"That's real fast," Leek observed. "Seven, eight times the speed of a rifle bullet."

"Faster'n a theater ballistic weapon like a Scud. Not sure we can do it," Matson worried.

"This radar system'll track it just fine. It's very similar to the Cobra Dane system in the Aleutians. Question is, can your SAMs react fast enough to get a hit?"

"How hard's the target?" Matson asked.

"Softer than an aircraft. The RV's designed to withstand heat, not an impact. Like the s.p.a.ce shuttle. When you fly it through a rainstorm, it plays h.e.l.l with the tiles."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yep." Gregory nodded. "Like foam coffee cups."

"Okay, so then the problem's getting the SM2 close enough to have the warhead pop off when the target's in the fragmentation cone."

"Correct." They might be enlisted men, Gregory thought, but that didn't make them dumb.

"Software fix in the seeker head, right?"

"Also correct. I've rewritten the code. Pretty easy job, really. I reprogrammed the way the laser mutates. Ought to work okay if the infrared homing system works as advertised. At least it did in the computer simulations up in Washington."

"It worked just fine on Shiloh, Doc. We got the videotape aboard somewhere," Leek a.s.sured him. "Wanna see it?"

"You bet," Dr. Gregory said with enthusiasm.

"Okay." Senior Chief Leek checked his watch. "I'm free now. Let me head aft for a smoke, and then we'll roll the videotape," he said, sounding like Warner Wolf on WCBS New York.

"You can't smoke in here?"

Leek grunted annoyance. "It's the New Navy, Doc. The cap'n's a health n.a.z.i. You gotta go aft to light up. Not even in chief's quarters," Leek groused.

"I quit," Matson said. "Not a p.u.s.s.y like Tim here."

"My a.s.s," Leek responded. "There's a few real men left aboard."

"How come you sit sideways here?" Gregory asked, rising to his feet to follow them aft. "The important displays go to the right side of the ship instead of fore and aft. How come?"

" 'Cuz it helps you puke if you're in a seaway." Matson laughed. "Whoever designed these ships didn't like sailors much, but at least the air-conditioning works." It rarely got above sixty degrees in the CIC, causing most of the men who worked there to wear sweaters. Aegis cruisers were decidedly not known for their comforts.

This is serious?" Colonel Aliyev asked. It was a stupid question, and he knew it. But it just had to come out anyway, and his commander knew that.

"We have orders to treat it that way, Colonel," Bondarenko replied crossly. "What do we have to stop them?"

"The 265th Motor-Rifle Division is at roughly fifty percent combat efficiency," the theater operations officer replied. "Beyond that, two tank regiments at forty percent or so. Our reserve formations are mostly theoretical," Aliyev concluded. "Our air a.s.sets-one regiment of fighter-interceptors ready for operations, another three who don't have even half their aircraft fit to fly."

Bondarenko nodded at the news. It was better than it had been upon his arrival in theater, and he'd done well to bring things that far, but that wouldn't impress the Chinese very much.

"Opposition?" he asked next. Far East's intelligence officer was another colonel, Vladimir Konstantinovich Tolkunov.

"Our Chinese neighbors are in good military shape, Comrade General. The nearest enemy formation is Thirty-fourth Shock Army, a Type A Group Army commanded by General Peng Xi-w.a.n.g," he began, showing off what he knew. "That one formation has triple or more our mechanized a.s.sets, and is well trained. Chinese aircraft-well, their tactical aircraft number over two thousand, and we must a.s.sume they will commit everything to this operation. Comrades, we do not have anything like the a.s.sets we need to stop them."

"So, we will use s.p.a.ce to our advantage," the general proposed. "Of that we have much. We will fight a holding action and await reinforcements from the west. I'll be talking with Stavka later today. Let's draw up what we'll need to stop these barbarians."

"All down one line of railroad," Aliyev observed. "And our f.u.c.king engineers have been busily clearing a route for the c.h.i.n.ks to take to the oil fields. General, first of all, we need to get our engineers working on minefields. We have millions of mines, and the route the Chinese will take is easily predicted."

The overall problem was that the Chinese had strategic, if not tactical, surprise. The former was a political exercise, and like Hitler in 1941, the Chinese had pulled it off. At least Bondarenko would have tactical warning, which was more than Stalin had allowed his Red Army. He also expected to have freedom of maneuver, because also unlike Stalin, his President Grushavoy would be thinking with his brain instead of his b.a.l.l.s. With freedom of maneuver Bondarenko would have the room to play a mobile war with his enemy, denying the Chinese a chance at decisive engagement, allowing hard contact only when it served his advantage. Then he'd be able to wait for reinforcements to give him a chance to fight a set-piece battle on his own terms, at a place and time of his choosing.

