by David Poyer
The platoons formed up swiftly in the dark, on the yellow footprints they’d oriented on the first day they’d arrived. Their uniforms were stained with sand and mud, dark with wet. Some faces were bloody, some running with tears and snot. The Booger Squad formed up on the starboard side, toward the rear. The recruits stood trembling. The mustard-yellow lights glared down as a cold rain fell out of the dark, the wind blowing it across their ranks, stinging their faces.
A marine ran up, lugging a varnished platform with the eagle-and-globe insignia. Without glancing at it, the Senior stepped up. A woman brought a wireless microphone, while others positioned speakers. When the Senior flicked the mike with a finger, the snap echoed across the Grinder and off the barracks like the crack of a whip.
The rain blew harder as he lifted his head to stare out over them. “As you know, we are at war.”
Absolute silence reigned. Here and there a recruit wavered, sagged, then collapsed, and got dragged out of formation by a corpsman. But no one broke ranks.
“Many of you are undocumented immigrants. The Corps offered citizenship to anyone who joined the service, and completed a full term of enlistment.
“Congress has just passed an amendment to that legislation. Those who joined under that proviso are American citizens now, effective as of 0800 today.”
A couple of the other recruits glanced at him sideways. Hector panted, blinking rain and sand from his eyes. Shouldn’t he feel different? He was legal now. But he didn’t feel different.
“The Crucible is over,” the Senior went on. “Your recruit training is officially completed. You are now, all, Marines. Congratulations.”
He drew himself up to attention and came to a full salute.
“Atten-hut,” the DIs bellowed. “Pree-sent … harms.”
Hundreds of rifles snapped into position, compensators pointed up into the beginnings of a charcoal dawn. The Senior held his salute for three seconds, then broke it off like an icicle.
The DIs’ voices floated high in the misty dawn. “Orrr-der … harms.”
“Parrr-ade … rest.”
In a less formal tone, the Senior resumed: “The usual final parade and celebration are canceled. With the exception of those turned back for medical reasons, recruit training is over. You will proceed from here to the mess hall for the Warriors’ Breakfast. In two hours you will ship out for advanced training, or direct to units. You will have your seabags packed and be ready to embark by 0800.
“Dismissed.” Without looking, he handed the microphone off, stepped down, and strode away.
But “Booger Squad, stand fast,” Brady’s tenor sang out, before any of them could move a muscle. Around Hector, men and women froze. “Stand fast, boneheads! Before I see assholes and elbows. Single line!”
The rain started again as the DI stalked back and forth in front of them. “All right, you’re Marines. The Senior says so. So I guess that makes it true.
“But I’ll tell you a secret. A lot of you baa-baas wouldn’t have made it through in peacetime. We’d have flushed you, day one. You’re good enough to hold down a seat in the head. And that’s about all. A lot of you weak, slow, trusting fuckheads are gonna die out there.”
Ramos swayed. The words seemed to travel around his brain without making contact with anything, like a bullet circling the inside of his skull.
Brady snarled, “Look at fucking Bleckford here. He’s not smart. But you don’t need a degree in rocket science to be a combat Marine. It just takes two things. Discipline, and hate. So … Bleckford. You hate me, retard?”
The fat marine hesitated. Then growled, “Sir, yes, sir. I hate you, sir.”
Brady nodded and clapped his shoulder. “Good man.” Then moved on, to stop again in front of Hector. “But you know what? Ramos here, he’s different. He doesn’t hate Chinese. He doesn’t hate anybody.
“I don’t want to see you simple assholes coming home in body bags.” When Brady put a hand to his eyes it seemed to tremble slightly. Hector frowned, squinting, not believing what he was seeing. No. It had to be the rain.
“Forget your fucking religion,” Brady grated. “Forget your fucking families. Forget your fucking girlfriends, or boyfriends, or whatever you gay fuckers call your sweeties. Learn to hate. That don’t mean contempt. Don’t think the other guy’s stupid. Respect your fucking enemy, or he’ll win. Blind hate blinds you. But you’re gonna have to learn to kill.
