The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [502]
"I'm surprised he didn't shoot me," the officer observed.
"He still might," a full colonel told him. "But I think you frightened him." He looked at the wall clock. It was sixteen hours, four in the afternoon.
"Well, it is a concern."
"You young fool. Don't you see? Now he can't even conceal the truth from the Politburo."
"Hello, Yuri," Clark said. It was different to be in Moscow in time of war. The mood of the people on the street was unlike anything he'd ever seen. They were concerned and serious—you didn't go to Russia to see the smiling people any more than you went to England for the coffee—but there was something else, too. Indignation. Anger … determination? Television coverage of the war was not as strident and defiant as he'd expected. The new Russian news media were trying to be even-handed and professional. There was commentary to the effect that the army's inability to stop the Chinese cold spoke ill of their country's national cohesion. Others lamented the demise of the Soviet Union, whom China would not have dared to threaten, much less attack. More asked what the hell was the use of being in NATO if none of the other countries came to the aid of their supposed new ally.
"We told the television people that if they told anyone of the American division now in Siberia, we'd shoot them, and of course they believed us," Lt. Gen. Kirillin said with a smile. That was something new for Clark and Chavez to see. He hadn't smiled much in the past week.
"Things looking up?" Chavez inquired.
"Bondarenko has stopped them at the gold mine. They will not even see that, if my information is correct. But there is something else," he added seriously.
"What's that, Yuriy?" Clark asked.
"We are concerned that they might launch their nuclear weapons."
"Oh, shit," Ding observed. "How serious is that?"
"It comes from your president. Golovko is speaking with President Grushavoy right now."
"And? How do they plan to go about it? Smart bombs?" John asked.
"No, Washington has asked us to go in with a special-operations team," Kirillin said.
"What the hell?" John gasped. He pulled his satellite phone out of his pocket and looked for the door. "Excuse me, General. E.T. phone home."
"You want to say that again, Ed?" Foley heard. "You heard me. They've run out of the bombs they need. Evidently, it's a pain in the ass to fly bombs to where the bombers are."
"Fuck!" the CIA officer observed, out in the parking lot of this Russian army officers' club. The encryption on his phone didn't affect the emotion in his voice. "Don't tell me, since RAINBOW is a NATO asset, and Russia's part of NATO now, and since you're going to be asking the fucking Russians to front this operation, in the interest of North Atlantic solidarity, we're going to get to go and play, too, right?"
"Unless you choose not to, John. I know you can't go yourself. Combat's a kid's game, but you have some good kids working for you."
"Ed, you expect me to send my people in on something like that and I stay home and fucking knit socks?" Clark demanded heatedly.
"That's your call to make. You're the RAINBOW commander."
"How is this supposed to work? You expect us to jump in?"
"Helicopters—"
"Russian helicopters. No thanks, buddy, I—"
"Our choppers, John. First Armored Division had enough and they're the right kind … "
"They want me to do what?" Dick Boyle asked. "You heard me."
"What about fuel?"
"Your fueling point's right about here," Colonel Masterman said, holding the just-downloaded satellite photo. "Hilltop west of a place called Chicheng. Nobody lives there, and the numbers work out."
"Yeah, except out flight path takes us within ten miles of this fighter base."
"Eight F-111s are going to hit it while you're on the way in. Ought to close down their runways for a good three days, they figure."
"Dick," Diggs said, "I don't know what the problem is exactly, but Washington is really worried that Joe is going to launch his ICBMs at us at home, and Gus Wallace doesn't have the right bombs to take them out reliably.