The Red Line

Doyle looked at O’Neill. There

was terror in George’s eyes.

“Yes, sir, we understand,” Doyle said.

O’Neill motioned for Denny to give him the microphone.

“Sir, this is Sergeant O’Neill. Do you know whether the dependents have been evacuated?”

The colonel knew the answer. He suspected, however, that the truth wouldn’t be an appropriate response. No use worrying these guys unnecessarily; they were going to have more than enough to concern themselves with in the coming days.

“O’Neill, I don’t know for sure whether they’re completely gone. But they’ve been evacuating dependents since early this morning.”

The colonel knew the real truth was that two planeloads of women and children were all that had departed. All the NCOs’ families were still in the housing area.

“Sir, could you do me a favor and check to see if my wife and child have left?”

“Sure, O’Neill, we’ll take care of it for you. But with all that’s going on right now, it might take awhile.”

“Okay, thanks, Colonel.”

• • •

The air-defense soldiers anxiously waited on the perimeter. They were acutely aware of how inadequate they were going to be in protecting the small base. They wouldn’t be able to stop fifty of the enemy’s best fighter aircraft. The soldiers didn’t even have fifty Stinger missiles with which to stop them. Even if every engagement was successful, there were going to be MiGs left. And the Stinger gunners knew there was no way every engagement was going to succeed. No way at all.

The defensive mission rested in the hands of two “Avenger” pedestal-mounted Stinger teams and four air defenders with shoulder-mounted Stingers from the 82nd Airborne Division.

An Avenger Humvee, its gunner sitting in a Plexiglas compartment on the rear of the vehicle, waited to protect the mile-long northern fence. In the identical pods on the gunner’s left and right sat a total of eight missiles. Next to the Humvee’s driver, eight replacement Stingers lay on the floor of the passenger compartment. To cover the close-in dead space, an antiaircraft machine gun was mounted alongside the left pod.

The second Avenger team protected the shorter eastern fence.

Four soldiers stood in the blowing snows to defend the western and southern approaches to the base. Their shoulder-mounted Stingers were at the ready. At the feet of each of them lay four replacement missiles.

Unlike the sophisticated Patriot, the little heat-seeking Stingers could be deceived and defeated. The Russians had years to practice such techniques after the CIA armed the Afghan rebels with Stinger missiles during the mid-1980s war.

As soon as the pilots determined that Stingers were the only things waiting to challenge their attack, they were bound to take evasive actions. The Russians would then identify and eliminate the air-defense positions. When the Stingers were no more, the MiGs would destroy the base.

Even with the Russian pilots’ training, the Stingers were bound to score some victories. There was little doubt there were pilots presently soaring through the heavens who’d never again see the sunrise. Yet any way the Americans added it up, there were forty-eight Stinger missiles and fifty MiGs.

The defenders had no chance. And they knew it.

CHAPTER 35

January 29—12:19 p.m.

United States European Command Headquarters

Patch Barracks, Stuttgart

In basements all over the base, the women and children prayed. The siren continued its plaintive wail.

The first six fighters came in high, using the midday sun to their advantage. From thirty thousand feet, they began a teeth-rattling dive at their target—the base’s communication tower.

Using his infrared sight, the Avenger gunner protecting the eastern fence targeted the lead Su-35 attack aircraft. Second by second, the fighter formation rushed toward its objective. The Avenger gunner tracked the first fighter all the way. The air-defense system’s laser range finder homed in on the plummeting plane. A high-pitched tone sounded in the gunner’s ears. The system had locked onto the fighter. The missile was ready to fire.

The fighter plunged through the ten-thousand-foot level. The Avenger gunner squeezed the trigger on his control stick. A Stinger leaped from its tube on the left pod. It raced into the heavens. The Su-35 instantly warned its pilot that he was under attack. In the cockpit, the pilot’s radar screamed that certain death was headed for his aircraft. There was no time to spare. He had to act and act now to have any chance of survival. The Russian broke off his dive. He banked sharply to the left and roared back toward the east. The force of his severe evasive actions plastered him against the seat. To live, he had to control his aircraft. And his wits.

The fighter bobbed and weaved, dove and soared. Yet no matter what the pilot tried, it was no use. He couldn’t shake the five-foot-long missile. The mindless Stinger matched him move for move. Unless something drastic happened, in seconds the life-ending contest would be over. The Avenger’s two-man crew watched the missile’s vapor trail as it closed with the fleeing plane. The intense heat from the aircraft’s engines beckoned to the steadfast Stinger. The deadly little missile flew into the right engine’s exhaust. With a mighty roar of protest, the fighter exploded in the eastern sky.

