All his life Mansfeld had seen further and more deeply than those around him could. The only man whose mind he respected was Chancellor Kleist. Maybe the American who had come up with the battle plan this winter to maul the Chinese had a superior intellect. Otherwise, the world was a barren desert, a wasteland in terms of thinkers.
He sipped more coffee, holding the liquid on his tongue as he attempted to extract the greatest amount of enjoyment from it he could. He wished he could find a way to make this drink taste as good as the first one in the morning. Every day, he looked forward to his first sip of coffee. Nothing tasted quite as good. He wondered why that was, and smiled indulgently. He knew the answer, of course, but he asked himself the question almost every morning around now.
Mansfeld clicked the cup onto its saucer and tapped the battle map. He enlarged the area around the Toronto Pocket.
The fierce defensive fighting hadn’t surprise him. These were first-rate American units in Toronto. Their commander had used them to plug the gap to try to halt the relentless GD advance toward Detroit.
Mansfeld smiled. He knew it made him seem like an eagle surveying the countryside for prey. He fought at too swift a pace for the Americans. The Canadians had melted like butter those first few days. Later, the Canadians had stiffened for a time. He kept producing surprises, though, keeping the enemy off balance.
Yes, the enemy commander had thought to stem the relentless tide of GD victory before the largest city of Canada, Toronto. It had been the obvious thing to do, and in many ways, the correct move. Cities, especially big cities, could often become defender fortresses.
The allied Canadians and Americans finally had the numbers they needed. They had first-rate soldiers and for their side, modern equipment. Yes, the enemy commander had made the correct choice—or so it had seemed. Stop the relentless GD torrent at Toronto.
Thinking about it, Mansfeld smirked.
He had saved one of his trump cards for just such a moment. Actually, he had saved two trumps. Until that moment, he had kept the laser-armed Sabre fighter-jets out of battle. With them providing air cover, he had mass-airlifted light tanks. Then he had dropped the Ritter tanks as if they were paratroopers behind the main enemy concentrations. In conjunction with that, he had used mass Galahad hovers to swing around the city on Lake Ontario.
Oh yes, the American general had attempted to seal Southern Ontario between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. He had thought to turn Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe into a fortress so the dreaded GD couldn’t practice anymore blitzkrieg tactics. The so-called horseshoe area contained over nine million people, twenty-six percent of Canada’s former population. The enemy commander had not realized the GD ability to use the air as a flank.
Some of Mansfeld’s staff had shown surprise at this. The Americans often employed helicopter-borne troops in mass. The enemy had also faced Chinese jetpack commandos before. Surely, the Americans should understand better than anyone that air was another flank in modern war.
As he studied the computer map, Mansfeld had known the Americans wouldn’t understand. Who could airdrop tanks? No one had ever done it before. Therefore, no one thought of it, no one that is except for General Walther Mansfeld of the GD Expeditionary Force. Because of the brilliant maneuver, he had trapped the first-rate Americans and Canadians in Toronto. Now he began the annihilation of those soldiers—soldiers the Americans would badly need in the coming weeks.
“In six more days,” Mansfeld said aloud—he was quite alone. “In six more days I will kill or capture the last of you trapped men.”
The blitzkrieg would resume and the American command would panic. They would rush reinforcements before him, putting them in exactly the wrong places. Why were commanding officers of armies and the leaders of countries and power blocs so obvious?
Mansfeld picked up the coffee cup and sipped. He took a deep breath afterward. He would win the war. He knew that. His true opponent wasn’t the Americans or the broken Canadians. No. Chancellor Kleist was his real foe. So far, Kleist had kept his nose out of his affairs in running the day-to-day operations. There would come a moment, however, when Kleist would interfere. The Americans were stubborn, and they would fight hard. They would produce one seeming crisis moment, and that crisis would break Kleist’s so-called steely nerves.
Clicking the half-full cup back onto its saucer, Mansfeld sat down and put his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes, and he visualized what had happened four months ago. His recall was incredibly sharp, better than anyone else’s that he knew about. His near-photographic retention was one of his secrets.
Kleist was his enemy. The reason was clear. Chancellor Kleist feared a man with such abilities as his. History supplied the reasons. No one else could outthink and outmaneuver the Chancellor except for him. Therefore, to keep himself secure as the ruler of United Europe, Kleist would believe he needed to eliminate the threat of the only other superior thinker in his midst.
With his eyes closed, Mansfeld smiled. This was a game of wits, of titans among pygmies. It would seem that Kleist held all the cards. Clearly, the Chancellor had the superior position of power.
“So it would seem,” Mansfeld whispered.
Yet it had also been that way four months ago. Kleist had summoned him back from Quebec to order him before a firing squad or lock him in with torturers. No one else had quite known that, although Mansfeld had known it with certainty. He’d faced Kleist and the GD General Staff alone in the den of lions. The Chancellor had planned to pin on him the fruits of his own—Kleist’s—mistake. The Chancellor had planned to shovel the blame and rid himself of his only true opponent. But the move had been so obvious that it had surprised Mansfeld that the Chancellor hadn’t recognized what the countermove would be.
With his hands behind his head, and with his eyes closed, General Mansfeld frowned. Kleist possessed a superior mind. Therefore—
Mansfeld opened his eyes and sat up. Did I miscalculate four months ago?
The idea galled him at first. Then he shook his head. Another of his powers was the ability to admit a mistake. It was conceivable that he had made an error at the meeting four months ago.
Mansfeld peered up at the ceiling. The tiles there had thousands of indentations that almost looked like holes. He closed his eyes and once more, he put his hands behind his head. He let himself relax.
He needed to use his memory. He needed to replay the meeting and see if Kleist had outfoxed him. The Chancellor could be incredibly subtle.
You must not let yourself become arrogant, Mansfeld reminded himself. That is the great trap for a genius like you. Repeat after me: I am not invincible.
“I am not invincible,” General Mansfeld whispered while in his chair.
He concentrated, and he thought back to the meeting four months ago in Berlin.
“General Mansfeld,” the Chancellor said in a dangerously silky voice, “tell us about that, won’t you?”
They met in the Defense Ministry, a midmorning meeting. Outside, cold rain pelted against the windows. At times, hail hit, sounding like pebbles as they struck.
Hostile eyes turned toward General Walther Mansfeld. He sat alone at the end of a long conference table. Along the walls, the Chancellor’s security detail watched Mansfeld with reptilian eyes. They were big men in black suits who could draw their weapons with startling speed. They wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him. Neither would they hesitate to drag him to the Chancellor’s “doctors.” There, Mansfeld knew, he would take many months dying as the specialists inflicted ever more ingenious pains. They would turn him into a mewling thing begging for death.