Red Army

Ten

Lieutenant Colonel Gordunov braced in the helicopter doorway, drenched with rain. His headset perked with the worries and technical exchanges of the pilots. Their talkativeness grated on him. Like junk-sellers in a bazaar. But he kept his silence and watched the crowded trace of the highway in the wet, fading light. The formation of gunships and transport helicopters throbbed between the last green hills before the target area.

Gordunov knew helicopter pilots, and he knew their machines. He knew the fliers who never thought of themselves as anything but fliers, the amateur killers, and he knew the warriors who just happened to be aviators. Far too few of the latter. And he knew the warning sounds that came into a pilot’s voice, requiring firm commands through the intercom. In Afghanistan, the troopships sagged through the air, swollen birds who had eaten too rich a diet of men. The mountains were too high, the air too thin, and the missiles came up at you like bright modern arrows. You learned early to command from a gunship that carried a light enough load to permit hasty maneuvers. You swallowed your pride and hid in the midst of the formation. If you were a good airborne officer, you learned a great deal about killing. If you had no aptitude for the work, or if you were not hard enough on yourself and your men, you learned about dying.

Gordunov forced his thoughts back to the present. The valley road beneath the bellies of the aircraft intersected the rail line. They were very close now. Gordunov knew the route along Highway 1 from the ground; he had traveled it just months before on mission training, disguised as a civilian assistant driver on an international transport route truck. The highways and roads leading to Hameln had impressed him with their quality and capacities, and by the swift orderliness of the traffic flow. Now those same roads were in chaos.

Intermittent NATO support columns heading east struggled against a creeping flood of refugee traffic. At key intersections, military policemen sought desperately to assert control, waving their arms in the dull rain. As the helicopters carrying the air assault battalion passed overhead soldier and citizen looked up in astonishment, shocked by this new dimension of trouble. Some of the more disciplined soldiers along the road opened fire at the waves of aircraft, but the small-arms fire had no effect beyond exciting the pilots. The aircraft returned the fire, nervous pilots devastating the mixed traffic with bursts from their Gatlings.

Gordunov let them go. As long as they didn’t overdo it. Terror was a magnificent weapon. Gordunov had learned his lessons from Afghanistan. War was only about winning. Killing the other one before he killed you. They killed one of your kind, or perhaps just made the attempt, and you responded by killing a dozen, or a hundred, of them.

Olive-painted transport trucks and fine, brightly colored German automobiles exploded into wild gasoline fires. Drivers turned into fields or steered desperately over embankments. Others smashed into one another. Gordunov’s rain-drenched face never changed expression.

He knew the garrison slang terms that sought to degrade, to cut him and those like him down to size. “Afghanistan mentality. Blood drinker. Crazy Afgantsy.” Name-calling that in the end only betrayed the nervousness, the awe and even fear of those who had not gone.

The destruction on the roads had a purpose. Purposes. Create panic. Convince the enemy that he is defeated. Convince him that further resistance is pointless and too expensive to be tolerable. And tie up the roads. Immobilize the enemy. It cut both ways, of course. But with any luck, the British or the Germans would clear the roads just in time for the Soviet armored formations that would be on their way to cross Gordunov’s bridges over the Weser.

Your men died. You could not let the fate of individuals weaken you. It was imperative to learn to regard them as resources, to be conserved whenever possible, but to be applied as necessary. In Afghanistan, and now in Germany, the missiles and the heavy machine-gun fire traced skyward, and the ships burst orange and yellow in a froth of black smoke. No passenger ever survived the fireball.

But it was all right now. Gordunov had been prepared for the loss of up to fifty percent of his battalion going in. But the air defenses had been depleted along the penetration corridor. He could not be entirely certain, but from what he had personally observed, and from the pilot chatter, he believed he would get on the ground with over seventy-five percent of his force. Now it all depended on the air defenses at Hameln and what happened on the landing sites.

The rail tracks below the helicopter paralleled the main road, Highway 1, down into the sudden clutter of the town. Crammed into the valley on both sides of the Weser River. Suddenly, they were over the first buildings.

“Falcon, what do you have up there?” Gordunov spoke into the headset mike, switching the control to broadcast. He wanted a report from his battalion chief of staff, who was tucked into the first wave, just behind the advance party.

Pilot confusion bothered the net, with one transmission spoiling another.

“Eagle, this is Hawk,” the aircraft commander called him. “The rail yards are packed. You want us to hit the rolling stock?”

Gordunov could just make out the funnel-shaped expansion of the rail yards.

“This is Eagle,” he said. “Only strike combat-related activities. If there’s any vehicle off-loading, hit them.”

“Zero observed. But I’ve got heavies. I’m taking heavy machine-gun fire.”

Without waiting for his orders, the pilot and copilot-navigator of Gordunov’s aircraft began to bank the big gunship away from the rail line.

“Damn it,” Gordunov told them, “just go straight in. That’s nothing. Don’t break the formation.”

