“Movement,” the gunner said. “Movement on Rice Ridge.” That was what they called the first ridge line in Chinese territory. “Infantrymen.”
“You’re sure they’re soldiers?” Komanov asked.
“I suppose they might be shepherds, but I don’t see any sheep, Comrade Lieutenant.” The gunner had a wry sense of humor.
“Move,” the lieutenant told the crewman who’d taken his place in the command hatch. He reclaimed the tank commander’s seat. “Get me the headset,” he ordered next. Now he’d be connected to the phone system with a simple push-button microphone. With that, he could talk to his other eleven crews or to regiment. But Komanov didn’t don the earphones just yet. He wanted his ears clear. The night was still, the winds calm, just a few gentle breezes. They were a good distance from any real settlement, and so there were no sounds of traffic to interfere. Then he leveled his binoculars on the far ridge. Yes, there was the ghostly suggestion of movement there, almost like seeing someone’s hair blowing in the wind. But it wasn’t hair. It could only be people. And as his gunner had observed, they would not be shepherds.
For ten years, the officers in the border bunkers had cried out for low-light goggles like those issued to the Spetsnaz and other elite formations, but, no, they were too expensive for low-priority posts, and so such things were only seen here when some special inspection force came through, just long enough for the regular troops to drool over them. No, they were supposed to let their eyes adapt to the darkness… as though they think we’re cats, Komanov thought. But all the interior battle lights in the bunkers were red, and that helped. He’d forbidden the use of white lights inside the post for the past week.
Brothers of this tank turret had first been produced in late 1944— the JS-3 had stayed in production for many years, as though no one had summoned the courage to stop producing something with the name losif Stalin on it, he thought. Some of them had rolled into Germany, invulnerable to anything the Fritzes had deployed. And the same tanks had given serious headaches to the Israelis, with their American- and English-built tanks, as well.
“This is Post Fifty. We have a lot of movement, looks like infantry, on the north slope of Rice Ridge. Estimate regimental strength,” his earphones crackled.
“How many high-explosive shells do we have?” Komanov asked.
“Thirty-five,” the loader answered.
And that was a goodly amount. And there were fifteen heavy guns within range of Rice Ridge, all of them old ML-20 152-mm howitzers, all sitting on concrete pads next to massive ammo bunkers. Komanov checked his watch. Almost three-thirty. Ninety minutes to first light. The sky was cloudless. He could look up and see stars such as they didn’t have in Moscow, with all its atmospheric pollution. No, the Siberian sky was clear and clean, and above his head was an ocean of light made brighter still by a full moon still high in the western sky. He focused his eyes through his binoculars again. Yes, there was movement on Rice Ridge.
So?” Peng asked. “At your command,” Wa replied.
Peng and his staff were forward of their guns, the better to see the effect of their fire.
But seventy thousand feet over General Peng’s head was Marilyn Monroe. Each of the Dark Star drones had a name attached to it, and given the official name of the platform, the crews had chosen the names of movie stars, all of them, of course, of the female persuasion. This one even had a copy of the movie star’s Playboy centerfold from 1953 skillfully painted on the nose, but the eyes looking down from the stealthy UAV were electronic and multi-spectrum rather than china blue. Inside the fiberglass nosecone, a directional antenna cross-linked the “take” to a satellite, which then distributed it to many places. The nearest was Zhigansk. The farthest was Fort Belvoir, Virginia, within spitting distance of Washington, D.C., and that one sent its feed via fiberoptic cable to any number of classified locations. Unlike most spy systems, this one showed real-time movie-type imagery.
“Looks like they’re getting ready, sir,” an Army staff sergeant observed to his immediate boss, a captain. And sure enough, you could see soldiers ramming shells into the breeches of their field pieces, followed by the smaller cloth bags that contained the propellant. Then the breeches were slammed shut, and the guns elevated. The 30-30-class blank cartridges were inserted into the firing ports of the breechblocks, and the guns were fully ready. The last step was called “pulling the string,” and was fairly accurate. You just jerked the lanyard rope to fire the blank cartridge and that ignited the powder bags, and then the shell went north at high speed.