"How good are the Chinese, really, Pavel?"

"The People's Liberation Army has not engaged in large-scale combat operations for over fifty years, since the Korean War with the Americans, unless you cite the border clashes we had with them in the late '60s and early '70s. In that case, the Red Army dealt with them well, but to do that we had ma.s.sive firepower, and the Chinese were only fighting for limited objectives. They are trained largely on our old model. Their soldiers will not have the ability to think for themselves. Their discipline is worse than draconian. The smallest infraction can result in summary execution, and that makes for obedience. At the operational level, their general officers are well-trained in theoretical terms. Qualitatively, their weapons are roughly the equal of ours. With their greater funding, their training levels mean that their soldiers are intimately familiar with their weapons and rudimentary tactics," Zhdanov told the a.s.sembled staff. "But they are probably not our equal in operational-maneuver thinking. Unfortunately, they do have numbers going for them, and quant.i.ty has a quality all its own, as the NATO armies used to say of us. What they will want to do, and what I fear they will, is try to roll over us quickly-just crush us and move on to their political and economic objectives as quickly as possible."

Bondarenko nodded as he sipped his tea. This was mad, and the maddest part of all was that he was playing the role of a NATO commander from 1975-maybe a German one, which was truly insane-faced with adverse numbers, but blessed, as the Germans had not been, with s.p.a.ce to play with, and Russians had always used s.p.a.ce to their advantage. He leaned forward: "Very well. Comrades, we will deny them the opportunity for decisive engagement. If they cross the border, we will fight a maneuver war. We will sting and move. We will hurt them and withdraw before they can counterattack. We will give them land, but we will not give them blood. The life of every single one of our soldiers is precious to us. The Chinese have a long way to go to their objectives. We will let them go a lot of that way, and we will bide our time and husband our men and equipment. We will make them pay for what they take, but we will not-we must not-give them the chance to catch our forces in decisive battle. Are we understood on that?" he asked his staff. "When in doubt, we will run away and deny the enemy what he wants. When we have what we need to strike back, we will make him wish he never heard of Russia, but until then, let him chase his b.u.t.terflies."

"What of the border guards?" Aliyev asked.

"They will hurt the Chinese, and then they will pull out. Comrades, I cannot emphasize this enough: the life of every single private soldier is important to us. Our men will fight harder if they know we care about them, and more than that, they deserve our care and solicitude. If we ask them to risk their lives for their country, their country must be loyal to them in return. If we achieve that, they will fight like tigers. The Russian soldier knows how to fight. We must all be worthy of him. You are all skilled professionals. This will be the most important test of our lives. We must all be equal to our task. Our nation depends on us. Andrey Petrovich, draw up some plans for me. We are authorized to call up reserves. Let us start doing that. We have hectares of equipment for them to use. Unlock the gates and let them start drawing gear, and G.o.d permit the officers a.s.signed to those cadres are worthy of their men. Dismissed." Bondarenko stood and walked out, hoping his declamation had been enough for the task.

But wars were not won by speeches.

CHAPTER 45.

Ghosts of Horrors Past President Grushavoy arrived in Warsaw with the usual pomp and circ.u.mstance. A good actor, Ryan saw, watching the arrival on TV. You never would have guessed from his face that his country was looking at a major war. Grushavoy pa.s.sed the same receiving line, doubtless composed of the same troops Ryan had eyeballed on his arrival, made a brief but flowery arrival speech citing the long and friendly history shared by Poland and Russia (conveniently leaving out the equally long and less-than-friendly parts), then got into a car for the city, accompanied, Ryan was glad to see, by Sergey Nikolay'ch Golovko.

In the President's hand was a fax from Washington outlining what the Chinese had in the way of war a.s.sets to turn loose on their northern neighbors, along with an estimate from the Defense Intelligence Agency on what they called the "correlation of forces," which, Jack remembered, was a term of art used by the Soviet army of old. Its estimate of the situation was not especially favorable. Almost as bad, America didn't have much with which to help the Russians. The world's foremost navy was of little direct use in a land war. The United States Army had a division and a half of heavy troops in Europe, but that was thousands of miles from the expected scene of action. The Air Force had all the mobility it needed to project force anywhere on the globe, and that could give anyone a serious headache, but airplanes could not by themselves defeat an army. No, this would be largely a Russian show, and the Russian army, the fax said, was in terrible shape. The DIA had some good things to say about the senior Russian commander in theater, but a smart guy with a .22 against a dumb one with a machine gun was still at a disadvantage. So, he hoped the Chinese would be taken aback by this day's news, but CIA and State's estimate of that possibility was decidedly iffy.

