Arc Light (52 page)

“This is her first flight anywhere, at least after she got through school.”

“And she knows about. . . the war, but she volunteered?”

Rebecca shrugged. “She's just a good kid.”

Through the open doors to the rear cabin behind Bailey, Chandler saw the bright, energetic faces of the young enlisted troops, kids in their teens and very early twenties. While the older officers and NCOs in front mostly took the opportunity to sleep, the noise from the back of the plane was more or less constant. They were pumped up, their eager faces animated as they knelt on seat cushions and ducked just before bags of peanuts flew over their seat backs. It was as if they were on the school bus headed for the big game, as many must have been just a year or two before, maybe less.

Rebecca hadn't said it. She probably hadn't even thought it, Chandler realized as he settled back in his chair. But
he
thought it.
Every one of them is a good kid. Every one you lose is a good kid.

He turned on his reading light and pulled out his now dog-eared manuals. When Rebecca returned down the aisle, he said, “Cream and sugar, please.”

“What are you telling me?” Lambert asked into the telephone receiver he held to his right ear, pacing behind his chair and desperate to go to the bathroom.

“I'm saying they launched three regimental-size spoiling attacks against the 4th Infantry in Slovakia out of Ukraine,” the man from V Corps Headquarters in Prague said over the poor connection. “They came over—”

“Just a second,” Lambert interrupted, pulling the mouthpiece of the other phone on his left ear up to speak. “V Corps is saying the Russians launched three spoiling attacks along the Ukrainian border into the line held by the 4th.”

“Marvelous!” the Brit said from the
TEAMS
Forward Headquarters in London. “Just bloody marvelous! With what size force were the attacks made?”

“Regiments,” Lambert said, and then heard the man from Prague say, “Those were only the lead elements of what are probably at least two divisions of motorized rifle troops,” which Lambert repeated in the awkward, low-tech teleconference.

In Lambert's office waiting for him were three sets of people, all looking harried and anxious. “What does that do to our step-off time?” Arthur, the liaison officer in London, asked.

“What's the timetable now?” Lambert asked the U.S. Army officer in Prague as he motioned for the waiting naval officer to hand over her report. “We're saying a twenty-four- to thirty-six-hour delay until they can pocket the troops with Czech and Slovak forces and then get back up onto the line.”

“There are three reports,” the woman whispered to Lambert. “There was a missile attack on marine transports by Russian land-based attack aircraft—that's this one,” she said, pulling the report on bottom out and holding it in front of him. “One supply ship was hit, and her magazine went off, killing all hands.”

Lambert nodded and held up his hand. “V Corps says there'll be a twenty-four- to thirty-six-hour delay, Arty.”

“ ‘Arthur,' ” the British officer said testily. “And that puts us into a bit of a mess now, doesn't it?”

“This one,” the woman continued in a low tone, pointing to the report on top, “is on the 509th Combat Team's airdrop onto the banks of the Bosporus in Turkey. Their drop zone was attacked by Spetsnaz shortly after landing. Sixth Fleet thinks they landed right on top of a Russian attempt to mine the strait.”

“Mr. Lambert, are you there?” the British officer asked indignantly.

“Yes.”

“You do realize the gravity of the problem, do you not?”

“The third report is on another torpedo attack on a transport in the Gulf of Mexico—this one just off Galveston, Texas. We had debris from the last P-3 run and had listed a kill in the vicinity as confirmed, but either there were
two
Russian subs out there or we missed on the earlier run. Regardless, it's diesel-electric, not nuclear, or we would have heard it, and we sank their sub tender off the coast of Cuba, so it shouldn't be long before—”

“Your VII Corps out of Poland is ahead of schedule,” Arthur said, just as the officer from V Corps on the other phone asked, “Do you still need me, sir?”

“Yes,” Lambert said as the British officer continued. “If that Northern Prong continues much farther to the east, its right flank will be exposed since the Southern Prong attack out of Slovakia is now a nonstarter—is that what I am hearing from
CINCEUR?”

