by Ralph Peters
Zeederberg smiled, despite himself. He pictured some poor old sod of a night watchman in the Omsk yards when the enhanced conventional explosives started going off. Wake up, Ivan. There's a nice little cossack.
In a way, you had to pity the Russians. Although they had certainly made a cock up out of their country, Zeederberg would have felt more at home fighting on their side against the Iranian brown boys. Still, you took your shilling and did what you were told.
Old Jappers with a touch of nerves. And everything going so well. They wanted the Omsk site leveled. Completely.
What's the hurry? Looking at the overhead photos, Zeederberg had figured that, if only they were patient, the place would fall apart on its own.
Suddenly, the aircraft leapt up into the darkness, then dropped again, bouncing his stomach toward his throat.
"Sorry about that, sir," his copilot said. "We're entering a bit of broken country. Nasty bit of desert. I can take her up, if you like. Two hundred meters ought to more than do it."
"No. No, continue to fly nap-of-the-earth. We will regard this as a training flight. We shall make it have value."
Zeederberg snapped on his clear-image monitor, inspecting the digitally reconstructed landscape. Barren. Utterly worthless country.
His copilot glanced over at him. "Makes the Kalahari look like the Garden of Eden," he said.
It occurred to Zeederberg that men would fight over anything.
"We'll hit a sort of low veld to the north, sir," the copilot continued.
The navigator's voice came through the headset, unexpectedly nervous and alive. "I've lost Big Sister. I think we're being jammed."
"What are you talking about?" Zeederberg demanded. He hurriedly tried his communications set.
White noise.
"Any hostiles near our flight path?"
"Nothing registers," the weapons officer responded. "Looks like clear flying."
Probably the damned Iranians, Zeederberg decided. Jamming indiscriminately. "Keep your eyes open," he told the commanders of the eight other aircraft in his squadron, using a burst of superhigh power. "Minimize transmissions. Move directly for the target area. If we lose contact, each aircraft is responsible for carrying out the attack plan on its own."
The other aircraft acknowledged. It was a bit difficult to hear, but they possessed the best communications gear the Japanese had to give, and they were flying in a comparatively tight formation. The messages could just get through. But communicating with a distant headquarters was out of the question. The jammers, whomever they belonged to, were very powerful.
Zeederberg felt wide awake now, despite the heaviness of the predawn hour. The jamming had gotten his attention. The on-board systems read the interference as broadband — not specifically aimed at his flight. But you could never be too careful.
The mission was growing a bit more interesting than he had expected.
"Let's go with full countermeasures suites on," he told his copilot. "I want to isolate the target area as soon as we're within jamming range. And then let's do another target readout. See if they've got the digital sat links jammed too."
The copilot selected a low-horizon visual readout of the target area from a triangulation of Japanese reconnaissance satellites. The seam-frequency links still operated perfectly, making it clear that the hostile jamming was directed primarily at ground-force emitters.
At first glance, the imagery of the industrial park looked as dreary and uninteresting as it had the afternoon before, when Zeederberg had carried out his mission planning. Warehouses, gangways, mills, derelict fuel tanks.
"Wait" Zeederberg said. He punched a button to halt the flow of the imagery, sitting up as though he had just spotted a fine game bird. "Well, I'll be damned."
He stared at the imagery of the wing-in-ground tactical transport, trying to place it by type. The craft certainly was not of Soviet manufacture. He knew he had seen this type of WIG before, in some journal or systems recognition refresher training. But he could not quite put a designation to it.
"Ever seen one of those?" he asked his copilot.
"No, sir. I don't believe I have."
"And there's only one of them."
"That's all I can see."
"What the hell, though?" He had almost missed the ship. It was well camouflaged, with the sort of attenuated webbing that spread itself out from hidden pockets along the upper fuselage. The kind the Americans had pioneered.
"Christ almighty," Zeederberg said quietly. "That's American. It's bloody American."
There was a dead silence between the two men in the forward cockpit. Then the navigator offered his view through the intercom:
"Perhaps the Russians have decided to buy American."
Zeederberg was hurriedly calculating the time-distance factors remaining between his aircraft and their weapons release point.
"Well," he said slowly, figuring all the while, "they're about to find it a damned poor investment."
16
3 November 2020
Daisy stared wearily at her face in the washroom mirror, glad that Taylor could not see her now. Her unwashed hair was gathered back into a knot, exposing the full extent of the deterioration of her complexion. She always broke out when she was overtired and under stress. Washing her face had helped her regain her alertness, but it had certainly done nothing for her looks. Hurriedly, she tried to apply a bit of makeup. She had never been very good at it.