"Scott?" Ryan asked his Secretary of State.

"Jack, I can't say. This ought to discourage them, but we can't be sure how tight a corner they think they are in. If they think they're trapped, they might still lash out."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Scott, is this the way nations do business?" Jack demanded. "Misperceptions? Fears? Outright stupidity?"

Adler shrugged. "It's a mistake to think a chief of government is any smarter than the rest of us, Jack. People make decisions the same way, regardless of how big and smart they are. It comes down to how they perceive the question, and how best they can serve their own needs, preserve their own personal well-being. Remember that we're not dealing with clergymen here. They don't have much in the way of consciences. Our notion of right and wrong doesn't play in that sort of mind. They translate what's good for their country into what's good for themselves, just like a king in the twelfth century, but in this case there isn't any bishop around to remind them that there may be a G.o.d looking down at them with a notebook." They'd gone out of their way, Adler didn't have to say, to eliminate a cardinal-archbishop just to get themselves into this mess.

"Sociopaths?" the President asked.

Secretary Adler shrugged. "I'm not a physician, just a diplomat. When you negotiate with people like this, you dangle what's good for their country-them-in front of their eyes and hope they reach for it. You play the game without entirely understanding them. These people do things neither one of us would ever do. And they run a major country, complete with nuclear weapons."

"Great," Ryan breathed. He stood and got his coat. "Well, let's go watch our new ally sign up, shall we?"

Ten minutes later, they were in the reception room of the Lazienski Palace. There was the usual off-camera time for the various chiefs of government to socialize over Perrierand-a-twist before some nameless protocol official opened the double doors to the table, chairs, doc.u.ments, and TV cameras.

The speech from President Grushavoy was predictable in every detail. The NATO alliance had been established to protect Western Europe against what his country had once been, and his former country had established its own mirror-image alliance called the Warsaw Pact right here in this very city. But the world had turned, and now Russia was pleased to join the rest of Europe in an alliance of friends whose only wish was peace and prosperity for all. Grushavoy was pleased indeed to be the first Russian in a very long time to be a real part of the European community, and promised to be a worthy friend and partner of his newly close neighbors. (The military ramifications of the North Atlantic Treaty were not mentioned at all.) And everyone present applauded. And Grushavoy pulled out an ancient fountain pen borrowed from the collection at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg to sign in the name of his country, and so bring membership in NATO up by one. And everyone applauded again as the various chiefs of state and government walked over to shake their new ally's hand. And the shape of the world changed yet again.

"Ivan Emmetovich," Golovko said, as he approached the American President.

"Sergey Nikolay'ch," Ryan said in quiet reply.

"What will Beijing think of this?" the chief of the Russian intelligence service asked.

"With luck, we'll know in twenty-four hours," Ryan answered, knowing that this ceremony had gone out on CNN's live global feed, and positive that it was being watched in China.

"I expect the language will be profane."

"They've said nasty things about me lately," Jack a.s.sured him.

"That you should have carnal relations with your mother, no doubt."

"Actually, that I should have oral s.e.x with her," the President confirmed distastefully. "I suppose everybody says things like that in private."

"In person, it can get a man shot."

Ryan grunted grim semi-amus.e.m.e.nt. "Bet your a.s.s, Sergey."

"Will this work?" Golovko asked.

"I was going to ask you that. You're closer to them than we are."

"I do not know," the Russian said, with a tiny sip of his vodka gla.s.s. "And if it does not . . ."

"In that case, you have some new allies."

"And what of the precise wording of Articles Five and Six of the treaty?"

"Sergey, you may tell your president that the United States will regard an attack on any part of the territory of the Russian Federation as operative under the North Atlantic Treaty. On that, Sergey Nikolay'ch, you have the word and the commitment of the United States of America," SWORDSMAN told his Russian acquaintance.

"Jack, if I may address you in this way, I have told my president more than once that you are a man of honor, and a man of your word." The relief on his face was obvious.

"Sergey, from you those words are flattering. It's simple, really. It's your land, and a nation like ours cannot just stand by and watch a robbery of this scale taking place. It corrupts the foundations of international peace. It's our job to remake the world into a peaceful place. There's been enough war."

"I fear there will be another," Golovko said, with characteristic honesty.

"Then together your country and mine will make it the very last."

"Plato said, 'Only the dead have seen the end of war.' "

"So, are we to be bound by the words of a Greek who lived twenty-five centuries ago? I prefer the words of a Jew who lived five centuries later. It's time, Sergey. It's f.u.c.king time," Ryan said forcefully.

"I hope you are right. You Americans, always so madly optimistic . . ."

