Red Metal

CHAPTER 67

Commander Diana DelVecchio sat with her XO in the wardroom; before them were laptops, charts, papers, and laminated maps.

Both of them were dog tired.

The John Warner’s journey through the Tadjoura Trough had been a harrowing experience for all on board, and the crew was utterly exhausted. The acoustic-shadow trick at Moucha Island had worked to an extent. But the hot pursuit of Russian naval vessels, the seemingly endless cat and mouse, the active sonar sweeps and screens, had taken a toll that showed in everyone’s face. Commander DelVecchio had led them through the hours of tense creeping along the bottom without any great incident. A few more distant depth charges had been fired to flush them out, but otherwise the John Warner had popped up unscathed. Perhaps wiser and more trusting of their captain’s and their own abilities to run a gauntlet of hunter-killers. A Cold War skill that had become increasingly rusty with the U.S. Navy’s perceived dominance of the seas in the intervening years in submarine warfare.

After a full day of slow, silent running and virtually no sleep for the crew or command, the John Warner had managed to sneak away from its Russian pursuers and into the open waters of the Gulf of Aden. But the rapidity with which the ships and subs hunting them broke off contact immediately made DelVecchio suspicious that the Russians had been called away for either a tactical or a strategic reason. She decided to chance an ascent to raise the UMM and communicate with Fleet, and when she did so her suspicions were confirmed.

The entire surface and undersea force arrayed against her had turned away and was now steaming into the Indian Ocean, presumably, said Fleet, to stand watch off the African coast. The Russians would know the American Virginia-class was somewhere out there in the deep, and the last thing they would do would be to allow the American sub to come close enough to shore to effectively fire its cruise missiles in support of the Marine contingent forming at Mrima Hill.

And Diana DelVecchio had been sitting there for the past hour, trying to find a way to do just that.

Maybe the exhaustion she and her team were experiencing was partially to blame, she told herself as she reached for her thermos of coffee.

And maybe, she also considered, this was just an impossible equation to solve.

The USS John Warner had a dozen Tomahawk land-attack missiles on board, and the TLAM was an incredibly potent weapon. It could deliver either a 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead or a similarly sized cluster bomb with pinpoint accuracy.

But TLAMs worked best against stationary targets. GPS-guided munitions flew to a fixed point on the map and then detonated; this was not the way to combat a brigade of attacking armor rolling toward friendly forces. Sure, DelVecchio could launch salvos of TLAMs willy-nilly at coordinates north of Mrima Hill and hope she got fortunate in taking out armor, troops, or the like, but it would take one hell of a lucky shot to do any real damage.

And even if the Marines could give her the exact coordinates, the Tomahawks would still be ineffective from out in the Indian Ocean. They had an impressive range — over 1,300 miles — but they traveled subsonically, no more than 550 miles an hour, and to be utilized in the most time-efficient way would have them flying near enough to the enemy surface force arrayed off the coast.

If DelVecchio launched from hundreds of miles away, the Russians would have time to move fixed-position forces or equipment to safety before the TLAMs arrived.

No… firing a dozen two-million-dollar missiles into the plains and jungles of Kenya would do nothing for the Marines, and it would imperil her crew unnecessarily by revealing their location to the enemy.

She raised her thermos to her mouth, hoping like hell the next jolt of caffeine would be the one to help her see the answer to this riddle.

Finally, reluctantly, DelVecchio looked up at her XO with bloodshot eyes. “I’d do anything in the world to help those boys, but I don’t see any way without putting the John Warner in absolute peril.”

The XO nodded at her. “I concur. If we could slip in like we did in the port in Djibouti, then I’d be the first to say so. But we’d have to get so close to the coast to be effective with the TLAMs, there would be virtually no chance of survival.”

Commander DelVecchio’s tiny frame deflated, and she put her elbows on the table. “All right. We’ll go to a position three hundred miles from the coast. Flight time of the TLAMs will be well over a half hour from there if they fly in a straight line, a lot more if we send them around the Russian fleet. It’s the best we can do, but it’s not good enough, because it won’t do a damn thing to help the Marines.”

“You can’t win them all. We helped by knocking out the fuel for their tanks.”

DelVecchio did not respond.

The XO stood. “I’ll give the command. Please, Commander, get some rest.”

She didn’t look up or answer verbally; she only nodded with her head still buried in her hands.

Shank, Paulina, and the small unit withdrew from the battlefield at one a.m. and drove to a nearby village. With a swagger born of their time together and a heady confidence taken from a successful fight, they knocked on the doors of a couple of adjoining houses and asked if they could stay the night. Both families were happy to oblige and took them all in.

Paulina left the house for a meeting with TDF leadership and to check on the wounded, but Shank stayed with a group of seven militia in the kitchen. The family brought them cold meats and cheese and wine, and the talk at the dinner table was robust.

