Cauldron

CHAPTER 17 Offensive

It was raining again, soaking the wooded hills near the Austrian border. Lieutenant Stefan Tereny huddled miserably under a plastic sheet, trying unsuccessfully to stay warm and dry in the shallow, muddy hole he and his crew had scraped out of a hillside overlooking the highway from Vienna. Local farmers might welcome this nighttime storm, but he didn’t. The rain and darkness reduced visibility to practically nil, right when he desperately needed to see as far as possible.

His platoon’s three BRDM-2 scout cars and twelve men were deployed in widely scattered and well-camouflaged positions along a two-kilometer stretch of the frontier. Other scout platoons flanked them. The 1st Brigade’s tank and motorized rifle battalions were deployed far to the rear — in Sopron’s outlying suburbs and along the forested Karoly Heights overlooking the city.

Tereny raised his starlight scope for another quick look, careful to keep the precious device dry. The green and black images were fuzzy, distorted by a myriad of small flecks — falling raindrops. He wished in vain for a portable infrared scope, a thermal imaging system like those used by their potential enemies. But even the most sophisticated night-vision gear couldn’t see far through a heavy spring downpour like this.

Damn. The word from headquarters was that EurCon’s forces might cross the border anytime. Like tonight. Now. And it was Tereny’s job to raise the alarm if they did.

Frustrated, the Hungarian lieutenant lowered his starlight scope. He could barely make out the main highway from here, let alone the frontier line. They would have to get closer. He glanced at the two men huddled under the tarpaulin with him — his gunner and radioman. The scout car’s driver waited a few meters further back, inside the four-wheeled vehicle. “Right. Grab your gear. We’re moving up.”

Suddenly his gunner, a corporal, grabbed his shoulder and whispered fiercely. “Lieutenant, wait! I hear something.”

Tereny froze, trying hard to listen but at first only hearing the patter of rain on leaves and his own racing heartbeat. Then he heard it — the low muffled sound of a diesel engine somewhere very close by.

He raised the scope again, scanning in what he thought was the right direction. The damned rain was interfering with sounds as well as sight. One thing was certain. Whoever was out there wasn’t friendly. There were no other Hungarian Army units this close to the border, and absolutely no civilian traffic allowed in this sector.

Now that he knew what to listen for, he heard the engine noises again. There were at least two enemy vehicles out there — feeling their way slowly through the rain-soaked woods. He nudged his radioman. “Contact Brigade HQ. Tell them we hear movement to our front.”

The engine noises were growing louder. Tereny stiffened. The enemy must be almost right on top of them. He cocked his Soviet made AKR, a carbine version of the AK-74 assault rifle. The radioman did the same while the gunner readied an RPG-16 antitank rocket launcher.

Then the three soldiers flattened themselves, burrowing deeper into the mud. Something clanked out to the front and the lieutenant swiveled his scope toward the sound. There! A six-wheeled, turreted shape loomed out of the darkness and falling rain. He could make out a gun as well, a big one. Another shape materialized off to the right, trundling in the same direction.

As the first vehicle turned, maneuvering between two trees, Tereny recognized its distinctive silhouette. It was a French AMX-10RC, a reconnaissance vehicle armed with a powerful 105mm cannon. EurCon had its own scouts out, probing for the first signs of Hungarian resistance.

The lieutenant put his mouth to the radioman’s ear and whispered. “Send ‘Two AMX-10s moving east! Am engaging.’” While the private relayed his message, he turned to his RPG-armed gunner. “We’re going to have to take these bastards here. We’re too close to bug out now. Right?”

The corporal nodded vigorously. Their briefing on the AMX-10 had included the unwelcome news that its fire control system was one of the most sophisticated ever installed in a light recon vehicle. Trying to run away from a gun system equipped with a laser range finder, ballistic computer, and low-light TV cameras would be suicide. Even in the rain they wouldn’t get fifty meters before being spotted, engaged, and destroyed.

“Good. Give me thirty seconds and then take the one on the right.”

The corporal acknowledged the order — ”Sir!” — through clenched teeth.

Tereny slithered out from under the tarpaulin and got to his feet, careful to keep a tree trunk between himself and the French vehicles. Then he scrambled uphill to their own camouflaged scout car. The little BRDM only mounted a single heavy machine gun, but at this range it might be able to penetrate the side armor on the French armored cars.

He clambered up onto the BRDM’s deck and lowered himself in through the open commander’s hatch. The wide-eyed, pale face of his driver turned toward him. “Christ, Lieutenant! What do we do now?”

“We fight,” Tereny said brusquely, worming his way into the scout car’s cramped turret. He settled in behind the grips of the 14.5mm machine gun and frantically cranked the gun turret around. Any second now…

A streak of fire tore through the night. The sudden burst of light illuminated the two French vehicles, both caught broadside. He had only a fleeting glance before the corporal’s RPG-16 rocket slammed into one of the AMX-10s, tore through the light armor at the base of its turret, and exploded.

The French armored car fireballed. Sheets of flame poured out through open hatches as its ammunition and fuel ignited. Shadows fled in all directions, eerily flickering in time with the crackling flames.

Without waiting Tereny centered his sights on the remaining AMX and fired. The heavy machine gun chattered, spraying glowing tracer rounds toward the enemy vehicle. Sparks flew as bullets slapped into its hull and turret, punching holes through aluminum armor designed to fend off shell fragments and lighter infantry weapons. The French armored car ground to a halt, lifeless.

Elated, the Hungarian lieutenant let go of the machine gun and clambered back into his commander’s seat. He stuck his head out the open roof hatch. “Corporal! Take Markos and check out those AMXs for prisoners!”

Obeying those orders, his gunner and radioman abandoned their hiding place and moved cautiously toward the wrecked vehicles. Both men held their weapons at the ready.

A shell screamed overhead and burst higher up the hill. The explosion took away his sense of victory. Now that they were detected, the French were abandoning stealth in favor of firepower.

