The Red Line

Behind the tanks, five BMPs slithered to a stop. Each began discharging its infantry.

“Tony, get ready! Looks like they’re going to rush us again.”

One of the surviving Russian soldiers on the right chose that moment to race forward and wrestle an antitank missile from the clenched hands of his dead comrade. Richardson’s attention was focused on the armored force building on the other side of the glen. The infantryman’s movements went unnoticed. The soldier dove into the snows. He grabbed the missile, raised it to his shoulder, and fired.

The missile slammed into the logs in front of the M-1. A powerful explosion ripped at the protective fortification at the base of the Abrams. The thunder of the detonating ordnance echoed throughout the tank.

The Russians instantly recognized the unexpected opportunity. All three tanks fired. Around the Americans, the world erupted as the T-72s’ massive shells slammed home. The earth heaved and sighed beneath them. It threatened to swallow the beleaguered defenders whole. The forest behind them was ripped and shredded. Inside the Abrams, horrific sounds tore at their eardrums. The tankers screamed until every last ounce of air was expelled from their lungs. Deep within its earthen womb, the American tank somehow survived the intense assault.

With Richardson’s crew pinned down, the T-72s roared out of the trees. They rushed forward to destroy the rattled Americans. Behind the steel giants, thirty-five soldiers raced across the snows. Having disgorged their infantrymen, the BMPs entered the meadow fifty yards behind the tanks.

“Everybody all right?” Richardson asked.

“Yeah,” was the response from the driver’s compartment.

“I guess so,” Warrick said.

“I’m okay,” Vincent added.

Richardson peered at the meadow. The Russians were speeding across the bloody ground.

“Oh, shit! Tony, they’re right on top of us!”

Richardson opened fire on the charging infantry. Death’s leering face entered the morose scene once again. His machine gun cut down one after another of the running foot soldiers.

His senses partially restored, Warrick took aim at the middle T-72 as it rumbled across the open ground. At this close range, the M-1 wouldn’t miss.

Warrick fired at the gray tank coming at him from two hundred yards away. “Whoosh!” the M-1’s main gun screamed. The T-72’s turret was sheared off by the powerful blow. The tank exploded. The Russian crew’s death was immediate. And appalling.

Vincent hurried to load another round.

Richardson’s machine gun continued to chatter away. Its power fell upon the enemy soldiers, filling the hideous midnight battle with further suffering.

Two BMPs found a clear lane. They fired Spandrel missiles at the American fortification. One went just high, barely missing the top of the tank. It ripped into the dense forest behind the M-1. The other hit the dirt mound scarcely two feet below the tank’s turret. The missile brought all the horrors of hell down upon the floundering tankers. Once more, the earth around them shook and trembled. Sounding thunder reverberated throughout the enclosed space. The Americans inside the tank instinctively dove for cover.

The missile tore at the thinner layer of logs and dirt at the top of the embankment. High explosives clawed at the heavy armor on the front of the M-1. The plating held fast. It resisted the near miss and protected the embattled crew. Large metal fragments from the exploding missile reached out for the American tank. The fragments tore at the Abrams’s turret. Still, the daunting armor didn’t yield. Had they been in one of the inferior Russian tanks, they’d all be dead by now.

The missile’s fierce impact knocked the tanker’s helmet from Richardson’s head. The helmetless figure was slammed against the sophisticated equipment in the commander’s station. A three-inch gash opened in the center of his forehead. Blood gushed from the new wound. It washed down his nose and tore at the sides of his face. Dazed and disoriented, he struggled to gather his wits. Through unfocused eyes, he fought to regain control of his fragile world. He sensed the overpowering presence of death reaching out to crush him. The grappling sergeant swiped his sleeve across his battered face. Thick red ran down his jacket.

Richardson blinked rapidly, desperately trying to clear his vision. Through the red haze, he peered toward the killing ground. His machine gun, which served the dual purpose of defending against ground forces and acting as the tank’s primary antiaircraft gun, had been destroyed. Shredded pieces of the gun hung from the tank’s turret.

