Red Metal

CHAPTER 44

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Grant’s face had never been this cold in his life, but he was so intently focused on scanning the horizon through his binos that he couldn’t be bothered to duck down into the warm insides of his M1A2 Abrams tank. The temperature was in the low teens, but the frigid air whipping across Grant’s face was due to the fact that the tank he was riding in was blazing down the German autobahn.

One of the advantages of leading a unit comprising mainly techs and mechs was that Grant’s order to remove all the governors from the engines had been obeyed and put into action in less than two hours. Now the Honeywell AGT1500C multifuel turbine engines cranked out a speed of over sixty miles per hour.

Grant’s driver had the pedal to the metal, as he’d been ordered to do, and the lieutenant colonel worried that the young Army specialist might drive off into a ditch or run over a civilian car.

Sergeant Anderson, the tank’s gunner, had climbed over to Grant’s seat while Grant stood up in the turret, and the young man scanned through the commander’s independent sight system. The M1A2 SEP had two sight systems, both thermal and both very high-tech. With the flick of a switch Grant could designate several targets and the gunner, Anderson, could then kill each one in succession.

But at the moment Grant was searching for any sign of Russian forces in the dark through his binos, and his gunner was using Grant’s sight to look for long-range targets and to keep the driver out of trouble.

The voice of Grant’s operations officer, Captain Spillane, came over the headset: “Sir, relay from an AH-64 pilot over the UHF. He says he’s got comms with one of the ground stations on the guard nets.”

“Copy, Brad. Read it out loud on this net,” said Grant, his eyes still in his glass, hunting for enemy armor ahead.

“Sir, the traffic is as follows. ‘Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire. All NATO forces, cease hostilities. Acting EUCOM commander is designating a cease to all NATO combat operations.’”

Only now did Grant lower his binos.

Sergeant Anderson spoke over the intercom. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Anderson, get off — I can’t hear the operations officer,” barked Grant; then he rekeyed his radio. “Brad, confirm what you just said. Acting EUCOM commander has told us to halt all actions?”

“That’s an affirm, sir. I’m picking it up on the NATO frequencies now as well. It’s not as clear as the relay I have to the Apache, but it confirms the cease-fire.”

Anderson came back over the intercom. “This has to be a Russian trick. A ruse, sir.”

Grant was too preoccupied to tell his gunner to get off the intercom again. He climbed back down into the turret, and Anderson moved out of his seat and back to his own. Wiping his face, Grant got on the intercom.

“Anderson, I want you to use the Blue Force Tracker, or a map, or something—just get me to the eastern half of Stuttgart. Copy?”

“Got it, sir.”

Grant rekeyed the radio. “We might be able to catch them as they depart Stuttgart. We’ll move into position.”

Spillane replied with, “Uh… roger, but… then what, sir? Are we going to just blow off the cease-fire?”

“It could very well be a spoof operation from Russian radios. But at the least we’ll be in position to reattack the Russian forces as they depart if we can’t confirm the EUCOM orders. If there is a cease-fire, and I do say if, I at least want to be in a position to observe that they observe the cease-fire and get the hell out of Germany. I’ll follow their asses all the way across Poland if I have to.

“Keep trying to contact EUCOM directly by any means to seek clarification and guidance. Got it?”

“I got it, sir. I’ll plug the directions in and navigate the regiment. Permission to ask our German buddies for help with any shortcuts?”

“Do what you gotta do. Just get us there before the Russians get too far away.”

An hour and a half later Lieutenant Colonel Grant and fourteen M1A2 SEP tanks of the 37th Armored Regiment sat outside the German city of Göppingen.

Grant looked through the commander’s sight, and through it he could clearly see a massive military train with the Russian flag painted on the side. It rumbled along a track through sparse trees two kilometers distant, with several Bumerang escorts driving along an adjacent road.

Anderson was watching, too. “Trains, sir? Did anybody say anything about trains?”

Grant said, “It’s not like we’ve been getting much intel, Anderson.”

“Sir,” the young man continued, “I could dump a thermobaric round right up that train’s ass, kill all them Russians. Hell, I can see four or five of them set up as air sentries on the roof, watching those Apaches in the distance.”

Grant felt the same emotions as Anderson but said, “We’re not doing that. If this cease-fire is for real, then the time for us tankers to make an impact has passed.” He spoke with obvious frustration.

Spillane came over the radio. “Courage Six, Courage Three.”

“Go ahead, Brad.”

“Sir, I have a colonel over at Panzer Kaserne on the radio.”

“The Marine base?”

“Yes, sir, but he has a landline back to Patch Barracks. He confirms what we heard and offers to tank us up if need be. He relays that someone — he wasn’t sure who it was — directed us to stay in contact with the Russians, to escort them right out of Germany and into Poland. We pass them off to the Poles, who will take it from there. He said there would be more to follow by radio, but our regiment is the most ‘unfucked’—his words, not mine. Guess there’s a lot of chaos in the city right now. Hell, all over Europe. But we’re the closest and best to task with the job of armed escort right now. Orders for ROE will follow.”

During the radio pause Anderson said, “Sir, if I plop a round through that engine, those fucks would be trapped here.”

“You have your orders. Sit here and watch. Then we’ll follow them and keep watching.”

“Watch them get away with it, sir?”

Grant closed his eyes. He wanted to be sick. These Russians had killed his men and now he had to babysit them part of their way back home.

He keyed his radio. “Copy all, Brad. Ask the colonel to relay that we acknowledge and understand our mission.”

Tom Grant slammed his head back into the unyielding steel ammo magazine behind him in frustration.