by Ian Slater
“Jenghiz and Aussie — first watch. Okay?”
“Roger okay,” Jenghiz said.
“Right,” Aussie answered, and positioned himself between two of the biggest boulders, whose shadow easily hid him from the view of anyone on the plain. He felt his right leg itching, almost uncontrollably. The horse-hide Mongol pants beneath the herdsman’s smock had been chafing his shin, and it took all his willpower not to scratch. If necessary he’d dump the horse-skin trousers and put on his SAS/D camouflage trousers for the journey back, but until they got there he’d have to put up with it.
He glanced back at the snow-mantled peaks of the Hentiyn Nuruu and men back south toward the pastureland plain before them that ran like a pale green apron down from the foothills toward the lonely capital of Ulan Bator now about forty miles away. A two-night march should get them to the capital of half a million. They’d been told by Colonel Norton at Freeman’s HQ that once in the capital they would be less likely to be stopped, for it would be nighttime and there would be Kazakhs, Khalkas, Chinese, and Russian Mongolians all mixing and caring only about their own interests.
At first it was thought by Norton that they would take Freeman’s message, his “preventive medicine,” to the Mongolian president at Government House in Sukhbaatar Square, a message that had been entrusted only to the four SAS/D men. But this was dropped in favor of approaching him in the more public, less defended pagoda temple now visited daily by the suddenly converted “Communist” president. Should one of them meet any misadventure the other three would have it, and each had been given the message in the majority Kazakh tongue. Jenghiz had not been told, as his job was merely to get them there and to translate if and when necessary. Again it wasn’t that anyone mistrusted him, but the SAS/D men had been following the old “need to know” rule.
David, Choir Williams, and Salvini were already out of it — dead to the world.
* * *
The six Shenyang far northeast armies, forty-three thousand men in each, specifically the Twenty-third based in Harbin, the Forty-sixth from Kirin, the Sixteenth from Changchun, and the three armies, the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Sixty-fourth from near Shenyang city itself — over a quarter million men in all — were now moving en masse, crossing the Sungari and Nen Chiang rivers en route to the Amur River hump. But now, instead of attacking their traditional enemy, the Siberians, they were attacking the American Second Army, and Lin Biao’s famous dictum during the Korean War—”So we lose a million or two”—was being broadcast through loudspeakers all along the Amur River crossings, trying to terrify the U.S. soldiers. The U.S. Army countered by reminding their men of American technological superiority. But to men who knew how the mightiest nation on earth — theirs — had been humbled by the North Vietnamese Army, a much smaller army than that of the Chinese, the Chinese broadcast had some success.
Freeman gave an order for every piece of “goddamn ice” from here — Khabarovsk — to Manzhouli in far western Manchuria to be blown out of the river. He knew of course there wasn’t enough TNT in Second Army or in the Pacific convoys of resupply to blow up that much river ice, but it got the message across — the Chinese had to be stopped at the river crossings. And all bridges were to be blown as ice coagulated around the piers. CAS — close air support — was part of his strategy, but only part of it, as even the U. S. Air Force and carrier force in the Sea of Japan couldn’t hope to lay down a “bomb fence” twenty-four hours a day, particularly given the vicissitudes of the weather in these latitudes and over eighteen hundred miles of winding river. Of course the major crossing points known from the long Siberian-Chinese hostility on the border might be taken out, but Cheng was known, like Freeman, for not being tied to the orthodox battle plans of others. He would make crossings wherever he willed.
Freeman looked at the vast front on his wall map, a front longer than the Wehrmacht had faced in Russia in 1942, a front along which the vast Amur River became the Argun further to the west. Still further west flowed the Herlen River, which came down from Mongolia’s Hentiyn Nuruu.
“The west! Mongolia!” Freeman told Norton, his bifocals, used as a pointer, flashing in the Quonset hut’s light. “Here — south of Chita on the Siberian side of the border-south of Mangut — across the border beyond the jumble of mountains on the Siberian-Chinese border. That’s where we have to strike. Head south — hit the bastard on his left flank. Push him back, Dick — into the Manchurian fastness — keep him tied up there in the foothills on the Mongolian-Chinese border while our main force drives south.”
