Peacekeepers

by James Rosone

  The Air Force had already tried to bomb it twice and had failed on both accounts. During the first attempt, a bomb had hit the span, but it hadn’t destroyed it. The enemy had merely placed a patch over the hole in the center of the roadway and continued to use it. When the UN force had realized how close they’d come to losing the critical piece of infrastructure, they’d placed a significant number of air defense assets near it. Those additional SAMs and missile interceptors had enabled them to stop the Air Force’s second attempt at destroying the bridge. Since the Air Force was already stretched thin, they didn’t have the resources to effectively complete the mission, so the task had fallen to Special Forces.

  Once Chief Lipton’s team had successfully scurried into the defunct trucking company building, they did a quick assessment of the situation. Looking at his map, Lipton announced, “We still need to travel at least two more blocks before we can detonate the explosives and be sure to escape.”

  “Ugh. This whole area is crawling with roving patrols,” muttered Tiny, one of his soldiers.

  Lipton grunted. He wasn’t wrong. The fact that they hadn’t been discovered yet was only due to their training in stealthy movement and good teamwork.

  “I want us to move through this field here and try to make our way down to this pallet and packaging facility just off of Fort Street, on Vinewood Street here,” Lipton announced. He pointed to the path he wanted them to travel on the map.

  His soldiers looked at the path. Hawkeye crossed his arms. “Sir, that’s a lot of relatively open area to cross with little in the way of tree cover and daylight about to break.”

  Another soldier, Ski, nodded. “Yeah, it doesn’t help that it looks like the snow is starting to let up. Our tracks are going to show up pretty easily in the fresh snow.”

  Lipton thought about that. They were right, of course, but they also couldn’t stay in their current location. They needed to get some distance between them and the bridge so they could blow their charges. The longer they left the charges in place, the better the chances were they’d be discovered by one of the roving patrols before they could detonate them.

  “I know it’s not ideal, guys, but we need to move. We can’t stay here,” Lipton explained. He paused for a second before looking at their resident sniper. “Shorty, I want you to cover our rear. Do your best to brush over our tracks. Crispy, you take point—try to find us some cover when you can, but move us quickly to our next rally point. We need to blow this bridge before our charges are discovered.”

  With the decision made, the group moved as a unit to the rear of the building. After doing a quick search of the area, Crispy, their point man, quietly announced, “I think we’re clear.”

  He opened the door slowly and stepped out into the parking lot behind the building. The snow was still falling, but not nearly as heavily as it had been while they had been placing their explosives.

  Advancing cautiously through the couple of inches of fresh powder, Crispy kept his rifle at the ready, continually scanning the area as he did his best to dart from the back of the building to a pile of snow at the end of the parking lot. When he reached the mound of plowed snow, he crawled up the top of it and checked his surroundings. Seeing that the coast was clear, he waved for the others to follow him.

  Four of them dashed to his position, while Shorty, their sniper, walked backwards slowly, using a piece of burlap to brush over their tracks. While Shorty did his best to cover their rear, Crispy moved from the back of the parking lot down the side of West Jefferson Street toward the railroad tracks. When he reached what he thought was a defensible position, he stopped and did another quick scan of the area. He signaled for the others to follow him again, and Shorty once again did what he could to try and cover their tracks.

  It took them close to ten minutes to travel the two blocks. Fortunately, they hadn’t spotted a roving patrol, although they did hear at least two vehicles drive past their previous position along Fort Street.

  When they reached the pallet packaging plant, they moved inside and searched the building, making sure it was clear. Then they identified possible egress routes should they need to hastily escape the building.

  “OK, Punisher, I think we’re reasonably safe in this location, at least for the time being,” said Shorty. “I suggest we blow the charges now. It’ll cause all the roving patrols nearby to rush to the area, so I also suggest we try to find a nice dark closet or room to hide out in.”

