Bright Star

Chapter 9

"Come, come. You must come. Now."

Neboatov rolled over and tried to see who had woken him. But there were no lights on in the cramped bunker. Even though the Libyan was within arms distance, Neboatov couldn't even see the form of the man who had awakened him. But he could smell him. Until that day Neboatov had believed that no living creature on earth could smell worse than an Ethiopian soldier. The Libyans proved him wrong. Though he had never been close to a camel, Neboatov suspected he now knew what one smelled like.

His unseen comrade shook him again. "Come. You must come."

Pulling his arm from the Libyan, Neboatov grunted, "Yes, yes, I'll come," in Russian. Though not understanding, the Libyan let go of Neboatov's arm, scooted back, and said something in Arabic. Blindly Neboatov groped about, searching for his boots and field jacket. Still groggy from his odyssey from Ethiopia and less than three hours of sleep, he struggled to dress in the darkness. Once ready, he called out in English, "We go."

Again the Libyan called out, "Come, come."

Neboatov began to stand upright, forgetting that the bunker he was in was half a meter lower than he was tall. He hit his head on a crossbeam, resulting in a spectacular show of stars, followed by a stream of cursing in Russian. His guide, now visible in the entrance to the bunker, stopped, turned, and called something back in Arabic. Rubbing his head, Neboatov thought that the Libyan was no doubt warning him about the low ceiling. The Libyan waited at the entrance until Neboatov signaled that he was ready to continue.

Once out of the bunker and in the communications trench, Neboatov paused to see which way the Libyan had gone. He heard the crunching of sand under boots to his left and turned in that direction. As he moved along the trench, he was painfully reminded of the fact that he had only a vague idea of where he was and how this position was laid out. He had arrived only eight hours before, and he had spent all but one of them in either the command bunker or the bunker where he had slept. Though he had studied the diagrams of the old fort and the defensive positions that had been hastily dug in and about it, they followed no pattern and made little sense. That was what he was there for. His task was to advise a Libyan Revolutionary Guard infantry battalion and get the defenses of the old fort at Al Haria in order.

Upon reaching the command bunker, his guide stopped, opened a canvas cloth that covered the entrance to the bunker, and stepped aside to allow Neboatov to enter. The light of the command bunker blinded him. Instinctively Neboatov reached out with both hands and felt for the walls to either side of the entrance. Using them as a guide, he carefully felt his way forward and down with his feet, stepping down slowly every time he found a step. Even the steps were irregular, following no pattern. How, Neboatov thought, could he be expected to organize a proper defense with a unit that couldn't even build a set of simple steps?

By the time he had reached the bottom step, his eyes had readjusted to the light. In the dimly lit command bunker, he could see the commander of the battalion he was assigned to and several of the battalion's staff officers huddled about a small map pinned to the far wall of the bunker. Off to one comer was a young Soviet captain sitting next to a radio. There were three Soviet officers and two enlisted men with this battalion: Neboatov, two captains, and two radio men who also doubled as drivers. One captain and a radio man were awake at all times, manning the radio that was their link to the Soviet advisor group at the next-higher headquarters and monitoring what was going on. The Libyans did not like the idea of having foreigners in their headquarters, especially nonbelievers. They liked it even less since they had an independent radio net that they, the Libyans, did not control. Though it was standard Soviet practice to do so, it did little to diminish suspicions and promote trust.

Neboatov glanced over to the captain with a questioning look on his face. The captain responded to his major by shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head from side to side, indicating he had no idea what was going on. Unnoticed by the Libyans gathered arotind the map, Neboatov moved up to the rear of the group and stood there. He watched as one of the officers, holding a phone in his left hand up to his ear, marked several arrows on the map with a grease pencil he held in his right hand. The arrows, in red, were along the Libyan-Egyptian border and pointed west. He was obviously receiving a report from observation posts or recon units on the border.

The battalion commander, a skinny colonel named Efrat, with narrow, suspicious eyes, noticed Neboatov. In English, the only language that the two of them had in common, Efrat called out, "It has started. Egyptian recon units have crossed the border. They will be here by dawn."

