by Harold Coyle
While such thoughts were never far from her mind, there were other, more pressing concerns that Jan had to deal with. For in spite of the fact that the end was clearly in sight, the dark and nebulous forces that had driven the Tenth Corps on were still at play. With the same blind and mindless determination that had kept the Tenth Corps moving north, units still responding to the orders of the German Chancellor continued to hack away at the rear-guard elements of Big Al's tattered corps. It was in the words of one of Jan's male co-workers as if some Germans couldn't admit defeat as long as they had a chance to strike out and hit an American unit. Forgetting for a moment that her husband was still very much a part of the story, Jan's friend predicted that there would be one more final killing frenzy, one last mindless battle, regardless of how pointless it was, before serious political negotiations could begin. Though she hoped that everyone in Germany would simply allow the battle to die away quietly, Jan knew in her heart and soul that as long as men like her Scotty still stood on both sides of the battle lines that wouldn't happen.
So she watched the videos as they were beamed in live from Europe and prayed that somewhere on one of them she would be able to catch a glimpse of his face.
Flanked by Secretary of Defense Terry Rothenberg and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Wilson moved with such a brisk pace down the corridor that those following began to think she was trying to run away from them. They didn't realize how right they were. Tired of briefing after briefing on the military situation, Wilson was looking for any excuse to shake her entourage of stern-faced military bureaucrats and generals. So when Wilson saw Ed Lewis come around the corner out of a side corridor quite by accident, she called out, "Ed, before you return to the State Department, there's something I need to go over with you."
Without even a polite smile, she turned to Rothenberg. "Terry, if you'd excuse me, there's a few things I need to discuss with the Secretary of State designee before he leaves." Not waiting for a response, Wilson stepped away from Rothenberg and his gang of military men. Grabbing Lewis's arm, Wilson snatched him away from his assistant and started to head for the Oval Office as quickly as she could. Only after they were in the office and a member of the Secret Service closed the door behind them did she let her newly named Secretary of State go.
Walking over to the front edge of her desk, Wilson stopped, placed her hands palms down on it, and leaned forward. "How much longer do you think it will be, Ed?"
Walking over to one of the overstuffed chairs, he allowed his tired frame to drop into it and settle before he answered her. "From what I've been told, maybe another six, seven hours before the last of the rear guard makes it to the 17th Airborne's forward outpost, providing the Germans don't cut the road again."
Shaking her head, Wilson corrected Lewis. "No, not that. I know about the counterattack that the Germans are preparing." Spinning around, she folded her arms across her chest. "No, what I'm talking about is how long before everyone figures out that we, with the help of General Malin, duped them?"
There was no need for Lewis to consider that question. "Never." For a moment Wilson stared at Lewis before he continued. "There is no need for anyone to know. There are only four people who know exactly what happened and how this whole thing got started." Lewis held four fingers up. As he named each of the conspirators, Lewis dropped a finger. "To start with, there's you. But I don't think that you're going to go on national television and announce, 'Guess what, folks, I fooled you.' No, even if you had a burning desire to repent for your sins, this country has had far too rough a time. The last thing you need to do is follow the Ukrainian adventure and the German crisis with a Washington scandal like this."
Holding herself close, Wilson considered what Lewis had said. There had been times, especially when she was alone, when she'd considered doing exactly that. But she didn't tell him, or anyone else, for she still wasn't sure which way she would go on that issue. Even as Lewis continued, Wilson decided that she was still undecided.
"Then, of course, there's me. I can assure you, Madam President, this has not been the highlight of my career as a public servant. Yet I have no intention of slitting my own wrists in public. You see, as much as I hate what we did, I consider what we did the best choice from a whole stableful of bad ones. I am confident that in time our actions will be able to stand on their own merit."
"What about Malin? Remember, I'm obligated to relieve him as soon as he reaches Bremerhaven and bring him to Washington to stand court-martial."
Lewis dropped his hand and let a slight chuckle slip. "Yes, I know. And I've noticed that he has not been seen by anyone, especially the media, since his corps started re-entering friendly lines."
Not having made any special effort to track him, Wilson pondered this for a moment. "Do you suppose he's trying to skip out, escape or hide?"
"No, no need to worry about that. He's just waiting until all of his units are safe. When the last of the rear-guard units make it back safely, he'll turn himself over to the most senior commander on the scene and come back here to face his court-martial, just as we agreed to."
"But then the nice little story about a renegade commander will be exposed as a lie."
Lewis shook his head. "No, not at all. He'll ask for a trial by a military judge only, which will eliminate the jury. Since much of the evidence that will be brought against him deals with national security issues, the session will be closed-door. And his defense attorney will be able to present only that information that Malin himself provides. So the trial will be quick. General Malin will be found guilty, sentenced, and after a few weeks forgotten. After all of his appeals have run out and the trauma of this crisis has been replaced on prime time news by another hot issue, you will pardon him."
"Do we have to go through this charade?"
