“You’re a brave man, Major Romanov,” the NORAD colonel said. “I saw the degradation percentage regarding your mirror. It’s a miracle your plane is still intact.”
“Yes, sir,” Romanov said. Sweat bathed his face and he was shaking. He couldn’t believe he was still alive or that they’d destroyed the second missile.
“Return to base,” the NORAD colonel said.
“Yes, sir,” Romanov said. He peered out of the window at the stars above. “Thanks, God. I appreciate that.” Then he banked the giant interceptor, heading back for Fresno.
Anna Chen was back in her CIA cubicle the next morning, searching and compiling data on the Chinese command structure and on their marshals.
She’d received information about the nuclear strike last night, and it filled her with fear. The Chinese had overcome their inhibition against using the ultimate weapon. Now she wondered where it would lead. Massive nuclear usage…it could destroy the civilized world.
Yes, Director Levin had been correct in one sense. The American nuclear missiles had saved the situation in the Bay Area. But what would be the future cost? This attack on the Sierra Nevada Passes—nuclear employment would likely escalate now. It was the human pattern. Levin had won a battle but may have caused the loss of the war and the world.
Levin seldom spoke to her now and he no longer confided in her. Should she have backed him on his wish to use nuclear weapons?
“No,” she whispered. She had to follow her conscience. She would be no good to anybody, least of all to herself, if she went against what she knew was right.
Anna sipped tea and continued to read. After several hours of intense study, it began to dawn on her that Marshal Nung was an outcast among the others in Chinese High Command. He seemed very Old Russian in his approach to military problems.
The Russians, as she had read today, used to have very inflexible ideas about how to run an offensive. They had learned bitter lessons from the Germans in two World Wars. The Second World War had been particularly savage for the country. Although Russia eventually won the conflict, they had taken staggering losses. The German method of combat, the blitzkrieg or lightning war, had awed the Russians, stamping it on their hearts and minds. Years later, in their military manuals for attacking Western Europe during the Cold War, the Russians had advocated a similar form of ceaseless assault. They had believed in the Axe Theory of combat: to pour troops into the most successful advances and to ignore whatever didn’t work, discard whatever failed.
Marshal Nung appeared to have learned his earliest military lessons at the Moscow Academy. Ever since then, he had attempted to practice “lightning war.” That appeared to be at odds with normal Chinese military doctrine.
What did that tell her?
Hmm. Marshal Nung had led the only truly successful attack during the Alaskan War. He had captured his target, even though he had taken brutal losses doing so. In the Siberian War, he had made the brilliant strike that brought Chinese victory.
He is their Russian. No, he is a German-practicing theorist of blitzkrieg, but with a Chinese disregard for materiel losses.
Anna sat back so her chair creaked. Her eyes were half-lidded. Probably better than anyone in America, she grasped what the political infighting was like on the Ruling Committee. Nung was Jian Hong’s darling. The Leader backed the Marshal and together they had achieved what President Sims deemed as a military miracle. The originality for the California assault likely came from Marshal Nung.
Anna picked up her e-reader and studied wartime assassinations. Hmm, this was interesting. In 1943, in something called Operation Vengeance, America sent a squadron of P-38 Lightning fighters on a mission of assassination. The pilots were to target Admiral Yamamoto’s plane, hoping to kill the man who had planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. The pilots succeeded, and according to this article, Admiral Yamamoto’s death had damaged Japanese morale.
Anna continued reading, and she found out about the British commando attempt to assassinate the Desert Fox, General Rommel, in North Africa in 1941. It had been called Operation Flipper. It might have worked, too, but Rommel had gone to Rome to request replacements for supply ships sunk by the enemy. Thus, he was not in place when the commandos struck.
What would happen if they killed Marshal Nung? If nothing else, it might give the soldiers in Los Angeles time as the Chinese reorganized their command structure, or as the new commander took over.
Anna stood up, determined to take this to the President.
As the political leaders and their aides spoke, argued and decided strategy, Captain Stan Higgins smoked a cigar as he leaned against his worn Behemoth tank. His eyes were red from a lack of sleep and his arms and legs felt jittery because of the stims he’d been taking to stay awake.
The promotion to major hadn’t gone through, so he was back to being a captain again. Not that Stan cared one way or another. He knew he wasn’t going to survive the war. He was going to die in LA. The odds were simply too heavily stacked against him.
Stan rolled the cigar in his fingers and thrust it back into his mouth. He liked the strong taste and the smoke helped keep him awake. It bothered him that General Larson had ignored his advice. Instead of keeping the battle-winning Behemoth Regiment intact, the General had split it into its component companies. The General had spread the companies throughout Anaheim. The city—part of Greater Los Angeles—was a wasteland of rubble and skeletal buildings. General Larson had told Stan his reasoning. He needed the Behemoths all along the line in order to stiffen the soldiers by bolstering morale. If they saw the tanks with them, they would likely stand their ground longer.
Stan inhaled on the cigar. Above, the sky was black from burning oil, rubber and a host of other inflammables. Los Angeles and Anaheim in particular was aflame.
Chinese artillery boomed in the distance. From offshore, enemy battleships sent titanic rounds hammering into everything. If one of those giant shells hit his tank directly, it would take out the Behemoth.
Stan exhaled cigar smoke. For two days now the Chinese had ground into Anaheim. Special Infantry wave assaults, penal battalions attacks, Eagle Team jetpack commandos, Marauder tanks, T-66s, IFVs, assault guns, mortars, mag grenades, RGPs, cannon shells—Stan rubbed his eyes. The Chinese assaults just never stopped. It was more than depressing. It was soul numbing.
The naval gunfire shells were landing closer now. Each strike shook the ground and caused rubble and concrete to geyser and rain. The chatter of enemy machine guns began. PAA soldiers shouted hoarsely. Bugle blasted and bullets whined.
“Professor,” Jose shouted down from the tank’s top hatch. “The General wants to talk to you.”
Stan ground out his cigar and stuffed the unused part in his front pocket. Then he grasped the rungs on the side of the tank and climbed up. He was so damned tired that it was hard to think. Smoking the cigar was his one moment of peace in a world that had turned into a hectic and never-ending battle.
The Chinese never stopped. Of his three tanks, only his own worked now. Two M1A3s had dragged the stalled monsters deeper into Anaheim. They were the last ditch stronghold in case everything fell apart, which it looked like was happening and would only accelerate.
As Stan climbed up the tank, he paused and turned his head. Look over there, a hundred American teenagers ran for their lives, leaving their foxholes and rubble strongpoints. Most pitched aside their assault rifles. Stan looked left. A seven-story building collapsed. Through the dust he saw running American soldiers, although most of them kept their weapons.