A bottle of vodka came out, and Jahdek looked to the American. “Shank, we say Twoje zdrowie! Then we thump the glass and drink.”

Shank was exhausted. He’d taken another pain pill and really just wanted to lie flat and sleep. But Jahdek was insistent.

“Okay, maybe just one.” He held up the glass and butchered the toast. “Tow-jaw, drove-away!” He downed it in one gulp and gagged from the harshness of the vodka going down his throat, and the others laughed while Jahdek patted him on the back.

Another bottle was brought out and soon everyone was singing.

After a time, Shank’s eyes began to droop, while the men and women around him kept drinking. The lady of the house saw her celebrity was tired, so she guided Shank to a private bedroom on the second floor.

Soon he was sound asleep.

He woke sometime in the night — his hand itched under its cast. He figured he wouldn’t be sleeping well for a long time.

He opened his eyes; shafts of soft moonlight reached into the room, and in the light he could see Paulina sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at him.

“You sleep?” she asked.

He blinked his good eye and stared at her, unsure if he was dreaming. Sensing his confusion, she took his left arm in her hands and felt the bandages.

“We must change, okay?” She reached to the floor and retrieved a small medical kit. Putting his arm in her lap, he felt her soft skin as she unraveled the wraps one at a time. “I change. You rest. Okay?”

He tried to lay his head back, and he watched her in the moonlight as she first unraveled the old bandage and then rewrapped his arm.

While she worked, she said, “You like family?”

He was surprised by the question till he figured out she was asking if he liked the family hosting him that evening. He replied, “Yes, they were very kind. So are you, Paulina.”

She smiled a little, focusing on her work. “Tomorrow men will take you to Warsaw. You return to your Americans from there. Not safe to travel through south. Still too many Russians.”

“What will you be doing?”

“I stay in south. Go east. Look for more Russians.”

Soon she tied off the bandage around his hand and then examined the dressing over his left eye.

She felt his face and traced the lines of the bandage with her fingers. “Must change, too. This one hurt, okay?”

“Can’t wait,” he answered.

She seemed confused for a moment, then smiled again.

She worked gently in the moonlight — slowly, not like an expert; he doubted she’d ever done this before. But she seemed surprisingly tender, like she cared enough to put effort into doing it right.

He could tell this war had made her do ugly things, but he could also tell that, underneath, she was full of kindness and caring. A tenderhearted girl tossed into combat unprepared but doing her best by steeling her heart against damage.

Shank was no psychologist, but he’d been involved in war his entire military career. He had the sudden impression that she had lost someone extremely close to her in all this.

He reached up and touched her cheek. Again, as when he had rubbed away some tears out on the battlefield, she leaned into his hand, almost like a cat. This time she added her hand to his, clutching it and pulling it into her face.

Shank blinked his right eye in surprise.

Something changed in the room. Shank felt as though this had been planned. This wasn’t about changing his bandages. Maybe she was just a girl, lost in the hate and terror and wanting an escape, even if it was just for a night. An escape she would never allow her squad to see—couldn’t let them see.

Paulina swept aside the covers, and with gentleness she threw a leg over him and laid herself against him. She lowered her lips slowly toward his, her warm breath against his face, and she kissed him.

She leaned into his ear and whispered, “Captain Vance, you are… you were much odwaga today.” She brought her hands up to his face and held it as she placed her elbows on the bed, careful not to put any weight on his wounds but resting atop his supine frame.

He’d heard that word before. Odwaga.

The one her troops had used for her.

“Courage.” He hadn’t thought of it, but coming from her — a natural leader, a woman warrior — it was the finest compliment he’d ever received.

Downstairs the militia laughed and sang as the celebrations continued, louder and more boisterous than before with the arrival of more wine. And both downstairs and up, the night was electrified with the joy of being alive.

Mount Kenya was a massive 17,000-foot mountain, beautiful and green around the sides and dense with trees that continued halfway up its slopes, but the top of the mountain itself was bald, craggy, and covered in snow.

Colonel General Lazar looked from inside the BTR-82A turret up at its impressive peaks in the distance. In another life he would have loved to climb them and enjoy their majesty.

The reports had been coming in for hours from his reconnaissance forces claiming the Americans were arrayed in and among the foothills of the mountain. He could envision this American game with ease. They were goading him into a fight, knowing that he would determine that these forces would simply attack his rear if he tried to bypass them.

And, obvious to Lazar, there would be more defenses set up at the mine to the south. He had satellites working to determine their positioning and strength now.

Well played, Marines, he thought.

Dark clouds surrounded the distant peak, suggesting rain was imminent. He reached inside the vehicle and felt for his poncho.

“Dmitry, order the artillery into position. We will blast those Marines out of our path.”

Colonel Kir nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And make sure all our air defenses are lined up. These Americans think a lot of their air units, but we will hit them hard and send them running as we did up in Moyale.”

