by Ian Slater
Freeman answered his own question. “Because, Jim, they know we won’t call our artillery down on our own men. They’re frightened of our artillery. We’re the best and fastest in the world at setting up and bracketing an enemy attack. We can rain down 105-millimeters on them within ten minutes of an attack — sooner if we’re already in place. You know what they do if we close with them — hand to hand?”
Norton didn’t have to answer.
“That’s right,” said Freeman. “They’ll bring down fire on their own men. That’s why they want to close with us. And the sooner they do it, the less time we have for our artillery to break up their attack. And once they close, they’ll use our boys — those that are left alive — as hostages against our artillery.” He paused, his breathing slowed as if by will. “That’s why we’ve got to beat them to the punch. Find out exactly where their assembly areas are and bring air support and artillery down on their rat tunnels before they can move out.” In the fading light — there was still a quarter hour to sunset — he called out to the Delta major.
“Yes, General?”
“You’re a witness,” Freeman informed him, his voice lowering so as not to be overheard by the men. “I know why the Chinese haven’t attacked in the last twenty-four hours, and now I know why it’s too damned quiet, Jim.”
The major looked at Norton, but the colonel was as perplexed as he was.
“NKA have already used it on their own people. Those bastards have withdrawn across the river because they’re going to use gas.” Before Norton could respond, Freeman raced on. “Jim, this is an order. First whiff you get, you have ‘weapons release’ from me as CIC Korea to reply with 105-millimeter atomic warhead artillery. You hear that, Major?”
“Yes, sir, but hell—”
“Major, I want eight men, grenades, and a squad automatic weapon.”
“General—” began the major, alarmed.
“That’s an order, Major. Now!”
“Yes, sir.”
Norton spoke quietly. “Sir, Washington’ll have my hide if anything—”
“Jim, I want it known that I’m taking out a patrol. And I mean, I want every son of a bitch from here to Seoul to know. I want them to know that their C in C isn’t afraid of some rice-picking comrade. And I want that nuclear artillery release written down on a message pad so I can sign it in front of you and the major. And send it in plain language to Seoul HQ I want those Commie bastards to intercept it.” The general lowered his voice, glancing about to see whether any GI was nearby. “Jim, you and I know that those CBW zoo suits they’ve issued aren’t worth a pinch of coon crap. And the Commies know it. Christ, this weather’s perfect for it. Goddamned visors on our suits’ll steam up for a start. If I had my choice, I’d rather the in two minutes in the open from a gas attack than shit myself to death for ten inside one of those damned contraptions. Now, you make sure you get a Kraut car up here — on every battalion front within the next twenty-four hours. If their spectrometers signal CBW presence, you let loose with those 105 A tips. There won’t be any time to screw around. Then I want you to Flash SACEUR Brussels HQ and tell them that Operation Merlin is to go.”
“Yes, General.” Freeman signaled the chopper pilot to start her up as Norton, using his thigh as a table, wrote down the order to have a Kraut — German-made Fox NBC — nuclear biological/ chemical — weapons reconnaissance vehicle — moved up immediately from Kusong to Delta. After the general signed it, Norton held out his hand. For an embarrassing moment the general thought it was for his pen. Then he realized Norton was saying good-bye. Freeman shook hands, Norton asking, “I suppose there’s no way I can talk you out of this, General?”
“Course not,” said Freeman, grinning. “You know better than that.”
“Yes, sir.” Freeman smacked Norton affectionately on the shoulder. “God go with you, Jim.”
The colonel tried to answer but couldn’t. Instead, he saluted, then turning to the major, gave him the second copy of the message for transmit from Delta Outpost HQ to Seoul, lest the chopper be hit in transit. Lowering his head, left hand holding his helmet down, Norton ran to board the chopper.
As the Black Hawk took off in a bluish-white swirl of snow, Freeman turned and saw eight white figures — the GIs in their white camouflage overlays — straggling out from the trench.
“You boys volunteer?” asked Freeman as he clipped on the grenades and took the squad automatic weapon and pack from the major.
“You kidding, General?” replied one man, but there was a new tone — a respect that Freeman knew would spread like wildfire down the line as the reconnaissance patrol left.
“Major!”
“Sir?”
“It wasn’t a ‘peanut farmer,’ but it was a farmer.”
It took a second for the major to remember the general’s story about the Chinese farmer who discovered the massive Chinese army underground. “You ever miss anything, General?”
“Very little, Major. Very little.” Then Freeman walked to the front of the section, to take the “point.” “All right, boys. Follow me.”
* * *
In the chopper, Colonel Norton was gripping his seat tightly, but added to his fear of flying was the haunting, terrible response of the Chinese general Lin Biao, who, when MacArthur had once threatened the Chinese Red Army with the A-bomb, had replied, “So we lose a million or two.”
