The Red Line

There would be no opportunity for another ambush before the Russians freed themselves from the woods. The platoon sergeant and tank troop commander would have to return to their original plan. It was a good plan, capable of inflicting the utmost casualties upon the invaders. Nevertheless, both understood there was little chance for victory. Still, it was the best they could do against such overwhelming odds.

With the Russians on the move once more, Jensen would’ve given anything for a way to contact squadron headquarters. How nice it would be to call the Apaches forward a final time. But it was no use. Jewels said the enemy still had the squadron’s frequencies jammed, and his lengthy attempt to contact the squadron by landline had failed miserably. With so little time remaining before the Russian attack, there was no way for 2nd Platoon to alert the Apaches.

To a man, the waiting Americans knew they were alone.

The minutes slowly passed. Jensen took a final, slow drink of hot coffee. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement—movement from the east at the point where the highway left the forest and entered into open farmland. He pulled his night-vision goggles up to his face. There they were, an unending line of Russian armored vehicles. The lead tanks were clear of the woods. The point elements of the advancing enemy were two miles from the apple orchard.

Jensen’s heart sank once more. His spirits were as spent as his weary body. He knew the truth. No missile-laden savior was going to swoop down from the heavens to save his depleted platoon. There were going to be no miraculous escapes this time.

He prayed his instincts were wrong. Deep inside, however, he realized there would be no help.

• • •

Isolated by the lack of communications, Lieutenant Colonel David Townes had spent the last four hours guessing what his next move should be. The six returning Apaches’ victory on E48 had been welcome news. Nevertheless, the cavalry commander’s joy was short-lived. By 2:00 a.m., messengers had arrived from the squadron’s southernmost areas. The units protecting highway E50 had been smashed. The Russians were pouring into Germany. Rather than releasing the last of his reserves, Townes decided to wait to see what the squadron of tanks and supporting Bradleys he’d sent south two hours earlier could do to slow the enemy.

At 2:30 a.m., on a desolate stretch of roadway halfway between the border and Nuremberg, the American cavalry attacked a five-division armored force. Twelve M-1s and sixteen Bradleys met three thousand Russian armored vehicles.

By 2:40 a.m., every American was dead.

The cavalry soldiers did everything they could. Using their superior skills, they destroyed three of the enemy for every loss of their own. Even so, their efforts barely slowed the Russians down. Minus one hundred vehicles lost to the Americans, the herculean force continued its relentless push toward Nuremberg.

At 4:00 a.m., another scout arrived with word from the south. The Russians had advanced fifty miles inside Germany. The enemy was two-thirds of the way to Nuremberg. Unless stopped, in two hours they would capture the infamous city.

All fifteen Apaches took to the skies. Forty-eight of the sixty-four Bradleys Townes had in reserve roared south at breakneck speed to intercept the massive column.

The squadron commander had heard nothing further about the Russian tanks the Apaches had stopped four hours earlier on E48. He sent his final sixteen Bradleys up the highway. They would wait for the enemy three miles east of Camp Kinney.

Four hours into the war, he’d nothing left in reserve but two hundred cooks, clerks, and mechanics.

• • •

As the column’s T-72s emerged from the woods, they fanned out across the countryside. They rumbled forward across the heavy snows. The earth trembled beneath their massive weight. The tanks rolled irrepressibly on.

Jensen’s men were waiting. In six minutes, the Russians would reach the barren apple trees. Shielded by fortresses of snow, five Bradleys lay hidden in the orchard. The Americans watched the overpowering enemy’s steady progress. The platoon’s soldiers could hear their hearts pounding in their chests. They could feel the blood rushing through their veins. Fear was etched on every face. The Russians would soon be upon them.

Four hundred yards behind the point elements, the lead division’s commander breathed a sigh of relief as he left the nightmarish valley filled with so much suffering. Two battalions of his T-72s and BMPs were in the clear. Others would soon follow. Within the next couple of hours, every vehicle in the endless column would finally free itself from the confining woods.