“And you’re gonna stick together. Bring your buddies back. Don’t worry about anything else. Make sense of it later.” He raised his voice, to a scream. “Do you assholes understand? Excuse me: Do you Marines UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Yes, Drill Instructor!” they shouted, together, confused, cold, hungry, scared.
“Now get the fuck out of here!” Brady screamed.
Hector looked back over his shoulder as they scattered. The DI had turned away and was bent over, hands on his knees. Shuddering. Sucking slow deep breaths. Staring down as if at something beyond this world entirely. Maybe, at the rain, carving its endless rivers into the all-encompassing mud.
5
The White House
STRIDING across West Executive Drive on a cool windy day, trying her best not to limp, Blair Titus tapped her phone to take a call. “Titus.”
“Blair, Jessica. Got a sec?”
Jessica Kirschorn was her campaign manager. She was punk, pierced, and twentyish, her hair color changed by the week, but she understood the social media that drove campaigning these days. Especially when you were trying to win while holding down a job and a half advising on a war. Swerving to miss a cart laden with cleaning supplies, Blair caught an admiring glance from the man pushing it. “Yeah, whatcha got? Any news on the recount?”
“I’m in Annapolis, talking to the people about the state code, election law. The benchmark’s one-tenth of one percent of the turnout, to demand a recount. We’re within that. But there’s a question about the counting methods on optical scanners, if we’re the initiator.”
Blair clutched her coat against a gust that blew trash across the asphalt. Above her, elms whipped in the wind. The sky was an unfriendly gray. “Any advantage to getting Beiderbaum’s people to demand the recount?”
“Unfortunately, he’s the one who’s that inch ahead. If anybody’s going to request one, it’s got to be us. Are you—?”
“Hell yeah.” She headed for a white awning flanked by creepy dwarfed pines and blasted-looking, shriveled flowers in cast concrete planters. The West Wing entrance. “Um … what’s the tab? We’re getting pretty deep into my credit line here.”
“There’s a small enough margin you won’t have to pay. But there’s something else we’d better—”
“You think we can pick up enough votes to—?”
“Oh, there’s a chance, Blair. Just be aware, even if you come out ahead, there might be a legal challenge. But there’s also a—”
“Okay, whatever, we’ll deal with that down the road. Get on it.”
“Blair, wait. You have to—”
“What is it, Jessica? Please be quick. We’ve got a major crisis. I’m going into a meeting in the West Wing.”
Her manager seemed to be nerving herself. “Actually, Blair, you have to make a decision, pretty soon, about … when to concede.”
“About when to—? Why would I want to do that?”
”I mean, at some point, you’ll just look desperate. You know? And that could hurt you two years down the road, when this guy gets caught with his male intern or something, and it’s time to run again.”
“You’re saying I need to concede now, Jessica?”
“No! No, not right this minute. But”—the girl sounded close to weeping—“like, if the recount’s a fail—”
“Fuck,” Blair muttered. She tapped End Call, slipped the phone into her purse, and flashed her old Department of Defense ID to a Secret Service woman at the entrance. The card was out of date, but matched against the admission list for that morning, it go
t her in.
“We’ll need you to leave that phone at the desk, ma’am,” the agent called after her, and she turned back, cursing herself for forgetting protocol.
Inside the carpeted, low-ceilinged, quiet corridors, she hung her wrap and scarf, submitted to a briefcase check, and found a restroom. She reapplied powder and lipstick, then brushed her hair, pinning it to make sure the left side covered her ruined ear.
The woman in the mirror looked chalky. Worn. No longer as stunning as at thirty. But still, all in all, presentable enough.
She bent closer, staring into her own eyes. If she wasn’t going to be Congresswoman Titus … who the hell was she going to be?