More shells rained down along the slope, splintering trees and sending deadly fragments sleeting in all directions. Tereny had the sudden horrified feeling that he’d kicked open a hornet’s nest. It was time to get his platoon to safety. He grabbed the BRDM’s radio mike. “All Sierra units! This is Sierra Alpha! Withdraw to Phase Line Bravo! Repeat, withdraw to Phase Line Bravo!”

Hurried acknowledgements crackled over radio circuits flooded with other urgent sighting reports and calls for fire support. From what he could hear, French recon forces were advancing across the border at several widely separated points.

Tereny ducked beneath the hatch coaming as a shell slammed into the ground only fifty meters away. Splinters whined overhead and clanged off the BRDM’s side armor. He raised his head cautiously, looking for his gunner and radioman. Why the hell were they taking so long?

A parachute flare burst high overhead, lighting the tree covered hillside and valley below with its harsh white glare. As it drifted downward through sheets of falling rain, the lieutenant saw his two missing crewmen staggering up the muddy slope toward him. They were supporting a wounded Frenchman between them. He waved them on and leaned out of the hatch, ready to help hoist their prisoner aboard.

“My God.” Tereny froze again, staring into the valley. There were tanks and armored personnel carriers moving down there. Dozens of them. This wasn’t a skirmish. EurCon was invading in force.

He hauled the injured, bleeding man through the BRDM’s open hatch and then scrambled out of the way as his gunner and radioman tumbled inside. They slammed the hatch shut behind them and stared wild-eyed as Tereny leaned over the driver’s shoulder shouting, “Crank it up! Let’s get out of here!”

With the teeth-rattling roar of incoming artillery fire urging them on, the Hungarian scouts raced for the dubious safety of their own lines.

It had taken the EurCon warplanes just twenty minutes to hammer Tokol into oblivion. Protected by fighters, three separate waves of Mirages and Tornados loaded for ground attack had roamed across the Hungarian airfield, bombing and strafing practically at will. Only two antiquated MiG-21s had managed to get airborne before the raiding force arrived. Both had been bounced and blown out of the sky without ever seeing their attackers.

When the French and German jets turned for home, they left nothing but wreckage behind them. Every runway was cratered, torn apart by French-made Durandals. Laser-guided one-thousand-kilogram bombs had turned rows of heavily reinforced shelters into mounds of twisted steel and shattered concrete. Burned-out wrecks littering the scorched and bullet-pocked tarmac showed where aircraft had been caught out in the open. And dense columns of black smoke in a ring around the horizon marked destroyed SAM sites and radar installations.

Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky climbed out of his car and walked over to the tiny knot of grim-faced air force officers surveying the destruction. Four of Oskar Kiraly’s best bodyguards moved with him, each carefully watching in a different direction. Having already lost one of the democratic revolution’s top leaders, Kiraly had no intention of losing another.

The air force officers stiffened to attention as he approached. Although he held no place in the formal military hierarchy, his position as national security advisor to the provisional government commanded respect.

“Is this as bad as it looks?” Hradetsky saw no point in beating around the bush. The new government’s ministers had crucial decisions to make and they were waiting for his first hand report.

“It’s worse.” The brigadier general now commanding Hungary’s air force spoke bluntly and bitterly. “They hit every one of our active airfields within a single hour last night. Aided by picture-perfect intelligence, no doubt.”

Hradetsky understood the other man’s anger. Four of the nation’s top-ranking air force officers were among those who had fled to join the EurCon-supported “government-in-exile.” Their inside information on Hungary’s bases, radar and SAM systems, and tactics must have proved invaluable to the French and Germans. “What about our losses?”

“Crippling.” The air force commander nodded toward the devastation in front of them. “This field is typical. Our preliminary estimates show that we’ve lost well over half of our interceptor and ground attack aircraft. Plus thirty to forty percent of our attack and transport helicopters. Our ordnance stores were hit, as were our maintenance facilities. Those that fly won’t be able to fight very well.”

Hradetsky whistled softly in dismay. In just sixty minutes, the French and Germans had destroyed at least eighty MiG-21s and MiG-23s, and maybe another fifteen Hind-A helicopter gunships. For all practical purposes the Hungarian Air Force had been destroyed before it could get off the ground. Now enemies controlled the skies over his native land.

With its embattled troops naked to EurCon air attack and in full retreat, Hungary would need every scrap of help its new friends to the north could provide, and soon.

Four twin-tailed aircraft slid through the cold night air. Navigation lights that would have been left on in peacetime for flight safety were off now. Poland’s F-15 Eagles were going to war.

Inside the lead Eagle, First Lieutenant Tadeusz Wojcik kept wanting to shove his throttles forward, to hurry and catch the EurCon aircraft he was after before they could make their strike. But the geometry was all wrong.

The battered Hungarian air defense system hadn’t detected the incoming raid until it was halfway to its target — the helicopter base at Veszprem, a city nestled in the Bakony Mountains near Lake Balaton. More precious minutes were wasted while the information passed down the chain of command to where Tad and his three flightmates had been sitting in their cockpits for half the night. By the time they’d got the news and scrambled off the airfield and into the air, it was too late to catch the strike aircraft before they dropped their bombs. They’d have to settle for jumping the bastards on their way home.

Within hours of Poland’s decision to aid Hungary’s democratic government, Wojcik’s squadron had moved south — to the Czech air base at Brno. That put them only a hundred klicks north of Vienna and the EurCon airfields around the Austrian capital. Right now, the Polish and Czech planes were operating under strict, defensive rules of engagement. They could only attack French and German planes in Hungarian airspace and only conduct strike missions against EurCon ground forces inside Hungary itself. If those rules changed, though, they’d be perfectly placed to attack right down the enemy’s throat.

