"We are fully ready," Vladimirov a.s.sured him. "We are watching the south."

"Keep me informed," Komanov ordered, unnecessarily. His men were alert and standing-to. He looked around. He had a total of two hundred rounds for his main gun, all in racks within easy reach of the turret. His loader and gunner were at their posts, the former scanning the terrain with optical sights better than his own officer's binoculars. His reserve crewmen were just sitting in their chairs, waiting for someone to die. The door to the escape tunnel was open. A hundred meters through that was a BTR-60 eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier ready to get them the h.e.l.l away, though his men didn't expect to make use of it. Their post was impregnable, wasn't it? They had the best part of a meter of steel on the gun turret, and three meters of reinforced concrete, with a meter of dirt atop it-and besides, they were hidden in a bush. You couldn't hit what you couldn't see, could you? And the c.h.i.n.ks had slitty little eyes and couldn't see very well, could they? Like all the men in this crew, Komanov was a European Russian, though there were Asians under his command. This part of his country was a mishmash of nationalities and languages, though all had learned Russian, if not at home, then in school.

"Movement," the gunner said. "Movement on Rice Ridge." That was what they called the first ridge line in Chinese territory. "Infantrymen."

"You're sure they're soldiers?" Komanov asked.

"I suppose they might be shepherds, but I don't see any sheep, Comrade Lieutenant." The gunner had a wry sense of humor.

"Move," the lieutenant told the crewman who'd taken his place in the command hatch. He reclaimed the tank commander's seat. "Get me the headset," he ordered next. Now he'd be connected to the phone system with a simple push-b.u.t.ton microphone. With that, he could talk to his other eleven crews or to regiment. But Komanov didn't don the earphones just yet. He wanted his ears clear. The night was still, the winds calm, just a few gentle breezes. They were a good distance from any real settlement, and so there were no sounds of traffic to interfere. Then he leveled his binoculars on the far ridge. Yes, there was the ghostly suggestion of movement there, almost like seeing someone's hair blowing in the wind. But it wasn't hair. It could only be people. And as his gunner had observed, they would not be shepherds.

For ten years, the officers in the border bunkers had cried out for low-light goggles like those issued to the Spetsnaz and other elite formations, but, no, they were too expensive for low-priority posts, and so such things were only seen here when some special inspection force came through, just long enough for the regular troops to drool over them. No, they were supposed to let their eyes adapt to the darkness . . . as though they think we're cats, Komanov thought. But all the interior battle lights in the bunkers were red, and that helped. He'd forbidden the use of white lights inside the post for the past week.

Brothers of this tank turret had first been produced in late 1944-the JS-3 had stayed in production for many years, as though no one had summoned the courage to stop producing something with the name Iosif Stalin on it, he thought. Some of them had rolled into Germany, invulnerable to anything the Fritzes had deployed. And the same tanks had given serious headaches to the Israelis, with their American- and English-built tanks, as well.

"This is Post Fifty. We have a lot of movement, looks like infantry, on the north slope of Rice Ridge. Estimate regimental strength," his earphones crackled.

"How many high-explosive sh.e.l.ls do we have?" Komanov asked.

"Thirty-five," the loader answered.

And that was a goodly amount. And there were fifteen heavy guns within range of Rice Ridge, all of them old ML-20 152-mm howitzers, all sitting on concrete pads next to ma.s.sive ammo bunkers. Komanov checked his watch. Almost three-thirty. Ninety minutes to first light. The sky was cloudless. He could look up and see stars such as they didn't have in Moscow, with all its atmospheric pollution. No, the Siberian sky was clear and clean, and above his head was an ocean of light made brighter still by a full moon still high in the western sky. He focused his eyes through his binoculars again. Yes, there was movement on Rice Ridge.

So?" Peng asked.

"At your command," Wa replied.

Peng and his staff were forward of their guns, the better to see the effect of their fire.

