David Brentwood looked up from the three-dimensional mock-up. “You know Freeman goes to sleep reading Sun Tzu.”
“Who the hell’s Son Sue?”
“An ancient Chinese general,” Brentwood said. “Very big on the art of war. Very big on deception.”
“Right,” Aussie said. “I don’t suppose it occurred to any of you blokes that old Cheng might read this Son Sue — you know, being Chinese and all that.”
Salvini looked worried.
“I think,” Brentwood said, “that when you have the chance to see the plan in detail you’ll see how Freeman’ll outfox Cheng.” David Brentwood paused. “By the way, Aussie, everyone is to bring a lighter with him — there’s a box of Bics over on the counter — and one quart bag of this.” He nodded toward a cardboard box packed with quart-size plastic bags, each bag filled with what looked like gray powder.
“What the hell’s that?” Aussie asked.
“Wolf dung,” Brentwood answered matter-of-factly.
“Don’t bullshit me!” Aussie riposted.
Brentwood shook his head at Salvini and Williams. “He’s a hard man to convince.”
“Ten bucks it’s wolf dung,” Choir Williams proffered.
Salvini couldn’t suppress a snort of laughter. Aussie eyed them suspiciously. “What are you bastards up to?”
“Go on,” Brentwood told him. “Clean up, have breakfast, and hit the sack. We’ll fill you in en route.”
“All right,” David Brentwood said, “it’s AirLand battle, right?”
“Right!” came the chorus of twenty SAS/D troopers. There were a million details for any AirLand battle, and for the twenty men to be led by David Brentwood, the first was weapon selection and uniform. Weapon selection was very much an individual affair among the commandos, but the uniform wasn’t — not on this predawn attack that hopefully would penetrate the ChiCom line in enough places to convince Cheng that a full-scale frontal attack was in progress.
There would be many more SAS/D troops along the Amur together with regular elements of Second Army involved. Most of the SAS elected to arm themselves with the American 5.56mm M-16 rifle rather than the three-pounds-heavier British 7.62mm, particularly with the M203 grenade launcher fitted beneath the barrel of the M-16 rifle.
Others, like Brentwood, who had seen Freeman in action on Ratmanov Island, opted for the military-modified Winchester 1200 riot gun with five shotgun shells, one up the spout, four in the tubular magazine, the pumping effected by the forestock going back and forth, the range of the shotgun increased from 150 to 900 yards by fléchettes, twenty high-quality steel darts. Lead-slug shells were also carried, these being capable of passing right through an engine block at over fifty meters or blowing a door out of its frame. And almost every man carried at least several “soup cans”— smoke grenades — and the smaller palm-size SAS special, the stun grenade. But because it would be an attack in darkness and could well be at close quarters in the town of Manzhouli, the uniform was the all-black SAS antiterrorist gear, including the SF 10 respirator in case the Chinese used gas, black leather gloves for rappelling down or climbing up the Genghis Khan wall, or any other wall for that matter, Danner lightweight firm-grip boots favored by U.S. SWAT teams, and each man’s black belt kit holding magazine pouches and grenades and thirteen rounds of 9mm for the Browning automatic.
“All right, fellas, now let’s go over the AirLand prayer. One?”
“Maneuver!” the chorused reply came.
“Two?”
“Fire support!”
“Three?”
“Command and control!”
“Four?”
“Intelligence!”
“Five?”
“Combat service support!”
“Six?”
“Mobility — survivability!”
“Seven?”
“Air defense!”
“Eight?” Aussie shouted.
“Best of fucking luck!”
Brentwood grinned. “Now our short-range fighter-bombers and Wild Weasel jammers will penetrate as deeply as they can at points all along the line to simulate full frontal attack. Main battle tanks will go in where possible with Bradley fast-fighting infantry vehicles behind and with Apache helos as antitank cover. This will be followed by Hueys— eleven men apiece, some helos carrying a one oh five millimeter howitzer and crew. Now behind all this there’s the Patriot missile defense should we be bothered by anything from Turpan. But remember, the Patriot is great but is overestimated. Unless it hits the enemy missile’s warhead and explodes it midair, it simply blasts the body of the incoming missile, and the warhead still comes down. It isn’t a great deal of help to us — no matter what you read in the papers. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Now,” Brentwood continued, “there’ll be SAS/D-Green Beret, Special Operations squadrons hitting Fuyuan near Khabarovsk, another SAS/D team hitting at Heihe— halfway along the Amur, a third commando force targeting Shiwei, and the fourth team, us, will be paying a return visit near our old friend A-7.”
There was a groan from several of the veterans who had vivid memories of the fighting atop the 3,770-foot mountain just north of Manzhouli in the Siberian Argunskiy range. It marked the most northwesterly point or corner of the Manchurian arc defense line that stretched from Khabarovsk up around Never-Skovorodino and down into western Manchuria. A-7 had been the very spot where the war had started before the so-called cease-fire, and so would now be heavily fortified, its high ground having a commanding view of the American side of the line.
“Don’t worry,” David said, anticipating his men. “A-7 will be left to our air force.”
“And about time,” Choir Williams quipped.
“So give us the bad news,” Aussie said.
“We’ll be going southeast beyond A-7 into Manzhouli,” Brentwood answered. “Just east of Manzhouli. We’re to secure the railhead there so Cheng can’t move troops west out of northern Manchuria and hit Freeman’s left flank.”
“Old Cheng won’t have to move anything,” Choir Williams said, “if those chink missiles aren’t taken out in Turpan.”
“That’s the air force’s job,” David said.
“Well they better get on with it, boyo, or else we’ll be in range while we’re in bloody Manzhouli.”
“Question!” It was from one of the young American SAS/D troopers. “Look, I know our short-range bombers can’t take out Turpan, it’s just too far west, but why cant we use them against Manzhouli? I mean, just go in and blow up the tracks?”
David gave a wry smile — the trooper was one of the latest recruits, not yet blooded. “If we’d been able to blow up train tracks and trails we’d have won the Vietnam War in the first two years. Only way to make sure that railway stays ours is to go into Manzhouli. There are a hundred different ways of the enemy making it look as if you’ve destroyed their train lines from the air and the next morning they’ve passed a thousand tons of munitions over it. Only way is to go in on the ground and make sure. Besides, they’ve got a communications tower there so we’ll have to hit it with C charges. Aussie, that’ll be your troop’s job.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Well, hell, Aussie, you can’t ask for everything,” someone shouted.
“Jesus, I wish I was with that Fuyuan crowd.”
A few of the newer men didn’t understand and weren’t as confident as veterans like Aussie or Brentwood, Salvini or Williams in knowing there was no shame in saying you’d rather be somewhere else.
“Ah,” Choir Williams said, nodding his head toward Aussie. “Pay him no mind, lads. He misses Olga, he does. He likes the titty!”
“Bloody right I do,” Aussie said.