Red Metal

CHAPTER 78

General Sabaneyev’s once-formidable armor-and-infantry regiment was now running on fumes. Six of the fuel-thirsty T-14 tanks and eight Bumerangs had been left on the side of the highway in what amounted to a trail of tears, evidence of the armor column’s woes as they fled east. Two more T-14 Armatas stalled soon after; two Bumerangs were parked off the road and siphoned dry so that their fuel could be transferred to the tanks, thereby allowing them to be moved out of the way to let the rest of the column pass.

The headquarters of the Belarusian 11th Guards Mechanized Brigade, in the city of Slonim, Belarus, was over one hundred kilometers from the Polish border, and getting here had taken virtually the rest of the column’s fuel reserves. In the line of the Russian retreat, General Eduard Sabaneyev had pinpointed the brigade HQ on his map and ordered what was left of his battalions to make a beeline for the base, their only chance to refuel and rearm. The Russian general knew from experience that there would be several battalions of older T-80 tanks at the 11th Guards’ base, so he knew they could get most everything they needed, both to resume their movement eastward and to fend off the Americans, who continued to nip at their heels.

The Russians’ arrival at the gate of the 11th Guards right at dusk was met with hesitation, even some hostility, by the forces there. All local Belarusian military forces had been ordered into garrison and given specific orders not to meddle with either the Americans or the Russians.

“Stay out of it. Do not help or hinder” had been the command from Minsk.

At first the gate guards refused entry to the long line of ominous-looking Russian armor, citing the orders they had received from their leadership.

Then Colonel Smirnov dismounted, strode rapidly up to the front of the column, and reprimanded the guards, demanding they open the gates. His anger mounting, he next ordered the shocked troopers to ferret out the NCO with the keys to the fuel farm. The men, familiar with working with their Russian partners but unfamiliar with the current politics of the situation and the Russian brigade in their country, obeyed the colonel’s command and flung up the exterior barricade, then sent someone scrambling to find the sergeant with the keys. The procession of still-mobile tanks and Bumerangs rolled in, then lined up around the corner and down the base’s main thoroughfare.

Fuel keys were found and the slow process of refreshing the beleaguered Russian column began.

The Belarusian guards had, of course, informed everyone up the chain of command as to what was happening, and then they feigned complete surprise as the colonel serving as the mechanized brigade’s logistics officer arrived suddenly. He raced to the front of the fuel farm in his personal vehicle, halting in the middle of the road, and then stormed up to the scene.

“Sergeant Volesky, turn off the pumps this instant!”

The sergeant complied, then backed away. He had no way of knowing if the Russians and his logistics colonel were going to shoot each other, but it certainly seemed that things were about to get ugly.

“By what authority do you steal my gasoline, Colonel?” demanded the officer from the 11th Guards.

Colonel Smirnov had expected something like this. “Get your fucking ass away from the fuel, comrade,” he hissed, his hand working its way to his leather pistol holster.

An immediate look of fear washed over the Belarusian officer’s face — the Russian masters had always been feared and respected — but it was also clear to Colonel Smirnov that he was probably buying time for someone with more authority to come and handle the situation.

Soon military police vehicles arrived and turned on their squad lights, the policemen dismounting and walking toward the gathering in the dying light of day. Colonel Smirnov signaled to the closest group of men. In moments they trotted back along the line and directed a platoon or more of the men to scramble up to the front of the line of Russian vehicles.

The Belarusian colonel conferred with the MPs and then pointed at Colonel Smirnov, gesticulating in an animated fashion. He was clearly at his wits’ end and did not see this as ending well for himself. His anguish sparked the MPs, who drew their pistols. The gathering squads of Russians pointed their AKs at the Belarusians and lined up alongside Colonel Smirnov.

Before things could escalate any further, General Sabaneyev dismounted from his command Bumerang in the middle of the Russian column, smacked his heavy winter gloves against his fine wool general officer’s greatcoat, and strode confidently over to the group by the pumps. He waded directly into the throng. His soldiers parted obediently and quieted upon his arrival.

Sabaneyev walked directly up to the diminutive Belarusian base commander and poked him in the chest with his finger. “Colonel,” Sabaneyev said slowly, “open the petcocks on your fuel farm right now or I’ll have you shot for violation of the Regional Forces Group orders.” He was referring to the mutual-defense agreement between Russia and its smaller partner Belarus.

