Fortunes of War (7 page)

Perhaps, Cassidy thought as he looked out the window to see if the tails were still waiting, the Japanese are too far from war. As it has for Americans, war for them has become an abstraction, an event of the historical past that students read about in school—dates, treaties, forgotten battles with strange names. War is no longer the experience of a whole people, the defining event of an entire generation. Today the only people with combat experience are a few professional soldiers, like Cassidy.

As a young man, he had flown in the Gulf War—he even shot down a MiG—and he dropped some bombs in Bosnia. His recollections of those days seemed like something remembered from an old B movie, bits and pieces of a past that was fragmentary, fading, irrelevant.

Today war is sold as a video game, Cassidy decided. Shoot at the bad guys and they fall down. If the score is too low, put in another coin and play the game again. You can't get hurt. You can't get
…dead!
All you can lose are a few coins.

Cassidy had to make a decision.

Kimura had called, had wanted to see him. The tails were out there. If he didn't go to the meet, Kimura was safe, for the time being anyway, and he would not learn what Kimura wanted the American government to know. On the other hand, if he went, he might be followed, despite his best efforts, and Kimura might wind up in prison, or worse. Hell, Cassidy might wind up in prison, which would really be a unique capstone for his Air Force career.

Jiro seemed to have a lot of faith in the U.S. government, Cassidy mused. Cassidy had long ago lost his. Still, Jiro had to do what he thought right. Indeed, he had an obligation to do so. That
is
what they teach at the Air Force Academy, isn't it?

He finished the beer, tossed the empty can into the trash. He belched.

Okay, Jiro. Ready or not, here I come.

 

Bob Cassidy was standing near the large incense burner at the Asakusa Temple when he saw Jiro Kimura buy a bundle of incense sticks.
He lit them at one of the two nearby braziers, then tossed them into the large burner. Cassidy went over and the two stood in the crowd, waving the holy smoke over their hair and face.

“I was followed,” Cassidy said in a low voice, “but I think I lost them.”

“Me, too. I've been riding the subways for an hour. Sorry I'm late.”

“They've tapped the phones at the embassy or your base.”

“Probably both places,” Jiro said under his breath. “They are very efficient.” He led the way to the water fountain, where he helped himself to a dipper, filled it with water, and sipped it.

“God only knows what you'll catch drinking out of that. You'll probably shit for a week. Your damn teeth are gonna fall out.”

“Uh-huh.” Jiro handed the dipper to the person behind him, then moved on. Few Japanese spoke English, so Cassidy's remarks didn't disturb anyone.

Jiro went into the Buddhist temple and tossed some coins into the offertory. He moved forward to the rail and prayed while Cassidy hung back.

At the door, he moved over beside Cassidy.

“It's Siberia. Our wing commander told us this morning in a secret intel briefing. In two weeks, he said.”

“He has a timetable?”

“Yes. We were told to be ready to tackle the Russian air force and destroy it.”

“Did he say why you are going?”

“Just what I've told you. Cryptic as hell, isn't it?”

Cassidy walked with Kimura out of the temple. They stood for a moment on the steps watching the people around the incense burner.

“Happy, aren't they?” Cassidy said.

Kimura didn't answer. He went back into the temple, to the fortune drawers on the right side of the altar.

“I may not see you before you go,” said Cassidy, who had followed Jiro back into the temple.

“You won't. Ten to one, when we go in tomorrow, they'll close the base, lock us up. It's a miracle they didn't think of that today.”

“Maybe they wanted to see who you would talk to.”

“Maybe,” Jiro muttered. He put a hundred-yen coin in the offering slot and picked up a large aluminum tube. He shook it, then turned it upside down and examined the opening. The head of a stick was just
visible there. He pulled it out. “Seventy-six,” he said, and put the stick back into the tube.

“I'm trying to tell you, amigo. They may already have burned you.”

“I wish to Christ we were back in the Springs.”

The sudden shift of subject threw Bob Cassidy. “Those were good times,” he said, because he could think of nothing else to say.

“With Sweet Sabrina,” Jiro said. He opened drawer number seventy-six and took out a sheet of paper. He closed the drawer, moved a couple of steps back, then glanced at the paper.

“Yeah,” Cassidy said. He had a lump in his throat.

Jiro didn't seem to notice. He folded up the paper and put it in his pocket. “We'll meet again someday. In this life or the next.”

