by Ian Slater
Of course not! she wanted to scream. “Yes,” she said.
He knew she was lying, but it didn’t matter.
His breathing slower now, he pushed her away gently, asking her to bring him a towel.
When she returned, she had a housecoat on, and he avoided looking at her as, wrapping the towel about him, he walked unsteadily toward the bathroom. “Put on some coffee,” he said, closing the door.
As Malle turned on the gas, the blue ring became a blurred circle and she used her sleeve to wipe away the tears. She must get control of herself, mustn’t make him feel as if he’d forced her, for he could still turn on her. But what choice had she had? she asked herself. Turning the hot water tap full on — it was only lukewarm — she rinsed her mouth out again and again. For a moment in the bedroom when she had felt she couldn’t bear doing it, she had thought of her husband as the only way of getting through it. Now the guilt of sordid betrayal weighed so heavily on her, she felt she could never look anyone in the face again.
She heard a surge of radio static. It so alarmed her, she swallowed and swung about, realizing it was only the corporal’s walkie-talkie. Unhurriedly he pulled on his boots, turned down the squelch button on the walkie-talkie, and rising from the edge of the bed, picked up his cap from the bedside table. She thought she heard some mention of the Tallinn docks. The corporal glanced at his watch as he slipped it on his wrist, then clipped the walkie-talkie onto his belt. “The apartments are to be kept under surveillance,” he said, adding apologetically, “I can’t stay for coffee. We have to go to the docks.”
“Oh—” She tried to sound convincing. “That’s too bad.”
He was out in the kitchen now, pulling on his tunic, looking smart, repositioning his cap in front of the small hall stand mirror, the green cap’s green ribbon in gold lettering reading, “Infantry of the Border Troops.”
“Never mind,” he said, opening the front door and smiling back at her. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”
* * *
In Moscow there had been snow flurries all morning, giving the air a bluish-white tinge with a wind coming down from the Lenin Hills, making eyes water and noses run. Inside the Politburo chamber, all fourteen members and their aides present, the air was warm. It was too much so for Premier Suzlov, as he found, not yet halfway through the meeting, that his sinuses were plugging up. The minister of war was in favor of releasing twenty-five Far Eastern divisions, to be entrained at once from all points west of Ulan-Ude near the Mongolian border two thousand miles away.
“And if Japan enters?” asked Kiril Marchenko.
“Japan is already in it,” said the minister of war, suspecting, though not saying it, that because one of Marchenko’s sons, Sergei, had now qualified for fighter service and was based in Ulan-Ude in the Transbaikal, his father wanted to keep him out of it. The minister rejected the suspicion, however, as quickly as it had come in a moment of pique. Whatever else the Marchenkos were, they were not cowards. Sergei’s gallantry during the bloody breakout at Fulda was evidence of that — for this he had been awarded the Order of Lenin, the Soviets’ highest award for bravery. Nevertheless, the minister was confused by Marchenko’s comment about the Japanese. It was as if they still had something up their sleeve.
“Yes, they do,” answered Marchenko. “They are throwing in their lot with America but are not yet fully committed. Their defense forces are at America’s disposal, but only in a support role so far, and in defense of our bombing attacks on their ports. I assure you, gentlemen,” said Marchenko, looking down the long, green baize table toward Suzlov, “that Tokyo is nowhere near fully committed. My estimate — and it is supported, I should add, by the commander in chief, eastern TVD — is that they might yet throw in all their ground, naval, and air forces if they see the gate to their north unguarded. That is why I will vote against the motion.”
“Rubbish,” retorted the minister of war. “Beijing wouldn’t let the Japanese walk into Manchuria. The Chinese navy would sink them before they got across the straits.”
“It wasn’t Manchuria I was thinking of,” said Marchenko pointedly. “I am talking of our raw materials. Ore, oil—our Far Eastern holdings.”
“Oh,” replied the minister of war, “and what do you think our Pacific Fleet will be doing? Nothing?”
Kiril Marchenko pulled another Marlboro from his pack, taking his time to light it. Premier Suzlov appeared to be doodling, not paying attention, but Marchenko believed he was listening — intently.
