Red Metal

CHAPTER 69

Twenty-two Antonov An-26 propeller aircraft swept in low and slow over Tsavo West National Park, but no one besides a few game wardens and curious tourists at the massive wild animal preserve noticed. Their flight in had been through Uganda and over Lake Victoria. In Entebbe the aircraft received a quick refueling and this gave the 880 Russian paratroopers of the 23rd Air Assault Regiment of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division a chance to stretch their legs after their nearly twelve hours of flying.

Now the red lights in the back of the first aircraft switched to green, and forty men hooked up their parachute static line hooks to the long steel cable running the length of the plane. Every soldier checked the gear of the man in front of him. Then the green light flashed, and the paratroopers knew they were now over their landing zone just two hours’ drive northwest of Mrima Hill.

The men dove out, one by one, the broad green plains below them. The battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel of paratroopers named Fedulov, jumped with the second assault wave, and could clearly see the terrain he’d been memorizing ever since being given this mission. As his feet swung back and forth he pulled his hands off the risers and felt for his radio and map pouch. He couldn’t see any of the U.S. Marines or French special forces units he’d been briefed about, but he knew they were digging in somewhere to the south.

The foolish Yankees again assumed no one else in the world could match them with airpower and assault force projection. But the 76th Guards had more than enough combat power to pack a punch. Lieutenant Colonel Fedulov wore a patch on his shoulder showing a lion and a golden-winged parachute, and it was reassuring to him to wear the symbol of his magnificent unit, born in the cauldron of fire that was the Battle of Stalingrad.

He looked at the other men slowly descending through the scant and light puffs of low clouds as they drifted quietly toward the dark green African earth.

Fighting the Americans had been a dream of most of these men their entire careers. All the officers of the Guards Division had studied American doctrine voraciously in their military academies and schools, awaiting an opportunity to test their mettle against the West’s supposedly superior forces.

Meeting and then beating the U.S. Marines was what Fedulov and his men had trained for.

Fedulov watched his first wave already touching down, but he was still 150 meters up. He swung his rifle forward, aiming it down in case of incoming ground fire as he had been taught during his training. With his free hand he felt for his radio, then tried the call sign he’d been given for the Spetsnaz officer who had requested the Russian paratroopers. “Tsentr One, this is Kilovat One-One. How do you read me?”

The response was immediate. “Kilovat One-One, this is Tsentr One. I read you loud and clear. We are receiving your first wave. Any trouble?”

“Negative, Tsentr. I am landing in the second wave.” The ground was only fifty meters from his feet now. He calmly pocketed the radio handset and shifted his rifle, then pulled the release cord on his gear bag. The huge bag, now untethered, fell freely to earth. He experienced the bounce of weightlessness, a momentary updraft felt upon releasing the heavy fighting gear. It churned the stomachs of the new men, causing many to lose their meals just ten or twenty meters up. The experienced paratroopers clenched their stomachs on releasing their bags to prevent the nausea caused by these “rvotnyye karman,” or puke pockets. They also learned to avoid the “rvotnyye rakety,” or vomit rockets, that rained down on the unsuspecting from men above.

The Russian paratrooper commander collapsed at his knees as he impacted the ground. He, along with all the other men of the second wave, unbuckled their chutes, rolled the suspension lines, and tucked them into the canopies.

A man wearing the collar devices of a Russian Spetsnaz colonel made his way over to him as he unbuckled his helmet and pulled out the side straps of the heavy gear bag he’d jettisoned above.

Fedulov shouldered the pack and snapped to attention at just the right moment, cocking his head as he saluted. “Comrade Colonel.”

Colonel Borbikov saluted back. “Welcome to Africa. As was explained to you, you won’t be needed for the initial attack on the mine, but your men will be brought in once the American defenses have been overrun and their heavy weapons are silenced. You’ll do the close-quarters mopping up, and then your battalion will assist with security.”

“Understood, Comrade Colonel. We are ready.”

“Khorosho. Now, have your men fall in. Once you have assembled your forces we’re off. I look forward to my return to Mrima Hill.”

“A triumphant return, sir. We will not fail.”

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Grant had hoped to arrive at the border when there was still some light so he could see the Russians heading east in the distance, but it was pitch-black now, at seven in the evening. His tank was three back from the lead as they neared the border crossing and then the automobile bridge over the Bug River, and he stood high in the turret, scanning left and right, looking for trouble.

They were still a kilometer away, but he worried the past week had made him paranoid. All indications by the Russians were that they wanted nothing more than to limp back across the Belarusian border and get the hell away from the fighting, but for some reason Grant worried there might be some parting gift: a mined road, a few mortars or even tank rounds popped back over the border — something else to give him trouble.

He clicked his mic so he could ask Anderson if he had anything on thermals on the far side of the river, but just as he did so, the night turned bright in front of his eyes.

The lead tank exploded in a ball of flames, the turret rocketing up into the sky.

“Holy fuck! It’s Parsons’s tank, sir!” screamed his driver, Sergeant Franco.

All the explosives on board Parsons’s destroyed Abrams began high-order detonating.

“Driver, reverse the tank—now! Don’t look at Parsons’s tank! Focus on getting us the hell out of here!”

Franco dropped the M1A2 into reverse and the tank quickly began to back up.

“Pull behind the hill, near that pond to the front left.”

Franco moved the massive piece of steel expertly off the road and through the rolling, snow-covered fields, following Grant’s direction.

More Russian tank main gun fire slammed into the hard earth around them. Grant ducked low, looking out with his head only a few inches above the turret hatch as the sky lit up with streaking tracers of various colors. He was grossly exposed to enemy fire here, so close to the front of his column.

