Ralph Peters (42 page)

"
Sir.
"

"
Modem armies . . . without communications . . .
"

"
Sir.
The problem will be corrected.
Sir.
"

"
Anything else to report?
"

Takahara considered for a moment.
"
Nothing of significance, sir. Colonel Noguchi called in for final clearance for his readiness drill.
"

Air Force Colonel Noguchi. In charge of the Scramblers. The man was a terrible nuisance, staging one readiness test after another, flying dry missions. Aching to unleash the horrible, horrible toys with which Tokyo had entrusted him. Noburu understood, of course. You could not give a military man a weapon without inciting in him a desire to use it. Just to see.

But Noburu was determined that he would finish this
business without resort to Noguchi and the monstrous devices. Let the colonel fly his heart out behind friendly lines. Noburu was not going to give him the chance to make history.

I'm too old for this, Noburu thought. He had always been told that the heart hardened with age, but if this was so, then he was a freak. As a young man, he had not understood concepts such as mercy, humanity, or even simple decency. He had loved the idea of war, and he had loved its reality, as well. But now his youthful folly haunted him. He had been a very good officer. And he was still a very good officer. Only it was much harder now. He knew he was responsible for every crude bullet that tore human flesh out there on those distant battlefields. Even the side for which the victim fought mattered less now. All men, he had reluctantly, painfully realized, truly were brothers, and he had misspent his life in a manner that could never be forgiven.

It was too late now. All he could do was to try to dress it all in a few rags of decency.

Colonel Noguchi was an excellent officer. Exactly the sort Tokyo sought out for promotion these days: a heartless technical master. Starving for accomplishment, for glory. Noburu had decided that such men needed to be saved from themselves. And the world needed to be saved, as well.

Noburu thought briefly of his enemies. Surely they hated him. Even if they did not know the least bit about him, they hated him. They hated him even if he had no name, no face for them. They hated him. And rightly so. Yet, they would never know how much he had spared them.

My fate is written, Noburu thought, even if I cannot yet read it. I will play my role. And I still hold the power. Noguchi can fly his readiness test. And he can dream.

"
Are you still there, Takahara?
"

"
Sir.
"

"
Review Colonel Noguchi's flight plan. I don't want his systems anywhere near the combat zone.
"

"
Yes, sir. Shall I order the test delayed?
"

"
No. No, not unless it's otherwise necessary. Just review the flight plans. As long as they're sensible, the drill can go ahead.
"

"
Yes, sir.
"

"
And, Takahara? I just wanted to be certain that the mission to strike the target in the vicinity of Omsk is proceeding on schedule.
"

Silence on the other end. Although Takahara was a very capable officer, the Omsk strike would not be foremost in his mind. It was only a minor detail in the management of a vast battlefield. Noburu pictured his subordinate hurrying through the automated target folders, growing angry at himself and the dark-circled night staff around him. Takahara was particularly abrasive, and he had been selected for the night watch because he had the temperament to keep everyone awake and full of nervous energy. Now Takahara would behave like a beast toward his subordinates for the rest of the night, embarrassed at this perfectly reasonable lapse in knowledge. Noburu was sorry for the junior officers on duty. But there was nothing to be done.

"
Sir
"
—Takahara's voice returned.
"
Mission Three-four-one is in the final stages of physical preparation. Takeoff is scheduled within ... let me see . . .
excuse
me, sir. The mission is already in the air.
"

Embarrassment at his error filled Takahara's voice with a wonder that promised quite an ordeal for the night crew.
"
Who is the mission commander?
"

Takahara had already armed himself against that question.
"
Sir. Air Captain Andreas Zeederberg of the South African Defense Force.
"

"
Contract employee Andreas Zeederberg,
"
Noburu corrected the man automatically. Then he was sorry. This was already a phone call Takahara would take too much to heart and long remember, even though Noburu intended the man no harm. He remembered his father's admonition of years before, that a commander had to handle words as though they were sharp knives, for the least careless word could make a very deep wound.

"
Sir,
"
Takahara said, the obedient word filled with harnessed rage,
"
the aircraft will be—
"

"
That's enough. Really. I only wanted to be certain that the mission would be executed on schedule. I want to be sure that the target is destroyed. By dawn.
"

"
Sir.
"

"
That's all. Good night.
"
And Noburu touched the device to turn it off.

Perhaps, of course, it was all merely a dream. A lew Russians trying desperately to keep warm in the rums of their economy. Perhaps those heat signatures at Omsk were nothing at all, and he was only growing old and eccentric. But Noburu would have gambled a great deal that his instincts were right. At any rate, the new day would bring an answer. He reclined on the sleeping cushions, trying to gather some warmth from the sweat-brined bedclothes. He considered calling an orderly to bring him fresh linen. Then he decided not to bother. There was a part of him that did not really want to go back to sleep, afraid of what dreams might come to him next. The worst was always the one about the Americans in Africa. He did not think he could bear that one right now.

