Red Storm Rising

28. Breakthroughs

"Be careful, Pasha."

"As always, Comrade General." Alekseyev smiled. "Come, Captain."

Sergetov fell in behind his superior. Unlike during their previous frontline outing, both men wore protective body armor. The General carried only a sidearm to go along with his map case, but the captain was now officially a bodyguard in addition to a staff officer and had a small Czech submachine gun slung over his shoulder. He was a different man today, the captain saw. On Alekseyev's first trip to the front, he'd been tentative, almost hesitant in manner-it hadn't occurred to the younger man that, as senior as Alekseyev was, he had never seen combat before and had approached this gravest of contests with the same sort of apprehension as a new private. No longer. He had smelled the smoke. Now he knew how things worked or didn't work. The change was remarkable. His father was right, Sergetov thought, he was a man to be reckoned with. They were joined in their helicopter by an Air Force colonel. The Mi-24 lifted off in darkness, its fighter escort overhead.

Not many people appreciated the importance of the videocassette recorder. A useful convenience for the home, to be sure, but not until a captain in the Royal Dutch Air Force had demonstrated a bright idea two years before had its battlefield utility been proven in secret exercises first in Germany, then in the Western United States.

NATO radar surveillance aircraft NATO radar surveillance aircraft kept their customary positions high over the Rhein. The E-3A Sentry aircraft, better known as AWACS, and the smaller, lesser-known TR-1, flew their missions in boring circles or straight lines far behind the fighting front. They had similar but different functions. The AWACS was mainly concerned with air traffic. The TR-1, an upgraded version of the venerable U-2, looked for vehicles on the ground. Initially the TR-1 had been something of a failure. Because it tracked too many targets, many of them immobile radar reflectors set everywhere by the Soviets, the NATO commanders had been deluged with information that was too disordered to use. Then came the VCR. All the data relayed from the aircraft was recorded on videotape anyway since it was a convenient medium for data storage, but the VCRs built into the NATO system possessed only a few operating features. The Dutch captain thought to bring his personal machine into his office, and demonstrated how by using fast forward and fast reverse, the radar data could be used to show not only where things were going, but also where they had come from Computer support made the task easier by eliminating items that moved no more than once every two hours-thus erasing the Russian radar lures-and there it was, a brand-new intelligence tool.

With several copies made of each tape, a staff of over a hundred intelligence and traffic-control experts examined the data round the clock. Some engaged in straight tactical intelligence. Others looked for patterns. A large number of trucks moving at night to and from front-fine units could only mean shuttle runs to fuel and ammunition dumps. A number of vehicles breaking away from a divisional convoy and deploying in line parallel to the front meant artillery preparing for an attack. The real trick, they had learned, was to get the data to the forward commanders quickly enough so they could make use of it.

At Lammersdorf, a Belgian lieutenant was just finishing up a tape that was six hours old, and his report was sent by land line to the forward NATO commanders. At least three divisions had been moved north and south on Autobahn-7, he reported. The Soviets would attack at Bad Salzdetfurth in strength, sooner than expected. Immediately, reserve units from the Belgian, German, and American armies were rushed forward, and allied air units alerted for a major land action. Fighting in this sector had been vicious enough already. The German forces covering the area south of Hannover were at less than 50-percent strength, and the battle that had not yet begun was already a race, as both sides tried to get reserves to the point of attack before the other.

"Thirty minutes," Alekseyev told Sergetov. Four motor-rifle divisions were on line, covering a front of less than twenty kilometers. Behind them a tank division waited to exploit the first breach in German lines. The objective was the town of Alfeld on the Leine River. The town commanded two roads being used by NATO to shuttle units and supplies north and south, and its capture would open a breach in the NATO lines, allowing the Soviet operational/maneuver groups to burst into NATO's rear.

"Comrade General, how are things progressing in your opinion?" the captain asked quietly.

