Foreign Minister Shen asked.
“Well, yes, it could be that, I suppose,” Luo replied, “but—”
“Invasion?” Xu asked. “A direct attack on our own soil?”
“Such a thing is most unlikely,” Luo told them. “They lack the ability to put troops ashore in sufficiently large numbers. America simply doesn’t have the troops to do such a—”
“What if they get assistance from Taiwan? How many troops do the bandits have?” Tong Jie asked.
“Well, they have some land forces,” Luo allowed. “But we have ample ability to—”
“You told us a week ago that we had all the forces required to defeat the Russians, even if they got some aid from America,” Qian observed, becoming agitated. “What fiction do you have for us now, Luo?”
“Fiction!” the marshal’s voice boomed. “I tell you the facts, but now you accuse me of that?”
“What have you not told us, Luo?” Qian asked harshly. “We are not peasants here to be told what to believe.”
“The Russians are making a stand. They have fought back. I told you that, and I told you this sort of thing is to be expected—and it is. We fight a war with the Russians. It’s not a burglary in an unoccupied house. This is an armed contest between two major powers—and we will win because we have more and better troops. They do not fight well. We swept aside their border defenses, and we’ve pursued their army north, and they didn’t have the manhood to stand and fight for their own land! We will smash them. Yes, they will fight back. We must expect that, but it won’t matter. We will smash them, I tell you!” he insisted.
“Is there any information which you have not told us to this point?” Interior Minister Tong asked, in a voice more reasonable than the question itself.
“I have appointed Major General Ge to assume command of the Thirty-fourth Shock Army. He reported to me that Twenty-ninth Army sustained a serious air attack earlier today. The effects of this attack are not clear, probably they managed to damage communications—and an air attack cannot seriously hurt a large mechanized land force. The tools of war do not permit such a thing.”
“Now what?” Premier Xu asked.
“I propose that we adjourn the meeting and allow Minister Luo to return to his task of managing our armed forces,” Zhang Han Sen proposed. “And that we reconvene, say, at sixteen hours.”
There were nods around the table. Everyone wanted the time to consider the things that they’d heard this morning—and perhaps to give the Defense Minister the chance to make good his words. Xu did a head count and stood.
“Very well. We adjourn until this afternoon.” The meeting broke up in an unusually subdued manner, without the usual pairing off and pleasantries between old comrades. Outside the conference room, Qian buttonholed Fang again.
“Something is going badly wrong. I can feel it.”
“How sure are you of that?”
“Fang, I don’t know what the Americans have done to my railroad bridges, but I assure you that to destroy them as I was informed earlier this morning is no small thing. Moreover, the destruction inflicted was deliberately systematic. The Americans—it must have been the Americans—deliberately crippled our ability to supply our field armies. You only do such a thing in preparation to smashing them. And now the commanding general of our advancing armies is suddenly killed—stray bullet, my ass! That tset ha tset ha Luo leads us to disaster, Fang.”
“We’ll know more this afternoon,” Fang suggested, leaving his colleague and going to his office. Arriving there, he dictated another segment for his daily journal. For the first time, he wondered if it might turn out to be his testament.
For her part, Ming was disturbed by her minister’s demeanor. An elderly man, he’d always nonetheless been a calm and optimistic one for the most part. His mannerisms were those of a grandfatherly gentleman even when taking her or one of the other office girls to his bed. It was an endearing quality, one of the reasons the office staff didn’t resist his advances more vigorously—and besides, he did take care of those who took care of his needs. This time she took her dictation quietly, while he leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed, and his voice a monotone. It took half an hour, and she went out to her desk to do the transcription. It was time for the midday meal by the time she was done, and she went out to lunch with her co-worker, Chai.
“What is the