World War III

The oil ignited with a rolling phhump as the brilliant grenade splatted in the black-snow. A wall of fire shot up, spreading out from the spot like waves from a stone dropped in a pond. The sun disappeared as suddenly as it had come, blotted out by the plumes of black smoke. The fire raced across men and machines like a terrible scourge. A vehicle blew up like a Roman candle, its exploding reserves of ammunition streaking the holocaust with trails of red tracer bullets. Men ran blindly in the confusion, gasping for air.

And Caffey fired into them. He was impervious to the wound that seeped blood into his eye, to Parsons, to the smoke that billowed up and engulfed everything around him. He just fired into them, one clip after another, spraying everything in front of him until he didn’t have anything left to shoot with and Parsons took the weapon away.

“I think that’s enough, Colonel,” he said grimly. “I think you proved your point.”

MOSCOW 1515 HRS

Rudenski paced the floor behind Madame Kortner. All the appropriate officials were present — Prime Minister Temienko, Foreign Minister Venchikof, Madame Kortner, Marshal Budner, and, of course, Gorny. He sat beside Venchikof. The chair at the head of the table — Rudenski’s place now — was vacant.

They were all waiting for Rudenski’s aide, KGB Colonel Suloff, formerly Major Suloff, lately released from custody by Gorny’s special police with all records of charges against him destroyed.

When he finally entered the room, Rudenski was nearly in a rage.

“Where have you been?” Rudenski bellowed. “We speak to the president in less than a quarter of an hour!” _

Suloff set his briefcase at Rudenski’s place at the table. “I am sorry, comrade General. The delay was unavoidable.”

“What does Vorashin say? He is at the pipeline, isn’t he?”

“We expect that he is, yes, sir.”

Rudenski frowned. “You expect? Is he or isn’t he? We must know, Colonel! What did he say?”

“Our last Communication was incomplete,” Suloff said. He glanced at Gorny. “Our last communication had the task force within sight of the objective, but”—he shook his head—”unaccountably, the transmission was cut off. We have tried to raise them again… we are still trying, comrade General, but so far we have not been successful. We think that the Americans are somehow jamming the radio frequency.”

“And how long ago was this transmission?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Then they are there,” Rudenski said confidently. He turned to Gorny. “The Americans think they are being clever. This trick will not work. The task force has reached its objective, comrades.”

Gorny got Suloffs attention by tapping a pencil. “When you say ‘within sight of the objective,’ what distance are we speaking of? A few hundred yards? A mile? Ten miles?”

Suloff didn’t look at him directly. “Within sight means very close, comrade Chairman.”

Gorny nodded. “Yes, of course,” he said politely. “I’d forgotten that.”

“It doesn’t matter where they were forty minutes ago,” Rudenski said angrily. “Only where they are now. And Colonel Vorashin’s command has reached the pipeline station. There was nothing to stop them.”

“Then why would the Americans interfere with the radio frequency now?” Gorny asked. “If they haven’t done it before, why now?”

“It does not matter, comrade Gorny,” Rudenski said. “When you speak to the president you may tell him that the station at White Hill is now under our control.” He glanced at the other faces around the table. “We are convinced that the task force is there.” He looked at Suloff. “And the Backfire bombers are airborne?”

“Yes, comrade General,” the colonel said with a nod. “They left their bases five minutes ago.”

“Good.” Rudenski sat in his chair. “Soon, comrades, we will add a new page to the history books.”

Gorny leaned toward him. “Just not the last page, eh, Aleksey,” he whispered.

THE WHITE HOUSE 1526 HRS

“Yes, I see,” McKenna said into the phone. He glanced at the anxious faces around the Oval Office.

The entire contingent from the Crisis Room was present plus Wayne Kimball, his administrative chief of staff. “You’ve been very helpful, Colonel. Thank you.” The president replaced the phone and stared at it a few moments before looking up. “TAG COM reports that they’ve just talked to Fairbanks. And Fairbanks just spoke to a Corporal Simms at Caffey’s command post. Caffey left this morning for White Hill. There hasn’t been any radio contact with him or his command since one o’clock… that’s one our time.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Mr. President,” Max Schriff from the army said.

“Colonel Caffey was instructed to call before two, General,” McKenna said. “He hasn’t called anyone.”

“He may have lost his radio,” Schriff added lamely.