But seventy thousand feet over General Peng's head was Marilyn Monroe. Each of the Dark Star drones had a name attached to it, and given the official name of the platform, the crews had chosen the names of movie stars, all of them, of course, of the female persuasion. This one even had a copy of the movie star's Playboy centerfold from 1953 skillfully painted on the nose, but the eyes looking down from the stealthy UAV were electronic and multispectrum rather than china blue. Inside the fibergla.s.s nosecone, a directional antenna cross-linked the "take" to a satellite, which then distributed it to many places. The nearest was Zhigansk. The farthest was Fort Belvoir, Virginia, within spitting distance of Washington, D.C., and that one sent its feed via fiberoptic cable to any number of cla.s.sified locations. Unlike most spy systems, this one showed realtime movie-type imagery.

"Looks like they're getting ready, sir," an Army staff sergeant observed to his immediate boss, a captain. And sure enough, you could see soldiers ramming sh.e.l.ls into the breeches of their field pieces, followed by the smaller cloth bags that contained the propellant. Then the breeches were slammed shut, and the guns elevated. The 30-30-cla.s.s blank cartridges were inserted into the firing ports of the breechblocks, and the guns were fully ready. The last step was called "pulling the string," and was fairly accurate. You just jerked the lanyard rope to fire the blank cartridge and that ignited the powder bags, and then the sh.e.l.l went north at high speed.

"How many guns total, Sergeant?" the captain asked.

"A whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned p.i.s.spot full, sir."

"I can see that. What about a number?" the officer asked.

"North of six hundred, and that's just in this here sector, Cap'n. Plus four hundred mobile rocket launchers."

"We spotted air a.s.sets yet?"

"No, sir. The Chinese aren't nighttime flyers yet, least not for bombing."

Eagle Seven to Zebra, over," the AWACS senior controller radioed back to Zhigansk.

"Zebra to Seven, reading you five-by-five," the major running the ground base replied.

"We got bogies, call it thirty-two coming north out of Siping, estimate they're Sierra-Uniform Two-Sevens."

"Makes sense," the major on the ground told his wing commander. "Siping's their 667th Regiment. That's their best in terms of aircraft, and stick-time. That's their varsity, Colonel."

"Who do we have to meet them?"

"Our Russian friends out of Nelkan. Nearest American birds are well north and-"

"-and we haven't got orders to engage anybody yet," the colonel agreed. "Okay, let's get the Russians alerted."

"Eagle Seven to Black Falcon Ten, we have Chinese fighters three hundred kilometers bearing one-nine-six your position, angels thirty, speed five hundred knots. They're still over Chinese territory, but not for much longer."

"Understood," the Russian captain responded. "Give me a vector."

"Recommend intercept vector two-zero-zero," the American controller said. His spoken Russian was pretty good. "Maintain current speed and alt.i.tude."

"Roger."

On the E-3B's radar displays, the Russian Su-27s turned to head for the Chinese Su-27s. The Russians would have radar contact in about nine minutes.

Sir, this don't look real nice," another major in Zhigansk said to his general.

"Then it's time to get a warning out," the USAF two-star agreed. He lifted a phone that went to the Russian regional command post. There hadn't as yet been time to get a proper downlink to them.

General, a call from the American technical mission at Zhigansk," Tolkunov said.

"This is General Bondarenko."

"h.e.l.lo, this is Major General Gus Wallace. I just set up the reconnaissance shop here. We just put up a stealthy recon-drone over the Russian Chinese border at . . ." He read off the coordinates. "We show people getting ready to fire some artillery at you, General."

"How much?" Bondarenko asked.

"Most I've ever seen, upwards of a thousand guns total. I hope your people are hunkered down, buddy. The whole d.a.m.ned world's about to land on 'em."

"What can you do to help us?" Bondarenko asked.

"My orders are not to take action until they start shooting," the American replied. "When that happens, I can start putting fighters up, but not much in the way of bombs. We hardly have any to drop," Wallace reported. "I have an AWACS up now, supporting your fighters in the Chulman area, but that's all for now. We have a C-130 ferrying you a downlink tomorrow so that we can get you some intelligence directly. Anyway, be warned, General, it looks here as though the Chinese are going to launch their attack momentarily."

"Thank you, General Wallace." Bondarenko hung up and looked at his staff. "He says it's going to start at any moment."