"Ask me in a few hours," the General answered. The river valley to his rear was yet another wasteland of men and arms. They were only thirty kilometers from the border-and the Red Army's tanks had been expected to reach Holle in only two days. Alekseyev frowned, wondering what staff genius had come up with that timetable. Again the human factor had been overlooked. The morale and fighting spirit of the Germans was like nothing he had ever seen. He remembered his father's stories of the battles across the Ukraine and Poland, but he had never quite believed them. He believed them now. The Germans contested every lump of dirt in their country like wolves defending their cubs, retreating only when they were forced to, counterattacking at every opportunity, draining the blood from the advancing Russian units as they brought every weapon they had to bear.

Soviet doctrine had predicted heavy losses. The battle of movement could be achieved only by costly frontal assault which first had to blast a hole in the front lines-but the NATO armies were denying that hole to the Soviets. Their sophisticated weapons, firing from safe, prepared positions, were ripping through each attack wave. Their aircraft attacks in the Soviet rear sapped the strength of units before they could be committed to decisive battle and played hob with artillery support despite the most careful deceptive measures.

The Red Army was moving forward, Alekseyev reminded himself, and NATO was paying its own price. Their reserves were also being thinned out. The German forces were not using their mobility as Alekseyev would have, too often tying themselves to geographic locations instead of fighting the Soviet forces on the move. Of course, the General thought, they didn't have very much terrain to trade for time. He checked his watch.

A sheet of flame rose from the forests below him as Russian artillery began its preparatory bombardment. Next came the multiple-rocket launchers, and the morning sky was alight with streaks of fire. Alekseyev turned his binoculars downrange. In a few seconds he saw the orange-white explosions of the rounds as they impacted on NATO lines. He was too far from the fighting front to see any detail, but an area that had to be many kilometers across, lit up like the neon signs so popular in the West. There was a roar overhead, and the General saw the leading elements of the ground-attack fighters racing to the front.

"Thank you, Comrade General," Alekseyev breathed. He counted at least thirty Sukhoi and MiG fighter-bombers, all hugging the ground as they headed toward the battle line. His face crinkled into a determined smile as he walked into the command bunker.

"The lead elements are moving now," a colonel announced. On a table made of rough planks laid across sawhorses, grease pencil marks were made on the tactical maps. Red arrows began their march toward a series of blue lines. The plotters were all lieutenants, and each wore a telephone headset linked to a specific regimental headquarters. The officers connected to reserve units stood away from the table, puffing on their cigarettes as they watched the march of the arrows. Behind them the commander of 8th Guards Army stood quietly, watching his plan of attack unfold.

"Meeting moderate resistance. Enemy artillery and tank fire is being encountered," a lieutenant said.

Explosions rocked the command bunker. Two kilometers away, a flight of German Phantoms had just torn into a battalion of mobile guns.

"Enemy fighters overhead," the air defense officer said belatedly. A few eyes looked apprehensively up at the log ceiling of the bunker. Alekseyev's didn't join them. A NATO smart-bomb would kill them all in a blink. Much as he enjoyed his post as deputy commander of the theater, he wished himself back to the days when he had commanded a fighting division. Here he was only an observer, and he felt the need to have the reins in his own two hands.

"Artillery reports heavy counterbattery fire and air attacks. Our missiles are engaging enemy aircraft in the 57th Motor-Rifle Division's rear area," the air defense officer went on. "Heavy air activity over the front."

"Our fighters are engaging NATO aircraft," the Frontal Aviation officer reported. He looked up angrily. "Friendly SAMs are shooting down our fighters!"

"Air Defense Officer!" Alekseyev shouted. "Tell your units to identify their targets!"

"We have fifty aircraft over the front. We can handle the NATO fighters alone!" the aviator insisted.

"Tell all SAM batteries to hold fire on all targets above one thousand meters," Alekseyev ordered. He had discussed this with his Frontal Aviation commander the night before. The MiG pilots were to stay high after making their own attack runs, leaving the missile and gun batteries free to engage only those NATO aircraft that were an immediate threat to ground units. Why were his own planes getting hit?

