Ian Slater - World in Flames

Mayne returned to the desk, his face contorted as much by pain, despite his effort not to show it, as by the sudden catastrophe of China, with its standing army, not counting reserves, of over three million men, having entered and suddenly exploded what the Pentagon in their report to the president were pleased to call “the parameters of the war.”

“Parameters!” said Mayne. “They’ve blown the gate wide open, Jimmy! They’ve—” He sat down in the chair and was silent for a moment. “Jimmy, I don’t want to sound like a hard-ass or anything, but if this is an ‘old Chinese trick,’ like firecrackers, why the hell weren’t you ready for it? Didn’t we have reconnaissance patrols? Aircraft?”

“Yes, sir, but we could only go as far as the Yalu.”

“Christ, Jimmy, I’m no—” Mayne hesitated, his mind searching for the name of an ace pilot. “Frank Shirer. I don’t even have a pilot’s license. But even I know if you fly high enough, you can see over a damn river. See anything move. Our satellite’s supposed to read Pravda in Red Square from space — right?”

“I don’t know who made up that old crock, Mr. President, but it’s far from accurate. More a PR—”

“Don’t nitpick, Jimmy. You know what I mean. How come the first I hear of it is in a national intelligence digest out of Fort Meade who picked up a radio intercept from some poor kid in one of our forward observation posts screaming that he was being overrun by Chinese?”

“The weather, sir. It’s been snowing like crazy the last few days. Not even the satellites could get through that.”

“Before that?” pressed Mayne relentlessly. He wasn’t interested in assigning guilt, but he damn well didn’t want it to happen anywhere else — in Europe, for instance. Or, God forbid, at the Aleutian back door. Or the Middle East. General Grey retracted the pointer. “Sir. We just plain didn’t see them. I mean, that’s pretty tough discipline they have, sir.” The general could see Mayne behind the desk, sitting well back in his chair but far from relaxed, hand massaging his temple.

“Well, I wish we had that kind of discipline. Our boys and the South Koreans are on the defensive again just when I thought we could wrap it up in Korea and divert some of our divisions up to the Aleutians and Europe, now that Doug Freeman’s got us moving again over there.” He sat forward, hands clasped on the green blotter, speaking more slowly now, more reflectively. “Course, if we were like them — had the kind of army where you could shoot a man for moving — I suppose we wouldn’t be fighting them. But — hell, Jimmy, we’ve got to do something. Fast. By pulling back — retreating like this—”

“Some units just plain broke, Mr. President, and ran.”

Mayne’s arms were cradling his head, the thumbs pressing hard into tense neck muscle. “Got to get some stiffener over there or else—” His voice was more agitated than the general had ever heard it. “Or we’ll have a goddamn A-grade, number one, full-blown political and military disaster on our hands.” He was out of the chair again, fingers running about his belt, glancing up at the map for several seconds, then turning toward Grey. “If we lost Korea, Jimmy, as a base — the only one we have on mainland Asia from which to harass Russia’s southern flank, then—” He broke off, his tone suddenly infused with new energy. “Jimmy — we’re still pressing ahead in Europe, am I right? No surprises in the last twenty-four hours or anything?”

“No, sir. Everything’s going as well as can be expected. Doug Freeman’s got the Russkis retreating so fast, he’s in danger of outrunning his own supply line. The British and Norwegians are worried Moscow could panic — throw in the conventional towel and go nuclear while they’ve still got time.”

“They’ll talk peace before that,” said Mayne.

