Ralph Peters (47 page)

Noburu stared at the image on the oversize central screen, trying hard to maintain an impassive facial expression. All around him, staff officers shouted into receivers, called the latest shred of information across the room, or angrily demanded silence so that they could hear. Noburu had never seen his headquarters in such a state. Neither was he accustomed to the sort of picture that now taunted him from the main monitor.

It was a catastrophe. He was looking at a space relay image of the yards at Karaganda. The devastation was remarkable, and as he watched, secondary explosions continued to startle the eye. He had already reviewed the imagery from Tselinograd and Arkalyk, from the Kokchetav sector and Atbasar. Everywhere, the picture was the same. And no one knew exactly what had happened. There was no enemy to be found.

The first report of the debacle had come by an embarrassingly roundabout path. An enterprising lieutenant at Karaganda, unable to reach higher headquarters by any of the routine means, had gone to a local phone and called his old office in Tokyo with the initial report of an attack. Amazingly, the old-fashioned telephone call had gotten through where the latest communications means had failed, and the next thing Noburu knew he was being awakened by a call from the General Staff, asking him what on earth was going on in his theater of war.

It was a catastrophe, the extent of which was not yet clear to anyone. Especially to the poor Russians. Oh, they had pulled off a surprise all right. They had caught their tormentors sleeping—quite literally. The Russians had made a fight of it after all. But the poor fools had no idea what they had brought upon themselves.

He knew there would be another call from Tokyo. And he knew exactly what the voice on the other end would say.

I did not want this, Noburu told himself. God knows, I did not want this.

If only he could have foreseen it somehow. Prevented all this. He closed his eyes. The dream warrior had known, had tried to warn him. But he had grown too sophisticated to pay attention to such omens.

The spirit had known. But Noburu had not listened. And now it was too late. For everyone.

"
Takahara,
"
he barked, wounded beyond civility.

"
Sir
"

"
Still nothing?
"

Takahara was a cruel man. And, like all cruel men, embarrassment before a superior left him with the look of a frightened child.

"
Sir.
We still cannot find the enemy. We're trying . . . everything.
"

"
Not good enough. Find them, Takahara. No matter what it takes.
"

It was time to be cruel now. In the hope that somehow he might still compensate, might prevent the unforgivable horror he knew was coming.

"
Sir.
"
Takahara looked terrified.

"
And I want to talk to the commander of that bombing mission to the Omsk site.
"

Takahara flinched.
"
Sir.
We have temporarily lost contact with mission Three-four-one.
"

"
When?
Do you mean they've been shot down? Why didn't you tell me?
"

"
Sir.
We have no indication that the mission has been . . . lost. We simply have had no contact with them for some time. The interference in the electromagnetic spectrum has reached an unprecedented level
...
"

Noburu turned away. His anger was too great to allow him to look at the other man. It was more than anger. Fury.

Omsk. Why had he failed to trust his instincts? He had known that something was terribly wrong the minute Akiro had pointed out the heat source anomaly in the abandoned warehouses. Why had he waited to hit them?

No one had suspected that the Russians still possessed such a capability to strike back. Japanese intelligence had missed it entirely. And why had the Russians waited so long to employ these new means of destruction? Why hadn't they employed these superweapons—whatever they were—immediately? When it might still have made a difference?

It was too late now. All the Russians had done was to call down a vengeance upon themselves that would be the one thing future historians remembered about this war. The one thing with which his name might be associated in the history books.

It would have been better for the Russians if Japanese intelligence had detected their preparations. The Russian deception effort had been too skillful for their own good.

The shadow warrior had known all along. And now he was laughing.

"
Takahara.
"

But there was no need to shout. When he turned, Noburu found that the colonel had never left his side.

"
Sir.
"

"
Assuming those aircraft have not been shot down . . . or have not for any reason aborted . . . when will the bombing mission reach Omsk?
"

Takahara glanced over at the row of digital clocks on the side wall, where the staff officers could instantly compare the world's crucial time zones.

"
Momentarily,
"
Takahara said.

"
Go out and track him down,
"
Taylor snapped.
"
You tell Tango five-five I want to speak with him personally.
Now.
Out.
"

Taylor drew off his headset, ruined face betraying disgust. Meredith had been in the midst of a detailed coordination call with the Tenth Cav, whose jammers had no more time on station, when the rising irritation in Taylor's voice caught his attention. He finished up his business and turned to the old man.

