Ian Slater - Force of Arms

“Yes, Comrade Nie.”

“Thank you,” Alexsandra said quietly, realizing as she did so that the guard had knocked out one of her top teeth.

“You,” Nie said, “are becoming an embarrassment. You must confess!”

Then she understood — there hadn’t been an iota of sympathy in him for her in what the guard had done, only extreme annoyance that his most prized captive had been beaten about the face so badly that it would be awhile before he could make her look presentable in any show trial. In any event, he told Shung that he wanted the China Evening News producer and the best makeup artist from the Beijing Opera to see the Malof woman immediately and give him an estimate of how long it would take to make her presentable in court.

Shung was also instructed to tell the replacement guard on the wing that he and his family would be summarily executed if so much as a scratch was found on the prisoner once she had been bandaged and returned from medical treatment. Nie had told Shung the very same thing, assuring a trembling Alexsandra before he left the cell that “We will certainly kill you as a spy if you do not cooperate. If you confess, your death will be quick — a public execution. But if you do not confess…” He threw up his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. “Then the guards can have you — do as they wish.”

There was growing pressure on Nie by the Politburo to have a public confession from Malof as an enemy of the people before they killed her. The effect of confessions, particularly among the peasantry, was much underrated by Western observers and intellectuals, who thought the mass of Chinese were as skeptical as they were about such confessions.

Freeman was pleased his forces had been able to rally significantly from the massive Chinese ground attack and to regain some lost ground, but the victories he’d expected from the close air support against Cheng’s main battle tanks were not forthcoming. The Chinese had made excellent use of smoke cover after the typhoon had passed, and, combined with the dust, the smoke not only obscured large areas of the battlefield and cut the Americans’ bombing and sighting laser rays and thermal sights, but made IFF — identification friend or foe — a near impossibility. Several M1s, mistaken for enemy tanks, had been taken out just south of the railway at Orgon Tal.

“At least the missile problem’s licked,” Norton said.

“For the time being,” Freeman answered. “Oh, it’ll take them quite a while to set up shop again, but we have to do something in the meantime, Dick — something so spectacular that it’ll short circuit the whole war.”

“Anything in mind, General?”

Freeman seemed not to notice Dick Norton’s voice. “I wonder whether young Brentwood shot those goddamned scientists.”

Norton was genuinely shocked. “You don’t mean that, General?” he said, but it was more a question than a statement of fact.

The general glanced at him and sighed. He was bone weary from lack of sleep. “No, Dick, I probably don’t, but have you ever thought of how we gain air superiority?”

“By more of us shooting down more of them I presume.”

“Planes or pilots?” Freeman asked.

It made Norton pause.

“Australian air ace,” Freeman continued. “Man called Caldwell used to shoot the German pilots in their parachutes in WW II. Said if he didn’t, the bastards’d be up the next day shooting down more of his buddies.” With that, Freeman looked up at the map and smacked Tibet. “Chinese scientists are same as the pilots. Long as we have them running loose they can build more missiles.”

“General,” Dick Norton said, “you once told me that no war is black and white — all have a gray area — but you said the degree of grayness is what separates us from them — an American from a totalitarian.”

“Did I?” Freeman said.

“Yes, sir, you did.”

“Well, Dick, don’t worry — just wishful thinking. I didn’t order the scientists shot. We’ll find out when Brentwood gets back. A few taken prisoner wouldn’t hurt.”

“Won’t know till he’s here, sir.” Dick Norton looked at his watch. “The three evac choppers should be reaching that Lake Nam pretty soon.”

“What are our casualties?”

“No word yet. Brentwood just used enough air time to send in the call for pickup.”

“What are we using?”

“Pave Lows.”

Freeman nodded approvingly. The MH-53J Pave Lows were superb NOE — nap of the earth — fliers. Just the kind of machine they needed in the bad weather swirling down from the twenty-thousand-foot mountain range.

“Air cover?” Freeman asked.

“F-15 Eagles on their way now — drop tanks and tankers.”

“Good.”

“We shouldn’t have any trouble with ChiCom fighters,” Norton added. “Eagles’ll eat a Shenyang alive.”

“Thank God for that. Listen, Dick, I’ve got to get some sleep.” He slapped his aide on the shoulder. “Otherwise I’ll get so goddamned tired my judgment will start to go. End up shooting scientists.” He winked.

Norton smiled. Sometimes even Norton couldn’t tell whether Freeman was kidding or not The general did have a point: The way you got air supremacy was to shoot down pilots, not just planes. The missile site near Lake Nam had been taken out, but how long would it stay that way? How long would the Chinese take to get it going again? Freeman was right; Second Army had to do something spectacular in order to shorten the war before missiles started raining down again.

Before he fell asleep, his Winchester 1200 riot shotgun by his bed, the Sig Sauer 9mm beneath his pillow, Freeman read again those sections he’d underlined from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The master had said surprise was a good tactic. Well, hell, it didn’t need a Chinese sage to tell you that. He made a note in his diary to the effect that one of the reasons Second Army had not collapsed along the Orgon Tal-Honggor line stemmed, he believed, from the simple fact that the U.S. soldier normally fires about 4.7 times as much live ammunition in practice as his Chinese counterpart. With all the modern weapons of war, it gave him a sense of pride that, like the long rifles of the American Revolution, American marksmanship was probably the best in the world. Even so, he was outnumbered, and he knew the U.S. front couldn’t hold forever without urgent resupply along lines that were stretched, straining to the limit, all the way from Khabarovsk to Orgon Tal.

He knelt by his bed and prayed for all his men and that he might be given a chance for victory.

On the shores of Lake Nam the SAS/D detachment was met by the four paratroopers who had not made the rendezvous. With them they had brought six Chinese prisoners, four of them scientists whom they’d picked up on their way down to the lake after they’d heard the enormous explosion and figured correctly that the missile site had been blown and that the best they could do was to make the rendezvous for pickup at the lake.

“Well stone the crows!” Aussie said upon seeing the four SAS/D men. “About time, fellas. Where you been? Wanking yourself off by the lake? Lovely!”

“We damn near drowned in the lake,” a corporal said. “Damn lucky we made it to shore.”

“Where’d you find this lot?” Aussie asked, swinging his Haskins in the direction of the six forlorn-looking Chinese, their padded Mao suits the worse for their escape from the inferno.

“Here,” the SAS/D corporal said. “They were here by the lake. When they spotted one of our guys with an AK-47 they thought it was Christmas — till they saw our mugs.”