Red Metal

CHAPTER 83

Lazar’s departing army was tracked from above by no fewer than three satellites and two Air Force reconnaissance planes, and round-the-clock Marine Corps aircraft from the USS America. The Marines weren’t taking any chances on the Russians reconstituting and popping up somewhere else. Theirs was a remnant of an army now, heading north to Djibouti, a trip that would take them days, as they dragged with them whatever vehicles and equipment were still working.

General Boris Lazar walked on the road alongside his command vehicle, surrounded by dismounted troops. Like his men, he looked terribly bedraggled; his uniform was torn, and his boots were caked with dark red clumps of earth. His broken arm hung in a sling, and his face was an almost impenetrable mask of dirt, with giant circles left from where his goggles had covered his eyes before he took them off to let the sweat dry out of them.

While hundreds of men rode in the armored vehicles, thousands more walked, limping back north at just a few kilometers an hour. The Kenyan government was in the process of rounding up buses to help with the lift back to Djibouti, but no one knew when the transports would materialize. The Kenyans did have an incentive to get the vanquished Russians the hell out of their country, but they weren’t operating with much real enthusiasm. If the Russian forces dropped dead in the heat while walking the length of their nation, well, then the Kenyans would be well rid of them.

Major Ustinov, Colonel Kir’s adjutant, had taken over for his fallen superior. He stood up in the turret of Lazar’s BTR now and called down to him over the noise of the long row of vehicles. “General? First Regiment says they have confiscated some fuel and are making a good pace.”

“And 2nd and 3rd?”

“Both report the men are tired, but they have the strength to continue. I told them that once we get back to Moyale, we will give them a rest and perhaps confiscate more fuel, food, and water.”

“Yes. We will do that.” He was so used to having these conversations with Kir, it was surreal to be dealing with someone else working in Kir’s capacity.

Ustinov said, “General, do you wish to ride awhile?”

Kir would have known better than to ask, he thought to himself. “No. The wounded need the space in there. And I would rather walk with the men.” He smiled in spite of the situation; his coffee- and tobacco-stained teeth seemed to be covered in a layer of dirt and grit. “I will go back and visit with the men of 3rd Regiment for a bit now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Ustinov nodded. He’d been around long enough to know the general wasn’t just making small talk with the soldiers; he really enjoyed the men’s company.

The general stopped in the road, turned, and went off looking for what remained of 3rd Regiment.

“Watch this little maneuver,” said Sandra Glisson with a wry smile. She held the video game controller with her right hand and pushed the “X” button repeatedly. On the TV screen her Apache helicopter spun around 180 degrees; rockets launched from the pods and slammed into Jesse’s Russian Mil Mi-24 assault helicopter. Jesse dropped his PlayStation controller on his bed in a fit of rage as his helicopter spun toward the ground, burning and smoking.

“That’s bullshit!” he said.

“Face it. I kicked your ass.”

“Whatever, Glitter. It’s just because you cheated and stole the only Apache.”

She leaned over, straining to get her mouth on the straw sticking out of the can of Coke laced with Jack Daniel’s that Lieutenant Thomas had brought her. Bourbon and Coke wasn’t her favorite, but this is what Thomas had been able to slip past the watchful U.S. Army guards here at Landstuhl, so that made it good enough.

Her body cast kept her in a near-rigid state. She was covered from her ankles to just above her waist. One arm was in a cast and held up and out by a plastic bar. She gulped down the drink and reached over with her good arm to pull the copy of the English-language newspaper from under two vases of flowers. She propped it up on the traction machine that connected her with pulleys and steel wires to the big bed frame.

She sighed to herself as she flipped the pages, looking at the articles and ads, her mind and body restless from being cooped up. Another three weeks in the hospital, and then, she’d been told, the real pain would begin. Rehab to get her back aligned and, eventually, to get her walking again.

Permanent injury was a very real possibility, the docs had told her. But she had ignored their warnings. They didn’t know what she was made of. She planned on blowing their minds with her progress.

Still, it was depressing when she thought about it, so she did everything she could not to think about it.

And the Jack was helping with that.

She leafed through the paper, stopping to read an article about the Marine Corps action in Africa. “Hey, Jesse, did you see this article about all this Marine crap in Kenya?”

Her copilot wasn’t as badly injured, but a broken femur would keep him virtually bedridden for a few weeks.

“Whatever,” he said. “Marines fighting their little sideshow doesn’t interest me. The big battle was up here.”

“They interview a few of these Marines who talk about fighting the Russians with close to nothing. Little armor, dwindling ammunition, just like hanging on by the skin of their teeth.”

“Sounds like bad planning from the Marines. Someone should have packed more ammo.”

“Here’s an interview with a Marine tanker; says they lost almost their whole company.”

“Thirty-seventh Armored lost over a battalion’s worth of tanks. What we did, and those tank guys from the 37th did, and the pilots, the French special forces—that is the real shit. I even heard about some Polish civilians who aced, like, five or ten tanks using just RPGs and rocks and shit. Pretty badass.”

Sandra Glisson laughed, but it hurt her from head to toe to do so. After a moment she closed her eyes, ignoring the pain and itching, and told herself that she was tough enough to fight the Russians, so she was more than tough enough to endure the next year or more of rehab.

The band struck up “Mazurek Dąbrowskiego”: “Poland is not lost… whilst we still live.” The national anthem, it was meant to boost the morale of Polish soldiers serving with Napoleon and symbolized their nation’s longing to remain free from oppression. The army men’s choir sang the tune with verve and pride as Paulina Tobiasz, along with eight men, stood at attention. Two of the men were on crutches and one had been in a wheelchair but had pulled himself to his feet with Paulina’s help; he leaned on her during the anthem.