“The Far Eastern Fleet will be attacking the Japanese,” said Marchenko, shifting the gold Dunhill lighter close to the packet of cigarettes.
“Exactly, Comrade,” said the minister of war, sitting back, relieved. “Exactly. So therefore why do we need so many divisions on the—”
“And the Taiwanese,” put in Marchenko. “Our fleet will have to deal with the Taiwanese.”
The minister of war shook his head. “No, my friend. Taipei hates the Japanese as much as the mainland Chinese do. And not just because Japan and Taiwan have been competitors in the capitalist system. No — it goes back much farther than that.”
“I know,” said Marchenko.
The minister of war was enveloped by the cloud of smoke from the American cigarette. “Kiril,” he said slowly, leaning forward, short, stubby fingers clasped on the baize, “my good friend. Tokyo will never team up with Taipei to try for Manchuria or for our raw materials in the East. It would be the guarantee of a future war between them. Splitting the spoils. You know how these capitalists are.”
“I disagree,” responded Marchenko. “Tokyo will team up with the devil to get more materials, war or no war. Together with Germany, she is the powerhouse of the West. But her stockpiles, for all her cunning, are limited, Minister. Oil from the Middle East, cheap coal from Canada, bauxite from Australia. It must all come by sea. And—” Marchenko looked about quickly but intensely at everyone at the table, making sure the premier was alert to his point. “And all of it must come a long way — thousands of miles by sea.” He shook his head knowingly and blew out a long stream of grayish smoke. “She is overextended, my friends. I agree that, for the moment at least, a Taiwanese attack on Manchuria is not likely. Our intelligence confirms that U.S. President Mayne has warned Taiwan not to do anything against China as long as China doesn’t attack the U.S.”
“Attack the U.S.?” asked the minister for war. “Where? China is five thousand miles from—”
“By sending Chinese troops across the Yalu,” put in Marchenko. “Into Korea. Korea is stabilized now after the Freeman airborne attack opened it up for the Americans to counterattack. The Americans don’t want any escalation of war in Asia.”
“Then you are arguing against yourself,” charged the minister of war. “There is no danger of Taiwan attacking. And if Japan makes a move against our Far East flank first, they will have to contend with our fleet of submarines and surface warships out of Vladivostok.”
“Very good,” answered Marchenko, “but I think they might try for Sakhalin Island. It’s rich in raw materials. You will recall that the Japanese called it Karafuto until we took it away from them at the end of World War Two. It is less than a hundred miles from Hokkaido. They could be there before our fleet way down in Vladivostok knew about it. And even if Vladivostok did find out, our fleet could never catch them in time. I can’t think of a more opportune time for them to move — while we are preoccupied in Europe.” Suzlov stopped doodling, looking up to see whether Kiril Marchenko’s thesis had surprised the rest of the STAVKA as much as it had him. It had.
“We would annihilate them,” said the minister of war confidently.
Marchenko leaned forward from across the table and offered the minister a Marlboro. The minister accepted it, smiling but nonplussed all the same. “Then,” said Marchenko, lighting the cigarette for him, “you will need soldiers.”
There was a silence invaded only by the intermittent clanking noise somewhere in the air ventilation s
ystem. Marchenko, holding his cigarette in the Western manner, unlike the minister for war, indicated the strategic map of the USSR across from them. It covered the entire wall: eleven time zones, its sheer vastness impressive even on paper. The war minister and everyone else at the table knew full well that once the Far Eastern divisions were raided for manpower and entrained westward — itself a logistical nightmare — the Far Eastern borders would be irrevocably weakened. Apart from Japan, there were the Chinese. There were always the Chinese. One point two billion of them at your back door. “Remember,” cautioned Marchenko, “when Chairman Khrushchev threatened Mao over Damansky Island. He told Mao, ‘We could invade China at a moment’s notice. A press of the button and you will have a million dead,’ to which the Great Helmsman replied, ‘A million less to feed. You would drown in our blood.’ “
“Then what are we to do?” the war minister asked Marchenko irritably. “About the NATO front?”
“We are sending in SPETS now,” put in the minister responsible for special forces. “Comrade Marchenko suggested we try further attacks behind their lines to take pressure off Marshal Kirov’s forces while they are being regrouped and refitted for the final attack on the Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket.”
