Even the fact that most of the Combined Fleet had disappeared didn't seem to bother them.
As impressive as it all was, Kolhammer knew this was lulling them into a false sense of security. It was awesome, true, but it had its limits. He was running through land-attack missiles at a ruinous rate as they degraded the Japs' ability to resist on Luzon. He envied Halabi her mission to Singapore. Sure, it was a tight trip through some very sharky waters, but she had all of her targets grouped. He had to fire on half a dozen sites over five hundred square kilometers, and even then, without good intel, he could never be sure he'd covered all the bases.
He approached his guests. Spruance saw him coming and nodded.
"It seems to be going well, Admiral, except for Hashirajima, and even then, I'm not going to quibble, with two carriers sunk."
"Thank you, Admiral," said Kolhammer. "I'll be a lot happier when this next phase is done. Jones is going to have his hands full securing Manila and Cabanatuan."
"Two minutes, sir," a weapons sysop called out. "Feeding drone coverage to the main screen."
The three giant panels that formed the main display had been running recorded footage sent by compressed burst from Halabi and Willet. They winked out to a featureless blue for a fraction of a second before coming back online with three live images transmitted from drones high over Luzon.
The smallest of the three showed a city block in Cabanatuan. Thanks to the late hour, the town was asleep. No traffic moved on its streets. It could have been a still photo, except that trees were swaying in a breeze. A complex tapestry of targeting data suddenly appeared over a large white building, as a time hack counted down.
"What is that place?" asked Spruance.
"Regional subcommand center for two Japanese divisions," said Kolhammer. "It's a residential as well as an administrative compound, so the higher command elements should all be there. We've had Marine Recon in-country for a week, scoping it out for us."
"What about the others?"
"Main garrison. It used to be a Philippine army barracks. Now the Japs are in there."
The time hack reached zero.
Something flashed across the screen of the smaller window and the whole city block on which the targeted building had stood erupted in a volcanic blast. Even the drone's sophisticated cameras were unable to cope, and the screen blanked out to white for a few seconds.
Two heavy missiles were assigned to the main Japanese camp, which lay sixteen kilometers from the POW camp. They bore in at the relatively low speed of three hundred knots, just above the tree line.
As Kolhammer and Spruance watched silently, a small pop-up window showed a couple of sentries squeezing off a few random shots into the dark. Alerted by the gunfire, hundreds of figures spilled out of tents and barracks buildings.
The missiles detonated and the army camp, in which fifteen thousand men lay abed, vanished inside a colossal explosion.
"Sweet Jesus," breathed Admiral Halsey. He had been briefed on the effects of the Wide Area Impact Munitions, but Kolhammer knew that to actually watch such power unleashed-especially for the first time-was a humbling, even a frightening experience. The surveillance drone refocused for a wide-angle shot just before detonation, allowing the audience in the CIC to view the blast from a virtual height of six thousand meters. It was obvious to all that nobody could have survived. Supersonic pressure waves blew out across the landscape from the blast centers, flattening trees and demolishing any structures they met for eight kilometers.
"Is that going to hurt our men?" asked Halsey.
"It'll dissipate before it reaches them," said Kolhammer.
"This is better than ladies' day at the country fucking fair," Halsey said to Ray Spruance.
"It's only half the game, Bill."
"Yeah, but what a great fucking half."
The whine of the giant hovercraft's turbofans was enormous, easily drowning out the snarl of the Sea Comanche gunships riding shotgun on the assault force. The sea state was benign, making for an effortless rush across the South China Sea toward the mouth of Manila Bay.
Colonel Jones could see clearly from the small cabin of the LCAC. The fallen island bastion of Corregidor stood foursquare in the center of the bay's entrance. It was easily distinguished from the black backdrop of the island because it was ablaze. Six subnuclear plasma-yield warheads had speared deep into the concrete carapace of the fortress and detonated, atomizing vast tonnages of concrete and steel, along with the thousands of human beings living within.
