The major smiled at him again, which encouraged him somewhat. “You don’t have to do something so barbaric. This is a civilized war, you know. It would go like clockwork, I could tell already when we crossed the Russian border twenty days ago. Most of your firepower had been destroyed by then. That remaining little scatter of gunfire was just the perfect confetti to greet this glorious expedition. Everything will go like clockwork, you see? There’s no need—”

“I know of an even more beautiful beginning,” the major said in unaccented English. Her soft voice could have come from heaven, could have made flames extinguish and iron yield. “On a lovely beach, with palm trees, and welcome banners hanging overhead. There were beautiful girls with long, waist-length hair and silk trousers that rustled as they moved among the young soldiers and adorned them with red-and-pink leis, smiling shyly at the gawking boys…. Do you know of this landing?”

Donaldson shook his head, confused.

“March eighth, 1965, at nine A.M. It was the scene awaiting the first American marine forces landing at China Beach, the start of the Vietnam War.”

Donaldson felt as if he’d been plunged into ice. His momentary calm vanished; his breathing sped and his voice started to shake. “No, Major, don’t do this to us! We’ve hardly killed anyone, they’re the ones who do all the killing,” he said, pointing out the window to the helicopters hovering in midair. “Those pilots there, and the computer missile guidance gentlemen in the mother ships out in space. But they’re all good people too. All their targets are just colored icons on their screen. They press a button or click a mouse, wait a bit, and the icon goes away. They’re all civilized folks. They don’t enjoy hurting people or anything, honest, they’re not evil—are you listening?”

The major nodded, smiling. Who ever said that the god of death would be ugly and terrible?

“I have a girlfriend. She’s working on her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland. She’s beautiful like you, honest, and she attended the anti-war rally …” I should have listened to her, Donaldson thought. “Are you listening to me? Say something! Please, say something.”

The major gave her foe one last radiant smile. “Captain, I do my duty.”

A unit from the reinforcing Russian 104th Motorized Infantry Division was half a kilometer from the Flood operation station. They first heard a low explosion and saw the little storehouse in the broad, empty fields disappear in a cloud of white mist. Immediately after, a terrible cacophony a hundred times louder shook the ground. An enormous fireball emerged where the storehouse had been, the flames embroiled in black smoke rising high, transforming into a towering mushroom cloud, like a flower of lifeblood blooming in the expanse between heaven and earth.

JANUARY 11TH, RUSSIAN ARMY GENERAL
 STAFF HEADQUARTERS

“I know what you want. Don’t waste words, spit it out!” Marshal Levchenko said to the commander of the Caucasus Army.