“How many guns total, Sergeant?” the captain asked.
“A whole goddamned pisspot full, sir.”
“I can see that. What about a number?” the officer asked.
“North of six hundred, and that’s just in this here sector, Cap’n. Plus four hundred mobile rocket launchers.”
“We spotted air assets yet?”
“No, sir. The Chinese aren’t nighttime flyers yet, least not for bombing.”
“EAGLE Seven to Zebra, over,” the AWACS senior controller radioed back to Zhigansk.
“Zebra to Seven, reading you five-by-five,” the major running the ground base replied.
“We got bogies, call it thirty-two coming north out of Siping, estimate they’re Sierra-Uniform Two-Sevens.”
“Makes sense,” the major on the ground told his wing commander. “Siping’s their 667th Regiment. That’s their best in terms of aircraft, and stick-time. That’s their varsity, Colonel.”
“Who do we have to meet them?”
“Our Russian friends out of Nelkan. Nearest American birds are well north and—”
“—and we haven’t got orders to engage anybody yet,” the colonel agreed. “Okay, let’s get the Russians alerted.”
“EAGLE Seven to Black Falcon Ten, we have Chinese fighters three hundred kilometers bearing one-nine-six your position, angels thirty, speed five hundred knots. They’re still over Chinese territory, but not for much longer.”
“Understood,” the Russian captain responded. “Give me a vector.” “Recommend intercept vector two-zero-zero,” the American controller said. His spoken Russian was pretty good. “Maintain current speed and altitude.”
“Roger.”
On the E-3B’s radar displays, the Russian Su-27s turned to head for the Chinese Su-27s. The Russians would have radar contact in about nine minutes.
“Sir, this don’t look real nice,” another major in Zhigansk said to his general.
“Then it’s time to get a warning out,” the USAF two-star agreed. He lifted a phone that went to the Russian regional command post. There hadn’t as yet been time to get a proper downlink to them.
“General, a call from the American technical mission at Zhigansk,” Tolkunov said.
“This is General Bondarenko.”
“Hello, this is Major General Gus Wallace. I just set up the reconnaissance shop here. We just put up a stealthy recon-drone over the Russian Chinese border at. . .” He read off the coordinates. “We show people getting ready to fire some artillery at you, General.”
“How much?” Bondarenko asked.
“Most I’ve ever seen, upwards of a thousand guns total. I hope your people are hunkered down, buddy. The whole damned world’s about to land on ’em.”
“What can you do to help us?” Bondarenko asked.
“My orders are not to take action until they start shooting,” the American replied. “When that happens, I can start putting fighters up, but not much in the way of bombs. We hardly have any to drop,” Wallace reported. “I have an AWACS up now, supporting your fighters in the Chulman area, but that’s all for now. We have a C-130 ferrying you a downlink tomorrow so that we can get you some intelligence directly. Anyway, be warned, General, it looks here as though the Chinese are going to launch their attack momentarily.”
“Thank you, General Wallace.” Bondarenko hung up and looked at his staff. “He says it’s going to start at any moment.”
And so it did. Lieutenant Komanov saw it first. The line of hills his men called Rice Ridge was suddenly backlit by yellow flame that could only be the muzzle flashes of numerous field guns. Then came the upward-flying meteor shapes of artillery rockets.
“Here it comes,” he told his men. Unsurprisingly, he kept his head up so that he could see. His head, he reasoned, was a small target. Before the shells landed, he felt the impact of their firing; the rumble came through the ground like a distant earthquake, causing his loader to mutter, “Oh, shit,” probably the universal observation of men in their situation.
“Get me regiment,” Komanov ordered.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the voice answered.
“We are under attack, Comrade Colonel, massive artillery fire to the south. Guns and rockets car coming our—”
Then the first impacts came, mainly near the river, well to his south. The exploding shells were not bright, but like little sparks of light that fountained dirt upward, followed by the noise. That did sound like an earthquake. Komanov had heard artillery fire before, and seen what the shells do at the far end, but this was as different from that as an exploding oil tank was from a cigarette lighter.