  Crispy nodded. “I concur with Shorty, but I have a better hiding place. I found a staircase that leads to a small storage room on the roof. I suggest we place a few of our mini-cameras down here to keep an eye on the place and relocate up there. We can lock the door, so if a patrol comes to the building and wants to search it, they’ll see the door’s locked and hopefully think it was left locked by the previous owners before they bugged out.”

  “Nice find, Crispy,” replied Lipton. “Let’s do it. Go ahead and get the cameras set up. We’ll see if we can operate out of this locale for a few days.”

  The team immediately went to work on getting their remote cameras set up. It was vital that they know what was going on both inside and outside the building if they were going to make it a temporary home. God only knew how long they’d have to try and hide out in the city before help arrived or they were ordered to try and evac out.

  Once they had everything in order, they went up to the roof to admire their handiwork. It was now 0530 hours—still another hour or so of darkness left. At that point, the snow had mostly tapered off, giving them a good view of the bridge.

  Pulling the remote detonator out of his pocket, Crispy turned it on. The red light activated, letting him know it was ready. He lifted the safety lever on the button up, then depressed the detonator with his thumb.

  BOOM.

  A series of explosions ripped through West Fort Street at the base of two of the support structures for the bridge. The blast shook the ground like an earthquake. Chunks of road, rebar and cement flew hundreds of feet into the air throughout a several-hundred-foot perimeter around the blast site. In a fraction of a second, a twelve-foot section of the bridge collapsed to the street below, crushing several abandoned cars and blocking the road beneath it.

  Looking at the mess they had created, the ODA team smiled, knowing that they had just dealt a critical blow to the UN force invading their country.

  *******

  Northwest of Muncie, Indiana

  First Lieutenant Trey Regan looked through the sight extension of his commander’s scope as he scanned the area for signs of Russian armor. His platoon, which was part of the 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team, had been directed to head to a small area called Reed Station, near I-69. The surrounding area was relatively flat farmland, intermixed with a few small copses of barren trees. It was ideal tank country, and their battalion had determined that they’d make a stand in this area.

  Their reconnaissance unit had spotted a Russian column of tanks and armored personnel carriers driving down the interstate toward the small Indiana town of Anderson twenty minutes ago. Unfortunately, their recon’s communications equipment was being jammed by the Russians, so their unit had been unable to get an idea of how large the enemy force was, or what type of armor they were facing.

  With only a company of tanks and another company of light infantry in the area, their company commander had deployed a platoon of tanks to either side of the interstate, intermixed with their infantry brothers, who would bring their own anti-tank guided missiles to the fray for added punch.

  “Spotted them!” Sergeant Miller shouted out. Miller was his new gunner. He’d just been promoted to sergeant E-5 a couple of months ago.

  “Crap, Miller—call out what you see and where!” Lieutenant Regan shot back. He was a bit angered by the vagueness of the report.

  “Sorry, sir. I got a little excited. It’s a T-90, nine o’clock, 4,000 meters.”

  The crew was nervous. This was the first time any of them had se
en any combat or faced an enemy tank. The last time the battalion had deployed was three years earlier, and that was to Kuwait. They hadn’t seen any enemy tanks or been shot at during that deployment, so they were eager to engage the Russians, as well as nervous at facing a real enemy.

  Once Regan spotted the enemy tanks, he responded, “Got it. Load Sabot.”

  Sure enough, a column of tanks started to appear from around the bend in the interstate. Two BMP-3s were in the lead, followed by at least five tanks, and then eight BTR armored personnel carriers and more tanks following behind them. There had to be at least two companies’ worth of enemy vehicles heading toward their position, and that was just what they could see.

  Regan wanted to get his report in before they began their attack. He depressed the talk button on his radio. “Dixie Six, this is Dixie Two-Six. We’ve spotted an enemy column heading toward our position. They’re just now passing through 4,000 meters. I count at least twenty-two armored vehicles, five T-90s in the lead with another five pulling up the rear. There may be additional vehicles further back behind the bend. How copy?”

