Fortunes of War

5

The first person in Russia to learn that Japan planned to invade Siberia was Janos Ilin, who heard the news an hour after the American national security adviser, Jack Innes, told the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Ilin got the news from a FIS officer in the Russian embassy in Washington. The FIS officer had dismuch less bureaucracy to work through, so his news arrived in Moscow first.

Ilin was at his desk in the Foreign Intelligence Service — which had replaced the old KGB— building in Dzerzhinsky Square. He read the translation of the encrypted message completely and carefully, laid it on his desk, cleaned his glasses, lit an American cigarette, then read it again.

Janos Ilin was not a Communist. He wasn’t anything. He was old enough and wise enough to know that the reason Russia was a sewer was because Russians lived there. In his fifty-five years on earth he had come to believe that in their heart of hearts, most Russians were selfish, lazy peasants who hated anyone with a ruble more than they had.

From Ilin’s office window, looking above the tops of the buildings across the square, he could see the onion spires of the Kremlin.

These were the days of Kalugin, who now ruled the tattered remnants of the czars’ empire. In truth, the empire that the Communists had inherited and held with grim determination for seventy-five years was now irretrievably gone; only Russia and Siberia remained. Still, Russia and Siberia were huge beyond imagination. In towns and villages and isolated cottages out in the va/s of the steppe, the long grass prairies, and the boreal and subarctic forests, Kalugin was just a name, a photo or flickering image on the television. Life went on pretty much as it had since the death of Stalin, when the secret police stopped dragging people away. The winters were still long and fierce, work hard, food scarce, vodka too plentiful.

Kalugin fought his way to the top, promising to restore Russia’s glory and build an economic system that worked. His plan was to legitimize the vast criminal enterprises that were actually feeding, clothing, and housing a significant percentage of the population, and making the people who ran them rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Kalugin was one of those rich ones. He could orate long and loudly on the glory of Mother Russia, and he had never paid a ruble in taxes. Now he was in the Kremlin, surrounded by men just like him. Janos Ilin took a deep breath and sighed. War again. Against Mother Russia. Now we find out what Kalugin is made of, he thought. He finished his cigarette before he went to see the minister.

Washington, D.C., was overcast and dreary in the rain. The soldier at the wheel of the government sedan had little to say, which was just as well because Bob Cassidy was whacked from jet lag. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His eyes burned, his skin itched, and he was desperate for a long, hot shower and a bed. Alas, it was six in the evening here and his orders were to proceed directly to the Pentagon. The driver had been waiting for him when he got off the plane at Dulles Airport. He rode along for a while watching traffic, then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept a wink on the all-night flight from Tokyo to Seattle, nor on the cross-continent flight to Dulles. He hated airliners, hated the claustrophobia brought on by being shoehorned into too small a seat. But that was past. He felt himself relaxing as he enjoyed the motion of the car, the rhythm of the wipers. “We’re here, Colonel. Sir! We’re here.”

Cassidy levered himself erect and looked around. The soldier was parked outside the main entrance, and he was offering Cassidy a security badge. “You need to show this to the security guard inside, sir.”

“You’ll wait for me?”

“Yes, sir. I have your luggage. I’ll wait right here.”

Cassidy took the security badge and climbed from the car. He paused to straighten his tie — he was wearing a civilian suit — then marched for the main entrance. The rain was still falling, a medium drizzle. Inside, one of the security guards led him along endless gray corridors, up stairs, along more corridors. He was completely disoriented within two minutes. Once, through an open door, he saw a window that appeared to be on an outside wall, but he wasn’t sure. Finally, he arrived at a decorated corridor, one with blue paint and original artwork on the walls, carpet on the floor.

The security guard led him into a reception area, introduced him to a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, who asked him to take a seat for a minute. The marine disappeared into an office. In minutes, he was back. “It will be just a few minutes before the chairman can see you, Colonel. Could I offer you a soft drink or a cup of coffee?”

“Coffee would be perfect. Black, thank you.”

The headline in the newspaper on the table screamed at him: SECRET MILITARY PROTOCOL WITH RUSSIA REVEALED. Under the headline, smaller type said, “President committed U.s. to defense of Russia. Key congressional leaders approved secret pact.”

Tired as he was, Cassidy picked up the paper and read the story. When the marine returned with a paper cup full of steaming black fluid, Cassidy sipped gratefully as he finished the story. The marine waited patiently. “Do you have a room where I could wash my face and brush this suit?”

“The general will see you in just a few minutes, sir. Believe me, you don’t have to put on the dog for him. He knows you just got off the plane.”