Wojcik glanced down at the map board strapped to one knee, mentally tracking his position as ground controllers fed them course changes. The men controlling this intercept had first swung them east, then almost straight south. They were trying to bring the four F-15s in from the enemy’s two o’clock, so that the Eagles wouldn’t have a tail chase. Careful positioning was vital, but it all took more time and fuel than he liked.

At least coming in from slightly to the side would help them detect the enemy aircraft. German Tornados had radar-absorbent material on their engine intakes and gold-coated canopies to make them tougher to see on radar, but those stealth modifications would only help from the front.

Tad glanced at his fuel gauges. Even with drop tanks, they were going to have to be careful if they wanted to make it back to Brno. Any Hungarian air base could refuel them, but landing at one would put him smack in the middle of a shooting gallery. It was dangerous enough up here.

He returned to his careful scan of the sky, the symbols on his HUD, and back down to his cockpit instruments again. Even when racing to an intercept and certain air combat, attention to detail was vital. He forced himself to follow procedure, to think ahead. “Buck fever” was a real threat, especially on his first combat mission.

His four F-15s were each armed with four Sparrow and four Sidewinder missiles, along with a centerline drop tank. Although the Eagles could carry the new and better AMRAAM missile, there were only a few of those “silver bullets” in the Polish inventory at the moment. And the brass had ordered them retained for the defense of Polish territory. Their decision made sense, Tad guessed, but right now he was more worried about the piece of Polish territory inside his cockpit.

The flight moved south at 750 knots. They were flying at ten thousand meters, well above a solid cloud layer. Below the clouds, rain and low visibility made it a dirty night for flying, but that was perfect intruder weather. The Polish planes had their radars off, to avoid alerting the enemy to their presence. Part of Wojcik wanted his fighter’s “eyes” on, but he knew they were too far away to pick out fleeting contacts flying only a few dozen meters above the rolling landscape.

“Blue flight, raid is seventy kilometers, bearing one seven five.” The intercept controller’s voice was perfectly calm.

Tad felt his own heartbeat starting to speed up. It was almost time to energize their radars. His four aircraft would be in radar guided missile range in another thirty kilometers — only minutes at their present closing speed. The idea was to turn on the radar, lock up quickly, and fire Sparrows before the Tornados could react. Although they’d be firing at extreme range, the first salvo should break up the EurCon formation and force them to maneuver, wasting precious fuel. Right now the enemy pilots were outbound and tired, anxious to escape unfriendly territory, maybe even damaged or short on fuel. In other words, vulnerable. The fact that they were Germans was icing on the cake.

Minutes passed, seeming slower now as adrenaline pulsed through his bloodstream and altered his time sense. He glanced down at the clock on the F-15’s control panel. They should be within range. But his threat receiver was still quiet, so Tad continued on silently. The closer to the enemy, the better. He risked a glance aft, but the other three Eagles spaced out at half-kilometer intervals and staggered altitudes, were invisible in the darkness.

Another minute brought him a dozen kilometers closer to the enemy’s estimated position, close enough for his tastes. He keyed his mike. “Blue flight, energize.” Microphone clicks acknowledged his order.

The first few radar sweeps showed only a hash of dots as the F-15’s computer tried to sort out ground clutter and weather effects. On the third sweep, though, Wojcik saw a cluster of dots in a regular pattern. There they were — three pairs of enemy aircraft and one singleton trailing slightly behind.

In a long-range, radar-guided attack like this the trick was to avoid wasting missiles by having two aircraft engage the same target. Believing that the simplest methods were always best, he’d briefed the other pilots before takeoff to engage their opposite numbers, left to right. Tad’s wingman for this hop, a young rookie pilot named Milan Rozek, was flying to his left and slightly back, so he would take the leftmost German jet. Wojcik would fire on the Tornado just to the right of that. Training made target selection automatic, and it could be done without time-consuming radio chatter.

He thumbed a button on his stick, designating one of the distant EurCon aircraft as his target. A box appeared around the symbol on his radar screen. The enemy plane was too far below him for any kind of a cueing box to appear on his HUD, but he was ready to shoot. Wojcik waited one beat for the rest of his flight to finish locking up, then squeezed the trigger on his stick.

A whoosh and the sudden bright flare of missile exhaust from under his starboard wing told him he had a good launch. His peripheral vision caught the glare as his number three launched at almost the same time. The small, gleeful boy inside Tad who had always loved Fourth of July fireworks wanted to watch the missiles flashing away and down into the night, but he forced himself to concentrate on the scope. It was just as well. The German planes were already starting to maneuver — alerted by their own threat receivers.

The Eagle’s weapons computer had already selected and tested another Sparrow and Tad pulled the trigger again. Firing two missiles against a long-range target like this was standard doctrine, to increase the chance of a hit. An alert and skillful enemy pilot might dodge the first incoming missile, but he might not even see the second one.

Ahead, the missiles arced up, climbing to thinner air where they could fly at almost four times the speed of sound. When their motors burned out, they vanished into the darkness, coasting through the rest of their trajectory. They would dive on their targets from above, at blinding speed.

Tad clicked his mike again. “Go to cruise.” He throttled back, not only to save fuel but also to slow his rate of closure with the enemy aircraft. The otherwise excellent Sparrow had one major flaw — the attacker had to keep his radar pointed squarely at his target, “illuminating” it for the missiles in flight. Sparrows needed to “see” those reflected radar beams to home in on their target. Even at this range, missile flight time was only a minute, but that was an eternity under combat conditions. And for that relative eternity, the four Polish F-15s had to fly a relatively straight and level course. Only the absence of EurCon fighter escorts allowed them to attack this; way.

The radar display was getting mushy again. The Tornados were using jammers and bundles of chaff as they maneuvered, trying to break the radar lock. Tad’s own target acquisition box flickered, then disappeared. He swore, then swallowed his string of curses a half second later when his target vanished, too. Unguided but still ballistic, his missile must have gotten close enough for its proximity fuse to detonate before the Tornado could change course. A wave of satisfaction washed over him, and again he forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand. He had his first kill, against an old enemy.

