by Ralph Peters
"Now, goddamnit, you intel guys had better find out just what's going on over there. We can't play guessing games when the nation's premier military formation is about to go into battle. You assured us that, and I quote, 'We have the most complete picture of the battlefield of any army in history.' " The chairman tapped his pen on the tabletop.
"And we do," Bouquette said. "This is only one single element. When the Seventh Cavalry enters combat, their on-board computers will even know how much fuel the enemy has in his tanks—"
"Mr. President?" the communications officer spoke up from the bank of consoles at the back of the room. "I've got Colonel Taylor, the Seventh Cavalry commander, coming in. He's back from his meeting with the Soviets. You said you wanted to talk to him when he returned, sir."
Taylor? Oh, yes, President Waters remembered, the colonel with the Halloween face. He had forgotten exactly what it was he wanted to talk to the man about. More reassurances. Are you ready? Really? You aren't going to let me down, are you? Waters could not explain it in so many words, but, in their brief exchanges, he had found this fright-mask colonel, with his blunt answers, far more reassuring than any of the Bouquettes of the world.
"Mr. President," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, leaning confidentially toward him, as though Taylor's face had already appeared on the monitors, as though the distant man were already listening in, "I don't think we should mention this Scrambler business to Colonel Taylor. Until we have a little more information. He's got enough on his mind."
President Waters spent the moment in which he should have been thinking in a state of blankness. Then he nodded his assent. Surely, the generals of the world knew what was best for the colonels of the world.
"All right," he said. "Put Colonel Taylor through."
* * *
Taylor did not want to talk to the President. Nor did he want to speak to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as much as he liked the old man. He did not want any communications now with anyone who might interfere with the operations plan that was rapidly being developed into an operations order for the commitment of his regiment. Besides, he was very tired. He had not yet taken his "wide-awakes," the pills that would keep a man alert and capable of fighting without sleep for up to five days without permanently damaging his health. He had hoped to steal a few hours of sleep before popping his pills, so that he would be in the best possible condition and have the longest possible stretch of combat capability in front of him. Now he sat wearily in the communications bubble in the bowels of an old Soviet warehouse, waiting.
Just let me fight, damnit, Taylor thought. There's nothing more to be done.
Sleep was out of the question now. By the time this nonsense was finished, it would be time to start the final command and staff meeting with the officers and key NCOs of the regiment. Then there would be countless last-minute things to do before the first M-100 lifted off.
"Colonel Taylor," he heard the voice in his earpiece. "I'm about to put you through to the President."
The central monitor in the communications panel fuzzed, then a superbly clear picture filled the screen. The President of the United States, looking slightly disheveled, elbows on a massive table.
The poor bastard looks tired, Taylor thought. Then he tried to perk himself up. His past exchanges with the President had taught him to be prepared for the most unexpected questions, and it was difficult not to be impatient with the President's naiveté. For Christ's sake, Taylor told himself, the man's the President of the United States. Don't forget it.
"Good morning, Mr. President."
For a moment, the President looked confused. Then he brightened and said, "Good evening, Colonel Taylor. I almost forgot our time difference. How is everything?"
"Fine, Mr. President."
"Everything's all right with the Soviets?"
"As good as we have any right to expect, sir."
"And your planning session? That went well, I take it?"
"Just fine, Mr. President."
"And you've got a good plan, then?"
Here it comes, Taylor thought.
"Yes, sir. I believe we have the best possible plan under the circumstances."
The President paused, considering.
"You're going to attack the enemy?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"And you're happy with the plan?"
Something in the man's tone of voice, or in his weariness of manner, suddenly painted the situation for Taylor. The President of the United States was not trying to interfere. He was simply asking for reassurance. The obviousness of it, as well as the unexpected quality, startled Taylor.
"Mr. President, no plan is ever perfect. And every plan begins to change the moment men start to implement it. But I harbor no doubts — none — about the plan we've just hammered out with the Soviets. As the combat commander on the ground, I would not want to change one single detail."
Taylor heard a laugh from the other end, but the sound was disembodied. The President's face remained earnest, worn beyond laughter. Then Taylor heard the unmistakable voice of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the background.
"Mr. President, Colonel Taylor's telling you not to fiddle around with his plan. We'll give him a lesson in manners once we get him back in-country, but for now I think we better do what he says." The chairman laughed again, almost a snort. "I know Colonel Taylor, and he's apt to just ignore us, anyway. Isn't that right, George?"
Thank you, Taylor thought, fully aware of the risk the chairman had just taken on his behalf, and of the cover he had provided. I owe you one.
"Well, I'm not certain I like the thought of being ignored," the President said seriously, but without malice. "However, I have no intention of interfering with the colonel's plan. I think I know my limitations."
If I live, Taylor thought, until election day, I just might vote for the poor bastard, after all.