“‘This life or the next,'” Cassidy echoed. The words gave him goose bumps—the cadets at the Academy used to say that to one another on graduation day.

He pointed toward Jiro's pocket, the paper from the drawer. “Was your fortune good?”

“No.”

Cassidy snorted. “That stuff is crap.”

“Yeah.”

“A racket for the monks, to get money from suckers.”

“I gotta go, Bob.”

“Hey, man.”

“Vaya con Dios.”

“You, too.”

Jiro Kimura turned and walked out of the temple. He kept going without looking back.

Bob Cassidy felt helpless. He was losing Jiro, too. Sabrina, little Robbie, now Jiro…

“This life or the next, Jiro.” A tear trickled down his cheek. He wiped it away angrily. He was losing everything.

 

The next morning Jiro went straight to the office of his commanding officer and knocked. When he was admitted, he told the colonel that he had been followed the previous night.

“I have no idea who that man was, sir, but I wish to make a report so that the incident may be investigated. I have never before been followed—that I know about anyway.”

The colonel was surprised. He apparently had not been told that Kimura was a suspicious character, Jiro concluded, or else he should be on the stage professionally. It was with a sense of relief that Jiro described the man in the train station.

“Perhaps this man wasn't really following you, Captain. Perhaps you are too suspicious.”

“Sir, that is possible. But I wish you would report the incident so that the proper authorities may investigate. In light of what the wing commander said yesterday…”

“Yes. Indeed. I will make a report, Captain Kimura. This incident should be investigated. Japan is filled with foreigners who cannot be trusted.”

On that illogical note, Jiro was dismissed.

And he was right about the base closure. Just before noon, the colonel called an officer's meeting and made the announcement that all officers and enlisted were confined to the base until further notice.

The first person in Russia to learn that Japan planned to invade Siberia was Janos Ilin, who heard the news an hour after the American national security adviser, Jack Innes, told the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Ilin got the news from a FIS officer in the Russian embassy in Washington. The FIS officer had much less bureaucracy to work through, so his news arrived in Moscow first.

Ilin was at his desk in the Foreign Intelligence Service—which had replaced the old KGB—building in Dzerzhinsky Square. He read the translation of the encrypted message completely and carefully, laid it on his desk, cleaned his glasses, lit an American cigarette, then read it again.

Janos Ilin was not a Communist. He wasn't anything. He was old enough and wise enough to know that the reason Russia was a sewer was because Russians lived there. In his fifty-five years on earth he had come to believe that in their heart of hearts, most Russians were selfish, lazy peasants who hated anyone with a ruble more than they had.

From Ilin's office window, looking above the tops of the buildings across the square, he could see the onion spires of the Kremlin.

These were the days of Kalugin, who now ruled the tattered remnants of the czars' empire. In truth, the empire that the Communists had inherited and held with grim determination for seventy-five years was now irretrievably gone; only Russia and Siberia remained. Still, Russia and Siberia were huge beyond imagination. In towns and villages and isolated cottages out in the vastness of the steppe, the long grass prairies, and the boreal and subarctic forests, Kalugin was just a name, a photo or flickering image on the television. Life went on pretty much as it had since the death of Stalin, when the secret police stopped dragging people away. The winters were still long and fierce, work hard, food scarce, vodka too plentiful.

Kalugin fought his way to the top, promising to restore Russia's glory and build an economic system that worked. His plan was to legitimize the vast criminal enterprises that were actually feeding, cloth
ing, and housing a significant percentage of the population, and making the people who ran them rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Kalugin was one of those rich ones. He could orate long and loudly on the glory of Mother Russia, and he had never paid a ruble in taxes. Now he was in the Kremlin, surrounded by men just like him.

Janos Ilin took a deep breath and sighed. War again. Against Mother Russia.

Now we find out what Kalugin is made of, he thought.

He finished his cigarette before he went to see the minister.

 

Washington, D.C., was overcast and dreary in the rain. The soldier at the wheel of the government sedan had little to say, which was just as well because Bob Cassidy was whacked from jet lag. He felt as if he hadn't slept in a week. His eyes burned, his skin itched, and he was desperate for a long, hot shower and a bed. Alas, it was six in the evening here and his orders were to proceed directly to the Pentagon. The driver had been waiting for him when he got off the plane at Dulles Airport.

He rode along for a while watching traffic, then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn't slept a wink on the all-night flight from Tokyo to Seattle, nor on the cross-continent flight to Dulles. He hated airliners, hated the claustrophobia brought on by being shoe-horned into too small a seat. But that was past. He felt himself relaxing as he enjoyed the motion of the car, the rhythm of the wipers.

