Arc Light (78 page)

“Very well, sir,” Lambert said. “Just after sunset yesterday
evening, which occurs at about eleven o'clock at night local time during the summer in the far north, two Ethan Allen-class attack submarines delivered one hundred and twenty men from Naval Special Warfare Unit One onto the Kola Peninsula northwest of Murmansk. Four hours later, the remainder of NSW Unit One together with six battalions of the 7th and 11th U.S. Special Forces Groups—about four thousand men—and Navy SEAL Teams Two and Four seized a beachhead at the landing site just outside Liinahamari. Shortly afterward, the first of sixteen thousand marines and sailors of the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade began landing and are right now pushing inland along the Swedish border against light resistance.

“At the same time, sir, Royal Marines began landing on the opposite side of Murmansk also against reported light resistance, and the 82nd Airborne Division's 505th Airborne Battalion dropped behind the city straight out of Pope Air Force Base. We tried to do everything we could from the continental United States for strategic surprise. The Strategic Projection Force's 57th Air Division of six B-52Hs departed Chicago's O'Hare Airport and is bombing right now between Murmashi and Murmansk to keep the Russian Garrison in Murmansk buttoned up. Another eighteen B-52Hs out of New Orleans International Airport will pick up the harassment/interdiction after the 57th departs the target area.”

“When do the rest of the ground forces go in?”

“The Division Ready Unit of the 101st Airmobile is going in by helicopter from marine landing ships as we speak, and 1st Battalion/75th Ranger Regiment has taken an old World War Two-era airfield that our Special Forces units visited last week and is apparently still in usable condition because the climate prevents excessive vegetation buildup.”

The army and marine officers exchanged looks and then laughed.

“What's so funny?” the President asked, clearly anxious for amusement and diversion from Lambert's terminally dry briefing.

The army colonel cleared his throat and said, “Well, sir, it's just that there was some high grass”—he chopped at his legs with the blade of his palm as his face contorted with a laugh barely held in—“about knee-high.” He burst out laughing now, as did the other officers who were in on the story. “So we parachuted”—he laughed like a schoolchild trying to tell his first joke—“I'm sorry, sir.” The President was beaming, waiting. “So we parachuted the Green Berets back in ahead of the Rangers with these John Deere riding lawn mowers.” He collapsed into laughter, and Lambert and the President both laughed also.

“You mean to tell me that there are Green Berets riding around on John Deere lawn mowers in the dark on a deserted Russian airstrip?” the President asked, and as the apoplectic army officer nodded, the President rolled back in his chair howling with laughter.

“Anyway,” Lambert said, feeling like a spoilsport but racing against the clock before the President's new appointments secretary stuck his head in to rob Lambert of the President with the briefing only half over, “anyway, sir . . . ” The unruly crowd didn't seem to be getting back into the briefing. “To try to wrap it up, sir,” Lambert said, glancing at his watch, “by the time the first heavy equipment goes in later today—the 82nd's division armor and the remainder of its three brigades—they should have a major airhead operational to the south of Murmansk.

“Then, in three days, we'll begin airlifting the 7th Light Infantry Division in. Following that, we've got another thirty-two thousand marines and sailors who'll mate up with the First Maritime Prepositioning Squadron out of ports along the Norway coast and the former NATO-designated Marine Amphibious Brigade whose supplies were prepositioned onshore in Norway.” The appointments secretary stuck his head in the door and pointed at his wrist. “It's the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division, however, that we expect to do the main heavy lifting on the road south all the way to St. Petersburg. They'll be followed in about two weeks by the 194th Armored and 197th Mechanized Infantry brigades from their respective training schools at Fort Knox and Fort Benning. We've restaffed the training schools for the incoming recruits with army retirees who've been recalled to duty.

