The communications center was a ruin. The intelligence officer speculated that the Americans had employed aircraft from their WHITE LIGHT program. But it was impossible to know with any certainty. The world was so full of surprises. The only thing that was definite was the burned-out stasis of the magical talking machines that directed warfare in the twenty-first century. When the interference finally stopped, only two systems remained functionaclass="underline" an ancient vacuum tube radio set inherited from the Soviets — with which the staff had been able to contact a loyal garrison to the north — and the main computer system. The computer was Japan's pride. It had been built to withstand any imaginable interference. The computer was the castle of the new age, wherein the modern warrior sought his last refuge. Certainly, it was more important than any number of brave Takaharas or subordinates nailed up on crosses.
A black bird flittered down onto one of the foreign dead in the street. Noburu feared some further atrocity. But the bird merely twitched its head back and forth a few times, judging the world, then settled down into the pile of rags as if nesting.
A low humming arose in the distance. The two living, standing men looked at each other.
"The relief column?" Akiro asked.
"Too soon."
The younger man looked back down at the street with its frozen traffic of papers, glass, and death.
The humming stopped. Another detail of events that would never be explained.
It would be hours before any relief column could arrive. Perhaps even a day or more. Everything was so unsettled. Rough, relayed messages indicated that fundamentalist elements in Iran had called for a holy war against the Japanese in the liberated territories as well as against the Russians. The Azeris were fellow Shi'as, and they had obeyed the call. Perhaps the Sunni populations of central Asia would make common cause in this, as they had in the war against the Soviets. Noburu did not know. Without communications, the world was simply a question mark. But even if they made common cause now, it would not be too long before the Shi'as and Sunnis began killing one another. It was the natural way of this world, as inevitable as the seasons.
Of course, it made no logical sense. But these people lived on a spiritual frontier where the logic of other races or religions had little value. Faith was all.
The masses had responded to the green call of their god, as had some of the rebel units and formations. But others had kept faith with Japan and her military technology. Now there was a civil war within a civil war, and a fractured world was fracturing again into ever smaller, ever more uncontrollable parts. He had known it all in advance. The dream warrior had whispered to him, smiling at Noburu's folly as he attempted to reason with Iranian generals, Arab generals, central Asian generals, each of whom was only waiting for the day when he would fight the other once again, waiting for the day when the Slavs and Japanese would be gone so that the children of God could return their attention to more exclusive massacres.
A relief column had been organized to fight its way into the city from the nearest loyal garrison, according to a message received over the old HF radio. But no one knew what obstacles and ambushes were out there waiting. Ideally, the helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft would have provided reconnaissance as well as quicker relief, ferrying in troops and ammunition and lifting out the wounded.
But the jamming attack during the night had destroyed the electronics on virtually all of the tactical aircraft in the vicinity. The only option remaining was the dispatch of an armored relief convoy — which would have to drive blindly over mountain roads. There would be plenty of time to wait and worry.
Ammunition. Above all, they needed ammunition. If the mob returned now, they could virtually stroll into the compound.
Noburu had been forced to allow the rear command post to continue to control combat operations. His shrunken staff labored to repair at least a few of the communications systems by cannibalizing others. He could have run the war through the master computer, but he recognized that such an action would be sheer vanity. He needed a functioning headquarters around him. For the moment, the rear had a broader capacity to sort out the damage and revitalize allied efforts. Given the present state of his headquarters, Noburu would have been shooting into the darkness. As it was, he could not even communicate with the rear command post by voice. So he elected to wait. To try to think clearly. He had transmitted only one firm order through the master computer: the Scramblers were not to be employed again without his personal authorization. Beyond that, there was only an emptiness, inability.
Behind him, he heard the indestructible computer singing. A quiet song of electricity and perfection. The computer was ready to do his will. The brilliant machine wanted to do his bidding. It was only the man, feeble and unsure, who could not respond.
The black bird rose abruptly from its human nest and sailed up to the head of one of the crucified officers. Again, the bird made no attempt to disturb the flesh. It simply perched, fluffing its black feathers over the dead man's hair.
Akiro drew his pistol.
"No," Noburu said.
But the younger man fired. He missed the bird, which rose skyward with a baffled cry. Under the black wings the dead officer's skull exploded, coming back to life for an instant before its wreckage lolled back down on the officer's chest.
Akiro was shaking. He looked as though he had been abandoned on an ice floe. He held the pistol in his hand, struggling with its purpose.
"Organize a detail," Noburu said calmly. "It's time to cut them down."
At 12:57 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, President Jonathan Waters suffered a massive heart attack. He had slept little over the previous four days, and it had felt wonderful and a little bit strange to slip into the bedclothes beside the steady warmth of his wife. He lost consciousness quickly, descending into a tumult of dreams. His last dream was of his father. President Waters was only a boy, and red-eyed dogs chased him. Up ahead, his father receded in a mist as thick as wet concrete. The boy ran harder and harder, making ever less progress, calling out to the safe, strong man. But his father did not hear him. And the dogs were all around him. He ran as hard as he could, lifting his hands away from the relentless snouts, shouting for his father to come back.
He woke in mortal pain. He called out, "Dad," then remembered a whole life and spoke his wife's name once before he died.
The Americans came down from the meager hills that had been elevated with the name Ural Mountains. Their war machines sailed south over the wastes, registering here and there the passing of a village better-suited as a museum of poverty and premodernity than as a habitat for contemporary man. The war had not yet reached these hamlets, and smoke rose from chimneys instead of from ruins. The M-100s' on-board sensors registered defunct tractors in place of tanks. The snow had covered the last traces of the roads. The isolated settlements appeared as gray islands in an arctic sea. The sagging houses looked so thoroughly lost that it seemed certain the war would continue to pass them by as surely as had indoor plumbing.
It struck Taylor that this was no land over which to fight a war. It was merely a place of passage, through which the great forgotten warriors of the East had passed, illiterate geniuses whose people wove the record of their triumphs into rugs or nicked out their chronicles in silver and brass. Then the white-bloused Russians had marched from west to east, for God and the Czar, bringing the tribesmen alphabets and artillery.
Objectively speaking, this was no land over which to fight a war. And yet, Taylor had seen enough of war to know that a man would always love the barren plains or hills where he was born, and that he would pass that love on to his sons with his blood, even in captivity. Anyway, men never really needed much of an excuse to fight.