The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [485]
"Very well, take your time. There's no hurry here. They're walking into the parlor very nicely."
"Understood. Out." He set the mike down. "Is it time for morning break?"
"They haven't been doing that the last four days, Comrade Captain," Buikov reminded his boss.
"They appear relaxed enough."
"I could kill any of them now," Gogol said, "but they're all privates, except for that one … "
"That's the fox. He's a lieutenant, likes to run around a lot. The other officer's the gardener. He likes playing with plants," Buikov told the old man.
"Killing a lieutenant's not much better than killing a corporal," Gogol observed. "There's too many of them."
"What's this?" Buikov said from his gunner's scat. "Tank, enemy tank coming around the left edge, range five thousand."
"I see it!" Aleksandrov reported. " … Just one? Only one tank—oh, all right, there's a carrier with it—"
"It's a command track, look at all those antennas!" Buikov called.
The gunner's sight was more powerful than Aleksandrov's binoculars. The captain couldn't confirm that for another minute or so. "Oh, yes, that's a command track, all right. I wonder who's in it … "
"There they are," the driver called back. "The reconnaissance section, two kilometers ahead, Comrade General."
"Excellent," Peng observed. Standing up to look out of the top of his command track with his binoculars, good Japanese ones from Nikon.
There was Ge in his command tank, thirty meters off to the right, protecting him as though he were a good dog outside the palace of some ancient nobleman. Peng couldn't see anything to be concerned about. It was a clear day, with some puffy white clouds at three thousand meters or so. If there were American fighters up there, he wasn't going to worry about them. Besides, they'd done no ground-attacking that he'd heard about, except to hit those bridges back at Harbin, and one might as well attack a mountain as those things, Peng was sure. He had to hold on to the sill of the hatch lest the pitching of the vehicle smash him against it—it was a track specially modified for senior officers, but no one had thought to make it safer to stand in, he thought sourly. He wasn't some peasant-private who could smash his head with no consequence … Well, in any case, it was a good day to be a soldier, in the field Leading his men. A fair day, and no enemy in sight.
"Pull up alongside the reconnaissance track," he ordered his driver.
"Who the hell is this?" Captain Aleksandrov wondered aloud. "Four big antennas, at least a division commander," Buikov thought aloud. "My thirty will settle his hash."
"No, no, let's let Pasha have him if he gets out."
Gogol had anticipated that. He was resting his arms on the steel top of the BRM, tucking the rifle in tight to his shoulder. The only thing in his way was the loose weave of the camouflage netting, and that wasn't an obstacle to worry about, the old marksman was sure.
"Stopping to see the fox?" Buikov said next.
"Looks that way," the captain agreed.
"Comrade General!" the young lieutenant called in surprise.
"Where's the enemy, Boy?" Peng asked loudly in return.
"General, we haven't seen much this morning. Some tracks in the ground, but not even any of that for the past two hours."
"Nothing at all?"
"Not a thing," the lieutenant replied.
"Well, I thought there'd be something around." Peng put his foot in the leather stirrup and climbed to the top of his command vehicle.
"It's a general, has to be, look at that clean uniform!" Buikov told the others as he slewed his turret around to center his sight on the man eight hundred meters away. It was the same in any army. Generals never got dirty.
"Pasha," Aleksandrov asked, "ever kill an enemy general before?"
"No," Gogol admitted, drawing the rifle in very tight and allowing for the range …
"Better to go to that ridgeline, but our orders were to stop at once," the lieutenant told the general.
"That's right," Peng agreed. He took out his Nikon binoculars and trained