And so it did. Lieutenant Komanov saw it first. The line of hills his men called Rice Ridge was suddenly backlit by yellow flame that could only be the muzzle flashes of numerous field guns. Then came the upward-flying meteor shapes of artillery rockets.

"Here it comes," he told his men. Unsurprisingly, he kept his head up so that he could see. His head, he reasoned, was a small target. Before the sh.e.l.ls landed, he felt the impact of their firing; the rumble came through the ground like a distant earthquake, causing his loader to mutter, "Oh, s.h.i.t," probably the universal observation of men in their situation.

"Get me regiment," Komanov ordered.

"Yes, Lieutenant," the voice answered.

"We are under attack, Comrade Colonel, ma.s.sive artillery fire to the south. Guns and rockets are coming our-"

Then the first impacts came, mainly near the river, well to his south. The exploding sh.e.l.ls were not bright, but like little sparks of light that fountained dirt upward, followed by the noise. That did sound like an earthquake. Komanov had heard artillery fire before, and seen what the sh.e.l.ls do at the far end, but this was as different from that as an exploding oil tank was from a cigarette lighter.

"Comrade Colonel, our country is at war," Post Five Six Alfa reported to command. "I can't see enemy troop movement yet, but they're coming."

"Do you have any targets?" regiment asked.

"No, none at this time." He looked down into the bunker. His various positions could just give a direction to a target, and when another confirmed it and called in its own vector, they'd have a pre-plotted artillery target for the batteries in the rear- -but those were being hit already. The Chinese rockets were targeted well behind him, and that's what their targets had to be. He turned his head to see the flashes and hear the booms from ten kilometers back. A moment later, there was a fountaining explosion skyward. One of the first flight of Chinese rockets had gotten lucky and hit one of the artillery positions in the rear. Bad news for that gun crew, Komanov thought. The first casualties in this war. There would be many more . . . perhaps including himself. Surprisingly, that thought was a distant one. Someone was attacking his country. It wasn't a supposition or a possibility anymore. He could see it, and feel it. This was his country they were attacking. He'd grown up in this land. His parents lived here. His grandfather had fought the Germans here. His grandfather's two brothers had, too, and both had died for their country, one west of Kiev and the other at Stalingrad. And now these c.h.i.n.k b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were attacking his country, too? More than that, they were attacking him, Senior Lieutenant Valeriy Mikhailovich Komanov. These foreigners were trying to kill him, his men, and trying to steal part of his country.

Well, f.u.c.k that! he thought.

"Load HE!" he told his loader.

"Loaded!" the private announced. They all heard the breech clang shut.

"No target, Comrade Lieutenant," the gunner observed.

"There will be, soon enough."

"Post Five Nine, this is Five Six Alfa. What can you see?"

"We just spotted a boat, a rubber boat, coming out of the trees on the south bank . . . more, more, more, many of them, maybe a hundred, maybe more."

"Regiment, this is Fifty-six Alfa, fire mission!" Komanov called over the phone.

The gunners ten kilometers back were at their guns, despite the falling Chinese sh.e.l.ls and rockets that had already claimed three of the fifteen gun crews. The fire mission was called in, and the preset concentration dialed in from range books so old they might as well have been engraved in marble. In each case, the high-explosive projectile was rammed into the breech, followed by the propellant charge, and the gun cranked up and trained to the proper elevation and azimuth, and the lanyards pulled, and the first Russian counterstrokes in the war just begun were fired.

Unknown to them, fifteen kilometers away a fire-finder radar was trained on their positions. The millimeter-wave radar tracked the sh.e.l.ls in flight and a computer plotted their launch points. The Chinese knew that the Russians had guns covering the border, and knew roughly where they would be-the performance of the guns told that tale-but not exactly where, because of the skillful Russian efforts at camouflage. In this case, those efforts didn't matter too greatly. The calculated position of six Russian howitzers was instantly radioed to rocket launchers that were dedicated counter-battery weapons. One Type-83 launcher was detailed to each target, and each of them held four monster 273-mm rockets, each with a payload of 150 kilograms of submunitions, in this case eighty hand grenade-sized bomblets. The first rocket launched three minutes after the first Russian counter-fire salvo, and required less than two minutes of flight time from its firing point ten kilometers inside Chinese territory. Of the first six fired, five destroyed their targets, and then others, and the Russian gunfire died in less than five minutes.

