Dead Hand

Chapter 19

On the recommendation of his commander, Andrew Fretello dispensed with many of the steps normally taken prior to the commencement of a military operation. This bothered the American major. To an officer trained in the art of operational planning, jumping into something without first making sure that everything was just so went against his nature. But there was little he could do at the moment, since a "recommendation" in the Army carried the same weight as an order, particularly when the person making that recommendation was Colonel Robert Hightower. Never one to ignore reality. Fretello heeded his commander's recommendations with a crisp "Yes, sir" in response.

There was a good reason Hightower insisted on speeding things up. Even the most optimistic of the officers Colonel Hightower had pulled together found it difficult to hold on to any hope that the Russians did not know what their intentions were. The attacks of the previous day. together with the aborted attempt on one of the two remaining Perimeter sites, pretty much laid bare what the NATO Special Ops teams were after. So it was a strong given in the minds of the officers huddled around Hightower that any additional efforts against those sites would be met with stiff resistance. Working on that premise, the American colonel made it clear that every minute wasted by them would give the Russians additional time to reinforce those sites. "Though he's not my most favorite character." he told the surviving leadership, "Nathan Bedford Forest did get it right when he stated that he made it a rule to always get there first with the most men. Well, gentlemen, I have a feeling that today is one of those days when victory will not go to the side with the best plan, but to the one that strikes first and strikes hardest. Do I make myself clear?" None could find fault with this assessment. Intuitively, each officer felt that the sooner they went after the last two sites, the better. They were just that sort of men.

Once that was decided upon, the meeting broke up as each subordinate commander went back to his own people to pass on their new orders and prepare them. During this interlude, Hightower felt no need to go about supervising them as they executed their abbreviated precombat checks as he would have done had this been a training exercise. He understood the psychology of leadership. He appreciated the fact that there were times when a superior needed to make his presence felt, and times when that aspect of military management was a hindrance. He also knew that he had little time with which to prepare his plans-and-operations officer for the task that man would soon be facing. So Hightower spent most of the time he had available with Fretello as he tried to impart as much wisdom and guidance to his headstrong subordinate as possible, while reassuring himself that he was not making a mistake in appointing the major as the commander of the second team. "Those men are every bit as professional and competent as you are," he admonished. "While some of their procedures and practices may seem a bit strange to us, every officer and NCO who will be going with you has proven himself not only according to criteria established by his particular army, but in combat. They know what they're about and how to get the job done. So take care that you don't step in their way."

Listening attentively and nodding at the appropriate times, the young staff officer could not be sure if his colonel's words were simply sage advice or a thinly veiled warning to him to leave the officers who would soon be under his command alone. Having no desire to give Hightower justification to reconsider his selection of him as the commander of the second team, Fretello kept his mouth shut rather than asking for any sort of clarification. He reasoned that once he was on his way, how he did things would pretty much be up to him.

After Fretello gave Hightower the cursory salute that serves to bring most military briefings to a close and he had turned to make his way over to where his own team was assembling, many thoughts ran through Colonel Hightower's troubled mind. Chief among the concerns that plagued him was his decision not to share the full content of his conversations with his superior at NATO Headquarters in Brussels earlier that day.

The failure of Tempest to achieve its assigned objectives set a chain of events in motion that posed a greater threat than the asteroid had. Despite the danger that a fully operational and primed Perimeter system in the hands of General Likhatchev presented to the Russian central government, the Russian President was having second thoughts about his decision to employ NATO to destroy that system. Those military leaders in Moscow who initially had sided with him found themselves wavering when it was discovered that the man they were supporting had permitted foreign troops to invade Russian soil. To a man, the Russian general staff saw this as an affront, one they felt needed to be redressed. Just how much of this was due to the machinations of Likhatchev and his sympathizers in Moscow and how much of it was the result of patriotic fervor was difficult to gauge. What the Russian President did know was that he was left with little choice. Either he reversed himself on the matter and gave those officers still loyal to him a free hand in dealing with the NATO troops or lose his entire military.