"Damn, I'll bet Krakatoa didn't look half as impressive as that," yelled the chief petty officer, who was driving the boat.
They were still a long way out, but the conflagration seemed to fill the sky with a golden guttering light.
"Chief Stavros," Jones cried out amiably, "I don't think I'll take that bet."
A small supernova of fire and light blossomed from deep within the inferno. Jump jets screamed overhead, dashing in toward the coast to attack the half a dozen Japanese ships in the harbor. Jones was dimly aware of the small crew working furiously to keep them on the correct heading without the benefit of continual GPS update. They shouted course headings and detailed corrections at each other a few times every minute. At least the ride was smooth, a long gliding lope across the water.
"Five minutes until we breach the entrance, Chief," shouted a young sailor.
"Thanks, Dolly. Better get buttoned up, Colonel," Stavros bellowed over the cacophony. "Good luck, sir."
Jones clapped Stavros on the back, thanked him for the lift, and hurried down to the vehicle deck where his command LAV awaited him. There was no respite from the uproar of the turbofans and engines. Although it would appear as an armored behemoth to anyone who stood in its way, the LCAC itself wasn't a combat vessel. Its task was to drop off two platoons from A Company in a half squadron of light armored vehicles.
As Jones hustled down a corridor toward the vehicle deck, he quickly checked the flexipad that was Velcroed to his forearm. The other boats were all still in position, lying astern of his own. He strapped on his powered helmet, fitted the combat goggles, and jacked into the battalion tac net. His visual field instantly filled up with cascading streams of data. After thousands of hours of training and years of combat experience, it was a completely natural environment for him. He noted the disposition of his units, their progress toward the beach, and the condition of the enemy's defenses without conscious thought. Small windows fed vision from the FLIR pods of the Comanche gunships. Others carried top-down footage, relayed from surveillance drones, of the dozen or so targeted sites within Manila. They were already burning fiercely, just like Corregidor. Secondary explosions erupted regularly as fuel and ammunition stocks cooked off.
Jones wondered how many people had already died.
"Colonel, sir?"
Jones pulled up just short of the vehicle deck.
"What's up, Sar'nt?"
Cocooned within layers of monobonded filament armor, goggles, helmet, and tac set, Gunny Harrison would have been unrecognizable to most people. But he and Jones had fought together for many years, and even if he hadn't spoken, Jones would have known him immediately.
"It's the colonel sir, the observer."
"Maloney."
"Yeah. He's not playing well with the other children."
For about the tenth time Julia Duffy checked the tabs on the ballistic gel pockets in her body armor. Her feet tapped rapidly on the nonslip floor of the LAV, and she kept raising her hand to her mouth in a nervous reflex. She wanted to chew her fingernails, but her heavy black gloves got in the way. She swore under her breath again.
"Y'all okay, Ms. Duffy?"
The name tag on giant trooper's body armor identified him as BUKOWSKI. From the shoulder-slung gun rig, she knew he was a heavy-weapon carrier. He certainly was big enough, she mused. Even with his helmet off, he still had to crouch over in the confines of the LAV.
"I tapped out my Prozac," she said. "I'm just a littl
e jumpy, that's all."
"I got some Zoloft gum, if you'd like a stick," said Bukowski.
"Would I!"
Julia would have leapt out of her seat, if it weren't for the webbing which held her in place. Bukowski fished a stick of gum out of a pocket and stretched across the width of the vehicle to pass it to her.
"Thank you, Specialist," she said with real gratitude.
"Is that gum? Do you think I could have some?"
Julia recognized the voice. It was Captain Svensden, a 'temp-one of two observers traveling in the LAV. He seemed pretty cool, but his boss, Colonel Maloney, was an asshole. Svensden sat two down and across from her, but Maloney was thankfully right at the other end of the cabin, with Second Lieutenant Chen, the platoon commander.
