Ralph Peters

by The war in 2020

  "Yes."

  He was so surprised that he merely fumbled for words. Until she came to his aid:

  "You might as well come over to my place. It's far more private than a restaurant. We can talk shop." She considered for a moment. "I'm not much of a cook, I'm afraid."

  "It doesn't matter."

  She made a frumpy, disapproving face, as though he did not fully realize the risk he was taking.

  "Pasta all right?" she asked.

  "Terrific."

  "This is," she said, "strictly business, of course."

  "Of course."

  He had spent the rest of the day tormenting himself. It had not mattered to him before that his one decent suit did not fit very well. Neither did he know what sort of tie was in fashion. He had always accepted that these more polished men who hastened down the corridors and sidewalks of the District were a different breed, that he would never look like them, that he was meant to appear in his uniform. But he could not go to dinner in uniform. Instead of stopping by the office of an acquaintance in the Pentagon as planned, he went downtown and bought himself a new shirt and tie, relying on the salesman's recommendations.

  Only when he was dressing in his hotel room, did he realize that the shirt would not do without being pressed. And there was no time to use the valet service. He settled for the bright new tie on an old shirt that had made the trip to Washington without too many wrinkles, and as he fumbled with the knot in the bathroom mirror, it occurred to him that this probably was strictly business on her part and that she had probably invited him to her home because she was ashamed to be seen with him in public. The thought made him sit down on the closed lid of the commode, tie slack around his collar. He considered phoning her and canceling. But the thought of another evening alone in his room with his portable computer seemed impossible to bear.

  He appeared at her door with flowers and a bottle of wine. To his relief, she smiled, and hurried to put the flowers in water. She glanced at the wine, then quietly put it aside, calling out to him, "Please. Sit down. Anywhere. I'll just be a minute." And he sat down, uncomfortable in his suit, admiring the surroundings of this woman's life, not because they were especially beautiful or aesthetically appealing, but simply because the ability to sit in the intimacy of a woman's rooms, the object of her attentions on any level, was a forgotten pleasure. He could not sit for long, though. The spicy smell and the noises from the kitchen made him move, and he examined the prints on her walls without really seeing them, glanced over the titles of her books without really registering them, waiting for the moment when she would come back through the doorframe.

  He had not had the courage to kiss her that first night, nor even to ask her if he might see her again. He had tortured himself through the night and morning until he finally found the strength to dial her number at work. She wasn't in. He did not have the firmness to leave a message, convinced she would not return the call. Later, he tried again—and reached her.

  "Listen ... I thought that perhaps ... we could have dinner again?"

  The distant, disembodied voice replied quickly:

  "I'm sorry, I've got something on for tonight."

  That was it, then.

  "Well . . . thanks for last night. I really enjoyed it."

  Goodbye.

  "Wait," she said. "Could you make it tomorrow night instead? I know a place over in Alexandria ..."

  Later, when he began to learn of her reputation, the effect upon him was brutal. For all his age and ordeals, he was little more than a schoolboy emotionally. The sexual escapades of his youth were enshrined in his memory, but the following years of loneliness had brought with them a sort of second virginity, and the thought that the woman he loved, whom he had even imagined he might marry, could be the butt of other men's jokes, little more than a creature they used and discarded, burned horribly in him. But he could not, would not, give her up. He tried to reason with himself. These were modem times. Everybody slept around. Anyway, what did it matter? In what way did it diminish her as a person, or lover, if she had shared her bed with others? Could you physically feel their leavings on her skin? Could you taste them? Did it really change anything about her when you were with her? How did the past matter, anyway? What mattered, after all, was the present—not who you had been, but who you had become. And who was he to criticize her? A wreck of a man? A fool, with the face of a devil? What right did he have?

  Yet, the thought of her past would not let him be. He held her tightly, fearing she would be gone, but also trying somehow to make her his property and his alone, to make all of the ghosts disappear. In the darkness he would torment himself with the images of his beloved with other men, and he wondered, too, how he could possibly compare with those other men, the well-dressed, handsome men who knew from birth how to do everything correctly. Into whose arms would she tumble when he was gone?