Thirty thousand feet over the Rhein, two NATO E-3A radar aircraft fought for their fives. A determined Soviet attack was under way, two regiments of MiG-23 interceptors rocketing through the sky toward them. The on-board controllers were calling for help. This both distracted them from countering the attack, and stripped fighters from other missions. Heedless of their own safety, the Russians came west at over a thousand miles per hour with heavy jamming support. American F-15 Eagles and French Mirage jets converged on the threat, filling the sky with missiles. It was not enough. When the MiGs got to within sixty miles, the AWACS aircraft shut down their radars and dove for the ground to evade the attack. The NATO fighters over Bad Salzdetfurth were on their own. For the first time the Soviets had achieved air superiority over a major battlefield.

"Hundred-forty-third Guards Rifle Regiment reports they have broken through German lines," a lieutenant said. He didn't look up, but extended the arrow for which he was responsible. "Enemy units retreating in disarray."

"Hundred-forty-fifth Guards checking in," reported the plotting officer next to him. "The first line of German resistance has collapsed. Proceeding south along the axis of the rail line… enemy units are on the run. They are not regrouping, not attempting to turn."

The general commanding 8th Guards Army gave Alekseyev a triumphant look. "Get that tank division moving!"

The two understrength German brigades covering this sector had suffered too much, been called upon to stop too many attacks. Their men spent, their weapons depleted, they had no choice but to run from the enemy, hoping to form a new line in the woods behind Highway 243. At Hackenstedt, four kilometers away, 20th Guards Tank Division started moving down the road. Its three hundred T-80 main battle tanks, supported by several hundred more infantry assault carriers, spread left and right of the secondary road and formed its attack formation in columns of regiments. The 20th Tanks was the operation/maneuver group for 8th Guards Army. Since the war had begun, the Soviet Army had been trying to break one of these powerful units into the NATO rear. It was now possible.

"Well done, Comrade General," Alekseyev said. The plotting table showed a general breakthrough. Three of the four attacking motor-rifle divisions had broken through the German lines.

The MiGs succeeded in killing one of the AWACS aircraft and three Eagle fighters, at the price of nineteen of their own, in a furious air battle that lasted fifteen minutes. The surviving AWACS was back at altitude now, eighty miles behind the Rhein, and its radar operators were working to reestablish control of the air battle over central Germany as the MiGs ran for home through a cloud of NATO surface-to-air missiles. At murderous cost they had accomplished a mission for which they had not even been briefed.

But this was only the beginning. Now that the initial attack had succeeded, the most difficult part of the battle was under way. The generals and colonels commanding the attack had to move their units forward rapidly, careful to keep the formations intact as they leapfrogged their artillery southwest to provide continuous support for the advancing regiments. The tank division had the highest priority. It had to hit the next set of German lines only minutes behind the motor-rifle troops, in order to reach Alfeld before nightfall. Units of the field police established preplanned traffic-control points, and directed units down roads whose marker signs had been removed by the Germans-of course. The process was not as easy as might have been expected. Units were not intact. Some commanders were dead, vehicles had broken down, and damaged roads slowed traffic well below normal rates of advance.

For their part the German troops were trying to reorganize. Rear guard units lingered behind every turn in the road, pausing to loose their antitank missiles at the hard-charging Soviet advance guard, which took a particularly heavy toll of unit commanders. Allied aircraft were reorganizing also, and low-level attack fighters began to engage the Soviet units in the open.

Behind the sundered battle line a German tank brigade rolled into Alfeld, with a Belgian motorized regiment ten minutes behind. The Germans proceeded northeast on the main road, watched by citizens who had just been ordered to evacuate their homes.

"No luck, eh?" asked Todd Simms, commander of USS Boston.

"None," McCafferty confirmed. Even the trip into Faslane had been unlucky. The guard ship for the safe-transit corridor, HMS Osiris, had gotten into attack position without their having detected her. Had that Brit diesel sub been a Russian, McCafferty could very well be dead now. "We had our big chance against that amphibious group. Things were going perfect, y'know? The Russians had their sonobuoy lines out, and we beat them clean, just about had our targets lined up for the missile attack-I figured we'd hit with our missiles first, then go in with torpedoes-"

"Sounds good to me," Simms agreed.

"And somebody else launches his own torpedo attack. Screwed everything up. We lofted three Harpoons, but a helo saw us do it, and, bingo! we had the bastards all over us." McCafferty pulled open the door to the Officers Club. "I need a drink!"

