But that was all just a matter of reports to Petra, who was improvising her way across Russia. Without a huge air force, there was no way to airlift her army of Brazilians and Rwandans to Moscow. So she was bringing them in on passenger trains, carefully watching from what looked like recreational aircraft so she’d know as soon as there was any kind of problem. The heavier ordnance was being carried on the highway by big Polish and German moving vans, of the kind that plied the highways across Europe all the time, stopping only to eat and pee and visit roadside whores. Now they carried the war that the Russians had begun straight to Moscow.

If the enemy was determined, they would be able to track Petra’s army’s progress. After all, there was no concealing what the trains were carrying as they raced through stations without stopping and demanded that the tracks be cleared in front of them “or we’ll blast you and your station and your stupid little village of baby-killing Russians to smithereens!” All rhetoric—a single telephone pole dropped across the tracks here and there would have slowed them down considerably. And they weren’t about to start killing civilians.

But the Russians didn’t know that. Peter had told her that Vlad was sure the commanders who were left in Moscow would panic. “They’re runners, not fighters. That doesn’t mean nobody will fight—but it will be local people. Scattered. Wherever you meet resistance, just go around. If the Russian army in China is stopped and international vids show Moscow and St. Petersburg in your hands, either the government will sue for peace or the people will revolt. Or both.”

Well, it had worked for the Germans in France in 1940. Why not here?

The loss of Vlad had a devastating effect on Russian morale. Especially because the Russians all knew that Julian Delphiki himself had planned the counterattack, and Petra Arkanian was leading the army that was “sweeping across Russia.”

More like “chugging across Russia.”

At least it wasn’t winter.

Han Tzu gave the orders, and his retreating troops moved to their positions. He had timed his retreat exactly right, to lure the Russians to the exact spot he needed them to reach at the exact time he wanted them there. Well ahead of Vlad’s original schedule—the only deviation from his plan.

The satellite information forwarded to him by Peter Wiggin assured him that the Turks had withdrawn westward, heading toward Armenia. As if they could get there in time to make any difference at all! Caliph Alai had apparently not solved the perpetual problem of Muslim armies. Unless they were under iron control, they were easily distracted. Alai was supposed to be that control. It made Han Tzu wonder if Alai was even in command anymore.

No matter. Han Tzu’s objective was the huge, overextended, weary Russian Army that was still rigidly following Vlad’s plan despite the fact that their pincer movements had encountered an empty Beijing, with no Chinese forces to crush or Chinese government to seize. And despite the fact that panicky reports must be coming from Moscow as they kept hearing rumors of Petra’s advance without knowing where she was.