  He remembered the morning when they had said goodbye. The look of her, unpolished, askew, not quite awake, and the rich long-night smell in the air around her and on his hands. She seemed more beautiful to him in that slow gray light, in her spotted robe, than any woman he had ever seen. He did not want to leave her, did not want to go to some distant land to fulfill the long-held purpose of his life. He only wanted to sit and drink one more cup of coffee with her, to capture indelibly in his memory the wayward confusion of her hair and the disarray of the tabletop on which she rested her hand. But there had been no more time. Only one last moment wrenched from duty, the time needed to say, "I love you." And she did not really reply. He ached to hear those words from her. In a sense, that was why he had spoken them. But she only waited, pretending she was still more asleep than in fact she was. He had repeated himself, trying to bully the words out of her. But she only mumbled a few half-promises, and he left her like that: an indescribably beautiful plain woman in a soiled bathrobe, slumped by a littered kitchen table. He went out into a drizzling rain, telling himself that the words did not matter. She had filled so much of his emptiness with color and beauty that the words did not matter at all.

  Now Taylor sat in a secure bubble in a tin cavern in the wastes of Siberia, listening from half a world away to the words of the woman he loved. She spoke in her brisk, assured, professional voice, the bit of low raspiness that was so erotic under other circumstances merely masculine now. Nothing in her tone, or her demeanor, gave the slightest hint that she knew he was listening, that she had watched him while he had been unaware. He was glad he had not known she was in the room while he had been speaking with the President. Somehow, he was certain, he would have collapsed into folly and incapability in the knowledge of her presence.

  But she was stronger. She was every bit as serious as her subject, as her voice intoned over the succession of maps, films, and photos on the monitor. Taylor listened, fighting to pay attention.

  "... The last pause in ground operations by the enemy seems to have had a more complex purpose, however. During the lull, the opposing coalition moved all of the Soviet rebel forces up to the front—forces that are still nominally Soviet and that are native to the region, in a broad sense. Such a move accomplishes two things. First, it allows indigenous 'liberating' forces to lead the attack northward out of Kazakhstan and across the border into western Siberia, and second, it bleeds the rebel forces white, ensuring that, when the smoke clears, the Iranians and the Islamic Union will clearly be militarily preeminent and that, thus, there will be less of a likelihood of any effective indigenous reaction against foreign exploitation of the mineral wealth of both Kazakhstan and Siberia. The Iranians and the Islamic Union will effectively control the key territories east of the Urals—and the Japanese will exercise a significant measure of control over them, in turn, since their military power would collapse without continued Japanese assistance. There is strong evidence, for instance, to support the theory that every military system exported by Japan has a sleeper virus buried in its electronics, which, if triggered, destroys the utility of the system. No matter
what nominal government might be in place east of the Urals, the Japanese would be the de facto masters of northern Asia."

  The monitor filled with Daisy's image. Intense, determined, her personal vulnerability was hidden behind the set of her chin and the armor of those oversize glasses. But she looked so tired. Taylor wished he could fold her in his arms. Just for a moment.

  Had she forgotten him? Already?

  "Unless we stop them, of course," a voice said. The secretary of defense. Another lawyer who had not spent a single day of his life in uniform. Taylor had to give the man credit, though. He had acquired a surprising grasp of his responsibilities. Unlike the secretary's old friend, the President himself.

  "Yes, sir," Daisy said.

  "And what chance do you think we have of stopping them, Miss Fitzgerald?" the secretary asked. "I'd just like your view."

  Daisy was, again, the subject of the monitor's attention. Taylor was genuinely curious as to what she would say in response. A smart, smart woman.

  "Mr. Secretary," she began, "I can't give you numerical odds or any kind of probability statement. There are too many variables. I can only offer you an analyst's... hunch. Not very scientific, I'm afraid."

  "Please. Go on."

  So far away, captured by electronics and delivered to him, Daisy's eyes were nonetheless alive, wonderfully, fiercely alive.