“We're here, Colonel. Sir! We're here.”

Cassidy levered himself erect and looked around. The soldier was parked outside the main entrance, and he was offering Cassidy a security badge. “You need to show this to the security guard inside, sir.”

“You'll wait for me?”

“Yes, sir. I have your luggage. I'll wait right here.”

Cassidy took the security badge and climbed from the car. He paused to straighten his tie—he was wearing a civilian suit—then marched for the main entrance. The rain was still falling, a medium drizzle.

Inside, one of the security guards led him along endless gray corridors, up stairs, along more corridors. He was completely disoriented within two minutes. Once, through an open door, he saw a window that appeared to be on an outside wall, but he wasn't sure.

Finally, he arrived at a decorated corridor, one with blue paint and original artwork on the walls, carpet on the floor.

The security guard led him into a reception area, introduced him to a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, who asked him to take a seat for a minute. The marine disappeared into an office. In minutes, he was back. “It will be just a few minutes before the chairman can see you, Colonel. Could I offer you a soft drink or a cup of coffee?”

“Coffee would be perfect. Black, thank you.”

The headline in the newspaper on the table screamed at him:
SECRET MILITARY PROTOCOL WITH RUSSIA REVEALED
. Under the headline, smaller type said, “President committed U.S. to defense of Russia. Key congressional leaders approved secret pact.”

Tired as he was, Cassidy picked up the paper and read the story. When the marine returned with a paper cup full of steaming black fluid, Cassidy sipped gratefully as he finished the story. The marine waited patiently.

“Do you have a room where I could wash my face and brush this suit?”

“The general will see you in just a few minutes, sir. Believe me, you don't have to put on the dog for him. He knows you just got off the plane.”

They made small talk for several minutes; then the telephone buzzed. Thirty seconds later, Cassidy was shaking hands with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Stanford Tuck.

The marine aide left the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

They sat in leather chairs facing each other, on the same side of the large desk. “I'm sorry for the short notice, Colonel. Things are happening quickly, which is par for the course around here. I don't know just what they told you at the embassy in Tokyo, so let me summarize. It appears that Japan will invade Siberia in the very near future.”

Cassidy just nodded. Apparently the bigwigs believed Jiro's tale.

Tuck continued: “We project that Japan's new Zero fighter will destroy Russia's air force within a week, if the Russians are willing to keep sending their planes up to get shot down. Due to the dearth of decent roads in Siberia and the vast distances involved, both sides are going to have to rely on air transport for all their food, fuel, and ammo. Baldly, the side with air superiority will win.”

Tuck's gray eyes held Cassidy transfixed.

“It is doubtful if the United States will take sides in this regional conflict,” the general continued.

“I saw the story on the military protocol in the paper.”

Tuck gestured at the heavens. “We are toying with the idea of loaning Russia a dozen of our best fighters to take on the Zeros. That's where you come in.”

“What kind of airplanes, sir?”

“F-22 Raptors.”

“These will be American airplanes?”

“No. We are going to sell or trade them to the Russians. These will be Russian airplanes, and the Russians will hire qualified American civilians to fly them. They just don't know it yet.”

“When will they know it?”

“We'll bring this subject up after the shooting starts. You understand?”

Cassidy shook his head. “No, sir. I don't pretend to understand any of it.”

“A refreshing attitude. I'm not sure I understand much of it, either. Still, if we decide to go through with this proposal, your job, Colonel, would be to command the Russian F-22 squadron.”

Cassidy just stared. This trip to Washington had occurred on two hours' notice. No reason given, just a summons to be on the afternoon plane. He had speculated all the way across the Pacific, which was one reason he hadn't had any sleep. He had concluded that the folks in the Pentagon wanted to ensure they had everything he knew about the new Japanese Zero fighter. He certainly hadn't suspected this.

It occurred to him to ask, “Why me, sir?”

Stanford Tuck thought that a logical question. He said, “You know as much about Asia as any senior flight officer, and you are F-22—qualified, so we won't have to waste weeks teaching you how to fly the darn thing. Amazingly enough, when we put our criteria into the idiot box, your name was at the head of the very short list that popped out.”

“I don't know what to say, sir.”

“Don't say anything. That's normally best.” The general smiled.

