Colonel Boyle busied himself with watching everything, even though he knew that his troops were doing their jobs as well as they could be done, and would do those jobs whether he watched and fussed over them or not. Perversely, what Boyle wanted to do was to fly to where Diggs and his staff were located, but he resisted the temptation because he felt he should be supervising people whom he’d trained to do their jobs entirely without supervision. That lasted three hours until he finally saw the logic of the situation and decided to be a commander rather than a shop supervisor, and lifted off for Chabarsovil. The flying was easy enough, and he preferred the medium-low clouds, because there had to be fighters about, and not all of them would be friendly. The GPS navigation system guided him to the right location, and the right location, it turned out, was a concrete helipad with soldiers standing around it. They were wearing the “wrong” uniform, a state of mind that Boyle knew he’d have to work on. One of them escorted Boyle into a building that looked like the Russian idea of a headquarters, and sure enough, it was.
“Dick, come on over,” General Diggs called. The helicopter commander saluted as he approached.
“Welcome to Siberia, Dick,” Marion Diggs said in greeting.
“Thank you, sir. What’s the situation?”
“Interesting,” the general replied. “This is General Bondarenko. He’s the theater commander.” Boyle saluted again. “Gennady, this is Colonel Boyle, who commands my aviation brigade. He’s pretty good.”
“What’s the air situation, sir?” Boyle asked Diggs.
“The Air Force is doing a good job on their fighters so far.”
“What about Chinese helicopters?”
“They do not have many,” another Russian officer said. “I am Colonel Aliyev, Andrey Petrovich, theater operations. The Chinese do not have many helicopters. We’ve only seen a few, mainly scouts.”
“No troop carriers? No staff transport?”
“No,” Aliyev answered. “Their senior officers prefer to move around in tracked vehicles. They are not married to helicopters as you Americans are.”
“What do you want me to do, sir?” Boyle asked Diggs.
“Take Tony Turner to Chita. That’s the railhead we’re going to be using. We need to get set up there.”
“Drive the tracks in from there, eh?” Boyle looked at the map.
“That’s the plan. There are closer points, but Chita has the best facilities to off-load our vehicles, so our friends tell us.”
“What about gas?”
“The place you landed is supposed to have sizable underground fuel tanks.”
“More than you will need,” Aliyev confirmed. Boyle thought that was quite a promise.
“And ordnance?” Boyle asked. “We’ve got maybe two days’ worth on the C-5s so far. Six complete loads for my Apaches, figuring three missions per day.”
“Which version of the Apache?” Aliyev asked.
“Delta, Colonel. We’ve got the Longbow radar.”
“Everything works?” the Russian asked.
“Colonel, not much sense bringing them if they don’t,” Boyle replied, with a raised eyebrow. “What about secure quarters for my people?”
“At the base where you landed, there will be secure sleeping quarters for your aviators—bombproof shelters. Your maintenance people will be housed in barracks.”
Boyle nodded. It was the same everywhere. The weenies who built things acted as if pilots were more valuable than the people who maintained the aircraft. And so they were, until the aircraft needed repairs, at which point the pilot was as useful as a cavalryman without a horse.
“Okay, General. I’ll take Tony to this Chita place and then I’m going back to see to my people’s needs. I could sure use one of Chuck Garvey’s radios.”
“He’s outside. Grab one on your way.”
“Okay, sir. Tony, let’s get moving,” he said to the chief of staff.
“Sir, as soon as we get some infantry in, I want to put security on those fueling points,” Masterman said. “Those places need protecting.”
“I can give you what you need,” Aliyev offered.
“Fine by me,” Masterman responded. “How many of those secure radios did Garvey bring?”
“Eight, I think. Two are gone already,” General Diggs warned. “Well, there’ll be more on the train. Go tell Boyle to send two choppers here for our needs.”
“Right.” Masterman ran for the door.
The ministers all had offices and, as in every other such office in the world, the cleanup crews came in, in this case about ten every night. They picked up all sorts of trash, from candy wrappers to empty cigarette packs to papers, and the latter went into special burn-bags. The janitorial staff was not particularly smart, but they had had to pass background checks and go through security briefings that were heavy on intimidation. They were not allowed to discuss their jobs with anyone, not even a spouse, and not ever to reveal what they saw in the waste-baskets. In fact, they never thought much about it—they were less interested in the thoughts or ideas of the Politburo members than they were in the weather forecasts. They’d rarely even seen the ministers whose offices they cleaned, and none of the crew had ever so much as spoken a single word to any of them; they just tried to be invisible on those rare occasions when they saw one of the godlike men who ruled their nation. Maybe a submissive bow, which was not even acknowledged by so much as a look, because they were mere furniture, menials who did peasants’ work because, as peasants, that was all they were suited for. The peasants knew what computers were, but such machines were not for the use of such men as they were, and the janitorial staff knew it.
And so when one of the computers made a noise while a cleaner was in the office, he took no note of it. Well, it seemed odd that it should whir when the screen was dark, but why it did what it did was a mystery to him, and he’d never even been so bold as to touch the thing. He didn’t even dust the keyboard as he cleaned the desktop—no, he always avoided the keys.
And so, he heard the whir begin, continue for a few seconds, then stop, and he paid no mind to it.
Mary Pat Foley opened her eyes when the sun started casting shadows on her husband’s office wall, and rubbed her eyes reluctantly. She checked her watch. Seven-twenty. She was usually up long before this—but she usually didn’t go to bed after four in the morning. Three hours of sleep would probably have to do. She stood and headed into Ed’s private washroom. It had a shower, like hers. She’d make use of her own shortly, and for the moment settled for some water splashed on her face and a reluctant look in the mirror that resulted in a grimace at what the look revealed.
The Deputy Director (Operations) of the Central Intelligence Agency shook her head, and then her entire body to get the blood moving, and then put her blouse on. Finally, she shook her husband’s shoulder.
“Out of the hutch, Honey Bunny, before the foxes get you.”
“We still at war?” the DCI asked from behind closed eyes.
“Probably. I haven’t checked yet.” She paused for a stretch and slipped her feet into her shoes. “I’m going to check my e-mail.”
“Okay, I’ll call downstairs for breakfast,” Ed told her.
“Oatmeal. No eggs. Your cholesterol is too high,” Mary Pat observed.
“Yeah, baby,” he grumbled in submissive reply.
“That’s a good Honey Bunny.” She kissed him and headed out.
Ed Foley made his bathroom call, then sat at his desk and lifted the phone to call the executive cooking staff. “Coffee. Toast. Three-egg omelet, ham, and hash browns.” Cholesterol or not, he had to get his body working.
“You’ve got mail,” the mechanical voice said. “Great.” The DDO breathed. She downloaded it, going through the usual procedures to save and print, but rather more slowly this morning because she was groggy and therefore mistake-prone. That sort of thing made her slow down and be extra careful, something she’d learned to do as the mother of a newborn. And so in four minutes instead of the usual two, she had a printed hard copy of the latest SORGE feed from Agent songbird. Six pages of relatively small ideographs. Then she lifted the phone and punched the speed-dial button for Dr. Sears.
“Yes?”
“This is Mrs. Foley. We got one.”
“On the way, Director.” She had some coffee before he arrived, and the taste, if not the effect of the caffeine, helped her face the day.
“In early?” she asked.
“Actually I slept in last night. We need to improve the selection on the cable TV,” he told her, hoping to lighten the day a little. One look at her eyes told him how likely that was.
“Here.” She handed the sheets across. “Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you.” His eyes didn’t leave the page as his hand reached out for the Styrofoam cup. “This is good stuff today.”