They were close to the frantically maneuvering EurCon jets now, only a dozen kilometers away. The Tornados, flying in pairs, reacted differently to the attack. One pair turned away, trying to outrun the ambush. Four more were turning toward their attackers — attempting to increase the closure rate and break past the Poles before they could fire again. This was going to get down and dirty real fast.

Tad was already selecting his Sidewinder missiles when two more radar contacts disappeared. Yes! At this range, loss of detection meant almost a sure kill. Three German strike planes down and only four more to go. He grinned under his oxygen mask. They were cleaning up!

Wojcik continued to scan the sky around him, but he could see neither his friends nor his enemies. Still, his radar showed German aircraft in front of him. That was good enough.

“Break into pairs, turning left.” He banked the fighter left and pushed down on the stick. They would have to dive under the clouds before his Sidewinders could lock…

A line of fire passed his right side. Shit. He slammed the stick to starboard, straining against his harness, craning his neck around to see aft. Nothing. “Fighters aft! Break right!”

In that same instant, another missile sliced through the darkness, off to the left this time. This one exploded. Tad caught one brief glimpse of an F-15 in flames and tumbling out of control toward the ground. The second missile had hit his wingman. “Blue Two! Eject!”

Only static answered him as the burning Eagle fell. Oh, Christ. Wojcik swallowed convulsively, fighting down the burning taste of vomit creeping up his throat. Milan Rozek was gone.

He continued his own tight, diving turn, now seeing the clouds as cover instead of a barrier. One hand chopped his throttles still further, instinctively reducing the F-15’s infrared signature. Then he stabbed the chaff and flare release, spewing decoys out behind him in case there were other missiles closing in.

Urgent calls from Blue Three and Four indicated that they didn’t hold any other contacts, but were also maneuvering frantically while searching for the enemy planes that had sneaked up behind them.

His Eagle continued to corkscrew down, the clouds a dark gray mass below him. Tad’s mind worked fast, trying to get the measure of his unseen opponents. He hadn’t heard a peep out of his own radar warning gear. They must have been using an infrared scanner then, after being cued by Blue flight’s own radar emissions. A totally passive attack. Understanding dawned. The MiG-29 mounted such a device. And the Germans had Fulcrums — two full squadrons they’d inherited during the reunification.

It was wildly, almost insanely, ironic. Here he was, serving in a former Warsaw Pact air force and flying an American-made fighter in battle against a former NATO ally flying Soviet-made Fulcrums. He controlled a sudden, maddening urge to laugh and concentrated on staying alive.

His threat receiver was still blank, so the Germans weren’t using their radars yet.

The clouds engulfed him, and Tad let his fighter descend another five hundred meters before leveling out. Inside the mass, he was screened from infrared detection. They’d have to turn on their radars if they wanted to find him.

His plane raced northeast through almost total darkness, toward the origin point for the missiles that had narrowly missed him and killed Rozek. The F-15 rattled and shook, buffeted by turbulence inside the storm clouds.

There. Two blips appeared on his radar screen, out in front and turning toward him. Neither showed friendly IFF and both were inside Sparrow range. Even as he locked up, his threat receiver came on, showing a Slot Back radar on a bearing that matched with the bogeys. They were Fulcrums, then, activating their radars now that they had lost him on their IR scanners. They were too late.

Tad’s finger squeezed the trigger on his stick. His third Sparrow dropped off his starboard wing and ignited. It vanished, leaving a glowing trail through the clouds.

He advanced the throttle, closing on the German MiG coming at him head-on, and selected Sidewinder. As his missile streaked out of the clouds, the enemy plane suddenly turned hard and climbed. Perfect.

Wojcik pulled back on his stick, climbing himself. Suddenly the F-15 broke out into clear air. A growling tone in his headphones indicated that the missile he’d selected could see its prey. The Fulcrum, trying desperately to evade the Sparrow he’d fired, was using full power — maybe even its after-burners.

Tad pulled the trigger again.

The heat-seeker leapt off its rail, racing toward the enemy fighter now just two miles ahead of him. A cueing box appeared on his HUD, centered on the fleeing MiG. The Sidewinder’s bright exhaust merged with the box and then vanished in a bright orange fireball. A hit! Glowing shards and pieces of debris cartwheeled out of the explosion, already spinning downward.

Wojcik circled, checking for the second German Fulcrum without success. It was gone — nowhere in sight and nowhere on radar. So were the four surviving Tornados. Worse, Blue Three and Four were also missing. And his increasingly frantic radio calls to them went unanswered.

Alone in a black sky, over a battlefield, Tadeusz Wojcik decided it was time to head for home. What had started out as a turkey shoot had all too quickly turned into a fight for his own personal survival. He didn’t like being ambushed. It was time for a change in tactics. Even his own two kills couldn’t balance the guilt he felt for losing his inexperienced wingman.

Huddled for their second emergency session in two days, the men and women who served on America’s National Security Council still looked stunned to Ross Huntington. He shared their dismay. Despite all of EurCon’s threats and menacing troop movements, none of them had really expected an armed invasion of Hungary.

General Reid Galloway put down the phone he’d been using and looked straight at the President. “That was Tom Foss, sir. Our liaison with the Polish Air Force. He confirms those early reports. Polish aircraft flying from Czech and Slovak bases have engaged EurCon planes over Hungary.”

“My God.” Harris Thurman turned pale. “Do we have airmen stationed at those bases?”

“No, Mr. Secretary.” Galloway shrugged. “But we do have training groups at some of the Polish airfields being used as staging and repair areas for the squadrons they’re sending south.”

Openly appalled, the Secretary of State faced the President. “We have to get our air force people out of there! Right away!”

“Why?” the President asked quietly. Of all those in the room, he seemed the least surprised by recent events.