Everyone back in the situation room was jubilant. The President, who had campaigned on a platform that barely acknowledged the existence of the military, was like a child who had discovered a wonderful new toy. He had no end of questions now, and the assorted members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff crowded one another out of the way to answer them. Bouquette was in his glory. The intelligence picture had apparently been dead-on, and the initial reports and imagery from the combat zone made it clear that the operation was already a resounding success, even though the U.S. force was still fighting its way across the expanses of Central Asia. There was not a single report of an American combat loss at this point, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs kept returning to the intelligence workstation every few minutes to verify what he had just been told, unable to believe the extent of his good fortune. The chairman had repeatedly shaken Bouquette's hand, congratulating him on the intelligence preparation of the battlefield.
"Now that's the way intel's supposed to work," the chairman had said, smiling his old country-boy smile.
Bouquette, recently returned from a shower and a meal, his clean shirt a model of the purity of cotton, had drawn Daisy off to the side. Forgetting what a mess she looked, she had imagined that Bouquette was going to suggest some private victory party a bit later on. But he had only said:
"For God's sake, Daze, not a word about this Scrambler business. They're as happy as kids in a candy store. They've completely forgotten about it, and there's no point in causing the Agency any needless embarrassment."
For all of their trying, the assembled intelligence powers of the United States had been unable to come up with a single additional scrap of information about the Scramblers.
"It could still be important," Daisy said. "We still don't know."
Bouquette raised his voice. Slightly. Careful not to draw unwanted attention to their conversation.
"Not a word. Daze. Regard that as an order." He shook his head. "Don't be such an old maid, for God's sake. Everything's coming up roses."
And he turned his attention back to one of the National Security Council staffers, a female naval officer with a tight little ass squeezed into a tight little uniform. Perhaps, Daisy thought resentfully, the two of them could go sailing together.
The President had decided that he absolutely had to talk to Taylor in the middle of the battle, to congratulate him. Taylor's voice, in turn, made it clear that he definitely had more pressing matters to which to attend, but the President had been oblivious to the soldier's impatience. The thanks of a g
rateful nation…
Daisy had to leave the room. She hurried down the hallway, past the guards, to the ladies' room. The tears were already burning out of her eyes as she shoved her way in through the door.
They were all such fools, she told herself, inexplicably unable to be happy. She sat down in a stall and wept.
Something terrible within her, a hateful beast lurking inside her heart, insisted that all the celebrating in the situation room was unforgivably premature.
* * *
Noburu stared at the image on the oversize central screen, trying hard to maintain an impassive facial expression. All around him, staff officers shouted into receivers, called the latest shred of information across the room, or angrily demanded silence so that they could hear. Noburu had never seen his headquarters in such a state. Neither was he accustomed to the sort of picture that now taunted him from the main monitor.
It was a catastrophe. He was looking at a space relay image of the yards at Karaganda. The devastation was remarkable, and as he watched, secondary explosions continued to startle the eye. He had already reviewed the imagery from Tselinograd and Arkalyk, from the Kokchetav sector and Atbasar. Everywhere, the picture was the same. And no one knew exactly what had happened. There was no enemy to be found.
The first report of the debacle had come by an embarrassingly roundabout path. An enterprising lieutenant at Karaganda, unable to reach higher headquarters by any of the routine means, had gone to a local phone and called his old office in Tokyo with the initial report of an attack. Amazingly, the old-fashioned telephone call had gotten through where the latest communications means had failed, and the next thing Noburu knew he was being awakened by a call from the General Staff, asking him what on earth was going on in his theater of war.
It was a catastrophe, the extent of which was not yet clear to anyone. Especially to the poor Russians. Oh, they had pulled off a surprise all right. They had caught their tormentors sleeping — quite literally. The Russians had made a fight of it after all. But the poor fools had no idea what they had brought upon themselves.
He knew there would be another call from Tokyo. And he knew exactly what the voice on the other end would say.
I did not want this, Noburu told himself. God knows, I did not want this.
If only he could have foreseen it somehow. Prevented all this. He closed his eyes. The dream warrior had known, had tried to warn him. But he had grown too sophisticated to pay attention to such omens.
The spirit had known. But Noburu had not listened. And now it was too late. For everyone.
"Takahara," he barked, wounded beyond civility.
"Sir"
"Still nothing?"
Takahara was a cruel man. And, like all cruel men, embarrassment before a superior left him with the look of a frightened child.
"Sir. We still cannot find the enemy. We're trying… everything."
"Not good enough. Find them, Takahara. No matter what it takes."
It was time to be cruel now. In the hope that somehow he might still compensate, might prevent the unforgivable horror he knew was coming.
"Sir." Takahara looked terrified.
"And I want to talk to the commander of that bombing mission to the Omsk site."
Takahara flinched. "Sir. We have temporarily lost contact with mission Three-four-one."
"When? Do you mean they've been shot down? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Sir. We have no indication that the mission has been… lost. We simply have had no contact with them for some time. The interference in the electromagnetic spectrum has reached an unprecedented level…"
Noburu turned away. His anger was too great to allow him to look at the other man. It was more than anger. Fury.
Omsk. Why had he failed to trust his instincts? He had known that something was terribly wrong the minute Akiro had pointed out the heat source anomaly in the abandoned warehouses. Why had he waited to hit them?