Even in the dim red interior light the 'temps both stood out. They wore armor, like everyone else, but neither rested comfortably within it. Svensden fiddled with his straps and Velcro tabs. And among the dozen passengers, Maloney was the only other person besides Bukowski who didn't have a powered helmet strapped on. The graphics gave him motion sickness, he said. A pool of vomit lay at his feet, and the air con was working hard to scrub the smell of it from the cabin.
Bukowski was about to toss a stick of the gum to Svensden when Julia spoke up. She didn't have to shout. She was miked up and plugged into the tac net with the troopers.
"Better not, Captain. It's not Wrigley's Spearmint. It's a drug. Probably put you to sleep, since you haven't built up any tolerance. These guys are used to it."
"What's that?"
Duffy cursed at herself. It was Colonel Maloney.
"Is somebody drinking up there? Did I hear right. And is it that woman? Goddamn, that's all we need." Maloney tried to untangle himself from the restraining web. Chen reached an arm across the man's chest, telling him to sit still.
"Get your grubby little fingers of me, Chinaman!" the colonel shouted.
Everybody in the LAV jumped at that. A few threw their hands up to their ears to deal with the shooting pain. Maloney's throat mike had picked up the yell and amplified it tenfold across the audio net.
"Fucking jerk," muttered Duffy.
"What did you say? What did that woman call me?" yelled Maloney.
A couple of marines ripped off their helmets. One reached over and unplugged the audio cabling that connected Maloney with the link.
"Shut the fuck up!" he said.
Gunny Harrison threw back the hatch. The scene inside the LAV startled Jones. A fierce argument was under way. Almost nobody had their helmets on, as per regulations, and Colonel Maloney was out of his, standing in front of that Times reporter, jabbing his index finger at her. She appeared to be laughing, when she wasn't blowing bubblegum in his face.
"What the fuck is going here!" Jones shouted, loudly enough to be heard over the earsplitting drone of the turbofans and the commotion inside the cabin. The LAV was uncomfortably close to the huge Avco Lycoming gas turbine plants and the main propulsion fans. Jones took a deep breath, sucking in trace odors of diesel, gun oil, human sweat, and bile from the pile of sick that dripped out of the cabin and onto his boots. He let rip with a blast that would have done his old drill instructor proud.
"Colonel Maloney. Sit your ass down, put your goddamn helmet on, and shut the fuck up. You are just here to watch. Nothing else. We transit the beachhead in a few minutes, and people are gonna start dying. Unless you want to give me any more grief, in which case we'll start the dying right here and now, because God help me if you endanger any part of this mission at any point I will shoot you in the fucking head and throw you overboard myself!"
Maloney stood with his mouth hanging open, like he'd been caught with his pants down. But Jones meant every word of it and the colonel must have known, because he flashed a quick, sour glare at the civilian woman before returning to his position.
A split-screen display dominated the Clinton's CIC. Real-time footage beamed back from Manila sat next to a CGI map of the same area with dozens of targets and mission objectives highlighted by flashing tags, alphanumeric codes, unit designations, and small icons. Admiral Spruance had no real idea of what it all meant, but at least he could see the burning hulks of Japanese ships in the harbor, and the dazzling emerald brilliance of more fires spotted throughout the city.
"It's fuckin' amazing, don't you think?" muttered Admiral Halsey, sitting next to him in the old antisatellite work bay.
"What, the movies themselves, or what they're showing?" asked Spruance.
"The whole fucking thing. I mean, look at the way they hit those Jap positions in Manila. It's like needlepoint or something, when you think of what the Nazis did to London with the Blitz."
"But the Krauts meant to tear up the city," said Spruance.
"True enough."
Halsey leaned over from the comfort of his chair. The medication they'd given him had effectively cleared up his shingles, and his mood had improved as rapidly as his butt. But Spruance knew him well, and the look in his eyes gave him away.
"What's up, Bull? You don't look entirely happy. The Japs are dying like flies out there. I thought you'd be in a downright festive mood."
