"Bandits," Meredith said.
"Project their route," Taylor told him, his voice heavy.
Meredith had the computer extrapolate from the enemy's past and present course.
The line of attack passed directly through Omsk.
Zeederberg was frantic. He had been trying for over an hour to reach any higher station. Without success. He wanted to report his discovery of the American transport. And to make absolutely certain that his superiors still wanted him to deliver his ordnance.
He looked at the image on the target monitor for the hundredth time. One single American-built wing-in ground. What the hell did it mean? At the same time, he worried that the target would lift off before he was within range.
The sky began to pale. The on-board computers had regulated the flight perfectly. The bombs would land at dawn.
They were standoff, guided weapons, loaded with the most powerful compacted conventional explosives available, a new generation in destructive power, with a force equivalent to the yield of tactical nuclear weapons. These would be followed by the latest variety of fuel-air explosives, which would burn anything left by the bombs. The nine aircraft under his command had more than enough power to flatten the extensive industrial site.
"How long?" Zeederberg demanded from the navigator. He had asked this question so often that it needed no further elaboration. The navigator knew exactly what Zeederberg meant.
"Eleven minutes until weapons release."
Beneath the aircraft, the snow-covered wastes were becoming faintly visible to the naked eye.
"I'm going to try calling higher one more time," Zeederberg told his copilot.
"I told him," Taylor said. His voice had an unmistakable tone of pain in it which Meredith had never heard before. "I told him to get the hell out of there."
Everyone in the cabin had gathered around Meredith's bank of intelligence monitors. One showed the unchanging image of the wing-in-ground sitting placidly on the ground at Omsk, while others tracked the progress of the enemy aircraft.
They had tried everything. Relaying to Martinez. Alerting the Soviet air defenses. But the Japanese-built penetration bombers were jamming everything in their path. Exactly as Taylor's force had done and was still doing.
Taylor grabbed the hand mike for the command set, trying again. "Sierra seven-three, this is Sierra five-five. Flash traffic. I say again: flash traffic. Over."
Only the sound of the tormented sky.
"Sierra seven-three," Taylor began again, "if you are monitoring my transmission, you must get out of there now. Evacuate now. Enemy aircraft are heading your way. You only have minutes left. Over."
"Come on, Manny," Meredith said out loud. "For God's sake. Think of your goddamned Corvette. Think of the goddamned senoritas, would you? Get out of there."
The enemy aircraft inexorably approached the red line that defined their estimated standoff bombing range.
"Manny, for Christ's sake," Meredith shouted at the sky, "get out of there." Tears gathered in his eyes.
Taylor slammed his fist down on the console. But the image of the transport craft at Omsk would not move.
Taylor took up the mike again.
"Manny," he said, dispensing with call signs for the first time in anyone's memory. "Manny, please listen to me. Get out of there now. Leave everything. Nothing matters. Just get on board that ugly sonofabitch and get out of there."
The console began to beep, signaling that the enemy aircraft were within standoff range of Omsk.
Zeederberg took a deep breath. Every attempt to reach higher headquarters had failed. And the rule was clear. When you lost contact, you continued your mission. No matter what.
In the target monitor he could actually make out magnified human figures in the first light of dawn.
"We're in the box," the navigator told him through the headset.
Zeederberg shrugged. "Releasing ordnance," he said.
"Releasing ordnance," a disembodied voice echoed.
Manny Martinez was in the best of spirits. From the last reports he had received over the log net a few hours earlier, the fight was going beautifully. Wouldn't even be much repair work. It sounded like a battle men would bullshit about for years to come. Over many a beer.
"Hurry up," he called. "It's time we unassed this place." But he said it in an indulgent voice. His men were weary. They had finally gotten the last M-100 repaired. It could be flown to the follow-on assembly area under its own power. A present for the old man.
And he would not even be late. They could make up the lost time en route.
The new day was dawning with unexpected clarity. The storm had passed to the southwest, and the night's snowfall had given the tormented landscape an almost bearable appearance. Good day for flying, after all, he thought.
He breathed deeply, enjoying the cold, clean air, using it to rouse himself from the stupor to which the lack of sleep had brought him.
Behind him, the mechanics were rolling the repaired M-100 out of its shelter.
The old man's going to be proud, he thought. Then he strolled toward the transport to treat himself to one last cup of coffee.
17
"Americans," Takahara repeated.
Noburu sat down. His eyelids fluttered several times in a broken rhythm. It was a small nervous tic he had developed over the years. The uncontrollable blinking only manifested itself for a few moments at a time, and only when Noburu was under extraordinary stress.
"That's impossible," he said.
"Sir," Takahara began, "you can listen to them yourself. The station is broadcasting in the clear. Apparently there is a defect in the encryption system of which the sender is unaware. Everything is in English. American English."
"It could be a deception," Noburu said.
Takahara pondered the idea for a moment. "It would seem that anything is possible today. But the intelligence specialists are convinced that the transmissions are genuine."
"Intelligence…" Noburu said, "does not have a very high standing at the moment. Does Tokyo know?"
"Sir. I personally delayed the transmission of the news until you could hear it first yourself."
"We must be certain."
"Intelligence believes—"
"We must be absolutely certain. We cannot afford another error. We have already paid far too high a price.
Americans, Noburu thought. He could no longer speak the word without conjuring the dead faces from his nightmares. What on earth were the Americans doing here? They had no love for the Russians. How could it be? How could it be?
Everything is a cycle, Noburu mused. We never learn. Misunderstanding the Americans seemed to be a Japanese national sport.
But how could it be? With the Americans still struggling to hold on to their own hemisphere, where Japanese-sponsored irregular and low-intensity operations had kept them tied down for over a decade. Japanese analysts preached that the United States had accepted its failure in the military-technological competition with Japan, that the Americans had neither the skills nor the funds to continue the contest on a global scale.
Noburu saw his personal aide, Akiro, making his way purposefully through the unaccustomed confusion of the operations center. What was it that Akiro had said just the day before? That the Americans were finished?
Now it would fall to him to finish them.