The Red Line

by Walt Gragg

  Captain Wehner was far too busy to take the time to say good-bye. As the vehicles pulled away, a quick glance out a dingy window was all the doctor could afford.

  Two hundred ambulances, a handful of trucks filled with medical supplies, and two dozen Humvees headed down the hospital’s icy cobblestone driveway. The endlessly stretching convoy eased its way onto the narrow street that would lead it to the nearest autobahn.

  The relative safety of the sprawling Army hospital complex at Landstuhl waited 135 miles away.

  Fear-tinged chaos instantly engulfed the convoy on the teeming streets of the panicked German city of over one hundred thousand. The Americans were quickly swallowed up by the limitless masses of German refugees intent on escaping the marauding Russians.

  This wasn’t going to be an easy task.

  The convoy ran into problem after problem as it pressed its way through the terrified sea of humanity. With skilled MPs at its head, the medical formation fought forward through the jammed roadways. The entrance to the autobahn was only a mile from the hospital. But the Americans would consume ten precious minutes covering this first difficult distance.

  The Russians were drawing ever nearer to the city.

  The scene that greeted them at the westerly-reaching autobahn was no better than what they’d experienced on the city’s ancient pavement. For as far as the eye could see, cars stretched to the horizon. On both sides of the divided highway, refugees crammed every inch of its eight lanes. All were headed west. The tidal wave of German civilians was desperately attempting to cover the sixty miles of asphalt that would take them to the outskirts of Frankfurt.

  The American convoy wasn’t going to be traveling nearly so far on this roadway. They only needed to cover the first ten miles to reach their initial objective, a second wide autobahn running southwest to Heidelberg.

  After a seventy-mile run to Heidelberg, the convoy would cross a section of the Rhine River being held by the 82nd Airborne. They’d head for Kaiserslautern, fifty miles farther west. Passing Ramstein on the way, a handful of miles beyond Kaiserslautern, they’d finally reach their destination.

  But they had to complete this ten-mile stretch of torturous highway first. All roads west, big and small, were filled far beyond capacity, with millions of frantic civilians running for safety in front of the unstoppable Russian juggernaut. Countless numbers of haphazardly abandoned vehicles further hampered their desperate efforts. Scores of wrecks blocked the way to freedom. Frightened, desperate people were absolutely everywhere. The Los Angeles freeway system at its worst had nothing on the gridlock the Americans found.

  The journey was being further hindered by the night’s oppressive darkness. In the first hour, the medical convoy covered less than ten miles. Even that wouldn’t have been possible if the MPs hadn’t been so forceful in their actions to clear a path for their wounded countrymen.

  After fighting forward for an hour, the leading edge of the American column reached the western end of Wurzburg. A half mile away was the turnoff for Heidelberg. In five minutes, the widely dispersed American ambulances would turn southwest. The traffic on the Heidelberg autobahn was extremely heavy. Yet it was nothing compared to what they’d so far endured. It wouldn’t be long before their pace would dramatically increase. The Russians were closing fast. Still, it appeared the medical convoy was going to escape.

  The inviting road to Heidelberg was just ahead.

  It was at this point in their perilous journey, with the promise of the less crowded roadway to the southwest right in front of them, that disaster struck.

  • • •

  From the black eastern horizon, the specter of twenty-five Havoc Attack Helicopters appeared. The Havocs, the most advanced helicopters in the Russian arsenal, rushed forward with their stubby wingtips nearly touching.

  The threat to the American convoy was immediate and unmistakable.

  “Emergency! Emergency!” the MP lieutenant in charge of the convoy yelled into his radio handset. “This is the Wurzburg medical convoy. We’re trapped on the Frankfurt autobahn approximately one-half mile east of the Heidelberg cutoff. A large number of Russian helicopters are approaching. If you can hear my voice, we need help. Say again. A half mile east of the Heidelberg cutoff. The Wurzburg medical convoy needs help from any source.”

  The lieutenant waited for a response. His pleas were met with nothing but static on the radio.

