North Cape

There was plenty of evidence of past battles on the ground: numerous shell holes, trenches, shattered tanks and personnel carriers, and long stretches of churned mud left by maneuvering vehicles. A fierce battle must have swept through the area only yesterday, as several of the destroyed vehicles were still sending up thin columns of smoke from fire-blackened hulks. The snowfall of the preceding night had spread a thin layer of white over the battle area, but it had not been heavy enough to cover all traces. The overcast sky and the banked, heavy blue clouds to the east suggested another snowfall and fierce winds in a matter of hours, and he thanked the weather control satellite system that had provided the data that had brought him to the battle area before the new snowfall began.

Then, off to the right, at the base of a gentle slope, well hidden by a thicket of aspen, he caught a flicker of movement. Cutting out the autopilot, Teleman continued the zag around until he could make a straight pass. The ungainly 12o-foot A-17 pivoted delicately and!loped across the plain.

Watching the scope now rather than looking through the glasses, he could see a vehicle resembling a jeep jerk out of a stand of aspen and head erratically into the meadow. As he watched, the jeep struck a patch of thick, churned — mud *and bounced to a stop, thoroughly mired. The driver struggled to get out, then collapsed backward across the seat. From the padded uniform and hat, he was obviously Chinese.. Teleman cut in the autopilot again and checked the valley floor to the west with the binoculars while the aircraft resumed its interrupted search pattern. He had now been down in the valley at two hundred feet for a minute and a half. Safe-time was getting mighty short. Whatever that shell carried, he thought, they did not seem to care whether or not they hit their own troops as welL Then he saw what he had missed on his first and higher pass: a Soviet tank sat astraddle a point where several muddy tracks converged. Its turret gun was pointed in the direction of the hills off Teleman's starboard wing and he could plainly see two mortar emplacements concealed by its bulk. The powerful glasses showed figures clad in green Soviet uniforms, some with white snow coverings, scattered like dropped firewood. The turret hatch on the tank was open and he could see a body, half in, half out. Other troopers lying on the ground were twisted into grotesque postures, some still jerking spasmodically.

Teleman's first thought was of nerve gas. He 'keyed the telephoto lenses on the visual cameras to the scene and boosted the image Up on the scope, closing on the Mortar emplacement While he put the aircraft into a tight orbit at three hundred feet. He swore as he checked the chronometer readout. One more minute and he would have to get out whether he had everything or not. Now he could see the bodies of other soldiers, some in foxholes, some scattered around the meadow as if they had tried to stagger toward the river. The faint footprints in the fresh snow were silhouetted in the dawn sun, indicating unsteady trails. A single trooper lay on his back, arched over the lip of a foxhole, one arm thrown across a pile of mortar shells. His helmet had tumbled back off his head, leaving his face exposed to the dead light of the early sun. Teleman could even see the man's long blond hair stirring in the vagrant breeze that reinforced the prediction of the impending storm. The image of the hair registered subconsciously. Teleman peered at the face, framed in the scope: it was covered with blood and vomit and the eyes of the man were open, staring directly, it seemed, into the cameras. For a long moment Teleman could not tear his eyes away from the face as the cameras recorded the scene in minute detail. Then he broke the aircraft out of its orbit and dismissed the rest of the flight plan. He had all of the information he needed. judging from the evidence he had seen so far, the Chinese were using either gas or germ warfare.. For some reason, with the image of the dead Russian soldier's face before him, he was betting on bacteriological agents.

CHAPTER 6

Teleman wondered how many shells had been fired' before the satellite surveillance system had spotted the 210-mm cannon. This one appeared to have been timed for just after dawn; probably so, that the Chinese could gain a quick estimate of its effectiveness as well as initial Soviet reaction.

So far, there did not appear to be any. He checked the atmosphere sampling tanks and the lights glowed green, showing that the covers were sealed. Now it would be up to Washington to extract what they could from the samples.