“That'll put the entire XVIII Airborne Corps ashore by early August,” Lambert said as the President rose to walk over to the suit rack where his jacket hung. “And the allied forces will bulk up our forces significantly.” Lambert looked at his notes and spoke hurriedly. “One corps of Royal Marines, one armored division from the British, plus the one regiment of Special Air Service and two parachute battalions that are already engaged. Then, of course, in about ten days the Finns will take the two Russian border garrisons farther south when they ‘come out of the closet.' ” The President was brushing his coat with a lint brush. “Once they commit, the Russians will have to concern themselves with the Finnish border just north of St. Petersburg. The Finns don't constitute an offensive threat, fielding the equivalent of about four Eastern European divisions, but when the Polish Amphibious Assault and Airborne divisions get put on the border in southern Finland, the Russians will have to respect that pressure point and divert some of their resources.”

“Good, good, good,” the President said, tugging at the lapels of his coat as he straightened the jacket's lie. “All sounds according
to plan,” and then he was off to a stormy meeting with labor leaders and a delegation from the Federal Labor Relations Authority over the Executive Order canceling all vacations, sick and maternity leaves, and other excused absences from work.

“Mr. Lambert?” the President's personal secretary said as he left the office. “I have a
FLASH
call to you from the director of the NSA. You can take it on line seven,” she said, pointing to the telephone on the end table of the small waiting area.

“Lambert here,” Greg said on picking up.

“Greg, this is Bill Weinberg. You're not going to believe this one.”

“What?”

“About ten minutes ago we intercepted a call to the NBC News bureau in New York, and then a second and a third a few minutes later to the CBS and ABC bureaus in New York, and we're currently monitoring one to the CNN studios in Atlanta. All the calls appear to be coming directly from the Kremlin, Greg. From your old pal Filipov, as a matter of fact.”

“You're kidding. What do they want?”

“It appears they want to set up a television link through a German telecommunications satellite. At ten o'clock Eastern Time tomorrow, Razov himself intends to address the American people.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lambert said, feeling a chill of excitement and hope. “Did they say what the subject matter would be?”

“Not a word.”

There was a pause. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Greg asked, his expectations skyrocketing.

“Let's keep our fingers crossed.” Lambert could sense the smile on Weinberg's face.
We won,
Lambert thought.
It's over.

“The excitement is building in anticipation of the address,” the NBC anchor said as the picture cut from him and the two commentators with him to the screen with multicolored bars and lines. Melissa herself was chilled with anxiety as she watched, waiting. “What you're seeing now is a test screen that is being broadcast live from Moscow Television directly to us via satellite. In a couple of minutes, we expect General Yuri Razov, the commander in chief of the Russian High Command, in what will surely be a historic moment not only for television but for our two nations, no matter what
he has to say. Jim,” the anchor said as the screen switched back to the studio, “you've been noncommittal. What do you think he's going to say? Is this the olive branch that so many of us have been led to expect?”

The silver-haired man couldn't help but smile. “It would make sense that an offer of peace comes at a time like this. The U.S. Army appears to have broken cleanly through the defenses at the Russian border and is in a headlong rush for Moscow. Although the Russians have sizable forces remaining, most are tied down in the east facing off against U.S. and Chinese armies in Siberia. Their other forces in Europe have yet to really do anything, which has led the military experts with whom I've spoken to conclude they can't get the supplies through to mount any major operations. You add to that the Third Front in Karelia in the far north, the secession of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Tyumen, and Irkutsk—major oil-producing regions in Siberia—from central Moscow control, the surrender of Russian forces in the Kuril Islands to the Japanese Defense Forces, and the Russians surely must know that it's just a matter of time. It may therefore be the point to cut a deal.”

“Oh, ple-e-e-ase,” Melissa said, burying her clasped hands between her knees as she sat arched forward on the edge of her seat. “Please-please-please-please.”

“But why take the unusual step of this television address?” the anchorman asked.