CHAPTER FORTY
In Seoul, or what was left of it after the pulverizing it had taken during the NKA invasion of the South, and again when the Americans, breaking out of the Pusan-Yosu perimeter, had counterattacked before being bogged down by the massive intervention of the Chinese, there was no hesitation in sending the choppers loaded with atomic-tipped shells to the forward positions overlooking the Yalu. News of the Chinese’s use of nerve gas had sent a shiver down the spine of every Allied commander from the Yalu to the Russian front outside Minsk. And the failure of enough supplies getting through the Soviet sub packs only fueled the apprehension of frontline commanders, as presidential adviser Schuman warned, that the Russians, seeing a brief window of opportunity, before the Allies could build up enough support for the final push into Russia, might strike with CBW weapons of their own all along the NATO front.
In Beijing, China radio was broadcasting charges that the “ultimate degradation of bourgeois capitalism” was evident in “Washington’s criminal use of chemical weapons from napalm to the gas supplied by America to the ROK lackeys and pirates” who had, “on the orders of Washington, attacked the freedom-loving people of the People’s Republic of China with nerve gas.”
* * *
As Kiril Marchenko stepped out of his Zil limousine for the emergency meeting of the Politburo and presidential advisers in the Council of Ministers Building, snow had stopped falling, but one glance at the heavy, metallic-colored sky told him it was only a brief lull in the latest Arctic storm sweeping down from Murmansk to Moscow and on to the Polish plain.
As President Suzlov moved from his desk to the conference table of his enormous office under the gaze of Marx, aides carried piles of the red-striped green folders of war reports, distributing them to the Politburo and STAVKA members, less than half of whom had been able to make it on such short notice. Marchenko was worried by the implacable expression worn by KGB chief Chernko, who he noticed had been seated immediately to the right of the president. Both Suzlov and Chernko were quintessential apparatchiki—”bureaucrats”— efficient, cool, but, Marchenko thought, lacking the human dimension — a deficiency evident in Chernko’s argument that a gas attack was now “sovershenno mozhnym”—”quite feasible”—against the NATO front, given the strong prevailing southwestward flows of Arctic air that wouldn’t endanger Soviet troops.
Suzlov opened the emergency meeting to questions, a meeting that Marchenko quietly noted to his aide didn’t have enough members present to constitute a legal Party quorum. Marchenko, already leaning against the highly polished table, his reflection melting like
all the others into a blur of khaki and red collar tabs of the general staff, asked, “Mr. President, I wish to point out that whether a southern wind—”
“Southwest,” put in Chernko pedantically but without the slightest malice.
“Southwest, then,” continued Marchenko. “The supposition that this will protect all our troops from the gas is rather hypothetical given—”
“I can assure Comrade Marchenko,” Chernko cut in, but was himself interrupted by Suzlov.
“Let Comrade Marchenko finish.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. As I was saying, no matter that the prevailing winds at the moment may favor our deployments across the Brest front. This does not take into account local conditions — local eddies — which could engulf some of our forward units. My wife, who, as you know, is comrade in charge of Moscow CBW defenses, is very concerned by this. We have seen in Moscow that the existence of internal heating and certain structures produces totally unexpected results. Windy places where you would expect— The point I am making, Comrade, is that it’s very unpredictable.”
“I’m sure,” replied Chernko dryly. “But we aren’t concerned with very many buildings on the front, General — yes, yes, a few cities perhaps, but we must surely look at the macro situation, Comrades.” He made a face of grandfatherly regret. “Admittedly, a few peculiar local air currents, conditions— whatever you wish to call them — may interfere with some forward troop deployments, but on the whole, the Allies would suffer a crippling blow all across the front of the attack.”
Marchenko seemed to Chernko as if he was about to cut in again, and so Chernko avoided his gaze, addressing the rest of those present, as if even those absent from the empty chairs were listening. “And one thing in which I’m sure that Comrade Marchenko’s wife would concur is that our chemical/ biological warfare suits, as well as our shelter defenses, are far superior to those of the enemy — with the possible exception of some recently issued to a few German regiments. But as a part of the whole, Comrades, this consideration is nothing. What we have here is not only the chance to stop the Allied invasion dead in its tracks but to buy us vital time for our submarines to cripple Allied resupply. Indeed, far from defeat, Comrades—” Chernko was looking directly at President Suzlov now “—I see the very definite possibility of victory. Comrade Marchenko isn’t taking into account the fact that within America, my agents and SPETS cells, long in place and recently activated, have created havoc. Now, Comrades. Now is the moment.”
“You don’t think,” asked Suzlov, “that the Americans will retaliate with chemical weapons?”
Chernko shook his head. “No, Mr. President. As we know, the great weakness in the democracies is that they have to talk about everything for a month — Congress checking with their constituencies — before they decide which toothpaste to use.”
There was some laughter, but Marchenko was shaking his head, telling Chernko, “Then, Comrade, you haven’t got a clear grasp of America at war. She is slow to respond at first— yes. But once in gear, her production capacity is enormous. And in crisis, Americans empower their executive to act swiftly if need be. As—”
“Comrade General,” responded Chernko, “I agree wholeheartedly with you, but I tell you they are not ready for this. The logistics of warhead conversion to chemical warheads on their missiles is no small thing, even for the Americans. And in two weeks it could all be over. But we mustn’t give them any longer. This is why we have called this meeting.”
“It’s those damn Chinese who got us into this,” interjected General Arbatov, in charge of Moscow missile defense. “If—”
“Ifs are quite pointless now,” put in Chernko sharply.