It seemed sound enough — giving your opponent a straight left while your right outflanked him south. Norton too was gazing up at the huge wall map. “How far south, General? You mean far enough to push them well across the Siberian-Chinese border — the DMZ?”
“South,” Freeman said, and Norton felt a cold fear turn his bowels. It was unthinkable. Congress would have a blue fit. But then Freeman had made a career of thinking the unthinkable, and then doing it.
“But General,” Norton cautioned, “if you drive due south from Mangut, to get at Cheng’s left flank you’d have to pass through Mongolian territory.”
“And if we don’t we’ll have to move east of Mangut,” Freeman retorted. “We’d have to make a detour through Chinese territory — a detour of hundreds of miles. With each M-1 tank guzzling two gallons for every mile that’s one hell of a detour, Norton.”
“But it is in Chinese territory,” Norton pointed out. “Going straight south from Mangut would mean taking a shortcut across Mongolian—” He stopped, for it was at that moment that he realized precisely why Freeman had sent the SAS/D troop of four on their mission deep into Mongolia — the SAS/D troop, as Freeman’s envoys, were to tell the Mongolian president in Ulan Bator that it might be necessary for American troops to cross from Mangut into China so as to hit the Chinese deeper on their left flank — go into the steppe country in the Gobi Desert — tank country — across which Freeman’s echelons might race. Would Freeman’s request for free passage be acceded to by the Mongolians? On the one hand, the Mongolians had a long and intense hatred of the Chinese. On the other, they were still in fact, if not in name, largely dependent on the whims of Siberia. Would Novosibirsk go along with letting Freeman take the shortcut across Mongolian territory? Or had Freeman told young David Brentwood something else to tell the commander of the Ulan Bator forces? Was it to be as much a warning as a request — let the Americans pass through Mongolian territory or else? Norton suspected it had been both — the carrot and the stick.
Suddenly Norton saw it — Freeman’s real objective — and the general sensed disbelief in the face of his aide.
“Listen, Colonel,” Freeman told him. “I didn’t come over here to dance.” His fist thumped Beijing, rattling the map. “Only thing these jokers understand, Dick, is defeat. We don’t get this dragon where it lives, by the throat, the son of a bitch’ll be hissing and spitting for another twenty years. We lost China once in forty-eight. Goddamn it, we’re not going to lose it again. Trouble with you, Dick, is you’re thinking like the rest of them. Monolithic China. Don’t you see? It’s just like we used to think of the Soviet Union — now what do we have?” He answered his own question, gesturing at the board north of the Siberian-Chinese border. “Thirteen new republics and they’re still counting. China’s the same, Dick. Rotten at the center. Old farts hanging onto power for grim death. Like tortoises in their shell.”
“General, they could lose a million men and still have twice as many men at arms as we do.”
“A tough shell, I’ll agree to that, Dick. Damn tough. But Dick, with a little ingenuity and determination we can do anything.”
Any excitement in Norton had waned, and now all he felt was a dull headache.
“A little ingenuity, General? Your southern strategy seems sound enough, but how about all these Chinese armies massing on the Manchurian border along the Amur? What if they suddenly come west against your flank attack?”
“Well, sir, we can hardly ignore them. There’re over five armies along that river.” He meant the Amur hump.
“We’ve got to keep them occupied,” Freeman answered, with what seemed calculated ingenuousness.
“Yes, General, but how? Our CAS can only do so much, and given the bad weather—”
“Dick — you have that wolf dung I told you to get?”
“Lots of it, General. You know what they’re calling us here in Khabarovsk?”
“What?”
“The shitheads.”
Freeman let forth a belly laugh that could be heard in his communications room. “Shit stirrers, Dick! That’s what they’re going to call us. Stirrers!”