"Colonel Taylor," the President said, "I'm just trying to understand what's going on. I'm not a soldier, and I seem to spend a great deal of time being confused by all this. For instance, these wonder machines of yours, these miracle weapons. No one has ever managed to explain to me in plain English just exactly what they're all about, how they work. Could you take the time to do that?" How, Taylor wondered, could you tell your president that you did not have time, that you had everything but time?
"You mean the M-l00s, Mr. President?"
"Yes, all that gadgetry the taxpayers bought you. What's it going to do for them?"
Taylor took a deep breath, searching for a starting point. "Mr. President, the first thing you notice about the M-100 is that it's probably the ugliest weapons system ever built." Taylor heard a background voice ordering that an illustration of the M-100 be called up. "The troops call it the flying frog. But, when you fly it, when you learn to fight out of it, it becomes very beautiful. It's squat, with a big belly to hold all the equipment and the fire team of dragoons — mounted infantrymen — in the back. It has tilt rotors mounted on stubby wings. It doesn't look like it could possibly get off the ground. But it does fly, Mr. President, and it flies very fast for a ship of its kind — or slow, when you want it to. Its electronics make it almost invisible to the enemy. He might see it with the naked eye, but our countermeasures suite — the electronics that attack his electronics and confuse him — is so versatile, so fast, and works on so many levels, that one of his systems might see nothing but empty sky, while another sees thousands of images His guided munitions will see dummy aircraft projected around the real one. But our target acquisition system— the gear we use to find him—has 'work-through technology Unless the Japanese have come up with a surprise, we should be able to look right through their electronic defenses.
"You see," Taylor continued, choosing his words from the professional history of a military generation, "we rarely fight with our own eyes anymore. It's a competition of electronics, attempting to delude each other on multiple levels, thousands of times in a single sec
ond. The Japanese taught us a lot, the hard way. But we think we've got them this time. Anyway, the revolution in the miniaturization of power components gives us a range of up to fourteen hundred nautical miles, one way, depending on our combat load. That's good for a bulky system that's really still more of a helicopter than anything else. But the best part of all is the primary weapons system itself. The Japanese surprised us with laser weaponry back in Africa. And they're still using it. But on-board lasers have more problems than were apparent back in Zaire. We didn't realize how dependent the Japanese were on recharging their systems, for instance. They were closely tethered to their support system and they could only fight short, sharp engagements. We took a different technological tack.
"Our main weapon is a 'gun' that fires electromagnetically accelerated projectiles. Just think of them as special bullets that use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder. These projectiles travel very, very fast, and when they strike their target, they hit with such force that they either shatter it or, at least, shatter everything inside it by concussion. There are several kinds of projectiles — the fire-control computer selects the right type automatically. One type is solid and can penetrate virtually anything. Another has two layers, the first of which detonates against the outside, igniting anything that will burn, while the hard inner core proceeds on through any known armor. The shock wave alone kills any enemy soldiers inside a vehicle, while rendering the vehicle itself useless. A tremendous advantage is that one M-100 can locate and destroy several hundred targets on a single mission. After that, the 'gun' needs to be recalibrated back at its support base, but it's still far more versatile, lethal, and survivable than the Japanese laser gunships."
"And the pilot's… just basically along for the ride?" the President said. "The M-100… does everything automatically?"
"It can do a great deal automatically. But the vehicle commander — the pilot — and his copilot/gunner still make the broad decisions. And the desperate ones that a machine still cannot think through. Ideally, you go in firing fully automatic, because the computers can identify and attack multiple targets in a matter of seconds. And the computer gets intelligence input directly from national-level systems. But it's still the man who decides what to do when the chips are down. For instance, the computer never decides when to land and employ the dragoons. It's a smart horse. But, in the end, it's still a horse."
Despite Taylor's best efforts, the President still looked slightly baffled. Then Waters spoke:
"Well, Colonel Taylor, while you've been filling me in, I've been watching some graphics your boss called up for me. Very impressive. Very impressive, indeed." His distant eyes seemed to search very hard for Taylor's. "Tell me, is it really going to work? In combat?"
"I hope so, Mr. President."
"And… you have enough… of these systems?"
Enough for what? You never had enough.
"Mr. President, I've got what my country could give, and we're going to do the best we can with it. I'm confident that we have sufficient combat power to accomplish the mission as foreseen by our current op-plan. Besides, there's more to the regiment than just the M-l00s. First, we have fine soldiers: superb, well-trained soldiers who are ready to believe in the job you sent them to do, even if they don't fully understand it. Without them, the M-100 is just an expensive pile of nuts and bolts." Taylor paused, as the mental images of countless men with whom he had served marched by — not just the soldiers of the Seventh, but faces remembered from half a dozen trials, as well as from the endless drudgery of peacetime garrisons. "Mr. President, I've got other equipment, as well. Magnificent electronic warfare gear… a battalion of heavy air-defense lasers to protect us while we're on the ground… wing-in-ground transporters that can haul my essentials in a single lift. And the Tenth Cav is giving me tremendous intelligence, electronic attack and deception support. But, in the end, it's going to come down to those soldiers down in the squadrons and troops. Are they tough enough? Are they sufficiently well-trained? Will they have the wherewithal to hold on longer than their adversaries? I think the answer is yes."
