Arctic Front

“Where the hell are they coming from?” asked Norton, refusing to be drawn into any speculation about Freeman’s fitness for command. But his interjection was taken by the others as one that any duty-bound aide would have to make when his superior had his back against the wall. But if they thought that Freeman was venturing out alone to lick his wounds, they were wrong. As the general moved along the edge of the road, trucks rolling by him in the darkness, the drivers wearing infrared goggles and guided by MPs stamping their feet in the bitter cold as they kept a convoy of Second Army inching along wherever the road’s shoulder was too narrow, Freeman asked himself one question: Would he have replaced any commander who had experienced the defeats he had in the last few days? The answer was an unequivocal yes—if the commander had had sound intelligence about a possible sucker ploy. And “No,” if he hadn’t had reliable information of what the Siberians were up to.

For the remainder of his walk, hands behind his back, head down against the bitter cold, Freeman thought of his index files, of all the notes he’d made about all the possible campaigns he might be called upon to fight, just as Schwarzkopf had predicted and readied himself for a desert war. He recalled the history of the Russias, of the Transbaikal, which he had read as assiduously as the chronicles of Sherman and Grant; and he thought, too, of Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers on that unforgettable day in ‘91 when, before the game against Toronto, Ryan confessed to his coach, “My back hurts, my heel hurts, and I’ve been pounding Advil all day. I don’t feel good. I feel old today. Watch me.” They had watched him, and after he performed the miracle, he proclaimed, “I never had command of all three pitches like I did tonight… It was my most overpowering no-hitter.”

“By God,” Freeman told himself, “watch me, you bastards!” He walked for another half hour and on the way back to the G-2 hut availed himself of the MEF’s satellite hookup, ordering a call to the Pentagon on scrambler after which, without a word, he put down the phone and made his way back to the G-2.

In the intelligence hut the colonel in charge was alarmed when he saw Freeman, the ice crust on the general’s eyebrows making him appear particularly despondent and grim. The colonel rose, forcing a smile, being as cheery as you could be with a man who had just lost his wife and who was now in the blackest hole of his career.

“Coffee, sir?” asked a corporal.

“Potemkin!” said Freeman. Norton, who’d been hunched over a pile of SITREPS that chronicled the disastrous day’s action, pushed himself away from the fold-up desk and walked over to where the general, snowflakes now melting and dripping from his coat, was taking off his gloves, rubbing his hands vigorously, and nodding his thanks. He took the coffee, gratefully cupping it with both hands, letting the steam clear his sinuses. “Sibir. Know what it means, Colonel?” he asked the intelligence chief without taking his eyes off the laid-out satellite photos. “Sleeping land,” Freeman answered for him. “That’s what we’ve been doing. Goddamn sleepwalking. Well, I’ve had enough!” Other officers in the hut stopped what they were doing and watched him. “Potemkin,” repeated Freeman. “Prince in the time of Catherine the Great. Whenever he heard she was leaving the Winter Palace to have a look-see among her subjects, Potemkin would have fake villages built all along her route, neat facades, so she wouldn’t know what the real situation was.” He looked around at the assembled officers. “Fake tanks, gentlemen. Fake launch sites — all of ‘em.”

“But,” responded the intelligence colonel, “those cruise missiles they fired were real—”

“Yes, but not from there.” Freeman was using the monocle to circle the lake. “Not around Baikal. Or from the islands— too obvious. In it.”

It was said so calmly, matter-of-factly, yet almost casually, that for a second no one saw it, and when they did there were a few unsettling looks among the intelligence group. It wasn’t the first commander some of them had seen crack up. One of the junior officers laughed — perhaps it was the general’s idea of light relief.

“Ah, yes,” put in a major. “Only one problem with that, sir.” The officer was astounded that no one saw the objection; it was so obvious.

“The ice,” said Freeman, anticipating him, still looking at the photographs. “These photographs. Something bothered the about them earlier this evening.” The monocle was moving from one of the satellite photos to the amateur pictures reportedly taken by a member of the Jewish underground.”How thick is the ice on the lake?”

“Two to four feet,” shrugged the colonel.

“Exactly!” said Freeman. “And why is that?”

One of the junior officers toward the back turned to whisper to his colleague, “Because it’s friggin’ winter.”

