The Bear and the Dragon

would have to cross. “And put the Two-Oh-First’s tanks just here on my right. When we stop their advance guard, they can blow in from the west and roll them up.”

“Reconnaissance shows their leading division is strung out somewhat,” Bondarenko told him.

It was a mistake made by every army in the world. The sharpest teeth of any field force are its artillery, but even self-propelled artillery, mounted on tracks for cross-country mobility, can’t seem to keep up with the mechanized forces it is supposed to support. It was a lesson that had even surprised the Americans in the Persian Gulf, when they’d found their artillery could keep up with the leading tank echelons only with strenuous effort, and across flat ground. The People’s Liberation Army had tracked artillery, but a lot of it was still the towed variety, and was being pulled behind trucks that could not travel cross-country as well as the tracked kind.

General Diggs observed the discussion, which his rudimentary Russian could not quite keep up with, and Sinyavskiy spoke no English, which really slowed things down.

“You still have a lot of combat power to stop, Yuriy Andreyevich,” Diggs pointed out, waiting for the translation to get across.

“If we cannot stop them completely, at least we can give them a bloody nose” was the belated reply.

“Stay mobile,” Diggs advised. “If I were this General Peng, I’d maneuver east-the ground is better suited for it-and try to wrap you up from your left.”

“We will see how maneuver-minded they are,” Bondarenko said for his subordinate. “So far all they have done is drive straight forward, and I think they are becoming complacent. See how they are stretched out, Marion. Their units are too far separated to provide mutual support. They are in a pursuit phase of warfare, and that makes them disorganized, and they have little air support to warn them of what lies ahead. I think Yuriy is right: This is a good place for a stand.”

“I agree it’s good ground, Gennady, just don’t marry the place, okay?” Diggs warned.

Bondarenko translated that for his subordinate, who answered back in machine-gun Russian around his cigar.

“Yuriy says it is a place for a fucking, not a wedding. When will you join your command, Marion?”

“My chopper’s on the way in now, buddy. My cavalry screen is at the first fuel depot, with First Brigade right behind. We should be in contact in a day and a half or so.”

They’d already discussed Diggs’s plan of attack. First Armored would assemble northwest of Belogorsk, fueling at the last big Russian depot, then leap out in the darkness for the Chinese bridgehead. Intelligence said that the PLA’s 65th Type-B Group Army was there now, digging in to protect the left shoulder of their break-in. Not a mechanized force, it was still a lot for a single division to chew on. If the Chinese plan of attack had a weakness, it was that they’d bet all their mechanized forces on the drive forward. The forces left behind to secure the breakthrough were at best motorized-carried by wheeled vehicles instead of tracked ones-and at worst leg infantry, who had to walk where they went. That made them slow and vulnerable to men who sat down behind steel as they went to battle in their tracked vehicles.

But there were a hell of a lot of them, Diggs reminded himself.

Before he could leave, General Sinyavskiy reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a flask. “A drink for luck,” he said in his only words of broken English.

“Hell, why not?” Diggs tossed it off. It was good stuff, actually. “When this is all over, we will drink again,” he promised.

“Da,” the general replied. “Good luck, Diggs.”

“Marion,” Bondarenko said. “Be careful, comrade.”

“You, too, Gennady. You got enough medals, buddy. No sense getting your ass shot off trying to win another.”

“Generals are supposed to die in bed,” Bondarenko agreed on the way to the door.

Diggs trotted out to the UH-60. Colonel Boyle was flying this one. Diggs donned the crash helmet, wishing they’d come up with another name for the damned thing, and settled in the jump seat behind the pilots.

“How we doing, sir?” Boyle asked, letting the lieutenant take the chopper back off.

“Well, we have a plan, Dick. Question is, will it work?”

“Do I get let in on it?”

“Your Apaches are going to be busy.”

“There’s a surprise,” Boyle observed.

“How are your people?”

“Ready” was the one-word reply. “What are we calling this?”

“CHOPSTICKS.” Diggs then heard a laugh over the intercom wire.

“I love it.”

Okay, Mickey,” Robby Jackson said. ”I understand Gus’s position. But we have a big picture here to think about.”

They were in the Situation Room looking at the Chairman on TV from the Pentagon room known as The Tank. It was hard to hear what he was muttering that way, but the way he looked down was a sufficient indication of his feelings about Robby’s remark.

“General,” Ryan said, “the idea here is to rattle the cage of their political leadership. Best way to do that is to go after them in more places than one, overload ’em.”

“Sir, I agree with that idea, but General Wallace has his point, too. Taking down their radar fence will degrade their ability to use their fighters against us, and they still have a formidable fighter force, even though we’ve handled them pretty rough so far.”

“Mickey, if you handle a girl this way down in Mississippi, it’s called rape,” the Vice President observed. “Their fighter pilots look at their aircraft now and they see caskets, for Christ’s sake. Their confidence has got to be gone, and that’s all a fighter jock has to hold on to. Trust me on this one, will ya?”

“But Gus-”

“But Gus is too worried about his force. Okay, fine, let him send some Charlie-Golfs against their picket fence, but mainly we want those birds armed with Smart Pigs to go after their ground forces. The fighter force can look after itself.”

For the first time, General Mickey Moore regretted Ryan’s choice of Vice President. Robby was thinking like a politician rather than an operational commander-and that came as something of a surprise. He was seemingly less worried about the safety of his forces than of …

… than of what the overall objective was, Moore corrected himself. And that was not a completely bad way to think, was it? Jackson had been a pretty good J-3 not so long before, hadn’t he?

American commanders no longer thought of their men as expendable assets. That was not a bad thing at all, but sometimes you had to put forces in harm’s way, and when you did that, some of them did not come home. And that was what they were paid for, whether you liked it or not. Robby Jackson had been a Navy fighter pilot, and he hadn’t forgotten the warrior ethos, despite his new job and pay grade.

“Sir,” Moore said, “what orders do I give General Wallace?”

Cecil B. goddamned DeMille,” Mancuso observed crossly.

“Ever wanted to part the Red Sea?” General Lahr asked.

“I ain’t God, Mike,” CINCPAC said next.

“Well, it is elegant, and we do have most of the pieces in place,” his J-2 pointed out.

“This is a political operation. What the hell are we, a goddamned focus group?”

“Sir, you going to continue to rant, or are we going to get to work on this?”

Mancuso wished for a lupara to blast a hole in the wall, or Mike Lahr’s chest, but he was a uniformed officer, and he did now have orders from his Commander-in-Chief.

“All right. I just don’t like to have other people design my operations.”

“And you know the guy.”

“Mike, once upon a time, back when I had three stripes and driving a submarine was all I had to worry about,