“And how do the SPETS get there?” asked the general for logistics and supply.
“They will walk in,” said Marchenko, shifting his gaze west from Siberia to Western Europe. “In British and American uniforms.”
“The Allies aren’t fools,” said the minister of war. “They’ll catch on to that soon enough.”
“Of course,” conceded Marchenko, “but how long do you think it will take them, Minister? Hannover is sending in SPETS even as we talk.”
“Where the American airborne were dropped?” asked a brigadier general.
Marchenko turned, making sure he would remember the face. The man was quick. “Yes,” said Marchenko. “Exactly.”
“I expect,” said the minister of war, his tone tinged with sarcasm, “NATO will get onto it within a week. And then they’ll refuse to take any of our forces prisoner in retaliation.”
“A week!” said Kiril, smiling broadly, his cigarette jutting out from both hands, which were clasped in front of him as he smiled, positively buoyed by the minister’s assessment. “A week! We estimate only three days, Minister. We only need one decent raid on the monster depot at Munster and the whole pocket will be down to eating rats and using slingshots within a week.”
“If,” put in the admiral for the Northern Fleet, “the convoys resupply them.”
“Will they?” Kiril’s speed in turning the admiral’s question into a demand — almost an accusation against the admiral — took everyone by surprise. Suzlov was watching the admiral intently.
“I–I don’t think so,” replied the navy chief, clearly rattled but trying to rise quickly to the occasion. “We have a new strategy. Also — we have been — ah — gathering much better reports on shipping movements in and out of the English ports. Our intelligence agent networks in England are working extremely well. The more accurate the departure and arrival times, what ships are due where, the better chance we will have of sending in low air strikes across the English Channel… to specific targets… chop them up before they can even scramble their fighters.”
“Good,” said Kiril. “It’s imperative that we strike at both ends of the problem. At the convoys and at the pocket.”
“In a month,” predicted the admiral, “their rollover convoys will have rolled flat and sunk.”
There was hearty laughter, much of it released from the tension between Marchenko and the minister for war. Nevertheless, Suzlov wanted to know what made the admiral so confident. Such promises he knew were not made idly; the man who said no one could reach Red Square without him knowing it was quickly replaced after the young West German, Rust, had landed on Red Square in a light aircraft.
“The plan for the convoys is classified ‘for your eyes only,’ Mr. Premier.” It was the only answer the admiral could have given, but it aroused the curiosity of the other armed services so much that Suzlov decided to hear it along with the others. If he could not trust the STAVKA members, he could trust no one; besides, he was first and foremost a politician. He knew that a plan shared was responsibility shared, but when the admiral bared the plan from naval intelligence before them, Suzlov dearly wished he had kept his mouth shut. He would have preferred all the glory himself. It was a plan so stunning in its simplicity, so terrible for the Americans if it succeeded, that Suzlov knew it would win the war.
“Why have we not implemented this sooner?” he demanded.
“Timing, Mr. Premier. All the instruments were there, but the players must perform under a single baton, orchestrated, otherwise we lose the initiative.”
Suzlov nodded his assent. “Yes, of course, you are right. When may I expect results?”
Marchenko was struck by Suzlov’s use of “I” instead of “we.” A politician to his boot nails, thought Marchenko. Suzlov in an instant could take credit for something that others had been planning for so long. And it occurred to Marchenko that the admiral was almost as ambitious as he.
* * *
As Marchenko walked out to his black Zil limousine after the meeting, one of Suzlov’s other aides caught up with Marchenko, his questioning about Japan so transparently having come from Suzlov that Marchenko could not stop smiling. “What do you think Japan will do, Comrade Marchenko? Continue to play a passive role?”
“There’s hardly anything passive in Japanese antiaircraft fire, Captain.”
“No — no, of course not, Comrade. I merely meant — do you think she will commit herself more deeply?”
“It’s a world war, Comrade,” said Marchenko. His smile vanished. “You are either in it or you will soon be gobbled up.”
“Some are suggesting that Japan has lost her aggressiveness. Not in commerce, of course, but militarily.”