The pilots corrected back onto course. But the formation had grown ragged.

The chief of staff, Major Dukhonin, finally came up on the net. “One heavy on the northern bridge, Eagle. Clearing him now. Scattered lights. It’s manageable.”

Good. All right. Just put them down on the far bank, Gordunov thought.

“Eagle, Falcon,” Dukhonin called again. “Tanks further north. Poor visibility, but I count five… maybe six. Heading east. Crossing tactical bridges down in the water.”

“Get the bumblebees working on them,” Gordunov ordered, using the old Afghanistan slang for the dedicated gunships. “Hawk, did you monitor my transmission?”

“Working them now, we’re working them.”

“Falcon, can they range the landing zone?”

“Not mine. Not without maneuvering back. Shit. Beautiful. We’re hitting.”

“Get the troop ships down.”

Even with the headset cups over his ears, Gordunov could hear ordnance cracking, and dull thumps.

“We’re hitting. Got one tank dead in the middle of the river, burning like a campfire. Two on the banks. We’re all right.”

Immediately to the right of his aircraft, Gordunov watched a troop transport fly directly into the side of a high-rise building, as though the pilot had done it on purpose. Another story that will never be told, Gordunov thought. He was used to occurrences that seemed to make no outward sense during air-assault operations. Pilots misjudged, or briefly lost control, and aircraft smashed into mountainsides. The blast wave from this latest crash felt as though it stripped the rain from his face.

Fewer tools to do the job. Seize and hold the northern bridge at all costs. Seize and hold the southern bridge, if possible. Tactical crossing sites to be destroyed if they could not be controlled.

The command gunship pulled to the right, entering its assault approach. “Don’t shoot up the traffic on the main bridges,” Gordunov ordered. “I want them clean.”

“This is Falcon. We’re on the west bank. Lead elements en route to the northern bridge,” Major Dukhonin reported. “I’m going in myself.”

“Let’s go,” Gordunov told his pilot. Moments later, his own aircraft and two others split north, away from the element headed for the landing zone south of town and the southern bridge. The lead element had gone in on the far bank to secure the primary bridge in the north. The plan called for Gordunov, his headquarters element, and two squads from the special assault platoon to jump from a rolling hover onto the roof of a hospital building from which fields of fire commanded the west-bank approaches to the primary bridge, and from where Gordunov could control the initial actions of his battalion. The other special assault troops had been designated to block to the northeast, but they had been lost in flight. Now the main highway from the north on the near bank would be uncovered. And Dukhonin had tanks crossing up there.

The hospital came up fast, emerging from the gaps between other buildings. Gordunov spotted the river. He fixed the bridge. The burning hulk of an infantry fighting vehicle stood at its eastern approach. Last random traffic crowded in an urgent attempt to reach the western bank.

Gordunov felt the press of events now. He had time for one more brief transmission.

“Hawk, have the gunships clear to the north and west. Don’t pull out of here until you’ve cleared those tactical crossing sites in the north, or I’ll kill you myself.”

Gordunov unhooked his safety strap, then glanced over his shoulder. His command party was ready to go. Terrified. Faces all nervous energy and fear in a volatile mixture.

“Slow now. Damn it, slow,” he told the pilot.

He stripped off his headset and threw it forward. He pulled on his helmet and unhitched his assault rifle. The helicopter moved in a slow, hovering forward roll along the flat roof of the designated building, just high enough to clear the assortment of vents and fans.

Always a bad moment. No matter how many times you did it.

Miss the vent, watch the vent.

Gordunov jumped through the door, one foot skidding on the wet lip. As he leapt clear he could already feel the pressure of the next man behind him.

He hit the roof with one foot leading, and the pain toppled him over and jerked him into a curled-up roll. Hell, he thought, furious at his beginner’s clumsiness. Right foot. Or the ankle. He couldn’t isolate the pain yet.

Now. Now of all possible times.

Gordunov hugged his weapon as if he could squeeze the pain into it, while the slow rain teased his neck below the helmet rim. A blast hurt his ears. He climbed out of his preoccupation with his misfortune. An antitank missile slithered off the launch rails of a nearby helicopter, hunting a target off to the north. In a few seconds, Gordunov heard a clang and a roar.

Just don’t be broken, Gordunov told his injury. You can’t be broken, damn you. And he forced himself to roll over and cover his field of fire.

The roof was clear to the south. He heard friendly voices now. Shouted names. Yan. Georgi. Misha.

A hand touched Gordunov’s back. “Are you all right, Comrade Battalion Commander?”

Gordunov grunted and pushed the hand away. Disorganized small-arms fire sounded from several directions.

“First squad reports that the upper floor is clear. No opposition. But the hospital is full.”

It was Levin, the deputy commander for political affairs, a little puppy dog who had learned to quote Lenin and the current Party lords. Gordunov suspected that Levin even believed half of it or more. And he wanted to be a soldier. Well, Captain Levin was about to get his chance.

