckle-faced coed, Mary, had just finished trimming the ads as he walked over to the window and pulled out a cigarette. He always asked Mary if she minded whether he smoked, and she always said no, she didn’t, when they both knew she did. But this time he didn’t ask. He just lit up and inhaled deeply, looking out on the sunlit folds of virginal winter snow — deep and crisp and even, he thought. “Drop the leader,” he said glumly.
Mary looked up, surprised. “The story about the Stealth—”
“Do as I say,” he snapped. “We’ll run that NBA payoff scam instead.” He exhaled, bluish smoke filling the small room. “Everyone likes baseball.”
“Basketball,” Mary quietly corrected him.
But he hadn’t heard her. He was furious, and rang the CIA public relations major whose staff had been ringing the newspapers to hold back the Stealth sabotage story. The major was polite, given Ovan’s tirade about receiving the dead fish.
“Mr. Ovan — if you’ll let me speak for a moment, sir…”
“Go on, then!” grumped Ovan finally.
“We don’t operate that way, sir. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not glad you’re holding the story, but we don’t work that way, Mr. Ovan.”
“I shouldn’t damn well think so,” said Ovan, his voice now an asthmatic wheeze. “Christ, that’s just the kind of thing we’re fighting against over there, goddamn it! In Siberia!”
“Exactly,” concurred the major. “Look, we’ll have the FBI — this kind of thing is really their jurisdiction — look into it, if you like.”
“Yes I would.”
“Fine. I’ll have them contact you as soon as possible.”
“Appreciate it,” said Ovan brusquely, but grateful nevertheless.
When the major hung up, he shook his hand as if it had been on fire. “Boy, was he steamed.”
The petite second lieutenant nodded. “I could hear him from here. Did he buy it?”
“Yeah. Hook, line, and sinker. He won’t print.” The major paused. “You didn’t leave anything did you?”
“Nothing,” answered the lieutenant. “Dumped everything. Plastic gloves — everything.”
“Good!” and they went into their little Federal Express
routine, laughing. “When it absolutely! positively! has to be there overnight…”
* * *
Later that day the editor of the Atlanta Journal in Georgia received an anonymous tip that in addition to a sniper attack on the road to the Savannah River plant, there had been two explosions near its three nuclear reactors. None had been perforated, but a truck carrying thirty drums of nuclear waste was blown clear off the road. At least four of the drums had ruptured, spilling their deadly poison, which, in a heavy rainfall, was now believed to have entered the water table through the porous soil.
The editor of the Journal, upon being paid a visit by the CIA after running the story, said he wouldn’t give the name of the tipster even if he knew it.
“Was it from New England?” the CIA asked. “From Logan?”
“Who’s Logan?”
“Place in New England.”
The editor shook his head. “We get all kinds of courier mail from all over the country. Especially now, the phone systems are so—”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the CIA agent, and left.
* * *
In the maze of Brooklyn’s back streets and in the vandalized cores of dozens of American inner cities that had decayed in the seventies, been rejuvenated in the eighties, only to die again the nineties, the dealers and users passed through America’s night with impunity, the police outnumbered and often outgunned — if not by the accuracy, then by the sheer number of weapons on the street. Most of all the police were consistently outmaneuvered by the high-priced lawyers who had the gunmen back out on the streets often in less time than it had taken for the police to book them.
In a Brooklyn alley not far from the bridge, there was a tinny noise of underground ventilation, gray steam bleeding into the night, many of the users already shooting up in the galleries, freebasing, the real “badasses” on crack levitating, not knowing where they were or what they were doing, TVs left on, screens flickering blue, as the president’s speech containing the phrases “arrest on reasonable suspicion” and “suspension of habeas corpus” was being broadcast. So many stations were carrying the address that some of the “dudes” uptown, the suppliers like Bobby “Bad-Ass” Duguid, were cussing and instructing their boys to turn off “that prezeedential shit, man,” Duguid demanding “video” instead — his favorite, “Wrestlin’ Witches.”
