Americans had his. It was just one way for an intelligence service to demonstrate its prowess in a harmless way. The first sheets to come across were the English translation of the Chinese ideographs that came through immediately thereafter.
Sergey, I sent you our original feed in case your linguists or psychologists are better than ours,” the President said, with an apologetic glance at Dr. Sears. The CIA analyst waved it off. ”They have twelve CSS-4 missiles, half aimed at you, half at us. I think we need to do something about those things. They may not be entirely rational, the way things are going now.”
“And your shore bombardment might have pushed them to the edge, Mr. President,” the Russian said over the speakerphone. “I agree, this is a matter of some concern. Why don’t you bomb the things with your brilliant bombs from your magical invisible bombers.”
“Because we’re out of bombs, Sergey. They ran out of the sort they need.”
“Nichevo” was the reaction.
“You should see it from my side. My people are thinking about a commando-type operation.”
“I see. Let me consult with some of my people. Give me twenty minutes, Mr. President.”
“Okay, you know where to reach me.” Ryan punched the kill button on the phone and looked sourly at the tray of coffee things. “One more cup of this shit and I’m going to turn into an urn myself.”
The only reason he was alive now, he was sure, was that he’d withdrawn to the command section for 34th Army. His tank division was being roughly handled. One of his battalions had been immolated in the first minute of the battle. Another was now trying to maneuver east, trying to draw the Russians out into a running battle for which his men were trained. The division’s artillery had been halved at best by Russian massed fire, and 34th Army’s advance was now a thing of the past. His current task was to try and use his two mechanized divisions to establish a base of fire from which he could try to wrest back control of the battle. But every time he tried to move a unit, something happened to it, as though the Russians were reading his mind.
“Wa, pull what’s left of Three-Oh-Second back to the ten o’clock start-line, and do it now!” he ordered.
“But Marshal Luo won’t—”
“And if he wishes to relieve me, he can, but he isn’t here now, is he?” Ge snarled back. “Give the order!”
“Yes, Comrade General.”
With this toy in our hands, the Germans would not have made it as far as Minsk,” Bondarenko said.
“Yeah, it helps to know what the other guy’s doing, doesn’t it?”
“It’s like being a god on Mount Olympus. Who thought this thing up?”
“Oh, a couple of people at Northrop started the idea, with an airplane called Tacit Rainbow, looked like a cross between a snow shovel and a French baguette, but it was manned, and the endurance wasn’t so good.”
“Whoever it is, I would like to buy him a bottle of good vodka,” the Russian general said. “This is saving the lives of my soldiers.”
And beating the living shit out of the Chinese, Tucker didn’t add. But combat was that sort of game, wasn’t it?
“Do you have any other aircraft up?”
“Yes, sir. Grace Kelly’s back up to cover First Armored.”
“Show me.”
Tucker used his mouse to shrink one video window and then opened another. General Diggs had a second terminal up and running, and Tucker just stole its take. There were what looked like two brigades operating, moving north at a measured pace and wrecking every Chinese truck and track they could find. The battlefield, if you could call it that, was a mass of smoke columns from shot-up trucks, reminding Tucker of the vandalized Kuwaiti oil fields of 1991. He zoomed in to see that most of the work was being done by the Bradleys. What targets there were simply were not worthy of a main-gun round from the tanks. The Abrams just rode herd on the lighter infantry carriers, doing protective overwatch as they ground mercilessly forward. The major slaved one camera to his terminal and went scouting around for more action ...
“Who’s this?” Tucker asked.
“That must be BOYAR,” Bondarenko said.
It was what looked like twenty-five T-55 tanks advancing on line, and these tanks were using their main guns ... against trucks and some infantry carriers ...
Load HEAT,” Lieutenant Komanov ordered. ”Target track, one o’clock! Range two thousand.”
“I have him,” the gunner said a second later.
“Fire!”
“Firing,” the gunner said, squeezing