Gordunov pulled himself up on his knees behind the low wall rimming the roof. The pain was definitely in his ankle now, and it was excruciating. Perhaps it was just a sprain, he thought. Sprains could hurt worse than breaks. He made a deal with his body. He would accept any amount of pain, as long as the ankle was not broken.

“Communications. Bronch,” Gordunov shouted. “Comms, damn it. I need to talk.”

The soldiers of the command section came scrambling along the roof. A rifleman swiftly leaned his weapon over the balustrade and fired a burst down into the street. He had not unfolded the stock of the assault rifle, and he had little control of it. But he crouched lower, almost a cartoon of a warrior, and fired a second burst. Then the boy hunkered behind the protective barrier.

Gordunov could tell that the boy had no idea what he was shooting at. In combat, it made some men feel good just to fire their weapons. And there were others you had to beat with your fists in order to get them to let off a single round.

Sergeant Bronchevitch held a microphone out to him.

“The battalion net is operational, Comrade Commander.”

Gordunov grasped the mike. “Now get the long-range burster up,” he told his communications specialist. A gunship passed overhead, then another, flying off in echelon.

Where were they going? Gordunov knew the helicopters had not finished their area-clearing mission.

“Bronch. Put me on the air frequency. Hurry.”

Sergeant Bronchevitch messed through his papers. His pockets were crammed with cards and printed sheets. Meanwhile, the battalion net came to life. Major Dukhonin’s voice. “Those sons of bitches are clearing off. The gunships are clearing off. Eagle, I’ve got more tanks down here.”

“I know, damn it. I’m trying to get them now. I’ll be off this net.”

Heavy machine-gun fire. Not Soviet. Another pair of gunships pulsed overhead. Gordunov tried to stand up, struggling to wave at them, to communicate somehow.

They were leaving. The bastards were leaving.

At the head of the parched valley, in the rocks, high above the treeline, the transports had set them down. The dushman had waited with superb discipline. Savages with superb discipline. They had waited until the helicopters hurried off. Then they fired into the company position from all directions. The mountains had come to life, monstrous, spitting things. And Gordunov had watched his men fall as though in a film. The helicopters always cleared off too soon. Afraid. And Gordunov had waited to die in a mountain desert pass in a worthless land. They waited all afternoon. All night. When relief forces finally arrived the next day, only eleven men remained from the entire company. Gordunov never understood why the dushman had not come in to finish them off. And when they took him back to the base, he left his ten subordinates without a word and went to the pilots’ quarters. He smashed the first aviator he saw in the face, then he attacked the next one, and the one after that, calling them cowards and sons of whores. It took half a dozen men to get him under control. But in the end, he had only received a verbal rebuke. He was already considered one of the crazies then, and they gave him a medal and leave as a reward for losing his company, and the helicopters continued to desert the combat area as soon as possible. But Gordunov had not cared any more. He simply killed what there was to kill and waited to die. Yet foolishly, crazily, he had expected better here.

“Comrade Commander,” Branch spoke in a nervous, embarrassed voice, “I don’t have the flight frequency. They didn’t give it to me.”

Gordunov almost hit the boy. But he caught himself. It would not do any good. Suddenly, he relaxed, as in the presence of an old friend. Even the pain in his ankle seemed to diminish.

So. That was that. They were on their own. The way it was in the mountains. Now there was only the fighting, and nothing else mattered in the world. Gordunov felt the familiar rush of exhilaration.

“Levin.”

The political officer looked at him obediently. Levin was the most annoyingly conscientious officer Gordunov had ever known. He did everything the Party told him to do and more. He didn’t drink. He studied tactics because the political officer was supposed to be able to take over from fallen comrades in battle. He spent more time out on the ranges than the company commanders. And he had an attractive wife who deceived him. Gordunov did not have much regard for political officers, in any case. But he despised any man who let a woman control him or bring him embarrassment. In formulating the plan of operations, Levin had protested against landing atop the hospital building, even though it was the only possibility if they were to control the crossing site from the outset. Gordunov doubted that the enemy would have any scruples about using the structure. But Levin had cited the laws of war and endless paragraphs of rubbish. Gordunov himself had no special desire to use the hospital, but it was a question of practicality. Now he was going to give his cuckold captain the opportunity to apply some of the military knowledge he’d been cramming into his narrow little mind.

“Levin, I want you to take the first squad and get down to the bridge. Clear out anybody who’s still resisting. Leave one machine gunner on the roof where he can cover your movement. I’m staying here with the radios until I find out just what we managed to get on the ground. Just clear the approach to the bridge and hold on until Major Dukhonin comes up. And watch for tanks from the north. We’ll try to cover the approach, but keep your eyes open. Understand?”

The political officer saluted.

Gordunov slapped the hand down. “No more of that shit. This isn’t a November Parade in Red Square.”

“Comrade Commander,” Bronch, the communications specialist, said, “the burst radio is operational.”

