Red Army

One

Army General M. M. Malinsky, Commander of the First Western Front, sat alone in his private office, smoking a strong cigarette. The room was dark except for a bright pool where a bank of spotlights reflected off the situation map. Malinsky sat just out of the light, staring absently at the map he knew so well. Beyond the office walls, vivid action coursed through the hallways of the bunker, blood through arteries, despite the late hour. From his chair, Malinsky heard the activity as half-smothered footsteps and voices passing up and down the corridor, resembling valley noises heard from a cloud-wrapped mountain.

And that, Malinsky thought, is what war sounds like. Not just the blasting of artillery, the shooting and shouting. But the haste of a staff officer’s footsteps and the ticking of a clerk’s typewriter. And, of course, the special, half-magical noises of computers nowadays. Perhaps, Malinsky thought, this will be the last real one, the last great war fought by men aiming weapons. Perhaps the next big one would be fought entirely by means of cybernetics. Things were changing so troublingly fast.

But there would always be a next time. Malinsky was certain of that. Even if they were foolish enough to toss great nuclear bombs across oceans, Malinsky was convinced that enough of mankind would survive to organize new armies to fight over whatever remained. Mankind would remain mankind, and there would always be wars. And there would always be soldiers. And, in his heart, Malinsky was convinced there would always be a Russia.

A discreet hand knocked at the door.

“Enter,” Malinsky called, leaning back deeper into the shadows.

A fan of light swept the room, then disappeared as the door shut again. A staff major padded up to the map without a word and realigned unit symbols.

Malinsky watched in silence. Germany, east and west. Virtually his entire adult life — more, even his straight-backed adolescence as a Suvorov cadet — had been directed to this end. Elbe, Weser, Rhine and Maas. Mosel and Saar. With the low countries and the fields of France beyond, where Colonel of the Guards Count Malinsky had raised his curved saber against the cavalry of Napoleon.

Malinsky believed he knew exactly how to do it. How to apply his own forces against the enemy on the right bit of earth along the correct operational directions, in the most efficient order, and at a tempo that would be physically and psychologically irresistible. He knew where the turning movements had to come, and where and when it would be necessary to drive on without a backward glance. He even believed he knew his enemies well enough to turn their own efforts against them.

His enemies would come, at least initially, from the Northern Army Group — NORTHAG — which was, in turn, subordinate to the Allied Forces Central Europe, or AFCENT. NORTHAG was, potentially, an operational grouping of tremendous strength. But intelligence assessments led Malinsky to believe that NORTHAG, with its defense straddling the terrain compartments of northern West Germany, had three great weaknesses, none of which the Westerners seemed to recognize. Certainly, NORTHAG was far more vulnerable than its sister army group — CENTAG — to the south. Despite possessing splendid equipment and well-trained cadres, the enemy leadership did not understand the criticality of unified troop control — there was reportedly so much political nonsense allowed that NORTHAG resembled a Warsaw Pact in which the Poles, Czechs and East Germans were permitted veto power over even the smallest details of military planning and operations. Compounding the first problem, the enemy clearly undervalued speed. When you watched them on their exercises, they did everything too slowly, too carefully, stubborn pedestrians in a supersonic age. Finally, Malinsky believed that his enemies underestimated their opponents, that they had hardly a glimmer of how the Soviet military could and would fight. Malinsky expected the defense by his enemies to be stubborn, bloody, and in vain. He was fond of repeating three words to his subordinate commanders, as a sort of personal motto: “Speed, shock, activeness.”

“What’s that?” Malinsky leaned forward, cigarette thrusting toward the map like a dagger. “What’s that supposed to tell me?”

The major quickly backed away from the map, as though he had received an electric shock. “Comrade Front Commander, elements of the Seventh Tank Army have begun closing on their appointed staging areas, but, as you see, there is a conflict with the trail elements of the Forty-ninth Unified Army Corps. The Forty-ninth is behind schedule in its move to its assembly areas west of the Elbe River.”

Controlling his voice, Malinsky dismissed the staff officer, a clever, crisp-talking Frunze graduate. When the door had shut behind the major’s retreat, as if the fan of light had swept him away, Malinsky reached for the intercom phone.

“Is the chief of staff there? Give General Chibisov the phone.”

For a moment, Malinsky listened to the faint pandemonium of the briefing room on the other end. Then Chibisov’s familiar voice, ever perfectly controlled, came on the line.

“I’m listening, Comrade Front Commander.”

“Is Anseev here yet?”

“He just came in.”

“Tell him to come down and see me.” Malinsky considered for a moment. “How are we doing otherwise?”

“A few are still missing. But they’ll be here in time.”

“The Germans?”

“Yes. Nervous as puppies.”

“Good. I like them best that way.”

“The Polish liaison officers are here from the Northern Front. You can imagine how happy they are.”

Malinsky could well imagine. He was always impressed by the talent of ranking Polish officers, but he could never bring himself to trust them. He saw them as always attempting to barter their way out from under their responsibilities, and he dealt with them more harshly than was his habit with others.

“Just send Anseev down to me,” Malinsky said. “And let me know when we have them all assembled.”

Malinsky hung up the phone. A waft of smoke hovered between him and the brilliantly colored map, as though the battle had already begun amid the clutter of arrows and lines. Malinsky lit another cigarette.

