Now the son would have a chance to perform on his own. Perhaps against the Americans, with their magnificent weapons. Chibisov wished the son luck across the dark distances. For the father’s sake.
“Shall I call for tea or some refreshments, Comrade Front Commander?” Chibisov asked.
Malinsky nodded. Yes. But it was really an unconcerned gesture. The old man was engrossed in the map again, seeking out advantageous ground and constructing hypothetical situations for a possible clash with the Americans. He had come back from the depths of weariness one more time, rejuvenated by the prospect of another combat challenge, of a new enemy.
Suddenly, Malinsky turned from the map, smiling. He stood up with the sprightliness of a boy. “We’ll beat them, Pavel Pavlovitch. They’ve waited too long. I don’t believe they can reach us in time to make a difference.” Malinsky set his face into a resolute expression, and Chibisov felt as though he were staring at the personification of the long history of Russian military struggles. “Damn them, let them come, the Americans. We can beat the Americans, too.”
Malinsky surprised his chief of staff by taking hold of his upper arm. Chibisov automatically recoiled from the human touch, then mastered his reflexes and forced himself to endure the grasp. He felt as though his armor had been penetrated, as though even this friendly grasp might fatally weaken his tenuous control over his lungs, over his fate.
“You realize that we had to fight,” Malinsky said passionately, vividly Russian in his tone of confidence. “Do you see that, Pavel Pavlovitch? It wasn’t only the political situation. We’ve been through worse crises. But we had to fight them now. It was the last chance. They were beating us without ever firing a shot. They forced us to fight so long with their weapons — technology, economics, their entire arsenal for destroying us in peacetime. And we could not compete. We were losing, and it became so apparent that even a fool could see it. They were laughing at us, Pavel Pavlovitch. But they aren’t laughing now. There is one thing we can still beat them at. Look at that map. We’ll beat the Americans, if they come. We have no choice.”
Major General Borchak, special KGB representative to the front’s military council, labored over his daily report. Writing official correspondence was an art, and Borchak prided himself on his mastery of it. You had to write in such a way that it provided indisputable facts for future use by your superiors, but you had to arrange those facts in such a manner that they did not directly affix blame, so that they could be given an innocent, sober interpretation, should the individual about whom you were reporting ever attain access to his file or gain unexpected power over you. Borchak struggled to communicate his grave doubts about Malinsky and his clique, but to do so without the sort of crude directness that might one day become a liability.
He did not like Malinsky. Overall, he found army generals a bit too puffed up, too convinced of their indispensability. Certainly, the regular military forces had a role to play. But the ultimate guarantor of Soviet power was and always would be the state security apparatus. Military commanders were narrow-minded, greedy, and naive. For the most part, they could be managed. But Malinsky made Borchak uneasy.
Borchak would have much preferred the front commander to have a few obvious vices. The most desirable traits in a high-ranking military officer, from Borchak’s point of view, were occasional weaknesses toward alcohol or women — or even a reasonable appetite for material corruption. Officers who had such traits inevitably left a trail that could be exploited should the need arise. A man like Starukhin, for instance, could never be a threat in the long term. He would always say something in his drunken belligerence that was potentially fatal. But Malinsky was too clean. Of course, you could always make a case of sorts out of his bloodlines. Such a stale approach was not much to Borchak’s taste, however. As a matter of professional pride. He would have much preferred something immediate and powerful, with an unmistakable taint of filth, to hold over the man.
He considered how Malinsky could be painted before a tribunal or special committee. For one thing, Malinsky had a tendency to underutilize the military council. He certainly did not adequately consult with the representatives of the state security apparatus at every opportunity. He was willfully independent. In fact, Malinsky possessed several distinctly unsocialist habits. He even seemed to foster a small-scale personality cult with his staff and subordinate commanders. Nor was morale in the front everything that could be desired. The reports of Article 27 cases, unauthorized leaving of the field of battle, and of Article 25, 30, and 31 cases, were sufficiently numerous to undercut the man’s reputation as a dedicated communist. Abandonment of equipment, plundering, and violence against the civilian population were among the most serious military crimes. It was obvious that Malinsky had not placed adequate stress on the inculcation of communist values and discipline within the formations under his command.
The trouble was, of course, that Malinsky’s forces were doing too well. Thus far, their successes had dramatically exceeded Borchak’s expectations. Had progress been a bit slower, had the fighting been more difficult, had there been more local reverses, the situation would have been more to Borchak’s liking. He wanted the armed forces of the Soviet Union to win. But it would not do for them to perform too gloriously. The KGB had learned its lesson from Beria’s fall, decades before. There would be no Zhukovs, no kingmakers, this time. Afghanistan had had several of the ingredients of a model war, in Borchak’s eyes. Failure had put the military in its proper place.
If NATO granted nuclear release to its forces… it might be possible to manage the situation so that the ground forces took a bloody nose, and Malinsky and those like him could be brought back under firm control. Now Malinsky wanted authorization for preemptive strikes at his discretion. Borchak was firmly committed to fighting that request through KGB channels. As always, the military were taking a very short view of things. They could not see beyond the battle to the peace. Of course, the whole timing of the nuclear business would have to be precise. The mission was to defeat NATO. But the balance of power between the Party, the military, and state security had to be maintained.
If Malinsky made a mistake, if a substantial part of his operation failed… then, even though ultimate success was achieved, he could be charged with making unjustified decisions, with failing to employ the full range of decision-making support tools and the proper methodology available to him as a front commander. He could be portrayed as subjectivist, too prone to making executive-style decisions, while ignoring the objective conditions for success postulated by Soviet military science. The military’s own toys could be turned against them in the end.
An alternative would be to work on the son. Malinsky’s boy was not the strong figure his father was. He was ridiculously infatuated with his wife. And wives could always be managed. Nonetheless, such an approach was a bit too Byzantine. And the father might just cut his ties and sacrifice the son. You never could tell. Borchak much preferred the thought of something directly implicating Malinsky in corruption or disloyalty, no matter how slight the evidence. The point was not to destroy the man, after all, but simply to harness him, to chop him down to size if he ever became a threat of any kind.