As the first fighter died, two more of the attackers were in trouble. The Avenger gunner on the northern fence tracked another of the planes in the flight while it rushed toward the ground. The tone wailed in his ears. Another enemy aircraft was ready for the kill. The Avenger fired. While the missile arched skyward in search of the heat it craved, the Su-35 did everything it could to save its pilot’s life. But once again, a lethal missile matched a speeding fighter’s every move. And a second pilot met his end in the low skies over Stuttgart.

From the southern fence, a soldier with a shoulder-mounted Stinger locked onto the trailing aircraft. He steadied the missile launcher with his left arm. With the missile’s tone screaming that the target had been acquired, he fired. Another radar told its pilot that his life was nearly over. The Russian ran. The plane strained to its absolute limits to evade the determined missile. Still it was no use. A third explosion shook the heavens.

While his partner covered him, the shoulder-mounted Stinger gunner laid his expended missile tube in the snow. He removed the grip stock and handles. He quickly attached them to a second missile. By the time he was finished, the communication tower and the buildings on both sides of it were gone.

The Stinger gunners had eliminated half the attackers. There hadn’t been enough time, however, for the scant group of air defenders to get them all. The Avenger on the eastern fence made a desperate attempt to engage another of the fighters. But he failed miserably.

With the planes plunging at supersonic speed, the Avenger gunner hurried to acquire a second target. He’d neither the time nor the patience to wait for the firing tone. He aimed at the leading fighter, pulled the trigger, and hoped for the best.

Fired before it was ready, a Stinger leaped from the right pod. It locked onto the nearest heat source—an electrical transformer on a utility pole just outside the fence. The missile raced for the pole. The transformer exploded.

The three surviving fighters released their bombs. The first’s bombs were a little short. They hit the roof of the office building twenty yards east of the tower. With an earthshaking roar, the four-story building was ripped apart.

The second group was just a little long. The prolonged string of bombs struck the single-story communication control center a few feet west of the tower. When the deadly munitions were through and the smoke had cleared, there was nothing left of the building. The bombs killed the eight soldiers inside and destroyed all of the base’s communication equipment. Black plumes reached into the bright noonday. With the communication center eliminated, hitting the tower became a moot point. Nevertheless, the third fighter’s cluster was perfect. One after the other, the bombs fell

with absolute precision onto the high tower. The structure disappeared in a thundering explosion. All that was left of the huge tower was an unrecognizable mass of smoldering metal lying in the bottom of a huge crater.

Inside the basement two hundred yards south of the savage assault, the ground trembled and shook with each striking bomb. Every window in the apartment building shattered at the same instant. The women and children screamed in terror. Kathy held Christopher to her with all her might. The sounds of the offensive siren suddenly ended. The bare lightbulb hanging from the laundry room ceiling went out, plunging them into darkness.

• • •

“DISA Hillingdon, this is Donnersberg.”

“Go ahead, Donnersberg,” O’Neill said.

“DISA, we’ve lost all contact with Stuttgart.”

George hesitated, the significance of Donnersberg’s pronouncement slowly sinking in. He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “To all communication facilities in Europe,” he said. “The DISA detachment at Hillingdon is officially taking control of the Defense Information System.”

O’Neill slumped into his chair. He prayed that at this moment, Kathy and Christopher were on a homeward-bound flight somewhere over the Atlantic.

• • •

High above the battle, the raid commander watched the Su-35s being chased and killed by the determined Stingers. After several months of air combat in the recent war for the liberation of Eastern Europe, three missiles were more than enough to confirm the extent of the American air defenses.

“Raid pilots,” he said. “Our enemy has only Stingers guarding the target. Take appropriate evasive action and commence the next attack.”

A second group of Su-35s roared out of the heavens. They screamed toward the ground. Their target was the jumbled cluster of office buildings in the center of the base that comprised the majority of the American European Command Headquarters main complex. Three MiG-29s accompanied the attackers. The MiGs were along to identify and eliminate the American air defenses. They were waiting for the Stingers to fire again, giving away their positions. When they reached the edge of the Stingers’ five-mile range, all nine aircraft began dropping lengthy strings of white-hot flares. The intense heat from the flares confused the little missiles. Try as they might, the Stinger gunners couldn’t get a lock on any of the fighters.