Warshot

“I love you,” she said.

“You, too,” he said, kissing her quickly on the cheek.

It bothered her — oh, not that they’d had another row about his inability to accept the end of his flying career. They’d had any number of “discussions” on that subject. It was him asking her if she wanted any sugar. He knew she never took it — her determination to keep on her diet had been reinforced by the sweet things he told her about her body during their most intimate moments — his “Venus de Milo,” he had called her. Frank Shirer knew darn well that she never took sugar. He slipped his arm about her, pulling her closely to him, kissing her again on the cheek. Their fights had never ended like that — at least not so quickly. There’d always been a mini cold war before the thaw. He was up to something.

“Whatcha, mate?” asked Doolittle. It was the cockney’s way of inquiring how you were doing.

“Fine,” said Frank as they passed him on the way back to the ward. “Just fine.”

Lana felt increasingly anxious. Something wasn’t right. Suddenly she felt herself plunging into outright depression, brought on in part by the shock of realizing they’d be separated within the week. She’d never seen a transfer come through that fast. A week. The thought of being without him filled her with an ache of such longing she felt as empty as she had that night looking down on the Bund in Shanghai without any hope of escaping the pain. Her only consolation was that at least the war was over — the cease-fire intact.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Marshal Yesov had tired of the endless Mongolian vista of snow-covered pasturelands, unbroken except for the odd camel he could see from the train, and clumps of yurts—the circular, willow- framework-covered homes of the Mongols. An occasional curl of cow-dung smoke spiraled lazily up from the yurts’ toonos, or chimneys, whose flaps opened a little more as the sun rose higher over the cloudless Gobi, where night temperatures were still often minus twenty-five and below.

Yesov also had had enough of the bowls of yellowish, glutinous goats’ ears swimming in fat, delivered to him proudly by the Mongolians. As the train approached the Chinese border, Yesov noticed that patches of snow had already melted, revealing the yellow, caked earth which, blown up by the hot winds of summer, would form the great dust storms of the Gobi, which would sweep south over the Great Wall and on to Beijing, less than four hundred miles to the south. He would be glad to get his business done, and, though he wouldn’t admit it to the Chinese who met him at Erhlien, glad to be on Chinese soil, away from the inedible muck the Mongolians served up, and glad, too, to get away from smiling in fraternal friendship with the Mongolian comrades while having to drink their vile traditional cup of sour camel milk mixed with salt tea.

* * *

“Na zdorovye”—To your health! — said Marshal Yesov, gratefully raising his cup of Chinese tea. Unlike the Troe durokov—”Three Stooges,” the drunks who had bungled the attempted putsch against Gorbachev back in ‘91— Yesov preferred tea to alcohol, which he rarely consumed, though he had a great reputation for doing so. What he never told anyone was that whoever was attending bar at official functions in Novosibirsk was always warned by one of his aides, on pain of losing their job, that after the first vodka toast, his glass was to be filled with water. This enabled a sober Yesov to hear many things he would not have otherwise, and to be one step ahead of his competitors.

In response to his “Na zdorovye,” Yesov expected to hear, “Gan bei!”—Bottoms up! — the Chinese equivalent of the toast he’d just made to the fraternal friendship between Siberia and China. Instead General Cheng, still standing, not yet having removed either cap or coat, responded with a long-winded toast to the health and fraternal friendship of Marxist-Leninist principles.

Yesov grunted and drank the tea. The Chinese were paranoid about what had happened in the Soviet Union, particularly with the breakaway Siberian union, and were determined to prevent any such dissolution in China. Accordingly, Marshal Yesov couched his introductory remarks in terms of “consolidation,” as in the case of the Siberian union having annexed—”with Ulan Bator’s invitation”—Outer Mongolia. This could hardly be seen, Yesov pointed out with the first smile that had crossed his face in two weeks, as aggression on the part of the Siberian union. Far from a splitting up of constituent parts, it was, as he said, a consolidation of two historical cousins into “one.”

Cheng sat expressionless. Beijing had already protested the annexation of Outer Mongolia. He waited. There was a long, pained silence, Yesov finally offering cigars, “Cuban,” giving Cheng the chance to comment either way on his view of the annexation.

Cheng declined the cigar.

Seeing his opposite number clearly had no intention of exchanging pleasantries, Yesov now came directly to the point. “The Americans are up to no good. This cease-fire is in reality a time of frantic resupply for their imperialist forces.” Yesov leaned forward across the bare wooden table. “It is the American-Japanese alliance. We both know Japan covets your Manchuria. The Japanese have always done so. And now with the oil wells set aflame in the Middle East by the Muslim fundamentalists, Japan is frantic, comrade. Frantic! She imports ninety percent of her oil from the Middle East. Without that oil she is nothing. But your vast coal reserves in Manchuria—”

“And in Siberia,” put in Cheng suddenly.

“Yes — and those. Japan would like those, too, comrade. And the Americans are going to help her get them — and all the other raw materials you have in Manchuria. If you let them.”

Yesov pushed forward his cup for a refill, his gesture devoid of any sign that it was a request — more like a demand. A bluff, perhaps, thought Cheng.

“The only way for Freeman to defeat us, General — with his back to the sea — is for him to launch a preemptive flanking attack against us — a left hook, south, across the Amur, west through northeastern China and Mongolia, to come around behind us at Irkutsk, west of Lake Baikal. And soon — while the ground is still firm enough for their armor. Our intelligence confirms it.”

Still Cheng said nothing. He didn’t believe all Yesov said for a minute, but there was a half-truth in the Russian’s presentation that alone could quickly develop into a full-blown, ugly reality for China. No matter who started it, if fighting broke out again between the Siberians and Americans, the Siberians, in order to split the American forces between Lake Baikal and Khabarovsk, would need to launch a right hook from their eastern Mongolia, through China’s Inner Mongolia and up across the Black Dragon — which Cheng noticed the marshal had still called the Amur. Such a counterattack would mean Freeman’s forces would be split in two by the Siberian wedge coming out of Chinese territory. If Beijing permitted it. This was obviously what Yesov was here for: to come to an “understanding” so that the Chinese would permit, or rather turn a blind eye to, Siberian troops in transit on Chinese soil.

“Well then,” proffered Yesov, his attention moving from the water-swollen leaves of the aromatic green tea to the general’s impassive face. “If the Americans violated Chinese territory in attacking us, would you — would Beijing — have any objection to us sending forces up from Mongolia across the Amu — the river — to root them out?”

“If the Americans violate Chinese territory, they will be attacked immediately by the People’s Liberation Army, Marshal, but as to your request of transit for Siberian troops, I would have to ask Beijing.”

“Of course. When might we expect an answer?”

“In due course.”

“The matter is urgent, as I’m sure you realize, Comrade Cheng. Intelligence reports tell us American armor is already massing along the hump.”

“We will decide when we are ready, comrade.”

It was one of the Chinese characteristics that most infuriated Yesov — the refusal to give you a definite yes or no on the spot. Of course, it had been the same in the old days with Moscow. Everything had to go to ten different committees, no one taking responsibility until it was too late. It reminded him of the story about Mao being asked whether he thought the invention of the wheel had been a forward or backward step for China. Mao considered the question and replied, “Too early to tell.”

General Cheng rose, followed by Yesov. The meeting was over.