Mrs. Admiral Dan Lenson?
“Concede, hell,” she told her reflection. “Fuck that.”
They’d have to drag her out of this race kicking and screaming.
* * *
THE meeting convened in the windowless, too-small Situation Room. There were six other principals, with their seconds seated along the walls, hugging briefcases. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Ricardo Petrarca Vincenzo, gave her a warm smile; they knew each other from her undersecretary days in the previous administration. Actually, she knew everyone around the table. A professor from Stanford, Dr. Dean Glancey. The current undersecretary of defense for plans and policy; another polite nod. A three-star general, Randall Faulcon: Ashaara, Afghanistan, Iraq, now deputy Pacific Command under Jim Yangerhans. And the new president’s press secretary.
And at the top of the rosewood table, inclining his head with a slight ingratiating smile: Blair, we meet again. The national security adviser was in a light gray suit and pale lavender tie. His hair was going platinum at the temples now. An American flag pin decorated his lapel, as usual. Behind professorial horn-rims his eyes were keen as a soaring osprey’s.
She’d faced off with Dr. Edward Szerenci before the war went hot, in the parking garage of the Russell Senate Office Building. He’d advocated a nuclear strike on China while the force balance was still favorable. But Blair had felt the time was past for preemptive nuclear war.
A rep from Central Intelligence opened. Blair had heard the worst news back at SAIC: the unanticipated North Korean breakthrough of the main line of resistance in Korea. They were facing not just a crisis, but possibly a disaster. A watch officer added an update on the fighting withdrawal of the U.S. Second Division and associated forces. “There’s no doubt the situation’s serious. However, the command hopes they can restabilize and hold farther south, as long as the Chinese don’t intervene. Thus far, Beijing’s limited themselves to supplying weapons, likely because Pyongyang wants to win on their own this time.”
“We’re discussing that at the highest level,” Szerenci put in. “So far, Tokyo’s letting us continue logistic support across the Korea Strait. But no telling for how much longer. And we have to be able to conduct a fighting withdrawal if Japan goes neutral. But there may be significant costs, trade-offs … well, we’ll get to that later.”
She shifted in the too-soft reclining chair. Her hip ached. She herself was representing neither her party nor Congress, but SAIC, where she was a vice president, Strategic Plans and Policy Division. The think tank had been tasked with gaming possible responses to aggression in the Far East. More quickly than anyone had dreamed, their worst imaginings had become dire realities.
The watch officer finished with casualty figures from Okinawa and Korea, and was dismissed with a flick of Szerenci’s manicured fingers. “I guess … we’ll hear from Ms. Titus next. What our civilian whizzes have brainstormed for a comeback strategy.”
She hoisted herself, careful not to wince as her hip poniarded her. “Dr. Szerenci, a pleasure to be here. General, Major General, Professor, the honorable Mr. Undersecretary. First slide, please.”
This showed comparative population statistics for the Opposed Powers versus the Allies. “As Dr. Szerenci said, we were tasked with looking one to three years out. Unfortunately, our options are limited. Obviously, we’re never going to conquer mainland China. Zhang has a huge demographic advantage. Specifically, almost two million more young men than young women—probably one driver for his expansionism. With his current beef-up of land forces, we’ll probably face an army of approximately fifteen million within a year.”
She paused to gauge their suddenly frozen expressions, then went on. “This second slide shows gross domestic product in dollar equivalents, with the red pie sections graphed to show defense sectors in the out years.”
Grimaces ringed the table. The chairman shook his head. “Can these numbers be right? Forty trillion dollars?”
“The numbers are from a Congressional Research Service study commissioned by the Senate Armed Services Committee. If it makes you feel better, think of it as buying back half the planet.”
Szerenci looked displeased. “This isn’t strategy. You were tasked to—”
“Resources drive strategy, Doctor. Otherwise, you’re talking hallucination. Overreach. And finally, catastrophe. Strat Plans focused on where and how we could seize the initiative again, and sustain that effort to end the conflict on acceptable terms.”