Even before the tremors generated by the demolition charges set off the day before had faded, Russian ambassadors throughout Europe and North America were pounding at the doors of the civilian leadership of NATO's member nations to deliver an ultimatum. Bowing to the demands of his military staff, the Russian President made no effort to dress his warning up with the polite diplomatic language normally used in such communiques. "NATO forces," his note read, "will immediately cease all operations and report to the nearest military command loyal to the government in Moscow, where they will surrender all personnel and weapons. Failure to do so, or the pursuit of further operations by those forces against any Russian military installation, will be considered acts of war."

Within the councils of the NATO member nations, debate sprang up as to what course they should take. With Tempest having failed to achieve its stated goals in the manner in which they had hoped, some saw no sense in risking their already shaky relationship with a Russia in turmoil. They began pushing for complete and immediate compliance with the Russian demands in the hope of salvaging political and economic ties with that country. Others felt that the forces on the ground had to be given the opportunity to finish their assigned tasks. Chief among this faction in Washington, D. C., was General Smith. He advised the other members of the National Security Council to stay the course. In his efforts to convince his civilian counterparts to see the operation through, he pointed out to them what the consequences would be if they failed to do so. "Our people have already paid a staggering price to achieve a ninety^ percent solution," he pointed out. "In comparison, the cost for cleaning up those last two sites is negligible."

What the general did not tell the other members seated about the well-polished table in the White House conference room was that he had already discussed the matter with the CinC NATO prior to the NSC meeting. It had been a rather one-sided discussion, with the senior NATO commander doing most of the listening while Smith spoke in riddles whose meanings could not be mistaken. "John, I shouldn't need to tell you how best to deal with a wounded animal."

Though he understood what Smith wanted, CinC NATO was unwilling to translate those desires into orders when he discussed the matter with Colonel Hightower via satellite link. After laying out the political situation in as much detail as he could, CinC NATO ended by giving Hightower his own opinion and views on the matter. "This is not the sort of decision that a colonel in the field should have to make," the general, sitting alone in his office in Brussels, told Hightower. "However," he quickly added, "we are living in strange times, confronted with even stranger circumstances. The order for you to abort may still come down even if you do manage to shake out your teams. I have no way of knowing how things will go as far as that is concerned, but I do know this," he added quickly. "We may never have another chance to de-fang this beast."

The meaning of this encrypted analogy was as clear to Hightower as Smith's had been to the CinC NATO. Though it was not an order, exactly, or even a "recommendation," it was a directive that the Special Forces colonel, standing in the middle of a shattered pine forest in Siberia thousands of miles away, could not ignore. When their conversation was over, Hightower dispatched the radioman on a fool's errand. When that signalman was out of sight, Hightower knelt down in front of the satellite dish and detached the cable that led from it to the main unit. Standing up, he looked around as he slowly coiled the cable up before stuffing it in his pocket. Satisfied that no one had seen him, he turned his back on the disabled unit and walked away.

Movement through the shattered countryside was no easier than it had been the day before. In many ways, the slow and arduous task was even more trying. While the return of subzero temperatures had solved one problem, that of mud, the change generated others equally daunting. In place of the thick, gooey mud, the NATO commandos now found themselves plowing through knee-high snow and skirting around drifts. In addition, the sudden onset of seasonally cold temperatures had created vast patches of ice that made the crossing of open ground hazardous. The moisture that had coated the trees bowled over the previous day by impact shock waves had also frozen. As difficult as the trees had been to climb over before, the addition of this thick coat of ice made matters even worse.

Not all was gloom and doom as far as the environmental conditions were concerned. The snow and the diminishing winds had brought about a considerable clearing in their wake. Though the heavens were still gray and the sky was filled with dark clouds that rolled about, gone were the gale-force winds and dense, choking mist heavily laden with dust, microscopic debris, and fallout of all sorts. The snow had cleansed the air, leaving behind a countryside covered with a strange grayish blanket speckled with flakes of black soot and dirt. To those familiar with military history, the charred, jagged tree stumps jutting out of the tainted snow put them in mind of a scene reminiscent of the fabled Western Front of World War I.