Thurman stared back at him, trying to calm down. “Isn’t it obvious? If they stay, the French and Germans can accuse us of playing a part in this war.”

“A war they started,” Huntington felt compelled to point out. The pompous Secretary of State never failed to irritate him.

The other man ignored him, focusing instead on the man he wanted to sway. “Mr. President, there is only one prudent course. We must immediately and publicly withdraw all U.S. military personnel from Poland and the Czech and Slovak republics. It’s the only way to make sure that we aren’t dragged into this thing.”

“And just how do you suppose EurCon would interpret a move like that, Harris?” the President asked flatly. “Not to mention the rest of our allies?” He answered his own question. “They’d believe we were abandoning the Poles. That we were cutting and running at the first sign of trouble.

“And I believe that would be the worst imaginable signal we could send.” The President shook his head decisively. “The best deterrent against even more EurCon aggression is a strong, visible American presence on the ground in Poland.” He turned to Galloway. “Tell Brigadier General Foss and the others to stay put.”

Huntington nodded slowly. The President’s decisions made sense. He just hoped the men in Paris and Berlin were still able to think rationally.

Two centuries before, the elegant, horseshoe-shaped Esterhazy Palace had been the summer home of Hungary’s princely family and their court composer, Joseph Haydn. Now, tracked and wheeled armored vehicles festooned with radio antennas crowded the cobblestoned courtyard and neatly landscaped gardens. Staff officers in French and German battle dress conferred in small groups against the backdrop of the building’s elaborate yellow and white Baroque façade. EurCon’s IV Corps, its invasion force, had established its forward headquarters at this chateau popularly known as the Hungarian Versailles.

Near the palace’s wrought-iron main gate, Général de Corps d’Armée Claude Fabvier stood looking down an access road leading to the main highway. More armored vehicles were parked in the tall, uncut grass to either side — squat, powerful-looking LeClerc main battle tanks of the 2nd Dragoons and tracked AMX-10P APCs belonging to the 51st Infantry. Soldiers, stripped to the waist in the late spring heat, lounged in the shade provided by their vehicles and by the tall trees that lined the road. Both French regiments were resting after spearheading the EurCon drive across the border.

Fabvier’s new leading elements, German panzer and panzergrenadier battalions from the 10th Panzer Division, were fighting on the outskirts of the tiny village of Szarfold, twenty kilometers to the east. Smoke from burning houses and tanks stained the eastern horizon. The general could hear a steady, muffled thumping in the distance as his corps and divisional artillery softened up Hungarian positions along Highway 85.

He shook his head, irritated by the signs of continued heavy fighting. Two days after storming across the frontier, the four divisions under his command were already fifty kilometers inside Hungary. But even though his troops and tanks were advancing at a fair clip, this campaign was already proving far more difficult than he’d anticipated. The Hungarian Army’s antiquated T-55 tanks and PSZH-IV personnel carriers were no real match for his four hundred LeClercs and Leopard 2s — especially at long range. God only knew, there were enough smoldering wrecks strung out along the roadside from Sopron on to prove that. Still, the Hungarians were putting up fierce resistance wherever and whenever they could. Clearing their dismounted infantrymen out of the woodlots and small villages along the highway usually meant close-quarters combat. And that meant taking casualties.

From the moment they’d crossed the frontier, the French corps commander had watched a steady stream of ambulances heading west — carrying his dead and wounded. Maintenance units were swamped with salvage and repair work on damaged or destroyed tanks and APCs.

Fabvier gritted his teeth. Very little of this heavy fighting would have been necessary if the flyboys had achieved air supremacy over the battlefield — as they had promised. After dealing the first night’s death blow to the enemy air force, French and German warplanes were supposed to be ranging overhead on call, swooping in to smash the Hungarian tank and motor rifle battalions hurrying to block the IV Corps’ path. Other planes were supposed to be busy escorting French airmobile regiments on raiding missions deep into the enemy’s vulnerable rear areas.

Polish and Czech aerial intervention had put all those plans on hold.

Fearful of being bounced by marauding F-15s and MiGs, EurCon Air Force commanders were refusing to mount strike missions without heavy escort and thorough preparation. As a result, the air units stationed in Austria were flying fewer sorties and had slower reaction times when they were presented with fleeting targets of opportunity. Hungarian columns that should have been obliterated by cluster bombs and strafing cannon were reaching the front almost unscathed.

There were also worrying signs that Poland and its allies might be considering entering the conflict on the ground. Fabvier had seen signals intelligence intercepts that suggested at least two Czech tank divisions were massing near the Slovak capital, Bratislava — just north of the Hungarian border. His brow furrowed as he frowned. If the Czech Army moved south to face him, he would need substantial reinforcements to continue the attack. And even if their tanks and APCs stayed on the right side of the line, they could cause him significant problems. He’d be forced to keep one eye perpetually peeled over his left shoulder as he pushed closer to Budapest. The need to guard his northern flank against possible attack would force him to divert large numbers of badly needed troops from his spearheads.

“General!” Boots rang on the cobblestones behind him.

Fabvier turned. His aide, Major Castellane, hurried closer. “What is it, Major?”

“Rochonvillers wants us to move faster. They claim we’re already several hours behind schedule and falling further behind all the time. I tried to explain the situation, but they want to talk to you directly.” Castellane was apologetic. Rochonvillers, near Metz, was the site of the French Army’s underground war headquarters.

The IV Corps commander turned purple with rage. He loathed the rear-area slackers and civilian ninnies who infested the headquarters’ neon-lit corridors. Not one of them knew what real soldiering was all about. He stabbed a finger at his aide. “You tell Minister Guichy and the rest of his bootlickers that I’m busy fighting a war here. And tell them that we’ll be able to advance faster when they clear the goddamned Poles and Czechs out of the sky and out of our way! Not before!”

“Yes, sir.” The major saluted and headed for the command vehicle carrying their secure communications channels. Fabvier’s ill-tempered words were about to stir up more trouble than he’d imagined.

