“Is out of the question,” Mansfeld said. “You must drive your men harder and harder yet.”
“Then I request substantial reinforcements,” Holk said.
“Your request is denied,” Mansfeld said. “You have everything you need and more to achieve sustained results.”
“Please allow me to say yes and no, sir,” Holk said. He pulled a paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “This is a list of critically needed supplies. I don’t wish to cast blame on others, but key supplies have failed to reach my depots. I have inquired and learned that General Zeller has confiscated these items.”
“I have simply replenished my stores,” Zeller said, hotly. “I am about to make an amphibious assault. It is the most dangerous mission in a war. Too many stocks were burned up as I destroyed enemy formations that Army Group A had bypassed. You must not forget that I also guard against Army Group New York to the northeast of Lake Ontario.”
“No,” Holk said. “I understand that the supply routes move through your assigned territory before they reach me. Your quartermasters have pilfered—”
“Gentlemen!” Mansfeld said, sternly. “We have achieved incredible results in a short span of time. Both of you have performed prodigiously and both of your army groups have fought tirelessly. The battle in the Golden Horseshoe has proven particularity exhausting, and you have each expended a greater amount of munitions than we anticipated.”
Mansfeld spoke directly to Holk now. “You have stretched the American position to the breaking point. That is good, but you mustn’t stop. Your men are tired. The Americans are even more so. I expect you to break out of the Golden Horseshoe and reach London, Ontario in a week. Afterward, you have another week to reach Detroit.”
“If my divisions were fresh and the men completely rested, yes, of course,” Holk said. “I could do as you say. But their present state—”
“You must listen to me,” Mansfeld said. “The enemy is also tired. Yet I doubt they’re giving their commanders endless excuses.”
“I understand,” Holk said, frowning. “Yet we both know that the defense is an inherently stronger form of—”
“Are these yet more excuses?” Mansfeld asked. “Must I search elsewhere for a commander to do as I order?”
“No, sir,” Holk said. The red spots on his cheeks burned a deeper color. “You have given me stiff tasks. I need help in order to accomplish them in your timeframe.”
Mansfeld stared at the untidy general. One of the buttons in his uniform had been left undone—unbelievable.
“Sir,” Holk said. He touched the paper of needed supplies. Mansfeld hadn’t picked it up, so it still lay on the table. Holk’s frown deepened, and he blinked several times. “Sir,” he said, and he seemed to gather resolve. “I would like to make a suggestion, and I wish you would hear me out.”
Mansfeld hesitated before nodding. He understood that Army Group A had taken losses from battle, from fatigue and from wear. He read the reports. Since the beginning of the campaign, the army group had lost a quarter of its strength. That still left it with nearly 700,000 effectives, as compared to the Americans. In truth, Holk likely had 350,000 actual soldiers. The GD force multipliers gave it the higher rate. The defenders outnumbered him, but Holk had the greater weight of machines and firepower.
The general picked up the paper and refolded it as he spoke. “The Toronto defenders are still more than gadflies. If fact, they act as Malta did against Rommel in WWII. The Desert Fox desperately needed the supplies shipped from Italy to North Africa. The Malta air force sank too many Axis freighters along their way south.”
“I’m familiar with the military history of World War II,” Mansfeld said.
“Of course, sir,” Holk said. “Before I finish in Hamilton and break through to London, let me knock out the Toronto defenders with a final massed assault. They have troublesome artillery, spot for the Americans farther back and they keep pounding my various supply routes, causing too great an attrition rate. They raid, as well.”
“I understand,” Mansfeld said.
Holk nodded. “Instead of bypassing them, let me concentrate and destroy the stronghold once and for all. Then, with the way cleared and without any distractions, I will be in London in three or four days.”
“Two days to annihilate everything in Toronto?” Mansfeld asked.
“Yes. That sounds right.”
And then four days to reach London?” Mansfeld asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s six days,” Mansfeld said, “a net saving of only a single day, as I want you at London in a week.”
“A day faster, clear supply routes and the elimination of a troublesome stronghold,” Holk said. “Either that, sir, or give the Toronto holdouts to Zeller to eliminate. We must get rid of them as fast as possible.”
“That’s General Zeller to you,” Zeller said. “And I do not want to take care of your problems. I’m having enough of a headache getting my forces ready for the amphibious assault.”
“You’re far from launching the assault yet,” Holk said. “It will likely be a week before any GD formation is ready to cross Lake Erie. More like nine days at the soonest. For all our sakes, we must clear out Toronto now.”
“Listen to me, both of you,” Mansfeld said, his mind made up. “General Holk, you will destroy the Toronto Pocket. That is your first priority. You will clear the defenders and open the way for full movement. Then you will bring everything to bear against Hamilton and rush through to London and then Detroit.
“General Zeller,” Mansfeld said. “You will continue with your war games and ready Twelfth Army for the great jump across the Great Lakes. I want your soldiers ready to commit mayhem once they reach the farther shores.”
Zeller nodded.
“At the moment the load is now on you, General,” Mansfeld said, speaking to Holk. “I will accept no excuses or delays.”
“I will need priority on supplies,” Holk said.