"Hell, yes!" Simms laughed. "Everything looks better after a few beers. Hey, that sort of thing happens. Luck changes, Danny." Simms leaned over the bar. "Two strong ones."

"As you say, Commander." A white-coated steward drew two mugs of warm, dark beer. Simms picked up the bill and led his friend to a corner booth. There was some sort of small party going on at the far end of the room.

"Danny, for crying out loud, let up on yourself. Not your fault that Ivan didn't send you any targets, is it?"

McCafferty took a long pull on his mug. Two miles away Chicago was reprovisioning. They'd be in port for two days. Boston and another 688-class sub were tied to the same quay, with another pair due in later today.

They were to be outfitted for a special mission, but they didn't yet know what it was. In the meantime, the officers and crewmen were using their modicum of free time to breathe fresh air and unwind. "You're right, Todd, right as ever."

"Good. Have some pretzels. Looks like quite a shindig over there. How about we wander over?" Simms lifted his beer and walked to the end of the room.

They found a gathering of submarine officers, which was not a surprise, but the center of attention was. He was a Norwegian captain, a blond man of about thirty who clearly hadn't been sober for several hours. As soon as he drained one jar of beer, a Royal Navy commander handed him another.

"I must find the man who save us!" the Norwegian insisted loudly and drunkenly.

"What gives?" Simms asked. Introductions were exchanged. The Royal Navy officer was captain of HMS Oberon.

"This is the chappie who blasted Kirov all the way back to Murmansk," he said. "He tells the story about every ten minutes. About time for him to begin again."

"Son of a bitch," McCafferty said. This was the guy who had sunk his target! Sure enough, the Norwegian began speaking again.

"We make our approach slowly. They come right"-he belched-"to us, and we creep very slow. I put periscope up, and there he is! Four thousand meters, twenty knots, he will pass within five hundred meters starboard." The beer mug swept toward the floor. "Down periscope! Arne-where are you, Arne? Oh, is drunk at table. Arne is weapons officer. He set to fire four torpedoes. Type thirty-seven, American torpedoes." He gestured at the two American officers who had just joined the crowd.

Four Mark-37s! McCafferty winced at the thought. That could ruin your whole day.

"Kirov is very close now. Up periscope! Course same, speed same, distance now two thousand meters-I shoot! One! Two! Three! Four! Reload and dive deep."

"You're the guy who ruined my approach!" McCafferty shouted.

The Norwegian almost appeared sober for a moment. "Who are you?"

"Dan McCafferty, USS Chicago.

"You were there?"

"Yes."

"You shoot missiles?"

"Yes."

"Hero!" The Norwegian submarine commander ran to McCafferty, almost knocking him down as he wrapped the American in a crushing bear hug. "You save my men! You save my ship!"

"What the hell is this?" Simms asked.

"Oh, introductions," said a Royal Navy captain. "Captain Bjorn Johannsen of His Norwegian Majesty's submarine Kobben. Captain Daniel McCafferty of USS Chicago."

"After we shoot Kirov, they come around us like wolves. Kirov blow up-"

"Four fish? I believe it," Simms agreed.

"Russians come to us with cruiser, two destroyers," Johannsen continued, now quite sober. "We, ah, evade, go deep, but they find us and fire their RBU rockets-many, many rockets. Most far, some close. We reload and I shoot at cruiser."

"You hit her?"

"One hit, hurt but not sink. This take, I am not sure, ten minutes, fifteen. It was very busy time, yes?"

"Me, too. We came in fast, flipped on the radar. There were three ships where we thought Kirov was."

"Kirov was sunk-blow up! What you see was cruiser and two destroyers. Then you shoot missiles, yes?" Johannsen's eyes sparkled.

"Three Harpoons. A Helix saw the launch and came after us. We evaded, never did know if the missiles hit anything."

"Hit? Hah! Let me tell you." Johannsen gestured. "We dead, battery down. We have damage now, cannot run. We already evade four torpedoes, but they have us now. Sonar have us. Destroyer fire RBU at us. First three miss, but they have us. Then-Boom! Boom! Boom! Many more. Destroyer blow up. Other hit, but not sink, I think.