Captain Levin moved out along the roofscape, gathering the first squad. Gordunov still did not know what to make of him. He turned to the matter of informing higher headquarters of the unit’s arrival at the objective. He felt in his breast pocket and pulled out a small booklet, then leafed through the pages. It was increasingly hard to see in the rain-darkened evening light.

Bronch waited to copy the message.

Gordunov gave him the code groups for safe arrival, approximate percentage of strength, main bridge intact, and combat action. Then he carefully buttoned the booklet back in his pocket.

The firing on the near side of the river had no logical pattern to it. Probably exchanges with bridge guards and perhaps a few military policemen or support soldiers. But the firing on the western side was much more intense. Dukhonin had a real fight on his hands.

“Falcon, this is Eagle. What’s your status?”

Dukhonin’s voice was clearly that of a man pressed by combat. “I’ve got tanks all around me. They took out the last aircraft on the ground. I’ve got at least a platoon over here, playing hide and seek with us. Older tanks, I think they’re M48s. German. Maybe reservists. But plenty of trouble.”

“Any of your men closing on the bridge?”

“Not yet. Karchenko’s working most of his company down toward it. But we’ve got a mess over here.”

“Listen, I don’t think the bridge is prepped to blow. Just my instinct. But Karchenko needs to get down there, no matter what it takes, before somebody thinks clearly enough to start fixing charges. I’ve got a good view up here, but I can’t cover the entire span. Kick Karchenko in the ass. And let the tanks into town. It’s easier to work them among the buildings. Especially at night.”

“Right. Moving now.”

“Vulture, this is Eagle.”

“This is Vulture,” Captain Anureyev, the ranking officer of the southern landing party, answered. “You’re coming in weak.”

“Just tell me what you have on the ground down there.”

“No combat action. A bit of sniping. I have about a combat company, and half of the mortars. I think they put the antitank platoon down across the river by mistake.”

“Battalion support?”

“They just kicked out cases of ammunition. We’re sorting it out now. Half of them broke open. I think the handlers went down.”

“Leave a detail to sort that out. You get onto the southern bridge as quickly as you can. Be prepared to reinforce the northern bridgehead. And I want an accurate account of who made it in with you. Get everybody under control before it’s too dark.”

“We’re missing at least a company’s worth of troops. And the air defenders.”

“Engineers?”

“I haven’t seen them. They might be over with the antitank platoon.”

“Sort it out. And move fast.”

A tank fired in the distance. Across the river. Dukhonin was probably right. Reservists. There was nothing to fire a tank main gun at. It was the machine guns that did the work in close. Unless they cornered you in a building.

Branch scrambled in close. “Transmission passed and acknowledged. Higher send their congratulations, Comrade Commander.”

“They can save it. Round up your boys and find a good site on the top floor. We can’t all stay up here. And I don’t want to lose the radios.”

Bronch moved out. Gordunov respected the communications specialist. The boy was a radio buff from his school days, when he had been active in DOSAAF, the organization for imparting military skills to the nation’s youth. He could make an antenna out of anything but ground meat. Bronch’s radios worked dependably — something that was not always the case in Gordunov’s career-long experience.

Gordunov undid the clasps and wet laces of his right boot. Then he pulled the laces in so tight that the discomfort of the constriction vied with the pain of the injured ankle. It was time to move. Gordunov sensed things bogging down. And they were so close. It made him furious that his men were not on both bridges already.

Gordunov gave instructions to the sergeant in charge of the remaining assault squad. Cover the approach road and the bridge. Then he started down the steps of the service stairwell, bracing hard on the hand railing as soon as he was out of sight of the soldiers. The pain was an unanticipated, unwelcome enemy.

Inside the hospital, there was another, separate world. A nurse cried hysterically. And, despite the growing darkness, the corridors remained well-lit. The air was warm and dry. A few nurses and doctors stood defensively in the hallways beside litter patients. A glance revealed that the hospital was overflowing with military casualties.

The crying nurse erupted into a scream. Gordunov turned on the oldest of the doctors, assuming he would be in charge. “Shut your little whore up,” he told the man in Russian. “And turn the damned lights out.”

The doctor did not understand. He touched Gordunov’s sleeve, jabbering in incomprehensible German. Gordunov pushed past him and, when the doctor persisted, Gordunov shoved the muzzle of his assault rifle into the man’s face. Then he turned the weapon on the overhead lighting panels and let go a burst.

“Understand?” Gordunov asked him. He shot out another sequence of lights. The other doctors and nurses threw themselves down on the floor. Gordunov yelled at one of his soldiers who stood idly by. “You. Get all of these people out of the hallway. And see that they turn out the lights in the entire building.”

A machine gunner and a rifleman covered the main entrance on the ground floor. Gordunov ordered the rifleman to follow him, as much because he did not know how much longer he could manage the pain in his ankle as to have a runner for communications.

