I know, a fire sounds stupid because it’s summer. But somewhere along the line it became a family tradition to light a fire in the fireplace whenever we come home from a trip.
“Do you remember when you told me the members of a family are like the cars on a freight train—all hooked together and going in the same direction?”
That was the question Ann asked me as she leaned her head against my shoulder. We were sitting together on the sofa in front of the old stone fireplace watching the flames flicker lower and lower as the wood burned down.
“Sure. It’s true,” I replied with a question in my voice. General Roberts was the one who pointed it out to me years ago when we got married. Strange question.
“Well, my love, in about six months we are going to add a caboose to our train.”
******
After breakfast the next morning, Ann was driven off to see patients at the Reims clinic and I drove out to The Detachment for a visit. It hadn’t changed much since my last visit just before the war started. The only people missing were the German officers. They had been promoted and reassigned when the war started. They would not be back.
What suddenly changed was The Detachment’s mission. Now it would try to help the Russians against the Chinese instead of helping the Turks against the Russians. That’s got to be the fastest about face in history that didn’t involving betraying someone.
It was like a school reunion at The Detachment. Everyone was given the option to return after the war and almost everyone decided to continue, except the Germans who had served as our armor experts. They’d gone on to bigger things and been replaced by two highly decorated American lieutenant colonels, Peter Marshall and Will Rutherford. Both of them had distinguished themselves commanding tank battalions in the middle east.
Charlie and Jack were the senior guys and had been with me at The Detachment since the very beginning. The good news, according to Charlie and Jack, was that their wives and the other Detachment wives were tremendously pleased about The Detachment continuing to operate.
All the wives, like mine, obviously like living in slow and comfortable rural France despite its god awful bureaucracy and high prices. Beats the hell out of living in military housing in the States, that’s for sure. And both the local French school where Susan and Little John Christopher go, and the service school at Reims where most of The Detachment kids go, are a lot better too—more school days, more hours, more content, and teachers with academic educations.
In any event, we spent the morning eating donuts and drinking coffee and tea, looking at maps and aerial photos, and brain storming as to how America’s military might quietly, very quietly, help save Danovsky’s Russian troops without putting Americans on the ground to fight, and certainly never into or over China.
Some of the ideas were quite imaginative and worked well in the war that just ended. They might be useful if we have enough time to implement them, which we almost certainly did not.
The basic problem, of course, was our ignorance. We did not have a clue as to the Chinese objectives or their order of battle or where their attacks would be concentrated. The CIA, NSA, and all of our intelligence agencies were working on it. So, it was safe to assume, were the Russians. And they had better hurry; we were rapidly running out of time.
After listening to everyone, and reviewing what had worked and not worked in the recent war, I ordered Charlie and Jack to concentrate on identifying targets and preparing pallets of supplies and equipment for whatever engineers and swimmers the Russians can provide. Put it together, I told them, on the premise that the Russians will have no more than the next five weeks, thirty-five days, to get ready.
Our emphasis at this point, I explained, would be on helping the Russians cut the railroad and road bridges the Chinese would have to use to bring up supplies and reinforcements. That meant both the bridges on the Chinese side of the border when the invasion started, and then the bridges on the Russian side behind the advancing Chinese. Although I didn’t say it, that was probably all we could do to help the Russians hurt the Chinese when and if the Chinese attack.
We would also, I told them, need to think about what we can do to help strengthen the Russians by bringing in supplies and reinforcements by air. What’s left of the Russian navy, as well as commercial charters if any can be found, can carry or convoy supplies from Russia and elsewhere to Vladivostok which, if Danovsky is right, may end up being rather quickly cut off and isolated with an unusable airfield.
Most of the other responses would take more than five weeks to prepare. But, if we have enough time, we may want to prepare them just in case the Chinese delay their attack for some reason.
Everyone agreed that helping the Russians cut the railroads and roads the Chinese will have to use to get their supplies and armor into Russia seemed like the best place to start. So Charlie and Jack were told to start gathering the specialty supplies that would be needed and identifying which of the bridges the Russians will most need to cut and which they will need to protect. It was something they knew how to do.
While Charlie and Jack were working on the railroad, the new armor guys, Marshal and Rutherford, were to work with the photo interpreters headed by Jack Brigham to identify hiding places where Russian armor and partisan units might be able to hide—and then emerge to cut up the Chinese rear.
Jack asked the sixty-four dollar question. He wondered if the Chinese knew how we cut the Russians sector of the railroad and would take precautions against it happening to them.
And was is possible, Jack asked, that "the Chinese would run the same type of bridge-cutting operation back against Danovsky and trap his forces between their cuts just as we were planning for the Russians to do to them?"
That, of course, was truly the sixty-four dollar question and something the Russians would have to guard against.
