Slowly, as if the weight of the entire world were on her shoulders, Kozak pushed herself up off the cold metal ramp and faced Cerro. Though in her heart she was dying, Kozak choked back her tears and saluted him. "Yes, sir, your orders are clear."
Unable to speak, and not knowing what to say anyway, Cerro reached down, grabbed his map, and fled across the road to his own Bradley, leaving Kozak to pass on the order.
CHAPTER 21
Despite the fact that she had been finished several hours ago, Jan Fields-Dixon couldn't bring herself to leave the World News Network studios. In Germany, where it was still mid-afternoon, the flow of Tenth Corps units into the perimeter held by the 17th Airborne Division, south of Bremerhaven, was beginning to turn into a flood. At checkpoints all along the southern tier of that perimeter, news teams stood by recording what some correspondents called completion of the greatest military march since Xenophon led his ten thousand Greek mercenaries out of Persia in the year 400 B.C. Like everyone else, the experts, real and imagined, sat by television monitors shaking their heads in disbelief and watching as the soldiers of the Tenth Corps finished what many had said could not be done. "Every man and woman in the corps," one retired colonel had told Jan during an interview earlier that day, "should be proud of what they have accomplished."
Jan, ever watchful for any sign of her husband, could see no hint of pride in the vacant eyes of the survivors as column after column of soldiers rolled past the electronic eye of the news media. Few in Germany seemed to share the wild joy most Americans back home felt now that the great march to the sea was coming to an end. Instead, when a correspondent managed to make his way to a group of survivors, his questions were often left unanswered as the soldier stammered or simply lapsed into a stunned silence. At one assembly area, where the remains of a tank battalion had been marshaled, a reporter found every man, officer and enlisted, spread out over the fenders and tops of their tank turrets asleep. It was, the reporter commented as his cameraman panned the slumbering crewmen, as if the only thing that had kept the men and women of the Tenth Corps moving, in spite of the terrible hardships and odds, was stubborn pride and fear of failure, and now that they were safe, they could go no further.
Having been long associated with the military, Jan knew better. Men like her husband, Scott Dixon, his operations officer, Harold Cerro, and the corps commander, Al Malin, went on doing things that often could not be explained and defying common sense because they couldn't do otherwise. There was a vague and indefinable force known as duty that drove her husband and those that followed him to keep putting themselves in harm's way. Jan, like others, knew that stubborn and mindless male pride, coupled with a childlike fascination with danger and the primeval animal-like drive to kill, played a part in the process. But these drives alone could not justify or explain what Scott did for a living. Neither could high-sounding words, such as duty, honor, country, justify the brutality that Scott and others like him meted out to others and suffered in return. That was something that defied explanation. Something kept Dixon in the Army and allowed the soldiers of the Tenth Corps to do what everyone in Washington had termed impossible.
While such thoughts were never far from her mind, there were other, more pressing concerns that Jan had to deal with. For in spite of the fact that the end was clearly in sight, the dark and nebulous forces that had driven the Tenth Corps on were still at play. With the same blind and mindless determination that had kept the Tenth Corps moving north, units still responding to the orders of the German Chancellor continued to hack away at the rear-guard elements of Big Al's tattered corps. It was in the words of one of Jan's male co-workers as if some Germans couldn't admit defeat as long as they had a chance to strike out and hit an American unit. Forgetting for a moment that her husband was still very much a part of the story, Jan's friend predicted that there would be one more final killing frenzy, one last mindless battle, regardless of how pointless it was, before serious political negotiations could begin. Though she hoped that everyone in Germany would simply allow the battle to die away quietly, Jan knew in her heart and soul that as long as men like her Scotty still stood on both sides of the battle lines that wouldn't happen.
So she watched the videos as they were beamed in live from Europe and prayed that somewhere on one of them she would be able to catch a glimpse of his face.
Flanked by Secretary of Defense Terry Rothenberg and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Wilson moved with such a brisk pace down the corridor that those following began to think she was trying to run away from them. They didn't realize how right they were. Tired of briefing after briefing on the military situation, Wilson was looking for any excuse to shake her entourage of stern-faced military bureaucrats and generals. So when Wilson saw Ed Lewis come around the corner out of a side corridor quite by accident, she called out, "Ed, before you return to the State Department, there's something I need to go over with you."
Without even a polite smile, she turned to Rothenberg. "Terry, if you'd excuse me, there's a few things I need to discuss with the Secretary of State designee before he leaves." Not waiting for a response, Wilson stepped away from Rothenberg and his gang of military men. Grabbing Lewis's arm, Wilson snatched him away from his assistant and started to head for the Oval Office as quickly as she could. Only after they were in the office and a member of the Secret Service closed the door behind them did she let her newly named Secretary of State go.
Walking over to the front edge of her desk, Wilson stopped, placed her hands palms down on it, and leaned forward. "How much longer do you think it will be, Ed?"
Walking over to one of the overstuffed chairs, he allowed his tired frame to drop into it and settle before he answered her. "From what I've been told, maybe another six, seven hours before the last of the rear guard makes it to the 17th Airborne's forward outpost, providing the Germans don't cut the road again."
Shaking her head, Wilson corrected Lewis. "No, not that. I know about the counterattack that the Germans are preparing." Spinning around, she folded her arms across her chest. "No, what I'm talking about is how long before everyone figures out that we, with the help of General Malin, duped them?"
There was no need for Lewis to consider that question. "Never." For a moment Wilson stared at Lewis before he continued. "There is no need for anyone to know. There are only four people who know exactly what happened and how this whole thing got started." Lewis held four fingers up. As he named each of the conspirators, Lewis dropped a finger. "To start with, there's you. But I don't think that you're going to go on national television and announce, 'Guess what, folks, I fooled you.' No, even if you had a burning desire to repent for your sins, this country has had far too rough a time. The last thing you need to do is follow the Ukrainian adventure and the German crisis with a Washington scandal like this."
Holding herself close, Wilson considered what Lewis had said. There had been times, especially when she was alone, when she'd considered doing exactly that. But she didn't tell him, or anyone else, for she still wasn't sure which way she would go on that issue. Even as Lewis continued, Wilson decided that she was still undecided.
"Then, of course, there's me. I can assure you, Madam President, this has not been the highlight of my career as a public servant. Yet I have no intention of slitting my own wrists in public. You see, as much as I hate what we did, I consider what we did the best choice from a whole stableful of bad ones. I am confident that in time our actions will be able to stand on their own merit."