He thought of his son. Anton. Anton Mikhailovitch Malinsky. His son was the newly appointed commander of a maneuver brigade in the Forty-ninth Corps, a youngish, handsome Guards colonel. Anton was the type of officer over whom the ladies at the Imperial Court had once swooned. Malinsky was terribly proud of his son, and although Anton was in his middle thirties, Malinsky always thought of him as “the boy,” or “my boy.” Anton was his only child. Malinsky had gone to extremes to insure that there was no favoritism, that Anton earned his own way. He could never be certain, of course, and no doubt the name had its effect — doubly so now that the old military families were back in style again. But Malinsky was determined not to behave like the patriarchs of so many military families, bashing down doors for their children. Anton was a Malinsky, and the traditions of the Malinsky family demanded that he be a fine officer of his own making.

They had been counts, if only of the second order, with estates not far from Smolensk. Before the Revolution, of course. Russian service gentry, with traces of Polish and Lithuanian nobility in their veins. At the hard birth of the eighteenth century, a Malinsky fought under Peter the Great at Poltava and on the Pruth. It was during Peter’s wars along the Baltic littoral that a Malinsky first heard the German language spoken. Then Vassili Malinsky lost an arm at Kunersdorf in the hour of victory over the soldiers of Frederick the Great in 1759. Vassili went on to serve under Potemkin in the Turkish wars, and Catherine, the German-born czarina, rewarded Vassili’s services with the title of “count.” One Malinsky, the shame of the family, served with Suvorov in Italy and the Alps, only to be condemned for cowardice after the debacle at Austerlitz. But his brother rode through the streets of Paris in 1814 at the head of a regiment of lancers. Malinskys fought in the Caucasus and in Central Asia, and one claimed to have beaten Lermontov at cards. During the long afternoon of the nineteenth century, a Malinsky died of plague in camp before Bukhara, and another died of cholera in a ditch at Sevastopol. At Plevna in 1877, Captain Count Mikhail Malinsky won the George, Second Class, and as a general, he fought the Japanese in 1905. Major Count Anton Mikhailovitch Malinsky fell before Austrian machine guns in the Carpathians in the Great War, and his brother Pyotr Mikhailovitch joined the Revolution as an engineer captain. The Malinskys had been there, always, to serve Russia, whether as diseased young Guards officers in St. Petersburg or as reformers in the officer corps and on their estates. Malinskys had drunk themselves to death and struggled to rationalize agriculture on a modern scientific basis. While some did their best to gamble away the family fortunes, others had counted Herzen and Tolstoy among their friends. It was a family full of all the contradictions of Russia, unified by a single name and the habit of wearing army uniforms.

After the Revolution, it had almost come to an end. Malinsky’s grandfather, Pyotr Mikhailovitch, had been eager to join the Revolution, dreaming sincerely of a new and better Russia. But the Revolution had not been so enthusiastic about the Malinskys. The nobility, progressive or regressive, were all oppressors of the workers and peasants. Making the situation worse, Malinskys appeared on both sides in the Civil War, with two cousins serving under the counterrevolutionary Denikin, while Pyotr fought against the Whites as a military specialist and adviser to an illiterate commander of more bravery than skill. Then Pyotr had been allowed his own command in the Polish War, although his young wife, son, and mother remained hostages of the careful Bolsheviks. Pyotr fought like a savage, not so much for the Bolsheviks as for Russia. The Civil War and the fighting against the foreign enemies of the Revolution grew more and more merciless, but Russia towered over it all, absorbing the blood in her earth, relentlessly driving her sons.

In the end, it was a very near thing. Only his high level of technical expertise as an engineer and staff officer saved Pyotr. He received an assignment to the newly organized military academy, which would later become the Frunze. He taught mathematics and cartography to eager officers who had virtually learned to read and write on horseback during the Civil War.

The estates were gone, of course. No Malinsky dared go near them. But an officer’s life remained a good one compared to the sufferings and dislocations Pyotr witnessed around him. At times, he considered an attempt to leave Russia with his family. But, he told himself, the Bolsheviks would pass, too, while the army would always remain. He looked for the good in the Revolution and in the strange new leaders it brought forth, still eager to believe in the good in men after swimming through seas of blood.

Pyotr’s son, Mikhail, entered a military academy in 1926. The tradition had almost been broken, since the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army did not want the sons of former noblemen. But even then, there had been enough survivors among the military specialists recruited from the Czarist ranks to quietly find the boy a place.

In 1938, Colonel Pyotr Mikhailovitch Malinsky was arrested, tried, and shot by the secret police. His son, a captain, was arrested and sent to the camps near Kolyma. Captain Malinsky’s wife and son remained behind with no knowledge of whether he was alive or dead until, finally, after a year, a particularly brave comrade of the captain’s revealed that Malinsky was alive in a camp in the east, and his family could write to him, so long as great care was taken in what was said.

In his well-furnished office in a bunker deep in eastern Germany, the son of the captive sat now, remembering how he had scribbled notes to a distant, half-remembered father. His mother always insisted that he add something, either a note of his own or, when there wasn’t enough paper, a few scratched words on his mother’s neat pages.