“You may be right,” Mansfeld said. “I will look into that.” He would look into it, but Holk would get what he would get. He studied the two men. They were unalike, but they were both drivers. They both made the men under them fight, although through different styles of command.
“Have I made myself clear on these issues, gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir,” Zeller said. And it seemed that it was all he could do to keep from smirking at Holk.
Mansfeld understood that he’d sided with Zeller in this. Holk had done splendid work, but the decisive attack would be Zeller’s thrust into New York State and through the top of Pennsylvania.
“General Holk?” Mansfeld asked.
The general nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, in a quieter voice. “I understand and will obey your directives.”
Mansfeld stood and the two generals stood. He still had much to do. He shook hands, took their salutes and saluted back. Then he watched them go: Holk to his tank and Zeller to the hover.
There had been a few setbacks these past few days: nothing major, but enough to have called the meeting. Soon now, he would blow open the campaign.
TORONTO, ONTARIO
Len Zelazny helped his corporal down a trembling sewer line. Every time someone shined a light on the water to their left, they saw ripples. The young lad Zelazny helped used a crutch with his other arm. His right was draped around the general’s shoulders.
A line of weary American and Canadian soldiers marched along the underground chamber. It stank down here. Dust drifted in the air and the thud and crash of artillery kept shaking the ceiling above. They had flashlights. Seven beams played on the walkway and sometimes on the damp walls and soiled water. The soldiers and Marines carried personal weapons only. A few had grenade launchers. They were out of Javelins and heavier machine guns.
The GD soldiers had finally broken the pocket and mopped up survivors. It was a rat war now. The stars shone outside, but Zelazny wondered if he’d ever see them again. How many countless good boys had died i
n Toronto?
He shook his head, and he concentrated on helping the corporal one shuffling step at a time.
A shout came from ahead. Then Zelazny heard screams.
“What’s going on, sir?” the corporal asked.
“We’re losing the war, son. That’s what is going on.”
“At least we fought hard, didn’t we, sir?”
“Yes,” Zelazny said. But there was a taste of defeat in his mouth like old mothballs. He didn’t like it. Maybe it even tasted un-American. In his youth, his country had won all the time. They had stood astride the globe, the dominant world power. It sure wasn’t like that anymore.
“Tanks!” a man shouted from the head of the column.
“Down here?” someone else shouted.
“Tanks,” the first man repeated. “I hear them, so they’re down here.”
The line of soldiers stopped. The seven beams played along the sewer line.
“What are we going do?” a soldier asked.
Zelazny took a deep breath, making him scowl at the odor. This was the last battle. “Listen up!” he shouted. “We’re going to set up an ambush.”
“Maybe we should surrender,” one of the soldiers said. “We can’t do anything more. Not down here.”
Zelazny hesitated. The boys had fought hard in horrible conditions. He didn’t have the heart to call the man who’d just said that a quitter.
Before Len Zelazny could speak the words, a violent explosion hammered against the ceiling. Chunks of masonry rained down and plunked into the water. Debris drifted like doom and soldiers and Marines went down under the hail…
Zelazny found himself blinking. He didn’t know how much time had passed as he lay on concrete. He had a terrible sense of deja vu. He strained and he saw the corporal dead beside him. Zelazny struggled to bring up his weapon.
He heard treads squeal. It was so close. Was this another terminator? A GD search beam played across his body. Zelazny looked up and saw a camera peering at him, a robotic eye with a red light in its lens. He hated these things. This wasn’t how men should fight wars: through soulless machines.
A 12.7mm tri-barrel aimed at his head. He didn’t care anymore. The long slog was over. Some kid was probably doing this to him from his remote-control set.
With a desire to go down fighting, Zelazny tried to bring up his weapon for one last shot.
The Sigrid tri-barrel whirred with thunderous noise, and Marine General Len Zelazny died as he’d begun—a regular grunt with a gun. Only this time, for the first time in his life—and the last—he utterly lost.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
Colonel Stan Higgins sat in a plush rail car, staring out at passing cornfields when he read the news about Toronto. The last formations were surrendering. For the Toronto Pocket, the fighting and the war had ended. Now came the POW cages for the survivors.
Stan set down his e-reader. He still hadn’t heard about Jake. He’d been making calls though, and had found out the new penal battalions had headed for Buffalo and Hamilton, while others had gone north to New England.
Where are you son? What happened? I can’t believe no one will talk to me about you.
Stan watched the passing cornfields and slowly, they became a blur. After a time, he shook his head and leaned back, closing his eyes. He remembered Pastor Bill who had died in Alaska back in 2032, fighting the Chinese. Bill and he had been best friends for so many years. Their wives had been best friends. Bill and he had had fierce ping-pong matches down in Stan’s basement. He’d never found anyone as competitive as Bill. If the pastor were sitting beside him now, he’d tell Stan to pray about Jake.
Breathing heavily through his nostrils, Stan didn’t know if he cared to pray. How could God have let this happen to his son? His boy had been through Denver this winter. That should be enough pain for one man’s lifetime, especially that of his son.
The miles slid away as Stan thought about it. Finally, sighing, he decided this showed him the Devil was alive and well on Planet Earth. Bill had been right about that.
