Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,49

with his firm, but nobody really knew a thing about him.

"I can hear the papers now: this guy has 'Agency' written all over him." Toland tore off the printer paper and tucked it into a folder. He had to brief CINCLANT in half an hour--and tell him what? Toland wondered.

"Tell him the Germans are going to attack Russia. Who knows, maybe this time they'll take Moscow," Lowe mused.

"Goddamn it, Chuck!"

"Okay, maybe just an operation to cripple the Russians so that they can reunite Germany once and for all. That's what Ivan is saying, Bob." Lowe looked out the window. "What we have here is a classic intelligence op. This guy Falken is a stone spook. No way in hell we can tell who he is, where he comes from, or, of course, who he's working for, unless something big breaks, and I'll wager you that it doesn't. We know--we think--that the Germans aren't this crazy, but the only evidence there is points to them. Tell the Admiral something bad is happening."

Toland did precisely that, only to have his head nearly taken off by a senior man who wanted and needed hard information.

KIEV, THE UKRAINE

"Comrades, we will commence offensive operations against the NATO land forces in two weeks," Alekseyev began. He explained the reasons for this. The assembled corps and division commanders accepted the information impassively. "The danger to the State is as great as anything we've had to face in over forty years. We have used the past four months to whip our Army into shape. You and your subordinates have responded well to our demands, and I can only say that I am proud to have served with you.

"I will leave the usual Party harangue to your group political officers." Alekseyev ventured a single smile in his delivery. "We are the professional officers of the Soviet Army. We know what our task is. We know why we have it. The life of the Rodina depends on our ability to carry out our mission. Nothing else matters," he concluded. The hell it doesn't ...

11

Order of Battle

SHPOLA, THE UKRAINE

"You may proceed, Comrade Colonel," Alekseyev said over his radio circuit. He didn't say, Make a fool of me now and you will be counting trees! The General stood on a hill five hundred meters west of the regimental command post. With him was his aide, and Politburo member Mikhail Sergetov. As if I need that distraction, the General thought bleakly.

First the guns. They saw the flashes long before they heard the rolling thunder of the reports. Fired from behind another hill three kilometers away, the shells arced through the sky to their left, cutting through the air with a sound like the ripping of linen. The Party man cringed at the noise, Alekseyev noted, another soft civilian--

"I never did like that sound," Sergetov said shortly.

"Heard it before, Comrade Minister?" the General asked solicitously.

"I served my four years in a motor-rifle regiment," he replied. "And I never learned to trust my comrades at the artillery plotting tables. Foolish, I know. Excuse me, General."

Next came the tank guns. They watched through binoculars as the big main battle tanks emerged from the woods like something from a nightmare, their long cannon belching flame as they glided across the rolling ground of the exercise area. Interspersed with the tanks were the infantry fighting vehicles. Then came the armed helicopters, swooping at the objective from left and right, firing their guided missiles at the mockups of bunkers and armored vehicles.

By this time the hilltop objective was nearly hidden by explosions and flying dirt as the artillery fire marched back and forth across it. Alekseyev's trained eye evaluated the exercise closely. Anyone on that hilltop would be having a very hard time. Even in a small, deep, protective hole, even in a defiladed tank, that artillery fire would be terrifying, enough to distract the guided-weapons crews, enough to rattle communications men, perhaps enough to impede the officers there. Perhaps. But what of return fire from enemy artillery? What of antitank helicopters and aircraft that could sweep over the advancing tank battalions? So many unknowns in battle. So many imponderables. So many reasons to gamble, and so many reasons not to. What if there were Germans on that hill? Did the Germans get rattled--even in 1945 at the gates of Berlin, had Germans ever been rattled?

It took twelve minutes before the tanks and infantry carriers were atop the hill. The exercise was over.

"Nicely done, Comrade General." Sergetov removed his