His father survived. When the Hitlerite Germans invaded on the twenty-second of June, 1941, even Stalin was soon forced to realize the extent of his folly. Imprisoned officers who were still healthy enough and whose records were not too black were returned to service. Malinsky’s father fought from Tula to Berlin. Not for Stalin. And not for the Communist Party, although he was reinstated as a member. But for Russia.

Malinsky’s father had looked sixty when he was in his late forties. The camps had ruined his health, and perhaps only his strength of will kept him going through the war and beyond. He had entered Berlin as a rifle division commander, with fewer than two thousand able soldiers on the divisional rolls. He died in a military sanatorium in the Caucasus in 1959. His son had come in his dress uniform to visit him, towing his own six-year-old boy, and in the quiet of a general’s sickroom, the old man had looked his son in the eyes and said, “I outlived that bastard. And Russia will outlive them all. Remember that. Your uniform is the uniform of Russia.”

In the year after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Malinsky had found himself on an inspectorate tour that took him through Smolensk. Hard drinking was still fashionable in the officer corps then, and the officers with whom he was traveling were a particularly hard-drinking bunch. One morning while they snored into their hangovers, he had taken the staff car out to the state farm where once his family estates had counted thousands of souls.

The great house was long gone, destroyed by the Germans during the Great Patriotic War. The Sovkhoz buildings were nondescript barns, shacks and sheds of tin and cinder block. Malinsky parked the car and walked beyond the litter of the state into the newly harvested fields. From a low rise he could see the chronicle of his blood stretching brown and yellow and green over tens of gently rolling kilometers. And he wept, taking off his hat. Not for the loss of land. Nor because he wasn’t called a count, even though in intimate moments he thought of his wife, affectionately, as his countess. Rather, he wept for Russia, without understanding himself. With blurred vision, he stared off into the distance where the fields met the vast, empty sky, caught up in its timelessness, suspecting that good men had always wept for Russia, that there was no choice, ever.

The gagging of a stalled tractor roused him, and he walked back through the characterless plot of farm buildings. Upon his approach, an old woman, an eternal peasant of a woman, called out:

“No special bargains for officers here, Comrade. You can go stand in line like all the rest.”

Major General Anseev came in cautiously. As he approached the island of light in front of the situation map Malinsky motioned for him to take a seat. A visitor’s chair had been carefully positioned so that the guest could turn slightly to his left and address the map or twist to the right and face Malinsky, but with no possibility of comfort in either position. The chair was positioned exactly so that, whenever the guest had to turn toward Malinsky, one of the small spotlights that lit the map dazzled the subordinate’s eyes. Malinsky was not a cruel man, but he firmly believed in establishing and maintaining control under all circumstances, and he believed in precision and in the importance of the smallest detail to the greatest military operations.

Malinsky knew Anseev well enough. During Malinsky’s tour of duty in Afghanistan — easily the most frustrating assignment of his life — Anseev had commanded a combined arms unit. Anseev had been bold, a great improviser, where others were routinely overcautious. Once, denied the use of mountain roads by the dushman, he had personally led his armored vehicles up a dry riverbed to relieve a besieged garrison. But he did not pay enough attention to little things, and his casualties were always high. Each of his commanders had his own peculiar weaknesses, Malinsky reflected. Anseev just needed to feel the bit now and then.

Anseev had been given the command of a corps structured to perform optimally as an operational maneuver group, with the mission of thrusting deeply and rapidly into the enemy’s operational rear, unhinging the enemy’s ability to reorganize his defenses, seizing key terrain or striking decisive targets, and convincing the opponent that he had been defeated before the military issue was actually settled. Anseev had been selected for the command because of his boldness and the speed with which he moved. Yet here was a situation in which one of his subunits could not even clear its staging area on time. Malinsky suspected he knew the reason, but he wanted to hear Anseev’s tale.

Holding out his cigarette case, Malinsky leaned forward into the light. Anseev was normally highly self-confident, even brash, and he was a chain-smoker like Malinsky. But now he waved away the proffered smoke with almost unintelligible thanks.

“Come, Igor Fedorovitch, you like a smoke.”

Anseev obediently took one of the short paper tubes that bled dark tobacco from both ends.

From Anseev’s behavior, Malinsky could tell that the man knew what the problem was, and that he had hoped it would slip by the front commander.

Malinsky leaned back into the shadows.

“Igor Fedorovitch,” he said in a friendly, almost paternal voice, “are you aware that your trail brigade is still in its staging area, holding up another unit?”

“Yes, Comrade Front Commander.”

“What’s the problem there?”

“The roads are just too crowded,” Anseev said anxiously. Anseev was a mongrel, with a great deal of Tartar blood and the guarded eyes of an Asian. “The supply columns from the front and army materiel support brigades are undisciplined. They act as though they are under no control whatsoever. I have tanks colliding with fuelers, and nobody can decide who has priority unless a senior officer is present. The commandant’s service has not deployed adequate traffic controllers. You should see how it is along my routes, Comrade Front Commander. The river-crossing sites are an absolute nightmare.”

