by Larry Bond
“Captain Gates, I can see them.” The LCAC operator’s voice in his headphones almost made him jump. Gates looked over to the glassed-in cab where the craft’s “driver” sat. The petty officer was pointing, not that you needed his guidance to see the cluster of lights on the beach.
Dead ahead, he spotted a cluster of three lights: red, white, and blue. To the right, he saw another group of lights — right where they were supposed to be. No tracers, no other signs of life even through the night-vision goggles. All right. “It’s a go,” he answered in his microphone, and instantly the LCAC’s running lights flashed to life, almost blinding in the darkness.
The hovercraft lumbered up onto the beach, throwing spray and pebbles in all directions even as its giant fans wound down.
When the bow ramp dropped, Gates almost sprinted down it, anxious to get off the vulnerable landing craft. The rocky, pebble-covered beach didn’t provide the best footing, especially in the dark, but a little of the tension left him when he felt his boots slam down on solid ground again. The worst was over.
As planned, Charlie Company fanned out, providing security for the rest of the wave, only minutes behind him. He trotted toward the lights, followed by his radiotelephone operator and a squad from 1st Platoon.
A small party stood next to the metal framework holding the three spotlights. First silhouetted, then illuminated as Gates changed direction, were three men in camouflage battle dress, but wearing berets, not helmets.
The marine captain slowed to a fast walk, slinging his M16 and unconsciously straightening his gear. Two of the men stepped forward to meet him. In the darkness, the marine could see a tall, long-faced officer with a black, bristling mustache and another shorter, clean-shaven man, but their unfamiliar rank insignia baffled him. Given the situation, it was a silly thing to worry about, but old reflexes die hard.
The tall man saved him the trouble, saluting first and announcing in clipped English accent, “Major Vandendries, Belgian Army.” He nodded toward his shorter companion. “And this is Colonel Luiten of the Dutch Royal Army.” He smiled. “Welcome to Belgium.”
Gates quickly returned the salute, answering, “Captain Gates, United States Marines, and I’m damned glad to see you, sir.”
Turning to his radiotelephone operator, he ordered, “Send ‘Bayonet.’ “
ABOARD USS INCHON
“Message from the first wave, sir.” The intercom’s message stilled all other activity on Inchon’s bridge. “Bayonet!”
Ward exhaled and grinned, suddenly not caring if the Old Man looked like an idiot. He wanted to dance.
Inchon’s bridge crew was too professional to shout or cheer, but he saw the smiles matching his own.
“Bayonet” meant the marines had made peaceful contact with the Belgian armed forces. “Dagger” would have signaled a peaceful landing but no contact, and “Sword” had been the code word for a hostile reception — for utter and abject failure.
Ward realized that everyone on the bridge was looking to him, and that Captain March was standing nearby, waiting patiently. Harry was smiling, he noted, but was also impatient.
“Order the second wave in, and pass the word to all forces: we’re among friends.”
March turned and hurried away.
By the time the admiral had walked over to the bridge wing again, the Ospreys’ rotors were turning and the last of the marines were aboard. He wondered how they felt, suddenly finding out that there would be no shooting, no “opposed landing.” Instead of invading an enemy, they were reinforcing a friend.
Down below on the flight deck, rotors spun faster, the sound made by eight 6,000-horsepower engines growing to a roar. When the noise reached a peak, the four Ospreys lifted off, one after another, and smoothly curved toward the now-friendly shore. Their marines would be on the ground in minutes, and by dawn the battalion Inchon carried would be in place, along with the rest of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade loaded aboard the rest of the Amphibious Group.
Once it was light enough, the rest of the freighters — those carrying the armor, guns, and supplies belonging to the 1st Cavalry and 4th Infantry — would steam into Belgian and Dutch ports. They would debark their loads at harbor piers, instead of across a conquered beach. What might have cost lives, and almost as important, time, would now be an “administrative landing.”