Just over six kilometers away, Apollo spit on his hands and rubbed them together, his energy renewed by the strenuous work. He hefted the pickax and swung it down, dislodging another large chunk of the hard-packed red earth. Up and down the line, other tools clawed into the earth as the men hastily improved their positions.

Clods of red dirt had been packed into sandbags, three wide at each position. Brush and greenery had been cut and set up in front of the positions.

Apollo’s unit had come to Africa vastly underarmed in comparison with the hulking Marines working around them. Every Marine, it seemed, carried an anti-tank weapon, and there were medium and heavy machine guns every ten to twelve meters along the rocky jungle ridgeline.

Lieutenant Colonel Connolly came over to his position to check up on him. “Captain? Are you okay? Ready for this?”

“I am, sir. We all are.”

The buzz of something overhead caught Connolly’s ear and he looked up. It took a moment to find it; he and Apollo saw it at the same time. A drone. First one, then at least four more. No bigger than a few feet in size, they came from out of the sky and buzzed north to south, then began circling. This was the first time either the Americans or the French had seen an enemy drone. Many stopped digging in and began looking skyward.

“Oh shit,” said Connolly.

“Merde,” Apollo added. “That’s not your guys?”

“That’s the other guys. Take cover!”

The men heard a boom somewhere in the distance, followed by another and then a third.

“Incoming!” came the yells from both American and French NCOs up and down the lines as a fresh shrill shriek of incoming artillery filled the air.

The men raced to their fighting holes. Those Iraq and Afghanistan veterans among the French Dragoons and U.S. Marines got as low as possible, opening their mouths but holding their ears. Experience had taught them that “overpressure” caused by multiple heavy, concussive blasts could cause their eardrums to rupture and noses to bleed.

The ground shook as the accurate incoming Russian artillery fire slammed into the rocky earth around them. An earsplitting noise and blast waves washed over the men and in some locations the earth ruptured and fighting holes evaporated.

The drones had done their job, providing accurate target information for their well-drilled artillerymen.

Dense, dry thickets in the foothills at the base of the mountain began to smolder and burn.

General Lazar called the gun line to congratulate them on their accurate barrage.

“The firing data we received for the targets’ coordinates was exceedingly accurate,” said one of the artillery captains.

Colonel Borbikov sat next to Lazar, watching and listening, a smug smile on his face.

“Well done. How is the round count?” asked Lazar.

“We will use twenty percent of our allotment — unless you wish us to fire more?”

Lazar said, “No, save some for the next event, and good work.”

Borbikov turned to him. “Sir, that’s a sizable force there in the foothills. If you allowed thirty-three percent of ordnance expenditure, I am certain we could destroy these battalions, which will greatly diminish the defense of the mines when we—”

Lazar turned to Borbikov. “Who is in charge of the tactical plan, Colonel Borbikov?”

“Sir, you are. I just—”

“And are you suggesting you know more about artillery fires in your Spetsnaz outfit? Tell me, what sort of artillery pieces do you and your boys wear on your backs when you jump out of airplanes or slide down rappelling ropes?”

Borbikov fumed. “I merely suggest we take advantage of—”

Lazar turned to the artillery captain, who looked straight ahead, terrified to be in the middle of an argument between President Rivkin’s favorite officer and Russia’s most decorated general.

“Captain,” Lazar said, “you have your orders.”

“Sir. Twenty percent and then we cease firing.”

He left the command post. Borbikov turned on his heel and left as well.

As soon as the artillery barrage was complete, a long column of Russian BTR-82s hurtled south along a rocky dirt road, then broke left and right, bouncing up onto the rough terrain while maintaining an impressive clip.

A Marine LAV TOW gunner was the first to spot them, and he radioed to the company command post. He and his TOW section had a clear line of sight, and they requested permission to fire.

The LAV company XO looked to Connolly for instructions. Both men were kneeling in the sandbagged dugout quickly built as a command post. The last hour of artillery had deafened every one of the two dozen men in the trench considerably, and several were dazed from the barrage. But most of the Russian fires had landed near the front line, and this small CP had avoided any heavy casualties aside from some shell shock.

“They are clear to fire,” Connolly said; then the LAV company XO issued the approval. In seconds a massive salvo of TOW-II missiles streaked over the lush green hills toward their targets approaching on the lower ground.

And seconds after that, five BTR-82s had been blasted to bits.

When confirmation came, Connolly keyed the radio. “Oddball, this is Grizzly. You are clear to launch into the attack.”

