'I don't understand it,' Kozlov said honestly. 'I spoke with General Ivanov himself… with the Sian… and they all assured me…'
'We've got the right grids,' Meredith declared. 'This is the place.'
Kozlov watched the parade of expressions crossing the American commander's face: disgust, then hard concern, a brief retreat into disappointment, followed by a return to the stony look Taylor usually wore.
'Shit,' Taylor said.
The operations compartment went silent. each man thinking the problem through for himself. The air turbulence rolled the deck beneath their boots, while automated systems flashed and pinged softly. The filtration system simply recycled old odors.
Kozlov felt ashamed. More and more, he felt committed to these Americans, these warriors who were ready to carry on a fight not entirely their own, despite the morbid cost. The Americans had spirit, above all, even in their black and weary moments. And spirit was a thing that had long been in short supply in his country. The spirit had been battered, tormented, starved, and dulled out of his fellow countrymen. Inheritors of failure, his people had forgotten how to hope, and hope was at least as necessary to the health of the human animal as were vitamins.
Still, he had kept his pride. Through it all. The pride of being Russian, even in the sharpest hour of adversity. But now… it seemed as though his country had conspired yet again to humiliate him, to shame him. The military machine to which he had given the whole of his adult life could not even deliver the fuel with which other men might carry on Great Russia's war.
So many lies, half-truths, promises forgotten as soon as they were spoken. Why hadn't General Ivanov been honest this one time?
Perhaps it was simply incompetence. Perhaps, even with the best will, the fuelers could not reach the designated site on time.
''It could be,' Kozlov said hopefully, 'that there has only been a delay. Because of the war. Perhaps the fuel carriers are coming soon.'
Taylor turned cold eyes in Kozlov's direction. All of the other Americans crammed into the small compartment followed Taylor's gaze. Then the American colonel broke off the stare and turned to his black subordinate and the white operations captain.
'We're going to have to put down,' Taylor said. 'Hank, call the other birds. We'll go to ground and wait. All we're doing up here is burning fuel.'
'Yes, sir,' the captain said. Kozlov glanced again at the man's name tape: PARKER. They had been introduced the night before. But there were so many new names to remember. Ryder, for instance, the scared young man with the briefcase, sitting quietly at the back of the compartment. And there were so many unfamiliar details. It occurred to Kozlov that the cardinal feeling of men at war was not fear or excitement, neither cowardice nor courage, but simply weariness. It seemed to him that he had been tired for as long as he could remember. Perhaps that was why commanders were able to drive their men to achieve results at such suicidal costs: the men simply grew too tired to care what became of them.
'I want good dispersion on the ground,' Taylor said. 'The refuelers can shuttle around when they get here. And everybody deploys their camouflage before they so much as take a piss.'
'Just the autocamouflage?' Meredith asked.
Taylor pursed his lips, then agreed. 'Yeah. It's a tradeoff. But we need to be ready to move fast. And let's put these babies down a few clicks to the south so we don't have those fat boys coming in right on top of us. We'll guide them to the birds after we get them under positive control.'
The captain named Parker was already transmitting orders to the troop of five M-l00s accompanying the American commander on his raid. They were marvelous fighting machines. Kozlov knew he should be making more of an effort to note the details of their operation so he would be able to file a complete report upon his return. But he was just so tired.
Colonel Taylor turned his back and squeezed into the passageway that led forward to the pilot's cabin. Kozlov was relieved, both because of the temporary respite from further questions and embarrassments, and because he still found it hard to look at the man. The stress of the past few days had etched the remnants of disease ever more deeply into the American's skin, further exaggerating his deformity, until Taylor reminded Kozlov of a devil.
Muffled engines shrieked beyond the walls of the control compartment and the fighting machine began its descent toward the Russian earth.
The wind blew from the south, but it was cold. Racing down from the high Iranian desert, then chilling itself as it skimmed over the Caspian Sea, the wind struck land with a force that narrowed the eyes. The M-l00s were so well stabilized that you did not get a proper sense of the intensity of the gusts when you were inside. But here, where the dead, colorless grass stretched from horizon to horizon, there was nothing to interfere with the wind's progress. It was a worthless, defenseless place, no matter which way you pointed yourself.
Taylor looked at his watch, then looked at the sky.
Nothing.
The afternoon continued to wither.
He could not bear the thought that it might end like this. After all the years of longing for a chance to strike back at the enemy who always lurked behind his country's enemies. After the fighting and the losses, the frantic planning and the experience of seeing a president backed against the wall, it was unbearable to think that it would all simply sputter out in a wasteland, for want of fuel.
He knew this would be the end, and he could not understand why none of the others seemed to grasp it. A failure now, on this day, in this place, would settle the order of the world for a generation. Or longer. His country would withdraw into its tattered hemisphere, and the Japanese would get what they had wanted for so long.
He tried to keep his personal prejudices out of the equation. But it was very hard. He
He took off his helmet, and the wind pried at his matted hair. He thought of Daisy and smiled bitterly. He could not believe he had been so foolish as to imagine that there was anything real there. No woman, no matter her tarnish, was about to bind her life to his. No, he was good for one thing and one thing only: soldiering. The rest of it was an idle dream.
Surely, it could not end here. When they had come so close. He scanned the empty sky.
A voice feinted at his ear before the wind carried it off. He turned. Merry Meredith was coming toward him. Behind the intelligence officer, the M-100 merely looked like a natural blemish on the landscape. The automatic camouflage system had unfolded its fans, and the sensors read the tones of the earth, coloring the upper plates to match. The system was effective in every environment except snow. The plates could not go white and had to compromise on a mottled gray. But here, where the withered steppe remained naked to the wind, the camouflage worked magically. An enemy would have needed to know exactly where to look to find him and his men.
All this. The technology and the trying. The magic. And the sacrifice. Surely, it could not just end like this.
Meredith closed the distance. His skin was taut with cold, but his eyes had the old fire.
'Sir?' Meredith asked.
'What's up, Merry?'
'I've got an idea. Maybe you won't like it. But it's all I can come up with.'
'About what?'
'The mission. There's a way we can still do it. Without the extra fuel.'
'Well, given that we don't have enough fuel to hit Baku and make it back to secure Soviet territory…'
'Given,' Taylor agreed.
'Okay. Then where else could we go? After we hit Baku?'
Taylor looked questioningly at the younger man. Meredith's expression was that of an excited boy.
'What about Turkey?' the S-2 asked. 'Okay, we don't have the legs to get back. So we just keep going. I've calculated the distance. We can just barely make it. Head