The roar of his tank's engine and the muffled ear phones of Captain Saada's helmet blocked the screech of outgoing artillery rounds. Even their impact was hidden by the great clouds of dust thrown up by the tanks of the lead company. Though he wasn't exactly sure what the opening battle of the war should have been like, he was sure it would be different. Since leaving their forward assembly area less than two hours before, however, the operation had appeared to Saada as nothing more than another training exercise. It was not at all what he had expected. Even the radio transmissions were calm, routine and unhurried, almost as if the battalion commander and staff were bored. After some reflection, Saada decided that this was good. It meant that all their training had been good and had prepared them for this moment, this event. They were ready. He was ready.

Standing up in the cupola of his tank, Saada turned sideways, grabbing the hatch with one hand and placing his other hand on the periscope sight for his machine gun in order to steady himself. Like an old sailor on the deck of a ship, his body automatically swayed from side to side in order to maintain balance as the M-60A3 tank bucked and pitched across the uneven desert surface. He leaned over slightly and peered into the dark and dust. For a moment, he could see nothing, not even the tail lights of the tank to his front. Reaching up, he keyed the intercom switch of his helmet. "Driver, what is your speed?"

Without unkeying his own intercom, Saada listened. He heard the click of the driver keying his intercom. He knew it was the driver for as soon as the driver had keyed, the sound of the tank's tracks grinding could be heard over the intercom. Each crewman's station on a tank had its own distinctive noise. From the gunner's station the whine of small hydraulic pumps and the chatter of the thermal sight's cooling system could be heard when he keyed his intercom. The loader's intercom normally picked up the squeak of the track as it was pulled up over the drive sprocket and the roar of the engine. The sound of wind whipping across the tank commander's small boom mike told the rest of the crew when Saada's intercom was keyed.

"Twenty-four kilometers per hour, Captain."

Without hesitation, Saada shot back, "What is on the odometer?"

The driver looked at his odometer and read back its current mileage. Saada, referring to a small scrap of paper on which he had recorded their mileage when they had rolled across the line of departure, made some quick calculations in his head. By subtracting the mileage they had on the tank when they crossed the LD from the current mileage, Saada could plot where they were on his map. After doing so, Saada looked at his watch, then looked around.

Still partially blinded by the dust and darkness, he caught only glimpses of the tank to his front, artillery impacting in the distance, and the blackout drive markers of the tank to his rear. Still, this, along with the reports coming over the battalion command radio net, was enough for Saada to confirm that all was well. In ten more minutes they would cross the border and begin to deploy into three company columns. In turn, the companies would move into platoon columns before occupying firing positions from which the tanks would support the infantry attack on a Libyan fort.

It would be a difficult and costly attack for the infantry. The Libyans had reinforced and expanded an old fort with new bunkers and firing positions for tanks. The whole defensive position was protected by many belts of barbed wire and land mines, both antitank and antipersonnel. The assault would need to be a deliberate, set-piece operation. Though many of the officers in Saada's battalion felt that it was a waste of time to stop and reduce the fort, they were not consulted before the plans had been made. In reality, it was not their place to pass judgment on the decision of the high command. For some reason, a reason that was known only to the planners, the fort had to be reduced. Those same planners had decided that Saada's battalion would play a part in that battle. Given the mission, Saada needed only to trouble his mind on how best to accomplish his assigned mission. The battalion's plan and his plan for the company were well thought out and sound. For the tank units, it would be little more than a long-range gunnery drill. For the infantry, the poor bloody infantry, supported by the engineers, it would be cruel and expensive.

Saada's momentary air of confidence quickly evaporated when the commander of the lead tank company reported contact with Libyan reconnaissance vehicles. The lead company commander's voice betrayed his surprise and excitement. Though he shouldn't have been surprised, he was. They had been told to expect contact with the enemy recon at, or soon after crossing, the border.

Recon elements, equipped with light armored vehicles, are descendants of the old horse-mounted light cavalry. Like the light cavalry units of old, modem recon units screen their own forces from the prying eyes of enemy reconnaissance units, while attempting to find the location and composition of the enemy's main force. Both missions require patience, stealth, and cunning carefully mixed with a touch of audacity. This mixture has always been hard to develop, for a recon commander who is too bold will find himself fighting and losing his own men instead of gathering information about the enemy. The opposite is also true. A recon commander who is too cautious will preserve his force but find out nothing about the enemy. That the lead company of Saada's battalion was being engaged by enemy recon vehicles meant that the Egyptian recon forces had failed in their mission to screen the main body and that the Libyans were winning the fight for information.