"We escape." Johannsen hugged McCafferty again, and both spilled their beer on the floor. The American had never seen a Norwegian display this much emotion, even around his wife. "My crew alive because of you, Chicago! I buy you drink. I buy all your men drink."

"You are sure we killed that tin can?"

"You not kill," Johannsen said. "My ship dead, my men dead, I dead. You kill." A destroyer wasn't exactly as good as sinking a nuclear-powered battle cruiser, McCafferty told himself, but it was a whole lot better than nothing, too. And a piece of another, he reminded himself. And who knows, maybe that one sank on the way home.

"Not too shabby, Dan," Simms observed.

"Some people," said the skipper of HMS Oberon, "have all the bloody luck!"

"You know, Todd," said the commanding officer of USS Chicago, "this is pretty good beer."

There were only two bodies to bury. Another fourteen men were missing and presumed dead, but for all that, Morris counted himself fortunate. Twenty sailors were injured to one extent or another. Clarke's broken forearm, a number of broken ankles from the shock of the torpedo impact, and a half-dozen bad scaldings from ruptured steam pipes. That didn't count minor cuts from flying glass.

Morris read through the ceremony in the manual, his voice emotionless as he went through the words about the sure and certain hope of how the sea will one day give up her dead… On command the seamen tilted up the mess tables. The bodies wrapped in plastic bags and weighted with steel slid out from under the flags, dropping straight into the water. It was ten thousand feet deep here, a long last trip for his executive officer and a third-class gunner's mate from Detroit. The rifle salute followed, but not taps. There was no one aboard who could play a trumpet, and the tape recorder was broken. Morris closed the book.

"Secure and carry on."

The flags were folded properly and taken to the sail locker. The mess tables were carried below and the stanchions were replaced to support the lifelines. And USS Pharris was still only half a ship, fit only to be broken up for scrap, Morris knew.

The tug Papago was pulling her backwards at just more than four knots. Three days to shore. They were heading toward Boston, the closest port, rather than a naval base. The reason was clear enough. Repairs would take over a year and the Navy didn't want to clutter up one of its own repair facilities with something that would take that long. Only those ships that could be repaired for useful war service would get rapid attention.

Even his continued command of Pharris was a joke. The tug had a reserve crew, many of them salvage experts in civilian life. Three of them were aboard to keep an eye on the towing cable and "advise" Morris on the things he had to do. Their pieces of advice were really orders, but polite ones.

There were plenty of things to keep his crew busy. The forward bulkheads required constant watching and attention. Repairs were under way to the engine plant. Only one boiler was working, providing steam to turn the turbogenerators and provide electrical power. The second boiler needed at least another day of work. His main air-search radar, they said, would be working in four hours. The satellite antenna was just back on line also. By the time they reached port-if they reached port-everything aboard that his crew could fix would be fixed. That didn't really matter, but a busy crew, the Navy has always said, is a happy crew. In practical terms it meant that the crewmen, unlike their captain, did not have time to brood on what mistakes had been made, the lives that had been lost because of them, and who had made them.

Morris went to the Combat Information Center. The tactical crew was rerunning the tape and paper record of the encounter with the Victor, trying to find what had happened.

"I don't know." The sonar operator shrugged. "Maybe it was two subs, not just one. I mean, here he is, right? This bright trail here-then a couple minutes later the active sonar picked him up over here."

"Only one sub," Morris said. "Getting from here to there is about a four-minute run at twenty-five knots."

"But we didn't hear him, sir, an' it don't show on the screen. Besides, he was heading the other way when we lost him." The sonarman rewound the tape to run it a again.

"Yeah." Morris went back to the bridge, playing it over again in his mind. He had the entire sequence memorized now. He walked out on the bridge wing. The spray shields were still perforated, and there was a faint bloodstain where the XO had died. Someone would be painting over that today. Chief Clarke had all kinds of work gangs going. Morris fit a cigarette and stared at the horizon.

