"George," he said, "just one last thing. When the hell are you going to get out of that Commie uniform? You look like hell."
Taylor knew he was supposed to smile. But he could not.
"Just before we lift off, sir," he said.
"Well, give them hell, George. And God bless."
"Thank you, sir."
And the screen went blank.
Daisy.
Daisy felt as though everyone in the room must have realized how distraught she had become. She had struggled to overcome her emotions, forcing herself to brief in a voice that was even more dispassionate than usual. But the words, as she spoke them, seemed to come out just short of her intentions, and she felt as though she could not quite manage her thoughts.
It was his fault. She had watched him on the monitor during his conversation with the President, aware that he could not see her, that he had no reason to be aware of her presence. And, listening to him, to his raw, direct voice that would never compete with the Bouquettes of the world, she had wanted to get down on her knees and beg the President to call it all off. The fate of the Soviet Union, the disposition of far-off minerals, could never be as important as this one decent man, with his antique notions about duty. As she talked in her turn, adorning the classified imagery on the monitors with professional terminology and icy judgment, she had felt as though she were condemning him, sending him to a certain death. The logic of politics and power, once so evident to her, now seemed like so much nonsense. It was only about people, after all. About men. And women. Who had found someone they just might love. Only to see them go, in the name of high-sounding foolishness. It was about George Taylor, with his pathetic face and his determination to do the right thing at any cost for a country whose citizens would shudder to look at him.
Was she punishing herself? Was it only a travesty of love? How on earth could she imagine for a moment that she loved that man? She had needed to turn off the lights and close her eyes, as well.
She liked him best when he held her, with her back small against his chest, and his strong arm cradling her breasts. Taylor, in his dress suit bought carelessly from some post-exchange rack, giving him the look of the world's most serious appliance salesman. The clown who brought a bottle of dessert wine for dinner.
How could she feel so much at the sight of such a man?
When he answered the President in those blunt, sensible words that made a mockery out of her analysis, her career, her fine education, she had only wanted to tell him that she was sorry, that she hadn't really meant it, that it was only that her thoughts and words would not come out clearly tonight.
He was not coming back. She knew it.
A demon inside her wanted to call out to him, right in front of the President and all of the old identical men who served him, to tell Taylor that, yes, she loved him, and she had loved him already on that last morning, but she had not had the strength, or the common sense, to tell him.
Then Taylor was gone, the communications link broken, and she was left with the blank monitors, and with Clifton Reynard Bouquette by her side.
The President was smiling, shaking his head. He glanced around the big table and tugged wearily at his tie.
"Well, gentlemen," he said happily, I suspect that this colonel of ours is going to strike genuine fear into the hearts of the enemy." He bobbed his head slightly, in amusement. "God knows, just looking at him scares the hell out of me."
Everyone laughed. Except Daisy. Beside her, Bouquette laughed loudest of all. Then he leaned in close to her, whispering:
"You're not going to make a fool of yourself, are you?"
9
The nursing mother crouched against the main gun housing of Babryshkin's tank, her small, emaciated face barely visible under the oversize winter hat. Her layers of scarves, sweaters, and coat appeared to weigh far more than she could possibly weigh herself, and the infant was barely perceptible amid the disorder of felt and wool and worn-out fur. A small leg kicked back, the way a weaning pup pushes out at space, trying to bury itself closer to its bitch, and the tiny mother renewed her grip. Babryshkin sensed that the woman was very young, and that she might have been rather attractive under other circumstances, but now her cheeks were chafed until they looked like the dry skin of an old woman, and her sunken eyes lacked focus. Now and then she spoke quietly to her other child, a boy of perhaps four years, who clung to her coat with vacant eyes. When Babryshkin had lifted the boy onto the tank, lice flurried up from his cap like spanked dust. But the boy seemed unaware of the pests. He simply assumed his place beside his mother and stared out across the frostbitten steppes. The only sign he gave of normalcy was the avidity with which he devoured the stale crackers Babryshkin had put into his small hand.
Babryshkin had found the woman and her children at the rear of the truncated refugee column just as his tanks caught up with the plodding survivors. The boy had been unable to walk, and the half-starved mother was struggling to carry both her infant and her son, accomplishing little more than dragging the boy a few paces at a time. No one offered to help her. The refugees trailing the column felt the breath of the enemy a bit too strongly on their backs, and each had his or her own personal misery. The world had gotten beyond charity.
At the scene of the massacre, Babryshkin had abandoned his resolve to maintain full combat readiness at all costs. Instead of growing harder, he found that his strength of purpose had peaked, and that his will was now on a steeply descending curve. He had ordered the survivors of the bloody ordeal loaded onto his vehicles, and his column had quickly taken on a ragged, undisciplined look. There was a pervasive sense, almost as strong as an odor that little more could be done. The ammunition was virtually gone. The fuel hardly sufficed to continue the retreat. Against the political officer's protests. Babryshkin had continued to load the sick and disabled onto his tanks, personnel carriers, and trucks throughout the morning's progress. If he could no longer defend them, he could at least carry them.
The turretless tanks had proved to have an unforeseen advantage under such conditions. Since only the narrow main gun housing rose above the flat deck, there was room for a greater load of human cargo than the older tanks could bear. Besides the young woman and her two children, an old man, two bent grandmothers and a sick teenaged girl cluttered the vehicle, hanging on to whatever bits of metal their gloved or rag-wrapped hands could grasp. The weather had turned very cold, and the air felt ready with early snow, but each of the passengers was glad for this opportunity to ride exposed to the wind. The alternative was to die by the side of the road.
Not everyone could, or would, be helped. They had come upon a grandmother, sitting off to the side of the road on a battered plastic suitcase, resting her bearded cheeks on her fists. Babryshkin had ordered his vehicle out of the line to pick her up, and he jumped off the fender to help her climb on board. But she hardly found Babryshkin worth a glance, and her expression showed that she did not relish being disturbed by such a fool.
"Little mother," Babryshkin said to her, "you can't stay here."
She briefly raised her eyes, then lowered them back to the vacant steppe.
"Far enough," she mumbled. "This is far enough."
There was no time to argue. And there were too many others who wanted to be saved. Babryshkin remounted his tank, shouting at the driver to work his way back into the formation. Behind him, the shrunken black figure sat on imperturbably, balled fists pressed up against her cheekbones.