Closing the folder, Neboatov walked over and returned it to the table from which he had gotten it. He looked around the room. Everyone was doing something; everyone was hustling or madly writing something on a pad or a map. Everyone, that was, except himself and the general, who still sat on his stool, looking at the map as if he were waiting for it to talk to him. With nothing to do, Neboatov walked over to the tea kettle and poured himself a cup. As he was doing so, he thought that perhaps the general would like a cup of tea. Such tasks, as far as he knew, were what aides did for their generals. After pouring a second cup, he took both over to a man who looked as if the weight of the whole world had just been dropped on his shoulders.
The commander of artillery and rocket troops, Colonel Boahen, was about to enter Colonel Nafissi's private office when a loud bang from inside caused the artilleryman to stop. There was a moment of silence, then more loud banging from behind the closed door. Boahen looked at Nafissi's aide, seated at a desk to one side of the door leading into Nafissi's office.
The aide looked about first to see if anyone else was in the immediate area. Seeing no one, he stood up, leaned over the desk, and whispered to Boahen. "The Leader of the Revolution has requested that the Soviets attack in order to save Tobruk."
With a knowing look, Boahen shook his head, then backed away from the door to a seat where he could wait until Nafissi finished his tantrum.
Inside his office, Nafissi paced back and forth behind his desk. About the room, books, papers, and small pieces of furniture were strewn about where he had thrown them. He had been betrayed, stabbed in the back by the Leader of the Revolution. Without Nafissi's knowledge, the Leader of the Revolution had gone to the Russians and asked them to immediately intervene. With one division destroyed in four days and the Egyptians virtually at the gates, Nafissi would be seen as the man who almost lost the Cyrenaica, and the Russians as the saviors. The next step, stripping him of all power, and exile — or worse — wasn't difficult to predict. It would only be a matter of time.
That was, of course, unless he managed to save the city before the Russians became decisively engaged. He needed time. And he needed to act — now. Turning to the map on his wall, Nafissi looked at the disposition of his units, of the Egyptians and the Russians. He needed to engineer it so that the Russians were sent on a wild goose chase, away from the decisive point, for a few hours. With enough time, the FROG rocket units with the chemical weapons could be brought into play, hitting the Egyptian forces massing at Al Adam. A quick attack by the few mobile forces he had left while the Egyptians attempted to recover just might do the trick.
Excited at the prospect of salvation, Nafissi walked over to the door, opened it, and told his aide to have Colonel Ammed, the chief of staff, report to him immediately. As the aide picked up the phone, Nafissi turned to Boahen. "Are your units in place yet?"
Boahen jumped to his feet. "As of fifteen minutes ago, all but the 4th Battalion are in their assigned hide positions. That battalion will be in place within the next thirty minutes."
The smile on Nafissi's face surprised both the colonel of artillery and the aide. "Have someone fetch some tea," Nafissi said, turning back to the aide. "When Colonel Ammed arrives, have both him and Colonel Boahen come into my office. Also, inform the Russian liaison officer that I will need to see him in, say, two hours."
Anna trudged along the trail, looking for her friend from the Ministry of Tourism. She was nowhere to be seen. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was five minutes past the time she had told her friend to meet her. Anna decided that she would wait another five minutes, then leave and try to contact her friend another way.
The two militia men strolling along their beat paused when they saw Anna pacing back and forth, looking at her watch, then around the park as if she was watching for someone. The first militia man looked at his watch, then commented that it was a little late for a noontime stroll in the park. The second militia man laughed, then commented that a good bargain and trade didn't follow established timetables.
The first militia man didn't respond. "There is something wrong, my friend. What possible reason could counterintelligence have for following the brown-haired girl."
The mention of counterintelligence took the second militia man by surprise. "What are you talking about? Where?"
The first officer pointed out a man, thirty meters behind Anna. "His name is Medvedev. I've met him before. He works foreign intelligence. What possible reason could he have for following the girl?"
The second militia man laughed. "Perhaps he is a dirty old man who enjqys tracking beautiful young girls in the park, like you do."
The first militia man was about to comment when the redhead ran up to the girl. Both militia men, and Medvedev, paused and watched, trying not to be obvious as they did so.
"Anna, are you crazy? What do you mean calling me like this? Do you know how risky this is?"
Anna didn't respond to the redhead's questions. "Listen, this is important. You must see that this gets sent immediately." As Anna said that, she shoved a piece of paper into the redhead's pocket.
Appalled, the redhead stepped back. "Anna, have you gone mad?"
Stepping up to the redhead, Anna looked into her eyes. "No, but those old fools in the Kremlin are. Do you know what they are doing? They have ordered the Red Army units in Africa to join the Libyans! They are starting another war! We must warn someone. Maybe the Americans can stop us."
The redhead again stepped back, trying gracefully to get away from Anna. But Anna wouldn't be put off. She kept closing up to the redhead, talking as she did so. Unseen by the two girls, the counterintelligence man reached up and lifted his hat. From behind a closed kiosk and a parked car, three more men, in a loose circle, came out and began to close in on the girls. The first militia man groaned. "Oh, shit — trouble."
He was about to move down to where the counterintelligence men were closing in when the second militia man grabbed his arm. "No, wait. Let them do their job. When they need us, they'll let us know."
The refueling and rearming of Captain Saada's company was almost completed. In ten minutes they would be ready to go. Unfortunately, the attack was not scheduled to commence until 0800 hours the following morning. When his commander briefed the plan for the next day's operation, he explained that there was a big problem with resupply. The well-planned and — coordinated use of artillery had been very effective, resulting in great destruction at little cost to the maneuver units of the 14th Armored. That effort, however, had expended more ammunition than the planners of the operation had allocated to the artillery units. The stocks of ammunition needed to replenish the battalions were still in Egypt, at Mersa Matruh. To bring it forward was requiring a major effort, most of the division's transports, and time.
Saada feared that the time being lost was costing them any advantage that they had gained as a result of the victory in the south. He also reasoned that any advantage to be gained by waiting for the artillery to be resupplied before attacking would be offset by the time given to the Libyans to prepare to receive that attack. Like many of his fellow tank officers, he would have preferred to have continued north into Tobruk while the Libyans were still disorganized and Tobruk was uncovered in the south. Much better, he told his commander, to continue and risk a defeat than to stop and put a victory at risk.