It was settled. Charlie Safford will be The Detachment’s liaison both with me and with the joint-services team Bill Hammond was setting up in the Pentagon to simultaneously work the problem. And since I had established a relationship with Danovsky, I would to be his American point of contact. I would coordinate directly with him via Colonel Lindauer and our signals team, the three warrant officers we left at his headquarters under the command of Mister Hanson.
I only stayed at The Detachment for the meeting. Then it was a helicopter ride to Brussels for a late lunch and a briefing on how the troop withdrawals were going; then, finally, it was another helicopter ride back home for a family dinner and another round of admiring crayon pictures, playing Monopoly, and reading Doctor Seuss out loud.
It’s a wonderful evening and spaghetti with meat sauce is my favorite meal. We watched television for a while. Then both of the kids fell asleep on the couch and I carried them up to bed.
******
Only a few days had passed since I got back home and it seemed we might already be running out of time. NSA and the CIA both reported that the Chinese had already gone far beyond merely aggressively planning an invasion; they were beginning to stage massive amounts of troops, armor, and railroad equipment in the Chinese railroad towns along the Chinese railroad line that runs along the border near Khabarovsk.
A similar staging of troops and equipment, they said, was also occurring on the Chinese border opposite the Russian forces on the Ussuri River, and there were reports of Chinese troops infiltrating over the border.
Bill Hammond was working late. He called me at home last night to give me a heads up—both NSA and the CIA are now predicting that the Chinese will begin moving their troops up to the border within the next thirty days. According to their analysts, they will most likely try to cross the border west of Khabarovsk and, perhaps, also somewhere between Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.
Both the CIA and the NSA are predicting the Chinese will attack sometime before September first. According to the intercepts and intelligence analysts, the Chinese have decided to go for a quick victory before the winter cold really sets in and
the Russians can get their act together.
But what is their ultimate objective?
According to Bill Hammond, the CIA and military intelligence analysts were divided. Some think the Chinese are merely going to run a repeat of 2003 and once again try to take the Ussuri River lands whose ownership fell into dispute years ago when the river channel changed; others think the Chinese will go in south of Khabarovsk to cut off and take Vladivostok; and one or two that the Chinese may try to go all the way and take both Khabarovsk and Vladivostok and all the Russian land south of the Amur River. What they all agree is that there is going to be a war and it’s going to start soon.
The big news, Bill said, was that in a couple of hours the President and the British Prime Minister would jointly announce that the United States and Britain were going to ignore the inevitable Russian protests and end their mutual defense treaties with Russia.
Privately, according to Bill, the President intends to call the Russian president sometime today and assure him that we will continue to do all we can to help them so they won’t have to use their nukes.
Bill says the President and the Secretary of State still don’t really get it that Moscow may not have much to say about whether or not Danovsky will use his nukes.
Sure enough, the President’s Chief of Staff called about thirty minutes later to let me know the President will announce the repudiation of the treaty. The Secretary of State was with him and she assured me that she and her staff would all be working to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.
“How do you plan to do that, Madam Secretary?” I inquired in a very polite voice.
Secretary of State Sanders promptly and rather proudly assured me that within the next three or four days she will personally fly to Moscow to meet with the new Russian president, a man by the name of Gerasinov who previously headed Russian intelligence.
“Assuming President Gerasinov agrees to everything you ask of him, how will that stop Danovsky and his generals from using their bombs?” I inquired.
There was a long silence. Then she said “Well that’s their problem, isn’t it?”
I almost start to say something sarcastic. But then I thought better of it and didn’t. So all I ended up doing was wishing her well.
“I certainly hope you are successful, Madam Secretary. And please don’t forget to ask Moscow to send General Danovsky more reinforcements and supplies. If Moscow sends him enough, he might not feel it necessary to use his nukes.” Maybe I’m learning how to be a politician.
Interestingly enough, a few minutes later the head of the CIA called with the latest information on Chinese troop movements and, oh by the way, did you hear that we are cancelling the treaty with Russia and how do you think the Russians will react? What was interesting was that the Vice President was sitting in his office and chimed in with a happy hello. I wonder what that means?
“Well, Director, if you are asking how the Russian government will react, the answer is that I don’t know and it probably doesn’t matter very much. The important question is how will Danovsky and the generals in the Far Eastern Military District react?”
“And my answer to that,” I said, “is that it will depend on whether they get enough assistance so that they think they might be able to defeat the Chinese with conventional weapons without having to use their nukes.”
Then I continued and tried to explain.
“Our willingness to actually help the Russians, instead of just making idle promises, seems to have convinced Danovsky and his generals that it may be possible for them to defeat the Chinese without using nukes. At this point the Russian generals in the east seem willing to at least try to use conventional means to defeat the Chinese and push them back across the border.
“As a result, I think Danovsky will only use his nukes when he comes to believe he cannot defeat the Chinese by holding them at the choke points he has established.
"That's the good news. But it’s highly likely that the willingness of Danovsky and his generals to forego using their nukes will last only so long as there is a chance their conventional arms will be successful. Everyone needs to keep that in mind.”
