So read the shingle above Gen. Douglas Freeman’s headquarters in Minsk, which his aides were now in the process of taking down and packing for shipment back to the States. Freeman was a fighting general — of this the Pentagon, the president, and the Allied liaison commission in Washington had not the slightest doubt. At fifty-five he was the youngest four-star general in the U.S. Army — but not, as the State Department emphatically advised the White House, “diplomatic material.” His abilities, Foggy Bottom pointed out, lay in action, “not in the delicate business of helping Russia back on its feet.” The advisory memorandum from State quoted an interview that Freeman had, in State’s view, ill-advisedly given the Armed Forces Journal four months before in Europe. Freeman had declared unequivocally that “nobody seems awake to the fact that even in Gorbachev’s day the Soviet military had expanded, by getting rid of obsolete equipment and making it look as if it was reducing its forces”; that “in fact there were more mobile missile sites built during Gorbachev’s tenure than by any other Soviet leader since the Russian Revolution.” Which, Freeman had gone on to say just as unequivocally, “proves a sound military axiom, that you cannot trust any Commie son of a bitch as far as you can kick ‘im!” And that “what the American people have to understand is that, when you get right down to it, regardless of changing civilian leaders, it’s the Soviet military with which we will ultimately have to contend.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, albeit reluctantly, agreed with State, yet they knew it would be unpopular in middle America to recall the general, and with such haste. It would be especially unpopular with the troops Freeman had led on his now-legendary nighttime airborne raid on Pyongyang in North Korea, whose leader he called “Kim II Runt,” and with those he’d led in an equally spectacular outflanking movement on Europe’s northern plain, breaking out of the Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket — his armored columns racing ahead and breaching Moscow’s defenses. He was, however, too brusque for Washington — a soldier’s soldier — so that the Joint Chiefs of Staff felt they had no alternative than to agree with State in advising the president that it would be much “safer” for everyone to recall Freeman — to leave the peace to the experts.
At 7:14 a.m. the first car, a hand-tooled Zil limousine, weaved its way through the rabble-strewn snow and drew up in front of Dzerzhinsky Square, the two KGB door guards snapping to attention despite their weariness. A group of bleary-eyed and emaciated-looking army officers walking, or rather shuffling, up from the old Intourist Hotel through the ruins of Marx Prospect slowed to stare across the square. They managed to see two figures in civilian coats entering the Zil, the gray-uniformed chauffeur quickly checking the limousine’s side mirror, and the car moving off quickly yet quietly in the snow. Several of the young army officers saluted but weren’t sure whether it was the new president or not behind the black curtains. Seconds later a battered white Moskvich taxi, a four-door compact, swung into the curb and the officers across the square saw another figure, also in civilian garb, emerge from the old KGB building, the two guards coming to attention just as they had done for the Zil.
Inside the Zil, Chernko’s aide tried to hide his surprise, having expected Chernko to wait and board the battered Moskvich decoy rather than following him into the highly visible Zil. The major said nothing, busying himself dialling the “Patrul “— “Flying Squad,” the special motorcycle-and-car security unit that was to be less than a minute away from the director at all times. On occasion, however, particularly during the shelling, they’d taken as long as ten minutes. Immediate demotion followed. The major checked the squad’s position against his watch the moment the unit answered his phone call. He glanced across at Chernko. “They’re where they should be, Comrade Director. I mean, Mr. President.” The KGB boss said nothing. The driver was busy finding his way through the body- and rubble-strewn Ordynika Street south through Red Square onto Gorky Street. A surprising amount of Soviet BMD armored personnel carriers were evident following the surrender, all strangely quiet on the hard-packed snow. Chernko pressed the driver intercom button on his plush leather armrest. “We’ll go up Gertsen,” he instructed the chauffeur, “around by the U.S. A./Canada Institute. What’s left of it.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the chauffeur, and the limousine weaved through Manege Square past the alert military policeman, who had stopped all traffic the moment he’d seen the Zil in the outside VIP lane. The car turned right on Gertsen. The major was always tense at such moments. With Chernko you never knew. The director’s passion for security verged on the paranoid — a reflection of the fact that he himself had sent so many assassins abroad to hunt others. And there had always been the danger of Siberian separatists long agitating for autonomy from Moscow to run their own federation. Never varying your routine, Chernko knew, was the biggest single mistake, hence his proverki— “spot checks,” as he called them, on his flying squad. Despite the inconvenience it caused his own timetable, the major had to concede that such precautions were part of the reason Chernko was still alive to be chief of First and Second Directorate and now president.