Saada automatically passed word to his platoon leaders to stand by for orders, telling them only that the lead company was in contact. Anticipating action, his first, Saada could feel his heart rate and breathing pick up. The cold wind that had cut through his field jacket a moment before no longer could be felt. He tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths but found himself almost hyperventilating. Wanting to do something, anything, Saada stood high in the cupola of his tank, leaned forward, and peered into the predawn darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of the battle now developing in front of him. The darkness and swirling dust, however, continued to defeat his efforts to see anything beyond the tank to his front. Frustrated, Saada lowered himself back down into the turret and listened to the auxiliary radio receiver set on the battalion radio net.

In contrast to the frantic company commander in contact, the battalion commander was calm but firm. The first thing of which he reminded his excited company commander was to use proper reporting procedures and to talk slower. His comment seemed to be more of a reminder than a rebuke. There was a momentary silence on the radio net before the company commander came back with a full report. The battalion commander's call had had the desired effect.

Saada, intently listening to the conversation on the radio, hadn't noticed that the firing had ceased. It was only after the lead company commander reported that the enemy had lost two vehicles and had broken contact that Saada looked up and scanned the area around him. To his rear the morning sun was just peeking over the horizon, casting a cold, pale light over the desert. The transition from day to night in the desert is quick, almost startling. The darkness in the west was already receding. Even with daylight, however, there was little Saada could see. The dust kicked up by dozens of tanks to his front still obscured his field of vision. About all he could see was two pillars of black smoke rising straight up in the calm morning sky, marking the two enemy recon vehicles destroyed by the lead company.

Follow-on reports confirmed that the enemy had indeed broken contact and had withdrawn. Saada was amused by the change in the attitude of the lead company commander. On contact with the enemy he had been near panic. After the battalion commander had calmed him, he had been all business. Now, the subsequent reports from the lead company commander were joyful, almost boastful. Saada wondered how long that would last. Until the next encounter with the enemy, no doubt. Of greater concern to Saada at that moment, however, was how he would handle his first battle. He looked at his watch and glanced at his map. In an hour he would have an opportunity to find out.

The offices and newsroom of WNN were already swarming with people running hither and yon with no apparent direction or purpose when Fay Dixon arrived. Every other person stopped when they saw Fay and asked the same thing, "Have you seen Jan?" Fay responded to them all with a simple shake of the head and a curt "No" as she rushed to her desk, thankful that she had arrived before Jan.

Even though everyone knew that Egypt was going to act, Fay was still taken aback. It was so unreal, so unlike anything that she had ever experienced. The excitement of the past week, the building tensions, and the sudden burst of action that morning animated Fay like a drug. Jan had once told her that working the international news scene gave her a rush that was better than sex. It wasn't until that moment that Fay believed her. But it was true. Amidst the chatter and chaos there was an electricity that ran through Fay and everyone about her.

As she seated herself behind her desk, her eyes lit across the photo of Scott and the children. Fay's taut face drooped into an unconscious frown as she stared at the photo. How desperately she wanted to share her excitement, her newfound happiness as a career woman, with Scott, the man with whom she had shared everything for twelve years. Now, however, at the single most important moment in her life, he rejected her. More correctly, he rejected her choice of jobs. To listen to Scott, it seemed that it was Fay who had betrayed their trust and bond. From the beginning, he had opposed her working at WNN and with Jan Fields. Everything that was remotely connected with her job was a point of irritation. The mere mention of Jan's name had been enough to darken his mood. Each new trapping that came with the job met with resounding disapproval from Scott. The Egyptian maid that tended the house and watched the boys when they were not in school, the apartment in the European quarter of the city, the Egyptian driver that took Fay to and from work every day — all met with a storm of screaming and swearing. Even the new wardrobe that Fay thought necessary caused Scott to throw a fit of rage.

Through it all, Fay had resolved to press on, convinced that Scott was overreacting and would eventually come about and see it from her viewpoint. That, however, never happened. The situation simply continued to deteriorate. The final act was rung down the night Scott returned from the fire power demonstration for the American and Egyptian presidents. Since then, especially at night when she was alone in her apartment, Fay desperately wished she could go back in time and pull back that slap. That she had done such a thing was as much a shock to her as it had been to Scott. How badly she wanted to see Scott and talk to him, reason with him as they had in the old days, the days before Iran. She had convinced herself that they were at the lowest possible point, that their relationship and differences couldn't get any worse. Fay was sure of that. Given time and some reflection, Scott would see the folly of what had happened, as she had, and come back. But that wouldn't be possible until the temporary insanity that was consuming not only them but the entire country had passed. And with the Egyptians now committed to a war, that day was on an indefinite hold.