Automatic weapons fire chased them between automobiles in the parking lot. The bridge was very close, but there was an open square just off of the main feeder road that had to be crossed to get to it. An enemy fire team positioned on the far side of the main route covered the direct approach. The street itself had cleared of traffic now, except for a few burning or abandoned automobiles and the smoldering wreck of the infantry fighting vehicle that had been destroyed by the gunships.

There was no sign of Levin or the squad he had taken with him. “I’ll kill the bastard,” Gordunov promised himself, wondering where the political officer had gone. Gordunov was sorry now that he had not put more men down on the roof of the hospital. It had seemed too great a risk, and he had not even told his superiors about that small detail of the plan. Too many officers assigned to airborne and air-assault units and formations still had not been to Afghanistan. Too many of them were soft, and weak-willed, like Levin, and they might have objected to even the most limited use of the hospital. Gordunov felt as though he had enemies to overcome in both camps.

“You go back,” Gordunov told his rifleman companion. “Get up on the roof.” Gordunov pointed to the southwest corner of the hospital building. “Up there. Tell Sergeant Dubrov I said to put suppressive fires on the far side of the street.”

Before the rifleman could sprint off, a ripple of grenade blasts dazzled along the far side of the street, shattering the glass in the last intact storefront windows. Hard after the blasts, rushing forms took the enemy position from behind. In a matter of seconds, automatic rifle bursts cut in and out of the buildings, and enemy soldiers stumbled out of the shadows with their hands in the air, calling out in a foreign language.

The near end of the bridge was clear.

Captain Levin had taken the assault squad well around behind the enemy position. Gordunov understood at once, feeling simultaneous relief that an immediate problem was out of the way and a peculiar sort of embarrassment that the political officer had performed so well.

Gordunov caught the rifleman by the arm. “Forget what I told you before. Just go up to the top floor and tell Sergeant Bronchevitch to bring the battalion command radio down to me. Do you understand?”

The soldier nodded. There was fear in the boy’s face. How much of it was fear of battle and how much was fear of the commander, Gordunov could not tell.

As the rifleman scrambled back toward the hospital, Gordunov raised himself for a dash across the street, weaving behind the partial protection of wrecked cars in case any enemy troops remained on the scene. Each step on his bad ankle meant punishment.

Levin had already sent a team forward onto the bridge. The action continued on the far bank, but there was no more firing on Gordunov’s side of the river. Levin was excited, elated. His delight in his accomplishment made him look like a teenager.

“Comrade Battalion Commander, we have prisoners.”

“I see that.”

“No. I mean more. We surprised them.” He turned to the alleyway. “Sergeant. bring up the prisoners.”

The night had grown full around them. But the hot light shed by the burning vehicles revealed a string of eight more men in strange uniforms, all of them thirtyish or older, and some of them clearly not in shape for combat.

“They were up the road,” Levin said. “I think they were trying to decide what to do. We just came up on them. And we helped them decide.”

“You know all the uniforms. These are Germans?”

“Yes, Comrade Battalion Commander. Enlisted soldiers. This one is equivalent to a senior sergeant.”

The prisoners looked pathetic. In Afghanistan, when you managed to take the enemy alive, he showed one of two faces. Either the prisoner was sullenly defiant, or he blanked all expression from his face, as though already dead. Which he soon would be. But these men looked frightened, surprised, sheepish. They didn’t look like soldiers at all, really.

“The others are British. The ones who were shooting. We have three of them.”

In the background, two tank main guns fired in succession. Across the low arch of the bridge, streaks of automatic-weapons fire cut the fresh night. The rain had slowed almost to a stop, and the damp river air carried acrid battle smells.

“This town,” Levin went on, his speech rapid with nervous energy, “you have to see it to believe it, Comrade Battalion Commander. When we were enveloping the enemy we came from back there.” Levin gestured toward the dark alleyway. “It’s like a museum. So beautiful. The houses in the center of town must be four or five hundred years old. It’s the most beautiful town I’ve ever seen.”

“This isn’t a sightseeing trip,” Gordunov cut him off.

“Yes, Comrade Battalion Commander. I understand that. I only meant that we must take care to minimize unnecessary damage.”

Gordunov looked at the political officer in wonder. He could not understand what sort of fantasy world Levin lived in.

“We must try to keep the fighting out of the old part of town,” Levin continued.

Gordunov grabbed the political officer by his tunic and slammed him against the nearest wall. In Afghanistan, you stayed out of the villages when you were on your own. The villages were for the earthbound soldiers in their armored vehicles. When a village was guilty of harboring the dushman, it was surrounded with armor. Then the jets came over very high, dropping their ordnance. After the aircraft, the artillery and the tanks shelled the ruins for hours. Finally, the motorized riflemen went in. And there would still be snipers left alive, emerging from a maze of underground tunnels. Like rats. Gordunov hated fighting in the towns and villages. He liked the open country. But there had been times when the worthless Afghan People’s Army officers had gotten their troops in a bind. And the Soviet airborne soldiers had had to go in to cut them free. It was always worst in the towns. Towns were death.

