Red Metal

CHAPTER 77

The direness of the situation just thirty miles inland wasn’t lost on Commander DelVecchio. She could hear the urgency in the tones from the Marines’ radio transmissions at the regimental fires coordination cell. She could even make out booms and crashes in the background as the request was called in. Hearing the explosions had electrified all the others on the bridge as well.

DelVecchio said, “Weaps, fire eight Toms on those coordinates. We’ll hold four missiles in reserve, but keep them in ready-to-fire status. Let the Marines know that if they need ’em, they can have ’em, but we can’t wait around all day.”

“Aye, Captain,” he said, turning to the men at the fire control computers.

The weapons men punched the data into the computer. They triple-checked the computer’s launch criteria and trajectory paths requested by the Marines.

“Captain, I show all TLAMs ready to launch,” the weapons officer said.

Commander DelVecchio didn’t hesitate. “Fire.”

A tremendous whoosh shook the submarine.

The men’s ears felt the pressure change. Rushing sounds as the vertical launch tubes were flooded with air, then a shock as the air blasted the hatch open, ejecting the huge missile up and into the water.

Next came the booster motor. The missile forced water against the sub’s hull as it rapidly ascended fifty feet, then breached the surface of the Indian Ocean. There it dropped its launch brackets and the rocket motor kicked in. Yellow flames poured out of the bottom of the BGM-109C missile as it raced skyward, rapidly attaining its maximum speed of 550 miles per hour. In seconds it was joined by seven more, for a total mix of four BGM-109Cs and four BGM-109Ds, the cluster-munition variant.

General Lazar stood in a BTR turret, directly behind the advancing lead battalion in his 3rd Regiment, and listened to the casualty reports as they came in. The damage was heavy — much heavier than he’d anticipated. Still, he ordered his forces forward, because he could feel the Americans’ lines cracking in the center.

Getting his soldiers in this close, this fast, had been a part of his design. It was now time for the well-trained men in Colonel Glatsky’s regiment to finish off the Marines protecting the northern side of the hill. Once this was done, the Russians would be inside the American defenses en masse and they would attack the other battalions from behind, rendering their defensive positions ineffective. At that point the battle would be all but won.

He’d then task the paratroopers with moving in and doing the dirty work of mopping up the trenches, mine shafts, and the like, and this battle would be over by midnight.

He’d taken some calculated risks to keep the intensity up on the overworked Marines, not the least of which was retaining his artillery batteries in one position for longer than he would have liked. The F-35s hadn’t pinpointed them, and Lazar’s antiair batteries were doing a fine job keeping them at bay.

Lazar called to Kir, whom the general had sent to the artillery park behind Jombo Hill to check personally on the situation there, and to encourage the artillerymen to continue to pound the enemy headquarters they’d discovered. If they could keep the American HQ busy, the Americans would not be able to react to this assault.

A minute later Kir came back on the radio for him. “Sir, I just received word: 2nd Regiment needs to halt. They have taken heavy casualties.”

Lazar felt frustration. He knew pressing the attack would wear the Marines down quickly, but he also knew to trust his commander. “All right. Tell Klava he can pause his advance for the time being. But order him to continue firing on the enemy positions. I don’t want to let up on the pressure.”

“Yes, sir. Also, sir, did you receive the reports from Glatsky? He says there are a few platoons that are in and among the Marines. He says the breakthrough is imminent.”

It was odd to have a report go all the way back to Colonel Kir at Jombo Hill, then out to Lazar just behind the spearhead. Lazar was deep in and among Glatsky’s lead battalion. But often in combat the reporting chain remained the same even when commanders themselves moved to the leading units.

“This is good news,” he said, pulling up his binoculars to look ahead. He could see the close fighting on the jungle roads heading up the hill. The sounds were always the same, but the spraying of machine guns seemed louder every minute, the chatter of rifle fire constant. He saw hand grenades explode, which told him the two forces were just meters apart now.

Yes, Lazar thought. Very good.

“Something else I need to report, sir. The artillery commander here informs me Colonel Borbikov has ordered that—”

Lazar pulled off his helmet to listen to a noise he’d detected over the BTR’s engines. He looked up toward a buzzing sound that seemed to be coming from overhead. At first he thought it was coming from one of the UAVs his artillery forces used to identify American positions, but this sounded different somehow.

It wasn’t like a lawn mower engine; this was a race car rounding a track. Searching skyward in the African sun, he saw three, then four, then six slender, dark, cigar-shaped objects flying low and parallel to his position. They passed overhead and quickly behind him to the north.

He recognized them as Tomahawks and knew they’d be heading for his artillery.

He spun backward in the hatch, watching the missiles coursing rapidly toward their targets on the northern side of Jombo Hill.

He fought to get his helmet back on. “Kir! Take cover!”

Before the general’s eyes, the first missile descended behind Jombo, and seconds later a huge shock wave made its way forward to Lazar’s position, over two kilometers to the south. This was repeated three times in rapid succession. Trailing Tomahawk missiles broke open and dropped cluster munitions over the same area, sending hundreds of tiny bomblets falling free.

More shock waves passed through Lazar’s position and the booms continued, reaching an incredible crescendo.

The sky to the north ruptured.

The firing at the front ceased as friend and foe alike stopped to look at the spectacle. But the rolling explosions, sprays of incendiaries, and heavy white smoke told General Boris Lazar all his artillery ammunition, and likely the majority of his artillery batteries, had just been destroyed.

Lazar keyed the radio. “Kir? Kir? Damage?”

The reply took several seconds. Finally the colonel answered in a disoriented and dazed voice. “Comrade General, all the guns have disappeared… vanished. There are dead everywhere.”

“Damn it, Kir! Shift the trailing battery up; we can still break through.”

Kir coughed several times. “Sir, as I tried to tell you, we have only one battery of six guns left, and Colonel Borbikov has requested it be held in reserve.”

“Borbikov has requested what? Listen to me. Fucking Spetsnaz does not command our 152s!” Kir did not reply, so Lazar said, “There are to be no reserves, Kir! Do you hear me? No reserves! Every man and every piece of equipment into the fight—now! We have the enemy at the point of cracking.”

When the colonel did not respond, Lazar shouted again. “Kir? Are you there?”

Lazar heard a weak cough over the radio. “Dmitry? Are you injured?” he asked.

“Da… It’s nothing. I just—”

Lazar had been yelling over the radio so loudly, he had not noticed what was happening around his BTR. He turned forward in the turret, toward the hill and the fight, just in time to see four U.S. jets shrieking out of the high clouds and directly toward his pack of vehicles.

They were lined up perfectly on this narrow road. There was no way the jets could miss their targets.

“Damn it to hell!” he yelled. But he had only seconds to react. Tossing his helmet, scrambling out of his hatch, and kicking himself free of the BTR, the burly General Lazar tumbled down onto the dirt road, then rolled into a drainage ditch and covered his head, doing so just as the first missile struck the vehicles, blasting his BTR and the one ahead of it into balls of flame.