A young man of twenty-two ("a mere boy," according to Jan) came storming into Fay's office. "Mrs. Dixon, here's the latest from the Egyptian Ministry of Defense."

Without a second thought she took her eyes from the photo of her family and turned to the office boy. "Who did the translation?"

Panting, the young man tried to talk while catching his breath. "No translations necessary — the statement — was in English."

Fay looked at him with a blank expression. While it was wrong to call Johnny effeminate, his fair complexion, slight build, soft voice, and refined manner would not impress Scotty. "Johnny, do you seriously expect me to put together a story based solely on Egyptian propaganda? Who's recording the Egyptian broadcasts and emergency radio nets?"

Stung by Fay's response, Johnny straightened up and thought for a moment. "I don't know, Mrs. Dixon. I can go find out if you want."

Throwing her head back, Fay fought back the urge to yell at him. Regaining her composure, she stood and headed for the door. "Never mind, Johnny, I'll go myself." Stopping at the door, she turned to the young man with his wounded pride. "What I really need you to do right now is find out where in the devil Jan is. She needs to be here pronto. Now get a move on and find her."

Luck had yet to favor Jan that morning. Though she had been notified early, a series of delays had beaten her every effort to make it to the office. If anything, it appeared to her that she was moving backwards.

Out of bed in a flash, Jan had grabbed the first clothing she came across. Looking about and seeing no sign of Scott or his clothes, she wondered how he had been able to slip out without waking her. In a single bound she covered the distance from her bed to the closet. She pulled out a silk-and-lace blouse and dress slacks, the first articles of clothing that flew into her hands. As she slipped on the high-heeled pumps she had worn the night before, she felt a momentary anger at Scott for slipping out as he did. To her surprise, she was not mad that she had slept through one of the biggest news stories of her life. Instead, she was mad because he had not been there when she awoke. How much, she thought, she would have loved to be roused by him in the early-moming light.

But there was no time for such idle thoughts. A war had just started. No doubt Scott was at his place of duty, and it was well past the time when she, the bureau chief, should have been at hers. Though she was dressed in clothes designed for an evening out, she was ready: she maintained a proper set of clothing at the office for emergencies such as this. There would be time to dress and put on her makeup while her staff briefed her. All was in order and under control — at least in the beginning.

Buttoning her blouse with one hand, she dialed the number for her driver. Half concentrating on pushing the small cloth-covered button through a hole a tad too small, Jan talked to the driver's wife in English, then hung up without waiting for a response and turned her full attention to forcing the button through the hole. Finished dressing, she grabbed her shoulder bag and flew out of the apartment and down to the street to wait for the car. Twenty minutes passed and the car did not show. Jan ran back up to her apartment and called the driver's home a second time. Again she got his wife, this time she spoke in Arabic and waited for an answer. In broken English the driver's wife explained that her husband had been taken by the army last night. What had he done wrong? Jan asked, confused. The driver's wife explained that he had done nothing wrong — sometimes her husband was a soldier. It finally sunk in that the driver was a reservist who had been recalled to active duty.

Cursing her luck, Jan threw her shoulder bag across the room and tried to call the news office. She could have someone there pick her up. But her efforts yielded nothing but further frustrations. The phone system was controlled by the government. Most lines were taken out of general use and reserved for official use. Those lines that were available were overworked. It wasn't until her fourth attempt that Jan finally got a dial tone. Even that was for naught, for the office number she dialed was busy. Twenty minutes of effort and three busy numbers added to Jan's irritation and frustration.

Realizing that the phone system had defeated her, Jan grabbed her briefcase and rushed out the door, slamming it behind her as she ran down to the street, where she hoped to find a taxi. But the taxis that were normally queued up and waiting for customers were nowhere to be seen. For a second she wondered if all the drivers in Egypt were reservists who had been recalled.