“Igor Fedorovitch, do you imagine it will be easier to move in combat? Do you expect the British or the Germans to control traffic for you?” Malinsky paused for effect, carefully holding his voice down to a studied near-whisper that could be chilling and fatherly at the same time. “We’re not in Afghanistan now. This is a real war, with mechanized opponents, with enormous mechanized armies the like of which the world has never seen in battle. Moving to war on the finest road networks in the world. And you, my cavalryman, are perhaps the most important formation commander in this front. Yet you can’t move a lone brigade on time? Igor Fedorovitch, we’ve had reasonable weather, a little rain, but nothing to stop a good cavalryman. If the supply columns have no control, why didn’t you take control? If you can’t maneuver around a pack of field kitchens, how do you expect to get to the Rhine? How can I trust you even to get into combat on time?”

“Comrade Front Commander, this will not happen again. It’s just — ”

“No ‘just,’“ Malinsky said, his voice lowering in pitch and suddenly as cold as winter in the far north. “Fix the problem. And never let it happen again.”

“Yes, Comrade Front Commander. By the way, I have to tell you that your son’s brigade is the best in my command. Well-disciplined, and he moves his tanks like lightning.”

It was the wrong approach to try with Malinsky, who instantly realized how shaken Anseev must have been to try anything so tactless and naive. Anseev would need watching as the pressure mounted.

“Guards Colonel Malinsky is no special concern of mine,” Malinsky said emphatically. “He’s one commander out of many. Anseev, did you personally review your march tables and routes in detail?”

“Comrade Commander, I flew the routes myself.”

“Did you personally review the march tables? Was your movement plan fully cleared with my chief of the rear and my movement control officers? Or did you bend the schedule you were allowed by the front? Did you even know all that had been done or left undone in your name?”

“Comrade Front Commander, the automated support mechanism — ”

“Yes or no?”

“No, Comrade Front Commander.”

Malinsky drew on his cigarette, letting its glow briefly light his face. Anseev was clearly distraught. As he deserved to be. But Malinsky did not want him to return to his unit that way. And there was the final review to get through with all of the other commanders, the front staff, and the special representatives.

Anseev turned his face to the map, as though seeking a way to reach out and correct his error in front of Malinsky’s eyes.

“Igor Fedorovitch,” Malinsky began, weighting the paternal tone in his voice, “you are… perhaps the finest fighting commander I have. I frankly admired you in Afghanistan. You know that. It was a bad war for all of us, not really a war — a trial we were never permitted to win. But you did so well with what you had, under the worst possible conditions… we always counted on you in the desperate moments. And I am counting on you now. We’re all counting on you. Of all the formations in the First Western Front, it is most critical that your corps and its brigades be responsive and exactly on time. You must always be there first.” Malinsky sucked on his cigarette, blowing the smoke back out with a faint sigh. “We all have flaws, Igor Fedorovitch. And I’ll be frank. Your flaw is that you see everything in bold, broad terms. This may also be your virtue. But a commander must take the time for the details. If the artillery arrives but the ammunition doesn’t show up, the artillery is useless. Precision saves lives, Igor Fedorovitch. It is perhaps the most important aspect of discipline for an officer. The soldier of the Soviet Motherland will give you everything he has. I will not see his life wasted because a commander was too busy to attend to administrative details.”

“I understand, Comrade Front Commander. I won’t forget.”

Malinsky allowed a short silence to drain the tension.

“I’ll see you in a few minutes then, Igor Fedorovitch. At the final review.”

Anseev understood this form of dismissal. He rose sharply and presented his respects.

Malinsky nodded.

With Anseev gone, Malinsky lit a final cigarette, attempting to gather his thoughts. He wanted to keep the review short so that his commanders could get back to their formations, but he also wanted to insure that every last-minute question had been answered. There would be no time once the great machine had been set in motion. He tried to enumerate his last-minute concerns, but his mind strayed determinedly to his son, as if Anseev had cursed him. He suddenly felt as though, if he were a religious man, he would pray for the boy.

But pray to whom? To Russia? It was, Malinsky considered, the closest thing he could imagine to a god. Something so much greater than its children. Its stubborn, passionate, dreaming children, who always seemed to seek the most difficult solutions to life’s problems. The idea of Russia remained hopelessly mystical, verging on melodrama. Intellectually, he could pick it apart, yet it was emotionally irresistible to him.

Spare my boy. And I will do everything for you.

And Paulina. How they had wanted more children. But those children had never come, and Paulina had endured the dreadful lieutenant’s quarters on the edge of the world, with communal kitchens and the filthy shared latrines. And the separations, the lack of fine things that only those much closer to the Party, or those whose sense of duty was to themselves, would ever have. Paulina, his soldier’s wife. His countess. Paulina, he thought, if I could choose, if I had to choose, I would send you back your son.

Malinsky felt ashamed of himself. He knew he hadn’t a moment to squander on nostalgia and personal matters. He needed to concern himself with the movement of tens of thousands of war machines, of hundreds of thousands of men. There was no time for emotionalism.

The intercom phone rang. It was the chief of staff and first deputy commander, the newly promoted Lieutenant General Pavel Pavlovitch Chibisov. The chief was a self-contained, coldly brilliant man with an analytical bent and almost obsessive self-discipline whom Malinsky had rescued from another ineradicable aspect of the Russian character — anti-Semitism. Chibisov was an ethnic Jew whose family had long ago renounced their religion, but he still felt compelled to struggle relentlessly against every last vestige of his Jewishness. And Chibisov was correct — his Jewishness never would be fully laid to rest in the eyes of many of his fellow officers. Malinsky felt a close personal bond to Chibisov, a deep, if quiet, affection. They were both outsiders, in their very different ways. In any case, Chibisov was the perfect chief of staff, a born mathematician and organizer, leaving his commander free to concentrate more of his own energies on the military art. Chibisov was the first of his fellow officers whom Malinsky had ever trusted to the extent that he allowed himself to depend fully on another, and he smiled to think of Chibisov the man, a lifelong bachelor who could express everything except emotion with utter clarity.