The helicopter was the last warning they needed. Edwards and his party were heading northeast. They passed through an area of many small lakes, crossed a gravel road after waiting an hour to see what the traffic there was like-none-and began to traverse a series of marshes. By this time Edwards was thoroughly confused by the terrain. The mixture of bare rock, grassy meadows, lava fields, and now a freshwater marsh made him wonder if Iceland might not be the place where God had put everything that had been left over after the world was built. Evidently He'd made just the right amount of trees, though, because there were none here, and their best cover was the knee-high grass that sprouted from the water. It must be hardy grass, Edwards thought, since this marsh had been frozen not too long ago. It was still cold, and within minutes of entering the marshes everyone's legs ached with it. They endured the misery. The alternative was to travel on bare and slightly elevated ground, not something to be contemplated with enemy helicopters about.

Vigdis surprised them with her endurance. She kept up with the Marines without faltering or complaining. A true country girl, Edwards thought, she was still benefiting from a childhood of chasing the family sheep around-or whatever it was you did with sheep―and climbing these Goddamned hills.

"Okay, people, take ten," Edwards called. Immediately everyone looked for a dry spot to collapse. Mainly they found rocks. Rocks in a marsh! Edwards thought. Garcia kept watch with the purloined Russian binoculars. Smith lit up a cigarette. Edwards turned around to see Vigdis sitting down next to him.

"How do you feel?"

"Very tired," she said with a slight smile. "But not so tired as you."

"Is that so!" Edwards laughed. "Maybe we should step up the pace."

"Where we go?"

"We're going to Hvammsfjordur. They didn't say why. I figure another four or five days. We want to stay clear of all the roads we can."

"To protect me, yes?" Edwards shook his head.

"To protect all of us. We don't want to fight anybody. There's too many Russians around to play soldier games."

"So, I don't hurt-ah, stop you from important things?" Vigdis asked.

"Not at all. We're all happy to have you with us. Who wouldn't like a walk in the country with a beautiful girl?" Edwards asked gallantly. Was that a smart thing to say?

She gave him a strange look. "You think I pretty, after-after-"

"Vigdis, if you were hit by a truck-yes, you are very beautiful. No man could change that. What happened to you was not your fault. What ever changes it made are inside, not outside. And I know somebody must like you."

"My baby, you mean? Mistake. He find another girl. This is not important, all my friends have babies." She shrugged it off.

That stupid son of a bitch, Edwards thought. He remembered that bastardy carried no stigma on Iceland. Since no one had a surname most of the Icelanders had given names followed by patronyrnics-you couldn't even tell the difference between the legitimate and illegitimate. Besides which, the Icelanders didn't seem to give a damn one way or the other. Young unmarried girls had babies, took proper care of them, and that was that. But who would walk away from this girl?

"Well, speaking for myself. Vigdis, I've never met a girl prettier than you."

"Truly?"

Her hair looked like hell, tangled and filthy, Edwards admitted to himself. Her face and clothing were covered with dust and mud. A hot shower could change that in a few minutes, revealing the lovely thing that she was. But beauty comes from within, and he was only beginning to appreciate the person inside. He ran his hand along her cheek.

"Any man who says different is an idiot." He turned to see Sergeant Smith coming over.

"Time to move, 'less you want our legs to stiffen up, Lieutenant."

"Okay. I want to make another eight or ten miles. There's farms and roads on the far side of this mountain we're walking around. We'll want to eyeball that area before we try to cross it. I'll call in from there, too."

"You got it, skipper. Rodgers! Take the point and bend it a little west."

The ride forward had not been an easy one. Eighth Guards Army moved its forward command post as close behind the leading troops as possible. Its commander, like Alekseyev, believed in having his eyes and ears as close to the front as possible. The trip took forty minutes in armored troop carriers-it was far too dangerous to use helicopters-during which Alekseyev had observed a pair of savage air attacks on Russian columns.

German and Belgian reinforcements had joined the action, and intercepts of radio messages indicated that American and British units were also en route. Alekseyev had called up more Russian units as well.

What had begun as a relatively simple push by one mechanized army was now growing into a major engagement. He took this to be a good sign. NATO would not be reinforcing if they did not regard the situation as dangerous. The Soviet task was to achieve the desired result before reinforcements came into play.

