Force of Arms

Andrea felt Rosemary’s silence. It filled the car like a funereal dream. “Rosemary, honey, you have got to relax for your sake and the baby’s. Lighten up. You should have bought that dress I showed you — the maroon. That’d look terrific on you.”

“I’m afraid buying things — clothes — doesn’t perk me up like I assume it does most women.”

Now it was Andrea’s turn to be appalled. “Rosemary, that’s downright unhealthy. I can see I’ve got my work cut out with you.”

“Oh please don’t bother. I’m sorry I’ve been such a drag today. I just feel—”

“Blah!” Andrea said, tapping Rosemary’s knee. “I know — believe me. Everyone expects you to be mad with joy over the coming event. Lordy, I felt like — what I mean is, everyone expects you to be on cloud nine. Wasn’t with me.”

“It wasn’t?” Rosemary inquired, a sudden hope in her tone.

“No way. When I was due I was ready to go out and play in traffic. Thought I was gonna die and the young Eddie with me. And then before I knew it they had me in an ambulance, sirens blaring so’s to let everyone know I was about to drop one — Lord, I hate those sirens. Anyway, oat popped Eddie. Ugliest thing you ever saw — all bumps and angles and face all flushed and bloody like one of those drunks on skid row. I was not a happy camper. Anyway, pretty soon I started feeling more myself again and now Eddie’s my darlin’. Wouldn’t trade him for anything.”

“So you never had any postpartum blues?” Rosemary asked.

“Oh yes, ma’am. For about three months — sat in the living room in the dark.”

“What did — I mean, if it isn’t a rude question — what did your husband do?”

“Do? I think he did it by himself — a lot.”

“Did — oh, oh!” Rosemary was beet red again. “I meant now did he take it?”

“Pretty good for the first two weeks, then he told me to get off my butt and stop embarrassing the hell out of him. Said it could ruin his promotion from XO to skipper — you know, nutty wife, undue strain on the family. So—” Andrea gave a truck coming too near a blast. “Those guys think they own the road.”

“So you got over it?”

“I sure did. Course I did a lot of shopping. Got me out of the house.” She winked at Rosemary. “He didn’t like that much but what could he say?”

For the first time that morning, Rosemary visibly relaxed. She’d found a friend — rough at the edges but someone who, unlike many officers’ wives, wasn’t afraid to say she’d been afraid of having her first child. Someone she could talk to.

“Don’t you fret, Rosie,” Andrea said. “I’ll stick by you.”

“Oh, that is nice of you, Andrea. I confess to you I’m terrified of all the pushing and — is it, I mean is it as bad as it looks on all those documentaries?”

“Worse,” said Andrea matter-of-factly. “Now get this. Eddie — Eddie Senior — took a video of it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. What the hell for I’ll never know—’less he was going to send it to ‘America’s Funniest Videos.’ I was cussin’ to beat the band. Then you know what?”

Rosemary really couldn’t imagine. “What?”

“Eddie’s mom — old battle-ax — saw it and said it was too bad Andrea couldn’t keep control— ’control’! She meant me cussing — old bitch.”

When they got back to the house the sun was shining brilliantly and the water had the oily sheen of a calm. Rosemary tried to adopt its pacific mood, but at the gate the guards kept them a long time verifying ID — which was ridiculous, Andrea said, because they knew her by sight. She didn’t say anything more to Rosemary, however, because she figured from the mood of the guards and their insisting that she open the trunk, something had happened while they were away. She quickly thwarted any fear Rosemary might have by commenting, “Well it’s nice to know our boys are on the ball.”

“Yes,” Rosemary agreed. “It’s reassuring.”

“Uh-huh,” Andrea said, watching the guard in the rear-view mirror. “If he doesn’t close that soon all my frozen stuff’ll turn to mush.”

They were going over it with some kind of detector.

* * *

“That sabotage near Tomortei,” Freeman asked before going to bed, standing resplendent in a patchwork silk robe of vibrant squares, each one emblazoned with the logo of an American football team. “Any reaction from the Chinese?”

“Internal, sir. Intelligence has heard murmurs of a punishment detail — three tracks near Huade — but nothing on the trace. The truce is holding, General.”

“Yes,” Freeman answered, “for the present.”

“Harvey Simmet was right, General. There’s a typhoon on the way — miles across. Ground’ll be mush. Cheng won’t be able to move his T-55s or T-72s for long.”

“All right,” Freeman answered, “but keep the trace reports coming in. We’ll be without SATREP until that typhoon has passed us. Once it starts to rain—”

“Yes, sir. We’ll keep our eye on it. Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Inside the small eight-by-four room of the headquarters Quonset hut, the general went through his nightly ritual. He kneeled, his West Point ring pressing hard against his forehead as he prayed that he might “vanquish my enemies and uphold the freedom and honor of the United States,” got up, broke open his pump-action Remington 1200 shotgun, checking the double 0-load, closed it, and leaned it up beside his bed and checked the Sig Sauer 9mm Parabellum beneath his pillow. There had already been two attempts on his life.

In bed he took up his copy of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which he kept by his Bible that he always read before going to bed, liking best the part wherein an army was described as having to be like a river having to adapt its course as it comes across the opposition, the kind of measure that always separated out those who had initiative from those who did not. It reminded him of Douglas MacArthur’s strategy in the Pacific where MacArthur had simply bypassed several strongly held Japanese islands and attacked others, cutting off the ones he left behind from all supply. Next he put one of, the earphones from his Walkman on, letting the other one lie on the sheet so that one ear could always hear the alarm on the shelf above his bed. On the tape he heard the voice of John F. Kennedy awarding Churchill honorary citizenship of the United States, talking about how Churchill had “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

“Best damn speech he ever made,” the general murmured, and turned a page of The Art of War, as he did every night, like an athlete always in training, to remind himself of that which could rob you of victory — of how the simplest lack of vigilance could have dire consequences— that one must never underestimate the opposition.

At that moment ten Chinese divisions, 150,000 men, set their sights on the desert around Orgon Tal, the division equipped with East Wind hovercrafts. Sand, mud, or water — it didn’t matter — the hovercrafts could attack at over ninety kilometers per hour.

Freeman could hear the rain drumming sonorously on the metallic roof, it making him feel warm and safe just as it did when he was a child in Missouri. But how much rain would mere be? Freeman lifted his phone.

“Duty Officer Burns, sir.”

“Burns, get Harvey Simmet up here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“On the double, Burns.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Tashi delag,” the Tibetan said, smiling, his earflaps giving him a slightly comical look.