The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [376]
"—getting everything ready?" Jackson asked. That's how people did it.
"Yes, sir. You will also note missile noses peeking out under the wings of all these aircraft. They appear to be loaded for combat."
"White ones on the rails," Robby observed. "They're planning to go do some work."
"Unless our note gets them to calm down," Ryan said, with a minor degree of hope in his voice. A very minor note, the others in the room thought. The President got one last puff off the purloined Newport and stubbed it out. "Might it help for me to make a direct personal call to Premier Xu?"
"Honest answer?" It was Professor Weaver, rather the worse for wear at four in the Washington morning.
"The other sort isn't much use to me at the moment," Ryan replied, not quite testily.
"It will look good in the papers and maybe the history books, but it is unlikely to affect their decision-making process."
"It's worth a try," Ed Foley said in disagreement. "What do we have to lose?"
"Wait until eight, Jack," van Damm thought. "We don't want him to think we've been up all night. It'll inflate his sense of self-worth."
Ryan turned to look at the windows on his south wall. The drapes hadn't been closed, and anyone passing by could have noted that the lights had been on all night. But, strangely, he didn't know if the Secret Service ever turned them off at night.
"When do we start moving forces?" Jack asked next.
"The Air Attaché will call from Moscow when his talks have been concluded. Ought to be any time."
The President grunted. "Longer night than ours."
"He's younger than we are," Mickey Moore observed. "Just a colonel."
"If this goes, what are our plans like?" van Damm asked.
"Hyperwar," Moore answered. "The world doesn't know the new weapons we've been developing. It'll make DESERT STORM look like slow motion."
CHAPTER 48—Opening Guns
While others were pulling all-nighters, Gennady Iosifovich Bondarenko was forgetting what sleep was supposed to have been. His teleprinter was running hot with dispatches from Moscow, reading that occupied his time, and not always to his profit.
Russia had still not learned to leave people alone when they were doing their jobs, and as a result, his senior communications officer cringed when he came in with new "FLASH" traffic.
"Look," the general said to his intelligence officer. "What I need is information on what equipment they have, where they are, and how they are postured to move north on us. Their politics and objectives are not as important to me as where they are right now!"
"I expect to have hard information from Moscow momentarily. It will be American satellite coverage, and—"
"God damn it! I remember when we had our own fucking satellites. What about aerial reconnaissance?"
"The proper aircraft are on their way to us now. We'll have them flying by tomorrow noon, but do we dare send them over Chinese territory?" Colonel Tolkunov asked.
"Do we dare not to?" CINC-FAR EAST demanded in reply.
"General," the G-2 said, "the concern is that we would be giving the Chinese a political excuse for the attack."
"Who said that?"
"Stavka."
Bondarenko's head dropped over the map table. He took a breath and closed his eyes for three blissful seconds, but all that achieved was to make him wish for an hour—no, just thirty minutes of sleep. That's all, he thought, just thirty minutes.
"A political excuse," the general observed. "You know, Vladimir Konstantinovich, once upon a time, the Germans were sending highflying reconnaissance aircraft deep into Western Russia, scouting us out prior to their invasion. There was a special squadron of fighters able to reach their altitude, and their regimental commander asked for permission to intercept them. He was relieved of his command on the spot. I suppose he was lucky that he wasn't shot. He ended up a major ace and a Hero of the Soviet Union before some German fighter got him. You see, Stalin was afraid of provoking