This was an egregious mistake for a commander.

The radio was alive with chatter as the M1s that had been driving orderly up Route 2 all peeled hastily left and right to avoid the incoming enemy fire. Grant shouted orders into his radio, sending them north and south, trying to get them to the woods or hills or anything that would serve as cover.

Franco kept driving at a breakneck pace, zigging and zagging to the pond and a small hill that afforded some protection from the incoming rounds.

The cannon fire from the east was unceasing. Snow and dirt flew into the air under a flash just thirty meters in front of Grant’s vehicle as a tank round narrowly missed him.

Trying to control his own vehicle in the fray, Grant listened as his operations officer took initial damage reports from the companies that included three K-kills: totally destroyed tanks.

Suddenly, a pounding crash shook Grant’s own tank. He ducked down but quickly realized an enemy HEAT round had skipped off the hull on the armored forward slope of his vehicle just as they drove behind the hill. Two other M1s launched over the crest and then stopped just behind Grant’s.

Sergeant Anderson looked through the main gun sights and reported that the hill now masked his sight line.

“Could you see any of those enemy positions before we made it to cover?” Grant asked.

“No, sir. They were too well camouflaged. But they were definitely in the woods on the Belarusian side of the river.”

“Shit! How the fuck did we drive into an ambush?”

Grant’s gunner waited for a pause in the incoming transmissions as the lead company called out their temporary defensive positions. “Sir, they know we won’t pursue them into Belarus, so they set up on the far side and waited for us.”

Grant looked out to his right flank and behind him at the crossroads of Route 698 and Route 2. Three vehicles burned. The big main gun on an M1A2 tank was now elevated at a ridiculous angle and the barrel was split in half, which indicated that a round must have detonated inside the gun barrel. Flames engulfed the other two vehicles, and explosives cooked off every few seconds.

Grant was furious with himself for not staying back with his command-and-control vehicles, because their comms were more solid. From his lead tank he’d be lucky to reach half the regiment via radio.

He looked around at the part of the terrain he could see, then ducked back down into his tank.

“Sergeant Anderson, hand me the map.”

The map came up to the commander’s position, and he began looking it over. After a few seconds he said, “If these fuckers want a fight, we’ll give them one.” Then Grant turned the dial on his radio and called the regimental operations officer. “Brad, it’s the CO. Are you receiving me?”

The reply came through faintly. “I am, sir. We’re getting the regimental CP put together. Radios are up and running; tents and maps are up when you need ’em. Just receiving casualty reports now.”

“Copy. Send up a Humvee to bring me back to the CP. I’m all the way up at the river. We’ll come up with a game plan.”

“Roger, sir. I’ll get a vic on the way.”

Grant ran into the makeshift command post of Humvees parked together with tarps pulled over the tops, antennas poking out on all sides, and the men manning the radios and maps. He stepped up next to his operations officer, who hurriedly took maps out of a large case. He watched as the man tossed maps of Poland aside and opened his map of Belarus. Grant saw it was no tactical map; it was out of a Michelin guide.

A continuous exchange of tank and cannon fire thundered in the distance, a constant reminder that the clash of U.S. and Russian armor continued, although the Americans were somewhat protected behind low hills and forests on the Polish side of the river.

The radios in the makeshift tactical operations center were alive with reports from the battalion commanders. Grant listened in as the headquarters men processed requests and moved pins on the map as units conducted micro-maneuvers to gain better positional advantage.

A radio operator rushed over. “Sir, we have satcom back to NATO.” He had a small military speaker with him. “Unsure who it is on the other end of the radio.”

Grant looked at the speaker for a moment, then said something that stunned every man within earshot. “Unplug that shit.”

The radioman did not understand. “Sir… it’s someone from NATO HQ. They requested to speak to you.”

“I know… Unplug it.” The young man did as instructed, a stunned look on his face.

Grant turned to Brad Spillane. “You and me have got a few minutes to get this right. I want it laid out in an organized manner, so I need your thoughts and input.”

“Copy, sir. But what about NATO?”

“They aren’t going to like what I’m about to do, and I’m not going to give them the opportunity to shoot me down.”

Grant next conferred on the radio with his scout company commanders; then he stepped back over to the map table, walking into his circle of leaders, who had all been summoned from their individual commands. He looked nothing at all like an Army regimental commander — more like an exhausted mechanic who had been working on an impossibly broken-down car and had come to share bad news with the owners.

“Gentlemen, I’ve made a decision, one that will mean my court-martial when we return.” His shoulders were slumped and his Nomex tank suit, covered in blood, grease, dried mud, and salty sweat, made him look as dejected as his attitude and lack of sleep suggested. “I need your input… I need your permission… or your disavowal.” He stopped, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

Captain Spillane interrupted: “You are asking us to pursue, boss. To go into Belarus. To finish the job we started.”

Grant nodded. “I am. They violated the cease-fire… again, when they fired on us from over the border. I’m going to return the favor and chase those motherfuckers back to Moscow if I have to.”

German major Blaz Ott was astonished by this. “You will attack? Into Belarus?”

“Damn right, Blaz, into Belarus. They won’t stop firing, so neither will we. I’d say we’re in hot pursuit right now, and I’m not going to break it off.”

It was quiet for a moment. Then Ott said, “You are my commander. You give the order, and I will obey.” A small smile appeared on his face. “Let’s get going. If the Russians decide to break contact, this will be harder to justify.”

The others all nodded in assent.

Grant said, “I’ve been talking to my scouts. I think we have a way over that river to the north that will let us get behind the Russians.”