  At the rear of the column, the Stinger teams sprang into action. Four shoulder-mounted gunners leaped from their vehicles. Each began targeting the enemy. In their Humvees, the two Avenger teams swung around to face the onrushing threat. For the moment, the Stinger teams at the front of the sprawling formation were too far away to be of any help.

  The Americans held their fire and prayed. They waited to see if the Russians would respect the red crosses of the medical convoy.

  In the early-morning darkness, the helicopter pilots spotted a stretching military column in the crush of German automobiles on the roadway ahead. Without hesitation, the Russians dove toward the wide highway.

  From the twenty-five attackers, a massive assault of rockets and missiles rained down upon the frozen autobahn. The night sky shimmered and flashed as death streaked toward the icebound pavement. Near the rear of the convoy, a quarter-mile stretch of roadway suddenly erupted beneath the frightful power of the immense barrage. Lethal pieces of flaming metal and huge chunks of rock-hard asphalt leaped high into the air. Within the attack corridor, the horror that befell the crammed throngs was unspeakable. The death toll instantly reached into the thousands.

  Eight ambulances burst into flames. In each, nine American lives were lost without anyone within them ever realizing what had occurred.

  An Avenger succumbed to the powerful Russian assault. Behind the air defenders, two MP Humvees also were gone.

  At the same instant, 450 German cars exploded. Their gas tanks were eager receptacles for the explosive charges pouring down upon them. Hades itself couldn’t have provided a more terrifying scene. A raging inferno three hundred feet high enveloped the quarter-mile stretch of highway. The lucky ones died instantly. The unfortunate souls who somehow survived the death swirling all around them found themselves trapped in the searing fires. Flaming figures, their clothing and flesh burning, raced from the conflagration.

  The Americans answered back. Five Stingers leaped into the air. The little missiles raced toward the attackers. At the close range of the swarming helicopters, the missiles found their targets in seconds. Silhouetted in the darkness, five exploding Havocs fell from the black heavens.

  Three dropped harmlessly into the open fields on the southern side of the autobahn. Two of the burning helicopters fell upon the jumble of cars below. A mile behind the convoy, a smaller inferno erupted beneath the pair of exploding Havocs.

  The shoulder-mounted Stinger gunners rushed to remove the grip stocks and handles from their expended missile tubes. They started furiously preparing a replacement Stinger. With seven missiles waiting in his pods, the Avenger gunner targeted another of the enemy.

  The surviving Havocs swooped in. They fired a second tremendous volley of rockets and missiles. Two miles ahead of the original attack, another gruesome portion of the autobahn fell beneath the sword. A dozen ambulances and hundreds of cars were engulfed by the firestorm that leaped from the unmerciful skies. A thousand more souls were added to the rolls by the night-shattering assault.

  Thunderous explosions rocked the column. A few hundred yards in front of the location of the second attack, Robert Jensen could feel the hellish flames of the fearsome barrage.

  The Avenger fired once more. A helicopter went down. The gunner quickly targeted a third soaring Havoc and released another missile. A heat-seeking Stinger leaped from the Avenger’s left pod. It reached out at supersonic speed to seize its quarry. Scattered pieces of the defeated Russian flamed to earth.<
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  Two Stinger gunners were ready to fire again. Standing side by side, each waited for the tone to sound. The sweet tones went off. Death reached into the starlit skies to snatch a pair of Havocs. Another pair of attackers tumbled from the heavens.

  The Avenger had another helicopter in its sights. The final pair of Stinger gunners rose to their feet.

  The Russians fled into the eastern sky. Three Stingers leaped high to give chase. The heartless little killers would catch their prey just prior to reaching each small missile’s five-mile limit. A trio of retreating Havocs exploded. The thirteen survivors disappeared into the black night.

  With the immediate threat gone, the stunned Americans attempted to regroup.

  There was nothing anyone could do for those caught beneath the Russian assault. Two long stretches of white-hot, flaming pavement were a horrifying no-man’s-land. Those trapped within couldn’t be saved.

  Many would undertake their somber journey across the river Styx on this sordid morning.

