Invasion: Alaska (58 page)

The commissar was militarily a fool, an incompetent and a coward. The Americans had used a nuclear torpedo, destroying a forward supply base. Chinese submarines now hunted the Americans under the pack ice. So far, it had kept the enemy from using another such weapon. Meanwhile, American Special Forces driving snowmobiles had raided other supply dumps. Those teams likely also spotted for the submarines.

Because of nuclear weapons, Nung’s fighters and bombers flew from base camps hundreds of kilometers away from where they should be. It took them longer to reach the North Slope now and engage the American aircraft. Because of the distance, the Chinese planes had a much shorter window over the targets. Nung had ordered the airstrips moved closer, but the Air Force general in charge of the planes had refused, saying he couldn’t risk it until the American snowmobile teams were destroyed. Foolishly and by now predictably, Commissar Yongzheng had agreed with the man’s cowardly decision.

Nung had an insane desire to draw his pistol and empty the clip into the ice. Despite the nuclear-tipped torpedo and snowmobiles, Commissar Yongzheng had insisted they follow Army doctrine on a cross-polar assault.

Yet why bother with forward supply dumps now? It would have been better by far to allow the supplies to gather in one location four hundred kilometers from the coast. Once the tail coiled up and the formations gathered, they would spring to Dead Horse and ANWR. It was a risk, and the American submarines might find the large base and launch their torpedoes. But with everything in one locale, every spotter and helicopter could comb the ice for the snowmobile teams. Locate and destroy. As it was, the crafty Americans used the many seams between small formations to slip here and there. To be sure, they had killed seven such snowmobile teams already, but the American submarines kept launching more.

Taunting Commissar Yongzheng had insisted they scatter the taskforce in order to make it difficult for the Americans to take them out at a blow. What had happened instead was a hopeless muddle, with too much fuel used scattering units and transshipping supplies back and forth in a useless game of chess with the Americans. Now supplies were drying up and they were no closer to the Alaskan coast.

Nung shook his head as a cargo helicopter came in from the north for a landing. The last thing he wanted to do now was enter the command tank with Yongzheng. He loathed the East Lightning commissar. All these fine vehicles given him to command and he was shackled in their use. It simply made no sense!

He had done a Hannibal, referring to the great ancient general who had brought his elephants and cavalry over the Alps. The alpine, winter trek had cost Hannibal dearly, and it had cost the cross-polar taskforce. The deadly weather and extreme distance had brought endless headaches and equipment failures. Now the supplies from Ambarchik across this stretched line had dropped to a trickle. That had surprised Nung most of all. He had left Lieutenant-General Bojing in charge back at base. What could have happened to turn Bojing into such an incompetent?

Heavyset Nung stared at the command snowtank. These specialized vehicles were a marvel of Chinese engineering. Each snowtank had two main sections connected by a hydraulic ram. To facilitate climbing snowy slopes such as awaited them in Alaska, the center of gravity was just back of center. Normal tanks would flip or slide on such snowy terrain, quickly rendering them helpless. The snowtank had four independent track sections that helped stabilize the vehicle. The tracks themselves were rubber-rimmed to prevent the wheels turning the tracks from freezing. The articulated tank with its aluminum alloy treads and high-adhesion track-cleats allowed it to travel forty kph on hard ice or flat rock. On the pack ice, it only moved at a miserable seven kph. Otherwise, the snowtank would create too great of a wave-action under the ice. With its weight, that wave-action could crack or splinter the ice. The snowtank’s rear compartment was armed with an ATGM-launcher. The front used the same type of cannon as the hovertanks: a 76mm gun with rocket-assisted shells. The snowtank was built light, with a ground pressure of two psi, one third that of a Marauder tank.

The cargo helicopter from the north had landed. The side door opened and men rushed out, shouting his name.

General Nung sighed and waved.
Now what?
Soon, the men stumped near. Nung looked in shock. Despite the parka, hood and goggles, one of the men reminded him of Bojing, his logistics master back at Ambarchik Base. Then the man shouted his name, confirming his identity.