  "First " she continued, "I am convinced that our presence is going to come as a shock to the Japanese There are no indications at this point that they have the least suspicion we've got forces on the ground. And that alone will give them pause. On the other hand, they may feel compelled to teach us a lesson in Central Asia, to pay us back for recent defeats elsewhere. They're still smarting from their reverses in Latin America. The performance of U.S. arms will be an important factor, of course. It our military systems perform according to specifications, the war will suddenly become much more expensive for the Japanese, both literally and figuratively. In that sense the chances for a negotiated settlement would increase dramatically. If we perform well enough on the battlefield."

  The President interrupted. "Miss Fitzgerald, you haven't said anything about actually winning."

  Daisy looked into herself for a moment. Yes, Taylor thought. What about winning?

  "Mr. President," Daisy said, "an outright victory would exist only at the extreme range of possibility. No matter how well the Seventh Cavalry and its supporting elements might perform, the numbers don't work out. A single regiment . . . can't win a war."

  Oh Daisy, Daisy, Taylor thought. That s your problem. You don't understand faith. The ability to believe against the numbers, against the facts, against science and learned men. He believed that he had suddenly learned something very important about her, and he wished he could tell her. That she lacked only faith. That the world could be hers, if only she believed.

  "In any case," Daisy went on, "we have to ask ourselves to what extent an outright victory would prove advantageous to the interests of the United States. Certainly, if the enemy wins, we lose access to key resources, while failing to deny those resources to the enemy—specifically, to the Japanese. Further, we lose influence. And prestige.

  And, of indirect concern, the Islamic Union, the Iranians, and especially the rebels will continue their practice of massacring ethnic Slavs. Not a desirable outcome overall. However, should we 'win' outright, we might only be setting the Soviet Union up for continued problems—for which we would suddenly share responsibility. The Soviet empire simply cannot hold together in its present state. Further, a victorious Soviet Union would be less susceptible to our influence. We want to enhance their dependence on us in key spheres. And the spectacle of a U.S. ally undertaking bloody retaliations and repressions in post-rebellion Central Asia would not present a desirable picture to other clients of the United States. Fundamentally, a compromise agreement ending hostilities on terms economically advantageous to the United States would be the optimum solution."

  "Miss Fitzgerald," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, in a voice of barely controlled anger, "your logic is very impressive. But let me tell you something both I and that colonel off in Siberia have had to learn the hard way. Victory is always advantageous. You can sort the rest of that shit out later."

  "Well," the President said quickly, filling Taylor's monitor screen again, "we seem to have a divergence of views." Waters looked down at the ruins of his salad, mouth twisted up as though something had not tasted quite right. He raised his left eyebrow. "Colonel Taylor? Are you still with us?"

  "Yes, sir," Taylor said immediately, snapping back to the present.

  "Well, tell me. What do you think about this discussion?"

  "Mr. President, my soldiers ... don't picture themselves as fighting—or dying—for clever compromise agreements. They don't understand any of that. But they do understand the difference between victory and defeat, and from their position the difference is pretty clear-cut."

  "Does that mean . . . you think we can win?"

  Taylor made a face. "I honestly don't know. I just know that an unknown number of fine young soldiers are going to die tomorrow thinking that we can win. No, 'thinking' is the wrong word. Believing that we're going to win. Because I told them so. And they believed me."

  The President pondered the little islands of lettuce shreds in his bowl. "Well ..." he said, "I hope they're right. Thank you Colonel. I won't hold you up any longer. I'm sure you have plenty to do." The President looked out over the miles, searching for Taylor's eyes. "And good luck. To all of you."

  Taylor panicked. He had wanted so badly to end this nonsense, to return to his troops. But now the thought that he might never see Daisy again and that they had ended on a note of enmity, however indirect, paralyzed him.

  Just a glimpse. Somehow, some impossible how, a word. The monitor left the President. But it did not go dead. Instead, the heavy, almost swollen-looking face of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs appeared.

  "George," he said, "just one last thing. When the hell are you going to get out of that Commie uniform? You look like hell."