Halsey glanced around the busy Combat Center. As much as you could be left alone in such a crowded, frenetic place, they were, at least for the moment. Kolhammer and Judge were across the room, busy coordinating the simultaneous strikes on Manila and the camps at Cabanatuan. Lieutenant Thieu was away, attending to requests from some of the reporters who'd gone out with the marines.
Spruance shook his head at that. He was used to war correspondents making a nuisance of themselves at the front, but he simply couldn't believe how deeply involved-or what did they call it, "embedded"-these people seemed to be. He doubted if you could tell some of them apart from the units they covered.
"I was just wondering," Halsey said quietly, "whether this was the right way to use these guys. I mean, look at what they're doing. They've only got so many of these super-rockets and magic bullets. Do you think a glorified prison break was the way to go?"
Spruance mulled over the question as he watched a flight of helicopters fan out over the city-the fat ones, which meant they were troop carriers. Smaller, faster gunships buzzed around them like angry wasps, swooping down on any resistance and hosing it down with rocket and cannon fire. They must be going for the railway yards, he thought.
"I don't know, Bill," he said. "You saw what happened to those boys, not to mention the poor women they used as camp whores. I don't know what the right thing was. But I do know that these people have a mania about leaving their own behind. They'll lose fifty men just to get one back. It's like a sickness for them. I doubt we could have stopped them from doing this even if we'd wanted to."
Lieutenant Thieu returned, threading his way through the banks of computer monitors and battle stations. Spruance watched a screen that showed one of those Super Harriers, zipping across the big night sky, only to stop in midair, turn around, and unleash a stream of rockets on some target at the wharves.
Halsey leaned over before Thieu made it into earshot.
"Yeah, but the thing is, Ray," he said, "we ain't their fucking people, are we?"
The industrial jackhammer of the LAV's autocannon abruptly ceased as the hatch swung open and the section poured out onto the street. Julia spat out the wad of medicated gum she'd been chewing and checked her heads-up display to make sure she was recording. She flicked her personal weapon to three-round bursts, laid her thumb on the safety, ready to click it off as soon as she was clear of the vehicle, and nodded quickly to Private Bukowski. She'd already decided to hang her story off what happened to the heavy-weapons specialist over the next few hours. Bukowski was cool with that. He wanted to send his granddad a video of himself in battle. Grandpa Bukowski had won-or would win-a Bronze Star in Korea.
Her combat goggles, a topflight set of Ray-Ban Warpigs, automatically adjusted to changing light conditions as the blast door of the armored vehicle split open and the
frenzied stabbing light of the battle rushed in. She flinched as a line of tracer fire flicked across the opening, and reached out for a grab bar as Bukowski recoiled into her.
"You okay, Specialist?"
"Fine, ma'am. Somebody else got clipped up front."
The two lines of marines, which had momentarily bunched up, surged down the ramp. Duffy slapped Bukowski on the back as he stepped off. A cramped shuffle brought her to the exit, where she found the body of Colonel Maloney, half his head torn away by a piece of shrapnel. He'd tumbled off the edge of the incline. One leg had folded up underneath his deadweight; the other had caught on the edge of the ramp and now pointed skyward. He wasn't wearing his helmet.
"Dumbass," said Duffy.
Bukowski's voice came over the sound channel. "Say what?"
"Didn't mean you. Meant him."
"Oh, right. Yeah."
The specialist suddenly swiveled at the hip and poured a stream of light-cannon fire into a window across the street. Duffy was jolted into the moment. They were assaulting across a wide boulevard. Half the section, with Chen in the lead, was storming toward the colonnaded entrance of a grand colonial building, pouring selective fire into the upper-story windows. Nobody except Bukowski was firing on full auto. Discrete three-round bursts of tungsten penetrators chewed up masonry and wooden shutters, smashing glass and pulverizing brickwork.
A line of tracers lashed at them from another building two doors down. Duffy saw a trooper stagger under the impact. He sank to his knees for a few seconds before two other marines appeared to help him back to his feet and over the exposed cobblestone roadway.
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