“Bojing?” asked Nung. “What in blazes are you doing here on the ice? You’re supposed to be back at Ambarchik, making sure I receive my supplies.”

Bojing told him an incredible tale. It began with Ruling Committee Minister Jian Shihong sending Bojing out here to give a verbal for-his-ears-only command. The longer Bojing talked, the more incensed Nung became.

“They’re berating
me
for not attacking?” Nung said at last, his face feeling like an oven, he was so angry.

“Yes, sir,” said Bojing. “By the way, sir, I’m also to report that your wife and children are safe. East Lightning no longer has them.”

Nung blinked, with his mind awhirl with a hundred questions. Finally, he thundered, “Why in the name of Mao didn’t you radio all this to me?”

“It was the Chairman’s orders, sir. This could only be relayed to you by face-to-face contact. I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner, but my plane crashed and we waited days for rescue. Then my next plane was left stranded at an airstrip as we awaited more fuel. Here at the end, I had a hard time discovering which of these little bases you were at last.”

Nung ingested Bojing’s story. It encapsulated what had happened to the entire taskforce. What had started out so well had turned into a tangled fiasco. Distance plus equipment-failure plus an alien terrain— “If you’re out here,” Nung said, “who is running my supplies back at Ambarchik?”

“I believe that Minster Jian Shihong has taken that upon himself, sir.”

Nung wanted to shout. The Ruling Committee itself was sabotaging his efforts? He shook his head, trying to clear it of anger. They actually accused
him
of cowardice. They accused him of holding back when all this time he’d wanted to attack.

“Come with me,” Nung said in a thick voice. He strode for the command snowtank. Bojing trotted after him, with the others he’d brought trailing behind.

“What are you planning, sir?” asked Bojing.

Nung removed his right mitten and drew his pistol. The metal was freezing cold, but that felt good now. Nung could no longer speak and his eyes seemed to spark with emotions. He fumbled with the hatch, clicked it and opened the way into the command-tank. He squeezed through.

Commissar Yongzheng played cards with his bodyguard. The commissar looked up, and he must have seen something on Nung’s face. Yongzheng dove as he shouted for his bodyguard to save him.

Nung’s pistol barked three times. The bodyguard with eyes like oil slid to the tank’s floor.

Yongzheng was openly weeping. His mouth moved, but Nung couldn’t hear a thing because his ears were still ringing from the shots. Maybe the commissar finally found it impossible to taunt him, found it impossible to articulate the words he attempted to speak.

“Give me one of your sayings now!” roared Nung, his breath misting.

Once more, Commissar Yongzheng tried to speak.

Smiling with malice, Nung raised his pistol. A deafening boom sounded. He kept firing until he was out of bullets. Then he shoved the pistol into its holster. Yongzheng’s corpse was a bloody, twisted pile of meat. Nung climbed out of the tank and turned to a stunned Bojing.

“They want me to attack?” Nung asked.

Bojing only seemed capable of nodding.

“Then I name this as our central depot,” Nung said. “You’re in charge of supplies.”

“The American submarines…” said Bojing.

“I know all about them,” Nung said. “We’ll widen our defensive cordon.”

“You’re going to attack how, sir?”

“It won’t be anything fancy. A two-tier wave assault will do it. The hovertanks will go in immediately, with the snowtanks following as fast as they can. All the while, our air will pound the Americans and our helicopters will drop infantry onto the North Slope.”

“You’re too far away to do that from here,” said Bojing. “And if you start now, the hovertanks will outstrip the snowtanks by days.”

“I said it isn’t fancy,” Nung said. “It’s either stay on the ice and wait for the Americans to explode it out from under our feet, or fight and die against the enemy. Well, I’m going to choose the third way.”

“What is that, sir?”

“Fight and break through to the oilfields,” Nung said.

“Can we hold the oilfields once we take them?”