“Why are you so worried about Japan?” asked Marchenko, looking up at the dull autumn sky. “Do you have stocks on the Tokyo exchange?”
The aide was genuinely shocked. “Certainly not. But what—” The aide decided not to pussyfoot any longer and let Marchenko be so rude as to suggest that he, an aide to the Supreme Soviet, would be so guilty as to hold stocks in the—
“What the premier wishes to know,” said the aide tartly, “is whether you think Japan wants war or will simply sit it out as best she can — as an ally of the Americans.”
Marchenko made a face that said, “Who can tell?” yet he felt sorry for the aide. Besides, there was no sense in making enemies in a war that would see many dead — and many promoted. Had he himself not risen meteorically since the outbreak of the war?
Marchenko put his arm around the aide’s shoulders. “Comrade — I was only joking, of course, about the Tokyo exchange. But to answer your question seriously, I would have to say that, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese people will be reluctant to commit themselves to anything like war on this scale. They will prefer to leave it to the Americans — who, after all, began it with their aggression in South Korea. And wait for us to finish it. Ultimately we must win. You see, for all their gadgetry—” here Marchenko wiggled his fingers in caution “—and, mind, I do not underestimate their technology. It is quite frankly the best. But the Americans do not have the staying power. They have not lost twenty million dead, as we did in the Great Patriotic War. This puts iron in the blood.” He offered the aide a Marlboro. It was eagerly accepted, the aide putting it in his pocket for future use.
“Then,” said the aide, “although you wish us to be on the safe side, to keep our Far Eastern forces on alert, you do not think Japan will go much beyond her supporting role?”
“No,” said Marchenko. “I don’t think she will.”
Before his chauffeur closed the door, Marchenko handed the aide the packet of cigarettes. In case he was wrong.
* * *
Like Marchenko, many other strategic experts t
hroughout the world had pondered the matter, believing themselves to have thought of every conceivable scenario and coming to much the same conclusion — that Japan would be America’s handmaiden but not much more.
Another expert, though completely unknown at this time, was Tadanabu Ito, a graduate student recently arrived at Washington State University as part of the exchange plan from Wasada University in Japan. He held two Japanese baccalaureate degrees, one in the field of “macro” or large-scale economics, the other in plate tectonics, or the study of the shifting of the suboceanic plates upon which the continents rest. Ito had submitted the first draft of a Ph.D. thesis on the subject at Washington State University but was told by his adviser that his English, while it might have “squeaked through” the B.Sc. and M.Sc. level, was simply “not up to par” for the Ph.D.
Ito was so despondent discovering how, when you can’t speak or use the language fluently, people automatically assume you’re not as smart as they are that he didn’t realize he was the only person in the world who, in his thesis, was predicting exactly what would happen vis-á-vis Japan. It was only a short chapter in his thesis — almost a footnote — and like a dream one has forgotten and only remembers later, he wasn’t yet aware that he was in possession of one of the most important hypotheses in history. One that would directly affect the lives of David Brentwood, trapped in the Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket, his sister in the far-off Aleutian Islands, and Robert Brentwood and his crew in many of the same ways that it would affect the more than thirty million men and women in arms in the worst war in history.
* * *
In northwest Germany, 19 miles north of the 250-square-mile Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket, a crack regiment of Soviet SPETS commandos began to advance under the protective barrage that had kept the ill-dropped American airborne pinned down in the northern sector of the pocket.
In the early morning mist that clung to the waterways of lower Saxony and in particular along the Mittelell Canal held by the Soviet 207th Motorized Division and 47th Armored, the SPETS were being sent in to take advantage of the earlier gains made by the 11th Motorized and elements of the Soviets’ 57th and 20ui Armored Divisions. The Soviet tanks, though they had punched a ninety-mile corridor northwest toward the pocket through the American M-1s and the German Leopards, were now due for refit and resupply before the massive, and what Moscow hoped would be the final, assault by fifty divisions. In all, it would pit a million Russian troops against the two-hundred-thousand-odd beleaguered NATO troops in the pocket, who would first be pounded by simultaneous Soviet artillery and rocket barrages all along the now chopped-up snake line that had formerly been NATO’s central and southern fronts.