The general leaned over. His charm ducts opened and Jack felt the scalding bliss of attention rush across him.
“But listen here, young man. When you get the key loose and we do what we must, I’ll let you call them. There’ll be time. I’ll have my men bring them up here. Don’t you see, Mr. Hummel. In here, in this mountain, it’s the only safe place. Mr. Hummel, think of the world you’ll inherit. It’s all yours for a little bit of further effort.”
It wasn’t that the guy was nuts that was so unsettling to Jack Hummel; it’s that he seemed sane — that he knew, absolutely and without doubt, what must be done.
“Think of your kids, Mr. Hummel.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jack blurted out involuntarily. “Jesus, why? You’ll kill a billion people.”
The general smiled bitterly. Jack had the sense he was really seeing the man for the first time.
“The fact is, I’ll kill only a few hundred million. I’ll save billions. I’m the man who saved the world. I’m a great man, Mr. Hummel. You are lucky to serve me.”
The general gave another little smile.
“Now, cut, Mr. Hummel. Cut.”
Jack felt himself surrendering again. What could he do against such an operator, so much better than he was, so much stronger, smarter, who had it all figured out.
The flame ate into the metal.
Scurrying like a swift night lizard, Alex moved from position to position with a sweet word, a pat of encouragement, an invocation to patriotism and sacrifice, a reminder of the traditions. He was not an eloquent man and certainly not a glib one, but his blunt simplicity and, most of all, his belief, did what it was supposed to.
“How are we here, boys?” he said, glad to be speaking in Russian again.
“Fine, sir. Ready. Ready as we’ll be.”
“On our nightscope we picked up their trucks moving toward the mountain. Our infrared also picked up the heat of their helicopter engines turning over. The Americans will be here soon, boys. And this time there’ll be lots more of them.”
“We’re ready, sir. Let them come.”
“Good lads. This isn’t Afghanistan now, where the issues grow hazy and you wonder why the fellow next to you has to die. This is the battle we all trained for.”
He believed it. The general had explained it all to him, and he believed in the general. The general was a great man, a man who understood the whole world and what was best. You could believe in the general. Alex had come back from Afghanistan hungry for a fight to believe in: he’d seen too much meaningless death in the gulches and canyons and enfilades, too many guts spilled out on the rocks, seen too many black flies corpulent with Russian blood. Yet he came back, like the veterans of many another war, unappreciated and unloved, to nothing except a bitter peace. He came back needing a faith, a redeemer, a confessor, a messiah, and he’d found them all in the general.
“It’s changing,” pointed out the general. “This Gorbachev, with his damned glasnost, is turning the country your men fought and died for into a little America. We are becoming soft and bourgeoisified. We are becoming our enemies, even as our enemies are preparing to destroy us. In America this second they are preparing to deploy a new generation of missile that dooms us, the madmen! And this fool Gorbachev has stripped us of mid-range nuclear weapons and hints of yet broader initiatives. Jews are brought back from the Gulag and allowed to become celebrities for their antisocial tendencies! American music is played on the radio. Our teenagers no longer join the Party, they are too busy dancing. And all this was going on while your men were bleeding slowly to death in Afghanistan. Only a few of us have the memory to understand this. Memory, Alex, that is the key. From memory, Pamyat, comes everything, a belief in our land, the courage to do something about the unpleasant present. Few enough have the guts to realize this, and fewer still the guts to do anything about it. Where is the leadership, the passion, the courage?”
“Sir, it’s with one man. It is with you.”
The general especially hated America. He called it “One big moral and intellectual concentration camp.” Only men of courage could stand against the hated America and its plans to destroy Russia.
“Alex, did you know that Ghengis Khan had a special operations team, a Spetsnaz himself, under the leadership of a brilliant young officer who refused all promotion? Do you know what he said? I offer you this to think about: he said, ‘Give me forty picked men, and I will change the world.’”
Alex nodded.
“I will change the world, Alex. With you and forty picked men. Or, rather, sixty.”
They were a perfect team: the general the father who saw and knew all, the major a son who made his father’s vision possible with his own willingness to sacrifice.
“Now, boys,” he said to his children, the tough young heroes of 22 Spetsnaz, who would change the world from the perimeter defense of South Mountain, “think of your fathers scrambling through the wreckage of Stalingrad in the subzero weather, throwing themselves against the SS juggernaut all those long and bloody years. Then think of your grandfathers, who made a revolution and fought great battles against the West to save the world for you. Then be thankful that your test isn’t half so severe as theirs: you’ve only a single night to fight, on a mountaintop in America.”
“Let them come,” said a boy. “Ill talk in bullets.”
“That’s what I like to hear. And remember this: you’re Spetsnaz. No men on this earth have trained as hard or learned as much or given as much to become as good as you. You are the very best in the world. You carry your country’s destiny because you’re strong enough. Your shoulders are broad, your minds clear, your wills strong.”
Alex paused in his thoughts and a twitch played across his face. He realized that it was a smile.
God, he was happy!
He couldn’t wait for it to begin. It was the battle every professional soldier since the time of the Legions had dreamed about: a small-unit defense with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. But only one soldier of all the millions had gotten a chance to fight it, and that was Major Aleksandr Pavlovovich Yasotay of 22 Spetsnaz.
And one other: the unnamed American assault team commander, whom he would soon be meeting.
Skazy was alone with Delta now. He checked his watch and saw that it was 2145; the plan called for them to onload the choppers at 2150. Puller had gone back to the command headquarters to work up his nerve or whatever; and the guy Thiokol, gone too, back to his anagrams and code sequences, tensing up to crack the door.
There was one outsider here, Skazy knew, but said nothing. The young federal agent Uckley, who’d fucked up at the house, had arrived a few minutes ago in Delta cammos, presumably borrowed from one of the men he’d cracked the house with. Somewhere he’d got an MP-5 and an accurized 45. Uckley was here to tag along. All right, kid, thought Skazy. It’s your party too.
“Okay, guys,” Skazy said, “your attention please, just a sec.”
They turned to look at him, faces now blackened, gear checked for the thousandth time, the very best guys there were, weapons cocked and locked, boots tied, all concentration and intensity.
“Guys, it’s just us. Some of you were in ’Nam in the Airborne or the Rangers or out in the boonies in an A-team detachment and you remember how it came apart in the end despite all the blood you and your buddies poured into it. And some of you were on the fucked-up Iranian mission with me and remember how it came apart, and how we left bodies burning in the desert. And some of you jumped into Grenada with me, and remember being pinned in that ditch during that long night. Well, the truth is, Delta’s had its ass kicked each time out. Now, right now, I know there’s a guy on that mountain who’s a lot like us, hardcore, pro military, lots of ops under his belt. The Spetsnaz commander. Right now he’s telling his guys how good they are, and how Delta will be coming and how they’re going to kick more Delta ass. Okay? That doesn’t make me too happy, and I don’t think it should make you guys too happy. So no matter what happens, I just think we ought to have a little moment of seriousness here for a moment before we get on board the slicks. I fully expect to die tonight and that doesn’t scare me a bit, because I know if I do, some Delta asskicker is going to come in the hole I opened and finish the job I started, right? So let’s just shake hands, clear our minds, and concentrate on our profession tonight. In other words, guys, let’s just get it done. Tonight, Delta gets it done. Tonight, Delta kicks ass. Fair enough?”