Meanwhile Freeman and his commanders welcomed the pause necessitated by having to clear the minefields across the Zeya, for it gave the vitally needed tank and POL resupply trucks time to catch up. Freeman was asked by his chief of logistics, Gen. Malcolm Wain, whether they should go to blivets. Wain had been impressed by the way in which the blivets, or flexi-plastic bags containing thousands of gallons of fuel, had proved so useful in the Iraqi desert to store gas. But here he didn’t have in mind the huge, depot-sized bags that could be buried out of sight of aerial reconnaissance by the roadside but rather the tank-sized bags which, providing a tank was not in action but in transit, could be carried piggyback, an extra jerry can, as it were, one which could be jettisoned before getting the call to go into action or at the first sign of Second Army’s spearhead being attacked.
Freeman spread out the map, slipping in the single-lens monocle that had caused the name “Von Freeman” to stick among those who bore him ill will for his decision to use the fuel air explosive bombs to break the Ratmanov deadlock. The monocle was impatiently tapping sector twenty-one, northwest of Mukhino, and beyond twenty-one to sectors thirty-three and thirty-seven where the Amur reached the apogee of the hump. “I like it,” he told Wain. “Our rate of progress — soon be doing better than Erwin.”
Wain looked across at Norton without the general seeing. Whenever Freeman was making good time, the heroes of his military pantheon were referred to by their first names. If he got held up, it would quickly be that “bastard Rommel.”
“But,” Freeman sighed, “I don’t like it. Scorched-earth policy is one thing. I understand that. But this is — this is a turkey shoot. After Ratmanov I expected a fight.”
Wain disagreed. “I don’t see it that way, General. After Ratmanov they’re going to avoid a close-in fight if they can. Especially with our air superiority.”
“Maybe,” said Freeman, unconvinced. “But they’re not going to give up the whole damn country. They’ve got to stop — stand and fight somewhere. They’ve got to counterattack.” Freeman folded the map case and slipped it into the Humvee’s back seat, smacking his gloves together. “God, it’s cold!” He looked about unhappily at the column stopped for refueling.
It was against everything in Freeman’s book to halt. He’d built a career on movement. Movement! Movement! Movement! as against the Siberians’ obsession with refusing to attack until they had overwhelming numbers in men and materiel. If Freeman stopped, Norton knew, it would make everyone down the line happy — give them a chance to catch their breath and allow the supply tail to thicken. But, Freeman was asking himself as well as Norton and Wain, what was that crafty son of a bitch Yesov up to? Freeman was nodding to himself, concluding that Yesov would be gambling on his, Freeman’s, lifelong commitment to movement, the Siberians sucking him in deeper and deeper, the American supply line becoming ever more overextended.
“Mal.”
“Sir?”
“We’ll pause here. Twenty-four hours. Dick, give the order to establish defensive perimeter. Air task order — saturation fighter cover and attack gunships ready to go.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re in ‘overreach’ with our fighters. I realize that. We’re already heavily committed to in-air refueling.” It was as if he was trying to justify his uncharacteristic decision to stop. “But we need to consolidate here. Get another airstrip going. Must remember the aim, gentlemen — to capture Irkutsk. From there our fighter-bomber radius can hit the industrial underbelly. We’re now at a critical stage, however. We can’t pause for too long for resupply. I’ll bet that’s what Yesov’s counting on — hoping his scorched-earth policy’ll force us to drag our ass. But, gentlemen, his scorched-earth policy is outmoded. Takes no account of the American genius for resupply. He obviously hasn’t learned anything from Iraq. Well, let him withdraw. By the time he’s got his big battalions ready on the ramparts, we’ll be knocking the ramparts out from under him.”
Freeman held up his hand to silence any protest that his stopping was perhaps unwise for the same reasons that he was criticizing his Siberian counterpart, for stopping created a stationary target, and it was a maxim of Freeman’s military strategy that a stationary target in modern warfare has no chance. But neither Norton nor Wain had been about to protest, and Freeman holding up his hand seemed to them more a gesture of doubt than confidence, something they’d not seen in him before. Perhaps the terrible casualty rate on Ratmanov had affected the general more than they thought. At odd moments Norton had seen Freeman, when he thought no one was looking, leaning back, his hands massaging his lower back, still in pain. But for Norton there was no doubt — Freeman had made a sound military decision, right from the textbook. To go on without having consolidated your supply line was always a risky proposition.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Marshal Yesov’s aide was in a hurry, his chauffeur-driven Zil swishing past the great, snow-crowned dome of Novosibirsk’s opera and ballet theater. The statue of Lenin, his noble vision fixed on the future, was even more impressive in the strange, pinkish-brown light of the pollution-colored dusk. The soldier, sailor, and airman on Lenin’s right flanked him proudly; the heroic worker and torchbearer to his left were dusted by snow but looked equally heroic. It added to the aide’s excitement when, arriving at the Akademgorodok or “Science City” apartment block, he ran up the six flights — the elevator wasn’t working — to the apartment of Professor Leonid Grigorenko, the head of the KMK project. But when the door opened it was to Marshal Yesov that the aide blurted out, “On ostanovilsya!”— “He’s stopped! The American has stopped!”
Yesov showed no emotion, his blunt facial features unmoved as he walked back to the apartment’s window looking out on the frozen expanse that was the Ob Sea, where the River Ob had been dammed, and which in summer provided excellent sailing for the privileged ones in Akademgorodok and the party elite. He saw two guards in greatcoats and fur caps trudging as smartly as the snow would allow them along the ice-sheathed concrete slabs that inclined down to the frozen Ob, which in summer, by which time he would beat the American, would serve as a beach for those sunbathing to watch the colorful sailboat races.
He was not so worried about the Allied armies to the west-tired and busy administering Moscow and its environs, they had not yet breached the Urals. He turned from the window, and now that the lights in the city were coming on, pulled the blackout curtains shut, though there was little danger of air raids. To the east Freeman’s forces were further away than those in the west, over fifteen hundred miles from Novosibirsk. Still, it was Freeman’s forces that Marshal Yesov was most concerned about, for while the English Channel, across which the Allies in the west had been resupplied, had effectively been closed by Siberian submarines in the Arctic, Freeman’s supply line from Japan was uninterrupted, Freeman’s troops fresher, and Freeman himself more daring than the more conservative threat faced to the west. “On upryamy”—“He is a tractor,” said Yesov, looking out toward where the Trans-Siberian crossed the frozen expanse of the Ob. “He keeps on. This pause of his will not last long.”
“We will stop him,” said Grigorenko, calmly smoking his thin cigar as he went over the final plans of Chernko’s KMK project. “I hope there have been no more security leaks, however.”
“None,” Yesov assured him, explaining that even the man from engine shop three who had been shot knew only part of the project. Yesov was as confident as Grigorenko that Chernko’s plan would work. But he, Yesov, had had more experience than the scientist who had overseen the design and manufacturing process, and said nothing. Scientists could afford to say what they wanted. They were important to the state, particularly in a modern war, but the general had to be more circumspect, and when the Americans were defeated, Yesov had aspirations to be the president of the United Siberian Soviet Republics. Grigorenko, however, mistook Yesov’s silence for undue concern. “You mustn’t worry, General. Everything is in place, I assure you. The Americans will be demolished — utterly!” As he said this, Grigorenko sat back, stroking his goatee, his piercing gray eyes looking first at the general then his aide. “You know, of course, the supreme irony of the situation.”