With no salvation in sight, she reached down to grab her shoulder bag as she prepared to run to a main street where there was bound to be a taxi. It was only then that she realized that her bag was not slung over her shoulder. It — and her apartment keys and her money — sat on the floor of her apartment, right where she had thrown it not more than half an hour before. In a fit she looked about her, then paused and thought for a moment. Totally frustrated, she clenched her fists, cursed, and stomped her right foot with just enough force to break the heel.

Stunned by this last piece of bad luck, Jan stood motionless, trying hard to decide if she should cry or laugh. Here she was, the hottest reporter in the entire Middle East, in the middle of the hottest story of the year. She was almost in the right place at the right time — almost, but not quite. Instead of being at the helm of the WNN news office, reading the latest news from the front and putting together a story that would be featured on the next news broadcast in the States, she was standing on a side street with no makeup on, her hair still knotted from sleep, dressed in slacks and a silk blouse, and standing off-balance with a broken heel. She was still standing there when Johnny drove up in a WNN van and saved her from herself.

To Jan's relief, Fay had the situation well under control when she came storming into the news office, shoes in hand. Someone from a line of faceless office workers shoved a cup of coffee into Jan's hand as she disappeared into her office followed by Fay and Johnny. Fay slammed the door and began to fill Jan in on what information they had while Jan frantically rummaged through the closet in search of the appropriate outfit for her broadcast. Never missing a word Fay threw out, Jan began to strip off her wrinkled evening clothes. Johnny, standing in the comer and prepared to take notes, turned beet red when he realized what Jan was doing. Turning away, he monitored as Fay continued to spew out information like a machine gun.

Stripped down to bra and panties, Jan draped the outfit she would wear over the back of an office chair and seated herself at her desk. Pulling out a drawer, she extracted a makeup mirror and kit and prepared to do her face. Before she started, however, she looked in the mirror, took a sip of coffee, and thought. Noticing that Jan had stopped and was concentrating, Fay stopped talking. Johnny, trying hard to make himself inconspicuous, looked at the two women and wondered what telepathic message had prompted Fay to stop. Whatever it was, he stood ready. For what he didn't quite know. But he was ready anyway.

Jan continued to sip her coffee and consider what look would be appropriate for a war story. Nothing flashy, nothing soft. The image had to be serious, almost harsh. Everything was important: her clothes, her makeup, the way she wore her hair, the way she spoke. Slowly Jan began to form a clear idea of the image she wanted to flash across the television screen. When she was ready, she dug out the appropriate cosmetics and went to work, as Fay began to throw out her ideas on how best to package the first story of the war.

The traininglike atmosphere ended in a thunderclap for Captain Saada. Nearing the fort at Al Haria, Saada moved his company along a wadi. As they reached the position from which they were to support the final infantry attack, Saada ordered his tanks to move into their firing positions. The column of tanks halted for a moment before turning south to climb out of the wadi. Saada looked to his left and watched as the tracks of the M-60A3 tank next to his clawed at the soft, sandy sides of the wadi and slowly pulled itself up and onto the open ground beyond. The roar of the laboring tank engines almost masked a volley of antitank guns fired from beyond the wadi. The sound of the antitank guns, like the cracking of a whip, startled Saada.

In the twinkling of an eye, the tank he was watching was engulfed in a ball of fire. From every opening of the stricken tank, sheets of flame shot skyward. The tank had been hit by an antitank round. For a fraction of a second the flames died down ever so slightly. Then the tank shuddered as the warheads of high-explosive antitank rounds stored on board cooked off, setting off the propellant of the rounds next to them and stoking the flames to new heights.

"BACK UP! BACK UP! DRIVER, MOVE BACK!" Screaming into the boom mike, Saada braced himself and rocked with the motion of the tank as the driver hit the brakes, threw the tank into reverse, and began to move back into the wadi. Just as he straightened himself up, a fountain of dirt and sand rose before his tank and whipped him with a shower of sand. A near miss — an enemy antitank round had landed just short of his tank, raining dirt, not death, on him.

There was no time to reflect on his good fortune, however. A flash to his right caused him to turn just in time to witness the death of another one of his tanks. Saada reached up to the radio switch on the side of his helmet and yelled over his company command net for all tanks to move back into the cover of the wadi. His order was too late for yet another of his tanks: further down the line a third M-60A3 erupted into flames.