Ward suddenly remembered Huntington, still sitting in his chair, and went over to congratulate him. As he approached the man, though, he turned away. He’d do it later, when the presidential advisor woke up.
PARIS
Ignoring the clock, Desaix had worked into the early morning hours at his desk, trying to cope with the results of the army’s latest failure. Intelligence reports and other documents lay neatly piled on one corner, while the remains of a late supper covered a map. He’d given up studying the data. He knew the problems France faced, and no piece of paper could solve them for him.
Montagne’s commando raid against the mutinous leaders of the 7th Panzer had failed utterly. And now this General Leibnitz had gone from being merely intransigent to openly hostile.
Desaix grimaced. He already faced the unpleasant prospect of a mutinous German division and a stalled offensive. The potential was far worse.
Schraeder’s government, now informed of the 7th’s refusal to obey orders, appeared oddly reluctant to relieve Leibnitz of his command or issue its own orders for his arrest. With thousands of its own soldiers refusing lawful directives, Berlin seemed completely paralyzed.
Now, until the issue was resolved, he couldn’t depend on any German unit — whether in Poland or outside the invaded country. The whole EurCon offensive had come to a screeching halt. No one could expect the alliance’s French divisions to fight effectively — not when they had to watch their backs as well as their front. Worse, since the army’s supply lines ran through Germany on the way back to France, they were now horribly vulnerable. What if the railroad workers or German soldiers guarding those supply lines decided to follow the 7th Panzer’s bad example?
And what would happen when the Americans learned about this mutiny? How long would they wait before pouring into the gap that created EurCon lines? Desaix closed his eyes against the glare from his desk lamp, wishing the pain surging through his head would go away. He was rapidly running out of options.
“Minister.” One of his duty aides, Radet, stood in the doorway, tentatively addressing him and even more tentatively offering him a single sheet of paper. The younger man seemed pale.
He took the document, and before he could even ask what it was about, the unwilling messenger fled. Bad news, then, Desaix thought resignedly. What have the Germans done now?
It took a moment for his overtaxed mind to focus on the information, and he had to start reading again at the beginning before he understood that this wasn’t about Germany.
Belgium’s border was closed to all ground and air traffic. A communications blackout had thwarted all attempts to establish any reason for the closure. Phones and data lines were dead, and all television and radio stations were off the air. Even radio communications were affected, because of Combined Forces jamming in connection with heavy air raids now pounding northeastern France.
His subordinates at the Foreign Ministry could not reach their embassy in Brussels or any of the other French consulates.
Desaix felt cold as he read further. Whatever was happening involved more than just Belgium. DGSE monitoring stations reported that all television and radio stations inside the neutral Netherlands were interrupting their normal programming to order Dutch reservists to their wartime posts. And now the embassy in The Hague had signaled that it had been asked to stand by to receive an official message “of vital importance” from the Dutch government.
For a moment, he wondered if this was a hoax, some diabolical deception by the British and American spy services, but the scale of the action made that impossible. Questions whirled through his head. Is this tied in with the German crisis?
But how?
Desaix scooped the phone off his desk and punched in the special code for Morin. He needed input from the head of the DGSE fast.
“Director’s office.” The voice on the other end sounded nervous.
“This is Desaix. Put me through to Morin immediately!”
There was an audible pause. “I’m very sorry, Minister, but I regret to inform you that the director is unavailable at the moment.”
Desaix saw red. “I don’t give a damn whether he’s in the bathroom, sleeping, or with his mistress! You find him and bring him to the phone! Understand?”
Strangely his anger seemed to stiffen the other man’s spine. “I’m afraid that is impossible, Minister. I will pass your message on and have him contact you as soon as he is free.”
The line went dead.
Nicolas Desaix stared down at the softly crackling phone in dismay. It appeared that the first rats were beginning to desert his sinking ship.