“Comrade Front Commander, they’re all here except the chief of the political directorate — he’s still occupied at the KGB site,” the familiar clipped voice reported.

“All right. Have they had their tea?”

“They’re settled in. We’re ready. At your convenience.”

“Good. I’m on my way.”

Malinsky laid the phone to rest, then crushed out his stub of a cigarette.

But he did not move at once. He stared hard at the map one last time. The deep red arrows of his plan cut through the carefully detailed hopes of his enemies. He had waited for this all his life. But he had never quite believed the day would come.

Major General Dudorov, Malinsky’s chief of intelligence, described the enemy dispositions in remarkable detail. Dudorov was clever and a good student of the enemy, but best of all, to Malinsky, he had worked the enemy problem so long that he had acquired not only many Western tastes but even something of a Western outlook. To Malinsky, it was the next best thing to having an intelligence chief right from the enemy’s ranks. Malinsky had a great hunger to know his opponents, to fully digest their strengths and weaknesses. He recognized that, in order to apply the precepts of Soviet military science and art to fullest effect, detailed and accurate intelligence was indispensable.

The briefing room stank with the swampy smell of wet uniforms, and the audience shifted restlessly. For many of the officers present, Dudorov’s portion of the briefing had gone on far too long. Dudorov was short and overweight, and he spoke like a condescending professor — exactly the sort of figure combat commanders tended to despise. And Malinsky knew that his subordinate commanders were anxious to return to their formations in order to put last-minute corrections into effect. But he took no action to shorten Dudorov’s remarks. He placed great confidence in Dudorov’s professionalism, and, as with Chibisov, he had carried Dudorov along with him as he rose to positions of ever-greater authority.

Malinsky wanted his subordinates to know their enemies, whether they felt interested or not. It was a common thing for tank and motorized rifle commanders — especially those who had not served in Afghanistan — to swagger about, assuming that the enemy was merely something to be used for target practice. But Malinsky believed their level of interest would rise sharply after a taste of the battlefield.

“And so,” Dudorov began his summary, “we face a partially prepared defense. Engineer preparations have been most extensive opposite the Third Shock Army in the British sector, where a unilateral decision apparently was made to execute their obstacle plan early on. The Germans, on the other hand, appear to have been reluctant to dig up their countryside, but all-out preparations are now underway. The Dutch and Belgian efforts at engineer preparations only began within the past twenty-four hours. Overall, we face a much more favorable situation than the one facing our comrades in the Second Western and Southwestern fronts opposite NATO’s Central Army Group. Of course, the limited aims of the Northern Front make it a secondary consideration. All of the materiel aspects of force reduction have clearly favored us. Even in the British sector, our most recent calculations do not indicate that the known preparations will significantly degrade our highly favorable operational correlation of forces and means.”

“Any sign of Americans supporting NORTHAG?” Malinsky asked.

Dudorov pointed at the map. From his seat, Malinsky really couldn’t see the details, but he had the map memorized. “The single U.S. brigade garrisoned in the north,” Dudorov stated, “has apparently been withdrawn into a deep reserve role. Their exact location is presently unknown. There are no indications at present of additional U.S. ground forces opposite the First Western Front.”

Timing is everything, Malinsky thought. He was not overly fond of the General Staff, but he had to admit that their calculations on how quickly NATO would detect and, more importantly, muster the decisiveness to respond to a Warsaw Pact mobilization had been almost exactly correct. Discounting the period of discreet measures, it had taken seven days of overt activities to adequately prepare the key Soviet, East German, Czech, and Polish units and formations and to position them forward in a manner that decisively shifted the correlation of forces and means. Of the seven days of all-out measures executed by the Warsaw Pact, the first four had been almost completely free. NATO’s intelligence evidently detected, evaluated, and reported the situation within twenty-four hours, but individual member governments of NATO had vacillated for several days. At his meeting with the commander-in-chief of the Western Theater of Strategic Military Action earlier in the day, Malinsky had been astonished by Marshal Kribov’s stories of frantic diplomatic efforts that seemed absurd beyond belief. Kribov was not known for his sense of humor, but he had smiled as he remarked to Malinsky that, while he believed they could beat NATO’s armies, he was absolutely convinced they could beat NATO’s governments.

“Other questions?” Dudorov asked the assembly.

Lieutenant General Starukhin, the commander of the Third Shock Army, stood up. Malinsky smiled to himself. Starukhin always stood up, always had something to say. Starukhin was a bully, a heavy drinker despite the change in fashion, and a brutally tough and aggressive commander. Exactly the sort of man to command in the breakthrough sector. Malinsky had known Starukhin for years, and he well knew the man’s long list of bad habits. But he also knew he could trust him to fight.

“Dudorov,” Starukhin began, posing for his circle of paladins, “you stand there and tell me that the British engineer preparations don’t make a significant difference. Maybe you’d like to ride in my lead tank.”