"
Reno again?
"

Taylor nodded.
"
The bastard's down on the ground. God knows what he's up to. His comms NCO doesn't know of any problems. But I wish the sonofabitch would follow orders.
"

Meredith understood Taylor's frustration. Reno would have to do something colossally foolish before he could be disciplined—and even then the general's son would get off lightly.

"
Don't let it get to you, sir,
"
Meredith said.
"
Come on. We ought to be popping champagne corks. It's a great day. A historic day.
"

"
Merry,
"
Taylor said, looking at the intelligence officer in earnest,
"
it's not over yet. This is when it gets dangerous. With everybody patting themselves on the back and trying to calculate how long it's going to be until they can get back home and give mama a squeeze. It only takes a single mistake
...
"

It was one of the rare occasions when Meredith disagreed with Taylor. The old man worried too much sometimes. The system had worked even better than expected. They had virtually destroyed the enemy's ability to carry on the war in sector and not a single friendly loss had been recorded. The mission was entering its final stage and they were about to turn into the last leg of the flight that would take them to their follow-on assembly areas. It was a time for Taylor to feel vindicated, avenged. The man's entire adult life had been pointed toward this day. And now he was being a spoilsport.

Meredith decided to shut up. He was feeling good, and if Taylor chose to squander the moment, it was up to him. Turning back to monitor the intel feeds, Meredith smiled to himself and played at phrasing the lines he would one day inflict on his grandchildren:

"
I was with Taylor in Central Asia. Yes, sir. Me and Colonel George Taylor and the Seventh Cavalry. I was his right-hand man, you know. Why, during the battle Taylor and I were no farther apart than we are, boys. His face looked as though it had been painted up for war, just like a tribal chief. But he was a good-hearted man, really. Oh
you wouldn't call him cheerful. But he was always good to me. He and I went way back, of course. Why, we were thick as thieves
...
"

"
What the hell are you so tickled about?
"
Taylor demanded. But When Meredith looked around to answer, he saw that the old man was only bemused by the intelligence officer's behavior. A faint, halfhearted smile had crept over Taylor's mouth.

"
Nothing, really,
"
Meredith said.
"
I was just thinking, sir.
"

"
Maureen?
"

"
No,
"
Meredith said honestly, picturing his wife with her china skin and autumn hair for the first time in hours.
"
No, I'm saving her for later.
"

Taylor turned businesslike again.
"
Let's give Manny a call and update him on the situation. Knowing him, he's probably feeling guilty as hell at missing the battle.
"
Meredith asked one of the NCOs to pass him the earphones for the logistics net. He glanced at the list of call signs on the wall, then spoke evenly into the microphone:
"
Sierra seven-three, this is Sierra one-zero. Over.
"
He used his S-2 suffix.

Nothing.

"
Probably smoking and joking,
"
Taylor said.
"
Use my call sign. That'll get their attention.
"

"
Sierra seven-three, this is Sierra five-five, over.
"

The two men waited, smiling, for Manny's anxious voice.

Taylor shook his head, almost laughing.
"
You remember that time in Mexico, when—
"

Meredith began frantically throwing switches. He had not been paying sufficient attention. Now he recognized the tones he was getting in the headset.

"
What's wrong?
"
Taylor asked.

Meredith ignored him for a moment. He wanted to be sure. He called up a graphic depiction of the state of the electromagnetic spectrum to the north of their present position, roughly where Manny should be. Somewhere between Omsk and the follow-on assembly areas.

"
Merry, what the hell's the matter?
"

Meredith looked up from the console.
"
Heavy jamming up north. Not from our side. The parameters are all wrong. The bastards might have slipped something by us.
"

He commanded the ship's master computer to do a sort: identify any hostile changes in the sector to the north.

Instantaneously, the screen flashed a digital image indicating enemy aircraft flying on a northerly axis. The computer had been doing its duty perfectly. It had been programmed to alert to enemy aircraft on a convergent course with the combat squadrons of the Seventh Cavalry. The computer had known of the presence of these enemy aircraft in the sky since they had taken off. But no one had told it to report enemy aircraft
passing
the regiment. Responding precisely to the demands of its human masters, the computer had not found the penetrating enemy flight of sufficient interest to merit a warning alert.

"
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 bu
rn
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.