The political officer did not attempt to defend himself. He only stared at Gordunov in bewilderment. Clearly, the two men did not understand one another.

Gordunov released the younger man. “Be glad,” he told Levin. “Just be glad… if you’re still alive this time tomorrow.”

Sergeant Bronchevitch hustled across the cluttered street, carrying the command radio strapped across his shoulders. Despite the darkness, he found his way straight to Gordunov, as if by instinct.

“Comrade Commander. Falcon needs to talk to you right away.”

Gordunov took the hand mike. “Falcon, this is Eagle.”

At first, Gordunov did not recognize the voice on the other end. “This is Falcon. Dukhonin… the chief’s dead. All shot up. We’re in a mess.”

It was Karchenko, a company commander. Gordunov had expected more self-control from the man.

“This is Eagle. Get a grip on yourself. What’s the situation close in on your end of the bridge? Can I get over to you?”

“I don’t know. We have the bridge. But we’re all intermingled with British soldiers. And German tanks are working down the streets. Their actions aren’t coordinated. But they’re all over the place.”

“Just hold on,” Gordunov said. He released the pressure on the mike, then primed it once more. “Vulture, this is Eagle.”

Nothing. Twilight static.

“Vulture, this is Eagle.”

Only the noise of firing in the distance.

Gordunov turned to Levin. The political officer did not back away. There seemed to be no special fear in him after the rough handling, just a look of appraisal. “Two things,” Gordunov said. “First, get the prisoners shut up somewhere so that one man can watch them. Don’t waste time. Then get down to the southern bridge and find Captain Anureyev. Just take a rifleman or two, you’ll be safer if you’re quiet and quick. If Anureyev has control of his bridge, take one of his platoons and work up the far side of the river. Don’t let yourself be drawn into a fight that has nothing to do with the bridges. I want this bridge reinforced. If Anureyev has the antitank platoon with him, bring two sections north. And tell that bastard to listen to his radio.”

Gordunov turned to his radioman. “Come on,” he told Bronchevitch. “Stay close behind me. We’re going across the river.”

Gordunov took off at a scuttling run, limping, crouched like a hunchback. As he passed the walkway along the riverfront he fired a burst into the low darkness. There was no response, only the feeling of coolness off the flowing water.

No one fired at them as they continued over the dark bridge. It was a strongly built, two-lane structure that would easily carry heavy armored traffic. And they had it in their possession. Gordunov was determined to keep it.

The pain in his ankle seemed strangely appropriate now. Toughening. A reminder that nothing was ever easy.

At the far end of the bridge, a Russian speaker called a challenge. Sergeant Bronchevitch answered, and they were allowed back onto firm ground.

“Where’s the commander?” Gordunov asked the guard.

“Up that way. Up the street somewhere.”

Gordunov didn’t wait for anything more. He didn’t want to stop moving until he had found Karchenko. Until the situation was under some kind of control.

A few hundred meters up the road, a hot firelight raged between the buildings. Closer to the bridgehead, friendly positions had been established to cover the main road and the lateral approaches. Machine guns. Antitank weaponry.

“Do you know where your company commander is?” Gordunov asked a waiting machine gunner.

The dark form mumbled, raising its blackened face from its weapon.

“He doesn’t understand Russian,” a voice said from the shadows.

“Where’s Captain Karchenko?”

“He was here a while ago. But he’s gone.” Then the tone of the voice changed significantly. “Excuse me, Comrade Battalion Commander. I didn’t recognize you.”

“Where’s your lieutenant?”

“Putting in an observation post down by the water line.”

Too much time wasted already. “Branch. Give me the mike.”

The sergeant fumbled for a moment, then produced the microphone.

“Falcon, this is Eagle.”

“This is Falcon.”

“I’m on your side of the river. Are you in that action up north?”

“Just below it. Along the main road.”

“All right. I’m close. Watch for me coming up the street.” Gordunov handed the mike back to the communications specialist and took off at a limping trot. “Come on.”

A blast shook the last scraps of glass from nearby windows. Gordunov kept moving. At the far end of the street, several buildings had caught fire. Occasional forms dashed past the flames, but it was impossible to tell if they were Soviet or enemy. “Over here.”

Gordunov rushed across the road, rolling once and throwing himself into the doorway. His body already bore numerous scrapes and bruises, the inevitable wounds of urban combat, and, along with the ceaseless pain in his ankle, the collection of injuries made Gordunov feel like a wreck himself. But he knew the ordeal had hardly begun.

Sergeant Bronchevitch waited for Gordunov to clear the doorway, then he followed quickly, unable to roll with the radio on his back.

In the pale glow from the flames up the block, Karchenko appeared as though he expected the sky to fall on him at any moment.

“Do you have any damned control of this mess?” Gordunov demanded.

“Comrade Commander… we’re fighting.”

“Who’s in charge up the road?”

“Lieutenant Svirkin’s directing the blocking action. Gurtayev’s putting in the positions around the bridgehead.”

