The Bear and the Dragon

“Understood. Out.” He set the mike down. “Is it time for morning break?”

“They haven’t been doing that the last four days, Comrade Captain,” Buikov reminded his boss.

“They appear relaxed enough.”

“I could kill any of them now,” Gogol said, “but they’re all privates, except for that one …”

“That’s the fox. He’s a lieutenant, likes to run around a lot. The other officer’s the gardener. He likes playing with plants,” Buikov told the old man.

“Killing a lieutenant’s not much better than killing a corporal,” Gogol observed. “There’s too many of them.”

“What’s this?” Buikov said from his gunner’s seat. “Tank, enemy tank coming around the left edge, range five thousand.”

“I see it!” Aleksandrov reported. “… Just one? Only one tank-oh, all right, there’s a carrier with it-”

“It’s a command track, look at all those antennas!” Buikov called.

The gunner’s sight was more powerful than Aleksandrov’s binoculars. The captain couldn’t confirm that for another minute or so. “Oh, yes, that’s a command track, all right. I wonder who’s in it … ”

There they are,” the driver called back. ”The reconnaissance section, two kilometers ahead, Comrade General.”

“Excellent,” Peng observed. Standing up to look out of the top of his command track with his binoculars, good Japanese ones from Nikon. There was Ge in his command tank, thirty meters off to the right, protecting him as though he were a good dog outside the palace of some ancient nobleman. Peng couldn’t see anything to be concerned about. It was a clear day, with some puffy white clouds at three thousand meters or so. If there were American fighters up there, he wasn’t going to worry about them. Besides, they’d done no ground-attacking that he’d heard about, except to hit those bridges back at Harbin, and one might as well attack a mountain as those things, Peng was sure. He had to hold on to the sill of the hatch lest the pitching of the vehicle smash him against it-it was a track specially modified for senior officers, but no one had thought to make it

safer to stand in, he thought sourly. He wasn’t some peasant-private who could smash his head with no consequence … Well, in any case, it was a good day to be a soldier, in the field leading his men. A fair day, and no enemy in sight.

“Pull up alongside the reconnaissance track,” he ordered his driver.

Who the hell is this?” Captain Aleksandrov wondered aloud. ”Four big antennas, at least a division commander,” Buikov thought aloud. ”My thirty will settle his hash.”

“No, no, let’s let Pasha have him if he gets out”

Gogol had anticipated that. He was resting his arms on the steel top of the BRM, tucking the rifle in tight to his shoulder. The only thing in his way was the loose weave of the camouflage netting, and that wasn’t an obstacle to worry about, the old marksman was sure.

“Stopping to see the fox?” Buikov said next.

“Looks that way,” the captain agreed.

Comrade General!” the young lieutenant called in surprise.

“Where’s the enemy, Boy?” Peng asked loudly in return.

“General, we haven’t seen much this morning. Some tracks in the ground, but not even any of that for the past two hours.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Not a thing,” the lieutenant replied.

“Well, I thought there’d be something around.” Peng put his foot in the leather stirrup and climbed to the top of his command vehicle.

It’s a general, has to be, look at that clean uniform!” Buikov told the others as he slewed his turret around to center his sight on the man eight hundred meters away. It was the same in any army. Generals never got dirty.

“Pasha,” Aleksandrov asked, “ever kill an enemy general before?”

“No,” Gogol admitted, drawing the rifle in very tight and allowing for the range….

Better to go to that ridgeline, but our orders were to stop at once,” the lieutenant told the general.

“That’s right,” Peng agreed. He took out his Nikon binoculars and trained them on the ridge, perhaps eight hundred meters off. Nothing to see except for that one bush …

Then there was a flash-

“Yes!” Gogol said the moment the trigger broke. Two seconds, about, for the bullet to-

They’d never hear the report of the shot over the sound of their diesel engines, but Colonel Wa heard the strange, wet thud, and his head turned to see General Peng’s face twist into surprise rather than pain, and Peng grunted from the sharp blow to the center of his chest, and then his hands started coming down, pulled by the additional weight of the binoculars-and then his body started down, falling off the top of the command track through the hatch into the radio-filled interior.

That got him,” Gogol said positively. ”He’s dead.” He almost added that it might be fun to skin him and lay his hide in the river for a final swim and a gold coating, but, no, you only did that to wolves, not people-not even Chinese.

“Buikov, take those tracks!”

“Gladly, Comrade Captain,” and the sergeant squeezed the trigger, and the big machine gun spoke.

They hadn’t seen or heard the shot that had killed Peng, but there was no mistaking the machine cannon that fired now. Two of the reconnaissance tracks exploded at once, but then everything started moving, and fire was returned.

“Major!” General Ge called.

“Loading HEAT!” The gunner punched the right button, but the autoloader, never as fast as a person, took its time to ram the projective and then the propellant case into the breech.

Back us up!” Aleksandrov ordered loudly. The diesel engine was already running, and the BRM’s transmission set in reverse. The corporal in the driver’s seat floored the pedal and the carrier jerked backward. The suddenness of it nearly lost Gogol over the side, but Aleksandrov grabbed his arm and dragged him down inside, tearing his skin in the process. ”Go north!” the captain ordered next.

“I got three of the bastards!” Buikov said. Then the sky was rent by a crash overhead. Something had gone by too fast to see, but not too fast to hear.

“That tank gunner knows his business,” Aleksandrov observed. “Corporal, get us out of here!”

“Working on it, Comrade Captain.”

“GREEN WOLF to command!” the captain said next into the radio.

“Yes, GREEN WOLF, report.”

“We just killed three enemy tracks, and I think we got a senior officer. Pasha, Sergeant Gogol, that is, killed a Chinese general officer, or so it appeared.”

“He was a general, all right,” Buikov agreed. “The shoulder boards were pure gold, and that was a command track with four big radio antennas.”

“Understood. What are you doing now, GREEN WOLF?”

“We’re getting the fuck away. I think we’ll be seeing more Chinks soon.”

“Agreed, GREEN WOLF. Proceed to divisional CP. Out.”

“Yuriy Andreyevich, you will have heavy contact in a few minutes. What is your plan?”