HEADQUARTERS, 7TH PANZER DIVISION
Willi von Seelow started from an uneasy sleep. Someone was shouting “Movement!” and men were running to their battle stations. A flash of panic filled him. Were the French attacking again, in real strength this time, or were the Poles and Americans ready to exact their revenge? He rolled out of his cot, grabbed the MP5 next to it, and stumbled out into the predawn gray. General Leibnitz and Schisser were awake, too, with the same worried expressions on their faces.
They ran toward the shouts, and were relieved to see a muddy and tired German lieutenant climbing off a civilian motorcycle.
When he spotted the men coming toward him, all fatigue left the young officer. Bracing and saluting, he reported, “Oberleutnant Meyer, Headquarters, 2nd Panzergrenadier, sir.”
Willi’s ears pricked up at that. The 2nd Panzergrenadier was their sister division in the II Corps. Within hours of the raid on the division’s headquarters, the French had begun jamming all their radio channels, blocking any communications with their fellow German units. And none of the couriers they’d sent out in all directions with the real story had returned yet.
Leibnitz returned the salute carefully. “At ease, Lieutenant.”
Meyer relaxed slightly, but remained at attention. “Sir, General Berg sends his greetings and a message,” he recited.
“Continue,” prompted Leibnitz. Every ear in range listened closely. If the man carried the message in oral form, that meant it was too sensitive to commit to paper.
“We’ve heard about the French attack on your headquarters, and your casualties,” the lieutenant recited. “We are with you, and the last Frenchman we saw was given an extremely hot reception. I am passing word of this crime to every other German unit I can reach.” Meyer stopped, drew a breath, and relaxed a little more. “That’s all, sir. I can take a reply back right now, or act as a runner if you want me to stay.” Someone handed him a cup of coffee, and he took a grateful sip.
“Stay, then,” Leibnitz ordered. “Have you had any word from Berlin?”
“No, sir, our command nets are being jammed now, too, the landlines as well. The only message we received said to stand by.”
Leibnitz nodded somberly. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Willi and the other officers muttered their agreement. Just sitting did serious damage to the EurCon cause.
USS INCHON
Admiral Jack Ward sat in Inchon’s flag plot, watching the inland air battle on radar. France had thrown every plane in its waning arsenal against his formations. It hadn’t been enough. The attacks had been piecemeal, almost hurried, and strangely enough, no German units had participated. The intelligence people were still trying to piece the story together, but they confirmed the basic fact. The Luftwaffe was not flying.
Left hanging out in the open by their allies, the incoming French aircraft had met a fire-tipped wall of F-14s and F-18s from the two carriers supporting the landing, F-15 and Tornado interceptors from England, and gratifyingly, Dutch and Belgian F-16s. It hadn’t been a “fair fight,” but then a well-planned battle never was.
To the north, the tanks, trucks, and guns of the 4th Infantry were coming ashore at Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Flown in from Britain by air, its forward elements were already probing toward the German frontier. Here in Belgium, the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade was now completely ashore and moving west. And the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division would be unloaded by noon, and on the road shortly thereafter, a sword at France’s throat.
“Jack.” Ward turned around to see Ross Huntington towering over him, accompanied by another much shorter, much younger civilian. “Can you spare a few minutes? I think I’ve got something you’d like to see.”
Huntington and the other man followed Ward out of CIC, down a ladder, and through a short passageway to his stateroom. “Admiral’s Country” was a well-appointed, if not luxurious, combination of bedroom, office, and meeting room. As they settled themselves, Ward studied the contrast between the Huntington of last night and the one sitting in front of him now.
Refreshed, almost eager, the President’s close friend and advisor no longer seemed frail or tired, but full of energy. You couldn’t get that from eight hours’ sleep, especially when half of it was in a bridge chair, he thought. Ward always got a crick in his neck the next day.
A mess steward served coffee and laid out a silver tray with fresh-baked sweet rolls, then quickly disappeared.