“I’m not so sure, sir. I mean, it might be Politburo policy to talk before anyone pushes the button, but policy gets the bum’s rush when panic sets in. It only takes some nut, some kid on an SS-18 battery, to start it. And remember, the Russians and Chinese have huge shelters. Haven’t a hope of saving most of their population and industry, of course, and they know it, but the Chinese figure on, say, saving twenty percent of their population in the worst possible case. For us that’d be totally unacceptable, but in China, that’s two hundred million people left. Russian estimate used to be they’d lose twenty-four million and still they’d have more than twice our population. We haven’t got anything like their civil defense. Our public was so pummeled with that ‘nuclear winter’ shit — excuse me, sir— that we didn’t think there was any point to civil defense. So if the Russians do panic in the face of Freeman’s advance, we’re in one hell of a lot of—”

“Then we’d better slow down the advance. Tell Freeman to consolidate, give him time to build up supplies. Good point, Jimmy, about the supply lines. Will the joint chiefs go for a halt?”

“They will, sir.”

From the general’s quick response, Mayne guessed the C in Cs had instructed him to make that very argument. “Then I suggest we transfer Doug Freeman immediately — to C in C Korea. Get Anderson out of there. Put Freeman back on his old turf for a while.”

This the general wasn’t ready for. “But — Mr. President. We want to slow down in Europe, yes. But if we take General Freeman out and there’s a Russian counterattack, then—”

“Don’t tell me we haven’t got any other generals over there, Jimmy? Defensive backs?”

“Of course not, sir. I simply mean that Freeman has a high profile. If the Russkis see him withdrawing—”

“It’ll be a demonstration of enormous confidence in all our other field commanders,” countered Mayne. “Most of them trained by you, Jimmy, I might add.”

“Maybe, sir, but still—”

“Jimmy, Freeman knows Korea. He attacked the North Korean capital at night, got in, got out, and gave us time to reinforce the Pusan-Masan perimeter. We need a man like that.”

“You mean someone a little bit crazy?”

“We have to get those Chinese back across the Yalu.”

“I don’t know if even Doug Freeman can do that, Mr. President.”

“Let’s try.”

The general nodded his assent. “Very well, sir.”

“Jimmy?”

“Sir?”

“If you aren’t happy with bringing him out of Europe, how about we play a shell game?”

General Grey frowned.

“General, we live in a country that produces more actors than any other. We breed them by the bushel. Hell, if I remember correctly, one of them occupied this office.”

There was subdued laughter from Trainor. General Grey was warming to the idea. “A double?”

“You won’t have much time,” conceded Mayne.

But Grey, pursing his lips, was considering the logistics. “It might just work. They did it with Montgomery. But how about Freeman’s getting to Korea? If that gets out, the Russians—”

“It won’t,” said Mayne, turning to Trainor. “Under wraps. No press. Shut everything down like Reagan did in Grenada and Bush in Panama. Keep the press right out of it — and only allow two or three of Doug’s top aides to go with him. Leave the rest in Europe. Hell — he’ll need to leave most of them in Europe to execute his strategy over there — until he gets back.”

“Mr. President,” General Grey told his commander in chief, “Doug Freeman’ll the without the press — without an audience.”

“Then he’ll the in a good cause,” said Mayne, reaching for the water decanter, a signal to Trainor it was time for the pain pills.

“Think positive, Frank,” Shirer told himself, as one by one he saw the green blips of Salt Lake City’s brood of aircraft disappearing from his radar screen as they landed safely on the carrier. Finally only one blip remained, approximately three miles starboard aft of the carrier: the “Sea King” helo on its plane guard station. Shirer had been making pattern for thirty minutes, and the nose wheel hadn’t budged, so that now he knew that he had only twenty-seven minutes remaining before he’d have to take her in. “Like a bird, like a bird,” he repeated to himself, recalling the words of his old instructor during his first carrier landing. “Coming in on a carrier’s way different from having a mile of runway to screw around on. Go in like the birds — feet first, get your rear rubber down, hook the wire, and the nose’ll take care of itself.” The only trouble was, this time Shirer knew the nose wouldn’t take care of itself, not with the wheel only halfway down. He tried to remember whether there had ever been a barricade engagement on Salt Lake City —a crash landing racing at 150 miles an hour into the nylon net.