Freeman surprised and alarmed the young lieutenant by having overheard the remark. As the general turned, the monocle caught a glint of light, giving him an unbalanced, even mad look even as he concurred. “Precisely, Lieutenant. Winter. But why does the ice cover vary? That’s the question.”

The monocle popped out into Von Freeman’s hand, and he garnered the men in closer. “Look here!” The monocle was tapping the photos again. “These amateur shots which you got from the Jewish underground. Fuzzy, bit out of focus.” And then he turned to the K-14 satellite pictures. These were much sharper, but they had one thing in common — apart from being in black and white. The monocle moved from the southwestern end near Port Baikal to the far north of the 390-mile-long lake. “Some of the ice is whiter-looking than the rest. The amateur shots, taken from the southern shore, show the same thing.” The officers crowding around the table saw the splotchy effect easily enough. “You said, Colonel,” continued Freeman, “that the ice thickness varies from two to four feet.”

“Yes, sir.” The colonel saw the general’s point. “That would explain why some areas are whiter, more dense, than others.”

“But why?” Freeman asked, and again answered his own question. “Spring water escaping from fissures in the bottom of the lake. Happens in all lakes, gentlemen. I’m something of an authority on ice.”

“Jesus!” the junior lieutenant said, but this time he spoke so softly that Freeman didn’t hear it.

“Met boys call it upwelling,” continued Freeman. “Common enough. Same thing happens at sea. Springs bubble up and spread out. Reflects the light differently.” Freeman let them wait. He wasn’t the most flamboyant general in the U.S. army for nothing. Substance, yes, but he knew the value of style. And this is where the training, the reading — the Patton-like attention to detail — paid off. “Subs,” he said. “They’re using subs, gentlemen. Lake is more than twice the size of the Grand Canyon. And deeper, over six thousand feet. They’ve been doing a Potemkin on us, gentlemen. Fake launch sites like fake tanks. We’ve been firing off cruise missiles at over a million bucks a pop for sweet fuck all. They’re imitating the nerpa!”

Norton thought it was the name of a ship.

“Seal!” explained Freeman. “I remember it because it was mentioned in the chronicles of Genghis Khan.” Freeman’s monocle slid southeast of Baikal.”Genghis Khan was born here. Ruled from Vladivostok to Moscow.” Freeman was shaking his head in admiration. “Magnificent son of a bitch. Then his descendants were swept out by the Cossacks. Cossack cavalry was like our M-1s — went through ‘em like crap through a goose. But even then the Mongols — they thought Baikal was holy — knew about the nerpa. Only freshwater seal in the world.”

The G-2 was looking across at Norton, visibly alarmed, the general’s rambling, seemingly unconnected soliloquy a symptom of crackup. But the G-2 officer was mistaken, and Norton knew they were in the midst of a Freeman brainstorm.

“For the life of me,” said Freeman, “while I was out there tonight walking I couldn’t understand why that damn seal was on my mind.” He turned to Norton. “Like the rivers, Dick. Kept at me. Soon as I heard our Tomahawks had hit their marks but the missiles kept coming. There was only one answer. Missiles were there but they weren’t. Submarines. But how could they transport something as big as a submarine to Baikal? And there’s no shipbuilding on Baikal. Nothing. Anyway you need an enormous infrastructure.” Freeman looked about his audience. “The nerpa seal, gentlemen.” The monocle in his right hand was tapping his temple. “The seal. Has to breathe. Spends its winter in the water using a dozen or so air holes — has to keep them open so he picks the thin ice. That’s how the subs do it, gentlemen. Pop up through the thin ice, fire, and go back down.” There was a stunned silence of admiration broken by Freeman. “Problem is, gentlemen, what to do?”

“Hit the ice?” said the junior lieutenant eagerly. “With our cruise missiles. Or have our subs launch ICBMs — conventional warheads.”

Freeman shook his head. “Thinking in the right direction, son, but you’re missing a few things. No good hitting the ice. Warhead explodes, expends all its energy on impact. Remember how far Baikal is from the coast, from here. We’ve been dropping them by air. From our subs — even one close to the coast— a cruise missile, travelling at five hundred miles per hour, even if it could reach the lake from the coast, which it can’t, would take hours. By that time their sub would be long gone from its firing position.”