Shrugging his shoulders and clapping his hands together, Lewis sighed. '"Fraid so, Abigail. The German Parliament, which is on the verge of gaining control in Germany, is watching your every move. They are looking for anything that will allow them to bring this affair to an end. You see, the German Parliament, through their own little staged trial, will bring Ruff to justice, as they see it, just as you will bring your renegade corps commander to justice. Ruff, who took the nuclear weapons from us and placed unreasonable demands on you, will be gone. Malin, who violated German territorial integrity and started the German crisis, will be gone. Since neither the German Parliament nor you had any direct control over those events, the ones that precipitated the actual shooting war, there'll be no barriers to open and free negotiations. Resolution of outstanding issues will be quick, and everyone will trip over themselves as they rush to re-establish the prewar normalcy, whatever that was."
Though she knew Lewis was a tough character, she had never viewed him as being a cynic. Unfortunately that happened to anyone who worked too long within the Beltway. She looked at Lewis. "Who's number four? I thought there were only three of us?"
"Number four, Madam President, is Colonel Scott Dixon."
"The same Dixon that's married to Jan Fields, the correspondent on WNN?"
"The very same. Malin insisted that Dixon, whom he considers one of the brightest minds in the Army, be in on the initial discussions when we were considering the feasibility of this whole escapade. Dixon made a quick study, came up with some initial planning guidance, and turned it over to Malin so that it appeared that Malin had done it on his own. The plan I brought back from Prague and that Malin executed was Dixon's."
"And how will he react when Malin takes the fall for this whole affair?"
"Scott Dixon, Madam President, is a professional soldier. He will do what he is told. Before I left Prague over two weeks ago, General Malin, in my presence, asked Dixon to promise that he would never divulge any of the conversations that Malin and I had."
"Dixon will adhere to that promise?"
"Abigail, Dixon's a soldier, not a politician. Of course he'll keep his word. Besides—" Lewis stopped.
"Go on, Ed. You were about to say something?"
Lewis looked down at the floor a little sheepishly before he answered. When he did, there was a hint of remorse in his voice. "You know, of course, that the rear-guard detachments from the 4th Armored Division are part of Dixon's brigade?"
Cocking her head, Wilson tried to remember if she had been told about that, but in the blizzard of military briefings she had been given, she was sure that she had never made the connection. Finally shaking her head, she responded, "No, to tell you the truth, I really didn't. But what has that to do with this?"
Slowly Lewis explained himself. "The 2nd Panzer has not been stopped by naval or Air Force aviation from Britain. They're the ones that took a hammering back in central Germany, and if reports are to be believed, they're out for blood, anyone's blood. Since that unit is mostly easterners who have remained steadfastly loyal to Ruff, we expect that they'll make one more effort."
"But why? I mean, it's over. They have no more nuclear weapons. Most of the Tenth Corps has made it to the sea. What possibly is there to gain from one more battle?"
Lewis stood up and looked over to Wilson. His face was a mask betraying no emotions. "The 2nd Panzer Division will attack for exactly the same reason that Scott Dixon will keep his mouth shut. A sense of duty that even soldiers can't explain."
It suddenly dawned upon Wilson what Lewis had left unsaid a moment ago. Dixon, who was still out there exposed to danger, might not make it, leaving only three people to share -their secret. Standing upright, Wilson was about to call Lewis a bastard, but then held herself in check. Not that she had to, for the look on her face told Lewis what she was thinking.
Lewis said nothing. There wasn't anything more to say. Whatever happened in Germany in the next twelve to twenty-four hours was out of their hands. The fate of Dixon and the soldiers who rode with him was back where it probably always had been, in the hands of tired and exhausted men and women, armed with the best weapons their nations had to offer, lurking about under leaden gray skies in search of each other.
With the roads leading west finally cleared of wreckage caused by ceaseless air strikes and hordes of refugees that always seemed to be in the way, Major General Erich Dorsch was free to unleash his 2nd Panzer Division. Though there was little chance of his division's doing serious damage to the American 4th Armored Division, Dorsch felt a certain amount of satisfaction that the little chunks of that unit he was about to scoop up and crush were the same ones that had frustrated his operations a week before in central Germany. The attack of the 4th Armored Division's 1st Brigade into his exposed flank had slowed and then stopped his advance, denying him a great victory. For that he intended to make every soldier in that unit pay. So with the same ruthlessness that he had driven his motorized rifle regiment in the old East German Army, he drove the soldiers of the 2nd Panzer Division on. The final fight, he promised himself, would be his alone.
Far removed from the command post of the 2nd Panzer Division, the weary soldiers of the 2nd Panzer prepared for one more effort. In the gathering darkness, under cloudy and forbidding skies that told of a new winter storm coming, Captain Friedrich Seydlitz grimly led the pitiful remains of his company forward one more time. That this would be the last battle, there was no doubt. Already the word had filtered down throughout the division that the bulk of the Americans they had been pursuing across Germany were already safe and out of reach. Only a few stray rear-guard units remained to be eliminated. Though Seydlitz had no idea why these units needed to be dealt with, he'd said nothing when he had been given his orders.