Huntington introduced the stranger as an analyst from the National Security Agency. Even that mention of the shadowy agency seemed to make the young man uncomfortable. Ward knew that Huntington received regular intelligence updates by special courier. He’d never shared any of the information in them, until now.
Motioning to the courier, Huntington remarked, “Paul here has spent the early morning hours in the backseat of an F-14, from Washington to London to George Washington. And by helicopter to here.”
“This stuff is new, less than six hours old in some cases.” He leaned forward, rubbing his hands. “And it’s hot. It looks like about half the German Army is on strike. Attacks on the Polish front have virtually stopped, and in a very uncoordinated manner. Despite some heavy-duty jamming, we’ve also picked up plain-language radio transmissions that talk about the French as if they were the adversary, not us or the Poles.”
Ward whistled. No wonder the Luftwaffe hadn’t shown itself anywhere near Belgian or Dutch airspace. “What do we do about it?”
Huntington smiled. “If you can show me to your radio room, I’ve got a few ideas to put in front of the President.”
ALPHA COMPANY, 3/187TH INFANTRY, NEAR SWIECIE, POLAND
Alpha Company had almost recovered from its last battle, at least as recovered as any outfit could be with nearly half its soldiers dead or wounded. Still, Mike Reynolds counted himself lucky. The rest of the battalion had taken the brunt of the German offensive. Some squads had disappeared altogether, and some platoons could barely scrape together a fire team. Total casualties throughout the division were said to be more than a thousand men. He shook his head. One or two more battles like that and they wouldn’t have a division left — not as an effective fighting force anyway.
Now, though, the Germans were not attacking at all. Even their recon units had stopped probing. And Division and Corps had used the time to strengthen their defensive positions and to build up desperately needed supplies and reinforcements. Better still, more battalions from the 1st Armored and the 24th Mech were arriving from Gdansk — feeding into a powerful mobile reserve held right behind the battle line.
Reynolds couldn’t understand why the Germans had stopped. Exhaustion? Some brilliant tactical maneuver? Whatever the reason, when EurCon tried to attack again, they’d find a very different enemy.
Alpha Company had taken over part of 2nd Battalion’s position, just east of Swiecie. He remembered his men as they had moved forward. The company had been proud of their fight, bragging about it to each other. They’d stopped bragging when they saw the shattered remnant
s of the town.
Adams trotted up. “Officer’s call, sir. Platoon and company leaders. In the hotel.”
The Piast Hotel was little more than a shell, with its upper floors collapsed, and the stone walls scorched by fire. It was a recognizable landmark, though, and still partially intact. Colby had chosen to remain there. Habitable buildings were in short supply.
Colby almost matched his headquarters. He’d been caught on the edge of the bomb blast that had shattered the hotel, and he’d been lucky to escape with some first-degree burns, singed hair, and a lot of lacerations. He looked like hell.
He was still upbeat, though, almost cheerful with the front quiet. “New orders, sports fans, new ROEs.”
The officers and noncoms looked at him expectantly, more than a little puzzled. They were already in a full-fledged shooting war. Why would the brass issue new rules of engagement now?
Colby went on. “Unless the Germans shoot at us, we don’t shoot at them.”
He waved down the startled chorus of questions and protests The 3/187th was a disciplined group, but this was different. Was the war over? What the hell was Division thinking about?
“This didn’t come from Division,” Colby countered. “This is diplomatic stuff, all the way up to the C-in-C level.”
Reynolds stepped out of the group. With his men’s lives on the line, he wanted the orders he would have to fight under crystal-clear. “What do we do if they come at us?”
“Report to me. If they’re close enough to shoot, shoot first and we’ll sort it out later. But if you just spot ‘em, don’t shoot. The idea is to leave them alone, so no patrolling, no harassing fire with artillery, no air strikes. We watch, and we wait.”
“What about the French?” Reynolds asked.
“If you can ID a target as French, give it everything you’ve got.”