Ian Slater: Asian Front

As Churchill had believed that the armistice following die 1914-18 war with Germany was nothing more than a temporary cease-fire, that Germany sooner or later would start another war, Freeman had no faith in the present cease-fire between China and Siberia on one side and the United States on the other. And this “brothel subsidy,” as he called it, was his latest effective, if eccentric, tactic: “A preemptive strike,” as he explained to his aide, Colonel Dick Norton.

“Washington’s not going to like it, General.”

“Washington isn’t going to know about it, Dick.”

Dick Norton shook his head worriedly. “Sir, it’s only a matter of time before the press gets onto it. They love stuff like this. There’d be hell to pay. And as for the women’s lobby!” Norton rolled his eyes heavenward. “Paying dogfaces to get laid…”

“Dick, you worry too much. I know that’s your job, but I’ve told you before, by the time I get this business about ‘being recalled for consultation’ in Washington over with we could be at war again with these jokers. Chinese, Siberians, or both. I don’t trust Novosibirsk any more than I do Beijing. This is the second cease-fire we’ve had, and I tell you it’s no better than any of the seventy-five the Yugoslavs had. Goddamn it! You’d think Washington could see that. We were sent over here to keep this upstart United Siberian Republic from annexing more territory, and what happened? The Chinese made a land grab into Siberia first and we ended up with a war on two fronts. And now, just when we turn the tide on the bastards and look like we’re kicking their ass across the Black Dragon River, back into China where they belong, and the Siberians back beyond Lake Baikal where they belong, Beijing and Novosibirsk ask for a cease-fire, and of course those fairies in Washington give it to them.”

“The public doesn’t want the war to go on, General.”

“Dick,” the general began exasperatedly, “like the man in the transmission commercial used to say: ‘Pay me now or pay me later.’ We should have kicked ass all the way to Beijing — teach ‘em a lesson like we taught that Siberian Yesov son of a bitch. He messed with Second Army and got a bloody nose.”

“We got one, too, General, before we stopped them,” Norton reminded him — the almost complete destruction of the American III Corps, its blood and equipment streaked across the frozen twenty-mile escape route across Lake Baikal, was evidence of that.

“Yes, because the goddamned chinks attacked us when we were preoccupied with the Siberians so we ended up with a two-front war.”

“General, you shouldn’t use that word—’chinks.’ You’re being recalled now because of what Washington calls your ‘intemperate remarks’ about those two Spets.” Norton was referring to two Spetsnaz — Siberian Special Operations, in this case women commandos — who’d tried to assassinate Freeman at his Khabarovsk HQ.

“Intemperate remarks!” Freeman thundered. “Bitches tried to kill me! In my own quarters, goddamn it!”

“I know, General, but after you shot them and said it was a case of ‘equal opportunity’ employment — well, the feminists—”

“Said in the heat of the moment, Dick.”

“ I know that, General, but the feminists back home went absolutely—”

“Ape!” Freeman cut in gleefully. “Listen, Norton, those crazies from the femisphere are free to go ape and I’m free to say what I think because a lot of good men died for freedom all the way from Normandy to here. That’s a fact. And I’m not about to be cowed by a bunch of skirts.”

“I know, General, but it’s a new world.”

“Yes.” Freeman sighed. “And by God, I don’t like it. More dangerous now than the cold war.”

“Not much we can do about it, sir.”

“I’ll tell you what you can do about it. While I’m back in Washington getting my ass reamed out for offending the femisphere, you can help keep Second Army razor sharp so that if any more chinks cross the Amur into Siberia we can push ‘em back.”

“Yes, sir, we’ll try.”

“I know. Have every confidence in my staff.” The general reached for his coat. His tone dropped. “You make that appointment for me with that Taiwanese admiral — Kuang?”

“Yes, sir. He’ll see you in Tokyo. Strictly unofficial. Civilian dress.”

“You order the meal I wanted? No damned sushi. American beef.”

“Yes, sir,” Norton assured him. “Prime rib, range fed, just like you said.”

“None of that steroid-fed crap.”

“No, sir. I promise.” Norton paused. “You think he’ll go for the dessert you’ve got in mind?” The dessert, the general had told Norton, would be China — if Beijing ever moved across the Amur again.

Their public announcements aside, Freeman was convinced that the top leadership of the old KMT — Kuomintang — party in Taiwan, once commanded by Chiang Kai-shek or, as Harry Truman called him, “Cash my Check,” had never wavered in its determination to go back home. Taiwan had infinite patience and, with one of the most powerful armies and navies in Asia, fully intended to return to China and oust the leadership in Beijing if the opportunity ever presented itself, an opportunity their agents had constantly been working for along the coast of the East China Sea since 1949.

Freeman was also aware of something else — something he didn’t believe the “fairies” back in Washington understood — that in China there were many Chinas, that one of the great illusions of the twentieth century was seeing China as a cohesive whole — a monolithic structure too big to topple. Since Tiananmen Square especially, internal dissent had grown, not vanished. It had merely gone underground. It had been part of that underground that had enabled the Americans to gain information with which they had been able to blow up the Nanking Bridge across the Yangtze and so sever the long logistical supply line from southern to northern China. Even so, for the moment Beijing still ruled with an iron fist, and the hundreds of individual Chinas had not yet been galvanized into a decisive bloc. But Freeman was convinced they were there — waiting.

“General, I hate to sound like a harpy, but that’s something else you’re going to have to watch. I mean if the press ever discovers you’re talking to the Taiwanese, every tabloid in the country’ll bury you alive.” In particular, the general knew his aide meant the La Roche tabloid chain — owned by the multibillion-dollar newspaper/industrial magnate now arrested under the U.S. Emergency Powers Act (to combat internal sabotage during the war) for having traded with the enemy. Specifically, La Roche and his front Asian companies, from Singapore to Hong Kong, had been providing Communist China with the weapons and ammunition used against fellow Americans in the slaughter of the American III Corps on Lake Baikal.

“To hell with La Roche — that weasel’ll be behind bars after a grand jury gets through with him.”

“Even so, General, he still runs the newspapers, and he’ll use his editors to whip up opinion any way he wants. You’ll have to watch what you say when you’re back home.”

“I say what’s on my mind, Dick. I won’t waffle.”

Dick Norton didn’t believe him. Freeman was a to-your-face man all right, but he could be as selective or as evasive as the next commander in what he said if he wanted to be — witness his mysteriously terse order for “wolf dung and only wolf dung” to be collected and frozen at headquarters. Not even Norton knew what the hell it was about. The only thing the general would say was that he wanted it on standby— “Just throw it outside on the permafrost, that’ll keep it frozen”—and that if there was a war with China it could save thousands of American lives.