The shock of his words, as much as the sudden appearance of a general officer in their midst, cowed the Belarusian side into silence. They stared wide-eyed at the handsome and confident Sabaneyev, unsure just how to react. Seizing on their uncertainty, Sabaneyev pressed. “You will support us immediately per the order: that an attack on any nation in the RGF allows Moscow — which for your purposes today is me — to take the initiative and protect both states.

“And you, Colonel, whether you recognize it or not, are in a state of war with NATO.”

The general’s quoting of the rules of the loose military agreement between Belarus and Russia was specifically at odds with the orders the colonel had received not to aid the retrograding Russian attack forces. The orders declared that the Russians had violated all agreements between Minsk and Moscow by staging an attack against the West through Belarus without sending notification to the central government.

But whatever mental gymnastics he was performing were soon interrupted by a sharp and resounding crack, followed by a blast, and suddenly the decision had been made for them all.

A T-14 at the front gate fired its main gun. The first shot was followed quickly by another and another as more tanks fired and maneuvered.

“What the fuck are they doing?” Sabaneyev demanded of those standing around.

A head popped up from the turret of the closest Bumerang. “Comrade General, American M1s and German Leopards approaching from the west!”

Incoming shells slammed into a nearby street, rocketing a Belarusian armored car high into the air.

Sabaneyev grabbed the commander by the shoulder and together they ran up the steps and inside the nearest building.

The Russians in line for fuel began turning their vehicles and rolling off in different directions. Order evaporated as Russian soldiers variously ran back to their vehicles or mimicked their leaders, looking for shelter. The advancing American fire, in spite of the Russian defensive volleys, blasted overhead.

Tanks and Bumerangs dashed for copses of trees, behind decorative brick parapets, and in a few cases behind or into the brick buildings themselves, seeking shelter from the American guns.

Too many Russian tanks were unfit for battle, and too many of the Bumerangs had already fired off the last of their anti-tank missiles. They needed fuel and rearmament, right this moment, or they ran the real risk of being overrun by the invaders from the West.

Once inside the building, Sabaneyev grasped the collar of the Belarusian colonel. “Where are your war stocks?”

The Belarusian officer shook his head, his mind still racing to comprehend that his base was under attack. “I am sorry, comrade. I am not authorized to—”

“I don’t need your fucking authorization. I need an answer — now! Where are they?”

“They are not here.”

“Lies! This base is full of munitions given to you by Russia to be accessed in a time of critical need for our region. I know the weapons are here. Where the fuck are they?”

More crashing tank rounds impacted outside. Outgoing fire boomed in a chaotic fury.

The colonel said, “They were here, but everything was trucked off to Minsk this morning.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“An order came from Command. My government does not choose to be a participant in this failed military attack of the West. Russian forces are not to use Belarusian—”

A high-explosive tank round slammed into the side of the building, shattering glass, shaking walls, and knocking men to the floor. Old masonry crumbled and dust filled the air.

Sabaneyev stood his ground, as did the Belarusian colonel. They could barely see each other for a moment through the haze.

“What do you have?” the general asked.

When the colonel did not immediately answer, Eduard Sabaneyev shoved the smaller man up against the wall and pulled his pistol from its holster. Jabbing it under the man’s chin, he shouted, “I will shoot you myself this instant if you don’t answer me!”

The man shielded his face in terror as he answered. “A couple hundred high-explosive rounds for our T-72s and T-80s, Comrade General. That’s it. I swear it. The live shells are crated and secured in accordance with the protocol for the combined exercises, in an ammunition bunker a kilometer from here.”

The T-80’s main armament was the 125mm smoothbore cannon, the same size as Sabaneyev’s T-14s’ guns.

After another round hit the building, the general let go of the colonel’s tunic and lowered his weapon, but kept his pistol at the ready by his side. “You will personally lead my XO, Colonel Smirnov, and whatever tanks I still have mobile to the ammo stores. We’ll fight off the Yankees from inside the base until we can get fuel and leave. Your men will cover our withdrawal. Do you understand me?”

