chance to sit down and strap in when the aircraft started rolling.
“In a hurry, Valentin?”
“Why wait, General Diggs? There’s a war on,” he reminded his guest.
“Okay, what do we know?”
Nosenko opened the map case he’d been carrying and laid out a large sheet on the floor as the aircraft lifted off. It was of the Chinese-Russian border on the Amur River, with markings already penciled on. The American officers all leaned over to look.
“They came in here, and drove across the river …”
How fast are they moving?” Bondarenko asked.
“I have a reconnaissance company ahead of them. They report in every fifteen minutes,” Colonel Tolkunov replied. “They are moving in a deliberate manner. Their reconnaissance screen is composed of WZ-501 tracked APCs, heavy on radios, light on weapons. They are on the whole not very enterprising, however. As I said, deliberate. They move by leapfrogging half a kilometer at a bound, depending on terrain. We’re monitoring their radios. They’re not encrypted, though their spoken language is deceptive in terminology. We’re working on that.”
“Speed of advance?”
“Five kilometers in an hour is the fastest we’ve seen, usually slower than that. Their main body is still getting organized, and they haven’t set up a logistics train yet. I’d expect them to attempt no more than thirty kilometers in a day on flat open ground, based on what I’ve seen so far.”
“Interesting.” Bondarenko looked back at his maps. They’d start going north-northwest because that’s what the terrain compelled them to do. At this speed, they’d be at the gold strike in six or seven days.
Theoretically, he could move 265th Motor Rifle to a blocking position … here … in two days and make a stand, but by then they’d have at least three, maybe eight, mechanized divisions to attack his one full-strength unit, and he couldn’t gamble on that so soon. The good news was that the Chinese were bypassing his command post-
So, their lead elements moved deliberately, and they were still forming up their army over the Amur bridgehead.
“What units have we identified?”
“The lead enemy formation is their 34th Red Banner Shock Army, Commanded by Peng Xi-Wang. He is politically reliable and well-regarded in Beijing, an experienced soldier. Expect him to be the operational army group commander. The 34th Army is mainly across the river now. Three more Group A mechanized armies are lined up to cross as well, the 31st, 29th, and 43rd. That’s a total of sixteen mechanized divisions, plus a lot of other attachments. We think the 65th Group B Army will be next across. Four infantry divisions plus a tank brigade. Their job will be to hold the western flank, I would imagine.” That made sense. There was no Russian force east of the breakthrough worthy of the name. A classic operation would also wheel east to Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast, but that would only distract forces from the main objective. So, the turn east would wait for at least a week, probably two or three, with just light screening forces heading that way for the moment.
“What about our civilians?” Bondarenko asked.
“They’re leaving the towns in the Chinese path as best they can, mainly cars and buses. We have MP units trying to keep them organized. So far nothing has happened to interfere with the evacuation,” Tolkunov said. “See, from this it looks as if they’re actually bypassing Belogorsk, just passing east of it with their reconnaissance elements.”
“That’s the smart move, isn’t it?” Bondarenko observed. “Their real objective is far to the north. Why slow down for anything? They don’t want land. They don’t want people. They want oil and gold. Capturing civilians will not make those objectives any easier to accomplish. If I were this Peng fellow, I would be worried about the extent of my drive north. Even unopposed, the natural obstacles are formidable, and defending his line of advance will be a beast of a problem.” Gennady paused. Why have any sympathy for this barbarian? His mission was to kill him and all his men, after all. But how? If even marching that far north was a problem-and it was-then how much harder would it be to strike through the same terrain with less-prepared troops? The tactical problems on both sides were the kind men in his profession did not welcome.
“General Bondarenko?” a foreign voice asked.
“Yes?” He turned to see a man dressed in an American flight suit.
“Sir, my name is Major Dan Tucker. I just flew in with a downlink for our Dark Star UAVs. Where do you want us to set up, sir?”
“Colonel Tolkunov? Major, this is my chief of intelligence.”
The American saluted sloppily, as air force people tended to do. “Howdy, Colonel.”
“How long to set up?”
The American was pleased that this Tolkunov’s English was better than his own Russian. “Less than an hour, sir.”
“This way.” The G-2 led him outside. “How good are your cameras?”
“Colonel, when a guy’s out taking a piss, you can see how big his dick is.”
Tolkunov figured that was typical American braggadocio, but it set him wondering.
Captain Feodor Il’ych Aleksandrov commanded the 265th Motor Rifle’s divisional reconnaissance element-the division was supposed to have a full battalion for this task, but he was all they had-and for that task he had eight of the new BRM reconnaissance tracks. These were evolutionary developments of the standard BMP infantry combat vehicle, upgraded with better automotive gear-more reliable engine and transmission systems-plus the best radios his country made. He reported directly to his divisional commander, and also, it seemed, to the theater intelligence coordinator, some colonel named Tolkunov. That chap, he’d discovered, was very concerned with his personal safety, always urging him to stay close-but not too close-not to be spotted, and to avoid combat of any type. His job, Tolkunov had told him at least once every two hours for the last day and a half, was to stay alive and to keep his eye on the advancing Chinese. He wasn’t supposed to so much as injure one little hair on their cute little Chink heads, just stay close enough that if they mumbled in their sleep, to copy down the names of the girl-friends they fucked in their dreams.
Aleksandrov was a young captain, only twenty-eight, and rakishly handsome, an athlete who ran for personal pleasure-and running, he told his men, was the best form of exercise for a soldier, especially a reconnaissance specialist. He had a driver, gunner, and radio operator for each of his tracks, plus three infantrymen whom he’d personally trained to be invisible.
The drill was for them to spend about half their time out of their vehicles, usually a good kilometer or so ahead of their Chinese counterparts, either behind trees or on their bellies, reporting back with monosyllabic comments on their portable radios, which were of Japanese manufacture. The men moved light, carrying only their rifles and two spare magazines, because they weren’t supposed to be seen or heard, and the truth was that Aleksandrov would have preferred to send them out unarmed, lest they be tempted to shoot someone out of patriotic anger. However, no soldier would ever stand for being sent out on a battlefield weaponless, and so he’d had to settle for ordering them out with bolts closed on empty chambers. The captain was usually out with his men, their BRM carriers hidden three hundred or so meters away in the trees.
In the past twenty-four hours, they’d become intimately familiar with their Chinese opponents. These were also trained and dedicated reconnaissance specialists, and they were pretty good at their jobs, or certainly appeared to be. They were also moving in tracked vehicles, and also spent a lot of their time on foot, ahead of their tracks, hiding behind trees and peering to the north, looking for Russian forces. The Russians had even started giving them names.
“It’s the gardener,” Sergeant Buikov said. That one liked touching trees and bushes, as though studying them for a college paper or something. The gardener was short and skinny, and looked like a twelve-year-old to the Russians. He seemed competent enough, carrying his rifle slung on his back, and using his binoculars often. He was