But there was no time to reflect on that. Over the auxiliary radio receiver, set on the battalion radio net, the battalion commander was calling Saada's radio call sign, demanding a report on what was happening. Saada was about to switch the frequency of the main radio in order to report when he noticed that his tank not only was still backing up but was in fact backing out of the wadi on the other side. Pushing the radio switch from the forward, or radio, position to the rear, or intercom, position, Saada yelled for the driver to stop. The driver, already shaken by the near-miss and the unexpected panic of his tank commander, did so without hesitation. Saada, with one hand on the radio frequency knob and the other on the intercom switch on the side of his helmet, was not prepared for the jolting stop. As the tank lurched to a halt, Saada was thrown back, then forward, smashing his face down with force onto the steel box that housed the sight for the tank commander's machine gun. Like a rag doll thrown against a wall, Saada went limp and dropped down onto the floor of his tank.

In excited gibberish, the loader yelled that the captain was dead. The gunner — a sergeant and the next-senior man on board the tank— turned to see what the loader was babbling about. To his surprise he saw Saada crumpled on the floor, blood everywhere. For a moment, the gunner, like the loader, believed that Saada was dead. Turning around and getting himself into a position where he could reach his commander, the gunner reached down and carefully turned Saada's head to look at his face. The loader fought back the urge to vomit.

A soft moan from Saada brought a sigh of relief from the gunner. His commander was alive but momentarily unconscious. Saada's nose was pushed almost flat; blood was spurting from his nostrils. There was a wide cut across his forehead from which blood ran freely. Below the neck, there appeared to be no signs of injury. To be sure, the gunner ran his hands down Saada's body, feeling for any unusual breaks or bumps and watching Saada's smashed face in case his probing caused pain. There were no other injuries. Having been in many fights, the gunner correctly figured that his commander was not in any great danger — at least from the injuries he had just sustained. The situation outside the turret, however, was different.

The gunner ordered the loader to help him move Saada into a position under the main gun. Once they had Saada in place, the gunner reached up, grabbed the edge of the tank commander's cupola, and pulled himself up into the tank commander's position. Once settled in, he plugged his helmet into the tank commander's radio-intercom jack. The earphones of his crewman's helmet blared in his ear. The radio was alive with reports from the platoon leaders of the company on the main radio transmitter and from other company commanders and the battalion staff on the auxiliary radio receiver.

The gunner listened for a moment. Though no one knew for sure what had happened to Saada, their company commander, the deputy company commander had already assumed command and was in the process of receiving status reports from each of the platoons. In turn, the deputy commander reported the company's status to the battalion commander. When there was a moment of silence on the company radio net, the gunner keyed the radio. Using Saada's radio call sign with an additional letter to identify himself as the gunner and not Saada, he called the deputy commander. Excitedly, and with apparent relief, the deputy commander asked if Saada was alive and needed assistance.

Looking down between his legs, the gunner saw the loader on the turret floor with Saada. Using bandages from the first-aid kit, the loader was carefully cleaning Saada's wounds. The gunner thought for a moment. He didn't consider evacuation, even though Saada was hurt. While fighting the tank with only three functional crewmen and a wounded man on board would be damned difficult, taking Saada out and trying to evacuate him in the middle of the battle could be more hazardous. Artillery, a very real threat since the Libyans obviously knew their location, could fall on them at any minute. A single volley of artillery in the confines of the wadi would shred anyone who was not under cover. The gunner replied that Saada could not fight but did not need immediate evacuation.

The deputy commander paused for a moment, then began to issue orders. The company, down three tanks and its commander, had yet to fire a single shot at the enemy. The Libyan fort, sitting two thousand meters from the wadi, still had to be taken. The infantry, now ready to assault, needed support if they were to succeed. Though he would remain with the company, braced upright in the gunner's seat as he passed in and out of consciousness, Saada's ability to influence anything was nil. A simple and almost stupid accident had taken him out of the fight just as effectively as a Libyan antitank round.

The respite was only temporary. They had perhaps only five minutes, no more, before the Egyptians recovered from their first shock of combat, figured out that their initial barrage had not done its work, and came up with a new plan. When they did, they would carry the fort and the adjoining defensive works. Of this Neboatov had no doubt.

