Ivan Sergetov shifted nervously in his chair. He could see where the conversation was leading. "Then possibly we have lost."
"Possibly?" Kosov snorted. "Then we are doomed. We will have lost our war against NATO, we still have only a fraction of our energy needs, and our armed forces are a shadow of their former selves. And what will the Politburo do then?"
"But if the Alfeld offensive succeeds... " Both Politburo men ignored this statement.
"What of the secret German negotiations in India?" Minister Sergetov asked.
"Ah, you noted that the Foreign Minister glossed over that?" Kosov smiled wickedly. He was a man born to conspiracy. "They have not changed their bargaining position a dot. At most it was a hedge against the collapse of NATO forces. It might also have been a trick from the beginning. We're not sure." The KGB Chief poured himself a glass of mineral water. "The Politburo meets in eight hours. I will not be there. I feel an angina attack coming on from my damaged heart."
"So Larionov will deliver your report?"
"Yes." Kosov grinned. "Poor Josef. He is trapped by his own intelligence estimates. He will report that things are not going according to plan, but still going. He will say that NATO's current attack is a desperate attempt to forestall the Alfeld offensive, and that the German negotiations still hold promise. I should warn you, Major, that one of his men is on your staff. I know his name, but I have not seen his reports. It was probably he who provided the information that got the former commander arrested and put your general in his place."
"What will happen to him?" the officer asked.
"That is not your concern," Kosov answered coldly. A total of seven senior officers had been arrested in the past thirty-six hours. All were now in Lefortovo Prison, and Kosov could not have altered their fates even if he'd had the mind to.
"Father, I need to know the fuel situation."
"We are down to minimum national reserves-you have a week's fuel delivered or being shipped now, and roughly one week's supply is available for the forces deployed in Germany, plus a week for the armies detailed to go into the Persian Gulf."
"So tell your commander that he has two weeks to win the war. If he fails, it will mean his head. Larionov will blame the Army for his own intelligence mistakes. Your life will be in danger too, young man."
"Who is the KGB spy on our staff?"
"The Theater Operations Officer. He was co-opted years ago, but his control officer is in the Larionov faction. I don't know exactly what he is reporting."
"General Alekseyev is-technically he's violating orders by taking a unit on the Weser and sending it east to relieve Alfeld."
"Then he is already in danger, and I cannot help him." Not without tipping my hand
"Vanya, you should return now. Comrade Kosov and I have other things to discuss." Sergetov embraced his son and walked him to the door. He watched the red taillights disappear behind the birch trees.
"I don't like using my own son in this!"
"Whom else can you trust, Mikhail Eduardovich? The Rodina faces possible destruction, the Party leadership has gone mad, and I don't even have full control of the KGB. Don't you see: we have lost! We must now save what we can."
"But we still hold enemy territory-"
"Yesterday does not matter. Today does not matter. What matters is one week from today. What will our Defense Minister do when it becomes obvious even to him that we have failed? Have you considered that? When desperate men realize they have failed-and those desperate men have control of atomic weapons, then what?"
Then what, indeed? Sergetov wondered. He pondered two more questions. What do I-we?-do about it? Then he looked at Kosov and asked himself the second.
ALFELD, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
The Russians were not responding very fast, Mackall was surprised to see. There had been air attacks and several vicious artillery bombardments during the night, but the expected ground assault hadn't materialized. For the Russians this was a crucial mistake. More ammunition had arrived, bringing them to full loads for the first time in weeks. Better still, a full brigade of German panzer Grenadiers had reinforced the depleted troopers of the 11th Cav, and Mackall had learned to trust these men as he trusted his tank's composite armor. Their defensive positions were arrayed in depth to the east and west. The armored forces pushing down from the north could now support Alfeld with their long-range guns. Engineers had repaired the Russian bridges on the Leine, and Mackall was about to move his tanks east to support the mechanized troops guarding the rubble that was Alfeld.
It was strange crossing the Soviet ribbon bridge-it was strange to be moving east at all! Mackall thought-and his driver was nervous, crossing the narrow, flimsy-looking structure at five miles per hour. Once across, they moved north along the river, swinging around the town. It was raining lightly, with fog and low-hanging clouds, typical European summer weather that cut visibility to under a thousand yards. He was met by troops who guided the arriving tanks to selected defensive positions. The Soviets had helped for once. In their constant efforts to clear the roads of rubble, they'd given the Americans neat piles of brick and stone about two meters high, almost exactly the right size for tanks to hide behind. The lieutenant dismounted from his vehicle to check the placement of his four tanks, then conferred with the commander of the infantry company he was detailed to support. There were two battalions of infantry dug in deep and hard on the outskirts of Alfeld, supported by a squadron of tanks. He heard the overhead whistling of artillery shells, the new kind that dropped mines on the fog-shrouded battlefield ahead of him. The whistling changed as he mounted his tank. Incoming.
STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
"It's taken too long to get them moving," Alekseyev growled to his operations officer.
"It's still three divisions, and they are moving now."
"But how many reinforcements have arrived?"
The operations man had warned Alekseyev against trying to coordinate a two-pronged attack, but the General had stuck to the plan. Beregovoy's A tank division was now in place to strike from the west, while the three C reserve divisions hit from the east. The regular tank force had no artillery-they'd had to move too fast to bring it-but three hundred tanks and six hundred personnel carriers were a formidable force all by themselves, the General thought... but what were they up against,
and how many vehicles had been destroyed or damaged by air attack on the approach march?
Sergetov arrived. His class-A uniform was rumpled from his traveling.
"And how was Moscow?" Alekseyev asked.
"Dark, Comrade General. The attack, how did it go?"
"Just starting now."
"Oh?" The major was surprised at the delay. He looked rather closely at the Theater Operations Officer, who hovered over the map table, frowning at the dispositions while the plotting officers prepared to mark the progress of the attack.
"I have a message from high command for you, Comrade General." Sergetov handed over an official-looking form. Alekseyev scanned it-and stopped reading. His fingers went taut on the paper briefly before he regained self-control.