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But there were a hell of a lot of them, Diggs reminded himself.

Before he could leave, General Sinyavskiy reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a flask. "A drink for luck," he said in his only words of broken English.

"Hell, why not?" Diggs tossed it off. It was good stuff, actually. "When this is all over, we will drink again," he promised.

"Da," the general replied. "Good luck, Diggs."

"Marion," Bondarenko said. "Be careful, comrade."

"You, too, Gennady. You got enough medals, buddy. No sense getting your ass shot off trying to win another."

"Generals are supposed to die in bed," Bondarenko agreed on the way to the door.

Diggs trotted out to the UH-60. Colonel Boyle was flying this one. Diggs donned the crash helmet, wishing they'd come up with another name for the damned thing, and settled in the jump seat behind the pilots.

"How we doing, sir?" Boyle asked, letting the lieutenant take the chopper back off.

"Well, we have a plan, Dick. Question is, will it work?"

"Do I get let in on it?"

"Your Apaches are going to be busy."

"There's a surprise," Boyle observed.

"How are your people?"

"Ready" was the one-word reply. "What are we calling this?"

"CHOPSTICKS."

Diggs then heard a laugh over the intercom wire. "I love it."

"Okay, Mickey," Robby Jackson said. "I understand Gus's position. But we have a big picture here to think about."

They were in the Situation Room looking at the Chairman on TV from the Pentagon room known as The Tank. It was hard to hear what he was muttering that way, but the way he looked down was a sufficient indication of his feelings about Robby's remark.

"General," Ryan said, "the idea here is to rattle the cage of their political leadership. Best way to do that is to go after them in more places than one, overload 'em."

"Sir, I agree with that idea, but General Wallace has his point, too. Taking down their radar fence will degrade their ability to use their fighters against us, and they still have a formidable fighter force, even though we've handled them pretty rough so far."

"Mickey, if you handle a girl this way down in Mississippi, it's called rape," the Vice President observed. "Their fighter pilots look at their aircraft now and they see caskets, for Christ's sake. Their confidence has got to be gone, and that's all a fighter jock has to hold onto. Trust me on this one, will ya?"

"But Gus—"

"But Gus is too worried about his force. Okay, fine, let him send some Charlie-Golfs against their picket fence, but mainly we want those birds armed with Smart Pigs to go after their ground forces. The fighter force can look after itself."

For the first time, General Mickey Moore regretted Ryan's choice of Vice President. Robby was thinking like a politician rather than an operational commander—and that came as something of a surprise. He was seemingly less worried about the safety of his forces than of …

… than of what the overall objective was, Moore corrected himself. And that was not a completely bad way to think, was it? Jackson had been a pretty good J-3 not so long before, hadn't he?

American commanders no longer thought of their men as expendable assets. That was not a bad thing at all, but sometimes you had to put forces in harm's way, and when you did that, some of them did not come home. And that was what they were paid for, whether you liked it or not. Robby Jackson had been a Navy fighter pilot, and he hadn't forgotten the warrior ethos, despite his new job and pay grade.

"Sir," Moore said, "what orders do I give General Wallace?"

"Cecil B. goddamned DeMille," Mancuso observed crossly. "Ever wanted to part the Red Sea?" General Lahr asked.

"I ain't God, Mike," CINCPAC said next.

"Well, it is elegant, and we do have most of the pieces in place," his J-2 pointed out.

"This is a political operation. What the hell are we, a goddamned focus group?"

"Sir, you going to continue to rant, or are we going to get to work on this?"

Mancuso wished for a lupara to blast a hole in the wall, or Mike Lahr's chest,