Of this and other matters, no one spoke. Mute and withdrawn, the men of Fretello's ad hoc strike force struggled on toward their new objective. In addition to the equipment they carried and the heavy winter clothing that added its own unique difficulties to their endeavors, most of the commandos were afflicted with a deep foreboding that weighed down upon them like a heavily laden rucksack. This melancholy, exacerbated by exhaustion, so dominated every man's thoughts that it all but radiated out from each of them and overlapped those of their comrades until it cast a collective pall over them all. In light of the horrible losses they had sustained, not to mention their uncertain future prospects, this sad state of affairs was more than understandable. Yet there were those whose spirits could not, or would not, be diminished.

Chief among this fortunate handful was Andrew Fretello. He had listened to the same updates each of the team commanders had rendered to his colonel. Yet the tales of suffering by others did not have the same impact on Fretello as they did on Hightower. In part, this was due to the fact that Hightower was in command, and therefore responsible for everything that happened to the men under him. Even though he was as much a part of the process as a staff officer, he had not, up to this point, had to take on the sense of personal liability that Hightower did. For the moment, the opportunity to command a unit in combat was blinding the young officer to much of the grimness that surrounded him and the awesome responsibilities he would soon be taking on.

Another factor that took the sting out of the words that Fretello heard was the fact that he did not have any personal experiences with which to compare his situation. Never having been in combat before, the reports that were rendered did not evoke any strong emotions, frightening images, or feelings of despair. Though these reports concerned real people and real events, to the young American staff officer, they were not much different than similar reports he had heard countless times before during training exercises. Only a veteran like Hightower was able to relate to what they were being told.

This does not mean that Andrew Fretello was without his own concerns. Many thoughts and questions to which there were no answers ran through his mind as he made his way toward his objective. He was a commander now. As such, he had to assume all the burdens that the title carried with it. The speed with which he had been hustled off on his current impromptu mission still bothered him more than it should have. Though he knew in his heart that they did not have time for all the little niceties that both Fort Benning and the staff college at Fort Leavenworth enjoyed, simply throwing a group of soldiers together, pointing them in the right direction, and telling them to go didn't appear to be a sane choice either. While it was true that information concerning current enemy strength, location, activities, and intention in their area of operations was nonexistent, the least Colonel Hightower could have done, Fretello kept telling himself, was to slow down a bit. Speed in combat was a double-edged sword. While haste might get you to your objective before your enemy does, it might also deliver your forces in a state of confusion unprepared to execute the mission they were sent out to perform.

Another worry that dawned upon Fretello as he made his way along was the startling realization that he didn't know any of the people with whom he had been entrusted. A soldier who is knowledgeable about his enemy can make assumptions about its response when combat is joined. A leader cannot, however, comfortably do the same with his own men. The same speed that keeps him from performing precombat inspections also prevents him from obtaining even a passing acquaintance with his newly assigned subordinates. The soldier to his front, as well as the one to his immediate rear, are absolute strangers to him. The sole criteria used in assigning people to Fretello's team had been the order in which they stumbled into the assembly area.

The knowledge that every man with him was a trained professional, skilled in the demanding vocation of special operations, did little to ease this disquieting thought. How, he wondered, would he know who to pick when it came time for him to select individuals to perform the various tasks his team would need to execute once they reached their objective? His ignorance as to who was best qualified to do this or that would reduce his decision-making ability to little more than random luck, something that was against everything in which this compulsive planner believed.

Being the sort of person who was convinced that there was always a reasonable solution to every problem, Andrew Fretello turned his mind to finding one for this particular issue. A good place to start getting a handle on the men in his command, he reasoned, was to get to know his second in command. Since the British SAS captain had brought a sizable portion of his own command along with him, Fretello felt that an open dialogue with him would provide some insights on the capabilities of the SAS commandos he would soon be relying upon.

Stepping out of the line of march, Fretello waved the men behind him on. With little more than a quick glance at his commanding officer, the overburdened radioman who had been following in Fretello's wake continued walking, making no effort to close the gap left by that officer. Like his companions up and down the long, slow moving column, the radioman mechanically continued to throw one foot twenty-eight inches out in front him at a time. Again and again, when that foot came down and found firm footing in the deep snow, he lifted the trail foot past the lead foot and threw it another twenty-eight inches farther along. One foot down, one foot forward. Each step took him twenty-eight inches closer to his objective. Each step plunged him twenty-eight inches deeper into the same unknown that so troubled his commander.