  A second later, the SINCGAR radio beeped, letting them know their encrypted radio had synced. “Dixie Two-Six, that’s a good copy,” replied his company commander. “I want you to wait to engage the enemy vehicles until the last vehicle in the column is no more than 3,000 meters. Have your infantry engage the rearguard with their Javelins. I want you to take out the tanks first, then work your way down to the BMPs before you engage the BTRs. How copy?”

  “Good copy. Stand by for contact,” Regan responded.

  The column of vehicles continued to get closer, moving deeper into their trap. Regan switched over to the platoon net and the coms their infantry counterparts were using, and he relayed the plan to them, making sure everyone was on the same page.

  The next five minutes moved at warp speed and slow motion all at the same time. If felt like an eternity waiting for the enemy vehicles to get within range. At the same time, it felt like the BMPs and tanks were starting to get too close, and they worried they would spot them.

  “Firing now!” shouted one of the infantry officers over the platoon net.

  Looking through his commander’s scope, Regan saw four Javelins fly out from their hidden position in the woods and head straight for the rear vehicles in the column.

  Depressing the talk button, Regan shouted, “Engage!” to his tankers.

  Boom!

  His gunner fired their cannon. The tank rocked back on its track. The spent aft casing dropped to the floor and the loader hit the ammo locker door button with his knee. He reached in and grabbed another Sabot round and slammed it home, hitting the locking arm into place before yelling, “Sabot up!”

  “Identified! Tank, 1,500 meters to our nine o’clock!” replied Sergeant Miller as he found them their next target.

  “Fire!” shouted Regan. Miller fired the gun for a second time in less than ten seconds.

  Boom.

  Looking through his scope, Regan saw the round fly flat and true as it slammed into the front armor of the BMP-3. It ripped right through the armored vehicle, causing a massive secondary explosion.

  “Keep firing!” Regan exclaimed, giving his team the go-ahead to keep finding targets without him. He needed to try and make sure the rest of the platoon was engaging their targets and try to keep track of what was happening around them.

  Zooming out and away from the target Miller was tracking next, Regan saw his platoon had already blown all the tanks up and were making short work of the rest of the enemy’s armored column. The few vehicles that hadn’t been blown up yet were both popping smoke grenades to try and blur their vision, or at least mitigate the threat from the Javelins, while the remaining Russian vehicles did everything they could to get off the interstate and seek better cover from his tanks.

  BAM!

  Suddenly, their tank was jarred hard, nearly throwing Regan from his commander’s chair. His arms flailed about to grab for anything that could prevent him from falling.

  “Tank to our three o’clock. Twelve hundred meters. Firing!” came the quick and calm voice of Sergeant Miller. He was clearly now in the automated zone a soldier gets into when his training takes over and he just reacts mechanically to the situations happening around him.

  As soon as Regan was able to get back into his seat, he immediately turned his commander’s sight extension to where Miller had found the enemy tank. He caught a quick glimpse of it just before the turret of the tank was entirely blown off by Miller’s shot.

  BAM!

  Their tank was suddenly plastered with rocks, dirt, and other debris from a nearby explosion.

  “Find where that other column of tanks is coming from!” Regan shouted over the platoon net as he sought to figure out where this new threat had materialized from.

  “We’ve got another column of enemy vehicles moving down McGalliard Road. They’re approaching from the east right now!” came a voice from one of the infantry soldiers assigned to help protect them.

  Crap, how did another group of tanks and vehicles sneak up on us? thought Regan, trying not to panic.

  “Blue Three is down,” announced another one of his tankers over the platoon net.

  “I count ten enemy tanks heading toward us, 1,100 meters!” yelled Miller. He quickly fired the cannon one more time.

  “Back us up to the next firing position!” Regan yelled to their driver.

  Their tank lurched backwards just as an enemy round impacted right where they had just been, exploding harmlessly in front of them.

  Damn, that was close! realized Regan, his palms now sweating.