They made small talk for several minutes; then the telephone buzzed. Thirty seconds later, Cassidy was shaking hands with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Stanford Tuck. The marine aide left the room and pulled the door closed behind him. They sat in leather chairs facing each other, on the same side of the large desk. “I’m sorry for the short notice, Colonel. Things are happening quickly, which is par for the course around here. I don’t know just what they told you at the embassy in Tokyo, so let me summarize. It appears that Japan will invade Siberia in the very near future.”

Cassidy just nodded. Apparently the bigwigs believed Jiro’s tale. Tuck continued: “We project that Japan’s new Zero fighter will destroy Russia’s air force within a week, if the Russians are willing to keep sending their planes up to get shot down. Due to the dearth of decent roads in Siberia and the vast distances involved, both sides are going to have to rely on air transport for all their food, fuel, and ammo. Baldly, the side with air superiority will win.”

Tuck’s gray eyes held Cassidy transfixed. “It is doubtful if the United States will take sides in this regional conflict,” the general continued. “I saw the story on the military protocol in the paper.”

Tuck gestured at the heavens. “We are toying with the idea of loaning Russia a dozen of our best fighters to take on the Zeros. That’s where you come in.”

“What kind of airplanes, sir?”

“F-22 Raptors.”

“These will be American airplanes?”

“No. We are going to sell or trade them to the Russians. These will be Russian airplanes, and the Russians will hire qualified American civilians to fly them. They just don’t know it yet.”

“When will they know it?”

“We’ll bring this subject up after the shooting starts. You understand?”

Cassidy shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t pretend to understand any of it.”

“A refreshing attitude. I’m not sure I understand much of it, either. Still, if we decide to go through with this proposal, your job, Colonel, would be to command the Russian F-22 squadron.”

Cassidy just stared. This trip to Washington had occurred on two hours’ notice. No reason given, just a summons to be on the afternoon plane. He had speculated all the way across the Pacific, which was one reason he hadn’t had any sleep. He had concluded that the folks in the Pentagon wanted to ensure they had everything he knew about the new Japanese Zero fighter. He certainly hadn’t suspected this. It occurred to him to ask, “Why me, sir?”

Stanford Tuck thought that a logical question. He said, “You know as much about Asia as any senior flight officer, and you are F-22-qualified, so we won’t have to waste weeks teaching you how to fly the darn thing. Amazingly enough, when we put our criteria into the idiot box, your name was at the head of the very short list that popped out.”

“I don’t know what to say, sir.”

“Don’t say anything. That’s normally best.” The general smiled. “I’ll have to think about it, sir. This is right out of the blue. I’m not sure I could do the job.”

Cassidy looked tired, the general thought. “As you might suspect, there are political complications,” the general continued, “so there are some serious wrinkles. The political types think we are skirting dangerously close to the abyss if we have a serving U.s. officer in combat against a friendly power, so you’ll have to retire from the Air Force.”

“Well, I—“

“Another is that the Air Force chief of staff doesn’t want any of his active duty F-22 pilots resigning to accept commissions in the Russian air force. I think he’s afraid of starting a precedent.”

The general’s eyes solidified, like water freezing. “He didn’t want to lose you, either, but he didn’t have a choice. Still, the politicians don’t want to ruffle the chief of staffs feathers— they’re going to get quite enough flak over this as it is — so you’ll have to get your recruits from Raptor-qualified folks who just got off active duty or retired. There aren’t many retirees, but there are one or two you can talk to. We’ll give you a list.”

Cassidy had recovered his composure and got the wheels going again. “Most of those people will have plans, sir. They’re not just leaving active duty — they’re going to something. They won’t be interested in going to Siberia.”

“Your job is to recruit the people you need, out of uniform or in.”

Tuck leaned forward and his voice hardened. “You let me know who you want, and I’ll see that he or she is an available civilian pretty damn quick.”

“If I say yes, when would I start, General?”

“The politicians haven’t committed to this adventure yet. They’re considering it. I won’t go along until more details are ironed out.”

“We’ll need qualified maintenance people, intel, weather.”

Tuck nodded. “My aide, Colonel Eatherly, will go over the nuts and bolts with you. Fixing problems is what he does best. He can smooth the road, help straighten it out.”

“Maybe you should give him this job, sir,” Bob Cassidy said, and tried to grin. “I’ve never even been to Russia.”

