“And this mission?”
“A tactical defense. Just as you were briefed. The operation’s objective has not changed.” Vorashin turned briskly toward the glow of the dying flares as if to direct his anger elsewhere. “Come along, Sergei. We aren’t invited guests here. There is much to do and little time to get it done.”
“The clock ticks?” It was a favorite expression of Col. Alexander Vorashin’s. It meant “move your ass.”
Major Devenko noticed the slightest hint of a smile cross his commander’s lips.
“Yes, Major, the clock ticks.”
FT. BRAGG, N.C
11 DEC 83 2130 HRS
The officers’-club party room was crowded, noisy and polluted with cigarette smoke. The cocktail party was only thirty minutes old and Lt. Col. Jacob Caffey was already wishing the enormous Christmas tree in the center of the room would catch fire or someone’s wife would faint or the booze would suddenly run out. He wished anything would happen that would allow him to escape this silly madness.
There were a hundred kinds of duty Jake Caffey despised. High on the list was attending “official” parties. He didn’t like to get dressed for them because wearing his dress uniform — besides being uncomfortable and sweaty — made him feel like a jumped-up mannequin. He didn’t like parties because most of the people who attended them were either idiots, or bores, or their spouses, which meant the same thing. He didn’t like the stifling air, or the smoke, or the jokes (they were always the same; old, bad and stupid or new, bad and stupid). He had difficulty remembering names, which was bad politically even if he didn’t care who was who or that the lush with halitosis trying to seduce any D-cup present was aide to a congressman on the military appropriations committee.
But mostly, Colonel Caffey hated this party particularly because he was guest of honor and he couldn’t get out of it. It was his “send-off’ party. In a few hours (he kept checking his watch for reassurance) he’d be leaving Bragg. It was a bittersweet transfer. He loved the 82nd Airborne Infantry as much as an officer could love a unit — he’d been in it since graduation from West Point, nearly eleven years — and he’d miss it, despite the occasional parties. He was going north, to a new and challenging assignment.
But Nancy couldn’t come, at least not right away, and that bothered him. It wasn’t the best time for picking up and moving out. His marriage was not exactly the strong bond it appeared to be. Nancy was just about at the end of her rope with the unrelenting schedule he’d put himself through these last several months. There was a brief respite of joy when he’d told her that he’d, reluctantly, put in for transfer. Nancy beamed triumphantly for weeks until he got his orders to his new duty station.
Fairbanks, Alaska, in the middle of winter, was not the ideal place to start rebuilding a marriage.
“Everybody? Everybody, quiet a minute. Listen up.” A burly major with a crew cut climbed on a chair and raised his glass. “Everybody, fill your glasses.”
Caffey shook his head. “Christ,” he said to himself. Nancy tugged at his sleeve. She was easily the most beautiful woman at this disaster. That was part of the trouble. Her beauty disguised a shrewish, ambitious woman whose concern for her husband’s career masked a burning desire to reach a higher social level. Nancy Caffey was meant to be a general’s wife. That Caffey wasn’t was his fault.
“Jake, for godsakes stand up straight. Major Timmons is going to make a toast.”
“I don’t want to be toasted,” Caffey said quietly to her.
“He’s a bright young man, Gene Timmons.” She smiled and raised her glass in answer to the major’s gesture.
“He’s drunk,” Caffey said.
“Will you please try not to look as if this were a lynching. This party is in your honor.”
“Well, you know what I think of—”
“This is to the best G-3 training and operations officer in the entire 82nd Airborne, if not the entire US
Army,” Timmons began, swaying slightly on his chair. “A fighting leader whose attributes include the patience and compassion of George Patton, the tactical genius of George Marshall and the dedication to duty of George Armstrong Custer. To the youngest light colonel in the division with a jump on becoming its youngest brigadier…”
“This is ridiculous,” Caffey whispered.
“Shut up, darling.”
“…we wish all the best and good luck to Lieutenant Colonel ‘Big Jake’ Caffey. Give ‘em hell in the Yukon, sir.” Major Timmons drained his glass. There was a hush in the room as glasses were tilted upward in unison.
“I’ll second that.”
Caffey glanced quickly to the entrance as Brigadier General Walter Selby sauntered in smiling.
“Oh, God,” Caffey muttered to himself.
“I hope you don’t mind my crashing your little party, Jake,” the general said as he crossed to Caffey.
They shook hands. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Walt… I mean, General. I’m embarrassed for all—”
“Hell, don’t apologize. I’ll tell you what. If they were sending me to Alaska, you can be goddamn sure I’d have a bash to mark the occasion.” The general nodded politely to Nancy. “How do, Nance. We’re going to miss this oaf, you know.”
She smiled politely but without affection. “I’m sure you will, General.” In her next breath, thinly disguising her effort to get away, she turned to Caffey. “Excuse me, darling, but I have to check on the punch. Shall I get you some?”
“No, thanks. General?”
“No, I’m not much for punch at these things. That’s usually what it is.”
Nancy squeezed Caffey’s hand. “Don’t forget to circulate. This is for you, remember.”
When she was gone Selby said, “Still blames me for your transfer to Outer Mongolia, eh, Jake?”
“She knows better, General.”
“And you can drop that ‘General’ crap. I didn’t come here just because you’re a damned good officer that I don’t like losing. Generals, contrary to popular belief, do have friends in the ranks.”
Caffey smiled genuinely for the first time since he’d arrived. “Thanks, Walt. This wasn’t my idea, I guess I don’t have to tell you.”
“Jake Caffey at a full-dress party? Why do you think I showed up? That is you under all that spit and polish?”
“Nancy was so insistent—”
“Say no more. I shudder to think what grand scheme Edna would come up with.” The general paused to look around. “Speaking of grandness, where is Diana, the real glory of the Caffey household?”
“It’s exam time.”
“They take exams in the seventh grade?”
“I don’t know, but they do in the ninth grade.”
“Jesus, where’d I lose two years?”
Caffey shrugged. “Same place I did. Last month I said she was twelve. She’s thirteen. She cried for an hour. Teenagers are very sensitive about that sort of thing.”
“The little princess.”
“That’s out these days, too. She’d prefer to be called Diane or Diana Elizabeth. Deedee is out. So is Blonde Beauty and Twinkletoes. I’m Father; Nancy is Mother, but Richard K. Fredricks, Jr., the tenth-grade quarterback with pimples for brains, is Dickie. You figure it out.”
Selby laughed. “You are entering the age of love, Jake. It starts now and doesn’t ever stop.”
“You’re a big help.”
“Wait until she hits sixteen. You think the Alaskan Defense Command will be trying? Just wait three years. You don’t know the terror a grown man can surfer from a one-hundred-pound sixteen-year-old daughter.”
“Horror stories I don’t need tonight.”
Nancy was weaving through the crowd back toward them when Selby saw her. He gripped Caffey by the shoulder. “I’d better vamoose before she bites off my other leg, Jake. You know I don’t like seeing you leave this outfit of screw-ups. When you get tired of igloos and Eskimo Pie, just give me a call.”