  “Pop the smoke!” he ordered. His driver deftly moved them backwards and then turned them to the left, making sure he didn’t give the enemy tankers a good side shot at them.

  With the smoke grenades out, the area around them was steadily filling up with infrared-inhibiting smoke. Another tank round hit a tree or something near them, showering their armored cocoon with more debris and shrapnel.

  “Tank to our one o’clock!” yelled Regan to his gunner as the tank he’d spotted stopped briefly and appeared to be aiming right for them. A split second later, the Russian tank belched fire and Regan flinched, expecting the round to hit them. Instead, it sailed near them and slammed into one of the Stryker vehicles next to them.

  The explosion of the vehicle next to them still jarred their tank, and they were slapped with flame and more shrapnel.

  “Firing!” yelled Miller. The tank rocketed back from the recoil of their main gun.

  “Dixie Two-Six, pull your force back to Rally Point Bravo! You’re about to be flanked!” came an urgent call from their company commander.

  “Good copy. Falling back to Rally Point Bravo,” Regan replied. He promptly relayed the order to his remaining tanks and infantry soldiers.

  The next five minutes were a desperate struggle as Regan and his platoon of tanks and Strykers did their best to try and disengage from the enemy and fall back to the next line of defense. As they passed through the next two platoons’ worth of tanks and Stryker vehicles about two miles to their rear, Regan saw he’d lost two of his four tanks and three of his four Stryker vehicles.

  The rest of the day was mostly spent exchanging shots with the enemy tanks as they continued a fighting retreat to the outskirts of Anderson, where the rest of the battalion had rallied up and was waiting for them to arrive. They were now less than ten miles from Indianapolis.

  By the end of the day, First Lieutenant Regan was the senior officer left alive in his company and had effectively taken command of what was left of their mauled unit. As they began their humiliating retreat around Indianapolis, he vowed he’d get his revenge on the enemy for killing so many of his comrades.

  Chapter 17

  Desperate Plea

  January 16, 2021

  Ottawa, Canada

  Lord Elgin Hotel

  President-Elect Marshall Tate’s Office


  Marshall sat in the kitchen of his makeshift home in the Lord Elgin Hotel, reading over the latest intelligence summary that had been put together for him by his national security team. What he read was sickening. The country he had sought to lead, to become President of, was being torn apart.

  Will there even be a country to lead after all of this is said and done? he wondered.

  Page Larson, his National Security Advisor, interrupted his train of thought. “The Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor is still temporarily down. We’ve had to move all vehicle traffic across the Detroit River to pontoon bridges. It slowed us up for about a day, but the logistics train is back up and running again—”

  General McKenzie interrupted. “The bigger challenge we have right now is dealing with the loss of our airfields.”

  Page Larson grunted. She didn’t like being interrupted, but then again, she was glad to see the general above ground. McKenzie had finally emerged from his own bunker complex once he’d felt it was reasonably safe to do so. He still didn’t stay in one place for too long for fear of an airstrike, but he did feel secure enough to visit Senator Tate.

  McKenzie continued, “We anticipated the Pentagon attacking our airfields, but I’ll be frank—I didn’t think the acting President would’ve ordered such a brutal and thoroughly destructive aerial attack on my country as he has. We don’t have a single military airport left in operation in the entire country. Once we relocated some of our military assets to the civilian airports, the Americans went after them as well. Heck, even our ports that aren’t frozen over are completely destroyed. Sir, we’re going to run into a serious problem in a few more weeks if we aren’t able to get resupplied from Europe, Russia or China.”

  “I think your attack on Camp David and then that airstrike on Raven Rock turned the American population decidedly against us,” Marshall said pointedly. “Couldn’t you guys have done something a little less provocative?” He was still pissed that the UN had unilaterally decided to go after Sachs. The brutal attack on Camp David and the subsequent attack on Raven Rock and the capital had soured any political support he had in Washington and across much of the country.