Tuck got to his feet. “Go get some sleep, Colonel. Come see me in the morning, let me know what you think then. As I said, your name came up. The folks around here tell me you are F-22-qualified, you got us most of the info on the Zero, and you understand the Japanese as well as anyone in uniform. The U.s. ambassador to Japan highly recommends you, as do two of your old fighter bosses I’ve talked to. They tell me you can pull this off if anyone can. It’s your decision.” I’ll have to think about it, sir.”

As Stanford Tuck shook the colonel’s hand, he said, “You’re a professional fighter pilot, Cassidy; this will probably be all the war you’ll ever get.”

The general looked Cassidy right in the eye. “It’s going to be a genuine sausage machine. A lot of people are going to die. The process will be damned unpleasant and ugly as hell. The elected leaders of your country refuse to declare war. Do you want to risk your life for Russia, for the Russians? Sleep on it. See me tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Everything we have discussed is top secret, Colonel. Everything.”

Out in the reception area, one of the enlisted people volunteered to lead Bob Cassidy toward the main entrance and the waiting car. Combat. People dying. Lord have mercy.

Kalugin looked like Russian folk story. He look that hid whatever his face.

a wolf, an old gray wolf of the taiga from a had small black eyes and a fierce, hungry thoughts were passing behind the features of Aleksandr Ivanovich Kalugin was a shrewd, calculating paranoid without morals, ethics, or scruples of any kind, a gangster willing to do whatever it took to enrich himself. He had no loyalty to anyone except himself. He was a perfect political animal, ready to strike any pose and make any promise that he thought his listeners wanted to hear. Like politicians in Western democracies, he paid “experts” to tell him what it was “the people” wanted. He was willing, of course, to try to deliver on his promises, if the cost was low and the prospect of personal profit high. The man was a case study for those fools who believed that a politician’s character didn’t matter as long as he was on their side. The truth was that Kalugin had no side but his own: he was as ready to devour his supporters as he was his enemies. Today he fixed that wolfish stare on the minister of foreign affairs, Danilov, as the minister expounded on the conversation in the White House between the American national security adviser and the Russian ambassador to the United States. A vein in Kalugin’s forehead throbbed visibly. Finally, he muttered, through clenched teeth, “The damned Americans are lying.”

“Mr. President—“

“They are lying, you doddering fool! They have lied to us ten thousand times and they are lying again. The Japanese are not stupid enough to get trapped in Siberia this winter. That icebox is the most inhospitable hell on this planet in winter, which is what, three, maybe three and a half months away? By October the temperatures will be below freezing and dropping like a stone. Only Russians would be crazy enough to endure that bleak, frozen outhouse that God never visits. The damned Americans are lying. Again!”

“I think that—“

“Get the Japanese ambassador into your office and ask him to his face. Ask him if his country plans to invade Russia. Ask him!”

Kalugin pointed toward the door. Danilov went. What if the Japanese did invade? The event would ignite a wildfire of patriotism. Business as usual would come to a rapid halt. Kalugin began to mull the possibilities. It seemed to him that if the Japanese invaded Siberia, an extraordinary window of political opportunity would open for a man fast enough and bold enough to seize the moment. If a man played his cards right … Inadvertently, Kalugin’s eyes went to Stalin’s portrait, which he kept on the wall even though the dictator was out of fashion in most quarters these days. For a moment, Kalugin fancied that he could see a gleam in the eye of the old assassin.

Bob Cassidy got a room in a hotel in Crystal City, one of those modern buildings with glass walls. By some quirk, his room had a good view of downtown Washington even though the desk clerk assured him he was only being charged the military rate. He couldn’t really get to sleep. The room wasn’t dark: light from the city leaked in around the curtains. He dozed at times, and dreamed of being aloft in a cockpit. He was in and out of clouds, the missile warning flashing and sounding in his ears, telling him of invisible missiles racing toward him at twice the speed of sound. He was trying desperately to escape, but he couldn’t. The missiles were streaking in … He awoke each time sweating profusely, his mouth dry, his skin itching. Finally, he fixed himself a drink from the wet bar and drank it quickly. The alcohol didn’t help. He pulled the drapes back and sat looking at the lights. He could just see the capitol dome and the Washington Monument. A war was coming and all these people were oblivious. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t care — as long as the bombs didn’t fall here. General Tuck would want to know his decision in a few hours. Maybe he should ask about after the war. If he survived, could he get back into the Air Force?

Would he want back in?