Lambert put the two phones to his chest, trying not to hop like a child on one foot as his bladder felt like bursting from the gallons of coffee he had consumed, and said to the naval officer, “Put them on my desk. I'll read them later.”

As she left, the Finnish general and his aide, both clad in civilian clothes for the clandestine visit, stood and claimed their right next in line ahead of the Selected Service Administration official with draft registration figures, who had been waiting for two hours now, continually preempted.

“What is the President's thinking on this matter?” Arthur asked. “Are we going to slow the advance of the Northern Prong, or stop it altogether, pending the Southern Prong's assumption of the offensive, or are we to continue the Northern Prong's advance without support of a parallel column? That is the question
du jour.”

Lambert's secretary appeared and said, “General Thomas has convened another missile threat conference—line seven,” announcing the fifth such alert in the nine hours since the war began.

“Jesus!” Lambert said, more irritated than concerned. “What is it this time?” he asked his secretary, who kept her ear to her phone, the cord pulled to maximum extension as she stood in the doorway.

With her hand cupped over the mouthpiece she said, “Sounds like
CINCNORAD
thinks it's just another gas pipeline explosion after one of our air attacks that the satellite reported as a mobile ballistic missile launch. They're running it down but want you on line just in case.”

Just behind her appeared former President Livingston and his family.

“We've just had an air raid warning go off here!” the officer from V Corps Headquarters said. “Everybody is putting chemical protective gear on and going to the shelter. I'd like to at least get my mask out, if that's all right with you, Mr. Lambert?”

Mr. and Mrs. Livingston waved good-bye as Lambert listened to the strident wail of a siren over the phone and said, “Go ahead and go to shelter,” intending to hang up and run after the former President for a proper send-off.

His secretary reappeared behind the departing family and jabbed her finger at the phone, making a face before she said, “No, General Thomas, he's right here, I swear.” She made another face, her finger pointed at her telephone as she stared at Lambert.

Thomas let the President go, hanging up on the angry British
liaison officer, then going to the missile threat conference, then running to the bathroom at risk of an international incident on the eve of the secret admission of the Finns to the
TEAMS
alliance.

Mouth held his two fists out to Monk as they stood outside the hulking LVTP-7A1 amphibious assault vehicle, or “Amtrac.” “Gonna do it, gonna kick some ass.”

Monk tapped lightly down with his own fists.

“You said
that
right,” Cool J said. “Gonna pop our cherries ta-
day!”
and held his fists out for the tap to Monk and Mouth.

Monk looked over at the spectacle of Bone, who was making the rounds bumping helmets like a linebacker after a good play.

Thonk
he heard as Bone butted heads with the new guy, who waited a respectable time before pulling the helmet up off his face. Seeing the red mark across the bridge of the guy's nose in the dim light of the well deck, Monk wiggled his jaw to ensure that his chin strap was secure.

“Say, Bone,” Mouth said. “You got so much greasepaint on your face you look like a bruthah.”

Cool J laughed, and Monk had to smile. They all had greasepaint on, but Bone had gone around to everybody that he could corner and asked them for their opinion about his camo job. The result, naturally, was a face covered thick with his squadmates' helpful “finishing touches” of black, green, and brown that looked gray in the red-lit well deck and made him look more like a circus clown than a marine.

Bone butted Mouth's head especially hard, and Mouth said, “Shit,” quietly, looking at Bone out of the sides of his eyes in anger.

As Mouth was taking his helmet off to replace it on his head properly, Bone stepped up to Monk, pausing to look down at him. Their squadmates all watched Bone slowly bend over and lightly tap the front brims of their helmets, keeping his eyes fixed on Monk's the entire time.

Monk understood, and nodded his head slightly up and down.

“Shit, man,” Mouth said, putting his helmet back on his head. “Why don't you jus' give T Man the tongue, Bone?”

Bone shot Mouth a look and Mouth rocked back, holding up his hands in retraction.