The attack, scheduled to commence just before dawn, would be a difficult one. The rash of warm weather had softened the ground and restricted cross-country maneuver to a few patches of solid ground, trails, and hard-surfaced roads. Were it not for the low cloud ceiling that was preceding the new weather front, this restriction on maneuver would have meant an end to the attack. For the Americans controlled the air. Even German Army aviation no longer was available, as it had been in central Germany. There would just be a handful of panzer and panzergrenadier battalions, backed up by field artillery, for the morning's fight.
But that, Seydlitz decided, would be more than enough to satisfy his division commander's honor, pride, or whatever foolish emotion was driving him to continue this insanity. That there was no good reason to do what they were doing was obvious. It had been obvious to his loader over two weeks ago. Only Seydlitz, of all the men in his company, had been unable to see what they had seen. Perceiving the obvious, however, was not the same as knowing what to do. That was where they, the men in his command, had failed and where Seydlitz himself now failed. By all rights, Seydlitz realized as his company prepared to move out, he should refuse to follow his latest set of orders. Others, particularly the pilots in the Luftwaffe, had done just that. They simply refused to do what they had been told. But then their failure had cost the German Army a sure victory. Even worse, the absence of the Luftwaffe had cost German soldiers their lives. Most of those who had fallen had been good Germans, men who had been guilty of nothing more than doing their duty and following their orders. Was the refusal then justifiable? In the course of the past two days, whenever an American ground attack aircraft had rained down destruction on his company, Seydlitz had felt anger at the German pilots who had refused to do their duties. How could fellow countrymen allow this to happen?
Those feelings, those thoughts, were like a great trap. When he questioned the loyalty of the Luftwaffe pilots, Seydlitz realized he was questioning his own. How would he be able to condemn them if he himself failed to carry out his own orders and as a result allowed an attack by a sister unit to fail in a bloody repulse? He couldn't. Right or wrong would not be determined by him or the men in his unit. All they could do was trust that their commanders were looking out for their best interests and those of Germany. In the meantime, all Seydlitz could do was what he had always done, his duty.
So when the time came, he keyed his radio and gave the order for his company to start engines and move out to the west for one more battle.
It was several moments before Chancellor Ruff noticed that he was no longer alone in his office. Seated at his desk, with one leg held straight out to one side to ease his discomfort, Ruff had been staring at the open box that glistened under the harsh light of the desk lamp. With all other lights in the room extinguished, the highly polished box with its bright red lining and black-sheathed knife sat in the center of Ruff's desk as if it were on a stage under a spotlight. With his hands resting on the arms of his padded chair, Ruff sat for the longest time looking down at the box and the knife.
To Colonel Kasper, who had quietly slipped into the Chancellor's office, Ruff looked as if he were watching a little television set or a child's video game. He half expected something to come popping up out of the box that Ruff was staring at so intently. But nothing happened. Ruff simply sat there looking at the box. Kasper, leaning against the wall in the shadows, watched, waited, and began to have second thoughts.
Finally, without any indication as to what alerted him, Ruff looked up from the little wooden box and straight at Kasper. For a moment Ruff's eyes betrayed the look a child gets when a parent catches the child doing something wrong. Leaning forward in his chair quickly, Ruff reached out with his right hand, slapped the lid of the wooden box shut, and sat up straight in his seat. With a gruffness in his voice that barely concealed his anger, Ruff called out, "What is it you want, Colonel?"
For the longest time Kasper said nothing. He merely stayed there in the shadows looking at Ruff and wondering what this man, considered by all who knew him to be a great politician and a wise statesman, was thinking. Loved, until he had initiated this crisis, by Germans in both the East and the West, Ruff had brought the nation together like no other man could have done. Not since Konrad Adenauer had a single German commanded such respect. Why, Ruff thought, had he thrown all of that away? Why?
Becoming angry at the failure of Kas
per to answer his question, Ruff slammed his hand on his desk and shouted, "What do you want, Colonel? Either tell me or leave."
In a whisper that made the question more of a plea, Kasper simply said, "Why?"
Already agitated, Ruff twisted his face in anger. "Why what, Colonel? What are you talking about?"
"Why, Herr Chancellor, this foolish war? We have lost so much and gained nothing. Nothing!"
Ruff fell back in his chair. "You think, Colonel Kasper, that we have gained nothing? You think all of this was a waste? How could you not see what we were truly fighting for? How could you be so blind?"
Kasper didn't move. Remaining at the wall near the door, he spoke out. "We have gained nothing. The precious nuclear weapons that started this whole thing are gone. Not only was the German Army unable to stop an enemy force a fifth its size and was crippled while doing so, that pitiful performance created a split in the officer corps and left the Army racked by internal dissent. The Luftwaffe has turned its back on the Army and dishonored itself and Germany. The streets of our cities are being torn by riots against this government while police stand aside and watch. In the world councils, nations who had once been our allies condemn us. And years of patient rebuilding of our nation and its image have been endangered. What possible reason can you or anyone give that could justify all of this?"
Slowly Ruff stood, pushing his chair away from his desk. With the look that had won him election after election, Ruff puffed out his chest. Pulling back the coattails of his suit jacket, Ruff placed his hands on his hips. "We have, Colonel, regained our pride and our honor."