The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [452]
"Good operational thinker. He was a pretty good J-3," Moore reminded the senior sailor.
"Yeah, I know, it's just that he likes to make dramatic plays. Okay, we can do it, only it complicates things." Seaton looked out the window for a second. "You know what might really flip them out?"
"What's that?" Moore asked. Seaton told him. "But it's not possible for us to do, is it?"
"Maybe not, but we're not dealing with professional military people, are we? They're politicians, Mickey. They're used to dealing with images instead of reality. So, we give them an image."
"Do you have the pieces in place to do that?"
"Let me find out."
"This is crazy, Dave."
"And deploying First Armored to Russia isn't?" the CNO demanded.
Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Giusti was now certain that he'd be fully content never to ride on another train as long as he lived. He didn't know that all of the Russian State Railroad's sleeper cars were being used to transport Russian army forces—they'd never sent any of the cars as far west as Berlin, not to slight the Americans, but because it had simply never occurred to anyone to do so. He took note of the fact that the train veered off to the north, off the main track, thumping over various switches and interlockings as it did so, and then the train came to a halt and started going backwards slowly. They seemed to be in the yard alone. They'd passed numerous westbound trains in the past two hours, all with engines dragging empty flatcars, and the conductor who appeared and disappeared regularly had told them that this was the approximate arrival time scheduled, but he hadn't really believed it, on the premise that a railroad with such uncomfortable seats probably didn't adhere to decent schedules either. But here they were, and the offloading ramps were obvious for what they were.
"People, I think we're here," the commander of the Quarter Horse told his staff.
"Praise Jesus," one of them observed. A few seconds later, the train jolted to a stop, and they were able to walk out onto the concrete platform, which, they saw, stretched a good thousand meters to the east. Inside of five minutes, the soldiers of Headquarters Troop were out and walking to their vehicles, stretching and grousing along the way.
"Hey, Angie," called a familiar voice.
Giusti looked to see Colonel Welch and walked up to him with a salute.
"What's happening?" Giusti asked.
"It's a mess out east of here, but there is good news."
"What might that be?"
"There's plenty of fuel stashed for us. I've been flying security detachments out, and Ivan says he's got fuel depots that're the size of fuckin' supertankers. So, we're not going to run out of gas."
"That's good to know. What about my choppers?" Welch just pointed. There was an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior sitting not three hundred yards away. "Thank God for that. What's the bad news?"
"The PLA has four complete Group-A armies in Siberia and heading north. There hasn't been any heavy contact yet because Ivan's refusing combat at the moment, until they can get something big enough to meet them with. They have one motor-rifle division in theater and four more heading up there. The last of 'em just cleared this railyard an hour and a half ago."
"That's, what? Sixteen heavy divisions in the invasion force?"
Welch nodded. "Thereabouts."
"What's my mission?"
"Assemble your squadron and head southeast. The idea is First Armored will cut off the bottom of the break-in and interrupt their supply line. Russian blocking force will then try to stop them about two hundred miles northeast of here."
"Can they do it?" Four Russian divisions against sixteen Chinese didn't seem especially favorable odds.
"Not sure," Welch admitted. "Your job is to get out and establish lead security for the division. Advance to and secure the first big fuel depot. We'll play it from there."
"Support?"
"At the moment, the Air Force is mainly doing fighter work. No deep strikes yet because they don't have