* * *
President Waters felt greater confidence than ever in this man with the ruined face and the firm voice. As a politician, he recognized that he had been a bit taken in by his own desire to believe that all would go well, coupled with the infectious persuasiveness of this colonel in the odd foreign uniform. He had been listening to exactly the sort of speech he wanted to hear, a speech in which the spoken words themselves were far less important than the manner in which they were spoken. Yet, this recognition of his own weakness did little to dilute the new confidence he felt. That, too, would slip away. But, for the moment, he felt that things might not go so badly after all.
He wondered if he should tell this hard-eyed colonel about the Scrambler business, to warn him, just in case there was something to it. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended against bringing up the matter. And, surely, these military people knew among themselves what was best for their own.
Still, the Scrambler business nagged at him. The instincts that had led him to the White House said, "Tell him. Right now."
The briefing room door opened, and John Miller poked his head inside.
"Excuse me. Mr. President, if we could clear the monitors for a moment, the sandwiches are here. And your salad."
President Waters nodded. But he held up his finger to the communications officer. Wait.
The President stared into the central monitor, where Colonel George Taylor's discolored face waited impassively, larger than life-size.
"Colonel Taylor," the President said, "we're going to blank the system out for just a moment. But I'd like you to stand by. We have an intelligence briefing coming up, and I'd like you to listen in. To ensure that we all have exactly the same picture of what's going on."
Waters thought that his logic sounded pretty good. But, in his heart, he knew that the intelligence update was only a pretext. He simply was not quite ready to release this man who had so much confidence to share.
* * *
When the monitor came back to life, Taylor saw the President with a forkful of lettuce in his right hand. The man looked surprised, and Taylor figured that the sudden reappearance of his face was not particularly good for anyone's appetite. The monitor system was superb — state of the art — and keyed to respond to certain registered voices, giving the effect of brisk, clean editing. But it had not been programmed to beautify its subjects.
"Colonel Taylor," the President said. "You're back with us. Good. We're just about to begin the intelligence update. It will probably mean more to you than to me." The President's eyes strayed from contact with the monitor, hunting more deeply into the briefing room. "Miss Fitzgerald?" he said.
Before Taylor could prepare himself, the monitor filled with a shot of Daisy, showing her from mid-thigh upward. For an instant it seemed as though their eyes made contact, then Taylor realized, thankfully, that it was merely an illusion. His face would no longer be on the monitor now. Only the intelligence briefer and the visual supports.
He relaxed slightly. Daisy. He had tried so hard not to think of her. There was too much to resolve, too much to fear — and he had far more important matters with which to occupy his mind. But, watching her now, as she went through the formalities of opening her portion of the briefing, he was struck by how weary she, too, looked, and by how much, and how helplessly, he loved her.
A map of the south-central Soviet Union replaced Daisy on the screen, while her voice oriented the President to the location of cities, mountains, and seas. She swiftly recapitulated the most significant developments, speaking in terms far simpler than those she had used when briefing Taylor on the developing situation in her office in the old CIA building in Langley, now property of the Unified Intelligence Agency that had been formed to eradicate interagency rivalry and parochialism in the wake of the African disaster and the unforeseen dimensions of the trade war with the J
apanese. Taylor smiled to himself. He remembered how her hair had been pinned up, as though in haste, and the visible smudge on the corner of her oversize glasses. She had not reacted to the sight of him with any special distaste. She had hardly reacted at all. He had been merely another obligation in the course of a frantic day. And he remembered the first remotely personal thing she had said to him, an hour into the briefing that had been scheduled to take up thirty minutes of her time: "Well," she had said, looking at him through those formidable glasses, "you certainly do your homework, Colonel. But I don't think you really understand the background of all this."
She was behind in her work. Far behind. And what she believed he needed to understand was not really classified, not of immediate importance. Perhaps they could put it off until another time?
Taylor had stared at her for a long, long moment, mustering his courage. Professionally, she was fierce, merciless. Yet, he imagined that he sensed something else about her too. Something he could not quite explain to himself. In the end, his voice shook as he offered her the sort of invitation he had not spoken in many years.
"Maybe… we could talk about it over dinner?"
She simply stared at him. And he felt himself shrinking inside. A foolish, foolish man. To imagine that even this plain girl with the loose strands of hair wandering down over her ears would, of her own volition, face him across a dinner table. Then, without warning, without giving him time to prepare himself for the shock, she said:
"Yes."
He was so surprised that he merely fumbled for words. Until she came to his aid:
"You might as well come over to my place. It's far more private than a restaurant. We can talk shop." She considered for a moment. "I'm not much of a cook, I'm afraid."