“Yes,” said Suzlov quickly. “Comrade Chernko’s quite correct. Who started it — the Chinese or the North Koreans— though I suspect Beijing — is of no account. The fact is, gas is being used. In any case, Beijing’s charging the Americans with it anyway. China radio broadcasts tying it in with napalm are very clever, for what are fuel air explosives like napalm if they aren’t chemical?”
“But surely, Mr. President,” said Marchenko, “we cannot equate fuel air explosives with gas. Napalm dissipates.”
“So does nerve gas,” Chernko replied challengingly. “But it is something, Comrade, that radioactivity doesn’t do!”
The murmur of approval told Chernko he’d made a telling point.
“This is true,” Marchenko conceded, “but you are assuming that the Americans won’t answer a chemical attack with nuclear weapons.”
“They won’t fire nuclear weapons first,” said Suzlov. “Ever since Hiroshima, the American presidents have made a fetish out of not being the first to fire a nuclear weapon. Public opinion in America will not allow Washington to press the button.”
“What about their submarines?” asked Admiral Smernov.
“Of course, this is a risk,” said Chernko. “So is getting up in the morning. It is war, Comrades. And here again — thanks to the expertise of Comrade Marchenko’s wife, and others like her in the Moscow Defense Brigade — we have not only a sustainable chemical defense plan for our capital, but a nuclear one as well. New York has no such comparable defense.”
“Everyone would get mugged on the way to the shelters,” General Arbatov commented.
There were a few snuffles of restrained amusement.
“Yes,” said Suzlov, “if they had enough shelters — which they don’t.”
“Well put, Comrade President,” said Chernko. “The point is that Americans have no shelter systems anywhere as good as ours. They know this. Oh, the American public have it in their heads that because we’ve had lineups for bread, we’re as inefficient in everything else. They do not realize, as their scientists do, how sophisticated our space and missile developments have been. But Washington knows. It also knows we’re far better prepared for nuclear defense than they are. Far better. This is deterrent enough for them.”
Suzlov nodded. “Are we preparing our people for this?”
Chernko deferred to the junior Politburo member in charge of the propaganda ministry.
“Comrade President,” the radio and TV chief began. “We are showing as much footage as we can of the Americans using gas against their own people. The Chicago and Los Angeles riots have been particularly useful, plus the recent footage of American troops in the Philippines using gas to defend Clark Base against demonstrators. And, of course, a lot of riot control gas from South Korea. We have so much to use, it’s difficult—”
“Thank you,” Marchenko interceded, not because he thought it was inappropriate to use such footage but because he wanted to point out that after Gorbachev’s brief fling with glasnost, the Russian people would surely be alert to the distinction between canister tear gas and nerve gas.
Here the Minister for Propaganda fairly bristled with pride. “We have skillfully spliced the film of the American police in riot control using the gas with casualties from the Bhopal chemical disaster from the American plant in India which killed hundreds, and also other footage of American marines firing canisters—”
“So you not only have tear gas clouds fired by Americans,” interjected Marchenko, ‘“but nerve gas victims as well? Is that correct?”
“Yes, Comrade.”
“Can you match color, locale, such things…”
The minister for propaganda couldn’t suppress a smile at the war minister’s naïveté on such technical matters. “We have the best Canadian documentary techniques, Comrade, and West German technology to implement and splice.”
Marchenko, bottom lip protruding, nodded approvingly. He wasn’t one to hold grudges, and he had to admit that Chernko and the Propaganda Ministry had done a fine job in presenting their argument. The propaganda minister added that they were getting much mileage from footage of the “yellow rain” defoliants the Americans had used in Vietnam together with napalm victims, American peace activists, and “brushed-up” footage of an American actress in Hanoi, complete with Vietc
ong pith helmet, denouncing American fliers on Hanoi radio as war criminals.
Marchenko himself had a sudden and, he thought, convincing argument for Chernko’s position. “Of course, if the Americans fired chemical weapon missiles in Europe, the West Europeans would be furious. The danger is obvious — any winds that carry the gas to the Allied front will certainly sweep further west over Germany.”
“Exactly!” said Chernko, seizing the moment. “Comrade Marchenko is exactly right on this point.”
Suzlov had said little, and now all eyes were on him. He was a man who had risen to power on Party consensus, and in a sense, a decision on chemical warfare was not more or less important than any other requiring Party solidarity.
“We will come together again, Comrades. I want a full vote. It must be unanimous.”
“I can assure you, Mr. President—” began Chernko.
Suzlov interrupted. “That the comrades not here will concur? Are you so sure, Comrade? Personally I find your argument a strong one, but it must be unanimous from every STAVKA member. This, I insist, must be on record.” He looked at his watch and announced, “Given the urgency of the matter, Comrades, we will meet here again tomorrow evening — midnight. Waiting thirty hours will not scuttle your plan, Comrade,” Suzlov assured Chernko, “and it will give our other comrades time to attend. How long would it take to launch the gas attack if we give it unanimous approval?”
“Within the hour,” said Chernko. “Our frontline commanders are already on standby.”