The analyst shrugged. “He'd have to think he could cut a better deal by going over President Costanzo's head directly to the American people. If he were, for instance, to propose some sort of timetable for mutual nuclear reduction with a quid pro quo, the President would have a tough time politically if he decided to press the military options and U.S. casualties were to mount significantly. The polls have already shown some flagging support for the almost unconditional surrender demanded by the administration, and some polls for the first time are showing support for the war falling below the fifty percent level.”

“We go now to General Razov,” the anchorman said abruptly, and Melissa's heart leapt at the sight of the man in full dress uniform, medals across both breasts, in front of the ornate yellow walls of the Kremlin room. The picture was fuzzy—it was old NTSC standard, not high-definition television to which she had grown accustomed.

“Citizens of the United States,” the heavily accented man began slowly in English, and Melissa raised her clasped hands to her face, pressing her thumbs to her lips as she sank back into the sofa to watch, “my name is General Yuri Razov, commander in chief of the Russian Supreme High Command. I come to you directly tonight
for the first, and last, time with a matter of great importance.”

Melissa was already falling from her high perch of expectation. This didn't sound right. His tone, his demeanor, the look of the man himself. He did not look defeated.

“Half a century ago, our country and its people suffered destructions of which you knew little. Entire cities were reduced to rubble. Block after block of buildings that once rose to the sky were left standing no higher than a man's waist. Buried in that rubble were the people of those cities. Millions died.” He paused, and Melissa shook her head weakly in silent plea for him to stop. “It cannot happen again.”

She took a deep breath and sat up. “A conventional war, carried into the streets of our great cities, would destroy those cities as certainly and as horribly as would a hydrogen bomb dropped directly into its center by your warplanes. Despite that fact, which is well known to your leaders, it is, it appears, the plan of your government to carry the war onto the very streets of our capital, Moscow.” Again he paused, and Melissa's gaze fell to the floor before the next words. “This we will not allow.

“I have, therefore, just issued the following orders to the commanders of our ballistic missile submarine force.” The Russian general picked up a piece of paper as Melissa watched through the tears that flooded her eyes. “If American ground forces cross Moscow's Okruzhnoye Koltso, the loop road that rings the city”—Melissa heard through the blurry vision—“or if any of your country's forces threaten the imminent attack of our submarines in the Kara Sea Bastion,” Razov said as Melissa sniffed and began to bat her eyes to clear them, “the commanders are to launch their missiles at preprogrammed targets. Those targets,” Razov said as Melissa rose from the sofa, “are five hundred and thirty-six U.S. military installations around the globe and the following additional ‘countervalue' targets: New York City, one hundred and three warheads; Los Angeles, ninety-two warheads; Chicago, eighty-one warheads.”

Melissa walked around the sofa to the writing desk in the kitchen. “San Francisco, seventy-one warheads; Philadelphia, sixty-seven warheads.” Melissa sat at the desk and opened the drawer above her knees. “Detroit, sixty-three warheads; Boston, sixty-two warheads; Washington, D.C., sixty-one warheads; Dallas, sixty warheads.” Half listening, she began to fill her largest purse. “Houston, sixty warheads; Miami, fifty-one warheads.” In her purse she placed the thick envelope of ten- and twenty-dollar bills held closed by a rubber band. “Atlanta, forty-three warheads; Cleveland, forty-two warheads.” Melissa dropped their passports, birth certificates, social security cards, and computer disks with financial data and tax returns
into the open purse, her vision totally obscured now by tears. “Seattle, forty warheads; Minneapolis-St. Paul, thirty-nine warheads.” Melissa sniffed and wiped her face as she pulled out the thick bundle of photographs—from her earliest childhood through college, the honeymoon, Matthew's first days—and dropped them in also. “St. Louis, thirty-seven warheads; Baltimore, thirty-six warheads.” She closed her eyes and reached deep into the back of the drawer. “Pittsburgh, thirty-five warheads; Phoenix, thirty-five warheads.” The pistol fell from her hands into the purse on top of the photographs, and she pulled the straps to close the heavy bag.