F-22’s versus Zeros. Jiro Kimura was flying a Zero. My God, he might end up shooting at Jiro. He finally dozed off in the chair. The flying dream didn’t return. In the new dream, he was young again, just a boy in Kansas, watching clouds adrift on a summer wind in an infinite blue sky. He awoke for good at 3:00 A.m. It was hopeless. There was no more sleep in him. He took a shower and put on a uniform. Could the F-22 survive against the Zero? The Raptor was very stealthy, but with Athena, the Zero was invisible, or so Jiro said. How do you fight a supersonic enemy that you cannot locate on radar?

“Taking a squadron of F-22’s to Siberia will be a challenge, General,” Bob Cassidy told Stanford Tuck the next morning. The general was sitting behind his desk in his shirtsleeves, drinking coffee. His jacket hung on a hook near the door. “Logistics will make or break the operation,” Cassidy continued. He sketched out the problems he saw with basing, logistics, early warning, and keeping his people healthy and flying. “Even the food will have to come from the States.”

“Siberia,” the general muttered, just to hear the sound of the word. “The logistics problem would be easier if we were taking a squadron to Antarctica.”

The general punched a button on the telephone. In seconds, a door opened and the general’s aide appeared. “This is Colonel Eatherly. I want you to go over everything you’ve talked about in greater detail with him. He’ll take notes and brief me on what he thinks. The president wants to make a powerful political statement against armed aggression. He doesn’t want to embroil the United States in World War Three. Yet if we commit a dozen planes to combat in Russia, they must have at least a fighting chance of accomplishing their mission. If the Japanese sweep them from the sky — for whatever reason — we will be worse off than if we did nothing. Offering hors d’oeuvres to a hungry lion is bad policy.”

Tuck loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. Bob Cassidy took a deep breath. He appreciated the stakes involved, but he knew what trained pilots could do with the F-22. “Subject to the qualifiers we discussed, sir, I think a Raptor squadron could go toe-to-toe with the new Zero. With the right pilots, we can give them a hell of a fight.”

“A dozen planes is all we can give you,” Stanford Tuck said, “so you are going to be outnumbered by a bunch.” He laid both hands flat on his desk. “You may as well hear all of it,” the general said. “We cannot give you the new, long-range missiles. The politicians refused. You can take AMRAAMS and Sidewinders, but nothing that has technology we don’t want the Japanese or Russians to see.” AMRAAM stood for advanced medium-range anti-aircraft missile; it was also known as the AIM-12 °C. “Sky Eye?”

“No. The thinking is that if foreign powers learn how good Sky Eye is, they will target our satellites in any future conflict.”

“Our satellites are already targets.”

“Low-priority targets.”

“But—” Tuck raised a hand. “I’m not here to argue. I didn’t make that decision. We have to live with it.”

“Why the hell buy it if we can’t use it?” Cassidy asked with some irritation. “This country’s future isn’t on the come line just now,” Tuck said with his eyes half-closed. He seemed to be trying to measure Cassidy. “You and I are on the same side.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean—“

“Go talk to Eatherly.”

As Eatherly led Cassidy from the room, he stuck out his hand. “My friends call me John. Did you get along okay with the old man?”

“I think so.”

In his office, Eatherly pulled a chair around for Cassidy and got out a legal pad. “Does the general really think an F-22 squadron in Siberia has a chance?”

Eatherly looked surprised. “What are you saying?”

Cassidy frowned. “Or does he want me to give him reasons to say I can’t?

“I believe he was hoping you could show him how this proposal could be made to work,” Eatherly replied thoughtfully. “If you think it can.”

Cassidy rubbed his face hard. “I—“

“You are going to be leading this parade, Colonel. The tender, quivering ass on the plate this time is yours.”

Bob Cassidy sat lost in thought for a long moment. Then he said, “My source in Japan says the Zeros are invisible to radar. He says the Japanese acquired — stole — an American project called Athena.”

Eatherly nodded. “There was a black American project with that name. I checked when I saw your report on the Zero. The American project died years ago.”

“How did it work?”

“It was active ECM. When the signal from an enemy radar was detected, the raw data was put through a superconductive computer, which then used other antennas buried in the aircraft’s skin to emit an out-of-sync wave that effectively canceled the enemy radar signal.”

“But what about scatter effect? Radar A transmits a signal, but B receives it?”

“The computer knows the scatter characteristics of the airplane it is protecting, so it emits the proper amount of energy in all directions. That was the heart of it.”

“Why didn’t we develop it?”

Eatherly shrugged. “Ran out of money.”

“Terrific.”

“The F-22 is very stealthy,” Eatherly mused. “With your radar off, you might escape detection until you are into visual range.”

