The Red Line

by Walt Gragg

  The air police combed the woods outside the eastern fence for the last of the enemy. When they completed the body count around Rios’s bunker, the kills from .50-caliber machine-gun fire totaled thirty-three.

  As a reward for their efforts, Rios and his two surviving partners were given four more .50-caliber ammunition containers, a dozen hand grenades, and a generous supply of M-4 ammunition clips.

  Only Ramstein, Rhein-Main, and a single German fighter base in the far north had survived the Russian knife thrust into the Allies’ hearts. Even with their severe losses, however, the Americans knew that with their superior planes and pilots, they could still lay claim to the German skies. If they could improve their ability to communicate with the British and American air bases in England and figure out a way to overcome the destruction of the AWACS’ ground stations, they’d be back in the air war. The American air forces were crippled, but they weren’t dead yet.

  Not by a long shot.

  When the smoke cleared on that January morning, the Americans were still holding on.

  CHAPTER 34

  January 29—12:07 p.m.

  NCO Housing Area, United States European Command Headquarters

  Patch Barracks, Stuttgart

  After word came that George had arrived in England safely, Kathy took the time for a lengthy cry. With few tears left, she readied a suitcase for herself and Christopher. A diaper bag for the baby completed the task. The packing had been a relief. The activity temporarily took her mind off the absence of her husband.

  Mrs. Williams came over from across the hall to sit with Kathy for a while. As an Army wife of twenty-four years, Clara Williams knew all about painful good-byes. There’d been a tour in Korea and multiple ones to Iraq and Afghanistan. Each separation had been as bad as the last, not knowing if she’d ever again see her husband.

  After a short visit, Clara excused herself. She had three boys of her own to ready for the evacuation. And as much as she knew Kathy needed her, her own family’s needs had to come first.

  Alone once more, Kathy put the baby down for a nap. She wandered into the bedroom she’d shared with George. Kathy lowered the shades and lay down upon the bed at a few minutes past ten. In a short while, she lapsed into a fitful sleep.

  • • •

  By 11:00 a.m., it was painfully obvious to the Patriot regimental commander that they’d been had. The surviving batteries all reported that the enemy fighters knew right where to find them. The nine remaining batteries had to move and move soon or face certain annihilation. If there were going to be any Patriots left by the end of the day, they had to change locations.

  The small door at the rear of the Engagement Control Station flew open. Shading their eyes, Fowler, Morgan, and Paul turned toward the offensive sunlight. The battery commander was standing in the doorway.

  “Regiment wants us to shut it down and move right now,” Captain Allen said. “They’re convinced our position’s been compromised. We need to roll out of here as quickly as we can.”

  “We’ll start deactivating the system immediately, sir,” Morgan said.

  Forty minutes later, the air-defense battery rolled out of the parking lot. They headed for their next firing position—the eastern edge of Stuttgart International Airport. For the next hour and a half, there would be no Patriot to protect United States European Command Headquarters.

  It couldn’t be helped.

  • • •

  The moment the Patriot battery left, two gentlemen in a nondescript black car parked down the street rushed to their safe house. The message went out—“The target’s undefended; undertake the attack now.”

  Ten minutes later, fifty MiGs, their strong wings and distended bellies loaded for a ground attack, rose from their base in the Czech Republic. The huge formation rushed west.

  Another fifty fighters headed for a blocking position north of Stuttgart. The second group would protect their comrades from any attempt by American aircraft to break through and spoil the attack. With Spangdahlem destroyed and Ramstein’s runways unusable, the Russians had little need to worry.

  • • •

  Kathy O’Neill awoke with a start. The baby’s crying, her sleep-starved brain told her. But it wasn’t the baby.

  From the top of a building two hundred yards away, the air-raid siren wailed. Its obnoxious sound shattered the noontime silence. Along with the frightful siren, there came an incessant pounding at the front door.

  “Kathy! Kathy O’Neill, are you in there?” Clara Williams yelled through the door. “It’s an air raid, honey. We’ve got to get downstairs right away!”