“Shit! My gun is gone.”

He glanced to the left. The loader’s machine gun had also been destroyed.

“Vincent’s gun’s gone, too!”

“What about the main gun?” Warrick asked. “Can you see if it’s damaged?”

Richardson blinked again and again. “It looks okay from here. I can’t tell for sure.” The T-72s and BMPs were bearing down on their position. “We don’t have any choice. We’re going to be dead if we don’t do something. Damaged or not, fire the damn thing.”

Warrick targeted the tank on the right. The T-72 was barely a hundred yards away and closing fast. The Americans knew that if they fired a damaged main gun, the shell would blow up inside the tank. Finding its path blocked, the projectile would explode in the firing chamber. The tank’s crew would be hideously killed. It was quite possible that in the coming moments, the tankers were going to suffer a horrendous end from their own weapon. But at this point, they were out of options. In seconds, they’d be dead at their own hands or the hands of the Russians. It no longer mattered. If the main gun was damaged, they’d never know what hit them. Warrick swung the massive cannon toward the T-72. His mind went numb.

“Tony, don’t think about it, just fire,” Richardson said. “Might as well go down fighting.”

Warrick fired the cannon.

The shell tore from the undamaged barrel and roared toward the enemy. In a fraction of a second, the T-72 was engulfed in a raging inferno. Four foot soldiers had been using the mauled tank to shield them from Richardson’s machine-gun fire. The infantry were torn into a thousand pieces by the razor-sharp shards of molten metal that leaped from the defeated tank.

Warrick’s machine gun was out of ammunition. And both supporting machine guns had been destroyed. They still had a dozen cannon shells for the main gun. So they could continue to battle the opposing armor. But nothing remained in their arsenal with which to stop the infantry.

The game was nearly over.

Vincent slammed another eighty pounds of horror into the firing chamber.

The final Russian tank stopped at close range and prepared to fire. The T-72’s gunner had them in his sights. With the American machine guns silenced, two infantrymen knelt in the middle of the open field. They brought their antitank weapons up to their shoulders and took careful aim. A BMP’s Spandrel missile had the Abrams in its crosshairs. Helplessly, Richardson watched.

Tony Warrick swung the turret toward the remaining T-72. But the Russian had beaten him to the draw. Long before he could target the tank, he knew the enemy would fire.

It was too late to climb out and run. Ripe for revenge, scores of eager rifles would cut them down before any of their feet reached solid ground. They were trapped. Their lives were over.

Despite his rising panic, Warrick rapidly prepared to fire at the T-72. Maybe the Russian would somehow miss.

Richardson didn’t have any such luxury. With nothing to do but watch through blurry eyes, he braced for the end.

The Russian tank suddenly erupted. Caught in the open, it had been sliced in two by an Apache’s Hellfire missile. The tank’s ruptured workings spewed forth upon the frozen ground. The second Apache fired. A hail of rockets ripped into the BMPs. Three of the armored vehicles were chewed to pieces by the lethal fusillade. The BMPs’ smoking hulls moved no more. The remaining pair of Russian personnel carriers

hurriedly backed toward the protection of the woods. A Hellfire pounced upon the slower of the duo and devoured it. The second was fifty yards from the safety of the trees when a barrage of rockets fell upon it.

In a handful of flittering heartbeats, the Russian armor had been destroyed. The lethal Apaches’ chain guns started thundering mayhem upon the exposed infantry. In abject terror, the soldiers ran toward the evergreens. But the safety of the forest was much too far away. And none would escape the determined assault. In less than a minute, the slaughter was complete. The dead and dying were everywhere.

Three T-72s, five BMPs, and thirty-five foot soldiers had entered the meadow intent on destroying the last American tank. Not one had lived to tell about it.

The Apaches dropped into the trees to wait for anyone insane enough to enter the caustic glen. For twenty solemn minutes, Richardson’s crew sat in their ravaged hole, viewing the unholy scene in the meadow.