by Walt Gragg
“Does it, Chet? I’m not so sure.”
“Mr. President, you must order a military mobilization immediately,” the Secretary of Defense urged.
“No, I think Mike’s made some sense here. We can’t take such drastic action based upon a few photographs. I believe we should do something, though. General, what is the minimum response we could undertake without tipping off the Russians about what we’re up to?”
“Mr. President, the response we should undertake is a complete mobilization of America’s armed forces, active and reserve. If we can’t do that, then we should first evacuate all American dependents within one hundred miles of the border. Next, we need to strengthen our ground forces and ready our fighter aircraft on the East Coast to move to Europe. Then, we must reinforce our highest-priority needs. I’d begin with at least one battalion of Patriot missiles and as many field hospitals as we can muster. We’re critically short of medical personnel in Germany. And our present air defenses aren’t strong enough to stop a determined enemy. Finally, we need to place our forces in Europe on alert against a Russian attack.”
“General Larsen, I agree with you on everything except the part about placing our troops in Europe on alert,” the President said. “That would just be too provocative. Can we do the rest of what you suggest without creating too much suspicion?”
“Mr. President, we can begin moving the 82nd Airborne and at least part of one of our armored divisions to Europe, one battalion of Patriot missiles, and a few field hospitals without raising much suspicion at all. We can also send a few wings of fighters over at the same time, without anyone’s noticing. If challenged, we’ll claim we needed to call an unscheduled test to see where the weaknesses are in our ability to reinforce our units in Europe under winter conditions. As far as moving the dependents nearest the border, we can probably get away with that for a little while before things get out of hand.”
“Good, let’s take that approach, then. Get on it right away.”
“But, Mr. President, we really do need to put our units in Europe on alert.”
“No, General, that would definitely tip everyone off.” Especially the press, the President thought. “If you can bring me some information about what’s under those camouflage nets . . . you know, get some pictures of that . . .” The President stood and started escorting them to the door.
“Mr. President, there’s an intense storm scheduled to hit Europe in the next few hours,” Benson said. “We’ll probably not be able to get any definitive photos for another four days. Not before January 29 at the earliest.”
“Well, bring them to me then, and we’ll revisit this entire issue,” the President said.
He closed the door behind them and returned to his desk. There was still much more to do today. The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire presidential primary were only a few weeks away, and he didn’t like what the polls were saying.
CHAPTER 12
January 29—12:05 a.m.
2nd Platoon, Delta Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry
On the Way to E48
The lead elements of an immense Russian armored column were inside Germany. One thousand tanks, one thousand BMPs, and hundreds of support vehicles rumbled down E48.
A single Humvee was headed for the same highway. Five Bradleys trailed a mile behind.
Now two miles from where the north–south highway and E48 met, the Humvee ran through the blizzard unopposed. The firing along the border had nearly stopped. Jensen knew it wasn’t a good sign. So far, they’d completed three miles of the fateful journey without seeing a soul. Neither friend nor foe had been encountered. Jensen understood, however, that the real test lay in front of them.
“Seth, everything okay back there?” he whispered into his headset.
“Yeah, Bob. We’re all fine. How ’bout you?”
“Quiet as can be. Haven’t seen a thing. But that could change at any moment. So keep your guard up.”
“Roger.”
Jensen scanned the road ahead. Every one of his senses was keenly alert. At thirty miles per hour, the Humvee plunged through the fearful night. The platoon sergeant knew they could die in an instant without ever realizing what had occurred. In the next mile, or around the next curve, an enemy rocket could be waiting.
Deep within the forest, the Humvee’s tires churned through two feet of virgin snow. Time stopped. Every moment was a tortured eternity.
He glanced at Ramirez. The young private stared straight ahead. The cavalry soldier continued to grip the steering wheel with all his might. Fear was etched onto every feature of his gaunt face. Despite the freezing temperatures, beads of sweat trickled down Ramirez’s forehead and appeared on his upper lip.
Jensen returned to watching the ominous path. A few more eternities passed.
Just over a mile to E48.
• • •
The lives of the cavalry squadron’s fifteen hundred men rested squarely upon Lieutenant Colonel David Townes’s sturdy shoulders.
For squadron commander Townes, the time spent on the border was always exceptionally difficult. With weapon in hand, nearly half the squadron’s soldiers stared across a few hundred yards of open ground at a person they’d been indoctrinated to hate. An enemy who stared back at them, also with weapon in hand.
During his unit’s month at the border, he’d seldom slept. For the past two weeks, however, he’d not slept at all. With the Russians conducting their massive war games, sleep had become a luxury the squadron commander could no longer afford. He worked twenty-hour days, struggling to hold together a squadron responsible for defending fifty miles of the border of a free country and its eighty million citizens. With his meager force, he was charged with protecting two major highways—E48, which ran within a mile of squadron headquarters at Camp Kinney, and E50, forty miles south.
Townes had spent the evening going over the disturbing intelligence reports that had wound through a half dozen levels of command before finally finding their way into his hands. The reports left little doubt. The squadron was face-to-face with at least ten Russian divisions.
