Warshot

trying to convince them Beijing started this crap on our southern sector.” Peering down over his reading glasses, he swept his hand over the midsection of the map. “ ‘Course, Yesov couldn’t spread himself too thin, either. Even if he had every division of his — he wouldn’t risk a four-hundred-mile-long front. Soon as the bad weather lifted, our TACAIR’d rip him to pieces.” The general took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose in his fatigue. “Then again, we can’t hold very much of it, either, having to move most of our forces south to help push the Chinks back.”

Norton experienced a surge of panic, instinctively looking around for any media types who might have somehow wandered through security from the briefing room, where even now chairs were scraping the Quonset hut floor as a “gaggle” of over 120 media “vultures,” as Freeman called them, from around the world were assembling. They were hungry for General Douglas Freeman’s latest assessment of, and explanation for, what the Chinese and others in the U.N. were calling “an unprovoked imperialist attack upon the People’s Republic of China,” and one that would be “severely punished by the People’s Liberation Army.”

“General,” urged Norton, “you’d better be careful what you say. If the La Roche papers got hold of something like that…”

Freeman was looking at him, amused. “What the hell’re you talking about?”

“ ‘Chinks,’ “ said Norton. “They get hold of something like that, General, and you’ll have every civil rights group from here to—”

“Ah, to hell with them. You know I don’t mean any disrespect toward the little yellow bastards. Damn good soldiers. Only color I care about is anyone who’s yellow inside.”

“I know that, General, but — well, you know what newspapers are like. I think we’d better stick to ‘ChiComs,’ “ Norton advised, pointing out that ironically it was the gutter press of the La Roche papers, who were the real racists, who would make such a big deal of such a slip.

La Roche’s tabloids were already talking about “swarms” of Chinese Communists attacking the American positions in the southwest corner of the Amur hump—”swarms” creating the none-too-subtle implication that the Americans were being attacked by subhumans. On the front, with American casualties mounting not because of the Chinese numbers, but because of their tenacity and skill, U. S. soldiers were already making their ironic comments on the La Roche reporters, telling sergeants they’d just shot “another swarm” when only one ChiCom fell.

“They’re all out there, sir!” It was the general’s briefing room aide, in charge of setting up the appropriate charts and maps.

Freeman turned away from Baikal, ran a comb through his gray shock of hair, put his forage cap on, square and center, and hitched his trousers a notch, careful to make sure his tunic waistband was over the nine-millimeter Parabellum with which he’d replaced the old Hi-Vel .22 automatic that he used to carry and sleep with beneath his pillow. He’d debated about replacing that Hi-Vel — he’d had it all through Europe and Korea, and it had become a kind of talisman — but he liked the Sig Sauer better, and anyway, he hated staying with anything because of superstition. Said it bred “lack of self-confidence.” Didn’t go with ball players not changing their underwear because they believed it brought them luck. “Hell, only reason they make another home run is because one whiff of ‘em’d knock any baseman off the bag.”

As the general and Norton stepped into the press room, Norton was momentarily blinded by the multiple explosions of flashbulbs amid the mass of mike-clutching reporters, already in a feeding frenzy over what the Chinese incursion meant and what wording the general was going to use and what Washington thought about the general and was it true that they were keeping him on a tight leash?

The general looked serious yet not grim, concerned but not stressed, the furrows in his brow as much a signal to those members of the press who already knew him that he, not the press corps, was going to set the agenda, and that the television klieg lights were too bright. He held his hands up for silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, before I take any questions, I wish to clarify an unfortunate error reported by some of you.”

“Who?” shouted one young reporter, a woman — midtwenties, good-looking, her red hair conspicuous in the glare, the strap of the Pentax camera slung about her neck bisecting her breastline, making her figure even more prominent as she lunged forward with a fishing-rod-like boom mike, her emerald-green eyes keen with the determination not to let her inexperience stand in her way. “Unfortunate error by whom, General?” she shouted.

