"Maybe," Fujita said with a grudging nod. "You can see that-but you're almost as smart as you think you are." He wouldn't give any praise without putting a sting in its tail. "Are the dumb foreigners clever enough to see it, too?"

"I think so, Sergeant-san." Hayashi knew better than to piss Fujita off on purpose. "Lots of countries know the rules of diplomacy and war."

Corporal Kawakami pointed west. "I think I just saw something move, Sergeant…There, about one o'clock."

"I'll check it out." Fujita wore binoculars on a leather strap around his neck. Japanese optics were some of the best in the world. He'd looked through captured Russian field glasses, and they were crap. Pure junk. He'd also seen fancy German binoculars-from Zeiss, no less. Those were okay, but not a sen's worth better than his own pair.

He scanned the plain on this side of the Halha. Yellow dirt, yellowish-green grass, the occasional bush-that was about it. The steppe rolled on for countless kilometers. Then he spotted the horseman.

A Mongolian, he thought at once. He had trouble knowing how he was so sure. Manchukuan cavalrymen rode the same kind of shaggy little steppe ponies. They carried carbines slung on their backs, too, and wore the same mix of uniforms and native garb. Then Fujita realized why he knew. The horseman kept glancing back over his shoulder, toward the east. If he expected trouble, it was from this direction, yet he was the only man in sight.

"Let's reel him in," Fujita said. "Hayashi! Fire two shots in the air."

"Two shots. Yes, Sergeant-san." Superior Private Hayashi obeyed without question. Bang! Bang! The reports rolled across the steppe.

Fujita kept the field glasses on the rider. When the fellow heard the gunshots, he jerked in the saddle, looked around wildly in all directions, and started to grab for his weapon. Then he checked himself. "Two more shots, Hayashi," the sergeant said. "And we'll show ourselves. If he comes in, fine. I think he will. But if he doesn't, we just have to deal with him."

Bang! Bang! The sergeant and the men from his squad stood up. He waved. He hoped the shots wouldn't draw artillery fire from the other side of the river. If the horseman was what Fujita thought he was, the bastards over there might want to see him dead even if he was on this side of the line…not that they admitted the Halha was the line, anyway.

The Mongolian looked back toward the other side of the river again, too. He wore a fur cap with earflaps up right now-the day was mild. After reaching under it to scratch his head, he rode slowly toward the Japanese soldiers.

As he got closer, he waved his hand to show he was friendly. Then he must have decided that wasn't enough, because he threw down the carbine. He shouted something in his own language. It sounded like dogs barking to Fujita.

"I don't know what the devil you're talking about," the Japanese sergeant yelled back. "Come ahead anyhow, though." He gestured emphatically.

When the Mongolian called again, it was in a different tongue. "That's Chinese, Sergeant," Hayashi said.

"You understand it?" Fujita asked. Maybe the four-eyed guy was good for something after all.

And Hayashi nodded. "I studied it in school."

"All right. Talk to him. Find out what's what."

Whatever Hayashi said was only singsong gibberish to Fujita. But the Mongolian understood it. He answered eagerly. He and Hayashi had to go back and forth and round and round-neither was exactly fluent. After a bit, the senior private turned back to Fujita. "About what we would have guessed, Sergeant. He thought they were going to purge him, and he figured he'd better bug out while he was still breathing."

Fujita grunted. "The Mongolians are crazy, and they caught it from the Russians." Russia had been purging its officer corps for a couple of years now. People just disappeared. Captains, colonels, generals…It didn't matter. And, since Marshal Choibalsan's Mongolia imitated Stalin's Russia in all things, Mongol officers started disappearing off the face of the earth, too. More and more of the ones who feared they might be next fled to Manchukuo instead-which made Choibalsan look for still more new traitors.

This fellow said something else in his hesitant Chinese. Fujita looked a question to Hayashi. "He says-I think he says-he can tell us a lot about their dispositions on the far side of the Halha."

Hearing that improved Fujita's disposition. "Can he? Well, he'll get his chance. We'll take him in, and he'd better sing like a cricket in a cage. Tell him so, Hayashi."

"I don't know if I can say that in Chinese, Sergeant-san."

"Shit. Tell him we'll cut his balls off if he doesn't talk. That ought to do it."

Hayashi spoke slowly. The Mongolian officer's face didn't show much. He was darker than most Japanese, maybe because he was born that way, maybe just because he was weathered, which he certainly was. Left in the oven too long, Fujita thought scornfully. The Mongolian did gnaw on his lower lip for a moment before answering. "He says he'll tell us whatever we want to know," Hayashi reported. "He says he knew all along he'd have to do that."

"All right. Good. You and Kawakami take him back to our officers." Fujita held up a hand. "Wait! Ask him one thing first. Ask him if the Russians and Mongols aim to jump us any time soon."

Hayashi put the question. The deserter shook his head. He said something. Hayashi translated: "No, Sergeant. He says they're just hoping we leave them alone. The Russians are almost pissing themselves about what's going on in Europe, he says."

"Ichi-ban!" Fujita said enthusiastically. "That's good intelligence. If they're afraid we'll jump on them, maybe now's the time to do it, neh?"

Senior Private Hayashi shrugged. He wasn't about to argue with a superior. He and Corporal Kawakami just took the Mongolian back toward battalion headquarters. ARMORERS WHEELED BOMBS TOWARD LIEUTENANT Sergei Yaroslavsky's Tupolev SB-2. The medium bomber would hold half a dozen 100kg bombs or one big, hefty 500kg firework. The big bombs were in short supply, though. Yaroslavsky was glad the armorers had enough of the smaller ones to fill up the bomb bay.

He was a stolid, broad-faced blond, getting close to thirty. He'd had a tour against the Fascists in Spain. Now he was doing it again, flying out of a field near Poprad in eastern Slovakia. Officially, he was a volunteer, aiding the people of democratic Czechoslovakia against the Nazi invasion. And, in a way, he supposed he had volunteered. They would have shot him if he'd said no. They were shooting lots of officers these days. They were jumpy as cats in a rocking-chair factory. They'd shoot you without any excuse if they felt like it. If you gave them one, you were dead for sure.

Of course, the Germans were liable to shoot him, too. Things were simpler and safer in Spain. Back in early 1937, the SB-2 could outrun anything the Spanish Nationalists, the Condor Legion, or the Italians put in the air.

It wasn't like that here. The Messerschmitt 109 was a very nasty piece of work. It was faster than both Russian flat-nosed Polikarpovs and biplane Czech Avias. It was a hell of a lot faster than an SB-2. The best recipe for not getting shot down was not getting seen.

The armorers were Czechs. When they talked with one another, Sergei could almost understand them. He really could follow Ruthenian, which was just Ukrainian with another name. Slovak? He didn't know about Slovak. Sentries around the airstrip kept Slovaks away. The squadron was flying out of Slovakia, but the place wasn't exactly loyal to the country of which it was supposed to be a part.

Clanging noises said the bombardier was closing the bomb bay. "We ready, Ivan?" Yaroslavsky called.

"Da, Comrade Lieutenant," Ivan Kuchkov replied. He was dark and stocky and muscular and hairy. People sometimes called him "Chimp." Not very often, though, not after he broke a man's jaw for doing it. He had the right slot-a bombardier needed muscle.