An old babushka, a grandmother, head wrapped against the cold by the traditional black scarf, slipped on the icy sidewalk, the stroller she was pushing rolling out onto the road. The driver braked hard, and both Chernko and the major were jerked forward, restrained only by their seat belts. The driver instinctively slammed the car into a sliding reverse-turn. But it was too late. By then the Flying Squad had the road blocked behind and in front of the Zil — the gray figures of the squad emerging ghostlike, surrounding the limousine.
There were no harsh words from Chernko to the driver, but the latter immediately knew he would be punished — and at a time when he and his family would desperately need what few perks remained for the driver of the most powerful man in the Soviet Union.
The driver, normally a strong man, was reduced to a quivering jelly, looking back pleadingly, whey faced, at Chernko. He was crying. “I’m sorry, Comrade Director — Comrade President. I—”
“Vladimir,” said Chernko, nodding at the two Flying Squad members holding the driver to release him, “it was only natural.”
“But I should have known, Comrade. Remembered my training.”
“Yes,” said Chernko, sitting back in the plush Afghan leather, “you should have. It could have been a Siberian, eh?” The man wanted to speak again but couldn’t find words. A small, bedraggled crowd of refugees was gathering; plainclothes KGB men quickly, brusquely, ordered them away.
Chernko knew news of the incident would spread quickly, as he intended it should, and then — for a while at least — everyone on security would be on special alert, and he would be safe long enough to make his deal — gain his insurance policy — with Novosibirsk.
“Full circle, eh?” he said to the major.
“I don’t understand, Comrade President.”
“Insurance, Major. Our KGB building in Dzerzhinsky Square was once an insurance building. Fitting, don’t you think?”
As one of the security team took over as driver and the babushka, an agent in her early thirties, folded up the stroller, the Zil moved off back along the long, bedraggled line of people who, since the war had started, continued to line up day after day all the way down past the Alexander Garden toward Lenin’s Mausoleum — not to pay homage to the founder of the revolution but to receive their daily ration of sawdust bread. Already fights were breaking out in the line, and Chernko sat grim-faced, staring ahead. The very idea, let alone the sight, of any disorder was deeply disturbing to him. Not only did it signify the end of the long reign of the Revolution, but if he could not protect himself he would lose all rank, all privilege, and be cast among them.
“Now, Major,” Chernko said with renewed urgency, “To the new headquarters to transmit my proposal to Novosibirsk.” He meant to the KGB shelter at their new HQ in the outer ring. “Before the Americans reach us.”
“Comrade President, if I might mention something I heard at the officers’—”
“Yes?” Chernko said curtly.
“The plan you have to offer the Siberians…” The major hesitated. “Is it ex-War Minister Marchenko’s plan you are… borrowing?”
“Borrow? I didn’t borrow any such idea, Major.”
“Of course,” put in the major quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“I stole it,” said Chernko. “Srazmakhom”— “Holus-bolus.” He turned, his steely blue eyes boring into his aide.”What does it matter where our strategy — where our tactics — come from? The trouble with you, Major, is you’re a child of Gorbachev. In the revolution and now in this war there’s no room for that sentimental bourgeois tripe about taking somebody else’s idea-somebody else’s property. We are ‘the sword and shield of the State’—that is all that matters. The point is to deliver the blow wherever we see the opportunity present itself.”
“A blow?” said the major, nonplussed. “When we have surrendered?”
“We’ve surrendered. Siberia has not. If Siberia were to defeat the Americans—” Chernko paused. “What is it the Americans say, Major? ‘It’s not over until it’s over’?” They were approaching the KGB bunker. “As soon as we arrive,” Chernko instructed the major, “I want you to send up the file.”
“Yes, sir.” But the major sounded distinctly apprehensive.
“Don’t worry,” Chernko assured him, the president’s mood now buoyant. “In a month we’ll be watching news reports of the Americans reeling — while we’re eating their rations. I call that sweet revenge, Major. And no matter what the Siberians think of us, they’ll be grateful for the plan — the weapon I’m about to give them. They’re not stupid. They’ll want it spread around that anyone who helps them against the Americans will be rewarded. If my plan works, the Americans will be sent packing. For the it will mean full membership in Novosibirsk’s Central Committee. You to full colonel — perhaps general — with all the benefits of rank in the postwar Siberian forces. Would that be satisfactory, Comrade?”
