Valerin took the stereoscopic viewer and started to look at the pictures. What had appeared flat pictures now took on a three-dimensional life of their own. The first pictures were of what appeared to be an infantry camp close to the border. “How many men do you think are based here Lieutenant?”
“Military Sir? None Sir. That camp is abandoned.” “How do you know? I can see tracks all over the place.”
“Yes Sir, but look. They're all around the field boundaries, never across them. That's farmers avoiding trampling their crops. If you look at these pictures Sir, these are of an active Army base. You can see where the soldiers have ignored the field boundaries and trod down the crops.”
“Could they be bluffing us? Acting like farmers to hide their base?” A Russian officer might well think of that. It was hammered into them from the first days of their training. The three principles of warfare. Maskirovka, Maskirovka. Maskirovka. Deception, deception, deception. Never be straightforward when one can be devious. Never be open when one can deceive. Never do the obvious when an alternative exists. Misdirect, misdirect, misdirect.
“I don't think so Sir. Take a look at these shots; see how the trucks are parked to use the shadows and the terrain to make them less obvious. The Japanese are good sir, they know their business. They're doing things by the book on the bases we think are occupied. I think its genuine, they're pulling back a lot of their troops.”
“How many of the frontier bases have been abandoned?”
“From these photographs and the ones taken earlier, about a third. The problem is sir, now we're running into those other questions that I mentioned. We have coverage of only a very limited area of the border in length and an even more limited area in depth. Also, the reconnaissance aircraft we have, well their cameras aren't very good. They can't be, the RF-63 just isn't big enough to carry a good camera and it doesn't have the range to get very far along the front or the speed to get very deep. We could send an RB-27, they've got the range but they're well within the intercept envelope of a Kendra, even more so of a Layla. By the time they get deep enough, to see something, there'll be fighters all over them. We can get away with one border incident, not two.”
Valerin stared at the pictures. They were telling him the answers to the questions he had asked but not what he needed to know. The Japanese were thinning their border troops out. Did that mean they were confident the border was peaceful and they could send them to places where the need was greater? The Japanese-Chinese war was winding down now; the Japanese had everything of value, just a few Chinese holding out in the more remote areas.
Or did it mean that the Japanese were concentrating their troops ready for an incursion or even a full-blooded invasion. Eastern Russia was the powerhouse that was fueling the liberation of Western Russia. Another war here could be a disaster. Or were the Japanese pulling back, afraid of a Russian strike and so keeping a thin border screen while establishing a strong reserve? The pictures didn't tell him.
“Nikita Sergeyevich, have the organs of state anything to say that can help us?”
Khrushchev shook his head. In the old days, when it was Chinese across the border, the “organs of state” had known everything that moved. But then the Japanese had arrived and with the Kempeitai. Now those who might have spoken were too terrified to whisper.
“We must have more information. If the Japanese are going to attack, we must pre-empt them. We have no aircraft that can get pictures to help us? That can get far enough behind their lines to tell us what is going on? And do so in safety?”
The air force lieutenant shook his head. “We have no such aircraft. But there is one that can do just that.”
Chulachomklao Military Academy, Bangkok, Thailand
“I hate him. He's horrible.”
“Why?” Officer Cadet Sirisoon Chandrapa na Ayuthya squinted down the barrel of her Mauser. Bright shiny bore. Her hands moved quickly as she pressed the retention plunger in and screwed the firing pin assembly back into the bolt. As far as she could see, every last drop and fragment of cosmoline had been cleaned out of the rifle. She quickly wiped some excess oil off with a fragment of rag, then slid the bolt into place. Rifle reassembled. She quickly slid her bayonet out of its scabbard and checked that as well. 20 centimeters of steel, razor sharp on one edge, the first four centimeters sharpened on the other, the rest a vicious-looking sawback. Ten years earlier, the German instructors that had founded the modern Thai Army had been horrified by that sawback. During the First World War, accusations of barbarity had made them grind their sawbacks off. No answer yet. “Why do you hate him?”
“He's always picking on us, making fun of us.”
“Of course he is, it’s his job. If we can't take pressure here, how can we take it outside?” She clicked her bayonet back into the scabbard. “And we're strangers here, this is their club and we're forcing our way into it. You were in university weren't you? You were in a sorority? How would you have felt if the university authorities had ordered your sorority to accept members you didn't want? You wouldn't have liked it would you? And you'd have taken it out on them. Hazed them far worse than the ones you'd chosen.”
“But it's not fair. And he makes it so personal.''
“Whoever said life was fair? War is personal, when somebody tries to kill you, it’s very personal. And we're officer cadets, out there we'll be taking responsibility for other people. Sergeant Major Manop is part of a system that is trying to weed out the ones who aren't able to do that. For their own good as well as for everybody else's. So don't sit there and sulk saying you hate him. Beat him by not giving him an excuse to throw you out.” She slung her rifle over her shoulder. “Now wish me luck, I'm going into the tiger's den.”
She slapped the crude wooden partition twice with her hand, waited a few seconds then stepped through the hanging curtain into the main part of the barracks. Some of the men there stared at her resentfully; a few more mentally undressed her. One just went through the motions of doing so. Hmm, she thought, I wonder if the others have guessed about you yet. Other end of the barracks, she stopped in front of the Sergeant-Major's door and knocked respectfully. Sergeant Major Manop opened it.
“Officer Cadet Sirisoon Chandrapa na Ayuthya requests the Sergeant Major inspect Rifle, 7.92 millimeter Mauser Type Kar98k serial number 338250 Sergeant Major.”
Manop took the rifle and went to the table in the middle of the barracks, “This should be good, boys. Women like cleaning things don't they?” There was a swell of laughter around the room at the sally. One of the good things about being a Sergeant Major was that the cadets all appreciated his little jokes. His hands moved quickly and expertly as he stripped the rifle down, inspecting each part as he took it down. Then, he produced a pull through and a strip of white silk.
Sirisoon gulped, her rags had been cotton, that piece of silk would attract every scrap of dirt in the bore. She held her breath as Manop pulled the silk rag through the barrel. To her relief, it came out white, just the slightest hint of gray where the trace of lubricant had protected the inside of the barrel, Manop looked at her and nodded slightly. Then he unscrewed the firing pin assembly and took a stick with another scrap of silk rag wrapped around it. He probed inside the forward part of the bolt, looking for traces of the cosmoline that had been caked in there. Clean as well. Satisfied, he reassembled the rifle. When it was complete he was about to hand it back when he looked at the teak furniture. Looked again, then gazed sharply at Sirisoon.
“Treated it with linseed oil, Sergeant Major, then rubbed it with number twenty steel wool then applied more linseed oil.”