The professor bobbled his head. “Acceptable to us, or to both sides?”
She said, “Excellent question, Dr. Glancey. To both, I would hope.”
“Because this has never been done before. War termination between nuclear states—this is unexplored territory,” Glancey observed.
“Then we’ve got a chance to draw the maps.” She smiled professionally and strolled back and forth, trying not to limp. Unwise, in a room full of wolves. “Given those facts, how do we come back?
“What Zhang is calling the People’s Empire has significant disadvantages. Limited energy supplies, internal stresses, restive minorities, and the fact that it’s essentially a racially based hegemony, like Nazism. Unlike democracy or communism, it offers little ideologically to attract outside adherents. Thus, as it expands, it must expend more and more energy to prevent revolts among captive populations.
“Zhang also has to police his own people as shortages grow, casualties mount, fear builds, and food supplies drop. The Hong Kong shootings are a warning to the rest of the country. Geography forces China to expand radially, but each outward step doubles its problems.
“This early in the war, then, perhaps we should even let them expand, especially into areas which require supply by sea, while we work to weaken China from within. Our submarine forces are still superior technologically. General, any reports from SubPac on exchange ratios?”
“Early reports are three to one,” Faulcon said. “Our force levels are still building as we rebalance. But mines are taking a heavier toll than we expected. On the bright side, we’ve destroyed half their submarine-launched deterrent. The rest have returned to port.”
“Those are the missiles we reported being offloaded onto mobile transporter-erector-launchers,” the intelligence officer put in. “Basically, they’re giving up on the sea-based leg of the triad.”
“And despite his threats against the continental United States, Zhang hasn’t launched one warhead against U.S. territory,” Szerenci observed. “Of course, we took out the two subs he had deployed to the Arctic, hours after he hit the Roosevelt battle group.”
The first she’d heard of that. She filed it to think about later. “All right, let’s say they succeed in occupying most of the inner island ring. Perhaps we can retain toeholds in Korea and Okinawa, if the Japanese let us reinforce and resupply.
“But we begin the bleeding process. We maintain the blockade, and begin fracking at every fissure point we can find or create within China. Next slide.” She nodded and it came up. This should please Szerenci. “The graph compares our estimates of wartime production of the two alliances, based on energy and raw materials availability. As you can see, production by the Opposed Powers peaks six months from now. Then it falls as their stockpiles of metals, oil, and foodstuffs dwindle. Meanwhile, allied production ramps up. Th
e year after, our production doubles theirs. The year after, quadruples it.
“A strike at the mainland would remind Zhang he has to keep most of his forces at home. The way Doolittle did, attacking Tokyo. Then, we penetrate the inner ring at one of several possible points. Finally, we threaten the homeland. At that juncture, in all likelihood, we can expect Zhang to fall.”
Silence around the table. “And if he doesn’t?” the press secretary said at last.
“We locate a broker, offer terms, arrive at some face-saving modus vivendi,” Dr. Glancey said tentatively, glancing at Blair. “Was that your thinking?”
“That lies down the road, Professor. Most likely, the army will overthrow him before then.”
The intelligence director smiled. “Perhaps we can find a Colonel Stauffenberg somewhere.” The staffers tittered. One bent to peer under the table.
Blair strolled back toward her chair, but didn’t sit. She debated how to present her next point. Finally said, “There’s something else we need to be aware of. A significant element, both in the American public and in Congress, may be open to some form of negotiated peace, rather than fighting on.”
Faulcon frowned. “After the loss of a battle group? I don’t think so.”
She said soberly, “You might be surprised, General.”
“Not in our party,” Szerenci drawled. His lifted eyebrows intimated volumes. “In yours, perhaps?”
She shrugged. “The source doesn’t matter. But whatever strategy we adopt, we have to keep this war contained. Above all, keep it from escalating.”
