Abramov had been holding back his twenty T-90s behind the protection of the minefield that skirted ABC’s H-block and the thicket of Cherkashin’s anti-aircraft defenses until the weather abated and visibility improved enough to unleash his armor and make devastating use of his laser and infrared targeting. But he suspected now that he had made an error and waited too long. Initial reports coming into the H-block from Beria’s lone-sniper observers in reed hides at the edge of the minefield indicated that “white bears” now outnumbered “brown,” which told Abramov, Beria, and Cherkashin that not only had a second wave of Americans arrived but that these new American arrivals were equipped with “snow whites,” or winter uniforms.
Then suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, Beria burst into Abramov’s office, waving a piece of yellow paper of the size ABC had given Ramon, who had so successfully led ABC’s Spetsnaz commando group in the attack on the American’s DARPA ALPHA base.
“God exists!” Beria bellowed to a startled Abramov. “Mikhail, I bring you a gift!”
“What in hell are you talking about?” asked the tank commander, looking up grumpily at the diminutive Beria, whose chin seemed barely to clear the top of Abramov’s huge metal desk.
“Where’s Cherkashin?” Beria inquired loudly, looking about the map room adjoining Abramov’s office.
“He’s busy,” said Abramov brusquely, clearly irritated by Beria’s exuberance, which was in marked contrast to his own bad mood and anger at himself for not having committed his tanks earlier. It had been his dream to avenge the one humiliating defeat his Siberian Sixth had suffered.
Abramov had been smart enough this time around, or so he had told himself, to not let his tanks loose when Bird Rescue’s Cobra gunships had shown up in the first wave. His intel group had assured him the Cobra attack helos would not return in the terrible weather. The gunships simply were not equipped with sufficiently good avionics, given the distance between the U.S. fleet and Lake Khanka. Furthermore, his perimeter snipers had been told that if the Cobras did risk a second wave, they would, like any other helo, be vulnerable when refueling from bladders dropped by the cargo-hauling Stallions. Any in-flight refueling was deemed to be “out of the question” during the blizzard. Cherkashin’s air defense had assured Abramov that such a delicate maneuver required visuals as well as outstanding instrument flying by the Cobra’s two-man crew and the tanker’s pilot in what the Russians referred to as a “Tit and Sucker” maneuver. But Abramov’s G-2, his intelligence chief, had confirmed that there were reports by coastwatchers of American helos refueling in the air.
Beria had placed the yellow sheet of paper, which was also the color used for radio intercepts, on Abramov’s desk, waving his hand side to side as if to clear the room of the smoke from the ultraexpensive Diplomaticos No. 2 cigar, one of which Abramov always had on the go, ever since ABC’s massive profits had enabled the tank commander to buy the very best Havana cigars.
“What’s this?” Abramov asked, picking up the yellow intercept strip unenthusiastically. Beria strode to the window, momentarily struggling with the latch, and letting in a draft of the frigid air, glancing at Abramov’s snow-covered main battle tanks surrounded by Cherkashin’s twelve multibarreled ZSU anti-aircraft units and a score of Igla MANPAD teams. Beria thanked his lucky stars, that, as much as Moscow wanted ABC destroyed, the Russian president simply could not allow any foreigners, especially Americans, to bomb Russian soil, rebel or otherwise. For the Russian president to allow anyone, especially Americans, to bomb would risk enraging even those Russians who, though opposed to the terrorist activities of ABC, could not tolerate foreign bombs falling on the Motherland. It was a visceral reaction born of the collective trauma of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa, the massive and savage invasion of Mother Russia, when Hitler’s Luftwaffe had sent in the Nazis’ Screaming Stuka dive-bombers to pulverize Russian defenses and terrify the civilian population.
Looking out the window as Abramov scanned the yellow page, an excited Beria was reveling in ABC’s double good fortune. First, in how Moscow, by securing a “no-bombing” agreement with the U.S. president in dealing with ABC, had in effect rendered ABC’s H-block and minefield off-limits to American aircraft and now ABC’s second lucky break, which had come in the form of an intercepted transcript of a message between the American General Freeman and the marine commander, Colonel Tibbet.