“We’ll worry about that once they’re ours. Until then, it’s just a moot question. Maybe our very capturing of them will cause the Americans to surrender. It’s what happened with the Siberians.”

Bojing licked his lips.

“Don’t tell me that the Americans aren’t Siberians,” Nung said. “I’m sick of hearing that.”

Hastily shaking his head, Bojing said, “No, no, of course not, sir. To the North Slope, to victory over the Americans.”

Nung’s eyes gleamed. At last, he could do things his way. He was badly out of position thanks to Commissar Yongzheng and Army High Command that had saddled him with the mincing coward. But he wasn’t going to complain. He was going to attack fast the way it should have been done in the first place.

AMBARCHIK, EAST SIBERIA

“It’s the Chairman, sir,” the communications officer told Jian Shihong. “He’s asking for you personally. He must know you’re here.”

Jian swallowed. “I will take the message in my office.”

He noticed the rest of the officers of the communications staff staring at him. Forcing heartiness into his bearing, Jian glanced around. As soon as he closed the door behind him, however, Jian closed his eyes.

How I am supposed to play this? I never imagined that Bojing was such a bumbling idiot and couldn’t find his way to Nung
. He’d been waiting a long time to hear that everything proceeded as planned. What had happened to that fool Bojing?

Licking his lips, Jian told himself that instead of Bojing it could have been
him
lost out on the Arctic ice. It was a logistical nightmare keeping such a large body of troops supplied with their daily needs over thousands of kilometers of pack ice. The Army generals who had concocted this mess had no idea of the foolishness of their plan.

Jian shook his head. There was no way to explain all that to the Chairman now.

You need your wits, Jian. This is the moment
.

He sat down, cracked his knuckles and ran a hand through his hair. Then he turned on the monitor. The sickly Chairman regarded him on the screen.

Jian bowed with grave respect.

“It has been some time, Comrade,” the Chairman said.

“I have been hard at work carrying out your command, sir.” With those words, Jian realized that he would lie to the end. If needed, he’d make sure that everyone here who knew of his deception died. Yes, he’d slip their corpses through the ice. Let the seals and polar bears eat their carcasses.

“I am glad to see that you are safe after such a harrowing journey,” the Chairman said. “Yet why have I heard about any victory-news from you? Why did you sit so long on the pack ice?”

“I have lit a fire under General Nung, sir. I have also reorganized the supply situation. It was a—”

“Do not tell me what you did. Tell me when Nung is going to give me the oilfields. You’ve seen him. You’ve judged his competence. Has the American nuclear attack rendered him and the taskforce immobile?”

“I have taken pains,” Jian said, “to render the American submarines useless.”

“Explain that to me.”

“Firstly, sir, our submarines hunt the American vessels under the ice. Secondly, I have spread out the supply depots, making the targets unworthy of their limited nuclear torpedoes.”

“How does that help you attack Alaska?”

“We have carefully moved into attack position, sir,” Jian said. He hoped that was true.

The Chairman squinted at him, creating a thousand wrinkles on that old face. “You are to return to Beijing immediately. I want face-to-face news of Nung and news of conditions on the ice. As you no doubt have learned, a terrible storm blocks us from the final assault against Anchorage. Once the storm passes, Admiral Ling will hand me Anchorage, which he assures me will give us the rest of the State. If your General Nung can take the oilfields at the same time, I believe the Americans will capitulate.”

“I couldn’t agree more, sir,” Jian said.

“I want you here when the Americans plead for peace. If you’ve done your part and truly unleashed Nung, all will be well.”

“Yes, sir,” Jian said, bowing and wondering how he could free himself from this mess.

“Until tomorrow, Comrade, I wish you well.”

Jian bowed once more. When he looked up, the contact was broken. He turned and blinked at a wall. It had a tiny porthole window, showing the bleak winter landscape outside. He hated Ambarchik and the endless headaches involving Army supply. It was time for a purge here. It was good more of his personal security team had arrived. Yet he must do this carefully. He would have to think more on the matter.