The Red Line
The air police combed the woods outside the eastern fence for the last of the enemy. When they completed the body count around Rios’s bunker, the kills from .50-caliber machine-gun fire totaled thirty-three.
As a reward for their efforts, Rios and his two surviving partners were given four more .50-caliber ammunition containers, a dozen hand grenades, and a generous supply of M-4 ammunition clips.
Only Ramstein, Rhein-Main, and a single German fighter base in the far north had survived the Russian knife thrust into the Allies’ hearts. Even with their severe losses, however, the Americans knew that with their superior planes and pilots, they could still lay claim to the German skies. If they could improve their ability to communicate with the British and American air bases in England and figure out a way to overcome the destruction of the AWACS’ ground stations, they’d be back in the air war. The American air forces were crippled, but they weren’t dead yet.
Not by a long shot.
When the smoke cleared on that January morning, the Americans were still holding on.
CHAPTER 34
January 29—12:07 p.m.
NCO Housing Area, United States European Command Headquarters
Patch Barracks, Stuttgart
After word came that George had arrived in England safely, Kathy took the time for a lengthy cry. With few tears left, she readied a suitcase for herself and Christopher. A diaper bag for the baby completed the task. The packing had been a relief. The activity temporarily took her mind off the absence of her husband.
Mrs. Williams came over from across the hall to sit with Kathy for a while. As an Army wife of twenty-four years, Clara Williams knew all about painful good-byes. There’d been a tour in Korea and multiple ones to Iraq and Afghanistan. Each separation had been as bad as the last, not knowing if she’d ever again see her husband.
After a short visit, Clara excused herself. She had three boys of her own to ready for the evacuation. And as much as she knew Kathy needed her, her own family’s needs had to come first.
Alone once more, Kathy put the baby down for a nap. She wandered into the bedroom she’d shared with George. Kathy lowered the shades and lay down upon the bed at a few minutes past ten. In a short while, she lapsed into a fitful sleep.
• • •
By 11:00 a.m., it was painfully obvious to the Patriot regimental commander that they’d been had. The surviving batteries all reported that the enemy fighters knew right where to find them. The nine remaining batteries had to move and move soon or face certain annihilation. If there were going to be any Patriots left by the end of the day, they had to change locations.
The small door at the rear of the Engagement Control Station flew open. Shading their eyes, Fowler, Morgan, and Paul turned toward the offensive sunlight. The battery commander was standing in the doorway.
“Regiment wants us to shut it down and move right now,” Captain Allen said. “They’re convinced our position’s been compromised. We need to roll out of here as quickly as we can.”
“We’ll start deactivating the system immediately, sir,” Morgan said.
Forty minutes later, the air-defense battery rolled out of the parking lot. They headed for their next firing position—the eastern edge of Stuttgart International Airport. For the next hour and a half, there would be no Patriot to protect United States European Command Headquarters.
It couldn’t be helped.
• • •
The moment the Patriot battery left, two gentlemen in a nondescript black car parked down the street rushed to their safe house. The message went out—“The target’s undefended; undertake the attack now.”
Ten minutes later, fifty MiGs, their strong wings and distended bellies loaded for a ground attack, rose from their base in the Czech Republic. The huge formation rushed west.
Another fifty fighters headed for a blocking position north of Stuttgart. The second group would protect their comrades from any attempt by American aircraft to break through and spoil the attack. With Spangdahlem destroyed and Ramstein’s runways unusable, the Russians had little need to worry.
• • •
Kathy O’Neill awoke with a start. The baby’s crying, her sleep-starved brain told her. But it wasn’t the baby.
From the top of a building two hundred yards away, the air-raid siren wailed. Its obnoxious sound shattered the noontime silence. Along with the frightful siren, there came an incessant pounding at the front door.
“Kathy! Kathy O’Neill, are you in there?” Clara Williams yelled through the door. “It’s an air raid, honey. We’ve got to get downstairs right away!”
Kathy leaped from the bed and raced into Christopher’s room. The toddler was sitting in his crib. He was playing with his toes and occasionally stopping to pummel his favorite teddy bear by beating it against the crib’s railing. Kathy grabbed her child and raced into the living room. Christopher clutched his bear. Without slowing down, she scooped up the diaper bag and threw open the door.
“Thank God, honey,” Clara said. “I didn’t know what had happened to you. The air-raid siren’s been going off for the past five minutes. We’d better hurry down to the basement. All the others are already there.”
With a firm hold on Christopher, Kathy followed Clara down the stairs. Her bare feet scarcely touched the cold steps as she rushed from the second-floor landing toward the dank basement.
In the four-story stairwell, there were eight women and fifteen children. Six women and eleven children had taken shelter in one of the basement’s storage areas. Clara led Kathy and Christopher to the small laundry room across the hall. The Williams’s boys, ages seventeen, fourteen, and ten, huddled together beneath woolen blankets inside the musty room.
“You boys give this sweet lady and her baby one of those blankets,” Clara said. Her oldest son shyly got up and did what he’d been told. “Kathy, why don’t you take Christopher and get up next to that big pillar by the third dryer. That looks like as good a spot as any.”
A wide-eyed Kathy complied. Clutching Christopher to her, she crouched on the damp floor underneath the blanket.
For ten minutes, absolutely nothing happened. The unerring siren continued its incessant wail. All over the base, women and children hid deep within windowless basements. There was nothing any of them could do but wait and hope.
• • •
Colonel Cossette put the phone down and looked at Lieutenant Templeton.
“Lieutenant, get me the backup team at Hillingdon.”
Outside, the siren’s warning went on.
“Hillingdon, Hillingdon, this is DISA,” Templeton said into the microphone.
From the outskirts of London the call was answered. “Go ahead, DISA, this is Hillingdon.”
“Hillingdon, we need to speak to our backup team.”
“Roger, DISA, they’re sitting right here.”
A new voice came over the speaker. “Senior Master Sergeant Doyle.”
The colonel took the microphone. “Denny, this is Colonel Cossette.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel.”
“Are you guys all set to take over for us?”
“We sure are, Colonel. Sergeant O’Neill and I are ready whenever you need us.”
“Denny, we need you to take over right now.”
Doyle looked over at O’Neill. From the stunned looks on both their faces, each knew he wasn’t mistaken about what he’d just heard.
“Why? What’s up, Colonel?” Doyle said, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.
“Denny, I just got off the phone with General Oliver. A large group of MiGs has broken through our defenses. They’ll be here in ten minutes. European Command Headquarters is being turned over to the backup team in England. You guys are to take control of the Defense Information System and run it from Hillingdon.”