  Taylor knew he was supposed to smile. But he could not.

  "Just before we lift off, sir," he said.

  "Well, give them hell, George. And God bless."

  "Thank you, sir."

  And the screen went blank.

  Daisy.

  Daisy felt as though everyone in the room must have realized how distraught she had become. She had struggled to overcome her emotions, forcing herself to brief in a voice that was even more dispassionate than usual. But the words, as she spoke them, seemed to come out just short of her intentions, and she felt as though she could not quite manage her thoughts.

  It was his fault. She had watched him on the monitor during his conversation with the President, aware that he could not see her, that he had no reason to be aware of her presence. And, listening to him, to his raw, direct voice that would never compete with the Bouquettes of the world, she had wanted to get down on her knees and beg the President to call it all off. The fate of the Soviet Union, the disposition of far-off minerals, could never be as important as this one decent man, with his antique notions about duty. As she talked in her turn, adorning the classified imagery on the monitors with professional terminology and icy judgment, she had felt as though she were condemning him, sending him to a certain death. The logic of politics and power, once so evident to her, now seemed like so much nonsense. It was only about people, after all. About men. And women. Who had found someone they just might love. Only to see them go, in the name of high-sounding foolishness. It was about George Taylor, with his pathetic face and his determination to do the right thing at any cost for a country whose citizens would shudder to look at him.

  Was she punishing herself? Was it only a travesty of love? How on earth could she imagine for a moment that she loved that man? She had needed to turn off the lights and close her eyes, as well.

  She liked him best when he held her, with h
er back small against his chest, and his strong arm cradling her breasts. Taylor, in his dress suit bought carelessly from some post-exchange rack, giving him the look of the world's most serious appliance salesman. The clown who brought a bottle of dessert wine for dinner.

  How could she feel so much at the sight of such a man?

  When he answered the President in those blunt, sensible words that made a mockery out of her analysis, her career, her fine education, she had only wanted to tell him that she was sorry, that she hadn't really meant it, that it was only that her thoughts and words would not come out clearly tonight.

  He was not coming back. She knew it.

  A demon inside her wanted to call out to him, right in front of the President and all of the old identical men who served him, to tell Taylor that, yes, she loved him, and she had loved him already on that last morning, but she had not had the strength, or the common sense, to tell him.

  Then Taylor was gone, the communications link broken, and she was left with the blank monitors, and with Clifton Reynard Bouquette by her side.

  The President was smiling, shaking his head. He glanced around the big table and tugged wearily at his tie.

  "Well, gentlemen," he said happily, I suspect that this colonel of ours is going to strike genuine fear into the hearts of the enemy." He bobbed his head slightly, in amusement. "God knows, just looking at him scares the hell out of me."

  Everyone laughed. Except Daisy. Beside her, Bouquette laughed loudest of all. Then he leaned in close to her, whispering:

  "You're not going to make a fool of yourself, are you?"

  9

  northern Kazakhstan

  2 November 2020

  THE NURSING MOTHER CROUCHED AGAINST THE MAIN gun housing of Babryshkin's tank, her small, emaciated face barely visible under the oversize winter hat. Her layers of scarves, sweaters, and coat appeared to weigh far more than she could possibly weigh herself, and the infant was barely perceptible amid the disorder of felt and wool and worn-out fur. A small leg kicked back, the way a weaning pup pushes out at space, trying to bury itself closer to its bitch, and the tiny mother renewed her grip. Babryshkin sensed that the woman was very young, and that she might have been rather attractive under other circumstances, but now her cheeks were chafed until they looked like the dry skin of an old woman, and her sunken eyes lacked focus. Now and then she spoke quietly to her other child, a boy of perhaps four years, who clung to her coat with vacant eyes. When Babryshkin had lifted the boy onto the tank, lice flurried up from his cap like spanked dust. But the boy seemed unaware of the pests. He simply assumed his place beside his mother and stared out across the frostbitten steppes. The only sign he gave of normalcy was the avidity with which he devoured the stale crackers Babryshkin had put into his small hand.