It also mattered that the tenuous Soviet supply line from west of the Urals to Manchuria was overloaded and could not sustain Vasilevsky's entire army with food, fuel, and ammunition. When the Siberian winter closed down roads and rail lines, choices had to be made as to which areas would be supported by the limited resources, and sustaining operations in China was the choice.

Vasilevsky had halted his operations in Korea while focusing his efforts in China and had been pleased with the results. Beijing and Shanghai had fallen along with a number of other major cities, and the Soviets still drove southward.

But now, as he watched the columns of antlike figures cross the pontoon bridges of the Han River, Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky was no longer quite so pleased with his success. That was because Lazar Kaganovich stood beside him on the frozen hill overlooking the Han. Kaganovich was the deputy premier of the Soviet Union, theoretically second only to Joseph Stalin.

The fifty-year-old Vasilevsky had originally been a czarist officer and had, before that, even studied for the priesthood. Both occurred before the Revolution, which, when it came, he endorsed with fervor. With his background, along with his tendency to be cultured rather than affect the crudeness of so many other Soviet officers, Vasilevsky had never felt comfortable in the inner circles of the Soviet hierarchy.

Even though Stalin himself had once considered taking holy orders, Vasilevsky was still concerned that his relatively elitist background might come back to haunt him. He had worked closely with Stalin and knew that he had the power of death at his whim. Vasilevsky's command at the far end of the Soviet empire pleased him because it meant he was far from the reaches of Joseph Stalin and the murderous intrigues of the Soviet empire.

However, Lazar Kaganovich's presence on the Korean hill meant that Stalin had reached out to him. To some people, the huge but cadaverous-looking Kaganovich personified evil. Years earlier, he had delivered his own teenage daughter to be seduced by Stalin, then permitted his own brother to be executed. Kaganovich had further demonstrated his loyalty to Stalin when he orchestrated the death by starvation of the millions of prosperous farmers, the kulaks, whose continuing prosperity insulted the egalitarian ideals of communism. As deputy premier to a man who kept everything to himself, Kaganovich's main role was to be Stalin's executioner.

"Does the sight please you?" Kaganovich asked.

Vasilevsky wondered how any man could permit Stalin to flick his own daughter, murder his brother, and still work for him. Kaganovich's degree of devotion to Stalin was frightening.

"Indeed it does, comrade, as does anything Comrade Stalin wishes."

"Some might say that we are letting the Japanese get away," he said, gesturing to the columns of Japanese infantry that moved across the bridges in plain sight and under scores of silent Soviet guns.

Vasilevsky recognized the clumsy probe and deflected it. "Anyone who felt that way would be disloyal. Comrade Stalin knows what he is doing and has proven that many times over."

"Good. Even though we all felt you would understand and comply, it was considered important enough that I come here to bring you the message in person."

"I understand." Vasilevsky also understood that the penalty for hesitation in complying with Stalin's order would have been a bullet to the brain from Kaganovich's pistol. It had been widely rumored that Stalin had gotten Kaganovich's daughter pregnant as a result of the seduction. Vasilevsky wondered what had happened to the unfortunate girl and her bastard child. He doubted that either still lived.

Yet, despite his personal and unrevealed misgivings, Vasilevsky had to admire the audacity of the new situation. Kaganovich's message was that Stalin had reached a secret accord with the Japanese government. Under it, the Red armies in Korea would halt in place and safe passage through the Russian lines would be granted to the Japanese forces in China and other parts of Asia. The results of the agreement were below Vasilevsky. Long lines of Japanese soldiers, including many taken prisoner in the preceding battles, were crossing over the Han and back into Japanese control.

"Comrade Kaganovich, how long do you think the secret of the accord will endure?"

Kaganovich's laugh was a sharp cackle. "Long enough for many tens of thousands of Japanese to escape to Korea, and long enough for us to tilt the balance of the war of liberation against the corrupt Chiang Kai-shek regime in the favor of Mao Tse-tung's Marxist forces. Then, like Poland and eastern Germany, we will present the United States with a fait accompli which they can only undo by force of arms. They will not fight for China any more than they will for Poland or any other country we desire to control."

"Do we care what ultimately happens to the Japanese crossing our lines? Have we made further arrangements to get them to Japan itself?"

"We care nothing about them," Kaganovich snarled. "Once the stinking yellow shits are across the Han, they are Japan's problem. Let the Americans bomb them to pieces when they try to cross the straits to Honshu and Kyushu. But those that do make it to their home islands will go on fighting and further weaken the United States by the casualties they will inevitably inflict. This is all part of Comrade Stalin's grand plan. He is delighted when the capitalist nations such as Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States fight each other. Each battle between them weakens them all and makes the ultimate victory of communism that much more likely to occur soon.

"Japan," Kaganovich continued, "cannot win this war no matter what awful weapons she decides to use. All she can do is make her defeat and destruction all the more absolute. At the same time, she will drag the United States down with her. After a while, we shall take over the remainder of Korea and excise the Japanese army with as much difficulty as I would have squeezing a ripe yellow pimple. Then we will be in a position to take over Japan itself once the Americans are through exacting their revenge."

Vasilevsky shivered and it wasn't from the cold. What if the American reaction to this betrayal by Russia was not what Stalin predicted. The Americans had the atomic bomb. Would they use it in revenge against the Soviet Union? He shivered again. If that occurred, millions would be slaughtered and the fighting might go on forever. What kind of world might be left for the descendants of Lenin's cause to inherit?

Chapter 47

Adm. Chester Nimitz greeted Gen. Omar Bradley with his usual casual cordiality. Bradley had been about to salute the five-star Nimitz when he found his hand grasped firmly and shaken by the admiral.

"Good to see you, General." Nimitz's smile was wide and sincere. It was easy for Bradley to respond in kind.

Bradley had been in the air in a miscellany of transports and bombers for what seemed an eternity and had not, other than for catnaps, had much sleep in the last couple of days. Arrival at the Okinawan air base had energized him. Overflying the island, now an even vaster military camp than it had been prior to the invasion of Kyushu, he had been reminded of the vast accumulation of men and matériel in England just before the Normandy landings. Better yet, the affable Nimitz seemed genuinely pleased to have him here to take over control of the suddenly leaderless army and its accumulating woes.

They walked briskly to a hangar that Nimitz had converted into an instant meeting area. Bradley had flown with only a few lower-ranking aides, and Nimitz, seeing that his own staff outnumbered and outranked Bradley's, sent most of his men away. Such tact and concern were typical of Nimitz, and Bradley wondered if Mac Arthur had ever appreciated it.