Final impact

Nobody knew much at all about their capabilities. That the Soviets had built up their Pacific fleet over the last two years came as no surprise to anyone. The extent to which they had done so, however, came as a shock. As did the MiGs, the missile boats, the electronics systems. And the biggie, of course-that fucking nuke they’d busted on Lodz. What other nasty little surprises lay in store? With no intel coverage coming out of the USSR, she couldn’t say.

But while the full extent of Stalin’s capabilities might remain obscure, his intentions were not. Not to anyone with access to even a modest historical archive.

“Comm,” she said, “better dial up Fleetnet. See if you can get Spruance and Kolhammer for me. I think I’m gonna kick this one upstairs.”

“Excuse me, sir. You’re needed online.”

Kolhammer had been dreaming, pleasantly, of his wife. Marie had traveled to Germany to meet him when he flew into Ramstein, after his stint as the UN administrator in Chechnya. They’d flown straight out to Italy and enjoyed four wonderful weeks together in Rome, staying in a small penzione off Piazza Navona.

He’d been dreaming of a cafй where they’d had a late breakfast every morning in the local style. A coffee, a pastry, and a look around. Kolhammer awoke from the memory, lying fully clothed on the couch in his quarters. He hadn’t even made it into bed.

“Coffee, sir. NATO standard.”

“Thanks, Paterson,” he rasped, his voice thick with sleep. “Online you said?”

“On the screen at your desk, sir. Captain Willet and Admiral Spruance.”

“Okay. How long did I nap?”

“Hour and a half, sir.”

He dragged himself up and over to his desk. Marie was smiling out of the photo he always kept there, and in his disoriented, half-waking state, he thought for just a moment that when he was finished he might be able to sneak down to the cafй with her.

Damn.

The image of the Australian submariner and another of his task force commanders brought him back to reality with an unpleasant tug. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I was stacking a few Z’s.”

“Me, too,” Spruance grunted.

“My apologies, gentlemen,” said Captain Willet, who looked disconcertingly wide awake, “but you need to be in on this. I’m trailing the Japanese Combined Fleet, away from the Kurils. They’re withdrawing south after finishing off the last of Yumashev’s guys. I have target locks on a couple of carriers and Yamamoto’s big gunboats. The Yamato and Musashi. I have enough warshots to take them down, and probably to sort out the rest of his capital ships, too. But…”

In the window on Kolhammer’s fifty-eight-centimeter flatscreen, Jane Willet shrugged and raised her hands.

He flicked a quick glance across at Spruance, trying to read his expression. The admiral still looked tired, and vaguely pissed off.

“So what’s the question?” Spruance asked. “You don’t need permission to fire on the enemy, Captain Willet. We only have one rule of engagement. Destroy them. In the absence of further directions from Washington-or in your case Canberra-I don’t see the dilemma. Just do your duty and sink them.”

With her eyes Willet flashed an unspoken plea at Kolhammer.

“I don’t know that we should be so hasty, Admiral,” he said. “As I recall, nobody thought Soviet occupation of Japan was a good idea. If Captain Willet takes these guys down, the odds are that we’ll have to deal with a Communist-controlled Japan before long.”

He could see that Spruance wasn’t happy. His mouth was pressed into a thin, straight line, and he bit down on his frustration. “I know you think differently of the Japs, Admiral Kolhammer. But we are still at war with them. They are trying to kill us. They did invade Hawaii, and slaughter tens of thousands of innocent people. If we let them wriggle off the hook and God forbid they get hold of an atomic weapon, they won’t hesitate to use it. So I say again, in the absence of different orders, we have no decision to make. We have only our duties to perform, and that means sinking those ships.”

Kolhammer refused to give up easily. “Under normal circumstances that would be undeniable,” he said. “But I can assure you that the Politburo won’t be doing business as normal for the next few weeks. This isn’t just a military struggle to them-it’s a political one, and they are maneuvering their military forces for political effect. Hokkaido is part of that.”

He leaned forward and looked directly into the minicam on the top of his monitor.

“Admiral. If those red bastards get in there, we’ll have the devil’s own job getting them out. We’re not just talking about the next couple of weeks. This is about the next hundred years. Perhaps even the next thousand. Yes, we are at war with Japan. Yes, there will have to be a heavy reckoning for what they’ve done. But we are also in the early stages of an even longer war with international Communism, and Captain Willet is right to question whether or not the demands of the first conflict supersede those of the second.