Why did it stop?" Komanov asked. He'd seen a few rounds. .h.i.t among the Chinese infantry just getting out of their boats on the Russian side of the river. But the shriek of sh.e.l.ls overhead pa.s.sing south had just stopped after a few minutes. "Regiment, this is Five Six Alfa, why has our fire stopped?"

"Our guns were taking counter-battery fire from the Chinese. They're trying to get set back up now," was the encouraging reply. "What is your situation?"

"Position Five-Zero has taken a little fire, but not much. Mainly they're hitting the reverse slope of the southern ridge." That was where the fake bunkers were, and the concrete lures were fulfilling their pa.s.sive mission. This line of defenses had been set up contrary to published Russian doctrine, because whoever had set them up had known that all manner of people can read books. Komanov's own position covered a small saddle-pa.s.s through two hills, fit for advancing tanks. If the Chinese came north in force, if this was not just some sort of probe aimed at expanding their borders-they'd done that back in the late 1960s-this was a prime invasion route. The maps and the terrain decided that.

"That is good, Lieutenant. Now listen: Do not expose your positions unnecessarily. Let them in close before you open up. Very close." That, Komanov knew, meant a hundred meters or so. He had two heavy machine guns for that eventuality. But he wanted to kill tanks. That was what his main gun had been designed to do.

"Can we expect more artillery support?" he asked his commander.

"I'll let you know. Keep giving us target information."

"Yes, Comrade Colonel."

For the fighter planes, the war began when the first PLAAF crossed over the Amur. There were four Russian fighter-interceptors up, and these, just like the invaders, were Sukhoi-27. Those on both sides had been made in the same factories, but the Chinese pilots had triple the recent flight time of the defending Russians, who were outnumbered eight to one.

Countering that, however was the fact that the Russian aircraft had support from the USAF E-3B Sentry AWACS aircraft, which was guiding them to the intercept. Both sets of fighters were flying with their target-acquisition radars in standby mode. The Chinese didn't know what was out there. The Russians did. That was a difference.

"Black Falcon Ten, this is Eagle Seven. Recommend you come right to new course two-seven-zero. I'm going to try an' bring you up on the Chinese from their seven o'clock." It would also keep them out of Chinese radar coverage.

"Understood, Eagle. Coming right to two-seven-zero." The Russian flight leader spread his formation out and settled down as much as he could, with his eyes tending to look off to his left.

"Okay, Black Falcon Ten, that's good. Your targets are now at your nine o'lock, distance thirty kilometers. Come left now to one-eight-zero."

"Coming left," the Russian major acknowledged. "We will try to start the attack Fox-Two," he advised. He knew American terminology. That meant launching infrared seekers, which did not require the use of radar, and so did not warn anyone that he was in harm's way. The Marquis of Queensberry had never been a fighter pilot.

"Roger that, Falcon. This boy's smart," the controller commented to his supervisor.

"That's how you stay alive in this business," the lieutenant colonel told the young lieutenant at the Nintendo screen.

"Okay, Falcon Ten, recommend you come left again. Targets are now fifteen kilometers . . . make that seventeen kilometers to your north. You should have tone shortly."

"Da. I have tone," the Russian pilot reported, when he heard the warble in his headset. "Flight, prepare to fire . . . Fox-Two!" Three of the four aircraft loosed a single missile each. The fourth pilot was having trouble with his IR scanner. In all cases, the blazing rocket motors wrecked their night vision, but none of the pilots looked away, as they'd been trained to do, and instead watched their missiles streak after fellow airmen who did not yet know they were under attack. It took twenty seconds, and as it turned out, two missiles were targeted on the same Chinese aircraft. That one took two hits and exploded. The second died from its single impact, and then things really got confusing. The Chinese fighters scattered on command from their commander, doing so in a preplanned and well-rehea.r.s.ed maneuver, first into two groups, then into four, each of which had a piece of sky to defend. Everyone's radar came on, and in another twenty seconds, a total of forty missiles were flying, and with this began a deadly game of chicken. The radarhoming missiles needed a radar signal to guide them, and that meant that the firing fighter could not switch off or turn away, only hope that his bird would kill its target and switch off his radar before his missile got close.