Fifteen hundred Americans were up against 110,000 Russians. For every member of 1st Squadron, there were more than seventy of the enemy. Neither the squadron commander nor any soldier under his command had the faintest illusion about stopping the Russians should they decide to advance into Germany. That had never been their mission. Their job was to be the trip wire. They were here to delay and harass their opponent for as long as they could. And Townes, like Jensen, understood there was only one way to accomplish such a task—by bleeding and dying in the snows of Germany.
The men of 1st Squadron were here to give up their lives.
The squadron commander’s assets were quite limited. Six hundred of his soldiers were on the border at any moment. Fifteen miles behind them, at Camp Kinney, he had in reserve an equal number of cavalry soldiers who’d come off twenty-four hours at the border at eight this morning. David Townes also had at his disposal two hundred support soldiers—cooks, clerks, and mechanics. His most valuable assets were two troops, each with twelve top-of-the-line M-1 Abrams tanks, and a squadron of twenty-one tank-killing Apache helicopters.
Townes’s last meeting with his staff had been three hours prior to the Russian attack. With the threat the enemy posed clear for all to see, the meeting had been quite animated.
“Sir,” the squadron aviation officer said, “I have to recommend that if something should happen tonight, you don’t commit the Apaches to battle in the middle of a blizzard. We can’t afford the losses such an order might create.”
“Captain Marks, I thought your Apaches were capable of fighting in all weather conditions.” There was disgust in the quick-tempered Townes’s voice.
“They are, sir. But with the tactics we employ, our losses could be tremendous. I only have twenty-one Apaches. And three of those are deadl
ined for parts. The weather’s supposed to break by morning. If the Apaches have to be ordered into combat, I recommend that you wait until then.”
Townes knew that his subordinate was correct. The Apaches’ strongest ally was surprise. Their approach was to fly into battle at full speed with their skids skimming the treetops. They would catch the enemy unaware, killing him before he could counterattack with his air-defense weapons. This tactic, however, had its costs. Despite their sophisticated guidance systems, the squadron commander had lost Apaches on night-training missions in perfect weather. Even the most careful pilot could inadvertently fly into telephone wires.
“All right, Marks. If anything happens, we’ll hold the Apaches back until morning.”
The meeting concluded a few minutes later, with Townes directing the duty officer to not commit the Apaches. It was this information about the disposition of the Apaches that Jelewski received on the radio moments before the platoon began its desperate run toward E48.
Townes had left the drab squadron headquarters at a little before eleven for some much-needed food, and possibly a drink or two, at the tiny officers’ club on the far side of the compound. While he trudged through the falling snow, he realized there were three long days before the squadron’s month on the border would be completed. In seventy-two hours, he would finally be able to let down his guard a little and settle in for a well-earned rest.
At 11:45, Townes was sitting alone at a table next to a frost-covered window in the nearly deserted officers’ club. The squadron commander had just devoured a last satisfying mouthful of schnitzel. He was about to order a bourbon and water when Brown’s TOW ripped into the first T-80. A ball of fire filled the eastern heavens. In rapid succession, additional fireworks rushed skyward. Townes, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, knew it could mean only one thing. He scrambled to his feet and raced from the club at full speed. Running as fast as he could through the deep snows, it took him five full minutes to retrace his steps to squadron headquarters.
At midnight, as Jensen’s platoon screamed onto the north–south highway, the squadron commander realized the full implications of the attack. All along the border, 1st Squadron was falling back or being wiped out.
As 2nd Platoon neared the beckoning crossroads, twelve tanks, with sixteen Bradleys in support, were heading out of Camp Kinney to find a blocking position on E48. An equal force was preparing to race south to support the squadron’s platoons protecting E50 and the enemy’s access to the historic city of Nuremberg.
Help was on the way for the squadron’s border forces. There was, however, no chance of the first column of tanks and Bradleys covering the twelve miles to the intersection where Jensen’s platoon would enter E48 before the Russian column reached the same point. The deadly M-1s were going to be too late to aid Jensen’s retreating platoon.
If David Townes hadn’t been a man willing to change his mind, Jensen and his men would’ve been racing toward their certain deaths. A death waiting to greet them in the form of one thousand Russian tanks.
The last report from the platoon blocking E48 hadn’t been encouraging. Twelve tanks and two platoons of Bradleys weren’t going to be enough to stop the growing Russian juggernaut. Blizzard or not, Townes had to play his trump card.
The Apaches had to attack. If they didn’t, by the time the weather cleared, Camp Kinney would be thirty miles behind enemy lines. He could chance losing the Apaches in the vicious storm, or he could wait and lose them on the ground.
Townes scooped up the telephone and dialed a three-digit number. It rang twice before the squadron aviation officer answered.
“This is Colonel Townes. Get the Apaches into the air.”
“But, sir, I thought we agreed to keep the Apaches on the ground until morning. The weather’s no better than it was, and . . .”
