"Go on."

"Your idea to put experienced troops in the arriving C divisions has merit-anyone will see that. A number of such divisions are cycling through Moscow every day." Sergetov halted to allow his general to draw his own conclusions.

The General's whole body appeared to shudder. "Vanya, you are talking treason."

"We are talking about the survival of the Motherland-"

"Do not confuse the importance of your own skin with the importance of our country! You are a soldier, Ivan Mikhailovich, as am I. Our lives are expendable pawns-"

"For our political leadership?" Sergetov scoffed. "Your respect for the Party comes late, Comrade General."

"I hoped that your father could persuade the Politburo to a more moderate course of action. I did not intend to incite a rebellion."

"The time for moderation is long passed," Sergetov replied, speaking like a young Party chieftain. "My father spoke against the war, as did others, to no avail. If you propose a diplomatic solution, you will be arrested and shot, first for failing to achieve your assigned objective, second for daring to propose political policy to the Party hierarchy. With whom would you be replaced, and what would be the result? My father fears that the Politburo will lean towards a nuclear resolution of the conflict." My father was right, Sergetov thought, for all his anger at the Party, Alekseyev has served the State too long and too well to allow himself to think realistically of treason.

"The Party and the Revolution have been betrayed, Comrade General. If we do not save them, both are lost. My father says that you must decide whom and what you serve."

"And if I decide wrongly?"

"Then I will die, and my father, and others. And you will not have saved yourself."

He's right. He's right on all things. The Revolution has been betrayed. The idea of the Party has been betrayed-but-

"You try to manipulate me like a child! Your father told you that I would not cooperate unless you convinced me of the idealistic"-the General sputtered for a moment, seeking the right word-"rightness, rightness of your action."

"My father told me that you have been conditioned, just as the science of Communism says men can be conditioned. You have been told all your life that the Army serves the Party, that you are the guardian of the State. He told me to remind you that you are a man of the Party, that it is time for the people to reclaim the Party for themselves."

"Ali, this is why he conspires with the Director of the KGB!"

"Perhaps you would prefer that we have some bearded priests from the Orthodox Church, or some dissident Jews from the Gulag to make the revolution a pure one? We must fight with what we have." It was heady wine indeed for Sergetov to talk this way to a man with whom he had served under fire, but he knew that his father was right. Twice in fifty years, the Party had broken the Army to its will. For all their pride and power, the generals of the Soviet Army had as much instinct for rebellion as a lapdog. But once the decision is made, his father had told him... "The Rodina cries out for rescue, Comrade General."

"Don't tell me about the Motherland!" The Party is the soul of the people. Alekseyev remembered the slogan for a thousand repetitions.

"Then what of the children of Pskov?"

"The KGB did that!"

"Do you blame the sword for the hand that wields it? If so, what does that make you?"

Alekseyev wavered. "It is not an easy thing to overturn the State, Ivan Mikhailovich."

"Comrade General, is it your duty to carry out orders that will only bring about its destruction? We do not seek to overturn the State," Sergetov said gently. "We seek to restore the State."

"We will probably fail." Alekseyev took a perverse comfort in the statement. He sat down at his desk. "But if I must die, better that it should be as a man than a dog." The General took out a pad of paper and a pencil. He began to formulate a plan to ensure that they would not fail, and that he would not die until he had accomplished at least one thing.

HILL 914, ICELAND

They were good troops up there, Colonel Lowe knew. Nearly all of the division's artillery was lashing the hill, plus continuous air attacks, plus the battleships' five-inch guns. He watched his troops advancing up the steep slopes under fire from the remaining Russians. The battlewagons were close inshore, delivering VT proximity rounds from their secondary batteries. The shells exploded twenty feet or so from the ground in ugly black puffs that sprayed the hill with fragments, while the Marines' own heavy guns plowed up the hilltop. Every few minutes the artillery would stop for a moment to allow the aircraft to swoop in with napalm and cluster bombs-and still the Russians fought back.

"Now-move the choppers now!" Lowe ordered.

Ten minutes later, he heard the stuttering sound of rotors as fifteen helicopters passed his command post to the east, curving around the back side of the hill. His artillery coordinator called to halt the fire briefly as the two companies of men landed on the hill's southern rim. They were supported by SeaCobra attack choppers and advanced at a run toward the Russian positions on the northern crests.

The Russian commander was wounded, and his second in command was slow to realize that he had enemy troops in his rear. When he did, a hopeless situation became one of despair. The word got out slowly. Many of the Russian radios were destroyed. Some of the troopers never got the word and had to be killed in their holes. But they were the exceptions. Most heard the diminishing fire and saw the raised hands. With a mixture of shame and relief, they disabled their weapons and waited for capture. The battle for the hill had lasted four hours.

"Hill 914 does not answer, Comrade General," the communications officer said.

"It's hopeless," Andreyev muttered to himself His artillery was destroyed, his SAMs were gone. He'd been ordered to hold the island for only a few weeks, been promised seaborne reinforcement, been told that the war in Europe would last two weeks, four at the most. He'd held longer than that. One of his regiments had been destroyed north of Reykjavik, and now that the Americans had hill 914, they could see into the island's capital. Two thousand of his men were dead or missing, another thousand wounded. It was enough.

"See if you can raise the American commander on the radio. Say that I request a cease-fire and desire to meet with him at a place of his choosing."

USS NASSAU

"So, you're Beagle?"

"Yes, General." Edwards tried to sit up a little straighter in the bed. The tubes in his arm and the cast on his leg didn't help. The landing ship's hospital was full of wounded men.

"And this must be Miss Vigdis. They told me you were pretty. I have a daughter about your age."

The Navy corpsmen had gotten her clothes that nearly fit. A doctor had examined her and pronounced her pregnancy normal and healthy. She was rested and bathed; to Mike and everyone else who had seen her she was a reminder of better times and better things.

"Except for Michael, I would be dead."

"So I've heard. Is there anything you need, miss?"

She looked down at Edwards, and that answered the question.

"You've done pretty well for a weatherman, Lieutenant."

"Sir, all we did was keep out of the way."

"No. You told us what Ivan had on this rock, and where they were-well, at least where they weren't. You and your people did a lot more than just keep out of the way, son." The General pulled a small box out of his pocket. "Well done, Marine!"

"Sir, I'm Air Force."

"Oh, yeah? Well, this here says you're a Marine." The General pinned a Navy Cross to his pillow. A major approached the General and handed him a message form. The General pocketed it and looked down the rows of hospital beds.