“I'll have to think about it, sir. This is right out of the blue. I'm not sure I could do the job.”

Cassidy looked tired, the general thought.

“As you might suspect, there are political complications,” the general continued, “so there are some serious wrinkles. The political types think we are skirting dangerously close to the abyss if we have a serving U.S. officer in combat against a friendly power, so you'll have to retire from the Air Force.”

“Well, I—”

“Another is that the Air Force chief of staff doesn't want any of his active duty F-22 pilots resigning to accept commissions in the Russian air force. I think he's afraid of starting a precedent.”

The general's eyes solidified, like water freezing. “He didn't want to lose you, either, but he didn't have a choice. Still, the politicians don't want to ruffle the chief of staff's feathers—they're going to get quite enough flak over this as it is—so you'll have to get your recruits from Raptor-qualified folks who just got off active duty or retired. There aren't many retirees, but there are one or two you can talk to. We'll give you a list.”

Cassidy had recovered his composure and got the wheels going again. “Most of those people will have plans, sir. They're not just leaving active duty—they're going
to
something. They won't be interested in going to Siberia.”

“Your job is to recruit the people you need, out of uniform or in.” Tuck leaned forward and his voice hardened. “You let me know who you want, and I'll see that he or she is an available civilian pretty damn quick.”

“If I say yes, when would I start, General?”

“The politicians haven't committed to this adventure yet. They're considering it. I won't go along until more details are ironed out.”

“We'll need qualified maintenance people, intel, weather.”

Tuck nodded. “My aide, Colonel Eatherly, will go over the nuts and bolts with you. Fixing problems is what he does best. He can smooth the road, help straighten it out.”

“Maybe you should give him this job, sir,” Bob Cassidy said, and tried to grin. “I've never even been to Russia.”

Tuck got to his feet. “Go get some sleep, Colonel. Come see me in the morning, let me know what you think then. As I said, your name came up. The folks around here tell me you are F-22—qualified, you got us most of the info on the Zero, and you understand the Japanese as well as anyone in uniform. The U.S. ambassador to Japan highly recommends you, as do two of your old fighter bosses I've talked to. They tell me you can pull this off if anyone can. It's your decision.”

“I'll have to think about it, sir.”

As Stanford Tuck shook the colonel's hand, he said, “You're a professional fighter pilot, Cassidy; this will probably be all the war you'll ever get.”

The general looked Cassidy right in the eye. “It's going to be a genuine sausage machine. A lot of people are going to die. The process
will be damned unpleasant and ugly as hell. The elected leaders of your country refuse to declare war. Do you want to risk your life for Russia, for the Russians? Sleep on it. See me tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Everything we have discussed is top secret, Colonel.
Everything
.”

Out in the reception area, one of the enlisted people volunteered to lead Bob Cassidy toward the main entrance and the waiting car.

Combat. People dying.

Lord have mercy.

 

Kalugin looked like a wolf, an old gray wolf of the taiga from a Russian folk story. He had small black eyes and a fierce, hungry look that hid whatever thoughts were passing behind the features of his face.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Kalugin was a shrewd, calculating paranoid without morals, ethics, or scruples of any kind, a gangster willing to do whatever it took to enrich himself. He had no loyalty to anyone except himself. He was a perfect political animal, ready to strike any pose and make any promise that he thought his listeners wanted to hear.

Like politicians in Western democracies, he paid “experts” to tell him what it was “the people” wanted. He was willing, of course, to try to deliver on his promises, if the cost was low and the prospect of personal profit high. The man was a case study for those fools who believed that a politician's character didn't matter as long as he was on their side. The truth was that Kalugin had no side but his own: he was as ready to devour his supporters as he was his enemies.

Today he fixed that wolfish stare on the minister of foreign affairs, Danilov, as the minister expounded on the conversation in the White House between the American national security adviser and the Russian ambassador to the United States.

A vein in Kalugin's forehead throbbed visibly. Finally, he muttered, through clenched teeth, “The damned Americans are lying.”

“Mr. President—”

“They are lying, you doddering fool! They have lied to us ten thousand times and they are lying again. The Japanese are not stupid enough to get trapped in Siberia this winter. That icebox is the most inhospitable hell on this planet in winter, which is what, three, maybe three and a half months away? By October the temperatures will be below
freezing and dropping like a stone. Only Russians would be crazy enough to endure that bleak, frozen outhouse that God never visits. The damned Americans are lying. Again!”

“I think that—”