The Red Line

“Here’s what we’re going to do, Seth,” Jensen said, looking at Austin and speaking loudly to be heard over the ever-growing noise of the ferocious little battles springing up all along the entire length of the border. “You and Foster stay here with your Bradleys. I’ll leave you eight men. Take Jelewski and the ones who aren’t ready yet. I’ll take the others and the final three Bradleys. We’ll set up an ambush at that wide curve about halfway to the border and wait for the Russians. If we can’t stop them, or the Russians beat us to the curve, it’ll be up to you to slow them down. If we succeed, I’ll need you back here to cover our retreat. Set up about a hundred yards back down the trail toward the highway. There’s a decent spot for an ambush there. Any questions?”

“No, Bob, I’ve got it.”

Jensen then quickly explained the details of his plan. When he was finished, he calmly asked both what they thought.

“What have we got to lose? Let’s get up there,” Cruz said.

When Jensen turned to Austin, Seth furrowed his brow and nodded in agreement.

While the five-minute battle raged at the border, what was left of 2nd Platoon was beginning to move into position. Jensen’s force ran through the blizzard to the three Bradleys, and four soldiers entered each. Jensen and Marconi leaped into the platoon sergeant’s Humvee. The cavalry soldiers charged up the trail toward the border. They held their breath and prayed they would beat the Russians to the ambush spot. Each knew if the enemy caught them out in the open on the tiny roadway, there would be no chance of escape. All their lives would be over in an instant.

As it was, Brown’s Bradley roared around the left-hand curve just as Jensen’s force reached its objective. The initially unidentified armored vehicle’s sudden appearance on the curve above them brought terror stabbing deep within each American heart.

Brown’s Bradley screamed to a stop at the ambush position, and the commander’s hatch popped open.

“Where’s the rest of the platoon?” Jensen asked.

“I don’t know, Sarge. I guess they’re probably dead. All hell broke loose up there. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know how we survived. I’ve got my crew and Ramirez and Steele. That’s it. I didn’t see anyone else. Except for the enemy, that is. I saw plenty of them.”

“Any idea where the Russians are now?”

“Right on my tail, last time I looked.”

“Brownie, we’re going to wait for the Russians here. Austin and Foster are setting up a secondary position about a hundred yards past the platoon building. Get down there and give ’em a hand.”

“All right, Sarge, I’m on my way.”

Brown pulled the commander’s hatch shut. The Bradley roared down the trail toward the highway.

To the north and south of Jensen’s position, the war’s intensity was growing by the second. The Russian invasion was fully under way. In front of Jensen, however, the noise of 2nd Platoon’s battle had stopped completely.

When the vicious skirmish with the Americans ended, the Russian general needed a few minutes to get his division organized before initiating the next phase of the assault.

It was just enough time for Jensen to spin his deadly web.

Renoir’s Bradley took up a firing position inside the trees to the right of the trail. Sergeant Richmond directed his Bradley into the woods on the left. Cruz’s Bradley waited to the rear of Richmond’s. It would move out to fire from the trail the moment the engagement began. The platoon sergeant pulled his Humvee into the heavy woods on the right. Jensen would command the platoon from the Humvee’s position.

The remaining four soldiers split up. With their M-4s, two disappeared into the shadowy evergreens on the left. The two on the right did the same. The four were to protect the platoon from the threat of Russian infantry rolling up their exposed flanks and encircling the Americans. Should the fight last any time at all, a serious possibility existed that they would all be surrounded and destroyed.

The Americans had to hit fast and hit hard or else find themselves on the losing end of the life-or-death struggle.

Whatever happened, Jensen was certain of one thing. This time, the Russian general would have to face him on his terms. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if that was going to be enough.

He’d soon have his answer.

The first enemy tank had entered the trail.

CHAPTER 5

January 28—11:49 p.m.

Military Airlift Command

Rhein-Main Air Base

When she arrived at the front of the line, Linda Jensen handed the three computer cards to a bored Air Force technical sergeant. Linda pushed open the weighty door. She headed out into the blowing snows of the tarmac. Her daughters, and the families of the men of her husband’s platoon, followed close behind. The 767 was waiting.

As she walked across the open ground, even in the blizzard she couldn’t help looking up at the plane. The aircraft was completely illuminated. The artificial glow of the tarmac’s spotlights created a beautiful image. The bright lights striking the glistening fuselage were mixing with the falling snow and melding into one.

On her tail, the 767 had a giant eagle with wings stretching upward and talons reaching down as if to grasp an unseen prey. Under the eagle, the gold letters read EARLY EAGLE AIRLINES.

The plane had landed twenty minutes earlier. Air Force personnel were busily preparing it to depart within the next ten. A ground crew worked in a tremendous hurry to refuel the giant old lady.

Another crew was deicing the wings. Still more airmen scurried about in the storm, loading baggage and food onto the airplane.

Holding on to the handrail, Linda walked up the icy ramp. Upon reaching the top step, she entered the aging aircraft. Greeted by a pair of smiling flight attendants, she made her way down the narrow aisle and found seats 14A, B, and C. She and the girls stowed their carry-ons and sat down. For once, Amanda and Susan were too tired to fight over the window. When she settled in next to the aisle, Linda felt herself sink. Wave after wave of exhaustion washed over her.

Forty-four-year-old Linda Jensen had been an attractive young woman. Twenty years earlier, she’d met Robert at a dance at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina, recreation center. It hadn’t been love at first sight. In fact, she really hadn’t cared for him much. Still, he’d been a determined suitor. And his persistence had finally won her heart.

Her parents opposed her marrying a soldier. At twenty-four, however, she wasn’t going to let that stand in her way. Now, after two decades of marriage, any real passion between the couple was a distant memory. Yet even without the passion, she loved her husband. And she was certain Robert loved her. The relationship was a comfortable one, which for Linda revolved around the raising of the girls.

As she sank farther into the uncomfortable airliner seat, Linda realized she hadn’t slept in nearly two days.

The sudden evacuation had surprised them all. Given three hours’ notice in the middle of a forbidding winter night, she’d thrown a few things together for herself and the girls. Along with hundreds of others, they’d left Regensburg at 6:00 a.m. in one of the many convoys that would depart throughout the day. Although she’d no responsibility for the families of the men of her husband’s platoon, they’d naturally fallen in behind her for the two-hundred-mile trip to Rhein-Main. Many of the soldiers’ wives were scarcely older than her daughters.

It was a journey that normally would have taken four hours.

In the midst of the blizzard, however, the autobahns were packed with deep snows. Beneath the fresh powder lay two inches of solid ice. As they normally did when the snows came, the Germans made no attempt to clear the roadways. Instead, they left the frozen asphalt to its fate and gathered around their hearths to wait out the storm.

With Military Police escorts, the convoy had driven north toward Nuremberg. What was normally a pleasant sixty-mile

jaunt took the Americans well over three times what it should have to accomplish. Every hill on the autobahn, of which there were far too many, became a nightmare for them all. At first, the girls enjoyed piling out to free a wayward car from a snowbank. The game, however, had soon become tiresome, even for the energetic teenagers.

It didn’t take long for the local populace to further complicate the Americans’ fight for Rhein-Main and the flight that would take them home. Upon hearing rumors of the American evacuation, a few Germans had panicked. On this initial leg, the interference hadn’t been too severe. Yet as the endless hours passed, the number of Germans joining in the movement west would steadily increase, causing further misery for them all.