The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [453]
"What about resupply?"
"We have two basic loads for all the tracks. That'll have to do for a while. At least we have four units of fire for the artillery." That meant four days' worth of shells—based on what the Army computed that a day of combat required. The supply weenies who did those calculations weren't stingy on shells to shoot at the other guy. And in the entire Persian Gulf war, not a single tank had completely shot out its first basic load of shells, they both knew. But that was a different war. No two were ever the same, and they only got worse.
Giusti turned when he heard the first engine start up. It was an M3A2 Bradley Scout track, and the sergeant in the commander's hatch looked happy to be moving. A Russian officer took over as traffic cop, waving the Brad forward, then right toward the assembly area. The next train backed up to the next ramp over. That would be "A" or Avenger Troop, with the first of Quarter Horse's really heavy equipment, nine of the M1A2 main battle tanks.
"How long before everything's here?" Giusti asked.
"Ninety minutes, they told me," Welch answered.
"We'll see."
"What's this?" a captain asked the screen in front of him. The E-3B Sentry designated Eagle Two was back on the ground at Zhigansk. Its crew was more than a little shaken. Being approached by real fighters with real blood in their eyes was qualitatively different from exercises and postmission analysis back stateside. The tapes of the engagement had been handed off to the wing intelligence staff, who viewed the battle with some detachment, but they could see that the PLAAF had thrown a full regiment of first-line fighters at the AWACS, and more than that, done it on a one-way mission. They'd come in on burner, and that would have denied them a trip back to their base. So, they'd been willing to trade over thirty fighters for a single E-3B. But there was more to the mission than that, the captain saw.
"Look here," he told his colonel. "Three, no, four reconnaissance birds went northwest." He ran the tape forward and backward. "We didn't touch any of them. Hell, they didn't even see them."
"Well, I'm not going to fault the Sentry crew for that, Captain."
"Not saying that, sir. But John Chinaman just got some pictures of Chita, and also of these Russian units moving north. The cat's out of the bag, Colonel."
"We've got to start thinking about some counter-air missions on these airfields."
"We have bombs to do it?"
"Not sure, but I'm taking this to General Wallace. What's the score on the air fight?"
"Colonel Winters got four for sure and two probables. Damn, that guy's really cleaning up. But it was the -16 guys saved the AWACS. These two J-8s got pretty damned close before Rodeo splashed them."
"We'll put some more coverage on the E-3s from now on," the colonel observed.
"Not a bad idea, sir."
"Yes?" General Peng said, when his intelligence officer came up to him.
"Aerial reconnaissance reports large mechanized formations one hundred fifty kilometers west of us, moving north and northeast."
"Strength?" the general asked.
"Not sure. Analysis of the photos is not complete, but certainly regimental strength, maybe more."
"Where, exactly?"
"Here, Comrade General." The intelligence officer unfolded a map and pointed. "They were spotted here, here, and from here to here. The pilot said large numbers of tanks and tracked vehicles."
"Did they shoot at him?"
"No, he said there was no fire at all."
"So, they are rushing to where they are going … racing to get to our flank, or to get ahead of us … ?" Peng considered this, looking down at the map. "Yes, that's what I would expect. Any reports from our front?"
"Comrade General, our reconnaissance screen reports that they have seen the tracks of vehicles, but no visual sightings of the enemy at all. They have taken no fire, and seen nothing but civilians."
"Quickly," Aleksandrov urged. How the driver and his assistant had gotten the ZIL-157 to this place was a mystery whose solution didn't interest the captain. That