“What bearing does that have on the Taiwanese?”
“Mr. President, the fleet’s going to have its hands full clearing corridors for the airborne attacks without having to worry about—”
“General,” the president said, leaning forward, an edge to his voice, “when you people came to me with budgetary requests for updating the AEGIS system, you told me it would be worth it because we could see everything that was going on within a radius of three to four hundred miles.”
“That’s correct, Mr. President. All I’m saying is that at the moment our maximum concentration has to be on launching—”
“General, I will not be deterred from this course of action. The Seventh Fleet’s battle group was specifically designed to handle multiple targets and, if necessary, cross-referencing missions. Am I correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s not start making excuses and get on with it.”
“Very good, Mr. President.”
“Jesus! Jesus!” railed Gray to Major Wexler on his way back to the Pentagon. “Always the goddamned same, isn’t it? You let a ‘peace’ president in and they start thinking they’re goddamned General MacArthur. My God—”
Wexler did not dare remind the general that the president of the United States was, after all, commander in chief.
“Mr. President,” Trainor said, “have you ever read Camus’s The Plague?”
“What—?” The president was holding his head, the fingers of his left hand strained as they massaged hard above his left eye. “I think so — why?”
“There’s a character who keeps writing an opening paragraph, and in his mind he keeps envisaging the editor receiving his manuscript and being so overwhelmed by it, the only thing the editor can do is stand up and say, ‘Gentlemen, hats off!’ Well, it’s hats off to you this evening. That bit about China — it’s brilliant. How did you ever—”
“I didn’t,” cut in Mayne. “Senator Leyland’s idea.”
“Oh—”
“That make it less impressive?” said Mayne, looking up.
“No, no, not at all. I mean at least you made the decision. You were for it.”
“Don’t worry about who gets the credit, Bill. Bring me a glass of water, will you? Two Empracet and two two-twenty-twos.”
“Lights out?” asked Trainor.
“Please.”
Trainor turned off the light and, walking over to the drapes, shut out the dawn.
Mayne was already seeing the aura: steps, covered in shimmering water, like the water that used to run down fish shop windows, and above it all the most beautiful emerald green he’d ever seen. It was a warning. If he didn’t hit it hard now with the codeine, Tylenol, and aspirin, the migraine could get a hold and put him out of action for hours. Sometimes he had nightmares of Trainor, giantlike, looking down at him, holding the pills, threatening: “If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll leak it.” Personally Mayne believed that his determination, the ability he’d developed to work despite the fierce headaches, made him capable of more endurance than most under stress. Marx had had the headaches. So did Ulysses S. Grant — the general so sick with one, he couldn’t sleep while waiting for Lee’s response to his surrender ultimatum.
Mayne tried to remember the last time he’d made love with his wife, Jean.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
General Kim, his divisional headquarters now moved to Seoul, was pleased when Major Rhee, the interrogation officer from Uijongbu, brought him the names of the KCIA’s counterespionage chiefs in Taegu and Pusan, which he had gotten from Tae. But most important of all, Rhee brought a summons from Pyongyang for a personal conference between Kim and the NKA’s “dear and respected leader.”
The problem was that some ROK “bandits” had managed to cut communications between Kim’s divisional headquarters and Pyongyang, since the major had arrived, by blowing up one of the microwave relay discs on one of the hills leading down the Uijongbu corridor. This would soon be remedied, of course, but Kim was in a quandary. He had been summoned to Pyongyang, and it was essential, he told the major, that “our great and respected leader” be apprised of the situation — in particular the rapid rate of advance.
“If Pyongyang does not hear from us, they will be concerned that our advance has been halted. It is necessary that they hear firsthand that all is proceeding as planned.” Kim did not tell Major Rhee his secret hope — that whenever he returned to Pyongyang, he would not only be greeted as a national hero, even greater perhaps than Admiral Yi, but he would also receive from the leader himself the coveted Kim II Sung medal for valor.
“I will unleash the final assault on Pusan in forty-eight hours,” he informed Rhee. “By then all supplies will be in place. It is essential I be here. However, I would also like to explain to the leader himself how Taegu will be completely overrun, from where we will move quickly to crush Pusan.”
Kim put another Sobrainie into the bone cigarette holder. “When Pusan has fallen,” he told the major, “then you will have some mopping up to do. As it has developed, the names of the counterinsurgency chiefs may pose no more man an academic question after all, for I foresee a massive American surrender. There will be great honor for the Fourth Division.”
Major Rhee said nothing. He was sure of the military victory to come, but under no circumstances would he be drawn into advising the general on whether or not he should go to Pyongyang. Not to go would be to disappoint their leader. It would only take a day there and back, but then again, Kim should be at divisional headquarters when the final drive for Pusan began.
It was a difficult question.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The trawlers had done more damage than Admiral Woodall or anyone else had realized, as before laying the signature mines in the way of the approaching convoy, the trawlers had sown a line of pressure and magnetic mines behind them.
These mines didn’t stop R-1 but caused a great deal of confusion as Woodall, after losing another merchantman, retraced his course, trying to find a gate in what seemed a moat of mines. Four attempts and eighteen hours later, with three more ships, including a destroyer, sunk by the mines, Woodall decided the only way out was to form a long line and “plow ahead” as would a line of soldiers walking through a minefield, following the lead ship, as it were, conscious that if they kept to the same path, the risk of being blown up by a mine would be minimized and that sooner or later the minefield must peter out.
The Dutch glass/plastic minesweeper led the file, but its magnetic anomaly detectors, powerful enough to detect the positions of the magnetic mines, were unable to protect against the pressure type, which reacted to changes in water pressure caused by the heavier merchantmen passing over.
Soon the minefield, designed by the technical experts of the Soviet Northern Fleet merely to delay a convoy long enough for their subs to break out through the Greenland-Iceland Gap, ended up destroying almost a third of R-1, including half of the twenty fifteen-thousand-ton container cargo ships.
By the time R-1 was well out of the mined area, they were still thirteen hundred miles north of Newfoundland’s Cape Race, Soviet Hunter/Killers closing two hundred miles west of the convoy. At the same time, American relief ships and subs were 250 miles to the south of the convoy, heading toward it to take over escort duties for the remaining half of the convoy’s journey to Halifax. One of the subs that was heading north but not assigned escort duties was the USS Roosevelt.