  Kathy leaped from the bed and raced into Christopher’s room. The toddler was sitting in his crib. He was playing with his toes and occasionally stopping to pummel his favorite teddy bear by beating it against the crib’s railing. Kathy grabbed her child and raced into the living room. Christopher clutched his bear. Without slowing down, she scooped up the diaper bag and threw open the door.

  “Thank God, honey,” Clara said. “I didn’t know what had happened to you. The air-raid siren’s been going off for the past five minutes. We’d better hurry down to the basement. All the others are already there.”

  With a firm hold on Christopher, Kathy followed Clara down the stairs. Her bare feet scarcely touched the cold steps as she rushed from the second-floor landing toward the dank basement.

  In the four-story stairwell, there were eight women and fifteen children. Six women and eleven children had taken shelter in one of the basement’s storage areas. Clara led Kathy and Christopher to the small laundry room across the hall. The Williams’s boys, ages seventeen, fourteen, and ten, huddled together beneath woolen blankets inside the musty room.

  “You boys give this sweet lady and her baby one of those blankets,” Clara said. Her oldest son shyly got up and did what he’d been told. “Kathy, why don’t you take Christopher and get up next to that big pillar by the third dryer. That looks like as good a spot as any.”

  A wide-eyed Kathy complied. Clutching Christopher to her, she crouched on the damp floor underneath the blanket.

  For ten minutes, absolutely nothing happened. The unerring siren continued its incessant wail. All over the base, women and children hid deep within windowless basements. There was nothing any of them could do but wait and hope.

  • • •

  Colonel Cossette put the phone down and looked at Lieutenant Templeton.

  “Lieutenant, get me the backup team at Hillingdon.”

  Outside, the siren’s warning went on.

  “Hillingdon, Hillingdon, this is DISA,” Templeton said into the microphone.

  From the outskirts of London the call was answered. “Go ahead, DISA, this is Hillingdon.”

  “Hillingdon, we need to speak to our backup team.”

  “Roger, DISA, they’re sitting right here.”

  A new voice came over the speaker. “Senior Master Sergeant Doyle.”

  The colonel took the microphone. “Denny, this is Colonel Cossette.”

  “Yes, sir, Colonel.”

  “Are you guys all set to take over for us?”

  “We sure are, Colonel. Sergeant O’Neill and I are ready whenever you need us.”

  “Denny, we need you to take over right now.”

  Doyle looked over at O’Neill. From the stunned looks on both their faces, each knew he wasn’t mistaken about what he’d just heard.

  “Why? What’s up, Colonel?” Doyle said, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.

  “Denny, I just got off the phone with General Oliver. A large group of MiGs has broken through our defenses. They’ll be here in ten minutes. European Command Headquarters is being turned over to the backup team in England. You guys are to take control of the Defense Information System and run it from Hillingdon.”

  Doyle looked at O’Neill. There
was terror in George’s eyes.

  “Yes, sir, we understand,” Doyle said.

  O’Neill motioned for Denny to give him the microphone.

  “Sir, this is Sergeant O’Neill. Do you know whether the dependents have been evacuated?”

  The colonel knew the answer. He suspected, however, that the truth wouldn’t be an appropriate response. No use worrying these guys unnecessarily; they were going to have more than enough to concern themselves with in the coming days.

  “O’Neill, I don’t know for sure whether they’re completely gone. But they’ve been evacuating dependents since early this morning.”

  The colonel knew the real truth was that two planeloads of women and children were all that had departed. All the NCOs’ families were still in the housing area.

  “Sir, could you do me a favor and check to see if my wife and child have left?”

  “Sure, O’Neill, we’ll take care of it for you. But with all that’s going on right now, it might take awhile.”

  “Okay, thanks, Colonel.”