Malinsky watched to see who laughed along with Starukhin. The army commander’s subordinates, of course, and the commander of the Twentieth Guards Army and his companions. The East German officers laughed tentatively, while the Poles appeared disinterested. Trimenko, the commander of the Second Guards Tank Army, remained stone-faced, as did his clique. Trimenko and Starukhin were long-standing rivals, as different as summer and winter. It was a rivalry that Malinsky carefully exploited to draw the best efforts from each man.

None of the members of the front staff laughed at Dudorov. Malinsky and Chibisov took great pains to build a tight, loyal staff where backbiting was not tolerated.

Malinsky waited for the laughter and secondary comments to die down. Starukhin still stood posing, with a stupid grin on his face.

“If you’re so worried, Vladimir Ivanovitch,” Malinsky said coolly, “perhaps you’d like my chief of intelligence to command your army for you.”

Now Trimenko’s boys and the front staff smiled as a collective. But in the end, Malinsky did not want to further any contentiousness between his staff and his commanders. He only wanted to insure that everyone knew who was in control.

“My chief of engineers assures me that he will get you across the initial canal line and through the British obstacles,” Malinsky told Starukhin. “I certainly don’t underestimate the difficulty of the Third Shock Army’s mission. No one does, Vladimir Ivanovitch. But I am certain you will accomplish it.” Malinsky turned to the chief of staff. “General Chibisov, review the army missions.”

The chief of staff exchanged places with Dudorov at the map. The bunker’s ventilation system performed sluggishly in wet weather, and tobacco smoke filled the room with dirty wisps at the level of a standing man’s shoulders. Chibisov was asthmatic, and Malinsky knew he survived such briefings on sheer strength of will. The chief of staff was the only officer in whose presence Malinsky limited his smoking. But in such a forum, such niceties were impossible, a mark of weakness, and Chibisov was on his own.

“The First Western Front attacks at 0600 Moscow time to seize an initial objective line here” — Chibisov traced a line on the map that ran just west of the Weser River, allowing for operational bridgeheads — “and a subsequent objective line that includes bridgeheads on the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr metropolitan complex. Follow-on missions or additional objectives will be designated by the High Command of Forces, Western Theater of Strategic Military Action, as the situation develops.”

Malinsky watched Chibisov survey the crowded room, making highspeed calculations and judgments. The issue remained open as to whether the offensive would continue into the low countries and France. Although the plans already existed, even Malinsky did not know if the final political decision had been made to implement them. The chief of staff continued in a clear, controlled voice, dominating in its self-assurance.

“The Front conducts its attack with three reinforced armies in the first operational echelon.

“In the north, the Second Guards Tank Army, reinforced to a strength of five divisions, attacks in the Uelzen — Verden — Arnhem operational direction, with the immediate missions of crossing the Elbe-Seiten Canal in multidivisional strength on the first day of operations, locating and exploiting the boundary between the Netherlands Corps and the German Corps, and rapidly penetrating the Netherlands operational grouping in depth.” As Chibisov reviewed the Second Guards Tank Army’s mission, the formation’s commander, Colonel General Trimenko, wore a mask of hard determination, but his fingernails fought anxiously with the shell of one of the pistachios that were his only public vice. “The line of Autobahn E4/A7 is to be reached by multiple forward detachments not later than local midnight on the first day of operations,” Chibisov continued. “Not later than midnight on the second day of operations, initial bridgeheads will be established on the Weser line. The Second Guards Tank Army has two secondary missions. Its initial exploitation of the corps boundary is to be followed by a southerly turning movement into the tactical, then into the operational rear of the German Corps. The army also conducts a supporting attack, from the initiation of hostilities, against the frontage of the German Corps, with the objective of fixing the Germans as far forward as possible, facilitating their subsequent envelopment and encirclement. Upon the commitment of the army’s second echelon, those first-echelon units not occupied in guaranteeing the flank of the breakthrough against German counterattacks and not involved in the closing of the ring behind the Germans will contain residual Dutch elements northwest of a line drawn here, from the north of Bremen to Buxtehude.”

Chibisov paused for breath, disguising the break as an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. But all of this had been covered before, in much greater detail, and Trimenko and those supporting him knew the plan thoroughly.

“In the south,” Chibisov continued, saving the central breakthrough operation for last, “the Twentieth Guards Army attacks in the Duderstadt — Paderborn — Dortmund operational direction, with the mission of developing a rapid penetration in the Belgian sector, thereby creating an early crisis in the vicinity of the enemy’s army group boundary. In this instance, as in the example of the Second Guards Tank Army in the north, it is our expectation that early penetrations on its flanks will force the enemy’s Northern Army Group — NORTHAG — to commit its available reserves early and in a piecemeal fashion as it attempts to stabilize both of its flanks. Finally, upon receipt of the appropriate order, the Twentieth Guards Army is prepared to execute a turning movement to unhinge the British defense just to the north, should that prove necessary.”

