by Mark Greaney
A shell crashed less than twenty-five meters away from the trench. Dirt, stones, and branches flew inches over Connolly’s head while he squatted with the hook at his ear.
But despite this his eyes widened and he broke into a smile.
“Sixteen minutes’ flight time? Hell yeah, I can work with that! Wait one.” He looked to the men around him and shouted over the sound of the incoming. “TLAMs!” The men knew he was referring to the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile.
The men squatting in the trench next to Connolly gave him a puzzled look. Then a young captain said, “Sub-launched Tomahawks, sir?”
“Yes. If we can just silence the Russian artillery we can help break the attack on the battalion. I want you guys coordinating the close air support and hitting everything in front of India Company. The Russians picked 3/5, India Company in particular, as their through point, and if I read their general correctly, he’s about to turn up the heat. Get a full package ready to fire on my signal.”
The men began working up the necessary equations while huddled together on their knees in the slit trench, which looked like it was about to collapse around them.
Connolly radioed up to Caster; it took a full minute to get him off another radio and onto Connolly’s net.
“You guys holding the line, Dan?”
“Sir, the command post’s been destroyed and we’re in the trenches now. India Company is about to be in a real shit sandwich. But the John Warner is in range and ready to prosecute stationary targets with Tomahawks. If we can neutralize that Russian arty with the cruise missiles, we can take the pressure off India, and then Darkhorse can adjust his lines to deal with any attempted breakthrough.”
“You tried to take out those Russian cannons once before, but it seems to me like they still have plenty of fight left in them.”
“Yes, sir. But we have an accurate grid, and based on the Russian rates of fire, they’re pouring it all on. They have not moved their guns, sir. Lazar should have, but he’s too confident they’re about to break through to slacken the fire. Those artillery pieces are in the same place where they were an hour ago. I bet they’ll be there in sixteen minutes. If Lazar keeps up the heat on us, the TLAMs can hit that grid and shut them down.”
“How sure are you on the grid?”
“Solid intel, sir. My map says they’re in an open spot.”
Caster and the CP were clearly under withering fire at the moment; Connolly could barely hear the colonel over the sound of artillery. “Then let’s put that sub to work. Send the coordinates. I’ll get McHale and his fires coordination cell to look over the firing data and deconflict the Tomahawks’ path with the converging fires from artillery, mortars, and the helicopters and jets already converging on Darkhorse’s frontage.”
“Roger that, sir.”
CHAPTER 77
USS JOHN WARNER
INDIAN OCEAN
1 JANUARY
The direness of the situation just thirty miles inland wasn’t lost on Commander DelVecchio. She could hear the urgency in the tones from the Marines’ radio transmissions at the regimental fires coordination cell. She could even make out booms and crashes in the background as the request was called in. Hearing the explosions had electrified all the others on the bridge as well.
DelVecchio said, “Weaps, fire eight Toms on those coordinates. We’ll hold four missiles in reserve, but keep them in ready-to-fire status. Let the Marines know that if they need ’em, they can have ’em, but we can’t wait around all day.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said, turning to the men at the fire control computers.
The weapons men punched the data into the computer. They triple-checked the computer’s launch criteria and trajectory paths requested by the Marines.
“Captain, I show all TLAMs ready to launch,” the weapons officer said.
Commander DelVecchio didn’t hesitate. “Fire.”
A tremendous whoosh shook the submarine.
The men’s ears felt the pressure change. Rushing sounds as the vertical launch tubes were flooded with air, then a shock as the air blasted the hatch open, ejecting the huge missile up and into the water.
Next came the booster motor. The missile forced water against the sub’s hull as it rapidly ascended fifty feet, then breached the surface of the Indian Ocean. There it dropped its launch brackets and the rocket motor kicked in. Yellow flames poured out of the bottom of the BGM-109C missile as it raced skyward, rapidly attaining its maximum speed of 550 miles per hour. In seconds it was joined by seven more, for a total mix of four BGM-109Cs and four BGM-109Ds, the cluster-munition variant.
* * *
• • •
NORTH OF MRIMA HILL, KENYA
1 JANUARY
General Lazar stood in a BTR turret, directly behind the advancing lead battalion in his 3rd Regiment, and listened to the casualty reports as they came in. The damage was heavy—much heavier than he’d anticipated. Still, he ordered his forces forward, because he could feel the Americans’ lines cracking in the center.
Getting his soldiers in this close, this fast, had been a part of his design. It was now time for the well-trained men in Colonel Glatsky’s regiment to finish off the Marines protecting the northern side of the hill. Once this was done, the Russians would be inside the American defenses en masse and they would attack the other battalions from behind, rendering their defensive positions ineffective. At that point the battle would be all but won.
He’d then task the paratroopers with moving in and doing the dirty work of mopping up the trenches, mine shafts, and the like, and this battle would be over by midnight.
He’d taken some calculated risks to keep the intensity up on the overworked Marines, not the least of which was retaining his artillery batteries in one position for longer than he would have liked. The F-35s hadn’t pinpointed them, and Lazar’s antiair batteries were doing a fine job keeping them at bay.