Directing the blocking action, Gordunov thought. What he meant was that the lieutenant was hanging on for dear life. Gordunov calmed slightly. “And what are you doing?” he asked Karchenko.

“This is my company command post. Between the bridge and the blocking force.”

“Where’s Major Dukhonin?”

“He’s dead.”

“I know. But where is he? Where’s the body?”

Karchenko didn’t answer.

“I said, where’s his body?”

“I don’t know.”

“You left him?”

“No. I mean, he was dead.”

“And you left him?”

“He was in pieces. We had to move. There were tanks.”

“You left him,” Gordunov said in disgust, arctic winter in his voice. It wasn’t a matter of emotionalism. Gordunov considered himself a hard man, and he was proud of it. He had been the toughest cadet in his class, and the best boxer in the academy. And he prided himself on his strong stomach. But the first time he had seen what the dushman did to the bodies of the Soviet dead, he had been unable to speak. The sight of the bodies had filled the bottom of his belly with ice. That was why airborne soldiers brought back their dead. And they never let themselves be taken prisoner. Because the bodies of dead soldiers were only for practice.

Now Gordunov made no mental distinction between dead comrades in Afghanistan and those killed by British troops or Germans. It was simply a matter of military discipline, of pride, as routine as wearing a clean, well-fitted uniform on parade. Airborne soldiers brought back their dead.

“The tanks would have killed us all,” Karchenko said, pleading for understanding. “We had to organize the position.”

Dukhonin had been all right. Another veteran. A professional. Dukhonin had been in the terrible fighting up in Herat in Afghanistan. And his chest was sewn up so that it looked as though there were a zipper across it. Now he was gone.

“Ammunition all right?” Gordunov asked, in a controlled voice.

“We got our full load in. I think Anureyev’s flight was hit a lot worse than ours.”

“More targets,” Gordunov said. “Listen. I sent Levin down to fetch you another platoon. I want you to block one hundred and eighty degrees off the river. You can weight the defense to the north, but don’t take anything for granted. Move your command post closer to the bridge. You could be overrun up here before you knew what was happening. And push out observation posts.”

A series of explosions crashed along the street.

“I’m surprised they’re shooting everything up,” Karchenko said. “The houses are full of people, you know. You don’t see them. But they’re here. Six of them in this basement. They thought we were going to eat them.”

“Keep the soldiers under control. How do you see the enemy over here? More Germans or more British?”

“Seems like a mix. The tanks are all German. I think we caught a German tank unit crossing the river up on the tactical bridges. But there was a British support unit tucked in near the landing zone.”

“Well, the British won’t care what they shoot up. It isn’t their country.”

“They’re tough. Especially for rear services troops.”

“We’re tougher. Get this mess under control.” Gordunov looked at his watch. “In ninety minutes, I want you to meet me in the lobby of the hospital across the river. Bring Levin, if he’s still with you. I’ll get Anureyev up. I want to make damned sure that, come first light, every man is where we need him. We got the bridge easily enough. Now it’s just a matter of holding it.”

“For how long? When do you think they’ll get here?”

A spray of machine-gun fire ripped along the street, punching into the interior wall above their heads.

“Sometime tomorrow.” And Gordunov got to his feet and launched himself back into the darkness, with Sergeant Bronchevitch trailing behind him.

Karchenko might not make it, Gordunov thought. But he did not know with whom he could replace him. Dukhonin had been his safety man, his watchdog on this side of the river. Now Dukhonin was gone. There was no one left he could trust.

He thought of Levin, the political officer. Levin didn’t have any experience. But he would have to use him, if it came down to it. Perhaps Levin on the eastern bank, while he took personal command in Karchenko’s area. Or wherever the action was the most intense. Gordunov hated the thought of relying on the political officer. But then he hated to rely on any man. He could only bear counting on Dukhonin because they had both come from the Afgantsy brotherhood.

In the darkness, Gordunov collided with a body rushing out of the shadows.

They both fell. The body called out in a foreign voice.

Gordunov shot him at point-blank range.

A return burst of fire from beyond the body sought him in the dark. Gordunov flattened and fired back over the body of the man he had just shot. When the body moved, Gordunov drew his assault knife and plunged it into the man’s throat.

There were several foreign voices now, calling to one another. Unfamiliar-sounding weapons began to fire around him.

Gordunov peeled a grenade from his harness, primed it, then lobbed it down toward the mouth of an alley.

As the fragmentation settled Gordunov crawled into a doorway. The door was locked.

“I’m shot… I’m shot…”

Bronch. The radio.

Gordunov held still. His radioman lay sprawled in the street, his boots still up on the sidewalk. He repeated his complaint over and over, aching with the damage a foreign weapon had done to his body.

Gordunov watched the darkness. Waiting for them to come out. As if on cue, the radio crackled with unintelligible sounds. Then an electronically filtered voice called over the airwaves in Russian.

Come for it. Come on, Gordunov thought. You know you want it.

The radioman moaned, face down, his radio teasing the foreign soldiers.