“Yes, sir. But what if the Ulan Bator mission doesn’t go smoothly?”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Freeman demanded. “No one knows they’re there except us. Boys are well trained for exactly this kind of mission. Thrive on it. Their instructors were with Special Forces in Iraq. They’ll be okay.”
“I hope you’re right, General. And then there are those missiles we have to worry about.”
“Ah — I don’t think we’ll have any trouble with that either,” Freeman responded confidently. “You’re a good officer, Dick, but you have to guard against being too pessimistic. Stop seeing the glass as half empty. Start seeing it half full.”
Sometimes the general’s optimism frightened Norton more than the Chinese did. The worst thing about it was that if something went truly wrong the general could be prone to a depression so dark that few realized how perilously close his pride rode to the abyss — his depressions as intense in their way as his highs. Well, at least the general was right about the SAS/D mission. No one else knew about it but the four SAS/D troopers involved.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
London
The Republic of China, or Taiwan, was a country worth cultivating if and when the Labour party came to power. The Taiwanese would have to do business with the government, and Trevor Brenson, M.P., thought it might as well be with him. Besides, there was no more excitement in living with his wife. He’d grown tired of her — she spent all her time at women’s rights rallies, so much so that Brenson wondered whether she was married to the feminist movement instead of him. And when they did get to be together in bed she began telling him what to do—”this way, not that way”— “you’re too rough”—”harder”—”slower.” After a while it felt as if he were learning to drive and she was the instructor. More and more he just wanted to swerve off the bloody road.
Lin Meiling, however, was different, and she offered him a way out. Like his wife she was outspoken, too, but she had the Oriental sense of place — which in bed was to do what the man wanted, anything to please. Besides, at their rendezvous in a Hampstead flat, she never rushed it or talked politics, and when she’d finished with him he felt so deliciously drained, so completely relaxed, that he’d already missed one shadow cabinet meeting because Lin Meiling had literally squeezed then sucked him dry, and as he told her later, he must have slept right through his alarm. In fact Lin Meiling had turned off the alarm, giving her ample time to go through his briefcase after they made love.
So far she’d found nothing of note, only some dry skulduggery against a conservative M.P. for having had personal use of government aircraft — taking his family on a hop across to France. They all did it, of course, and Brenson had absolutely no doubt that he’d be doing it when he got into power, but he wouldn’t be as damned silly as the Tory.
And when he got to power he wouldn’t tell Lin Meiling any more than he did now, which was naught. She could be a spy for either the ROC or the PRC. Whatever — she could detect his mood the moment he walked into the flat, and all she had to do was let him talk about the idiots and various assholes who were trying to run the government, and how he could do it so much better.
Here and there he’d unconsciously drop a hint about what was going on, but she never seemed interested. The trick, as Lin Meiling knew, was patience and knowing that it was better sometimes to know someone in the shadow cabinet man the real cabinet itself, for in order for the shadow cabinet to operate they had to know exactly what the government was up to. There was some brouhaha at the moment— something about the Americans — exactly what she didn’t know. But she remained patient, knowing that in two or three days Brenson would be so horny again that he’d want her desperately. It would give her another opportunity to flick through his files and/or listen to his self-pitying frustrations about what a thankless job it was being a member of the queen’s loyal opposition.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Aussie Lewis, like Salvini, Brentwood, and Choir Williams, had been well briefed in what to expect in the mountains northeast around Ulan Bator. Indeed, he’d been so well instructed that he was by now thoroughly disabused of the false notion, held by most foreigners, that Mongolia was nothing but desert. He knew that in its far west mountainous region there were lakes and streams and vegetation that reminded one of Switzerland, and that parts of the Gobi Desert that ran from southwestern Mongolia east, swinging up into Manchuria, weren’t all desert. Much of it was semidesert pastureland capable of sustaining great herds of sheep, camels, and wild horses that roamed about, outnumbering the human population by fourteen to one — the population density of the whole country being no more than three people per square mile.