All wore various uniforms of the Republic of Poland.

A wave of guilt passed over Paulina as she glanced at these men, a few now crippled for life.

After all, what had she done? All she did was survive.

No, she did something more. The simple act of switching the train tracks had made a difference, or at least someone told her it had.

She knew she should be proud, but the intense melancholy she felt would not allow her any positive emotions right now.

Paulina had to keep reminding herself that she was now an officer in the Polish Land Forces. Too valuable a commodity to be let go from active service, she’d received a personal warrant from the president the evening before. She didn’t really want to be a leader, but the president had been insistent, so Paulina had been coerced into becoming one of Poland’s newest second lieutenants.

A week and a half ago her aspirations ran only as high as the assistant manager’s position at House Café Warszawa, leading a team of baristas.

She looked out into the crowd, finally found her father and brother, and looked away self-consciously when she realized her dad was openly weeping.

The band fell silent and President Zielinski stepped forward and faced the gathered crowd in the center of Warsaw’s Old Town, just half a block from Paulina’s coffee shop. A few people hissed — rumors had just gotten out about Zielinski’s decision to draw the Russians into Wrocław — but the gathering was mostly respectful.

The massive crowd was huddled together as light snow fell, their steaming breath rising in the chill winter air.

The president said, “Behind me stand some heroes we wish to thank for their services to the nation. They will graciously accept these honors because they know that the honors they receive today represent the courage and bravery of many others, whom we also honor, but who instead lie now in peace beneath our feet.”

President Zielinski paused, then said, “General, present those to be awarded.”

The general, crisp in his sharply starched dress uniform, belted out the order: “Personnel to be decorated… front and center, march.”

In unison Paulina and the others walked and hobbled forward. They saluted together and remained at attention.

Cameras flashed.

The president stepped up to each honoree and pinned the gold Virtuti Militari medal, the second-highest military honor in the nation, upon his or her chest. They each saluted in turn and shook the president’s hand.

Paulina was last. She was not nervous or scared; she just hoped to get this over with as fast as possible. She didn’t want the attention, and anyway, she had somewhere else to be.

The band struck up again and Paulina and the men made an about-face and moved away. She helped the wounded man back into his wheelchair and then stepped down the stairs to the street. News crews clamored for an interview with her: the image of her being shot by a Russian soldier taken the first morning of the battle had been printed in every paper in Poland by now, and it had gone around the world on the Internet as a symbol of the fighting, but no one had heard a word from her.

Nor would they. She walked by the press without speaking.

The group was soon led into a dressing room and they changed back into their civilian attire. The PLF captain appointed as their handler gave them stiff instructions for the dinner in their honor. “Do not even think of being late,” he said. “We will have your uniforms pressed and ready for you. Now you are free until 1900 hours. Dismissed.”

Paulina, her hair still tucked into a centerline braid, pulled a sparkly silver stocking cap over her ears and ducked out the underground passageway they’d been instructed to use to avoid the media.

She boarded the M1 subway, then stepped off at Plac Wilsona, named in honor of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson after World War I. The Communists had, of course, renamed it when they held Poland under their thumb, but in a ceremony after the fall of the Soviet Union it was changed back to its original name.

She walked awhile in the snow, stopping only once, at a small florist shop on Słowackiego Street to pick out two bouquets. One was an upbeat assortment of sunflowers and daisies. The other was a big arrangement tied together with colorful pink ribbons and bows with blue forget-me-nots, white lilies, and two beautiful red roses. It had been hard to get the flowers in winter with all the wartime disruptions, but Paulina found her name was now good for something.

The walk was cold but pleasant enough. Paulina watched life shifting back to some semblance of normality here in the capital.

She was certain things looked very different in Wrocław.

The backfire of a delivery truck made her drop the two bouquets. She picked them up and brushed them both off lovingly and continued down Powązkowska Street, turning through the iron gates of Wojskowy Military Cemetery. As she entered, she could see the many dark brown cuts in the earth where fresh graves had been laid. Many families in somber moods wearing black also walked the footpaths among the tombstones, visiting relatives recently lost in the conflict.

She walked to the center of the cemetery. There stood a black artillery caisson, a large wagon that would normally be pulled by horses. On top of the wagon was a casket, but there were no horses in sight.

Two Polish soldiers and two U.S. airmen at attention guarded the casket. The Polish soldiers recognized Paulina in spite of her low-key appearance. They spoke in hushed tones to the USAF men, who glanced at Paulina with curiosity. All the men then moved off together a respectful distance and shooed a few onlookers back to give her some privacy.

Paulina ascended the leather rungs of the wagon, the caisson’s metal leaf springs squeaking as she did so. She pulled her heavy down coat around her, gathering the fur lining closer to her face and neck, and she sat in the seat, facing the U.S. flag‒draped casket.

She put her hands out and touched the flag and placed the red, white, and blue flowers on top.

Paulina sighed for a moment and thought silently; then her eyes fell to the little silver promissory ring on her finger. She twirled it in her fingers, pulling it off and reading the inscription for the hundredth time since it was handed to her the previous day by a TDF militia officer who immediately suspected who it belonged to when he was told about its discovery next to the body of an American pilot.

The inscription read: “Bonded by fire. With love, Ray.”

She wept openly there for several minutes.

Finally she descended the creaky carriage, its protestations louder now, as if begging her not to leave. She took one last glance at the casket holding Captain Raymond “Shank” Vance’s body, then turned and walked back to the metro, the eyes of the four sentries following her.