"There's a reason for that."

"Oh? What would that be?" the Russian asked.

Jack fixed his eyes on his Russian colleague. "In my country, all things are possible. They will be in your country, too, if you just allow it. Embrace democracy, Sergey. Embrace freedom. Americans are not genetically different from the rest of the world. We're mongrels. We have the blood of every country on earth in our veins. The only thing different between us and the rest of the world is our Const.i.tution. Just a set of rules. That's all, Sergey, but it has served us well. You've been studying us for how long?"

"Since I joined the KGB? Over thirty-five years."

"And what have you learned of America and how it works?" Ryan asked.

"Obviously not enough," Golovko answered honestly. "The spirit of your country has always puzzled me."

"Because it's too simple. You were looking for complexity. We allow people to pursue their dreams, and when the dreams succeed, we reward them. Others see that happen and chase after their own dreams."

"But the cla.s.s issues?"

"What cla.s.s issues? Sergey, not everybody goes to Harvard. I didn't, remember? My father was a cop. I was the first guy in my family to finish college. Look how I turned out. Sergey, we do not have cla.s.s distinctions in America. You can be what you choose to be, if you are willing to work at it. You can succeed or you can fail. Luck helps," Ryan admitted, "but it comes down to work."

"All Americans have stars in their eyes," the Chairman of the SVR observed tersely.

"The better to see the heavens," Ryan responded.

"Perhaps. Just so they don't come crashing down on us."

So, what does this mean for us?" Xu Kun Piao asked, in an entirely neutral voice.

Zhang Han San and his premier had been watching the CNN feed in the latter's private office, complete with simultaneous translation through headphones now discarded. The senior Minister Without Portfolio made a dismissive wave of the hand.

"I've read the North Atlantic Treaty," he said. "It does not apply to us at all. Articles Five and Six limit its military application to events in Europe and North America only-all right, it includes Turkey, and, as originally written, Algeria, which was part of France in 1949. For incidents at sea, it applies only to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and then only north of the Tropic of Cancer. Otherwise, the NATO countries would have been compelled to join in the Korean War and Vietnam on the American side. Those things did not happen because the treaty did not apply outside its defined area. Nor does it apply to us. Treaty doc.u.ments have discrete language and discrete application," he reminded his party chief. "They are not open-ended."

"I am concerned even so," Xu responded.

"Hostilities are not activities to be undertaken lightly," Zhang admitted. "But the real danger to us is economic collapse and the resulting social chaos. That, comrade, could bring down our entire social order, and that is something we cannot risk. But, when we succeed in seizing the oil and gold, we need not worry about such things. With our own abundant oil supply, we will not face an energy crisis, and with gold we can buy anything we require from the rest of the world. My friend, you must understand the West. They worship money, and they base their economies on oil. With those two things they must do business with us. Why did America intervene in the Kuwait affair? Oil. Why did Britain, France, and all the other nations join in? Oil. He who has oil is their friend. We shall have oil. It is that simple," Zhang concluded.

"You are very confident."

The minister nodded. "Yes, Xu, I am, because I have studied the West for many years. The way they think is actually very predictable. The purpose of this treaty might be to frighten us, I suppose, but it is at most a paper tiger. Even if they wished to provide military a.s.sistance to Russia, they do not have the ability to do so. And I do not believe that they have that wish. They cannot know our plans, because if they did, they would have pressed their advantage over us in terms of currency reserves at the trade talks, but they did not, did they?" Zhang asked.

"Is there no way they could know?"

"It is most unlikely. Comrade Tan has no hint of foreign espionage in our country at anything approaching a high level, and his sources in Washington and elsewhere have not caught a sniff of such information being available to them."

"Then why did they just broaden NATO?" Xu demanded.

"Is it not obvious? Russia is becoming rich with oil and gold, and the capitalist states wish to partake in the Russians' good fortune. That is what they said in the press, isn't it? It is fully in keeping with the capitalist ethos: mutual greed. Who can say, perhaps in five years they will invite us into NATO for the same reason," Zhang observed with an ironic leer.

"You are confident that our plans have not been compromised?"

"As we come to a higher alert level and begin moving troops, we may expect some reaction from the Russians. But the rest of them? Bah! Tan and Marshal Luo are confident as well."

"Very well," Xu said, not entirely persuaded, but agreeing even so.

It was morning in Washington. Vice President Jackson was de facto boss of the crisis-management team, a place a.s.sured by his previous job, Director of Operations-J-3-for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One nice thing about the White House was the good security, made better still by bringing people in via helicopter and car, and by the fact that the Joint Chiefs could teleconference in from their meeting room-"the Tank"-over a secure fiber-optic link.