At the command observation post Neboatov lay on his belly behind a wall of sandbags, watching as a second Egyptian tank company maneuvered into position. The first tank company had blundered into the teeth of the antitank kill sack that Neboatov and one of his captains had set up that morning. In short order they had killed three M-60A3 tanks and caused the others to drop back into a covered position. They would have done more damage had the Libyans waited until the entire Egyptian tank company was out of the wadi and in the open. But the Libyans were nervous, inexperienced, untrained, and worse, poorly led.

After being summoned to the command bunker earlier that morning, Neboatov had sat without saying a word for two hours while the leadership of the Revolutionary Guard battalion debated what they should do. Unable to contain himself, Neboatov had pulled Colonel Efrat off to the side. Using a simple diagram, Neboatov showed that his antitank weapons were best deployed in depth and facing to the south and southeast to cover the most likely armor avenue of approach. Efrat, not understanding what Neboatov was talking about, shook his head in agreement. Turning to his assembled staff, Efrat ordered one of his captains to go with Neboatov and see that the guns and antitank missile teams were redeployed. Satisfied that he had disposed of the Russian for the time being, Efrat turned his back to Neboatov and rejoined the debate that was still ongoing.

Realizing that he had been summarily dismissed, Neboatov turned to the Libyan captain and attempted to explain what needed to be done with the antitank weapons, but the man understood neither Russian nor English. Looking around him, Neboatov saw that the second Soviet captain had entered the bunker. Deciding that the only way they would get anything done was to do it themselves, Neboatov called him over and quickly explained what he wanted done, then divided up the task between them. Using gestures and pointing to the diagram, he got the Libyan to lead them to the first antitank positions. Once there, Neboatov and his captain took over. They had labored until dawn, leading, pleading, and prodding the Libyan antitank gun and missile crews. Only the initial artillery barrage had stopped their efforts.

From behind, Neboatov felt a slight tug on his pant leg. Turning, he saw one of his captains looking up at him. "What is it, Dmitri?"

"Sir, Colonel Rakhia wants you to contact him immediately."

"Did he tell you what he wanted?"

"Yes, sir. He wants your assessment of the situation here before he orders us out of here."

Neboatov looked at the Libyan captain next to him for a moment and hoped that he really didn't understand Russian. He turned back to his own captain. "Did you tell him we wouldn't be able to hold for more than a few hours?"

The captain shook his head in the affirmative, then added, "Yes, sir. He knows that. That's why he wants us to leave. But he wants you to talk to him personally. He said that there's nothing more that we can do here. I believe he just wants to confirm that before he gives us permission to go."

Cursing, Neboatov began to shimmy his way back into the main portion of the trench, grumbling as he went. "If he knows we're finished here, why the hell didn't he just tell us to go!" Just as his feet hit the floor of the trench, the Egyptian shelling began anew. The Egyptian gunners had the range now and used that knowledge to great effect. The first volley impacted just to the front of the command observation bunker. Neboatov and his captain flattened themselves on the floor of the trench as a shower of debris and dirt came raining down.

The captain, a veteran of two years in Angola, looked up to Neboatov as they lay there. "Those shits don't waste any time, do they?"

Picking his face up from the floor of the trench, Neboatov looked into his captain's eyes. Though the young captain was trying to make light of their situation, there was fear and apprehension in his eyes. "Dmitri, welcome to your first real war. Be thankful that we are facing, as Colonel Rakhia said, a third-rate power."

This caused Dmitri to laugh. "Yes, Comrade Colonel, I guess there is much I should be thankful for."

A second volley of artillery impacted just to the rear of the command observation bunker, sending more debris into the trench. "Come, Dmitri, enough of this idle chitchat. They have us bracketed. The next volley will be right on the mark. Let us get out of here before we are buried. Our colonel is awaiting our call. Lead on."

The young captain pushed himself up off the floor of the trench, turned in the direction of the command bunker, and began to move along the trench in a low crouch. Neboatov also got up but turned to take one last look at the situation before he followed. The sight that greeted him caused him to hesitate. The Libyan captain whom he had been lying next to was on his back. His elbows were tucked into his sides, his lower arms upright. The hands were clutched and frozen like the talons of a hawk clawing at the sky. Blood ran down the faceless head in tiny rivulets into the sand.

Neboatov shook his head and simply muttered, "Luck, that's all it is — simple luck. You are dead and I am not." The screech of the next volley caused Neboatov to lower his body below the lip of the trench before turning toward the command bunk. He wondered how much luck he had left.