“It isn’t that stealthy,” Bob Cassidy replied. “And the human eyeball isn’t that good. What we’re going to need is Sky Eye. The satellites are going to have to find these guys and tell us where they are.”

I’ll talk to the National Security people.”

“And we’re going to need something to protect our bases. We won’t have the planes to stay airborne around the clock. We need an equalizer.”

“Sentinel,” John said, and wrote the word on his legal pad. “Explain.”

“Sentinel is an automated weapon — highly classified, of course. You deliver it to a site, turn it on, and leave it. When it detects electromagnetic energy on a preset frequency, it launches a small, solid-fuel, antiradiation missile that seeks out the emitter. The missiles have some memory capability, so they can track targets that cease emissions — the capability of these new computer chips is really amazing. Anyway, as I recall, Sentinel has a magazine capacity of forty-eight missiles. The missiles have a range of about sixteen miles.”

“Electrical power will be a big problem in Siberia.”

“Sentinel has rechargable solar cells. All you have to do is reload the magazine occasionally.”

“So Zero pilots are going to be down to their Mach I, Mod Zero eyeballs.”

“Sentinel will definitely encourage them to leave their radars turned off.” “Nasty.” Cassidy grinned. “Doesn’t the F-22 have the new camouflage skin that changes colors based on the background?” Eatherly asked after they discussed logistics for several minutes. “The newest ones do,” Cassidy told him. “Active skin camouflage, or smart skin. The skin has to be installed on the assembly line.”

“How good is it?”

“It really works. Against any kind of neutral background, such as clouds or ocean or haze, the plane is extremely difficult to locate visually when it’s more than a couple hundred yards away. Some people can pick it up with their peripheral vision, sometimes. Occasionally you see movement out of the corner of your eye, you know it’s there, and yet when you look directly at it, you can’t pick it up. It’s scary.”

Eatherly made a note. “Talk to me about maintenance. How many people, how many spares?”

After a morning of this, John Eatherly and Cassidy went back into the chairman’s office for lunch. As they ate bean soup and corn bread, Eatherly briefed the general. He ran through proposed solutions to every major problem: personnel, logistics, maintenance, weapons and fuel supply, early warning. “So what is your recommendation?” the general asked Cassidy when Eatherly was finished. “Isn’t there any way to prevent this war from happening, sir?” Cassidy was staring into the bean soup. He had no appetite. “The politicos say no.” Stanford Tuck shrugged. “War happens because a whole society screws itself up to it — it isn’t just the fault of the politicians at the top. That society will quit only when the vast majority believes their cause is hopeless.”

“So the F-22 outfit is supposed to help convince them. Show them the error of their ways.”

“I want you to nibble at ‘em, worry ‘em, shoot down a Zero occasionally, target their air transports, convince the Japanese that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”

“Sir, the Japanese have active ECM that makes their plane invisible. Athena. They will blow us from the sky unless we use the satellites to find the Zeros and point them out to us.”

“The White House says no.”

“I am not taking Americans to Russia to be slaughtered. Without Sky Eye, there is no way. I want no part of it.”

Stanford Tuck helped himself to another spoonful of soup, then put the spoon down beside the bowl. “You’ve been in the military for twenty-some years, Cassidy. There’s not much I could tell you about this business that you don’t already know. I will try to get authorization to use the satellites.”

“I’ll be lucky to bring half of them home.”

“I’ll do the best I can. That’s all I can promise.”

“Those who do come home — can we get back into the Armed Forces?”

“I’ll get a letter to that effect from the president. I’m sure he’ll sign it.”

“Good.”

Then Tuck added softly, “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Colonel?”

“I know one of the Zero pilots pretty well, General.”

Stanford Tuck glanced at Eatherly, then cleared his throat. “After spending a year in Japan, I’d be surprised if you didn’t know several,” he said. “I hate to press you like this, but time is running out. Can you do this job?”

“I can do it, General. My comment about the Zero pilot is personal. The job you are offering is professional, in the best interests of the United States. I know the difference. I just pray to God my friend lives through all this.”

“I understand.” Tuck’s head moved a tenth of an inch. It was a tiny bow, Cassidy noted, startled. “Colonel Eatherly will help you get the ball rolling,” the general said. “Let’s see what we can make happen.”

“Yes, sir,” Cassidy managed to say as Stanford Tuck stuck out his hand to shake. Tuck held his hand firmly and looked him in the eye. “Check six, Colonel. And remember what the Good Book says: When you’re in the valley, fear no evil.”