“Very,” replied the major, knowing generalship would at the very least rate a chauffeur and access to the party’s special stores. Chernko, of course, would probably get yet another dacha out of it — a few more and he could start a hotel chain after the war-after the American army had been chopped up piecemeal and swallowed by the vast winter that was called Siberia,
Gen. Douglas Freeman alighted from his military transport plane at Monterey Airport at 4:00 p.m., his impending arrival unannounced to the press by the Pentagon. In any event his departure from Washington had been deliberately delayed at the last minute by the Pentagon so that his arrival on the West Coast would be too late for the New York networks’ evening news. This would minimize, the Pentagon hoped, any damage Freeman might do in an open press conference should he be asked any questions about the Russians.
Now that the brief if intense applause for him in the New York parade had died, the ticker tape swept away, Freeman didn’t expect a hero’s welcome on the West Coast. America was demobilizing much faster than it had mobilized, anxious to get on with enjoying the fruits of a hard-won victory, racing to put the war behind it.
As the general’s car, pennant furled, headed south on Highway 1, the blood-streaked sun was sinking beneath the sharp black line of the sea. Freeman wondered aloud to his driver how quickly she thought the feats of First Army would be forgotten. The trim driver, blond hair swept back in a bun, was watching the road too intently to really think much about the general’s question and said she didn’t know. Normally the khaki Chevrolet would have been flanked by four MP outriders, but the general, ostentatious enough when it suited First Army’s purposes, had set a frugal example throughout the war, insisting on stringent conservation measures regarding the use of gasoline now that the Middle East fields were once again in ruin. Freeman caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and was momentarily lost to the contemplation of whether or not he should stay in the army. At fifty-five he was hardly old, even in a modern, youth-oriented, high-tech military. Nevertheless, he and everyone else knew he was being put out to pasture. What made it worse was that he understood the Pentagon’s decision. Damn them! They were right — he was a warrior. He had the spittle for battle but not for peace. He recalled the memo to the White House from the British liaison officer in Washington, Brigadier Soames, who had advised the president that London, like the U.S. State Department, considered Freeman “a tad too Hobbesian.”
“Superior son of a bitch,” muttered Freeman. Probably figured his memo wouldn’t be understood by anyone who hadn’t gone “up” to Oxford and “read philosophy.”
“Well,” Freeman had told his boss, General of the U.S. Army James Grey, “I’ve read my Hobbes and my Bugs Bunny. I know what that limey son of a bitch means, General. He’s claiming I see man’s natural condition as one of war.”
“Now, Douglas,” Grey had told him. “Don’t go getting yourself all riled up.”
“Well,” Freeman had replied, pulling on his leather gloves tighter, flexing his fist. “Limey bastard’s right. I do. Peace is war by other means, General. When you cut through the thin veneer of civilization, only thing that keeps the goddamn yahoos from running this world is strength of arms. Question is, whose arms? Ours or some Commie son of a bitch who’d take whatever freedom the IRS has left us? Lord — didn’t we learn anything from what happened to Gorbachev? While every Tom, Dick, and Jane Fonda in the West were going ga-ga over Gorby all those Marxist-Leninist pals of his were just going along for the ride — till he fell ‘ill.’ Then by God look what we got. Suzlov and now Chernko and his pals. Same old gang. Remember, General, we all wanted peace. The British lion sheathed her claws. The American eagle clipped talons and beak. And the Russian bear — why he was just so darned happy about it he hugged ‘em both to death.”
“Go home, Douglas,” Grey had told him. “Enjoy your ocean view. You’ve done yourself and First Army proud. The country’s grateful. You ever doubt that, look at those rows of decorations you have — from every corner of the world. But you’re smart enough to know that the peace — whether it’s another form of war or not, Douglas — will be fought in board rooms and with diplomacy, God help us. The brigadier’s right, Douglas, ‘it’s not your cup of tea.’ “
Freeman grimaced. Even though he knew they were right the very thought of sitting in the bleachers while other players took the field and the glory was anathema to him. He knew it was pride—”pride right through,” as he remembered Henry the Eighth had said of Cardinal Wolsey — but Douglas Freeman saw his pride as a God-given hubris—as natural as salt in the blood, as undeniable as the steel blue of his eyes and his graying hair. It was the fuel that drove his consuming ambition: to be the greatest commander in the history of the United States — in the history of the world — an ambition that had burned fiercely within him as a boy, long before his first glimpse of the plain at West Point. Intellectually, politically, he understood Washington was correct to recall him now the battle was over and peace secured; but in his heart the tunes of glory would always call, the snare drum’s roll the sweetest music.