Chibisov breathed deeply, poisoning his lungs. “In the center, ultimately making the front’s main attack, the Third Shock Army, reinforced with one East German division to a strength of five divisions, attacks in the Hannover — Osnabrueck — Venlo operational direction. Initially, the Third Shock Army’s offensive is phased slightly behind those of the flanking armies, allowing NORTH AG to identify the threat to its flanks and commit its reserves, thus robbing the center of any depth. The initial structure of radio electronic combat operations will allow the enemy to maintain the necessary communications to identify the threat to his flanks and to initiate movement of his reserves. To that end, we will initially attack the enemy’s air-ground and fire-support communications, but as soon as we have confirmation of the movement of the enemy’s reserves to commitment, we will redirect the full weight of our radio electronic combat effort against NORTHAG’s command and control and intelligence links.”

As Chibisov spoke Malinsky watched Starukhin, the Third Shock Army’s commander. Starukhin was always restless, looking for a fight or for a superior’s attention. Now he sat fitfully, obviously swollen with energy and nerves, rubbing at his stubbly chin and blotched nose. Malinsky knew it was only a matter of time until Starukhin opened his mouth again. Malinsky could not help feeling a personal distaste toward Starukhin, even as he valued the man’s unrivaled ability to smash his way through problems.

Starukhin managed to rein himself in a bit longer, and Chibisov continued smoothly, a perfect staff officer, choosing each word exactly without losing the rhythm of his speech. “In support of the front’s plan, the Third Shock Army initially structures its attack to give the appearance that all four of its organic divisions have been committed, while actually holding the bulk of the Seventh and Tenth Tank divisions and all of the attached East German division as a ready second echelon. The commitment of this second echelon is not contingent upon the commitment to battle of the enemy’s reserves, only upon the confirmed movement of those reserves to the north and/or south, or upon the personal authorization of the front commander.

“Third Shock Army has the primary mission of seizing multiple bridgeheads on the Weser River not later than 0600 on the third day of the war, and of thus facilitating the immediate commitment of the Forty-ninth Unified Army Corps to breakout and exploitation operations from the Weser line. The corps functions as the front’s initial operational maneuver group.

“Third Shock Army has the secondary mission of supporting the Second Guards Tank Army’s encirclement and destruction of the enemy grouping in the German Corps pocket.

“In the second operational echelon, Seventh Tank Army follows Third Shock but is prepared to release one division to Third Shock Army upon order of the front commander. Seventh Tank Army also prepares for options calling for it to repel an operational counterattack launched by CENTAG to relieve the pressure on NORTHAG, or to follow Twentieth Guards Army, should the initial success prove greater in that sector.

“In the north, Twenty-eighth Army follows Second Guards Tank Army. The primary mission of the Twenty-eighth is to break out from the Weser line and conduct exploitation operations that culminate in the establishment of operational bridgeheads on the Rhine. Twenty-eighth Army also prepares to release one division to Second Guards Tank Army upon order of the front commander if reinforcement of the Second Guards proves necessary to contain and reduce the German pocket.

“Other reserves or follow-on forces will be allocated to the First Western Front from the High Command of Forces based upon the developing military and political situations.”

Malinsky believed it was as good a plan as could be devised with the available forces and technical support. An apparent pincer movement on a grand scale to draw off the enemy reserves, then a smashing blow to splinter a fatally weakened center. And the real beauty of it, as only Malinsky knew, was its function as a trap within a trap. Marshal Kribov expected Malinsky’s breakthrough to draw off NATO’s last operational reserves from the south, possibly even units stripped from CENTAG’s front line. At that point, a powerful, sudden thrust would be directed against the weakened German-American defenses in the south in the Frankfurt and Stuttgart directions, employing follow-on forces that had, up until then, been portrayed as following Malinsky’s armies. It was a series of blows of ever-increasing intensity, always directed at the unexpected but decisive point, on an ever-grander scale.

“Questions?” Chibisov asked.

Starukhin, the Third Shock Army commander, rose. Usually, when Starukhin got up a second time, it was to voice a legitimate concern. Malinsky watched Trimenko, the Second Guards Army commander, as Trimenko watched Starukhin. Trimenko was the type who never whined or complained, who just coldly went about the business at hand with the available tools.

“While I’m content with the allocation of indirect fire assets,” Starukhin declared, “I remain troubled by the initial unavailability of fixed-wing air support. The Air Army needs to be reminded that it is ultimately under frontal control — army control. In my case — in all of our cases — it’s imperative to deliver a crushing blow that reaches the enemy’s tactical-operational depths simultaneously with the main assaults against his front. My attack helicopters can barely support water-obstacle crossing operations and the accompaniment of air assault missions — which are heavily scheduled. I say nothing about their use as a highly mobile antitank reserve.” Starukhin paused, gauging the other commanders in the room. “The present allocation of fixed-wing aircraft allows the armies very little control over the battle in depth.”

There was no question about it. Starukhin had a point. But there were never sufficient assets to please everyone. Malinsky had made his decision based upon his evaluation of the situation within the constraints imposed by the High Command of Forces. In any case, he was a habitual centralizer, having experienced too much subordinate incompetence over the years, and he felt the army commanders already had more assets than they could effectively manage.

Malinsky stood up and approached the map. Both Chibisov and Starukhin took their seats, leaving the front commander as the only focal point in the room.

“Vladimir Ivanovitch has a strong case,” Malinsky said, surveying them all. As his eyes passed over the East Germans he almost laughed. He doubted they were the men their fathers and grandfathers had been. They looked as though they expected to be fed to the serpents. Starukhin would insure that they were employed to the best possible effect.