Eleven men sat around the large circular table that nearly filled the underground War Room. Aides occupied chairs behind them, ready to run errands or to translate. Six of the men at the table, the service chiefs of the French and German armed forces, wore uniforms. The rest were in civilian clothes. Although the ventilation system was running on high, a haze of cigarette smoke hung near the low ceiling. The high-ranking members of the European Confederation’s Defense Committee had been meeting in urgent session since early that morning.

“Clearly, gentlemen, we can no longer operate under the delusion that this action will be swift and painless.” Jurgen Lettow, Germany’s Defense Minister, sounded exhausted. “Perhaps we should consider the possibility of a negotiated end to this crisis — before it worsens. As I see it, the Swiss offer to mediate could yield…”

Nicolas Desaix listened with mounting irritation. With the Confederation already at war, it was far too late for any misgivings about the use of force to restore Hungary’s military government to power. Now that the shooting had actually started, the only thing that mattered was to win, and win quickly. Anything short of unmistakable victory would shatter the Confederation he had so painstakingly forged.

Several of the smaller countries, Austria included, were already increasingly reluctant to honor their treaty commitments. Austrian troops that should have been guarding IV Corps supply lines were being held inside their own country — ostensibly for “national security” reasons.

The French Foreign Minister shifted restlessly in his chair. He abhorred this necessity to wage war by committee. By their very nature, deliberation and compromise were the enemies of swift and decisive action. If it were possible to talk one’s way to victory, French and German tanks would have been in Budapest two days ago.

In any event, Lettow was right about one thing. Their initial timetables and casualty estimates had been wildly optimistic. The invasion planners had believed the Hungarian government-in-exile’s claims that their soldiers wouldn’t fight hard for the new regime. Of course, the Hungarian generals had been wrong — and not for the first time. According to intelligence reports, nearly all of Hungary’s tank and motor rifle brigades were actively siding with the revolutionaries in Budapest.

But the appearance of Polish and Czech aircraft over the battlefield had been the biggest and most unpleasant surprise so far. Operating from sanctuaries inside their own territory, their fighters and fighter-bombers were proving a serious annoyance. More than that, in fact, if General Fabvier’s reports could be believed. Desaix had to admit that he had never imagined that the Eastern European “free trade” states would offer Hungary more than moral support, American and British backing must be making them bolder than prudence would otherwise dictate.

Desaix glanced down the table toward Schraeder. Did the German Chancellor share Lettow’s belated misgivings? He couldn’t tell. The Chancellor just sat there, saying little and showing even less.

Still, Schraeder had studied history. Whether or not he had misgivings, he must know that generals and politicians who led their nations into unsuccessful wars never held power for long afterward. It was too late to back away now.

Desaix leaned forward in his chair, interrupting Lettow. “The Swiss offer may be kindly meant, Herr Lettow. But I really do not see that we have anything to talk about!”

He aimed his words toward the German Chancellor’s end of the table. “We support the legitimate government of Hungary — a fellow member of this Confederation. All our actions to restore that government and good order are in accordance with international law and our own treaty obligations.” Desaix put steel in his voice. “If anyone backs away from this crisis, it must be Poland and its friends — not us!”

Several of the others muttered their agreement with his hawkish stance. Schraeder nodded reluctantly. Lettow merely looked appalled.

“And how do you think we should persuade them of that, Nicolas? With a diplomatic communiqué?” Michel Guichy asked sharply. His position as head of the Defense Secretariat made him the most vulnerable of all if their attack on Hungary’s rebel government ended in failure or even a bloody, Pyrrhic victory.

Desaix shook his head. “No. Words mean nothing when bombs are falling. I have a somewhat more practical form of communication in mind. A way to put Warsaw and the rest on notice that we will not let them meddle in Hungary — not without paying a very high price.”

He turned toward the short, sallow-faced commander of the French Air Force. “General Vichery is better qualified to brief you on the military aspects. General?”

“Of course, Minister.” Vichery rose and strode to a wall map at one end of the War Room. Symbols showed the location of all known friendly and enemy ground and air units along the Confederation’s eastern border. One after the other, he pointed to three airfields, two in Poland and one in the Czech Republic. “These are the linchpins of the enemy air campaign against us. But all of them are vulnerable to attack. One swift, coordinated strike could cripple these facilities.”

Lettow broke in suddenly. “You cannot be serious, Minister Desaix! There are American air force technicians and advisors stationed at those bases!”

“What of it?” Desaix said coldly. “With or without an official declaration, Poland and the others are making war against us, Herr Lettow! The air bases General Vichery has identified are being used to mount attacks that are killing Confederation pilots and ground troops. By remaining there, by continuing to work with the Poles, these Americans have become combatants. And as combatants, they are at risk.” He scowled. “It is time to make the American people and their Congress aware of the dangerous games their President is playing with American lives!”

Lettow swallowed visibly. “But the risk of war with the United States…”

“Is minimal,” Desaix finished for him. “Except for a few hundred technicians and trainers, the Americans have no significant military presence in Europe. And no easy way to get any more soldiers to Poland in time to matter.” He shrugged. “They would also be fighting a war on our ground and at the far end of a very long line of communications. Given that, I believe Washington will very quickly see reason. They will not fight a war they cannot win.”

He looked expectantly at Schraeder and the rest of the Confederation Defense Committee. “So the question remains, gentlemen. Do we allow the Poles and Czechs to attack us with impunity? Or will we strike back and put an end to this nonsense once and for all?”

One after the other they nodded their approval for the retaliatory air raids he proposed. Only Lettow grimly shook his head.

Nicolas Desaix paid little attention to the rest of General Vichery’s briefing. He found details on ordnance loads, mission parameters, and flight paths utterly uninteresting. Only the effects mattered. Poland and its partners were about to learn that defying the European Confederation could be an extremely expensive proposition.

