by Ralph Peters
"Yes, sir. Or a combination of factors. Some of the headquarters may be using the cover of darkness to relocate in order to keep pace with the breakthrough."
The explanation sounded rational enough. But something was gnawing at Noburu, something not yet clear enough to be put into words. "Takahara," he said, "if the chief of communications cannot solve the problem, I want to be awakened."
"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 the 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 suicide.
"Sounds great," Martinez said. "Let me just talk to the old man." He pulled off his cap and adjusted the headset. "What the hell's my call sigh again?" he asked himself out loud, scanning the cheat sheet the comms NCO had affixed to the interior of the fuselage. He found the alphanumeric, shaking his head at the ease with which it had slipped his mind.
"Sierra five-five, this is Sierra seven-three. Over."
All around him, the logistics and liaison nets crackled. He was just about to transmit again, when Taylor's miniaturized voice told him.
"Wait, Seven-three."
The old man was working another net. Martinez imagined how it must be at the moment for Taylor and Meredith, the amphetamine excitement of working the command and control system as the regiment neared combat. Then the thrill and danger of combat itself. Martinez both envied his comrades the excitement and shamed himself with the thought of their greater risks and responsibilities. He knew how essential a properly functioning support system was, before, during, and, especially immediately after combat. But he could not help feeling that the others were doing the real work.
In the background, he heard a squadron S-4 reporting his subunit's fuel account status over the voice link. The report could have been handled more efficiently through the digital circuit. But Martinez understood that the other man was experiencing the same feeling of inadequacy as he was feeling himself. The desire to do something, to make a personal contribution. it was hard not to be out there within the sound of the guns.
"Sierra seven-three, this is Sierra five-five. Over."
Taylor. The sudden voice in his headset startled Martinez, just as an NCO put a gorgeously hot mug of coffee into his hands. Martinez caught the mug and wrapped both palms around its nearly scalding warmth, then keyed the mike with his voice:
"Sierra seven-three. Over."
"Status report. Over."
"Support operation on schedule," Martinez said. All of the fuelers and the carryalls are under way. I've only got one WIG and one Mike-100 left here with me. Over," There was a brief silence that Martinez did not quite understand, then Taylor's voice returned. Martinez could hear the exasperation hiding behind the studiedly calm inflection.
"You mean you're still at the initial site? Over.
"Roger. I've just got a skeleton crew of mechanics with me. We're still working on three-eight. Chief Malloy thinks we can get her back up."
Another pause. Then: "What's your estimated time of departure?"
"As soon as we get three-eight back up. We're all ready to go, except for that. I've got the operational calibrator on the WIG with me. I'll oversee its displacement. We're in good shape. When the squadrons close on their follow-on sites, we'll be waiting for them. Over."
"Manny," Taylor's voice came earnestly over the secure net, "don't fuck around. I know you're trying to do the right thing. But, if you can't get three-eight back up, just blow it in place. I want every last trace of an American presence out of there by dawn. We've got to keep the bad guys guessing. And I don't want to do anything to compromise the Russian security plan. Those guys have done a good job. Besides, some goddamned Jap space system might have picked us up moving out of there. You need to get moving. Over."
"Roger. We're almost done." Martinez knew in his heart that they could get three-eight into good enough shape to follow the WIG under its own power. He intended to bring Taylor the M-100 as a prize, to show that the support troops, too, could do their part. "See you at Platinum. Over."
"Don't wait too long to get out of there," Taylor's voice warned him. The tone of admonition was softer, almost fatherly now. "Blow that bird if you can't get her up. And good luck. Out."
Martinez tugged off the headset, then put the cup of warm liquid to his chapped lips. It was odd. You were supposedly conditioned to do your duty to the country, to the Army. But he could not help feeling that his most important duty was to Taylor. He did not want to let the old man down.
Sipping the coffee, steeling himself to go back out into the cold darkness that lay between midnight and the sensible hours, he thought of a brilliant spring day in Mexico. They had been over in the Orientale on a special mission, and everything had gone well. No blood spilled. Just a dirty white flag and rebels throwing their weapons out into the street. After the last of their quarry had been gathered in, Taylor turned to Meredith and Martinez and said, "What the hell. Let's go for a ride, boys." And they had ridden up through the first pale green to where the rocks began, with Martinez struggling to stay on his horse. They followed an ancient, barely discernible trail up to a high canyon, where there was a well and a ruined shack. They tied the horses in the shade and climbed on foot to the nearest peak. And an odd thing happened. No one said a word. They just sat down in the sharp air and stared out over
a brown world jeweled here and there with greenery, and the clear blue sky felt as soothing as a mother's hand. Taylor seemed to have forgotten all about his companions. His devil's face pointed off into the distance.
It was as if he had commanded the two younger men to hold their peace, to simply accept the world as it was. And Martinez's eyes opened. Nothing ever looked as beautiful to him again as that bare, thirsty landscape. The world was unspeakably beautiful when you finally shut your mouth and sat down and let yourself see. Time grew inconstant, as irregular as the breezes that whisked around the mountaintop and disappeared. When Martinez glanced at Taylor, the older man's eyes were closed, and he looked uncharacteristically peaceful. Even the scars on his face did not seem so pronounced, as if they had softened into his skin, tired of chastening his life. It was as if Taylor belonged on that peak, the way the broken stones belonged. A white scorpion scuffled its way through the rocks as Martinez watched peacefully, knowing it was not going to hurt them. There was no reason to hurt anyone or anything that day. Everything belonged just as it was. While the high cool air carried off the last of the sweat that made your shirt so heavy.
Then it was time to go. In order to make it back down to the village while there was still enough light. Taylor just stood up without a word and they all stumbled down to the horses, belatedly sharing a canteen of sour water. Martinez had hoped that there would be more days like that. But a week later, they were involved in a dirty little bloodbath. and after that there were other things to think about.
15
3 November 2020
Early Morning Hours
"Ruby minus ten minutes," the copilot said.
"Roger," Heifetz responded. "Combat systems check." He glanced down at the control panel. "Weapons suite?"
"Green."
"Target acquisition suite?"
"Green."
"Active countermeasures suite?"
"Green."
"Go to environments check."
"Roger," the copilot said.