  • • •

  The air-defense soldiers anxiously waited on the perimeter. They were acutely aware of how inadequate they were going to be in protecting the small base. They wouldn’t be able to stop fifty of the enemy’s best fighter aircraft. The soldiers didn’t even have fifty Stinger missiles with which to stop them. Even if every engagement was successful, there were going to be MiGs left. And the Stinger gunners knew there was no way every engagement was going to succeed. No way at all.

  The defensive mission rested in the hands of two “Avenger” pedestal-mounted Stinger teams and four air defenders with shoulder-mounted Stingers from the 82nd Airborne Division.

  An Avenger Humvee, its gunner sitting in a Plexiglas compartment on the rear of the vehicle, waited to protect the mile-long northern fence. In the identical pods on the gunner’s left and right sat a total of eight missiles. Next to the Humvee’s driver, eight replacement Stingers lay on the floor of the passenger compartment. To cover the close-in dead space, an antiaircraft machine gun was mounted alongside the left pod.

  The second Avenger team protected the shorter eastern fence.

  Four soldiers stood in the blowing snows to defend the western and southern approaches to the base. Their shoulder-mounted Stingers were at the ready. At the feet of each of them lay four replacement missiles.

  Unlike the sophisticated Patriot, the little heat-seeking Stingers could be deceived and defeated. The Russians had years to practice such techniques after the CIA armed the Afghan rebels with Stinger missiles during the mid-1980s war.

  As soon as the pilots determined that Stingers were the only things waiting to challenge their attack, they were bound to take evasive actions. The Russians would then identify and eliminate the air-defense positions. When the Stingers were no more, the MiGs would destroy the base.

  Even with the Russian pilots’ training, the Stingers were bound to score some victories. There was little doubt there were pilots presently soaring through the heavens who’d never again see the sunrise. Yet any way the Americans added it up, there were forty-eight Stinger missiles and fifty MiGs.

  The defenders had no chance. And they knew it.

  CHAPTER 35

  January 29—12:19 p.m.

  United States European Command Headquarters

  Patch Barracks, Stuttgart

  In basements all over the base, the women and children prayed. The siren continued its plaintive wail.

  The first six fighters came in high, using the midday sun to their advantage. From thirty thousand feet, they began a teeth-rattling dive at their target—the base’s communication tower.

  Using his infrared sight, the Avenger gunner protecting the eastern fence targeted the lead Su-35 attack aircraft. Second by second, the fighter formation rushed toward its objective. The Avenger gunner tracked the first fighter all the way. The air-defense system’s laser range finder homed in on the plummeting plane. A high-pitched tone sounded in the gunner’s ears. The system had locked onto the fighter. The missile was ready to fire.

  The fighter plunged through the ten-thousand-foot level. The Avenger gunner squeezed the trigger on his control stick. A Stinger leaped from its tube on the left pod. It raced into the heavens. The Su-35 instantly warned its pilot that he was under attack. In the cockpit, the pilot’s radar screamed that certain death was headed for his aircraft. There was no time to spare. He had to act and act now to have any chance of survival. The Russian broke off his dive. He banked sharply to the left and roared back toward the east. The force of his severe evasive actions plastered him against the seat. To live, he had to control his aircraft. And his wits.

  The fighter bobbed and weaved, dove and soared. Yet no matter what the pilot tried, it was no use. He couldn’t shake the five-foot-long missile. The mindless Stinger matched him move for move. Unless something drastic happened, in seconds the life-ending contest would be over. The Avenger’s two-man crew watched the missile’s vapor trail as it closed with the fleeing plane. The intense heat from the aircraft’s engines beckoned to the steadfast Stinger. The deadly little missile flew into the right engine’s exhaust. With a mighty roar of protest, the fighter exploded in the eastern sky.

  As the first fighter died, two more of the attackers were in trouble. The Avenger gunner on the northern fence tracked another of the planes in the flight while it rushed toward the ground. The tone wailed in his ears. Another enemy aircraft was ready for the kill. The Avenger fired. While the missile arched skyward in search of the heat it craved, the Su-35 did everything it could to save its pilot’s life. But once again, a lethal missile matched a speeding fighter’s every move. And a second pilot met his end in the low skies over Stuttgart.

