The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [367]
"Looks like a five-ton truck with a section of ribbon bridge on it. The Chinese copied the Russian bridge design—hell, everybody did. It's a beautiful little design Ivan cobbled together. Anyway, on radar, it looks like this and"—he turned back to the recent satellite take—"that's pretty much what these look like, isn't it? I'll call that eighty percent likelihood. So, this group here I'll call two engineer regiments accompanying this tank division."
"Is that a lot of engineers to back up a single division?" the naval officer asked.
"Sure as hell," the Army major confirmed.
"I'd say so," the photo-interpreter agreed. "The normal TO and E is one battalion per division. So, this is a corps or army vanguard forming up, and I'd have to say they plan to cross some rivers, guys."
"Go on," the senior civilian told him.
"They're postured to head north."
"Okay," the Army officer said. "Have you ever seen this before?"
"Two years ago, they were running an exercise, but that was one engineer regiment, not two, and they left this yard and headed southeast. That one was a pretty big deal. We got a lot of visual overheads. They were simulating an invasion or at least a major assault. That one used a full Group-A army, with an armored division and two mechanized divisions as the assault force, and the other mech division simulating a dispersed defense force. The attacking team won that one."
"How different from the way the Russians are deployed on their border?" This was the Navy intelligence officer.
"Thicker—I mean, for the exercise the Chinese defenders were thicker on the ground than the Russians are today."
"And the attacking force won?"
"Correct."
"How realistic was the exercise?" the major asked.
"It wasn't Fort Irwin, but it was as honest as they can run one, and probably accurate. The attackers had the usual advantages in numbers and initiative. They punched through and started maneuvering in the defender's trains area, had themselves a good old time."
The naval officer looked at his colleague in green. "Just what they'd be thinking if they wanted to head north."
"Concur."
"Better call this one in, Norm."
"Yep." And both uniformed officers headed to the phones.
"When's the weather clear?" the lingering civilian asked the tech.
"Call it thirty-six hours. It'll start to clear tomorrow night, and we have the taskings already programmed in." He didn't have to say that the nighttime capabilities on the KH-11 satellites weren't all that different from in the daylight—you just didn't get much in the way of color.
CHAPTER 47—Outlooks and All-Nighters
Westbound jet lag, or travel-shock, as President Ryan preferred to call it, is always easier than eastbound's, and he'd gotten sleep on the airplane. Jack and Cathy walked off Air Force One and to the waiting helicopter, which got them to the landing pad on the South Lawn in the usual ten minutes. This time FLOTUS walked directly into the White House while POTUS walked left toward the West Wing, but to the Situation Room rather than the Oval Office.
Vice President Jackson was waiting for him there, along with the usual suspects.
"Hey, Robby."
"How was the flight, Jack?"
"Long." Ryan stretched to get his muscles back under control. "Okay, what's happening?"
"Ain't good, buddy. We have Chinese mechanized troops heading for the Russian border. Here's what we got in from NRO." Jackson personally spread out the printouts from the photo-intelligence troops. "We got mechanized forces here, here, and here, and these are engineers with bridging equipment."
"How long before they're ready?" Ryan asked.
"Potentially as little as three days," Mickey Moore answered. "More likely five to seven."
"What are we doing?"
"We have a lot of warning orders out, but nobody's moving yet."
"Do they know we're onto this?" the President asked next.
"Probably not, but they must know we're keeping an eye on things, and they must know our reconnaissance capabilities. It's been in the open media for twenty-some years," Moore answered.
"Nothing from them to us over