After having spent so much time with his head bowed down, staring vacantly at the ground to his immediate front, it took the American major a bit of effort to refocus his eyes and begin to search out the SAS captain. While doing so, it struck him as strange that something as simple as winter camouflage could have so many variations. Though all the troops in the column belonged to nations that had been allied with each other for over half a century, and the outer clothing they wore was meant to conceal them under the exact same climatic conditions, the snow camouflage patterns that each national army had adopted were strikingly different. For the briefest of moments, Fretello wondered if the uniform-selection boards of the various NATO nations had intentionally gone out of their way to pick patterns that were distinctive and different. Never having given that subject any thought, he found the question quite intriguing.

He was still mulling over this newly discovered curiosity when he caught sight of his deputy. Since he lacked a certain amount of finesse and spontaneity when it came to his people skills, Fretello found it necessary to take time and prepare himself for encounters such as this. It didn't matter if the person he was dealing with was a superior, a coworker, or a subordinate. Nor did it make any difference what the subject to be addressed concerned. To Andrew Fretello, any one-on-one conversation was something of a challenge. Drawing himself erect, the plans-and-operations officer took in a deep breath while he contemplated an appropriate introduction.

Outwardly, there was little to distinguish Patrick Hogg from the other members of his team. With his head bowed low and shoulders pushing forward, he followed the footsteps of the man to his front like everyone else did. As with the others belonging to the diminished SAS contingent, he said nothing as he shuffled along. With so little known about what they would find once they reached their objective, there were no operational plans or details concerning the execution of the upcoming operation to clutter Hogg's brain. So his thoughts were free to wander.

Those thoughts didn't stray too far before they lit upon the subject that he had been dragging along like an iron ball chained to his ankle. Jenny. No matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, his thoughts always went back to his wife and the sorry state of affairs he had left behind. The wounds caused by her decision to leave him cut too deep and were too fresh to ignore. Hogg found himself recounting, over and over again, all the choices he had made leading up to that fateful moment and how each had led his beloved wife to make the decision she did. Inevitably, his dark thoughts concluded that it had all been his fault, his doing. This evoked a wave of anger and self-condemnation for having been so selfish,so pigheaded and stubborn about the Army. In turn, a sense of loss, unlike anything he had ever experienced, wormed its way into his conscious thoughts, pushing aside the rage that had been building and giving way to an all-consuming grief that muddled his thoughts and blinded him to the harsh realities that surrounded him.

Ordinarily, Patrick Hogg was a practical man. As an SAS officer, he had to be. He was trained to deal with the hard facts of unconventional warfare. His superior expected him to make life-and-death decisions without hesitation. Those who followed him expected him to make the right ones. During his years in the Army, Hogg had never had a problem with meeting either demand. It was in the area of domestic affairs that he never seemed to get it together. Paddy, a close friend of his, once told him over a beer in the officers' mess.

"You're a regular contradiction, you are. On the one hand, you can take out a band of terrorists without so much as breaking a sweat. Yet, for some reason, you can't seem to muster up the nerve to lay down the law to your own wife. If it weren't for your choice of mate," his friend concluded, "you'd be the most together individual in the regiment." Though he knew his friend was right on all counts, Patrick Hogg had never spoken to that man again.

Lost in his own world, the SAS captain didn't take note of Andrew Fretello until the American officer spoke. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go over a few things with you."

Doing his best to conceal his surprise, Hogg straightened up and shook his head as he collected his thoughts.

Falling in next to Hogg, Fretello picked up his deputy's pace before speaking again. "I'm not familiar with your men, or with you, for that matter."

As he squirmed about, shifting his load before responding to the American, an old poem came to Patrick Hogg. "You familiar with the poetry of Wilfred Owen?" Without waiting for an answer, the Irishman looked up into the sky, studying the rolling gray clouds for a moment. "He was a Royal engineer in the Great War. Went a bit loony during it. His poetry reflects his attitudes, both before and after that experience, quite nicely."