“Well deck's almost flooded,” the new guy said, and the men
of First Squad all peered out between their Amtrac and Second Squad's next to it. Sure enough, black water lapped up almost to the tracks of the front Amtrac, two rows ahead of their own. The ship's pumps were shifting ballast to the rear, pressing the ramp at the end of the well deck down into the water.

Far back in the recesses of the ship, Monk could hear the heavy machinery start the conveyor belt that rolled supplies forward to the well deck from the ship's hold. All morning cargo elevators had rumbled through the vessel, and the angled ramps that honeycombed the
Nassau
had been jammed with traffic. Just in front of the conveyor belt, at the end of the well deck away from the opening, the eleven monorail cars on their overhead tracks could be seen lowering supplies from the ceiling into the nooks and crannies of two of the big LCUs, Landing Craft Utility, each carrying two M-1A1 main battle tanks and thirty tons of fuel and supplies.

In front of the LCUs were the two LCACs—Landing Craft Air Cushion. Each of the two hydrofoils would dash onto the beach at forty knots to insert four eight-wheeled LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicles, each of them with a 25-mm Bushmaster automatic cannon and coaxial 7.62-mm machine gun, crew of three and six combat-ready marines. Finally, in the very front were eight Amtracs like Monk's, with thirty-two more Amtracs in the follow-on. This would be a full, battalion-size landing. An opposed landing, they had been told in the briefing.

After us,
Monk thought to ward off the slight chill he felt in his blood,
there'll be two more LCUs and a coupla big LCMs to bring in supplies. That's just from our ship. Then there's the
Iwo Jima,
the
Tripoli,
and the
Portland.
That's another three thousand marines,
he thought.
We should be okay. And they say there's another landing team on up the coast, maybe four thousand more troops.
He swallowed, and there was a thick lump in his throat.

The whine of a helicopter's jet turbines as they lifted it off the flight deck broke through the open end of the ship over the constant din of the working sailors. The sound of the choppers was sometimes accompanied by a brief glimpse of the helicopters' lights—of either a string of CH-53E Super Stallion transports ferrying assault troops several miles inland or an occasional AH-1 Super Cobra gunship, rearmed and refueled and wheeling like a fighter plane back into the battle on shore that had begun over an hour ago. Many of the ship's two thousand marines were already in the shit, Monk knew. The first of the eight AV-8B Harrier jump jets should soon be returning also, landing vertically like a helicopter on the
Nassau's
flat, aircraft-carrier-style deck atop a cushion of air blasted downward by the vectored exhaust of its jet engines. They would
be back in action to support the main landing.

“All hands, all hands,” the PA system boomed, and men threw their cigarettes to the deck, one landing just under the
NO SMOKING
sign, Monk noticed. “Now hear this.” There was a rattle over the speakers as the microphone was handed off.

“1st Battalion, 3rd Marines,” came the voice of the battalion commander, “you men are about to have the rare opportunity to make history! Many years from now, they will write about this battle! What they will say is up to you! You know what's expected! You know what to do! And by doing your jobs, you will join that long line of men who call themselves . . . Marines! ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.'
Semper fidelis!”

Over a thousand men in the hollow well deck exploded into their boot camp
“A-a-r-r-u-u-g-g-a-a-h”
followed by their deep guttural barks, body slams and punches, and Monk felt the tingly rush of excitement caused by the release of adrenaline. It washed all over his body like the rush he felt during the kickoff of a football game. He grunted and growled in the cacophony of male sounds and slammed his shoulders hard up against his squadmates. He felt it. He was ready. He even wanted it, needing to release the energy and tension.

Some guy from Second Squad whom Monk barely recognized under the greasepaint said, “Fuckin' dead, cold meat, man,” holding his fists up and barking. “Fuckin'
killin'
time!”

Monk hammered fists with the guy, setting his jaw and nodding while boiling inside. The marine moved on. “Gonna fuck 'em up, man,” he said to Cool J, hammering with Cool J and then Mouth. “Gonna fuck 'em up
real
bad,” Cool J responded.