Lazar called to Kir, whom the general had sent to the artillery park behind Jombo Hill to check personally on the situation there, and to encourage the artillerymen to continue to pound the enemy headquarters they’d discovered. If they could keep the American HQ busy, the Americans would not be able to react to this assault.
A minute later Kir came back on the radio for him. “Sir, I just received word: 2nd Regiment needs to halt. They have taken heavy casualties.”
Lazar felt frustration. He knew pressing the attack would wear the Marines down quickly, but he also knew to trust his commander. “All right. Tell Klava he can pause his advance for the time being. But order him to continue firing on the enemy positions. I don’t want to let up on the pressure.”
“Yes, sir. Also, sir, did you receive the reports from Glatsky? He says there are a few platoons that are in and among the Marines. He says the breakthrough is imminent.”
It was odd to have a report go all the way back to Colonel Kir at Jombo Hill, then out to Lazar just behind the spearhead. Lazar was deep in and among Glatsky’s lead battalion. But often in combat the reporting chain remained the same even when commanders themselves moved to the leading units.
“This is good news,” he said, pulling up his binoculars to look ahead. He could see the close fighting on the jungle roads heading up the hill. The sounds were always the same, but the spraying of machine guns seemed louder every minute, the chatter of rifle fire constant. He saw hand grenades explode, which told him the two forces were just meters apart now.
Yes, Lazar thought. Very good.
“Something else I need to report, sir. The artillery commander here informs me Colonel Borbikov has ordered that—”
Lazar pulled off his helmet to listen to a noise he’d detected over the BTR’s engines. He looked up toward a buzzing sound that seemed to be coming from overhead. At first he thought it was coming from one of the UAVs his artillery forces used to identify American positions, bu
t this sounded different somehow.
It wasn’t like a lawn mower engine; this was a race car rounding a track. Searching skyward in the African sun, he saw three, then four, then six slender, dark, cigar-shaped objects flying low and parallel to his position. They passed overhead and quickly behind him to the north.
He recognized them as Tomahawks and knew they’d be heading for his artillery.
He spun backward in the hatch, watching the missiles coursing rapidly toward their targets on the northern side of Jombo Hill.
He fought to get his helmet back on. “Kir! Take cover!”
Before the general’s eyes, the first missile descended behind Jombo, and seconds later a huge shock wave made its way forward to Lazar’s position, over two kilometers to the south. This was repeated three times in rapid succession. Trailing Tomahawk missiles broke open and dropped cluster munitions over the same area, sending hundreds of tiny bomblets falling free.
More shock waves passed through Lazar’s position and the booms continued, reaching an incredible crescendo.
The sky to the north ruptured.
The firing at the front ceased as friend and foe alike stopped to look at the spectacle. But the rolling explosions, sprays of incendiaries, and heavy white smoke told General Boris Lazar all his artillery ammunition, and likely the majority of his artillery batteries, had just been destroyed.
Lazar keyed the radio. “Kir? Kir? Damage?”
The reply took several seconds. Finally the colonel answered in a disoriented and dazed voice. “Comrade General, all the guns have disappeared . . . vanished. There are dead everywhere.”
“Damn it, Kir! Shift the trailing battery up; we can still break through.”
Kir coughed several times. “Sir, as I tried to tell you, we have only one battery of six guns left, and Colonel Borbikov has requested it be held in reserve.”
“Borbikov has requested what? Listen to me. Fucking Spetsnaz does not command our 152s!” Kir did not reply, so Lazar said, “There are to be no reserves, Kir! Do you hear me? No reserves! Every man and every piece of equipment into the fight—now! We have the enemy at the point of cracking.”
When the colonel did not respond, Lazar shouted again. “Kir? Are you there?”
Lazar heard a weak cough over the radio. “Dmitry? Are you injured?” he asked.
“Da . . . It’s nothing. I just—”
Lazar had been yelling over the radio so loudly, he had not noticed what was happening around his BTR. He turned forward in the turret, toward the hill and the fight, just in time to see four U.S. jets shrieking out of the high clouds and directly toward his pack of vehicles.
They were lined up perfectly on this narrow road. There was no way the jets could miss their targets.
“Damn it to hell!” he yelled. But he had only seconds to react. Tossing his helmet, scrambling out of his hatch, and kicking himself free of the BTR, the burly General Lazar tumbled down onto the dirt road, then rolled into a drainage ditch and covered his head, doing so just as the first missile struck the vehicles, blasting his BTR and the one ahead of it into balls of flame.
CHAPTER 78
SLONIM, BELARUS
1 JANUARY
General Sabaneyev’s once-formidable armor-and-infantry regiment was now running on fumes. Six of the fuel-thirsty T-14 tanks and eight Bumerangs had been left on the side of the highway in what amounted to a trail of tears, evidence of the armor column’s woes as they fled east. Two more T-14 Armatas stalled soon after; two Bumerangs were parked off the road and siphoned dry so that their fuel could be transferred to the tanks, thereby allowing them to be moved out of the way to let the rest of the column pass.