Now it was the American major's turn to be thrown off guard as he tried to figure out how his statement had led to the topic of poetry. Though he had initiated the conversation with an entirely different purpose in mind, Fretello didn't quite know how to change the subject without offending the British captain who, for reasons known only to himself, had chosen this moment to embark upon a discussion of literature. In silence, Fretello kept pace with the SAS captain, who was searching the clouds above as if looking for his next line of poetry.

"This trek of ours," Hogg finally announced as he continued to stare off into the heavens, "sort of reminds me of one of his more famous pieces." Pausing, he took a moment to modulate his voice before he began to recite, from memory, the opening verse of that poem. "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we curse through sludge, till the haunting flares we turn our backs and toward our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood shod. All went lame; all blind; drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, stripped five nines that dropped behind."

Finished, Hogg's head drooped until he was looking at the ground before him. He stayed like that for a moment before facing his American commander. "He lasted almost until the end. Poor Wilfred was killed in action on November fourth, nineteen-eighteen, seven days before the Armistice."

"That's a pity," Fretello replied.

"Maybe, maybe not. The way I see it," Hogg explained, "it was probably the best thing that could have happened to poor Wilfred."

Surprised, Fretello looked at the Irishman. "How do you figure that?"

Hogg drew in a deep breath and looked up at the sky again. "There's more than one way to die, you know. Sometimes the physical end is a blessing, especially for a man like our friend Wilfred, who had seen so much that his faith in his fellow man had been brutally crushed. I don't see how he could have survived back in England had he lived to see the end of the unspeakable horrors that had become a way of life for him."

The direction that this strange and somewhat surreal discussion was taking made Fretello uneasy. Taking notice of this, Hogg managed to force a smile. "I don't suppose you came back here to chat about a dead English poet."

Glad to be given an out, Fretello shook his head. "As I was saying, I am at a serious disadvantage, not having had time to familiarize myself with my own command."

Knowing that he had made this American staff officer uncomfortable, Hogg now did his best to ease his burden of command, as a good executive officer should. "My lads are good lads. Like myself, most were levied from the cadre of Hereford for this operation. I've worked with the majority of them for the better part of two years and haven't had a single complaint to speak of as far as their abilities. The only problem I have is that I am a wee bit short on senior NCO's. The ones who started out have become hors de combat. My most senior man, after myself, is a corporal."

With obvious concern in his voice, Fretello asked if that was going to present a problem. Shaking his head, Hogg replied in the negative. "In any other troop unit, one of my corporals would trump the best NCO they have. They'll do just fine. You have my word on that."

"Good, good," Fretello muttered, thankful that the SAS captain wasn't taking advantage of this opportunity to lord it over him like some officers he knew in the American Army would have done.

Hogg looked back toward the legionnaires bringing up the rear. "Though 1 haven't worked with that lot," he stated as he watched the column wind its way through the shattered landscape of toppled trees and ash-gray snow, "1 suspect the CRAP team with us is up to anything we encounter."

The mention of that unfortunate acronym brought a smile to Fretello's normally taut face. "That's one hell of a title to be saddled with, don't you think?"

Looking back at the American major, Hogg also smiled. "If I were you, I wouldn't go out of my way to point that out to them. When it comes to the Legion, they have less of a sense of humor about such things than a bonafide Frenchman. Besides, when we reach the silo, you'll be needing them."

"Yes, I know I'll be needing all of you, I suppose," Fretello countered.

Seeing that his commander didn't appreciate what he was trying to point out, Hogg turned once more to face the legionnaires. "You see that big fellow near the front?"

Fretello looked back along the long line of men until he saw the one he thought the SAS captain was talking about. "Yes? What about him?"

"I am told he's their demolitions expert, a Pole with a knack for blowing things up. He's got one of the two operational packages we'll be needing."

