The Red Line

February 1—6:09 a.m.

Charlie Battery, 1st “Cobra Strike” Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment

A Parkplatz on Autobahn A8

Jeffrey Paul listened to his headset as he received a short report from the communication van. Having been briefed by the crew they were replacing, Fowler and Morgan settled into the engagement controllers’ chairs. For the next four hours, the cramped space at the front of the small van would be their home.

“Last of the reserve missiles have been loaded onto the launchers,” Paul said.

“How many Patriots does that give us?” Fowler asked.

“Twelve total.”

“When does regiment anticipate we’ll receive some more?”

“They didn’t say. There definitely aren’t any more in-country. The eight they sent us were all there were. They said replacement Patriot missiles are on the highest priority possible. But so is basically everything else. Rumor has it they loaded a C-5 full of Patriots in El Paso twelve hours ago, and they’re due in Germany anytime now.”

“That’s the same rumor I heard in the mess tent yesterday,” Fowler said. “And the day before from a friend of mine at battalion.”

“Twelve missiles,” Morgan said. “One thing’s certain, if the Russians make another determined attack, we’re all dead.”

“That’s for sure,” Fowler said.

“What about our Stinger supply?” Morgan asked.

“We’re in fairly good shape there,” Paul said. “All three gunners have at least one missile. And the 24th Infantry has offered to give us six to eight more. Seems their commanding general likes the fact that you two, and the other engagement teams, keep knocking the bad guys out of the sky every time they try to attack the 24th’s troops.”

“We’ve done all right so far,” Morgan said.

“What’s our present kill total?” Fowler asked.

“In eight shifts in the Engagement Control Station, it’s been confirmed that the team of Morgan and Fowler has destroyed thirty-one enemy aircraft,” Paul said.

More kills than the other three shifts combined.

“How many Patriot batteries are still in the war?” Morgan asked.

Paul posed the same question to his headset. In the communication van fifty yards away, a voice gave him the answer.

“Delta Battery, with its reconstituted personnel, has left Rhein-Main and is headed across the river to protect a high-priority communication center. They’ll be there in a couple of hours. Besides that, there are three still fighting in the north, two German and one American, and us in the south. They’re planning on moving the American one across the Rhine later today to protect Ramstein.”

“Ask them how far away the last report places the Russian armor,” Morgan said.

Paul spoke into the headset once more and waited for the answer to come.

“Lead elements of the 24th Infantry are presently engaging the Russians thirty miles east of downtown Stuttgart.”

Enemy tanks were twenty miles from where the Patriot battery sat in a rest area on the autobahn connecting Stuttgart and Munich. Unless something drastic happened, the Russians would reach their location by noon. But the Patriot team wasn’t overly concerned with such an eventuality. With so few missiles remaining on their launchers, Fowler and Morgan understood it was death from the sky that posed the greatest threat to their survival.

The radar screens were quiet at this early hour of the morning. Well to the north, a dozen triangles circled over the western one-third of Germany still in Allied hands. The aircraft had been identified as friendlies by the previous shift.

Locked in their electronic world, there was little for the Patriot crew to do. Some shifts were like that. Quiet and uneventful, four hours of staring at the screens would slowly pass.

The somber heavens were calm.

“Paul, why don’t you start working on getting those Stingers from the 24th Infantry before they change their minds and withdraw the offer,” Morgan said. “I suspect we’re going to need them pretty soon.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Paul spoke into his headset. A few minutes later, the communication van relayed the news that six Stingers would be on their way to the Patriot battery shortly after sunrise.

For the next twenty minutes, the radar screens remained quiet. Outside, the darkness was cold and eerily still. The damp German winter hung heavy over the Patriot soldiers’ small world. Only the distant rumble of the developing battle between the five thousand men of the 1st Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division and the ten Russian divisions they faced disturbed the early-morning silence of the first day of February.

But things were going to change soon. The Patriot team’s boredom was about to be unexpectedly shattered.

Without warning, a dozen triangles appeared in the east. At the speed the triangles were moving, they had to be helicopters. Concern leaped onto Morgan’s face and filled the corners of her eyes. She began interrogating the triangles.

The Patriot radar reached out and requested the lead helicopter return the proper response. The Patriot’s interrogation, friend or foe, was completed in a heartbeat.

Foe.

A hostile symbol appeared next to the first triangle on the screens. Morgan continued to interrogate the formation. One by one, the results were the same. Twenty miles away on the black horizon, a dozen enemy helicopters were headed toward the Patriot battery. The helicopters were already well within range of the Patriot’s missiles. Unless stopped, the Russian threat would reach the battery in six minutes.

Fowler looked into Morgan’s eyes. Her eyes mirrored his fears.

“What do you want me to do?” he said.

“Paul, alert the Stinger teams to get ready,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Go ahead and target the first five helicopters. But don’t give the command to fire until we’re certain they’re coming for us.”

“Roger,” Fowler said, “targeting first five helicopters. Command to fire won?

??t be given until directed.”

“Paul, tell the Stinger teams it looks like twelve Hinds are headed our way. If the helicopters attack, we’ll engage the first five with Patriots. They’re to kill the next three . . . more if they can. We’ll play it by ear from there. If we’re lucky, we just might have a few Patriots left when this thing’s over.”

She was gambling the Stingers could handle some of the helicopters before the Russians got close enough to get off a good shot at the Engagement Control Station. It was either that or put the battery out of business by using the last of her missiles to destroy the Hinds.

The attackers churned through a raven sky at nearly two hundred miles per hour. Their steadfast course didn’t alter in the slightest as the seconds ticked by. There could be little doubt. The Hinds were headed straight for them.

The killers were within fifteen miles.

Morgan waited to give the order to fire. Her mouth and lips were dry. Her pulse was racing.

Suddenly, eighteen rapidly moving triangles leaped onto the screens. They roared west. The new threat was seventy-five miles away and approaching fast. Their course appeared to match that of the first group of attackers. At six times the speed of the helicopters, the MiGs raced toward the Patriot battery. At their present rate, the fighters would arrive at their target in four minutes. The helicopters were going to reach the battery at precisely the same moment. Fowler and Morgan instantly recognized they were in serious trouble.

“Paul!” she said. “Get us some air support down here right now! We need at least a half dozen fighters, more if you can find them.”

Without air support, they’d have no chance. Paul spoke into his headset once again. Morgan started interrogating the high-flying formation. Neither she, nor Fowler, needed to look at the screens to know what the results would be. All eighteen were going to come up “foe.”