“However,” Malinsky continued, maintaining his straight-backed, straight-faced gravity, “I am convinced that the key to the ground war is the air battle. I fully support Marshal Kribov’s decision to employ the bulk of the air and deep-fire weapons of all the fronts to support the initial air offensive. If we failed to reach a single ground objective on the first day of the war, if your units did not accomplish a single mission of the day, but we managed to destroy the enemy’s air power on the ground or while it was in a posture of reaction, I’m certain we could recover lost time in the ground battle. Since the withdrawal of his intermediate-range missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles, the enemy has only his air power to rely upon to reach deep and attempt to rupture our plans. His air power is the cornerstone of his defense. Remove it, and you can knock his military structure apart with relative ease.” This time it was Malinsky’s turn to pause for effect, making eye contact with his leading commanders and finally settling his gaze on Starukhin. “I am committed to the initial requirement to destroy the enemy’s air defense belts and his fixed-wing combat capability. Even if it meant diverting maneuver forces, I would do it. A parochial attitude begs for defeat.

“Now,” Malinsky continued, stalking through the mist of cigarette smoke, “I also understand that some of you are worried about the enemy’s possible employment of weapons of mass destruction. That will always remain a concern. But, as Comrade General Dudorov told us, we have no indications that we are presently in a nuclear-scared situation. If you accomplish the tasks assigned to each of you within the plan, I believe we can defeat the nuclear bogeyman. Speed. shock… activeness …” Malinsky surveyed the group of officers, each one a very powerful figure in his own right. “Once we are deep in their rear, intermingled with their combat and support formations, how will they effectively bring nuclear weapons to bear? The object is to close swiftly with the enemy, to achieve and exploit shock effect, to penetrate him at multiple points, and to keep moving, except to destroy that which you absolutely cannot outmaneuver.” Malinsky turned to face his chief of missile troops and artillery. “I also understand that some of you are troubled by my targeting priorities. Let it be on my shoulders. But I do not believe it is possible to destroy every nuclear-capable system in the NATO arsenal. Anyway, why cut off the fingers and toes when you can more easily lop off the head? Once our trap has been sprung, the targets for the front and army reconnaissance strike complexes must be the enemy’s command and control infrastructure and his intelligence-collection capability. If he cannot find us, he cannot hope to place nuclear fires on us. And without effective command and control systems, the requirements of both nuclear targeting and conventional troop control are insoluble. Yet even such targeting must be selective. For example, we know what we want the enemy to see and how we want him to respond initially. That, too, must be factored into our decisions regarding what targets to attack and when to attack them. Modern warfare is not merely a brawl. It is both a broad science and an uncompromising art. If you have not asked yourself every possible question, the unasked question will destroy you.”

Malinsky considered the men before him one last time. The anxious and the stubborn, men of finesse and born savages. He never ceased marveling at the varieties of character and talent the military required or could at least manage to exploit. Ambitions as different as their secret fears, Malinsky thought.

“I know you are all anxious to return to your formations and workplaces. There’s always too much to do and too little time in which to do it, I know. And every man among us has his own devils, his own worries. My concern in these last hours is that the enemy might strike first. But I know, in my mind and in my heart” — Malinsky touched his fist to his chest — ”that once we have begun, no power on earth will be able to stop us. Each of you wears the trappings of tremendous power, commanders and staff officers alike. Consider what your badges of rank represent. Each of you has come to personify the greatness, the destiny of the Motherland. And your actions will ultimately decide that destiny.”

Malinsky thought of his son, a flashing instant of worry, affection, and pride intermingled. “I hope at least a few of you get a bit of sleep, too. I just want to leave you with one final caution. Most of you have heard it from me many times. If there is one area in which I profoundly disagree with the theoreticians, it is in regard to casualties. I believe that none of us, on either side, is prepared for the intensity of destruction we will encounter. Not everywhere. But at the points of decision, and in priority sectors, I expect some units — on both sides — to suffer unprecedented losses. Certainly, the number of soldiers who fall on a given field will not rival the casualty counts of antiquity. But we have not yet found the algorithm to relate modern systems losses to preindustrial manpower losses. The manpower losses will be severe enough, but the losses in what might appropriately be termed the ‘capital’ of war will appear catastrophic to the commander who is weak or has not prepared himself sufficiently. I hope… that each of you is just sufficiently better prepared than your opponent… to remain steadfast when he wavers, to impose your will on him when he takes that fatal pause to count his losses. You must be hard. Each of us will experience things that will haunt him for the rest of his days. That goes with the rank and position.”

Malinsky thought for a moment, searching for the right closing words. “This is not my permission to take needless casualties. One life lost unnecessarily is too much. But…” He reached for words. Without sounding weak, he wanted to tell them to value the lives of their men, and without callousness, he wanted to communicate to them what needed to be done, to prepare them. “Simply do your duty.”

Malinsky strode abruptly toward the door. The officers jumped to attention. Malinsky could feel the collection of emotions grown so intense in the men that it almost demanded a physical outlet. The door opened before him, and a voice barked down the hallway. Malinsky marched back toward his private office in a press of concerns that obscured the braced figures he passed in the long corridor. He wondered if any of them really understood what was about to happen. He wondered if it was humanly possible to understand.