When the Russian forces had barreled south down the Kenyan route A2, they had sent their drones forward to investigate the Marines’ positions. The obvious dust clouds of moving vehicles and spoiled earth of hurriedly built fortifications were easy to detect at the base of Mount Kenya, and very quickly the images of the positions were used to build the Russians’ battle plans. But what the Russian drones had not been able to detect from the air was the deep wadi snaking along the flatlands in front of the foothills. An intermittent riverbed, it was dry now but covered with a thick canopy of vegetation, and the sandy streambed was the perfect depth and width to serve as a hiding place for a company of Marine Corps M1A2 tanks.

The mobile LAV companies at higher elevation had been the bait, and now, as the BTRs raced into range to destroy the force there, the tanks rumbled out of their positions of concealment on the enemy’s western flank and opened up with a devastating salvo of 120mm cannon fire. The Marine tanks were not as modern or high-tech as the U.S. Army versions, but the Russians were caught focusing on the dug-in Marine defensive line ahead, unaware of the heavily concealed armor to their west until the first massive rounds began striking targets.

The initial salvo from the fourteen American tanks caught Lazar’s 1st Regiment in the flank; ten BTRs burst into flames as high-explosive shells blasted directly into the smaller, lighter-skinned vehicles’ troop compartments. The Marine Abrams tanks reloaded and fired again, this time while moving forward toward the Russian position. The main-gun fire was markedly less accurate bouncing over the broken and rugged terrain west of Mount Kenya, but they still scored six hits and five kills with their second salvo.

Watching through a spotting scope from ten kilometers’ distance, Colonel General Boris Lazar quickly realized that he’d moved forces directly into a trap, but his leadership and tactical sense were equally quick to find a solution. He sent in his second brigade, still traveling south on the A2. They pulled off road in their BTRs and, in a well-rehearsed battle maneuver, lined abreast of one another, rolling and bouncing over the rough terrain even faster than the U.S. tanks. In near unison, every second vehicle fired one of the newly mounted “saddleback” 9M133 Kornet anti-tank missiles mounted on its modified turret, sending jerking, sputtering pinpricks of light across the long, open ground toward the Marine tanks, while the Russian vehicles in between fired smoke dischargers, screening and obscuring the Marines’ view of the enemy advance.

Three of the Marine Corps M1A2s took direct hits to their flanks from the Russian anti-tank missiles. Two of the stricken vehicles erupted as the ammunition on board began to detonate through the open top hatches. The third took a strike to the turret, which immediately jammed, its barrel dangling, practically blasted free from the hull. The tank sped on with the rest of its pack, but it was out of the fight.

The rest of the armor weathered the salvo, and the company continued driving and firing, pushing directly into Lazar’s 1st Regiment, taking out armored personnel carriers with each salvo.

Eight Cobra attack helicopters swooped in from the west, flying just above the growth of the jungle flatlands, firing missiles, rockets, and guns as they approached, holding off any would-be attackers in 1st Regiment and allowing the M1A2s to break away from the attack at their rear and race away at top speed to the southeast, away from Lazar’s 2nd Regiment, which continued in pursuit.

“Hit their defenses with more artillery, Kir!” shouted Lazar, as he stormed toward the colonel and the headquarters command unit, standing in the open next to the field radios.

Kir stood up from where he’d been leaning over a map and looked for his general in the group of men. Seeing Lazar approaching, he said, “The Americans are fleeing. The reports we have from reconnaissance and drones are that the Marine defensive line has crumbled. They are driving south, back in the direction of the mines.”

Lazar arrived at the table and cocked his head. “Are they fleeing? Or was this their plan? A hit-and-run. Tell 2nd Regiment to keep up the pressure.”

“I will, sir, but the farther they get from the main body, the more effective those Cobra gunships will be. They are picking some of 1st Regiment off as we speak.”

“I understand. Pursue as best as 2nd Regiment is able. We will follow. Tell the ZSU batteries to get as far forward as they can. Take out more of those Cobras. One more attack helicopter destroyed today is one less we’ll need to fight tomorrow at the mine. These Marines do not have an unending supply of them.”

“Yes, sir. What then?”

“Then… then we stop and lick our wounds. We walked into a trap with those tanks. We must carefully consider our next moves.”

Connolly watched the Marine M1s following him and the rest of the LAVs as they sped south through a narrow but well-maintained jungle road toward the mines and the Marine Corps’ final defensive line. Sporadic long-range Kornet missiles fired from the Russian BTRs slammed into trees, the road, and occasionally American vehicles while those Marine tanks that were still operational, their turrets to the rear, kept launching 120mm return fire at the pursuers.

Russian artillery dropped in and around the American tanks, but the M1s somehow managed to drive through the waves of heavy fire unscathed.

After twenty harrowing minutes of close retreat, the Americans worked their way clear of their pursuers and made it to the B6 highway, where they sped south even faster en route to the mine.

Connolly heard from Caster’s intelligence officer that the Russians had ceased their pursuit at the edge of the jungle. But this wouldn’t last long. He knew Lazar would only pause to regroup before beginning an orderly approach to Mrima Hill.