“Do you think General Danovsky and his men can defeat the Chinese with conventional weapons and push them back to the border?” The Vice President asked.
“Yes Sir, it will be real close, but I think they just might be able to pull it off—but only if Moscow does everything it can to help them and we provide enough additional support. And I don’t mean American troops and planes; I mean very basic things like food for the Russian troops and and money to pay them.”
Then, after pausing for a moment to gather my thoughts, I added a thought.
“If the Russians can defeat the Chinese again, as they did in 2003 when the Chinese attacked in an effort to regain the Ussuri River territory, it may cause China to quit trying to use military force to expand and look for another way to go such as improving their economy. The problem, of course, is that this time the Chinese attack may succeed because its efforts will be much more massive and the Russian defenders much weaker and more isolated.
“Worse,” I said pensively, “if the Chinese succeed they’ll undoubtedly be encouraged to go again. Perhaps against Taiwan or India. That’s the real reason we’ve got to help the Russians.”
******
According the latest message from Goldman and Woods, Danovsky just assigned several of his divisions to guard the key bridges and other potentially vulnerable points along the Trans-Siberian, the ones identified by Charlie Safford and the guys at The Detachment.
"He also has his men digging in on the approaches to Khabarovsk and is moving a significant amount of troops, three full divisions and almost all of the engineers under his command, back to two choke points in the mountains on the railroad’s main line to Khabarovsk and one “just in case” choke point on the branch line of the Trans-Siberian that runs down towards the Chinese city of Heihe."
Additionally, according to Woods and Goldman, Danovsky was assembling most of his helicopters and the troops of his one and only air assault division at the Podovsk airfield. The field was far enough from the nearest Chinese base that the Chinese planes may not be able to reach it with a surprise attack before they are intercepted.
The airborne troops will be Danovsky's mobile reserve. He’ll rush them by helicopter to whatever turned out to be the hot spot and try to contain it until he can bring up reinforcements.
Hmm. It’s a smart move for Danovsky’s to use his air assault division as a rapid response force—he can beef it up with whatever additional helicopters and troops the Russians fly in from Western Russia. We destroyed a lot of the Russian helicopters and elite units before Moscow threw in the towel a couple of months ago, but we didn’t destroy them all.
According to NSA and our team on the ground, General Danovsky was constantly calling Moscow asking for all available helicopters and Spetsnaz companies, and he was evacuating his dependents on the supply planes when they flew back to get more men and supplies. Smart move. I’m glad this guy wasn’t making the decisions a couple of months ago when we were helping the Turks fight the Russians.
Separately, at my suggestion and without informing Moscow, Danovsky had directly contacted the Russian navy’s base and fleet commanders and asked them to very quietly and secretly send to as many of the navy’s frogmen as they can spare for six months of temporary duty “to help defend the naval assets in the east which are under my direct control."
It was what he said next that made me think he might be successful.
"Please put out the word that the swimmers who come will earn a premium pay in dollars for themselves and for the bases that send them.”
It was an overt offer to bribe the Russian navy’s base and fleet commanders. It was also a real gamble to ask the base commanders for their frogmen because it might leak to the Chinese and alert them to what we have been suggesting to the Russians.
I immediately decided to call Danovsky
and caution him never to tell anyone, not even his deputy, General Turpin, how he plans to use the frogmen. Hopefully, if the Chinese find out they’ll think the frogmen were being sent to defend the ships at the Vladivostok naval base.
The reason I had so strongly recommended to Danovsky that he ask for the Russian swimmers and Special Forces troops was simple. If the Chinese invade, Danovsky may be able use them to sever the Chinese supply lines by cutting the roads and railroads behind the Chinese lines even if it means blowing up bridges in Russia. Then he can try to use his air assault forces and his “left behind” armor units and partisans to destroy the Chinese trapped between the bridge cuts.
If Vladivostok and Khabarovsk hold and Danovsky’s various response forces destroy enough of the Chinese rear, the Chinese forces stalled in front of his chokepoints will wither and die for lack of support. Then Danovsky won’t have to use his nukes.
That, at least, was the plan. It had better work because it was the only one he had.
******
American aid was beginning to reach Danovsky. Charlie Safford had already sent two planes full of demolition team pallets and explosives to Arkhara for the bridge-destroying swimmers Danovsky was trying to recruit.
Arkhara was the site of the Russian airfield where Danovsky’s air assault division and its helicopters were located. It is about midway between Karbarovsk and the key city of Podovsk—and just west of where a branch line of the Trans-Siberian leaves the main line and runs south towards the Amur River and the Chinese city of Heihe on the other side of the river.
We were doing our part. Jack Flanigan and some of the veterans from the swimming and penetration teams that went into Russia earlier this year were going out on a third supply plane to act as trainers and mission planners. They would be leaving this afternoon and carrying swimming gear and explosive packs for the Russian frogmen, assuming any show up.
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