Tank 277’s turret opened and a tanker jumped down to investigate. A minute later the radio crackled again. “The ditch is five meters wide and six deep, sir. It looks as though it extends clear across our front.”
So that’s what it was. The Texans had led him into a trap. Colonel Starozhilov heaved a sigh of relief. It could have been a lot worse. As it was, he’d merely swing OMG Karaganda to its flank, proceed a few kilometers, then resume his descent upon the city.
The voice of Tank 227’s commander suddenly broke through the static: “Colonel, the camouflage cover is afire!”
Starozhilov put his field glasses to his eyes. The camouflage was indeed aflame, spreading faster than a man could run. Within seconds it had spread from directly in front of Tank 227 to the extremities of the ditch, three hundred meters in each direction. Then, to Starozhilov’s horror, the fire was racing back toward them, on both sides of his tank force. The ditch was not merely on their front: like a fiery claw, it surrounded three sides of the entire OMG.
“One-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, all units!” Colonel Starozhilov bellowed into his throat mike. “Full speed to the rear! On the double!”
The tank commanders had practiced the maneuver countless times, and all swung 180 degrees to the left without undue haste or confusion, and lumbered in good formation back toward the crest of the hill they had just descended. The fire behind and on both sides was moving fast, but the tanks were moving faster. Once they passed the hill crest they’d be safe, for the ground there had been solid, or else it wouldn’t have borne the weight of more than five hundred heavy tanks.
The foremost rank of tanks was only a hundred meters from safety when the crest itself was engulfed in flames. To try to break through the barrier of flame, which might be a hundred meters wide, for all anybody knew, would be suicide. The fire would ignite the external reserve fuel tanks, the rear ammunition storage racks would blow, and the tank and its nine-man crew would become a spectacular fireball.
As one, the tanks ground to a halt. Colonel Starozhilov, whose heart was beating rather faster than usual, didn’t panic. He reasoned that the fuel that fired the flames would soon be consumed. When it was, OMG Karaganda would return to Danbury and then resume the advance on Houston. Meanwhile, they’d wait it out. Advising his commanders to keep on the alert, he opened the turret and climbed to the ground, lighting a cigarette casually to demonstrate to his men that they had nothing to fear.
He walked among the tanks, exchanging a quip here, giving a word of reassurance there, but all the time observing without seeming to the flames that surrounded them. Ten minutes passed, and the flames did not slacken. Starozhilov was embarrassed, and a little afraid, for his impetuous departure from the plan of attack would not go unnoticed. Walking back to his tank to see if the tanks on the flanks had anything to report, he noticed that the ground seemed to have gone soft beneath his feet, as if soaked in the rains of autumn.
It wasn’t rain. It was crude oil.
Colonel Starozhilov ran back to his tank, climbed down the hatch, and pressed the mike to his throat. “Attention all personnel! All engines are to be turned off and smoking is prohibited until further notice. To avoid causing sparks, be careful where you step. And don’t worry -we’ll be out of here within the quarter hour.”
Colonel Starozhilov was as good as his word. Ten minutes passed. The ground underfoot became too soggy to walk, and the tankers had emerged from the interior of their machines to take the soft if oil-soaked summer air before they cranked up their engines once more. At the crest of the hill the fire had about burned itself out. In a few minutes it would be safe to move.
Colonel Starozhilov was looking in that direction, impatiently counting the minutes, when a lone horseman appeared on the skyline. Though he was a good three hundred meters away, Colonel Starozhilov saw that the rider was dressed in movie-Texan fashion, wearing a white ten-gallon hat and a spangled jacket that flashed in the morning sun. The horseman stopped and looked down the slope at the scores of tanks, their treads slowly sinking in the oil-soaked earth. Then he pulled what looked like a long-barreled revolver from a scabbard on the saddle and pointed it at the sky. The flare made a slow, majestic arc and flamed down among the tanks….
During that same hour of the morning, another horseman, similarly attired, paid one brief last call to Operational Maneuver Group Ulanbator, some miles to the west of the small town of West Columbia. He, too, fired a flare pistol.
It was the last shot fired in the Russo-Texas War of 2008.
When the radios of the two OMGs suddenly fell silent, one shortly after the other, Admiral Maximov dispatched a squadron of helicopters to determine what exactly had happened. Their report confirmed his fears.
That same day, fearing that if further disasters occurred to Task Force Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov the Americans would feel emboldened to declare war-and win-Premier Luchenko recalled the fleet to Russia.
3. PROSOPAGNOSIA
19 SEPTEMBER 2008
President Tom Traynor was gazing dourly out the window of the “Little White House” office overlooking the capital of the Republic of Texas when Ripley Forte was announced. Cherokee Tom turned, his expression still grim. He shook his old friend’s hand and motioned him to a chair opposite the old oak desk that had once belonged to Sam Houston. Mounted on the wall behind the desk were the strategic defensive initiative of a Texas longhorn, as wide as the smile with which Forte favored Traynor. Traynor didn’t return it.
“Why the long face, Mr. President?” Forte inquired. “I thought I’d find you in that special place in heaven reserved for commanders-in-chief whose troops have just kicked hell out of the enemy.”
“I was. After all, I’m only human. But I’m also president, and I finally came down out of the clouds to think about where do we go from here. That’s when I called you to come powwow.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Well, we beat the Russians, all right, but what do we do for an encore? I was musing last night that last week was the second time in exactly ten years that the Soviet Union tried to wipe out Texas. In 1998 your father Gwillam, God rest his soul, pulled our chestnuts out of the . fire by sinking the Soviet’s 17th High Seas Fleet before he went to the bottom in the old Texas. Then, a week ago, they tried again, and again it was a Forte that constituted our defenses. But what happens when they attack again?”
“What makes you think they will?”
Traynor snorted. “History, wounded pride, ambition, hunger for vengeance, political necessity, Muscovite meanness-take your pick. The Russians have been on the march ever since Muscovy was a principality the size of Pecos County, about the year 1500. Since then they’ve subjugated practically all the real estate in the world worth owning-at the rate of something like twice the area of Manhattan-every day, for five hundred years. You know as well as I that, despite this setback, they mean to have the rest.”
“Probably, but not in our lifetime, Mr. President.”
“That’s exactly my point, Rip: not in our lifetime. But the time will come. And where is the Forte who’ll ride to the rescue then?”
Forte refrained from the downcast eye and modest disclaimer. He knew perfectly well that the president’s flattery was calculated to disarm him, to lay him open for some incautious commitment, which honor would then force him to fulfill. “I hope you’ve got this line of blarney on tape, Mr. President, because I want a copy. It’ll help console me when I call in the computers to tote up how much all these kind words are going to cost me.”
A slow smile illuminated the Texan’s face. “You’ll have it. Still, I’m deadly serious when I reiterate that it’s only because of the imagination, resources, and patriotism of the Fortes, father and son-along with a generous helping of Texas luck-that there’s a Republic of Texas today. But you’re the last of the line, and when you pass on-doubtless kicking and screaming-your labs will be split up among your quarreling kinsfolk, and the splendid team and the continuity of defense effort made over the years at SD-1 will last about as long as a fart in a whirlwind.”
“I see,” said Forte, his jaw tightening. “You’re talking nationalization.”
“Yeah-me and Joe Stalin. I always was a closet commie.” He chuckled. Then his jollity subsided. “What I’m talking about is preparing for war-the Texas-Russia War, Round Three-while we still have you and SD-1 and the chance to win it.”