“The Americans,” said Beria, coming back to the desk, his finger tapping the yellow sheet of paper, “think they are the only ones with state-of-the-art computer scanners?”
“So,” said Abramov, still not convinced, “you have intercepted a line of letters. What’s it mean?”
“Our intel boys are working as fast as they can. They think it’s a letter-for-letter code. You know, each letter stands in for another letter. So when you put ‘B’ it could be ‘A’ or ‘C.’ We’re running the parameters now.”
“Why isn’t it encrypted?” asked Abramov brusquely. Digitized?”
Beria shrugged. “Not every squad carries an encrypter. Maybe their encrypter wasn’t working.”
“Huh,” said Abramov. “It looks too easy.”
“Well, then,” countered Beria. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Abramov, taking a long, clenched-teeth drag on his Diplomaticos. “I’ve just seen it this second, haven’t I?”
“Our boys’ll crack it,” said Beria confidently, taking back the yellow strip.
“Leave it,” Abramov told the infantry general. “I’ll peruse it as well. Meanwhile our met officer says this snow’s going to turn to rain. A layer of mist’ll be moving from north of the lake down toward us, but it should be clear enough that I’ll be able to go out and attack with my armor. Americans’ll have nothing comparable. Biggest things they can haul under those Super Stallions of theirs are Hummers and light howitzers, and the most they’re ferrying in are two of the howitzers, otherwise they couldn’t have carried the required troops’ weight to make up the second wave.
“Don’t worry, Mikhail,” Beria said. “Your T-90s’ll eat those marines alive once the weather—”
“I know that!” snapped Abramov, his tobacco-stained teeth in a snarl. “The point is to let my boys loose when the worst of the weather lifts but there’s still enough mist to give us cover as we speed through our minefield’s exits. We’ll have to move fast before the Americans rush the minefield exit, which isn’t visible now but will be once they backtrack our tread marks. I want your infantry to be ready, Viktor, to watch my flanks.”
“Ready? They’ve been ready, waiting all around the perimeter, dug in until they can move en masse. My God, haven’t you heard them firing?”
“I’ve heard a lot of noise,” retorted Abramov. “But we’re still frozen in position. We’ll see who’s been firing accurately when we can see what the hell’s going on. We’re still in the fog of battle, Viktor. Same as the Americans.”
“Don’t complain about the snow, Mikhail. It’s what’s buying us time against the American force. Once your armor rolls out we’ll flush them out for you. Grease your treads with their guts.”
Abramov had no doubt he’d mash the Americans, though he might lose a few of his T-90s and 122 mm mobile missile launchers. These were still firing spasmodically at very low altitude to sweep the snow-filled air of any American helo caught in the critically vulnerable hovering position, disgorging men and matériel. Abramov looked down again at the long string of letters on the yellow sheet.
“Don’t worry,” Beria assured him. “Our intel comrades are working the permutations and combinations now. They’ll crack it soon.”
“‘Soon,’” said Abramov, “better be before the weather clears.”
“They’ll crack it,” Beria promised.
Abramov looked at his watch. “Rain is predicted in thirty minutes. Then it tapers to showers.”
“Ah, you can’t always trust those weather people, Mikhail,” opined Beria. “Look how it was supposed to be low overcast, maybe showers, then what do we get dumped on us? Tons of snow. A veritable blizzard, Comrade.”
“That’s because we’re so near the mountains,” Abramov told him. “You know how quickly things change.”
Beria wasn’t convinced, though as he left Abramov’s office he recalled how, contrary to public opinion, weather forecasting was now 87.8 percent accurate, even in seaports as far away as Vladivostok and Vancouver. And so, when he found Cherkashin in the map room, he told him that Mikhail was probably right about the optimistic weather forecast. But the normally garrulous air force commander was in no mood for optimism. He was furious that the snow had effectively grounded the two MiG-29s promised him by his brother-in-law in Spassk-Dalni East.
“Sergei,” Beria assured him, “you won’t need the two Fulcrums. You’ve given us good anti-aircraft fire already. Now it’s our turn.”
Cherkashin, his white mane in disarray, stared at Beria. The infantry commander’s optimism annoyed him. War was so unpredictable that few of those in it had any clear idea of how it would turn out.