"d.a.m.n," the lieutenant observed, in his comfortable controller's seat in the E-3B. Two more Chinese fighters blinked into larger bogies on his screen and then started to fade, then another, but there were just too many of the Chinese air-to-air missiles, and not all of the Chinese illumination radars went down. One Russian fighter took three impacts and disintegrated. Another one limped away with severe damage, and as quickly as it had begun, this air encounter ended. Statistically, it was a Russian win, four kills for one loss, but the Chinese would claim more.

"Any chutes?" the senior controller asked over the intercom. The E-3 radar could track those, too.

"Three, maybe four ejected. Not sure who, though, not till we play the tape back. d.a.m.n, that was a quick one."

The Russians didn't have enough planes up to do a proper battle. Maybe next time, the colonel thought. The full capabilities of a fighter/AWACS team had never been properly demonstrated in combat, but this war held the promise to change that, and when it happened, some eyes would be opened.

CHAPTER 51.

Falling Back Senior Lieutenant Valeriy Mikhailovich Komanov learned something he'd never suspected. The worst part of battle-at least to a man in a fixed emplacement-was knowing that the enemy was out there, but being unable to shoot at him. The reverse slopes of the ridge to his immediate south had to be swarming with Chinese infantry, and his supporting artillery had been taken out in the first minutes of the battle. Whoever had set up the artillery positions had made the mistake of a.s.suming that the guns were too far back and too shielded by terrain for the enemy to strike at them. Fire-finder radar/computer systems had changed that, and the absence of overhead cover had doomed the guncrews to rapid death, unless some of them had found shelter in the concrete-lined trenches built into their positions. He had a powerful gun at his fingertips, but it was one that could not reach over the hills to his south because of its flat trajectory. As envisioned, this defense line would have included leg infantry who'd depend on and also support the bunker strongpoints-and be armed with mortars which could reach over the close-in hills and punish those who were there but unseen behind the terrain feature. Komanov could only engage those he could see, and they- "There, Comrade Lieutenant," the gunner said. "A little right of twelve o'lock, some infantry just crested the ridge. Range one thousand five hundred meters."

"I see them." There was just a hint of light on the eastern horizon now. Soon there would be enough light to see by. That would make shooting easier, but for both sides. In an hour, his bunker would be targeted, and they'd get to see just how thick their armor protection really was.

"Five Six Alfa, this is Five Zero. We have infantry eleven hundred meters to our south. Company strength and moving north toward us."

"Very well. Do not engage until they are within two hundred meters." Komanov automatically doubled the shooting range at which he'd been trained to open fire. What the h.e.l.l, he thought, his crews would do that in their own minds anyway. A man thinks differently when real bullets are flying.

As if to emphasize that, sh.e.l.ls started landing on the crest immediately behind his position, close enough to make him duck down.

"So they see us?" his loader asked.

"No, they're just barraging the next set of hills to support their infantrymen."

"Look, look there, they're on top of false bunker One Six," the gunner said. Komanov shifted his gla.s.ses- Yes, they were there, examining the old KV-2 gun turret with its vertical sides and old 155-mm gun. As he watched, a soldier hung a satchel charge on the side and backed away. Then the charge went off, destroying something that had never worked anyway. That would make some Chinese lieutenant feel good, Komanov thought. Well, Five Six Alfa would change his outlook somewhat, in another twenty or thirty minutes.

The bad part was that now he had perfect targets for his supporting artillery, and those old six-inch guns would have cut through them like a harvester's scythe. Except the Chinese were still hitting those positions, even though the Russian fire had stopped. He called Regiment again to relay his information.

"Lieutenant," his colonel answered, "the supporting battery has been badly hit. You are on your own. Keep me posted."

"Yes, Comrade Colonel. Out." He looked down at his crew. "Don't expect supporting fire." The weapons of World War III had just destroyed those of World War I.