"Oh, I see," Fretello said as he looked closer in order to familiarize himself with a man who would soon become key to the success of their mission. "Thanks. That's good to know," he added as he looked up ahead, to the front of the column. Feeling a bit more at ease as a result of their exchange, Fretello decided to loosen up a bit as he continued to probe into his number two's background. "Married?"

In an instant, the smile disappeared from the Irishman's face.

This simple question, one that ordinarily required little more than a yes or no, threw Hogg back into the pits of despair. How did he answer? Not having been asked that since leaving Jenny in London, he had not found the need to sort out an appropriate response. Technically, the Irishman reasoned, he was still married. But in his heart he knew the relationship he so cherished was over. So, he wondered, was he in any sense of the word married?

The sudden change in mood that swept over them like an arctic chill cast a pall on their conversation. That such a seemingly innocent question could affect the SAS captain in this way served as a warning to Fretello. There were topics that professional soldiers didn't allow themselves to become involved in, he quickly reminded himself as he began to seek a graceful way of parting company with Hogg. Politics and personal lives. Both subjects were sure-fire ways of alienating both superiors and subordinates, something that a career soldier like himself did his damnedest to avoid.

Finding the silence that his companions had fallen into intolerable, Franz Ingelmann picked up his pace until he was able to close the gap between himself and Stanislaus Dombrowski. Without preamble, the Austrian legionnaire began to speak. "What do you suppose those two are discussing?"

Having closed his mind to all conscious thoughts other than those necessary to navigate his way through the maze of fallen trees and drifting snow, it took the Pole a moment to respond. As a means of buying himself a bit more time with which to refocus his thoughts and sort out what, exactly, his companion was concerned with, Dombrowski countered Ingelmann's question with one of his own. "Who are you talking about?"

"Them," the Austrian replied, pointing to the American major and the SAS captain marching side by side. "Our two intrepid leaders. They were chatting to each other a moment ago, looking back at us and pointing. What do you suppose they are saying?"

Annoyed that he had been shaken from his semiconscious slumber to discuss such a trivial matter, Dombrowski took the opportunity to poke some fun at his companion. "I would imagine," he stated in a manner that gave the impression he was being deadly serious, "they are asking each other how such a sorry little Austrian shit like you managed to steal his way into the Legion."

Undeterred, Ingelmann persisted with his original line of inquiry. "No, I'm serious, mon ami. The Englishman, he was pointing at us, telling the American major something not more than two minutes ago."

The big Pole corrected his friend. "Take care that the captain over there does not hear you call him an Englishman. He's Irish. Very Irish, from what I've been told."

The Austrian legionnaire shrugged. "What different does that make? English, Irish, Welsh. They're all the same, aren't they?"

Looking down, Dombrowski smiled. "You know, I was telling a friend the other day the same thing about the Germans and the Austrians. I told him you really can't tell the difference between them."

Smarting, Ingelmann glared at his companion. "That's not a fair comparison, you know. Austrians are much nicer."

Looking away, the Polish legionnaire's expression changed. "I don't think my father would agree with you on that, not after the last war."

Realizing what Dombrowski was saying, Ingelmann quickly got back to the subject he had first broached. "So, what could those two have been discussing?"

Befuddled by this line of questioning, Dombrowski shook off the gloom that memories of his native land and her sufferings had evoked, and looked down at his friend. "I imagine they are talking about officer things."

Rolling his eyes, Ingelmann threw his hands out in despair. "Why, of course they are talking about officer things. Even I could figure that out!"

"Then why in hell did you bother me with such a stupid question?" pombrowski roared.

In a gesture of hopelessness, Ingelmann shrugged as he slowly parted company with the big Pole. "You're hopeless, mon Sergeant. Utterly and completely hopeless. Go back to sleep."

Shaking his head as he chuckled to himself, Dombrowski waved his friend away. "Believe me, I intend to as soon as you leave me alone."

Though he heard his young companion say something, the words were muddled and unclear. Without another thought, the Polish legionnaire allowed his mind to drift back into the semi-numb state that made an arduous task such as this tolerable. Only the steady rhythm of the march concerned him at the moment. One foot up and out at a lime. Twenty-eight inches ahead, twenty-eight inches farther along. Always forward, ever closer to their objective.