  The MPs and medics stared in disbelieving silence at the grisly nightmare unfolding all around them. They were experts at handling emergencies. But they’d never before faced anything approaching this.

  The panic that gripped the German refugees was absolute. Many of the shocked survivors left their expensive automobiles and ran into the open fields on both sides of the roadway. In a futile attempt to escape, others mindlessly slammed their cars into those blocking their path.

  The eighty-three-year relationship between the Germans and their American conquerors always had been a somewhat uneasy one. Like an arranged marriage, the two sides had been involved in over eight decades of an extended love-hate relationship.

  At this moment, the deep-seated resentment many Germans held for the Americans boiled over. The shocked German survivors stared at the thousands of dead and dying on the fiery autobahn. Fear and anger overwhelmed them. They needed an outlet for their pent-up rage. They needed to strike out at something.

  The hospital convoy was right in front of them.

  CHAPTER 50

  January 31—6:45 a.m.

  Wurzburg Hospital Convoy

  A Half Mile from the Heidelberg Turnoff

  The Americans sat in the center of the confused queue of terrified souls. A badly burned German woman kneeling in the snows cradled the charred remains of her only child. The grief-stricken woman shrieked for blood. Out of her mind over the loss of her three-year-old son, she screamed for death for the Americans.

  In a flash, the Germans turned on the medical formation. At the front of the convoy, ten angry people became twenty. In a few heartbeats, twenty became one hundred. Men, women, and children as young as ten joined the ballooning crowd. One hundred grew to one thousand. A large group of cajoling skinheads pushed their way to the head of the swirling mass of furious souls. Intent on revenge, the incensed mob closed in on the Americans. There was menace in their eyes and rage in their hearts. They needed to lash out to vent their insatiable frustrations in any way they could.

  Six MPs and the four soldiers of the forward Stinger teams waited to stop the surging throng. The Germans came on. The defenders fired a warning volley into the air from their M-4s. The mob hesitated for the slightest of moments. But the perverse brown shirts weren’t going to back down. They burst forward. From thirty yards away, the Germans hurled sticks and stones. The ever-burgeoning crowd rushed the beleaguered Americans. In the cab of the third ambulance, Ramirez watched as the infuriated Germans raced toward the MPs.

  The autobahn’s roaring fires had cut off the remainder of the MP detachment. For the moment, the ten soldiers at its head were alone in their defense of the lead elements of the convoy.

  The Americans hesitated, not anticipating the incalculable fury of the wrathful riot. The soldiers fell back a few steps. The lead ambulance was scarcely ten yards behind them. There was nowhere left to go. The Americans were out of options. They lowered their M-4s, and when the lieutenant gave the order, they fired. Twenty Germans dropped on the frigid asphalt.

  The crazed mob stopped dead in its tracks. Fifty stones whistled through the air. Four soldiers were felled by the stinging stones. Streams of blood ran down the MPs’ faces.

  The Germans saw their opening. The rabid gathering, growing larger by the second, charged the dazed Americans. The soldiers staggered backward a few stumbling steps. They squeezed the triggers on their M-4s a second time. A dozen more in the melee went down. The throng slowed, but propelled by its sheer numbers, it refused to stop. The soldiers fired a final burst from point-blank range. The dead dropped around them once again.

  The lethal swarm was right on top of the Americans. They closed in from all sides. Hundreds more joined in on the attack. The seething rabble wanted blood. There was nothing more the MPs could do. They tried to fight back, but it was no use. The defenders disappeared as the weight of the surging multitude washed over them. All ten went down beneath the frenzied crush of rampaging people.

  The Germans started savagely beating the fallen Americans. In less than a minute, three of the MPs were stomped to death by the jackbooted brown shirts. In five minutes of sheer terror, each of the Americans lost his life. There were satisfied smiles on the killers’ faces as the thugs surveyed their handiwork.

