The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [404]
"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.