Designated Targets

MacArthur had to squeeze his eyes shut and fight the urge to bellow down the phone. “Prime Minister, with all due respect, I have to disagree. The Japanese have spent themselves in front of the Line. They’ve collapsed, and that part of our operation is effectively complete. I don’t see how it can have any effect on what Jones or Toohey are planning. However, I am your servant, as always, in these matters. And if that is your wish, then so be it.”

His rage was so great that he had passed beyond the point of mere anger and into a strange calm place, where everything was devoid of color and utterly flat. His voice didn’t shake at all as he spoke.

Curtin probably understood him better than did his own commander in chief. At least the prime minister hadn’t handed him a fait accompli. He was shrewd enough—or considerate enough—to present the matter as a choice, not an order.

“As I said, it’s only a couple of hours, General. It simply means there’ll be more for you to talk about with the press. And you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the details of Bundaberg, so you can handle any questions arising from that, too.”

“Yes, I suppose I will,” MacArthur agreed.

“One other thing, General. We’re keeping this business of the dummy convoys under our hat for the moment. Young Kennedy seems to have stumbled onto something that may be of much wider significance, and we’d like to question Homma about it, if at all possible.”

MacArthur glowered just at the mention of the Kennedy clan. They were no allies of his. “As you wish, Prime Minister. Although I doubt General Homma will allow himself to be taken alive.”

“Perhaps not, but let’s wait and see. Colonel Jones says that if they can lay their hands on him, he will talk.”

At this MacArthur turned to his office window, squinting into the late afternoon glare. The city of Brisbane seemed to doze in the heat of an early summer. It had been spared, for now, but he still wondered what plans Tojo might have for all the other divisions he’d withdrawn from China.

And MacArthur was irritated at all the attention that had been focused on Jones and Toohey’s sideshow, rather than on the magnificent defensive effort he had organized to the north of the city. He couldn’t help but indulge himself in a moment of spite. “I suppose you read Kennedy’s entire report, Prime Minister. And Captain Willet’s also?”

“Of course,” the PM replied warily.

“Were you not disturbed by the actions of that young female officer? The Australian? It seemed to me that she lost her head completely when she opened fire on those men in the water.”

MacArthur could tell he’d scored a small victory when Curtin didn’t reply immediately.

“Prime Minster?”

“I had an opportunity to speak to Captain Willet about that matter, General. She assured me that Lieutenant Lohrey’s actions were in no way out of the ordinary. Not as far as their rule book is written, anyway.”

The PM’s voice carried a suggestion of sadness.

“It was an ugly business, General. Very ugly. But you’re a soldier, and I don’t doubt that you’ve seen just as bad, if not worse. I’m afraid that, given the emergency we face, I cannot find it in my heart to condemn either Lohrey or Willet. And of course, they still operate under their own rules of engagement, so no legal question will arise from the incident. But you are correct if you think me troubled by it. I’ve been kept up-to-date on the progress of the counteroffensive, and while I shed no tears for the Japanese, I wonder what became of our two countries that they evolved into such pitiless societies.”

MacArthur hadn’t been expecting that at all. He found himself caught flat-footed for a moment, unable to reply.

He had followed the debate at home, the pros and cons of allowing Kolhammer to run his little fiefdom as a separate country, if only for a limited time, but the hysteria surrounding that decision was largely a matter of Sunday school morals—an argument about the bedroom, not the battlefield. Still, Curtin must have taken his silence as an invitation to continue.

“The press is already running stories from those reporters who are embedded with Jones about the summary executions they’re carrying out. It plays very well with the public, of course. They’ve got the blood up. But that’s what worries me, General. We’re supposedly fighting this war to secure ourselves against barbarism, not to embrace it. I accept the fact that those enemy officers who were responsible for the crimes against my people must die for what they have done. But this business of simply dragging them out into the street and shooting them in the head smacks of gangsterism, don’t you think? It’s a long way removed from what Lieutenant Lohrey did in the rush of battle, when she thought her mission and her comrades were imperiled.”

MacArthur shooed away an aide who appeared at the door. Curtin had tapped into some of his own, very strong misgivings. Whilst he had welcomed the incredible power of Jones’s MEU and Colonel Toohey’s Armored Cavalry units, he had to admit that he found some of their procedures to be deeply disturbing.

“I don’t know that we’re in a position to judge them, Prime Minister. It’s not simply a matter of supporting your allies. They’ve been at war for twenty years. Can you imagine what your people, what mine would be like, after fighting with the likes of Tojo and Hitler for that length of time? Not much different, I would assume.”

A sigh came through the handset. “You’re right, of course. I had just hoped that things might be different in the future.”

“That’s a pipe dream, Prime Minister, I’m afraid.”

“Let’s hope not,” Curtin replied.

20

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA, BUNDABERG,

350 KM NORTH OF THE BRISBANE LINE

The M1A3 Abrams was a man-killer.

Colonel J. “Lonesome” Jones thanked the good Lord that he had never had to face anything like it.

The models that preceded it, the A1 and A2, were primarily designed to engage huge fleets of Soviet tanks on the plains of Europe. They were magnificent tank busters, but proved to be less adept at the sort of close urban combat that was the bread and butter of the U.S. Army in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. In the alleyways of Damascus and Algiers, along the ancient cobbled lanes of Samara, Al Hudaydah, and Aden, the armored behemoths often found themselves penned in, unable to maneuver or even to see what they were supposed to kill. They fell victim to car bombs and Molotovs and homemade mines. Jones had won his Medal of Honor rescuing the crew of one that had been disabled by a jihadi suicide squad in the Syrian capital.

The A3 was developed in response to attacks just like that one, which had become increasingly more succesful. It was still capable of killing a Chinese battle tank, but it was fitted out with a very different enemy in mind.

Anyone, like Jones, who was familiar with the clean, classic lines of the earlier Abrams would have found the A3 less aesthetically pleasing. The low-profile turret now bristled with 40 mm grenade launchers, an M134 7.62 mm minigun, and either a small secondary turret for twin 50s, or a single Tenix-ADI 30 mm chain gun. The 120 mm canon remained, but it was now rifled like the British Challenger’s gun.

But anyone, like Jones, who’d ever had to fight in a high-intensity urban scenario couldn’t give a shit about the A3’s aesthetics. They just said their prayers in thanks to the designers. The tanks typically loaded out with a heavy emphasis on high-impact, soft-kill ammunition such as the canistered “beehive” rounds, Improved Conventional Bomblets, White Phos’, thermobaric, and flame-gel capsules. Reduced propellant charges meant that they could be fired near friendly troops without danger of having a gun blast disable or even kill them. An augmented long-range laser-guided kinetic spike could engage hard targets out to six thousand meters.

The A3 boasted dozens of tweaks, many of them suggested by crew members who had gained their knowledge the hard way. So the tank commander now enjoyed an independent thermal and LLAMPS viewer. Three-hundred-sixty-degree visibility came via a network of hardened battle-cams. A secondary fuel cell generator allowed the tank to idle without guzzling JP-8 jet fuel. Wafered armor incorporated monobonded carbon sheathing