Six pairs of swept-wing, single-tailed Mirage F1E fighters roared off the main runway of the old Soviet air base at Juterbog, leaving one after the other at precisely timed intervals. None climbed higher than five hundred meters above a gently rolling landscape of forests and farmland.

Originally intended primarily as an interceptor, software and radar system upgrades were supposed to make the F1 a capable all-weather strike aircraft. The pilots flying this mission intended to prove that beyond any doubt. Each Mirage carried two long, angular shapes slung under its wings — Apache cruise missiles. The Apache was one of the newest French weapons, a stealthy, ground-hugging cruise missile specifically designed to evade enemy radars and air defenses.

Formed up in three four-plane flights, the F1s dove even lower and turned toward the rising sun. Their shadows rippled across a patchwork of fields and woodlands as they flew east at five hundred knots.

Staff Sergeant Jim Frewer, USAF, stood near the hardened aircraft shelter’s open doors, watching carefully as a Polish Air Force captain realigned the APG-70 radar antenna on an F-15. Quick, efficient work was critical because this fighter would leave for Brno in a few hours and from there for Hungary and combat. To get at the radar system, they had the Eagle’s pointed nose unlatched and hinged all the way back. Technical manuals stuffed full of Polish-language crib sheets were stacked on a wheeled parts and tool trolley nearby.

Frewer smiled. Captain Aleksander Giertych was good, but he still had trouble with some English technical terms. Even after some months spent as part of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Poland, the sergeant found it strange to see officers doing maintenance work that would have been handled by enlisted men back in the States. Different systems, different ways of doing things, he reminded himself. It was a reminder he’d used many times while watching the Polish fliers and their ground crews make the faltering leap from Russian MiGs to American F-15s.

In the Russian system, which the Poles had inherited, officers handled all the technical work, while their conscript enlisted personnel did little more than sweep up. Eventually that would have to change, but it couldn’t possibly happen overnight. To their credit, the Polish maintenance officers hadn’t stood on rank, they’d listened to his lectures like rapt schoolboys.

They had done more than that, of course. Despite the differences in their ranks, his “students” had taken him into their homes and families. They’d made him part of the 11th Fighter Regiment. He thought of them as his “boys” and their planes as his “birds.”

Poland was a long way from Minnesota, where he’d grown up, and Langley Air Force Base, in Virginia, his last duty station, but he could easily relate to the men here and what they were doing.

Right now Frewer’s formal classes were on hold. The entire regiment was on a war footing, working almost around the clock readying a second squadron for service over Hungary. He spent all his time on the line with them, performing systems tests and making final adjustments. Six months of MAAG training just wasn’t enough to teach the 11th’s maintenance crews everything, and he’d be damned if he let men go into battle with planes that weren’t ready.

Like this one. Red 201 couldn’t fly south — not with an out-of-whack radar. The sergeant moved a little closer, ready to offer advice if Giertych asked for it. He stayed near the doors, though. They’d left them open to let in much-needed light and fresh air, and he wanted to take full advantage of both. After a long, cold winter it felt good to stand in the sunlight with a cool morning breeze on his back. The only thing he’d disliked about serving in Poland had been the long spell of wet weather they’d endured. Maybe he’d spent too much time in the hot, bone-dry air at Nellis Air Force Base, deep in the Nevada desert north of Las Vegas…

Warbling, high-pitched sirens went off all around the airfield. An air-raid warning! Frewer and Giertych stared at each other in shock for a single instant and then reacted. The captain shouted something in rapid-fire Polish to one of his men near the door controls. Nodding rapidly, the corporal whirled around and hit a switch on the panel. Smoothly and quickly, with a roar like a volcano rumbling to life, the massive armored doors slid into place, sealing the shelter in dimly lit darkness. The solid slam as they came together was almost loud enough to mask the sound of the first explosion outside.

Frewer followed Giertych toward the personnel exit on the side of the reinforced aircraft shelter. Standing regulations be damned. He needed to see what was happening.

Smoke billowed up from one side of the base — right where the operations center was located. Just as they tumbled out the shelter door, another low rumble and a shock wave rattling through the pavement carried more bad news.

They turned to see a flaming cloud and debris arcing through the air. A small shape, no more than a black streak, flashed into view and dove into the same area. A second blast shook the ground. Oh, Jesus, Frewer realized, those were the repair shops. The other members of his training team were on duty there. Without pausing for further thought, he started running. Giertych took off after him.

The repair shops were at least a quarter mile away, but they could already see red and orange flames dancing through the rising smoke.

Another streak, identifiable this time as a cruise missile, skimmed over the rooftops at blinding speed. It had to be French or German, he thought. It was coming from the wrong direction to be Russian.

The missile came apart in midair, suddenly dissolving into near-invisible black specks. Bomblets, Frewer thought dully. Sounding like firecrackers popping off in one long, crackling string, they smothered the maintenance sheds in hundreds of individual explosions. Unlike the aircraft shelters, Wroclaw’s repair facilities weren’t armored or protected in any way. Thousands of white-hot fragments sliced through thin aluminum roofs and walls and into the rooms and corridors inside.

Frewer knew what they could do. The U.S. Air Force had its own bomblet dispensers, spewing out softball-sized devices by the hundreds. Each weighed a few pounds, and was equally capable of penetrating armor, scything down exposed personnel, and even starting a good-sized fire. He was sure the EurCon weapons were just as advanced.

Even as he neared the burning buildings, he cursed himself for knowing so much about what those weapons could do to the men trapped inside. Then he cursed the enemy who’d used them, struggling to breathe in with lungs that were laboring under the strain of running so far so fast.

The two men pulled up short of the building, about a hundred meters away. Thick, greasy smoke and the heat coming off the fire made it impossible to get any closer.

Fire crews, some in shiny, asbestos hot suits, were making some headway against the flames, but there was nothing left to save. Frewer looked frantically for survivors. He couldn’t see any — only corpses lying silent on the grass nearby, not yet covered. Some wore Polish uniforms, but many, too many, wore U.S. Air Force blue.

