Designated Targets

It was Hap Arnold’s turn to react when similar images of Hickham, Wheeler, and Bellows detailed the utter devastation that had been visited upon those airfields. Kolhammer then switched to a top-down view of Honolulu, showing that approximately three quarters of the city had been razed to the ground.

“Casualties are estimated at twelve thousand dead, and about as many injured. My F-Twenty-twos are gone, save for two that were about a hundred miles south of the islands on Combat Air Patrol at the time of the attack. They had just enough fuel to make it to Midway. General MacArthur has released an in-flight tanker and a Hawkeye from the Southwest Pacific Command to join them. As you know, while in transit the AWACS plane located Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet. The Japanese have already begun conventional air attacks and are expected to be in position to force a landing on Oahu in about six hours.”

“How long before your jets can hit them?” asked King.

“Two and a half hours. But that strike will have a limited capacity. Each plane is carrying one heavy air-to- surface ship-killer, which, all things being equal, will take out whatever it’s aimed at.”

“But all things are not equal, are they, Admiral?” said King.

“No,” he admitted. “The Dessaix appears to have survived and been compromised. She would be capable of negating an attack by the Raptors, and of shooting them down, too. However,” he hastened to add, “I can say with certainty that the Dessaix is not being crewed by her original complement, and it’s doubtful that whoever is in control will be able to use the ship to the best of her abilities.”

King pointed at the scenes out of Pearl. “Really, Admiral? Their abilities don’t look all that goddamn doubtful to me. Sorry, Mr. President.”

Roosevelt waved his apology away, but indicated to Kolhammer that he should carry on.

“If the Dessaix had been commanded by Captain Goscinny and crewed by his men, there would be nothing left of Oahu,” the admiral said. “The Clinton would probably be at the bottom of the ocean, and half of Los Angeles or San Diego would be gone.”

“And that’s supposed to fill us with confidence?”

“No, but it should forestall any undue panic, if you were so inclined.”

“Why, you impertinent son of a—!”

“Gentlemen!” The president intervened to defuse the escalating confrontation between the two navy men. Then he continued. “Admiral Kolhammer. Can Hawaii be defended?”

“No, sir.”

King threw his hands up in the air. “You just said—“

Roosevelt had to hush his naval chief again, before Kolhammer could continue.

“It cannot be defended, but it can be retaken, if we move before the Japanese have time to secure their lodgment. The Eighty-second could do it, with some help from the Siranui, your marines, and maybe the Second Cavalry.”

“Neither Prime Minister Curtin nor General MacArthur are going to trample you with offers of assistance, when they have their own problems to address,” said Roosevelt. “I’ve already had both of them in my ear about a second Japanese attack on Australia.”

“With all due respect, Mr. President, there won’t be a second Japanese attack on Australia. I have seen the sigint take, and my people have been analyzing it, too. It’s a diversion. The same sort of thing you would have done before the original D-Day. For the moment, the Australian theater is insignificant. I think the main purpose of the original invasion was to draw my forces down there and to exhaust them. You’ve seen the briefing note on young Kennedy’s mission and Homma’s interrogation. They were drawing our fire. To some extent that has worked, and so Hawaii is now the main game. If they get a lock on the islands, they can take Australia and New Zealand at their leisure and hold us back from their home islands long enough to develop an atomic deterrent. You can order MacArthur to release the Eighty-second, Mr. President. Jones has a degree of autonomy at the operational level, but we’ve integrated our units into your command structure.”

“That’s arguable,” said King. “The way you run your little duchy over in California—”

Roosevelt interrupted him once more. “Gentlemen, please, let’s not fight this one all over again. Unless you want to speed up the integration of your own services, Admiral King. I could sign Truman’s Ninety-nine-eighty-one Order today, if you want, rather than continuing with this ridiculous fiction that Admiral Kolhammer is field-testing the concept out in the Zone.”

Silence greeted that ultimatum.

“Right. Admiral, please continue with your presentation.”

Kolhammer reformatted the big screen to display a world map, with smaller windows open over current flashpoints. “Taken with developments in the European theater and in General MacArthur’s area of operations, I believe the Axis powers are attempting to compensate for their long-term strategic vulnerability by swarming us sooner, rather than later. In addition to the movements at Hawaii, off northern Australia, and in France, Lord Halifax confirms that Gibraltar is coming under greatly increased air attack. Wahabi insurgents are fomenting trouble in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. And Baath Party fascists are in revolt in Iraq. I don’t believe any of this is unrelated.”

Kolhammer looked to the British ambassador for confirmation.

“I’m afraid that’s not all,” said Halifax. “We don’t have confirmation yet, but Lord Mountbatten has sent word from India that Soviet armor is reportedly pushing down through the Afghan passes. We have no idea whether or not this is true, and if so, whether it presages open cooperation between Berlin and Moscow again, but at any rate it appears the Axis powers are going to attempt to link the Asian and European theaters through the Middle East, while we have our hands full elsewhere.”

Roosevelt looked positively ill. “I can’t believe Stalin would get back into bed with Hitler,” he said. “I suppose I can accept him withdrawing from the alliance. It makes some sense to let us bleed along with the Germans, while he gathers his strength. But I can’t imagine anything that would make him trust Hitler again.”

Kolhammer spoke up again. “I haven’t seen the British material yet, but if Stalin is pushing down through the Afghan passes, we shouldn’t assume it’s to help Hitler and Tojo. He may just be moving to stop them encircling him.”

Marshall spoke up from the couch, addressing that point. “Mr. President, Stalin doesn’t need to trust Hitler. One way or another, we fully expect the Soviets to reenter the war in late ’forty-four, early ’forty-five, but what form that takes will depend on circumstances. Either Hitler will turn around and attack them, having secured his western flank against us. Or if we have beaten Germany, we can expect to have to deal with a Soviet assault into Europe. Atomic weapons or not, Stalin has shown that he won’t accept the verdict of history. He knows that if he sits pat, waiting for the correlation of forces or the contradictions of capitalism to deliver him a victory, it all ends with his statues being pulled down and Coke machines being installed in the Kremlin.”

“Admiral Kolhammer?” said Roosevelt. “Do you concur, based on the value of hindsight?”

“I do, Mr. President. The Soviets always go long. Stalin was this close to going under when Hitler offered him the cease-fire. While he knew he would have come out on top in version one of this war, he knows he can’t guarantee that same result in version two. Not with the technology and the forewarnings that the Axis powers now have in their hands.

“So the opportunity to build up his forces while we grapple with Hitler was heaven-sent, even though he knows the Nazis will be back at his throat, given half a chance. Still, I don’t think we’ll find them in an open alliance with Germany again. Every bullet they have will be needed soon enough. But if this push into Afghanistan plays out, it may be the first move in whatever new game Stalin is playing. At a guess, I’d say he’s going to give the Cold War a miss, and get straight down to business when it suits him best. As General Marshall says, sometime in ’fourty- four, or the year after.”

“My God,” said Roosevelt. “This war could go on for ten years.”

Kolhammer nodded. “Or it could all be over—quite literally—much sooner, if the Nazis and the Soviets develop atomic weapons.”

The president looked to the British ambassador again. “This new information you have, the files sent to the Trident, do we know if they’re genuine?”

“There’s an enormous volume of information, Mr. President. Our boffins have given it all a tick so far, but I