Freeman wanted to say, “By the toilet newspapers of the La Roche chain,” but Norton’s cough by his side cautioned him from being specific, to remember what he himself had told Norton — that “vexatious reporters are the most venomous, vengeful bastards in the world.”

“It’s been reported,” Freeman began, “that our positions in the southwestern sector of the Amur hump have been attacked by ‘swarms’ of Chinese infantry. Now I’m here to tell you the Chinese have never attacked in swarms here, in Korea, or anywhere else. That was a myth concocted by overeager reporters trying to win brownie points with fat, unfit editors back home.” There were ripples of laughter, and Norton starting a coughing fit. “Chinese infantry,” Freeman proceeded, hands akimbo, “seldom attack above regimental level. And they attack well-defined targets— they don’t swarm over anything. Like any other army, the Chinese army—”

Norton coughed, whispering, “Don’t offend Taiwan.”

“… The Chinese Communists,” continued Freeman, “have never launched ‘hordes’ or ‘swarms,’ as one of your colleagues put it. That’s a bunch of coon — dirt.” There was more laughter. “And those stories about one in ten Chinese infantry being properly armed, the other nine yahooing and beating bamboo until they get a chance to pick up a dead man’s weapon, are a figment of some reporter’s imagination. Now, admittedly that might have occurred here and there in Korea, but not here. The People’s Liberation Army’s weapons are simple, highly reliable, and they’ve got plenty of ‘em. I can assure you we are not beating swarms — we are fighting highly trained ground troops on their own ground.”

“You mean you don’t think we can win? Another Vietnam?” Even some of the older reporters turned around, surprised by the redhead’s chutzpa, though most of them, Norton suspected, were drawn as much by her cleavage as she once again thrust the mike above her colleagues’ heads toward the general.

“Not at all,” replied Freeman icily. “What I’m saying is that the enemy is formidable but that I believe the American soldier can and will regain lost ground and—”

“But can we win, General?” The redhead’s mike was barely a foot from Freeman’s face, other reporters ducking out of the boom’s way. The general didn’t notice; he was reading a scribbled note, hastily passed from the duty officer to Norton and thence to the general.

“That’s all. Thank you,” he announced crisply, and was gone. The uproar from the media reminded Norton of rock and roll aficionados just informed of a no-show.

“Where?” demanded Freeman, whipping off his forage cap in the Ops room, throwing it down on the table before the map of Lake Baikal, the hum of computers and bursts of radio traffic stabbing in the background.

“Here,” said Norton, indicating a point just north of the southernmost end of the lake. His fingers slid farther along. “And here.” Then he tapped a third position farther north of the other two, and like them, on the western side of the lake.

“Estimated strength?” asked Freeman.

“Four, possibly six, divisions. Least a hundred thousand men,” the duty officer cut in. “G-2 suspects SPETS troops are the spearheads. Whatever the troop concentration, General — we’re looking at three breakthrough points.”

“Satellite-confirmed?” pressed Freeman. He wasn’t about to commit any reserves to possible feints by Yesov until, in the absence of aerial reconnaissance reports, he had confirmed visual sightings.

“Infrared-confirmed in each case, General. They’re moving east, all right. Straight toward our Three Corps at Port Baikal. No doubt about it.”

“Radio intercepts?”

“Nothing there, sir. Apparently Yesov’s got them moving by flag signal and sheathed land line. So we have no intercepts.”

“Now lookit, Jimmy,” Freeman replied, his eyes fixing his duty officer. “I don’t want another Skovorodino road trap here.” The duty officer was aware that there were no roads along most of the lake, but knew immediately what Freeman meant. Were they fake tanks — as they’d been at Skovorodino before the cease-fire — giving off infrared signatures in hopes of dummying Freeman into committing his revetted armor at Port Baikal to precisely the wrong places, leaving Port Baikal largely defenseless?