World War III

The radio operator untangled himself from the microphone cord. “Yes, sir.” He got up from his place.

“Oh, sir, it’s a secure net call. There’ll be a two-second delay for the voice incoder/decoder between each transmission.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Caffey put the headphones on and sat in the operator’s chair. He ripped off a new page from the pad in front of him and found a pencil. “This is Gallant Entry Six, over.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Caffey?” The familiar voice sounded a very long way away. “This is the president speaking. Do you hear me all right?”

“Yes, sir. Loud and clear, sir. Over.” He wrote MCKENNA in block letters on the pad. He heard Cordobes’s intake of breath.

“Caffey, I don’t have time to learn correct radio procedure or worry about who is listening in here, if anyone can. Just bear with me. I have to talk to you straight and I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same.

Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“First, what is the accurate head count up there?”

Caffey took the clipboard Kate was holding. “Ninety-three warm bodies. Five officers. Thirteen NCOs.

All the rest are part-timers, sir. Guardsmen.”

“They’re full-timers now, Colonel. They’ve just been federalized. You can break the news to them.”

“I already have.”

“Good.” There was a brief pause. “How many men did you lose today, Colonel?”

“Four.”

“Four?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sorry about General Roberts, Colonel.”

“I’m sorry about all of them, sir.”

“Yeah… you’re right. That was dumb of me. Look, Caffey, I’ve got a hell of a dirty job for you and more of your people are going to die. They tell me down here that you’re a tough cookie. They’d better be right because you’re all we’ve got at the moment. Savvy?”

“I think I get the drift.”

“The problem is, Colonel, that the Soviets have denied the incursion.”

“Denied! They can’t deny it!”

“Shut up and listen, Caffey. Of course they can deny it. Governments can do anything they like.”

“There is a heavily armed Soviet task force out here, sir. You can believe that.”

“They are not Soviets until I tell you they are. Do you understand that?

“No, sir. I don’t understand it.” He wrote FUCKING POLITICS! on the pad.

“What I’m trying to avoid, Caffey, is a war. Do you think you can understand that?”

“These are Russians, sir. They’re in the United States. They’ve killed sixteen people that I know of, including the commanding general of this command, who had his brains blown out ten hours ago. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think except to react to this as a definitely hostile action by a large, war-minded task force of very well-trained cold weather troops. I have a small unit here with four choppers and not much else, but these men are ready to fight if that’s the dirty job you’re referring to.

I’m not a politician, Mr. President. I don’t understand politics and I don’t particularly like politicians.

I’m a soldier. It’s the career I chose. So, if you have something you’d like me to do, sir, I’d like to get started.” Caffey took a long breath. He glanced up at Kate and Cordobes. Kate was smiling, shaking her head. The captain was white with astonishment.

“They told me you were a straight shooter, Caffey,” the president said after a moment. “They didn’t tell me you were articulate as well.”

“I just try to do my job, sir.”

“All right. They’re heading for the pipeline, Colonel. At White Hill. I want you to do what you can to slow them up.”

“How slow?”

“We don’t want them to reach it before the weather breaks.” There was a pause. “If you can peck at them, punch and run, keep them off balance until that lousy storm passes — I guarantee you a sky so full of F-16s you’ll swear it was a swarm of locusts.”

“When does the weather break?”

“The best estimate I have is three more days.”

“That’s a lot of pecking, sir.”

“Can you do it?”

Caffey scribbled on the pad. THREE DAYS. He stared at it several seconds. “Ask me again Thursday, Mr. President.”

The officers and noncoms sat in chairs or leaned against walls, each of them intent on the drawings Caffey had made on the small blackboard he’d found in the Joneses’ kitchen. It had been a long briefing

— Caffey had had a lot to say — and no one interrupted.

“And that’s it, in a nutshell, gentlemen,” Caffey was saying. “Each unit will have its own call sign.

When I call you you’d better be quick. All of us depend upon each unit doing his assigned job. We’re dead otherwise, and I mean that literally. I don’t care what you’ve been taught before. If it doesn’t agree with what I’ve outlined here it’s because we’re in a unique position. We don’t have any backup or support. We’re in this alone for the next seventy-two hours.” He glanced around the room. “Questions?”

A sergeant raised his hand.

“Go ahead.”

“Colonel, sir, ah, why not just set up ahead and just clobber the hell out of them when they come through a gorge? We could blast them to pieces. Couldn’t we… I mean—”