The advancing tanks and armored personnel carriers were entering an area of open farmland. The general smiled a brief smile. Nothing on earth had the power to stop the three divisions now. There was little chance they’d be embarrassed by their opponent again. The tank-killing American helicopters would be forced to come out and fight in the open. The Apaches would be easy prey for the column’s two hundred air-defense weapons. The enemy’s fighter aircraft would also be vulnerable. They’d have to think twice before braving an attack on the westward-rolling armada. Death awaited those who dared to challenge the power the division commander controlled.

The fleeting smile disappeared. An hour earlier, he’d been certain his life was over. There was no doubt the Army Group Central Commander had been serious when he threatened to put him in front of a firing squad of men from his own division. After their thrashing by the American helicopters, all three divisions had been trapped behind an impenetrable wall of hellish flames. Too late to turn the huge column around in the narrow space. And impossible to go forward.

For four hours, thirty thousand men had been unable to extricate themselves from the barrier of exploding shells and red-hot metal.

It was his fault. That he knew. The blunder was his and his alone. He’d kept his air-defense missiles and guns in the rear. He’d hoped to protect them until they were really needed. He was certain the enemy wouldn’t dare risking his attack helicopters in such horrible weather. No Russian commander would’ve taken such a gamble. But he’d guessed wrong. And the American cavalry commander’s bold move had inflicted a terrible toll. His division had been caught by the enemy’s swift strike. If the Americans had struck again, the entire column could’ve been destroyed. Fortunately, however, the enemy hadn’t been heard from since the Apaches’ surprising attack. He couldn’t understand why. The only answer the division commander could find was that the token enemy forces they faced at the border were even weaker than they’d been led to believe.

Even so, they were forty kilometers behind schedule. They had to hurry if they were going to free the seven-mile-long column from the woods well before sunrise. If they failed to do so, their enemy, weak or not, would send his fighter aircraft to find and destroy any units still trapped in the narrow valley passageway.

He’d been careless. One more careless act, and the Army Group Central Commander promised to come forward once again and personally pull the trigger that would end his life.

There would be no more carelessness. Of that he was certain. He was out of the woods. And nothing was going to stand in his way.

• • •

The plodding tanks and BMPs were three hundred yards from the lifeless orchard. Twenty abreast, they churned through the deep drifts toward the deserted village. The tiny force awaiting them remained undetected. In the Bradleys, the TOW operators and Bushmaster gunners took aim. Unaware of the American presence, the enemy continued on. The moment of truth had arrived. The time for a final desperate battle had come.

Jensen keyed his headset. He took a last look at the overwhelming force coming toward them.

“Open fire!” he screamed.

From one hundred yards apart, five TOW missiles leaped from their firing tubes. Little more than a blur, each roared a few feet above the blowing snows. They raced across the open ground. Their victims would never know what hit them. The missiles reached their targets at

nearly the same instant. On the tip of each TOW seven pounds of high explosives detonated upon contact. Five simultaneous explosions rocked the winter night. For thirty miles around, a soul-searing sound crushed the early-morning stillness. In the village four hundred yards away, every window shattered.

Just inside the timeworn town, a razor-sharp cascade of glass poured down upon Ramirez and Steele as they waited in the Humvee to protect the platoon’s rear.

In unison, five forty-seven-ton roman candles lit up the skies like the light of a thousand moons. An irresistible wave of flesh-consuming heat emanated in every direction. Fifteen Russian soldiers died in less than a heartbeat. The stark violence of the battlefield was unmistakably clear.

The Bushmaster cannons opened up on the approaching armor while the TOW operators quickly selected a second target. The surviving T-72s staggered but came on. The supporting armored personnel carriers ground to a stop. From the rear of fifty BMPs, figures dressed in white ran in every direction. More than three hundred Russian foot soldiers spread across the open ground. They rushed forward with their rifles spewing death. The American infantrymen answered with their chattering M-4s. The night was suddenly filled with gunfire.