  Nevertheless, the horde’s uncontrollable lust was far from sated. Their boundless fury had yet to be appeased. The vexed crowd needed much more of the twisted gratification they’d just experienced. They turned to lash out again. In their path waited the lead ambulance. Inside its cab, the driver and his partner saw the irate masses rushing for them. Too late, the medics reacted. The soldiers grabbed the M-4s propped between them in the seat. But the neo-Nazis were soon upon them. A dozen rocks smashed the ambulance’s windshield. Inside the cab, the pair dove for cover. Angry hands clawed at the door handles. The doors flew open wide. The insane throng dragged the screaming Americans from the truck. They threw them upon the cold, hard ground. A swirl of feet, fists, and stones smashed the defenseless soldiers.

  It was quickly over. Every bone in the medics’ bodies had been broken. At the head of the column, the number of American dead had grown to twelve.

  Still, after three days of watching a million of their countrymen die, it wasn’t nearly enough. The ambulance, with its white American star, was theirs for the taking. The crowd rushed forward on both sides and began furiously rocking the vehicle. Inside, the doctor and his injured patients tumbled into the narrow aisle. Stitches and tubes were ripped from those who’d fallen in battle while attempting to protect German soil.

  With a mighty shove, the ambulance fell onto its side. It slid into the wide ditch on the edge of the autobahn. Two of the wounded soldiers were dead before the wild-eyed attackers ripped open the doors.

  The skinhead-led legion dragged the Americans from the rear of the ambulance. Once more, they vented their hysterical rage. Even the dead soldiers were pulled from the vehicle and assaulted. The mangled bodies of the doctor and his patients were tossed into the snows like broken rag dolls.

  The crowd turned toward the second ambulance. Thirty yards behind the first, the Americans in the cab had witnessed what had happened to their friends. They were standing on the roadway with their rifles at the ready. The pair of medical technicians had never fired a shot in anger in their lives. But they weren’t going to let that get in their way. The moment the ravaging host turned toward their ambulance, they opened fire. The pair fired over and again as the intemperate rabble raced across the pavement toward them. A dozen or more dropped beneath the medics’ gunfire. The mob faltered, but its immense weight pushed it forward once more.

  The Americans continued to fire. The number of bodies in front of their ambulance grew. Both soldiers’ ammunition clips held thirty rounds. Each ran dry at nearly the same moment. The inexperienced medics clawed at their pistol belts for a replacement.

  The debas
ed surge, led by those with years of pent-up anger in their sadistic souls, was soon upon them. The soldiers went down beneath the onrushing crowd. They were dead in seconds. The sound of their cracking skulls could be heard over the insanity of the mob. From the cab of the next ambulance, Ramirez watched the mounting horror in disbelief. The wretched host, their rage continuing to boil, rushed to destroy those within the rear of the second ambulance.

  Another ambulance was tossed onto its side. Bloodstained hands reached into the rear compartment. Seven more bodies were soon strewn about on the bitter highway.

  Still, the vengeance-filled swarm hadn’t had enough.

  They turned toward the third ambulance.

  Seven MPs had extricated themselves from the fiery column. They were running at full speed toward the unholy scene. In another two minutes, they’d be in a position to help their countrymen.

  Ramirez looked over at the ambulance driver. The terrified soldier sat frozen in fear.

  “Get out there and stop them!”

  The soldier stared at Ramirez, incomprehension spreading across his frightened face.

  “Dammit! The least you can do is get out there and go down like a man.”

  With his good arm, Ramirez grabbed the soldier’s rifle. He shoved it toward the driver. The driver reached out to take the weapon. But he’d hesitated a fraction of a second too long before mustering the courage to act. As the tips of his fingers touched the M-4’s plastic stock, the driver’s door flew open. Blood-soiled hands tore the screaming soldier from his seat. The mob was on him in an instant. It wouldn’t be long before his screaming would stop.

  Another group moved toward the passenger door. Ramirez was waiting. The door was ripped open. The determined soldier stared into a pair of evil eyes set deep within a shaved German skull.

  Cradling the driver’s rifle under his left arm, Ramirez calmly blew the skinhead’s face off with a single shot. The nearly headless body fell back into the crowd. Ramirez sprayed a quick, three-shot burst. Two more neo-Nazis fell. The mob hesitated.