Manny Martinez liked working with his hands. Increasingly, his work kept him behind a desk, and he liked that too—in a sense, it was the white-collar job to which he had aspired as a scholarship student at Texas A&M. But, whenever he sat too long over paperwork, he heard the mocking street-corner voices from his youth in San Antonio:
"
Hey, man. You call that work? Come on, man. That ain't no fucking work.
"
So, just as he enjoyed skinning his knuckles on the vintage Corvette he was restoring back home, he welcomed the occasional opportunity to get a bit of grease under his fingernails working on military equipment. Doing real work. Even when the conditions were as bad as they were now.

"
Just hold it up there a little longer,
"
the motor warrant told him.
"
I almost got her, sir.
"

Martinez pushed up with his cramped hands, feeling the bite of the cold in his fingers, in his toes, along his motionless legs. He lay on his back, twisted awkwardly to make room for the warrant and his mechanic assistant in the narrow access breech at the back of the M-l00's engine compartment.

"
No problem, Chief,
"
Martinez told the warrant.
"
Take as long as you need.
"
He tried to sound manly and cheerful. But the dull ache down through his forearms made him silently wish the chief would get on with it. It was very cold.

"
Give me that other insert,
"
the warrant told the mechanic, gesturing back across Martinez's body. The mechanic scrambled backward and began rooting about in a toolbox. It was difficult to see using only the low-light-level lanterns.
"
That
one, goddamnit.
"

More crawling and sorting in the semidarkness.

"
You want me to have Nellis take over for you, sir?
"
the warrant asked Martinez.

"
Just do what you have to do, Chief. I'm all right,
"
Martinez lied.

It hurt. But it was a good hurt. The tired ache that said, yes, I'm doing my part too. See? I'm pulling with you.

A voice from outside the compartment called loudly:
"
Hey, you guys. Major Martinez in there with you?
"

"
Yeah, he's here,
"
the warrant officer bellowed before Martinez could answer for himself.
"
What you want with him?
"

"
Colonel Taylor's on the comms link. He wants to talk to Major Martinez.
"

"
Chief,
"
Martinez said,
"
I've got to go.
"
He was at once relieved that he would no longer have to brace the heavy panel and ashamed that he was so relieved.

"
Yeah, I guess you better go, sir.
You
.
Nellis.
Get in here and take over for the major.
"

A bony knee poked into Martinez's waist.
"
Excuse me, sir,
"
a very young voice said, following which the speaker rammed an elbow into the side of Martinez's head, just where the jaw touches the ear.

Martinez almost barked at the mechanic. But he knew the blows were unintentional. Tired men working in a cold, cramped space.

"
Get your hands under it,
"
Martinez said, waiting until he felt the boy's fingers looking for a space beside his.
"
You got it now?
"

"
Yes, sir.
"

"
All right. I'm letting go. It's heavy.
"

"
Got
it, sir
.
"

Martinez carefully withdrew his hands. The panel sagged slightly, but the boy caught the weight and pushed it back
upward.

"
Jeez,
"
he said
"
lt's heavy.
"

"
Shut up and hold it,
"
the motor warrant told him As Martinez eased back out of the compartment, the warrant said,
"
Thanks for the help, sir,
"
in a halfhearted voice that sounded to Martinez like a form of verbal urination Martinez knew that, as soon as he was out of earshot, the warrant would be complaining to the young mechanic about
"
real
"
officers. But it didn't matter.

Outside of the M-100, the work hall was as black as the depths of a tomb Martinez turned on his hooded flashlight and followed its red trail across the metal and concrete litter of the floor. He could feel the cold burning right up through the soles of his boots. It was a miserable place and he would be glad to see the last of it.

Outside the snow was failing heavily now and the earth was sufficiently luminous for him to switch of the flashlight. The snow crunched underfoot and burst wet against his eyes and cheeks, swirling and settling drifting across the wasteland Martinez headed for the dark, solid outline of the last wing-in-ground transport. All of the others were gone, en route to the follow-on assembly areas, and this last machine was ready to lift out of the snow-clad ruins as soon as they had taken care of the last repairs. There was one last salvageable M-100, the one Martinez had been laboring over personally half of the night.

One of the crewmen had been on the lookout. He opened the forward door at Martinez's approach. Behind the man's silhouette, the blue-lit interior promised warmth, and Martinez felt greedy for
a
little comfort now. It was
a
long damned way from Texas, he told himself.

He hauled himself up into the transport, dusting off the snow. Wasting no time the guard sealed the door behind the supply officer and the lights came up automatically, dazzling Martinez.

"
Over here. sir,
"
an NCO called, offering Martinez a headset.
"
Want a cup of coffee maybe?
"

Coffee. As the regimental S-4, there were only three
essentials he had
to
provide to make the Army get ammunition, fuel, and coffee. All the rest—rations, bandages, spare parts—were relatively minor concerns, especially to th
e NCOs. It was the one crucial vulnerability that no
enemy of the United States had ever identified: take away the
Army's coffee and its morale would plummet, with battle-hardened
NCOs lurching groggy-eyed toward suici
de.