  From the southern fence, a soldier with a shoulder-mounted Stinger locked onto the trailing aircraft. He steadied the missile launcher with his left arm. With the missile’s tone screaming that the target had been acquired, he fired. Another radar told its pilot that his life was nearly over. The Russian ran. The plane strained to its absolute limits to evade the determined missile. Still it was no use. A third explosion shook the heavens.

  While his partner covered him, the shoulder-mounted Stinger gunner laid his expended missile tube in the snow. He removed the grip stock and handles. He quickly attached them to a second missile. By the time he was finished, the communication tower and the buildings on both sides of it were gone.

  The Stinger gunners had eliminated half the attackers. There hadn’t been enough time, however, for the scant group of air defenders to get them all. The Avenger on the eastern fence made a desperate attempt to engage another of the fighters. But he failed miserably.

  With the planes plunging at supersonic speed, the Avenger gunner hurried to acquire a second target. He’d neither the time nor the patience to wait for the firing tone. He aimed at the leading fighter, pulled the trigger, and hoped for the best.

  Fired before it was ready, a Stinger leaped from the right pod. It locked onto the nearest heat source—an electrical transformer on a utility pole just outside the fence. The missile raced for the pole. The transformer exploded.

  The three surviving fighters released their bombs. The first’s bombs were a little short. They hit the roof of the office building twenty yards east of the tower. With an earthshaking roar, the four-story building was ripped apart.

  The second group was just a little long. The prolonged string of bombs struck the single-story communication control center a few feet west of the tower. When the deadly munitions were through and the smoke had cleared, there was nothing left of the building. The bombs killed the eight soldiers inside and destroyed all of the base’s communication equipment. Black plumes reached into the bright noonday. With the communication center eliminated, hitting the tower became a moot point. Nevertheless, the third fighter’s cluster was perfect. One after the other, the bombs fell
with absolute precision onto the high tower. The structure disappeared in a thundering explosion. All that was left of the huge tower was an unrecognizable mass of smoldering metal lying in the bottom of a huge crater.

  Inside the basement two hundred yards south of the savage assault, the ground trembled and shook with each striking bomb. Every window in the apartment building shattered at the same instant. The women and children screamed in terror. Kathy held Christopher to her with all her might. The sounds of the offensive siren suddenly ended. The bare lightbulb hanging from the laundry room ceiling went out, plunging them into darkness.

  • • •

  “DISA Hillingdon, this is Donnersberg.”

  “Go ahead, Donnersberg,” O’Neill said.

  “DISA, we’ve lost all contact with Stuttgart.”

  George hesitated, the significance of Donnersberg’s pronouncement slowly sinking in. He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “To all communication facilities in Europe,” he said. “The DISA detachment at Hillingdon is officially taking control of the Defense Information System.”

  O’Neill slumped into his chair. He prayed that at this moment, Kathy and Christopher were on a homeward-bound flight somewhere over the Atlantic.

  • • •

  High above the battle, the raid commander watched the Su-35s being chased and killed by the determined Stingers. After several months of air combat in the recent war for the liberation of Eastern Europe, three missiles were more than enough to confirm the extent of the American air defenses.

  “Raid pilots,” he said. “Our enemy has only Stingers guarding the target. Take appropriate evasive action and commence the next attack.”

  A second group of Su-35s roared out of the heavens. They screamed toward the ground. Their target was the jumbled cluster of office buildings in the center of the base that comprised the majority of the American European Command Headquarters main complex. Three MiG-29s accompanied the attackers. The MiGs were along to identify and eliminate the American air defenses. They were waiting for the Stingers to fire again, giving away their positions. When they reached the edge of the Stingers’ five-mile range, all nine aircraft began dropping lengthy strings of white-hot flares. The intense heat from the flares confused the little missiles. Try as they might, the Stinger gunners couldn’t get a lock on any of the fighters.