No one had suspected that the Russians still possessed such a capability to strike back. Japanese intelligence had missed it entirely. And why had the Russians waited so long to employ these new means of destruction? Why hadn't they employed these superweapons — whatever they were — immediately? When it might still have made a difference?
It was too late now. All the Russians had done was to call down a vengeance upon themselves that would be the one thing future historians remembered about this war. The one thing with which his name might be associated in the history books.
It would have been better for the Russians if Japanese intelligence had detected their preparations. The Russian deception effort had been too skillful for their own good.
The shadow warrior had known all along. And now he was laughing.
"Takahara."
But there was no need to shout. When he turned, Noburu found that the colonel had never left his side.
"Sir."
"Assuming those aircraft have not been shot down… or have not for any reason aborted… when will the bombing mission reach Omsk?"
Takahara glanced over at the row of digital clocks on the side wall, where the staff officers could instantly compare the world's crucial time zones.
"Momentarily," Takahara said.
* * *
"Go out and track him down," Taylor snapped. "You tell Tango five-five I want to speak with him personally. Now. Out."
Taylor drew off his headset, ruined face betraying disgust. Meredith had been in the midst of a detailed coordination call with the Tenth Cav, whose jammers had no more time on station, when the rising irritation in Taylor's voice caught his attention. He finished up his business and turned to the old man.
"Reno again?"
Taylor nodded. "The bastard's down on the ground. God knows what he's up to. His comms NCO doesn't know of any problems. But I wish the sonofabitch would follow orders."
Meredith understood Taylor's frustration. Reno would have to do something colossally foolish before he could be disciplined — and even then the general's son would get off lightly.
"Don't let it get to you, sir," Meredith said. "Come on. We ought to be popping champagne corks. It's a great day. A historic day."
"Merry," Taylor said, looking at the intelligence officer in earnest, "it's not over yet. This is when it gets dangerous. With everybody patting themselves on the back and trying to calculate how long it's going to be until they can get back home and give mama a squeeze. It only takes a single mistake…"
It was one of the rare occasions when Meredith disagreed with Taylor. The old man worried too much sometimes. The system had worked even better than expected. They had virtually destroyed the enemy's ability to carry on the war in sector and not a single friendly loss had been recorded. The mission was entering its final stage and they were about to turn into the last leg of the flight that would take them to their follow-on assembly areas. It was a time for Taylor to feel vindicated, avenged. The man's entire adult life had been pointed toward this day. And now he was being a spoilsport.
Meredith decided to shut up. He was feeling good, and if Taylor chose to squander the moment, it was up to him. Turning back to monitor the intel feeds, Meredith smiled to himself and played at phrasing the lines he would one day inflict on his grandchildren:
"I was with Taylor in Central Asia. Yes, sir. Me and Colonel George Taylor and the Seventh Cavalry. I was his right-hand man, you know. Why, during the battle Taylor and I were no farther apart than we are, boys. His face looked as though it had been painted up for war, just like a tribal chief. But he was a good-hearted man, really. Oh you wouldn't call him cheerful. But he was always good to me. He and I went way back, of course. Why, we were thick as thieves…"
"What the hell are you so tickled about?" Taylor demanded. But When Meredith looked around to answer, he saw that the old man was only bemused by the intelligence officer's behavior. A faint, halfhearted smile had crept over Taylor's mouth.
"Nothing, really," Meredith said. "I was just thinking, sir."
"Maureen?"
"No," Meredith said honestly, picturing his wife with her china skin and autumn hair for the first time in hours. "No, I'm saving her for later."
Taylor turned businesslike again. "Let's give Manny a call and update him on the situation. Knowing him, he's probably feeling guilty as hell at missing the battle." Meredith asked one of the NCOs to pass him the earphones for the logistics net. He glanced at the list of call signs on the wall, then spoke evenly into the microphone: "Sierra seven-three, this is Sierra one-zero. Over." He used his S-2 suffix.
Nothing.
"Probably smoking and joking," Taylor said. "Use my call sign. That'll get their attention."
"Sierra seven-three, this is Sierra five-five, over."
The two men waited, smiling, for Manny's anxious voice.
Taylor shook his head, almost laughing. "You remember that time in Mexico, when—"
Meredith began frantically throwing switches. He had not been paying sufficient attention. Now he recognized the tones he was getting in the headset.
"What's wrong?" Taylor asked.
Meredith ignored him for a moment. He wanted to be sure. He called up a graphic depiction of the state of the electromagnetic spectrum to the north of their present position, roughly where Manny should be. Somewhere between Omsk and the follow-on assembly areas.
"Merry, what the hell's the matter?"
Meredith looked up from the console. "Heavy jamming up north. Not from our side. The parameters are all wrong. The bastards might have slipped something by us."
He commanded the ship's master computer to do a sort: identify any hostile changes in the sector to the north.