Several more loud explosions, all incoming tank rounds, hit in front of the building. Shrapnel tore through the hallway where the general and the colonel stood, sending them both diving to the ground. A young radioman who’d dove into the building for cover was immediately hit in the arm by a fragment, ripping flesh from the elbow to the hand, and he began rolling on the floor in agony as blood drained from his arm.

Sabaneyev ignored the soldier’s wound and pulled the radio handset from where it was hooked on his load-bearing vest. “Smirnov? I’ve got ammunition but it’s one kilometer away. What the hell is happening out there?”

No reply came for several seconds. And then: “The command vehicle has been destroyed!” came an unknown voice over the radio. A pause. “I don’t see the colonel… but no one could have survived!”

“Shit!” shouted Sabaneyev. Into the radio he said, “Get me another APC and drive it to the front door of the command building. I’m coming out in thirty seconds, and all tanks not engaged now will follow my vehicles to the ammunition!”

He tossed the radio handset on the ground beside the writhing young man, grabbed the Belarusian by the shoulder, and pulled him back up to his feet. “You will take me to the main gun rounds now, Colonel.”

Another salvo from the American Abrams tanks hit the building, but Sabaneyev ignored the debris and more fallen men in his path and ran for the door, still holding the colonel by the sleeve of his tunic.

They burst through the building’s entrance, out into a smoke-filled gloom. They ran down the steps to the road in front of the fueling area, and only then did the smoke clear enough that they could see their way forward. In front of them were six destroyed Russian vehicles. More tanks engaged distant enemy targets over and through the metal fencing at the edge of the base. The whine of tank engines and the rumble of racing Bumerangs filled the air. Vehicles jockeyed for position to shoot back at the Americans.

This normally sleepy Belarusian base, with its carefully winterized lawns, neat brick façades, and orderly streets, was now a chaos of smoke and fire.

Sabaneyev saw only his own vehicles inside the wire. No Belarusian armor. “Where the fuck are your forces, Colonel?”

The Belarusian simply said, “We’ve been ordered not to assist. I… I… Comrade General, what will you have me do?”

The general had experienced many forms of combat before but realized this man in front of him had never heard a shot fired in anger.

Dropping the man’s sleeve like one would a piece of garbage, the general turned and looked for the vehicles that were supposed to pick him up. The Belarusian colonel, his usefulness no longer required, raced back into the dust-filled building.

Standing amid the explosions of incoming and the boom of outgoing, his pistol drawn, General Sabaneyev glared angrily into the smoke, his last order apparently being disobeyed as the remnants of his regiment fought individual battles of survival.

In seconds he heard a growing rumble from his left, then another from his right. The high-pitched whine sounded different from the diesel engines of his own armor. From both directions, American Abrams tanks of the U.S. Army rolled into view, their main guns trained on Russian targets near the base entrance.

Sabaneyev spun around to run back inside, but the horrific ripping-canvas sound of a .50-caliber machine gun stopped him in his tracks. The automatic fire tore into the doorway, just ten meters up the stone steps from him.

The firing stopped, and the general turned back to the horror around him. In claps of thunder several T-14s down the block went up in flames, but with their magazine compartments dry of any ammo, so Sabaneyev was spared the roiling blasts of secondary explosions that he’d grown accustomed to in the past days.

A pair of German Leopard 2 tanks flashed by in pursuit of the retreating Russians, firing their cannons as they went.

Sabaneyev looked up and down the war-torn streets, disoriented by the smoke and debris on the unfamiliar Belarusian base. Could he link back up with some remnant of his fighting force? He tried to think clearly about what to do next.

But before he could decide, the hulking form of a U.S. M1A2 SEP Abrams rounded the corner of the building he stood in front of. The giant metal treads clanked along, half on the sidewalk and half in the street. Hugging the side of the building, pointing its 120mm barrel down the street a mere twenty feet away, it then pivoted in place, gouging the concrete until its full mass and its main gun pointed directly at Sabaneyev. A Yankee tank commander was up in the turret, a weathered and grim expression across his face, his pintle-mounted M240 machine gun trained on the general’s chest. The young tanker seemed to be debating whether it was better to gun him down with the machine gun or just slice him in half with a main gun round.

Colonel General Sabaneyev dropped his pistol onto the frozen steps and raised his hands, a bewildered expression on his handsome but exhausted face.