“Well, then,” countered Beria. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Abramov, taking a long, clenched-teeth drag on his Diplomaticos. “I’ve just seen it this second, haven’t I?”
“Our boys’ll crack it,” said Beria confidently, taking back the yellow strip.
“Leave it,” Abramov told the infantry general. “I’ll peruse it as well. Meanwhile our met officer says this snow’s going to turn to rain. A layer of mist’ll be moving from north of the lake down toward us, but it should be clear enough that I’ll be able to go out and attack with my armor. Americans’ll have nothing comparable. Biggest things they can haul under those Super Stallions of theirs are Hummers and light howitzers, and the most they’re ferrying in are two of the howitzers, otherwise they couldn’t have carried the required troops’ weight to make up the second wave.
“Don’t worry, Mikhail,” Beria said. “Your T-90s’ll eat those marines alive once the weather—”
“I know that!” snapped Abramov, his tobacco-stained teeth in a snarl. “The point is to let my boys loose when the worst of the weather lifts but there’s still enough mist to give us cover as we speed through our minefield’s exits. We’ll have to move fast before the Americans rush the minefield exit, which isn’t visible now but will be once they backtrack our tread marks. I want your infantry to be ready, Viktor, to watch my flanks.”
“Ready? They’ve been ready, waiting all around the perimeter, dug in until they can move en masse. My God, haven’t you heard them firing?”
“I’ve heard a lot of noise,” retorted Abramov. “But we’re still frozen in position. We’ll see who’s been firing accurately when we can see what the hell’s going on. We’re still in the fog of battle, Viktor. Same as the Americans.”
“Don’t complain about the snow, Mikhail. It’s what’s buying us time against the American force. Once your armor rolls out we’ll flush them out for you. Grease your treads with their guts.”
Abramov had no doubt he’d mash the Americans, though he might lose a few of his T-90s and 122 mm mobile missile launchers. These were still firing spasmodically at very low altitude to sweep the snow-filled air of any American helo caught in the critically vulnerable hovering position, disgorging men and matériel. Abramov looked down again at the long string of letters on the yellow sheet.
“Don’t worry,” Beria assured him. “Our intel comrades are working the permutations and combinations now. They’ll crack it soon.”
“‘Soon,’” said Abramov, “better be before the weather clears.”
“They’ll crack it,” Beria promised.
Abramov looked at his watch. “Rain is predicted in thirty minutes. Then it tapers to showers.”
“Ah, you can’t always trust those weather people, Mikhail,” opined Beria. “Look how it was supposed to be low overcast, maybe showers, then what do we get dumped on us? Tons of snow. A veritable blizzard, Comrade.”
“That’s because we’re so near the mountains,” Abramov told him. “You know how quickly things change.”
Beria wasn’t convinced, though as he left Abramov’s office he recalled how, contrary to public opinion, weather forecasting was now 87.8 percent accurate, even in seaports as far away as Vladivostok and Vancouver. And so, when he found Cherkashin in the map room, he told him that Mikhail was probably right about the optimistic weather forecast. But the normally garrulous air force commander was in no mood for optimism. He was furious that the snow had effectively grounded the two MiG-29s promised him by his brother-in-law in Spassk-Dalni East.
“Sergei,” Beria assured him, “you won’t need the two Fulcrums. You’ve given us good anti-aircraft fire already. Now it’s our turn.”
Cherkashin, his white mane in disarray, stared at Beria. The infantry commander’s optimism annoyed him. War was so unpredictable that few of those in it had any clear idea of how it would turn out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As the helo, Marine One, descended gracefully to the south lawn of the White House, the president of the United States confessed to National Security Adviser Prenty and his press secretary that he’d made a mistake in agreeing to come back from Camp David. The line of protestors was much longer than Marte Price had reported. “They bus them in,” said the press secretary.
“Who,” asked Eleanor Prenty, “buses in protestors against us tracking down terrorists?”
“Those people,” replied the press secretary, “who don’t think America should make unilateral decisions about sending our armed forces into other countries.”
The president felt the gentle touchdown. “And what do you think?” the president asked his press secretary.
“I think you did the right thing, Mr. President. So long as terrorists think they can hit us and run to sanctuary, we have to go into the sanctuaries.”
“Well said.”
The president stepped down from the chopper, returned the marine’s salute, and, slipping his tie back under his suit jacket, felt the hardness of the bulletproof vest beneath. He gave a presidential wave to both the protesters and those, including a group from Idaho, who were holding signs up supporting the “Bird Rescue” intervention.
“Mr. President,” said Eleanor Prenty, walking beside him, “by my count, the supporters outnumber the protesters.”
“Good,” the president told her. “But if Freeman and Colonel Tibbet don’t pull this Bird Rescue off and destroy that damn terrorist complex, we’ll tank in the polls. Excuse me being such a hard-ass, but I can’t do what I want to do in this country unless I’m reelected, and I sure as hell won’t be if Freeman and Tibbet blow it.”
He had no sooner entered the Oval Office than the white phone, the direct line from Moscow, rang.
The Russian president wanted the American antiterrorist force out of Lake Khanka before the twenty-four hours were up. He was taking a great amount of flak from the opposition in the newly elected Duma, the Russian parliament.
The president of the United States told his Russian counterpart that he understood, and would have the Pentagon give Freeman the timeline. “But please, Mr. President, don’t let any of your enemies know. In fact, I suggest it would be better if you didn’t mention it to any—”
“I am not an idiot,” retorted the Russian president. “Then there would be added pressure on me as well as on your General Freeman. But tell this Freeman to hurry up. He wins or loses when the twenty-four hours have passed, and it is getting late. Otherwise I cannot hold the hotheads at bay. It could be general war.”
Freeman couldn’t receive the White House message, however, because his team’s encrypter was out of commission.
Tibbet had received Freeman’s transmit and acknowledged the same, but since then there had been no reply from the general. “Still nothing on encrypt?” Tibbet asked his second in command.
“No, sir. Not on encrypt. Thought he might have fixed it by now or picked up another decoder from another platoon in his sector, but I guess everyone’s lying low till the snow—”
“Not Freeman,” cut in Tibbet, who was looking at his marines strung out on either side of him, lying down behind the escarpment that his platoon was using as protective high ground beyond one of the small, acre-sized woods that stood like islands in the sea of marshlands that bordered, and in some places spread out for miles from, the lake. The escarpment was only a few feet high, but with the piling up of snowdrifts it had grown to nearly twice that height, Tibbet reminding his men that they must lie low until he received Freeman’s situation report. If the general’s “Go” or “Yankee” call couldn’t be sent because the general’s encrypter-decoder machine was down, then his “Yankee” call would come either by Hummer, runner, or in plain language, but not before Freeman judged his team ready for a joint attack against ABC.