“I’ve already thought of that one, sir. No, sir, it’s the real thing, all right. Infrared images were
“Flashlights can move. How about our ground sensors?”
“Got that one covered, too, General. Snow muffles the sensors all right, so nothing registered for a while. But then Port Baikal started registering definite shakes — horizontal movement — mile-and-a-half-advance rumble. They’re main battle tanks, sir — they’re not driving fake tanks around on truck chassis, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” The duty officer turned and snatched up a SITREP sheet, saving the best evidence for last. “Besides, one of our patrols out of Port Baikal, halfway down to Kultuk at the southern end of the lake, got an LAW round off. He was up a tree, General — literally. Put his shot right through the tank’s cupola. Said the thing went up like the Fourth of July. Kept rolling — couple of Siberians tried to get out. On fire when they hit the snow.”
“And our patrol?” inquired Freeman.
“Not so good, General. Three confirmed dead — two missing — but the other four got back to Port Baikal.”
Freeman was nodding, looking worriedly at the map, the three points, fifty miles apart, now marked with red circles — a large S inside of each. A 150-mile-long front. “How did our patrol get back so fast? Ahead of the Siberian tanks?”
“They used four Arrows.”
Freeman nodded. The Arrows weren’t the Israeli antimissile missiles, but the small snow vehicles that young David Brentwood and his SAS/Delta commando team had used to go across the lake before the cease-fire to take out the midget sub pens at Port Baikal.
“We, gentlemen,” said Freeman, looking from the duty officer to Norton and back, “are in a fix. If we recall any of our troops we’ve ordered south against the ChiComs, the ChiComs’ll punch an even bigger hole through our southern flank. But if I don’t stop this Siberian triple play”—his knuckle rapped the middle of the three red circles marking the 150-mile-wide Siberian offensive—”our boys’ll have to hightail it across that ice — leave all our heavy equipment behind if they’re to make it in time.” He dismissed the idea of such a retreat as quickly as it had occurred to him. It was die worst-case scenario. “Any sign of the weather clearing?”
“ ‘Fraid not, General,” answered the duty officer, showing him the isobar printout from Harvey Simmet, the senior met officer. “It’s warming, but that’s only going to mean more fog, and they’re only miles from our boys on the lake. Even if we call in TACAIR now that we more or less know their positions, our A-10s are gonna have one hell of a time with IFF.” He meant identifying friend or foe.
Freeman knew the duty officer was right and recalled that even in the relatively unlimited visibility of Operation Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf had lost over twenty percent of those killed in action to “friendly fire,” these so-called “fratricidal” casualties ten times higher than in any military action in the twentieth century, including World War Two and Vietnam. “That cunning bastard Yesov,” said Freeman, facing the map, “knows damn well we can’t use TACAIR when he’s so close. And you know why he’s so close?” Freeman turned around, eyes bright with anger. “Because those fairies back in Washington insisted on a
Already Norton was seeing the general’s plan, and not for the first time was filled with admiration at the sheer speed of Freeman’s analysis. This wasn’t grace under pressure — it was brilliance. “Right,” said Norton, “and when they pivot, their armor will have to come out onto the ice—”
“And so will their southern arm,” said Freeman. “S-Three. They’ll try to pincer us, box us in, with their triple play — their armor coming at us through the taiga west of the lake, down from the north on the ice, and up from the south on the ice.” Freeman was smiling at Norton. “The
Freeman was positively beaming. Striding to the huge wall map, he took the Day-Glo marker pen and drew a crimson slash line from the Siberian mid, or S-Two, position, east across the lake, drawing another line parallel to it east across the lake from the S-Three position farther south. “Those tramtracks are our corridor, gentlemen. Fifty miles wide south to north on our front, twenty miles deep west to east from Port Baikal to the lake’s eastern shore. Now Dick, I want volunteers to lay the flare lines for the corridor a mile or so out from the western edge of the lake. Then once that’s done, tell the TACAIR boys to hit anything outside the corridor.”
Now the duty officer was starting to see it. The flares would mark the outer limits of the American defense — any Siberian tanks north or south that ventured out onto the ice, attempting to encircle and cut off the Americans from the far eastern shore in a pincer movement, would have to forego the formidable protection of the dense taiga. Even in heavy fog their infrared signatures would be more easily picked up on the completely uncluttered background of the ice. It would be a killing ground for the A-10 Thunderbolts’ thirty-millimeter guns, a killing ground that would be as devastating for the Siberians as the Basra road had been for die fleeing Iraqi armor. Just as the Republican Guards’ tanks had broken out from their underground shelters to do battle, only to be slaughtered in the open, the Siberian tanks would be doomed the moment they emerged from the thick cover of shoreline taiga.
Convinced he was approaching the crowning moment of his career, Freeman tried but simply could not contain his excitement, knowing that snatching victory from such an apparently massive defeat would astonish the world and forever place him in the annals of warfare.
Meanwhile, as the babushka and her husband were driven west of the lake toward Podkamennaya township, General Minsky’s regiment sat still, including the BMPs which, though stationary, were still churning out thick, white smoke into the already thick whiteness of the blizzard. Waiting.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As if the lineup outside the doctor’s office at the Dutch Harbor hospital wasn’t creating enough pressure on the new young ophthalmologist, no one could find the pointer he’d brought with him to use for the Snellen eye chart. It was a small detail, but it flustered him, as more and more it seemed he was losing control of the situation just when he wanted to be most impressive in the wounded veterans’ sight. And to top it off, an obstreperous patient — a limey by his accent — was loudly complaining outside the doctor’s office. “ ‘Ere, what’s the bloody ‘oldup, then? ‘Aven’t got all bloody week ‘ave we?”
“You know the army,” commented another patient. “Hurry up and wait!”
“Well,” said Doolittle, “we ain’t in the bloody army, are we? This is the senior bloody service.”
“Would you behave yourself!” It was “Mother Attila,” the head nurse, Doolittle’s fellow Britisher assigned to the Allied naval hospital. She was big and heavy, her trajectory so unpredictable they had begun to call her “Scud.” “I’ll put you on report,” she threatened the cockney.
“Oh dear!” retorted Doolittle insolently. “Terrified I am, that’s wot. Bloody terrified!”
She was taking out her pen when the ophthalmologist, red-faced and harassed, appeared at the door. “Nurse, you haven’t seen my pointer, have you?”
“In your trousers, mate!” said the cockney.
There was a roar of laughter from the queue, the doctor’s head withdrawing quickly to his examination room, and Doolittle now definitely on the Scud’s report.
Even more flustered now, the young ophthalmologist smiled apologetically at Shirer, who, during Doolittle’s diversionary play, had been sitting patiently in the hard-seated examination chair. “Can’t seem to find my occluder — sight blocker. Well, just place your hand over one eye.”
“Fine,” said Frank. “Which line?”
“Wha — uh, any line.”
“Read it all?” said Frank, feigning surprise, and was reciting it by heart when he had a moment of inspiration, hesitated, then said, “Last letter, fourth line — bit blurry— an E or an F.”