The headquarters of the Belarusian 11th Guards Mechanized Brigade, in the city of Slonim, Belarus, was over one hundred kilometers from the Polish border, and getting here had taken virtually the rest of the column’s fuel reserves. In the line of the Russian retreat, General Eduard Sabaneyev had pinpointed the brigade HQ on his map and ordered what was left of his battalions to make a beeline for the base, their only chance to refuel and rearm. The Russian general knew from experience that there would be several battalions of older T-80 tanks at the 11th Guards’ base, so he knew they could get most everything they needed, both to resume their movement eastward and to fend off the Americans, who continued to nip at their heels.
The Russians’ arrival at the gate of the 11th Guards right at dusk was met with hesitation, even some hostility, by the forces there. All local Belarusian military forces had been ordered into garrison and given specific orders not to meddle with either the Americans or the Russians.
“Stay out of it. Do not help or hinder” had been the command from Minsk.
At first the gate guards refused entry to the long line of ominous-looking Russian armor, citing the orders they had received from their leadership.
Then Colonel Smirnov dismounted, strode rapidly up to the front of the column, and reprimanded the guards, demanding they open the gates. His anger mounting, he next ordered the shocked troopers to ferret out the NCO with the keys to the fuel farm. The men, familiar with working with their Russian partners but unfamiliar with the current politics of the situation and the Russian brigade in their country, obeyed the colonel’s command and flung up the exterior barricade, then sent someone scrambling to find the sergeant with the keys. The procession of still-mobile tanks and Bumerangs rolled in, then lined up around the corner and down the base’s main thoroughfare.
Fuel keys were found and the slow process of refreshing the beleaguered Russian column began.
The Belarusian guards had, of course, informed everyone up the chain of command as to what was happening, and then they feigned complete surprise as the colonel serving as the mechanized brigade’s logistics officer arrived suddenly. He raced to the front of the fuel farm in his personal vehicle, halting in the middle of the road, and then stormed up to the scene.
“Sergeant Volesky, turn off the pumps this instant!”
The sergeant complied, then backed away. He had no way of knowing if the Russians and his logistics colonel were going to shoot each other, but it certainly seemed that things were about to get ugly.
“By what authority do you steal my gasoline, Colonel?” demanded the officer from the 11th Guards.
Colonel Smirnov had expected something like this. “Get your fucking ass away from the fuel, comrade,” he hissed, his hand working its way to his leather pistol holster.
An immediate look of fear washed over the Belarusian officer’s face—the Russian masters had always been feared and respected—but it was also clear to Colonel Smirnov that he was probably buying time for someone with more authority to come and handle the situation.
Soon military police vehicles arrived and turned on their squad lights, the policemen dismounting and walking toward the gathering in the dying light of day. Colonel Smirnov signaled to the closest group of men. In moments they trotted back along the line and directed a platoon or more of the men to scramble up to the front of the line of Russian vehicles.
The Belarusian colonel conferred with the MPs and then pointed at Colonel Smirnov, gesticulating in an animated fashion. He was clearly at his wits’ end and did not see this as ending well for himself. His anguish sparked the MPs, who drew their pistols. The gathering squads of Russians pointed their AKs at the Belarusians and lined up alongside Colonel Smirnov.
Before things could escalate any further, General Sabaneyev dismounted from his command Bumerang in the middle of the Russian column, smacked his heavy winter gloves against his fine wool general officer’s greatcoat, and strode confidently over to the group by the pumps. He waded directly into the throng. His soldiers parted obediently and quieted upon his arrival.
Sabaneyev walked directly up to the diminutive Belarusian base commander and poked him in the chest with his finger. “Colonel,” Sabaneyev said slowly, “o
pen the petcocks on your fuel farm right now or I’ll have you shot for violation of the Regional Forces Group orders.” He was referring to the mutual-defense agreement between Russia and its smaller partner Belarus.
The shock of his words, as much as the sudden appearance of a general officer in their midst, cowed the Belarusian side into silence. They stared wide-eyed at the handsome and confident Sabaneyev, unsure just how to react. Seizing on their uncertainty, Sabaneyev pressed. “You will support us immediately per the order: that an attack on any nation in the RGF allows Moscow—which for your purposes today is me—to take the initiative and protect both states.
“And you, Colonel, whether you recognize it or not, are in a state of war with NATO.”
The general’s quoting of the rules of the loose military agreement between Belarus and Russia was specifically at odds with the orders the colonel had received not to aid the retrograding Russian attack forces. The orders declared that the Russians had violated all agreements between Minsk and Moscow by staging an attack against the West through Belarus without sending notification to the central government.
But whatever mental gymnastics he was performing were soon interrupted by a sharp and resounding crack, followed by a blast, and suddenly the decision had been made for them all.
A T-14 at the front gate fired its main gun. The first shot was followed quickly by another and another as more tanks fired and maneuvered.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Sabaneyev demanded of those standing around.
A head popped up from the turret of the closest Bumerang. “Comrade General, American M1s and German Leopards approaching from the west!”
Incoming shells slammed into a nearby street, rocketing a Belarusian armored car high into the air.