Take the chance, Gordunov thought. Come on.

Movement caught his eye. And Gordunov was back in the hills of Afghanistan, brilliantly alive. He didn’t let the leading figure distract him. He watched the point of origin for the covering man. When he had him fixed, he put a burst of fire into him, then shifted his weapon to catch the forward man against the side of a building.

The point man returned fire. But it sprayed wildly.

Gordunov pushed up far enough to break in the door. Then he scrambled to drag the radioman inside.

His hands slicked with blood. It reminded him of dragging a wet rolled-up tent. The boy seemed to be falling apart as he dragged him. He had clearly caught a full burst. Amazingly, he still whimpered with life.

Gordunov peeled the radio from the boy’s shoulders, flicking the moisture off the mike.

“Falcon, this is Eagle.”

“This is Falcon. Are you all right? We thought we saw a firefight.”

“My radioman’s down. I’m about a block down from you, just off on one of the side streets. Can you get somebody down here?”

“We’re all ready to move out.”

“No!” Gordunov screamed. He twisted his body around so that his weapon just cleared the wounded boy, and he held the trigger back until the weapon clicked empty. The approaching shadow danced backward as the rounds flashed into it, crashing against a wall. Gordunov hurriedly reloaded, then pulled out his penlight, careful to hold the point of light well away from his torso.

It was an old man. With a hunting rifle.

Stupid shit, Gordunov thought. The damned old fool.

But it had spooked him. For the first time in years, Gordunov knew he had been caught completely off guard.

The wounded boy was praying. It didn’t surprise Gordunov. Religious or not, he had known many a dying soldier to pray in Afghanistan. Even political officers, professional atheists, were not above appealing to a hoped-for god in their final moments. Gordunov forced himself back to business.

“Vulture, this is Eagle.”

“This is Vulture.”

“What’s your status?”

“We have the southern bridge. Intermittent fighting in the town on both sides of the river. The organization you requested is on the way.”

“Casualties?”

“Heavy. The British ambushed us the first time we went for the bridge. But we cleared them out.”

“How bad?”

“I’ve got about a hundred left.”

“With your company?”

“Including everybody. Never found the antitank platoon. They must have gone down. We have about twenty prisoners. About the same number of wounded.”

“All right. Just get in the buildings and hang on. Keep the wounded with you. I’ll send a doctor down from the hospital. Get the mortars to shoot in to support Falcon. Establish a layered defense on both sides of the river.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The radioman died. Gordunov could feel the difference in the room. When the radio went silent, it felt to Gordunov as though he were in a haunted place.

“Eagle, this is Falcon.”

“Eagle.”

“We can’t find you. What’s your location?”

“Never mind,” Gordunov said. “I don’t need the help anymore. Just watch for me coming in.”

Gordunov sat in silence for a moment, marshaling his strength. There was no sound close in. Only the ebb and flow of firing up the street. In the bowl of almost-silence, the pain in his ankle seemed to amplify, as though someone were methodically turning up a volume dial wired to his limb.

Gordunov rose onto his knees. With a deep breath, he caught the radio on his shoulders. At the last moment, he remembered to go through the dead boy’s pockets for the communications technical data pads. The papers had sponged up the boy’s blood. He wiped the pads and his hands on an upholstered chair, slopping back and forth over the coarse material in the darkness. Then he climbed to his feet.

He toppled back down. His ankle would not accept the additional weight of the radio. As he fell the corner of a table jammed him in the small of his back.

Breathing deeply, trying to drown the pain in a flood of oxygen, Gordunov forced himself back onto his feet.

One step. Then another.

He stepped down into the street. No sign of Karchenko. Just as well, he thought. Up the road to the north, near what appeared to be a rail crossing, the buildings blazed, featuring the black hull of a ruptured tank in silhouette. There was firing down the first alleyway, as well.

The random bodies of the dead glistened and shone where eyes remained open or teeth caught the fluttering light. Gordunov felt no emotional response. The corpses were abstractions, possessed of no inherent meaning now. He walked upright and slowly. Each step under the weight of the radio jolted currents of pain up his leg. He pictured the pain as a green liquid fire, racing up his nerves. It was impossible to move with any tactical finesse now.

The growing fires lit the street more brightly than a full moon could have done. As Gordunov approached the network of unengaged positions by the bridgehead no one challenged him. Instead, Karchenko and another soldier rushed out to intercept him.

“Are you crazy? Get down,” Karchenko demanded. Belatedly, he added, “Comrade Battalion Commander.”

“Help me, Karchenko. I have a problem with my leg.”

Karchenko reached out, pausing only at the last moment before touching Gordunov. Then he closed in, and Gordunov put his arm around the company commander’s shoulders, easing his weight.

“It’s all right,” Gordunov said. “We have both the bridges.”

“Let me take the radio. Here. Massenikov, take the radio from the commander.”

“It’s all right,” Gordunov repeated. “Now we just hang on. I’ve been through this before.”