“Dammit, Marks, you heard me! My whole command’s getting slaughtered out there. If we don’t do something immediately, by morning this camp’s going to be well behind enemy lines. And the pilots flying your Apaches will be speaking Russian. Get nine of them into the air and on their way up E48. Do it now! I want the other nine ready to leave for E50 in the next half hour.”
In the time it took Jensen’s platoon to travel the first three miles south, nine grotesque killers were climbing into the blizzard and roaring toward the border.
• • •
E48 was near. The Humvee started up a long incline. It was the final hill the Americans would climb before descending into the majestic valley where the highways intersected.
“Halt just before you get to the top of the hill,” Jensen said.
When they neared the crest, Ramirez brought the vehicle to a stop. Motioning for them to stay put, Jensen grabbed his night-vision goggles and leaped from the Humvee. In a crouch, he ran through the blizzard to the apex of the hill. Jensen threw himself down in the deep snows. From the hilltop, he had an unrestricted view of E48 as it ran through the winding valley below. He lay perfectly still, trying to get a feel for his surroundings. It didn’t take long for him to realize the awful truth about the platoon’s situation.
He heard them before he saw them. Like the tremors that followed an earthquake, the rumble of a thousand tanks shook the earth beneath his motionless form.
There was much movement to the east. Jensen pulled the night-vision goggles up to his face. When the goggles covered his morose eyes, the strange green world returned.
There they were, an endless column of Russian armored vehicles stretching for untold miles to the east. Jensen quickly scanned the area in front of him for any signs of activity. The intersection of the two highways was deathly silent. He slowly panned to his right, searching the forested valley to the west for any signs of the enemy. There was nothing anywhere. The Russians hadn’t yet made it to where the highways met. He turned back to calculate the distance from the enemy column to where the roads converged. It didn’t take long for him to have his answer.
His battered heart sank. The lead tank wasn’t more than a mile from the crossroads.
The platoon was trapped. Their luck had run out. Jensen’s mind soared through his options, desperately searching for an answer.
If they made a run for the crossroads, they’d be wiped out before any of the platoon’s vehicles reached E48. Even if they somehow made it to E48, they’d have to race west through the valley floor. The Russians would have them in their sights for at least five minutes. There’d be no chance of escape for the fleeing Americans.
They could turn around and head seventeen miles north to Selb. Maybe they’d have better luck upon arriving there. Unfortunately, he sensed it was far too late to attempt such a desperate maneuver. The Russians would soon penetrate the north–south highway in a number of locations. Even with the sacrificial lamb out front, the platoon would undoubtedly be ambushed and killed before they made it halfway.
Maybe they could wait for the squadron’s twelve Abrams tanks to arrive. Possibly they could escape then. But Jensen knew that by the time the tanks made their way from Camp Kinney, the Russians would be five miles farther into Germany. And the platoon would be trapped forever behind enemy lines.
They could abandon their vehicles, fade into the woods, and fight a guerrilla action on foot. But 2nd Platoon’s strength lay in the power of its Bradleys. Deep within the protective forest, they might hold out for a few days, possibly longer, before their position was uncovered.
That, however, had never been their mission. The platoon was here for one reason. They were here to slow the Russians for as long as they could.
They could attack . . .
E48 was much too broad for the five Bradleys to do to this column what they’d done to the earlier one. E48 was four lanes wide. And on both sides of the highway, there were large open areas before reaching the impenetrable woods. They would have to destroy at least thirty enemy vehicles to have any hope of blocking th
e powerful column’s advance.
With so small a force at his disposal, there was no chance of that occurring. Jensen knew they wouldn’t succeed. They couldn’t stop the Russians. Nevertheless, from their hilltop vantage point, they might be able to create a bit of havoc for at least a little while. With the two-and-a-half-mile range of their TOWs, they could possibly destroy as many as ten or twelve tanks before the Russians figured out what had hit them.
Jensen understood what would happen next. The enemy would locate the origin of the strike. Once they did, the Russians would pull back out of range of the Bradleys. They’d then open fire with their massive cannons. The first salvo, likely to be from a hundred tanks, would end the brief skirmish. There’d be no chance of surviving. With one swish of the Russian elephant’s tail, the mosquitoes’ lives would be over.
With any luck, however, they could slow the elephant down for as much as fifteen minutes. The exchange of twenty-six lives for fifteen minutes of precious time was the best Jensen could do.
It was settled. With five Bradleys, the men of 2nd Platoon, Delta Troop, would attack two thousand Russian armored vehicles.
While he lay in the snows planning the battle, the Bradleys arrived behind him. Jensen returned to meet the dismounting vehicle commanders.
“Seth, send scouts out one hundred yards in each direction.”
The last thing they needed was an enemy unit stumbling upon the unprotected platoon.
Two soldiers scrambled in each direction to find defensive positions.
Jensen drew the vehicle commanders together. The Russian column continued its steadfast movement into Germany. He had little time to organize the attack.
The fire had gone out in the platoon sergeant’s expressive eyes. “We’re too late,” he said. “A Russian armored column’s a mile from the intersection. We’ll never make it if we try to escape on E48. And it’s too late to turn around.”