have the advantage. Our men are not off skiing in the fucking Alps! Zhukov-4 is designed to cycle from peace to war in forty-eight hours. There is no way possible for NATO to react in so little time. They’ll take forty-eight hours to get their intelligence information organized and presented to their ministers. By that time our shells will be falling on the Fulda Gap, and our tanks will be advancing behind them!”
“Too many things can go wrong!” CINC-West rose so swiftly that the towel nearly came off his waist. His left hand grabbed downward while his right fist shook at the younger man. “What about traffic control? What about training our men in their new battle equipment? What about getting my Frontal Aviation pilots ready for combat operations against the Imperialists? There—right there is an insurmountable problem! Our pilots need at least a month of intensive training. And so do my tankers, and so do my gunners, and so do my riflemen.”
If you knew your job, they would be ready now, you worthless, whore-chasing son of a bitch! Alekseyev thought but did not dare to say aloud. CINC-West was a man of sixty-one who liked to demonstrate his manly prowess—boasted of it—to the detriment of his professional duties. Alekseyev had heard that story often enough, whispered jovially in this very room. But CINC-West was politically reliable. Such is the Soviet system, the younger general reflected. We need fighting soldiers and what do we get with which to defend the Rodina? Political reliability! He remembered bitterly what had happened to his father in 1958. But Alekseyev did not allow himself to begrudge the Party its control of the armed forces. The Party was the State, after all, and he was a sworn servant of the State. He had learned these truisms at his father’s knee. One more card to play:
“Comrade General, you have good officers commanding your divisions, regiments, and battalions. Trust them to know their duties.” It couldn’t hurt to wave the standards of the Red Army, Alekseyev reasoned.
Rozhkov stood, and everyone in the room strained to hear his pronouncement. “What you say has merit, Pavel Leonidovich, but do we gamble with the safety of the Motherland?” He shook his head, quoting doctrine exactly, as he had been doing for too many years. “No. We rely on surprise, yes, on the first weighted blow to blast open a path for the daring thrust of our mechanized forces. And we will have our surprise. The Westerners will not wish to believe what is happening, and with the Politburo soothing them even as we prepare the first blow, we will have our strategic surprise. The West will have perhaps three days—four at most—to know what is coming, and even then they will not be mentally prepared for us.”
The officers followed Rozhkov from the room to rinse the sweat from their bodies with cold-water showers. Ten minutes later, refreshed and dressed in full uniform, the officers reassembled in a second-floor banquet room. The waiters, many of them KGB informers, noted the subdued mood and quiet conversations that frustrated their efforts to listen in. The generals knew that KGB’s Lefortovo prison was a bare kilometer away.
“Our plans?” CINC-Southwest asked his deputy.
“How many times have we played this war game?” Alekseyev responded. “All the maps and formulae we have examined for years. We know the troop and tank concentrations. We know the routes, the highways, the crossroads that we must use, and those that NATO will use. We know our mobilization schedules, and theirs. The only thing we don’t know is whether our carefully laid plans will in fact work. We should attack at once. Then the unknowns will work against both sides equally.”
“And if our attack goes too well, and NATO relies on a nuclear defense?” the senior officer asked. Alekseyev acknowledged the importance and grave unpredictability of the point.
“They might do that anyway. Comrade, all of our plans depend
“Too many things can go wrong!” CINC-West rose so swiftly that the towel nearly came off his waist. His left hand grabbed downward while his right fist shook at the younger man. “What about traffic control? What about training our men in their new battle equipment? What about getting my Frontal Aviation pilots ready for combat operations against the Imperialists? There—right there is an insurmountable problem! Our pilots need at least a month of intensive training. And so do my tankers, and so do my gunners, and so do my riflemen.”
If you knew your job, they would be ready now, you worthless, whore-chasing son of a bitch! Alekseyev thought but did not dare to say aloud. CINC-West was a man of sixty-one who liked to demonstrate his manly prowess—boasted of it—to the detriment of his professional duties. Alekseyev had heard that story often enough, whispered jovially in this very room. But CINC-West was politically reliable. Such is the Soviet system, the younger general reflected. We need fighting soldiers and what do we get with which to defend the Rodina? Political reliability! He remembered bitterly what had happened to his father in 1958. But Alekseyev did not allow himself to begrudge the Party its control of the armed forces. The Party was the State, after all, and he was a sworn servant of the State. He had learned these truisms at his father’s knee. One more card to play:
“Comrade General, you have good officers commanding your divisions, regiments, and battalions. Trust them to know their duties.” It couldn’t hurt to wave the standards of the Red Army, Alekseyev reasoned.
Rozhkov stood, and everyone in the room strained to hear his pronouncement. “What you say has merit, Pavel Leonidovich, but do we gamble with the safety of the Motherland?” He shook his head, quoting doctrine exactly, as he had been doing for too many years. “No. We rely on surprise, yes, on the first weighted blow to blast open a path for the daring thrust of our mechanized forces. And we will have our surprise. The Westerners will not wish to believe what is happening, and with the Politburo soothing them even as we prepare the first blow, we will have our strategic surprise. The West will have perhaps three days—four at most—to know what is coming, and even then they will not be mentally prepared for us.”
The officers followed Rozhkov from the room to rinse the sweat from their bodies with cold-water showers. Ten minutes later, refreshed and dressed in full uniform, the officers reassembled in a second-floor banquet room. The waiters, many of them KGB informers, noted the subdued mood and quiet conversations that frustrated their efforts to listen in. The generals knew that KGB’s Lefortovo prison was a bare kilometer away.
“Our plans?” CINC-Southwest asked his deputy.
“How many times have we played this war game?” Alekseyev responded. “All the maps and formulae we have examined for years. We know the troop and tank concentrations. We know the routes, the highways, the crossroads that we must use, and those that NATO will use. We know our mobilization schedules, and theirs. The only thing we don’t know is whether our carefully laid plans will in fact work. We should attack at once. Then the unknowns will work against both sides equally.”
“And if our attack goes too well, and NATO relies on a nuclear defense?” the senior officer asked. Alekseyev acknowledged the importance and grave unpredictability of the point.
“They might do that anyway. Comrade, all of our plans depend
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