Ian Slater: Force of Arms

“Good,” Andrea Rolston said, “because you never know. And you remember, you just pick up the phone and give me a dingle. I’m right next door. If you don’t have time, why, you just pop a couple right between the son of a bitch’s eyes.”

“Pop who?” Rosemary asked.

“What — oh, anybody tries a night creep on you — but wait till the SOB is inside. Then it’s self-defense, pure and simple. I did it once!”

Rosemary’s throat felt dry. “You did?”

“Bet your fanny I did. Some joker when we were stationed in Galveston. Course anywhere in Texas you can shoot ‘em on the doorstep. That’s enough cause. I love Texas.”

“Yes,” Rosemary said.

“Where’d you get that from?” Andrea said, pointing to a grapefruit in Rosemary’s basket.

“Why — over here.”

“Well you got the wrong bin, honey. It’s softer than a baby’s bottom — be half rotten. C’mon, let’s take it back.”

Rosemary followed, not knowing whether to laugh or not — to be touched or appalled by Andrea’s ambush of her. And so the teacher of Shakespeare walked along, deeply embarrassed as Andrea began dressing down the poor grapefruit man with such determination that Rosemary thought Andrea might shoot him.

“What’ll she think?” Andrea said to the hapless manager. “She’s a guest and all.” And with that she delivered an enormously larger but firmer grapefruit than before.

“There you go, Rose. You don’t mind if I call you Rose?”

“Ah, no. I—”

“America’s the greatest place on earth, Rosie. No offense to your country but I mean that. But you have to look after yourself.”

Until that moment, Rosemary had assumed she was able to look after herself quite well.

“Buyer beware,” Andrea added. “You know they spray cucumber with that oil crap — makes ‘em look fresher.”

“No — no, I didn’t.”

“Well they do. Now don’t you worry, Rose. I told your hubby I’d look after you.”

“Thank you.”

“Call me Dee. Everyone else does.”

“Yes — thank you, Dee.”

“You’re welcome, Rose.”

One of the Gong An Bu agents got out of his car that was hidden down one of the narrow hutongs, and walking quickly up the dark alley he went into one of the mud-cake houses and told the chief inspector that a message had just come through on the radio that there’d been an explosion on the Orgon Tal branch line.

It was enough to put the PLA in the sector on full alert. In response, Freeman immediately sent out an FAV — fast-attack vehicle — reconnaissance patrol as the sky was already clouding over, obscuring satellite intelligence. The explosion on the branch line and Cheng’s reaction to it meant that for the first time in the three weeks they had known one another Aussie Lewis and Alexsandra Malof were separated.

“Who complained?” Freeman demanded without taking his eyes off the huge wall map of the three provinces of Hopei, Shantung, and Honan.

“I don’t have her name yet, General,” answered Colonel Norton, Freeman’s longtime aide, and he was glad he didn’t. If Freeman found out who the female was who had complained directly to the Pentagon, he’d go ballistic.

“If I’ve said it once,” Freeman roared, “I’ve told those Washington fairies a thousand times, a tank is no place for a woman. Period! It’s cramped, it’s crowded — goddamn it, Dick!” he said, turning away from the map momentarily. “Why am I plagued by these skirts that are so hell-bent on getting their tits ripped off during the reload? Don’t they understand? There are no seat belts inside, no restraints. Shell ejection can break an arm just like that!”

“All I know,” Norton said quietly, “is that it’s a perennial complaint against Second Army. And General, you are obliged by Congress to—”

“To hell with Congress. See any of those jokers in a tank? By God, remember Dukakis? And now they want me to put those delicate creatures inside an M1A1?” He suddenly sounded terribly old-fashioned. He was an anachronism in many ways — still stood up for a woman when she entered a room, opened doors for them, and was even known to give up his seat on the military buses on the way to postmaneuver conferences at Fort Irwin, for he made a point of traveling with his troops.

No wonder the callow young Turks thought of him as an early twentieth-century man.

“General,” Norton advised him cautiously, “no matter what your personal feelings, the Pentagon has approved women for combat in all—”

Freeman turned angrily on his aide, then suddenly stopped his tirade, exhaling heavily, whacking a stripped stick of birch against his boot. The birch stick-cum-pointer-cum-swagger stick had traveled down with him from the northwestern part of Manchuria, where the deciduous oak forests, linden, and white pine ran right out to the edge of the northeasterly margin of the Gobi. “Well, Dick — you’re right of course.” Whack! “Appreciate your candor.” Whack! “You’re not here to pump sunshine up my ass but to tell me how it is.” Whack! “So I suppose we’re going to have to let some tail in to keep Washington off my tail.”

“I think that’s sensible, General.”

“Yes, by God, I bet you do. You’re with Congress on this, aren’t you?”

“Well, sir, the navy already—”

“Yes, yes, I know. And you think I’m a stick in the mud.”

“On strategy — no way, sir. But in this matter I think we’re dragging our feet.”

“Are we?” Freeman asked, looking at Dick Norton, who didn’t blink.

“Yes, sir, we are.”

“All right — all right — but not in my HQ company.”

“I’m not suicidal, General.”

“Huh,” Freeman grunted affably, “guess not. Give them to Hersh — he’s a ladies’ man. He can tuck ‘em in tight, but remember what I’ve said before. When nature calls and we’re in the middle of a battle, they’re going to have to pee and the rest of it in their helmets — same as everybody else. Period or no period — understand?”

“I’m sure they already know that, General.”

“Knowing and experiencing, Dick, are two different things.”

“They’ll manage, sir.”

“None of those damn sanitary pads, mind,” Freeman said. “Take up too much space. Tampax or they don’t go!”

“Yes, sir.”

For a moment Freeman was silent, thinking of his wife— killed on his leave a few months before by a prowler who, as it turned out later, had been a Spetsnaz — a Special Forces — hit man when Siberia had been fighting Second Army. And now it was the Chinese he was up against. He turned his mind back to the pressing matter of tank transporters. Were there enough for the new up-gunned Abrams 12mm main battle tanks?

“All we need is ten days, General,” Norton informed him, as if reading Freeman’s mind. “By then our replacement armor’ll all be down here at Orgon Tal and spread out east of us. SAS and Delta teams’ll be rested by then, too.”

“Well, the truce should last that long. What have we had in the way of border incidents-apart from this explosion the SAS team is investigating?”

“Intelligence reports it’s tense — odd shot fired here and there. Maybe Chinese killing takin.” He meant the species of goat antelope that wandered the Manchurian slopes to the north. “But I still think the truce will hold for another few days.”

There was another reason for what the boys had done near Tomortei. They wanted to disrupt Cheng’s supply line all right, but they also wanted to send a clear signal to all dissident groups that the June Fourth Democracy Movement was alive, if not always well, and was ready to lead the way.