Because of his briefing on the flora and fauna of the once-mighty kingdom of Genghis Khan, Aussie Lewis was not surprised to see ermine, sable, and squirrels in the mountains, but because the briefing officer had not mentioned it, he wasn’t at all prepared for the two roe deer that Jenghiz pointed out to him, one of which, in Lewis’s inelegant phrase, “upset the bloody applecart.” He glimpsed the deer only a moment before it descended between a smaller spill of the rocky outcrop, and stood stock still, its nose twitching in the hot spring sun, before it bounded across the open area beyond the blind side of a large boulder that protected then-southern exposure against a sudden sneak attack.
“No!” It was Jenghiz’s panic-stricken voice from the other side of the huge boulder, behind which he had suddenly flung himself. In that split second Aussie visualized the whole thing: The deer must have hit the trip wire, releasing the spring-loaded firing pin — the Claymore mine set up on its legs in dry grass so as to go off at chest height and so avoid any accidental trip by small animals. He could hear its back-blast hitting the protective boulders about their camp.
The Claymore’s ear-stunning blast echoed throughout the foothills, its eight hundred steel ball bearings screaming out at supersonic speed — the equivalent of over eighty shotguns fired simultaneously, deadly to anything within four hundred feet of the perimeter. The deer was momentarily lost to view, shrouded in clouds of gritty dust that looked like yellow smoke, the sound continuing to roll down through the foothills and back up into the mountains. In an instant Brentwood and Choir Williams were awake. Salvini, still open-mouthed at their bad luck, was staring at Aussie. “Holy—”
David Brentwood, his eyes temporarily blinded by the dust particles, staggered up, dabbed his shirt tail with his canteen, and wiped his eyes. “What the—”
“Fucking deer!” Aussie said. “Must’ve tripped the wire.”
“Let’s go!” Brentwood ordered, and within two minutes they’d broken camp, each man carrying a cigarette-pack-size GPS — geosynchronous positioning system — his Browning high-power 9mm pistol, and pack, Salvini humping the radio. All of them moved briskly, despite their heavy packs and the unfamiliarity with their dels, the ankle-length, silk-lined tunics of the Mongolian herdsmen. The echoes of the explosions alone alerted everything and everyone within miles to their presence.
Ulan Bator lay ten miles, several hours, ahead, and it would be dark if and when they arrived there. In the daylight they could be seen moving in the direction of the capital. Jenghiz, however, Aussie noticed, looked strangely elated. It was almost a
s if the explosion had been received by him as a good omen, or perhaps his bright-eyed expression was nothing more than a sudden surge of fear.
* * *
Five miles behind, the Spets praporshnik was hurrying his men from their position and cursing his luck. Now the SAS/D team would know that someone would come to investigate the explosion and so they would be doubly vigilant. But then he slowed his pace, the small avalanche of rocks he was starting slowing to a trickle as another realization swept over him — namely that perhaps part or all of their equipment had accidentally exploded and wiped out the SAS/D troop, ending whatever mission they had been on. Nevertheless, he resumed his steady gait, the seven Spets hurrying down beneath the ridge line of one of the foothills. Whatever the situation, he had to make sure. And in any case there was still no reason for the enemy commandos to expect anyone so close on their heels. If anything the SAS/D team would probably expect a Mongolian-forces helicopter to investigate the explosion, and for a moment he was tempted to call the Hind now returning from setting the mine trap at the enemy’s insertion point and have it sent south. But then he decided against it. The absence of a helo would give the Americans a false sense of security — just what he needed to catch up to them.
“Speshi! — Hurry up! We want to be close to them by dark — before they get into Ulan Bator.”
* * *
Lin Meiling loved the storms in England. Some of her fellow Guo An Bu agents who, like her, also used the jobs at the Taiwanese consulate as the perfect cover for their PRC activities, complained unendingly about the weather, about the ever-changing skies, governed so much by the English Channel. And why the English Channel? they asked. Why not the French, the Dutch, or European Channel? But Lin Meiling cherished the eccentricity and the vicissitudes of England, though in the larger sense she detested its political system.