The general commanding 20th Guards Tank Division was in the command post. They'd set it up in a secondary school. A new building, it had lots of space, and until an underground bunker could be prepared, it would have to do. The pace of the advance had slowed, as much because of traffic control difficulties as from the Germans.

"Straight down this road to Sack," 8th Guards Army told the tanker. "My motor-rifle troops should have it clear by the time you get there."

"Four more kilometers to Alfeld. Yes, just make sure you can support us when we jump across the river." The General set his helmet atop his head and moved out the door. It was going to work, Alekseyev thought. This general had done a magnificent job of delivering his unit to the front in nearly perfect order.

The next thing he heard was an explosion. Windows shattered, pieces of ceiling dropped around him. The Devil's Cross had returned yet again.

Alekseyev raced outside to see a dozen burning armored vehicles. As he watched, the crew bailed out of a brand-new T-80 tank. An instant later the vehicle brewed up: a fire swept through the ammunition racks inside and a pillar of flame rose toward the sky as from a small volcano.

"The general is dead-the General is dead!" a sergeant shouted. He pointed to a BMD infantry carrier from which no one had escaped alive.

Alekseyev found the commander of the 8th Guards Army cursing beside him. "The assistant commander of that tank division is a new colonel."

Pavel Leonidovich reached a quick and convenient decision. "No, Comrade General. What about me?"

Startled, the commander stared at him, then remembered Alekseyev's reputation as a tank commander, and his father's. He made a quick decision of his own. "Twentieth Tanks is yours. You know the mission."

Another infantry assault carrier rolled up. Alekseyev and Sergetov boarded it, and the driver sped off toward the divisional command post. It took half an hour before they stopped. Alekseyev saw rows of tanks parked inside the treeline. Allied artillery was falling close by, but he ignored it. His regimental commanders were grouped together. The General quickly gave orders for objective and timing. It spoke well of the General not dead an hour that everyone here knew his mission. The division was finely organized, with every part of the assault plan already firmed up. Alekseyev saw at once that he had a good battle staff. He set them to work as his unit commanders rejoined their regiments.

His first battle headquarters was fittingly in the shade of a tall tree. His father could have wished for no better. Alekseyev smiled. He found his divisional intelligence officer. "What's the situation?"

"A battalion of German tanks is counterattacking on this road leading east from Sack. They should be contained, and in any case our vehicles are moving southwest behind them. The lead motor-rifle troops are just inside the town, and report only minor resistance. Our leading elements are now moving and should be there within the hour."

"Air Defense Officer?"

"SAMs and mobile antiaircraft guns are just behind the leading echelons. We also have friendly air cover. Two regiments of MiG-21s are on call for air defense, but we haven't had any ground-attack fighters assigned yet. They took a beating this morning-but so did the other side. We killed twelve NATO aircraft before noon."

Alekseyev nodded, dividing that number by three, as he had learned.

"Excuse me, Comrade General. I am Colonel Popov, your divisional political officer."

"Fine, Comrade Colonel. My Party dues are paid to the end of the year, and with luck I will live to pay them again. If you have something important to say, be quick!" If there was anything Alekseyev didn't need now, it was a zampolitl

"After we capture Alfeld-"

"If we capture Alfeld I will let you have the keys to the city. For the present, let me do my job. Dismissed!" Probably wanted permission to shoot suspected fascists. As a four-star general, Alekseyev could not ignore political officers, but at least he could ignore those under the rank of general. He walked over to the tactical maps. On one side as before, lieutenants showed the advance of his-his! — units. On the other, intelligence officers were assembling what data they had on enemy opposition. He grabbed the shoulder of his operations officer.

"I want that lead regiment right behind the motor-rifle troops. If they need some help, give it to them. I want this breakthrough and I want it today. What artillery do we have set up?"

"Two battalions of heavy guns are ready now."

"Good. If those infantry have targets for them, find out, and let's start hitting them now. This is not a time for finesse. NATO knows we're here, and our worst enemy is time. Time works for them, not for us." The operations officer and artillery commander got together, and two minutes later his 152mm guns were delivering fire to the front. He'd have to have a medal awarded to the dead commander of 20th Tanks, Alekseyev decided; the man deserved a reward of some kind for the training he saw evident in this staff.