Opening his eyes, Stan smiled sadly. He missed Bill. They’d had long talks together, usually while fishing or while riding up the interstate together to go hunting. Bill had made some cogent arguments.
Ultimately, what was the origin of evil? Was it relative as they taught in the universities? Was one man’s evil another man’s good, just depending on his point of view? That was too philosophical for Stan, and he didn’t buy it, not after Bill had explained it. If evil was relative, did that mean Hitler’s burning of the Jews wasn’t absolute evil? If evil changed depending on what fifty-one percent of a people said it was at any one moment, than people could argue that Hitler had been right for his time and place. Who were we to judge them right or wrong?
No. Stan couldn’t accept that. He believed what Bill had told him long ago. There was evil because there was good. God created everything and it had been good, at least according to the Good Book. The Bible taught evil had an origin, a starting point, and that was when the Devil had rebelled against God. The Devil had brought the rebellion to Earth by tempting Adam and Eve. Because evil had a starting point, good had a starting point, an ultimate source. Therefore, one could say this or that was absolutely evil all the time. Therefore, one could say that Hitler had been evil to burn the Jews, and that was Truth with a capital “T”.
Stan shook his head. What would his fellow passengers think if they knew what he was debating with himself? The point for Stan was this: instead of blaming God for evil, he would blame the Devil and Stan would blame himself. That meant Stan could also blame the Militia Detention Center people. And against them, he could use some help.
Therefore, Stan closed his eyes and silently asked God to be with his boy.
“And help me get him back,” Stan muttered.
He exhaled, opened his eyes and stared at the passing cornfields. America the bountiful: this was the reason China, Brazil and the German Dominion attacked. They wanted to feed their people off America’s plenty.
We have to stop them. But do we have enough muscle?
It was a good question. Time would tell.
What’s happening to you, Jake, and where are you?
NIAGARA PENINSULA, ONTARIO
Jake threw himself into a depression in the ground, with his chest striking a half-buried stone with a point. It hurt like a son of a bitch, the edged point digging into the flesh over his heart. He clenched his teeth to keep from yelling. He wore the old Army coat, old baggy pants and worn boots. He had an intact helmet, and that surprised him. He clutched an M16, carried extra magazines and even had a few ancient grenades. In other words, he was inadequately armed to destroy Sigrids and GD drone tanks.
Charlie thudded beside him, grunting painfully. At the same instant, enemy artillery shells landed with explosive and deadly force all around them.
Jake tried to make love to the earth, thrusting himself as low as he could go. He ate damp moss and felt wet dirt clods pelt against his back.
Charlie shouted, and Jake had no idea how, but he sensed the kid would get up and bolt. Risking dismemberment by flying shrapnel, Jake lunged up and grabbed Charlie’s leg. He dragged the kid down. Charlie sobbed with fear and kicked at him with his free foot. Jake endured the blows on the top of his helmet. Then he surged up Charlie’s body and bear-hugged him.
“Stay down, you fool!” Jake shouted. “You have to wait out an artillery barrage.”
More shells slammed around them, upon the trees and the mossy open glade. The attack was terrorizing, lung busting and full of screaming metal. But the Earth was a big place. So even though artillery was the king of battle, and the great infantry killer, even massed artillery seldom killed everyone in a selected patch of ground.
Twenty minutes after the first shell landed, the GD bombardment stopped.
Jake looked up. Tress had become shredded stumps or ghostly spikes. The glade looked as if giant farmers had plowed it up and dotted it with moonscape cr
aters. Yet now that an eerie silence had descended, other heads poked up, big human gophers with muddy helmets.
The first spoken words came from behind the penal militiamen. It was the amplified shouts of the MDG Sergeants driving them like slave masters.
“Let’s go!” Sergeant Franks roared through his amplifier. “We don’t have all day. Keep heading west. No malingering or you’ll be shot.”
The few medics rushed to help those they could.
Jake dragged himself to his feet. Maybe a quarter of the penal company did likewise. The other three-quarters were dead, dying or too crippled to do anything but scream or stare at the clouds. A medic already pushed a needle into one screaming, middle-aged man with bloody stumps for legs. Those in good shape would have helped, but the sergeants had already drummed into their heads that during a US attack, penal troops kept moving forward no matter what.
Jake and Charlie walked back several yards to collect their main weapon. They hauled an old TOW missile platform with two wheels. Instead of mules, they pulled it. How it had survived the shelling, Jake had no idea. He was the TOW shooter, because he’d actually fired one of these before.
All along the half-destroyed woods, the company advanced toward Hamilton. There were other companies and battalions moving parallel with them on either side and out of sight. They were reinforcements sent to break through the GD encirclement around the Canadians and Americans holding out in the city.
The bulk of the US reinforcements came from two Army Groups. The first 100,000 soldiers came from New York Command, peeled away from the men facing GD Army Group B north of Lake Ontario. Another 100,000 was on its way from New England Command. They had faced GD Army Group C in Quebec. The present advance to contact came from the US Fifth Army, the XXIII Militia Corps, of which they were part.
Invasion: New York (Invasion America) Page 23