He remembered watching Apocalypse Now, at the armored school at Fort Hood, to which he and other officers had returned fresh from their victories in the Iraqi war. The gung-ho colonel in the film had confidently whipped away the yellow cravat of the Air Cavalry from his throat and, hands on nips, announced to a terrified subaltern, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Everyone in the theater had laughed derisively. Everyone except Freeman. He didn’t like the smell of napalm in the morning or any other time — it plugged his sinuses — but he knew what that colonel had meant, what he felt. He, too, loved the smell, the sting of battle that shot adrenaline to his chest. Only then did he feel fully alive. Some men he knew were born with the same feeling and spent their lives hypocritically denying it in deference to the civilized world, but Freeman made no apology, believing his destiny, his responsibility, was to put it to good purpose, to preserve the civilized world — to defend his America against all those who sought to destroy her. Yet now, his career having finally rounded the corner, “heading into the straight,” as his father would have said, the race was suddenly over, his purpose fulfilled in the clash of armor around Minsk and Moscow that had brought the Russian surrender. Suddenly he was adrift, his past glory flat as the twilight sea. Glory was like sex, he mused — having just had it you felt you’d never need it again. Then an hour later…
Outside his fog-shrouded house on the Monterey beachfront, a bungalow design with a six-foot-high, chocolate-brown fence running around it to ward off the encroaching dune grass, a crowd of well-wishers had gathered. One of the signs read “Welcome home, General Freeman”; another, “Freedom’s Freeman!” Instead of her usual gradual braking, the corporal was forced to hit the brakes hard as the crowd surged forward unexpectedly, revealing a long, yellow tape, which at first she had thought was a yellow ribbon of remembrance. She now saw it ran clear around the house. Freeman could smell the fresh tang of the sea. Three army Humvees were parked about ten yards apart, right of the crowd by the curb, one of the vehicles sprouting its.50 caliber machine gun on a swivel mount immediately behind the six-man cabin. A California highway patrolman, in khaki cap and uniform, and one of the MPs from the Humvees looked as if they were arguing. Left of them a man in white shorts and T-shirt, his left hand on the lip of the curb which was overrun by dune grass, lay sprawled in the gutter. The white shorts were red with blood.
Now Freeman saw more policemen pushing the crowd back as the man was photographed from different angles. For a second the general thought he saw his wife, Doreen, in the crowd but it was difficult to tell with so many people, a hundred or more, milling and flowing about the house. A man in jeans and wildly colored Hawaiian shirt tried to duck under the yellow tape near the curb, holding up a newspaper with a picture of Freeman at the surrender ceremony at Minsk. A patrolman pushed him back behind the tape.
“So much for crowd control, Corporal,” joked Freeman.
“Yes, sir.”
Whether it was the sight of the army Humvees or the strange excitement of the crowd that tensed up his lumbar muscles Freeman didn’t know, but it hurt like hell, and for a moment he was back in the Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket just after he’d given the order for the breakout, the “end run” that had outflanked the enemy and ultimately brought Chernko and his STAVKA to its knees. After leaving his headquarters near Munster the concussion from a 122-millimeter Soviet shell had knocked his Humvee right off the road, lifting the vehicle and flinging it into a ditch. His back took most of the impact against the Humvee’s steering column and the driver’s steel helmet.
The pain was still with him and bone deep. Determined not to show signs of what doctors insisted on calling “discomfort” to make themselves feel better, Freeman hauled himself quickly out of the Chevrolet, asking the corporal to answer the car’s cellular phone that was bipping annoyingly in the back as Freeman alighted. It was a small detail, opening the door himself, but the kind that newspapers, hungry for copy, used to define what they called the “hands-on, no-nonsense Freeman style.” The reporters didn’t realize that the general opening the door for himself was more a sign of his impatience to get things done than it was disdain for ceremony.
As he emerged from the car the fog lifted, the sun’s dying rays catching the edge of his decorations’ strips, the blue-red-blue of his Silver Star vibrant in the fading light.