Anger and grief flowed through the sergeant. They’d all speculated on how EurCon might react to the Polish intervention in Hungary, but the idea that the French and Germans would attack Polish bases, especially without some sort of ultimatum, had been dismissed as insane by everybody.

Everybody had been wrong, Frewer realized. The cruise missiles, weapons capable of incredible precision, had to have been deliberately targeted on buildings full of American personnel. EurCon knew that, he thought angrily. They just don’t give a shit. Well, he did, and as far as he was concerned, America was in the war now, all the way.

Almost against his will, his weary feet carried him over to the bodies. He recognized one, Mike Cummings, and thought he knew another, but the rest were too torn or burned to identify. He could hear Giertych muttering and choking back sobs.

His own eyes full of tears, Frewer looked away from the mangled bodies of his friends and coworkers. The EurCon attack had plastered the whole base. Fires raged out of control on all sides. Besides the operations center and repair sheds, cruise missiles had hit fuel and ammo storage areas. More smoke curled from the air traffic control center.

Only the aircraft shelters and flight line looked untouched. The American sergeant nodded somberly. Why waste hits on single aircraft when you could knock out the control, resupply, and maintenance capabilities that kept them flying? For the time being at least, the 11th Fighter Regiment and its American advisors were completely out of action.

The first reports of EurCon missile attacks woke official Washington in the predawn dark. Reporters hastily dispatched to the White House could see lights burning behind closed curtains in both the East and West wings. The lights were also coming on at the Pentagon and at the State Department. By five A.M., black government limousines were pulling up in front of the tall, graceful columns of the White House portico, depositing grim-faced men and women arriving for an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.

Despite the air of tension and grave concern pervading the basement Situation Room, Ross Huntington felt oddly detached, almost light-headed. In a strange sense, he felt as though his body and brain were separated from each other by some vast, uncrossable gulf. He made yet another mental resolution to see his doctor — a resolution that he knew he would not keep. Events were moving too fast to allow poor health to put him on the sidelines.

He pulled his chair closer to the table, listening intently while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs brought the NSC up to date.

So far, there had been three separate cruise missile attacks on three separate airfields — two in Poland and one in the Czech Republic. All had been launched at more or less the same time by planes operating from bases in Germany. All had inflicted heavy casualties and damage. That was bad enough. What was worse was that at least twenty-five American servicemen were among those killed or seriously wounded. The numbers were still climbing as more detailed reports came in.

General Galloway’s ordinarily good-humored face was brick-red with barely suppressed anger. “These attacks were clearly planned to kill as many people as possible, Mr. President. Our people included.”

“You’re sure?”

Galloway nodded abruptly. “Yes, sir. If EurCon’s only goal was to inflict damage on those base facilities, they could just as easily have attacked at night, when fewer people were on duty. In fact, from a strictly military point of view, that would have been a better time. Less risk that anyone might spot those cruise missiles visually.”

Harris Thurman put his own oar in the water. “It’s obviously intended to send a very strong message to the Poles and Czechs, Mr. President. And through them to us.”

“Message, hell! It’s a goddamned declaration of war.” Galloway was outraged. “You don’t fire twenty-plus high-explosive warheads into critical targets as part of some diplomatic game.”

“I remind you, General, that this attack came only after Polish and Czech aircraft fired on French and German planes over Hungary…”

“Gentlemen.” All heads turned toward the President. He sat alone at one end of the table. His eyes were cold and angry. “I don’t particularly care what prompted these attacks. Our policy on Hungary stands: Our allies are fully within their rights in helping the Hungarian people resist this unjust French and German aggression. And we are fully within our rights in providing those allies with technical and military assistance. Clear?”

Thurman’s face fell. “Of course, Mr. President.”

The President looked toward Galloway again. “Are they planning to retaliate?”

“Yes. We’ve had requests from the Polish Air Force HQ for updated satellite photos of German airfields. They’ve also asked for a special AWACS sortie.”

“When?”

“June 4, two days from now.” Galloway frowned. “It’ll take them at least that long to unscramble the mess at Wroclaw and their other airfields.”

“What about their air support missions over Hungary?”

“On hold, sir. Their losses were already pretty high. Close to crippling for the first squadrons committed. And with EurCon showing its teeth over their own territory now?” Galloway shrugged. “The Poles will need every plane they’ve got just to hit back and to ride out any EurCon counterpunch.”

The general’s gloomy assessment cast a pall over the room. Without friendly air cover, Hungary would fall — crushed by superior firepower and brute force. A EurCon victory over Budapest’s fledgling democracy would be an unmitigated disaster for American economic and foreign policy. In the short term, it would solidify the protectionist grip on European trade practices, prolonging the trade war ravaging the world’s economy. With the handwriting on the wall, other small countries like Denmark and the Netherlands were bound to fall into line. In the long term, letting EurCon ride roughshod over one small country would set a terrible precedent. The rule of international law and the rights of self-determination, however tenuous and often impractical, would be supplanted by an older and deadlier precept: might makes right. That could spawn a whole new cycle of war and aggression around the globe.

The President spoke into the sudden silence. “As I see it, we’ve got one last chance to stop this thing before all hell breaks loose in Europe. One last chance to shake these clowns awake. Agreed?”

Huntington nodded, and noticed others around the table do the same. But what more could they do? Trying to impose a peaceful resolution through the United Nations would go nowhere. The French Security Council veto made that impossible. So what was left? Then he saw it. “You intend to issue an ultimatum to the EurCon governments, Mr. President?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve spoken to both the Senate majority leader and the Speaker of the House and they agree that we have to act, and act now.” America’s chief executive set his jaw, plainly determined. “We’ve pussyfooted around with these people long enough. I want them to know once and for all that they’re looking right down the barrel of a mighty big gun.”