"Enemy air attack in progress," a plotting officer said.

"Enemy tanks emerging from woods east of Sack, estimate battalion strength. Heavy artillery fire supporting the Germans."

He had to trust his colonels now, Alekseyev knew. The time at which a general could observe the entire battle and control it was long past. His staff officers made their little marks on the map. The Germans should have waited, the General thought, they should have let the division spearhead go through, then attack the division supply column. That was foolish, the first time he had seen a German commander make a tactical error. Probably a junior officer who had relieved a dead or wounded superior, or perhaps a man whose home was nearby. Whatever the reason, it was a mistake and Alekseyev was profiting by it. His leading two tank regiments took losses, but they smashed the German counterattack in ten furious minutes.

"Two kilometers-leading elements now two kilometers from Sack. Opposition from artillery only. Friendly units are in sight. Infantry troops in Sack report minor resistance only. The town is nearly clear. Forward scouts report the road to Alfeld is open!"

"Bypass Sack," Alekseyev ordered. "The objective is Alfeld on the Leine."

It was a scratch team. American mechanized infantrymen and the lead tank squadron of an advancing British brigade reinforced the remains of Germans and Belgians who had been crushed by five Soviet divisions that day. There was little time. Combat engineers worked furiously with their armored bulldozers to scrape shelters for the tanks while infantrymen dug holes for their antitank weapons. A cloud of dust on the horizon was all the warning they needed. A division of tanks was reported heading their way, and the civilians had not entirely evacuated the town behind them. Twenty miles behind them, a squadron of ground-attack aircraft circled, waiting for the call-down signal.

"Enemy in sight!" a lookout on a church steeple radioed. In seconds artillery fire lashed at the leading Soviet columns. Antitank-missile crew popped the covers off their targeting scopes and loaded the first weapons of what promised to be a long afternoon. The Challenger tanks of 3rd Royal Tank Regiment settled into their holes, hatches shut tight as the gunners zeroed their sights on distant targets. Things were too confused and there had not been enough time to establish a firm chain of command here. An American was first to fire. The TOW-2 missile sped downrange its control wires trailing out behind like a spider's web as it reached four kilometers to a T-80 tank.

"Advanced elements are now under fire from enemy missile teams," reported a plotting officer.

"Flatten them!" Alekseyev ordered his artillery commander. Within a minute the division's multiple-rocket launchers were filling the sky with trails of fire. Tube artillery fire added to the carnage at the battle line Then NATO artillery joined the fray in earnest.

"Lead regiment is taking losses."

Alekseyev watched the map in silence. There was no room for deceptive maneuver here, nor was there time. His men had to race through the enemy lines as quickly as possible in order to seize the bridges on the Leine. That meant that his leading tank crews would suffer heavily. The breakthrough would have its own heavy price, but the price had to be paid.

Twelve Belgian F-16 fighters swept in low over the front at five hundred knots, dropping tons of cluster munitions on the lead Soviet regiment, killing nearly thirty tanks and a score of infantry carriers less than a kilometer from the allied lines. A swarm of missiles rose into the sky after them, and the single-engine fighters turned west, skimming over the ground in their attempt to evade. Three were smashed to the ground, and fell among the NATO troops, adding to the carnage already created by Soviet fire. The commander of the British tanks saw that he lacked the firepower to stop the Soviet attack. There just wasn't enough. It was time to leave while his battalion was still able to fight. He alerted his companies to be ready to pull out and tried to get the word to neighboring units. But the troops around Alfeld came from four different armies, with separate languages and radio settings. There hadn't been time to establish exactly who was in overall command. The Germans didn't want to leave. The town had not yet been fully evacuated, and the German troops would not desert their positions until their countrymen were safely across the river. The Americans and Belgians began to move when the British colonel told them to, but not the Germans, and the result was chaos within the NATO lines.

"Forward observers report enemy units moving back on the right, repeat, enemy units appear to be disengaging on the northern side of the town."

"Move the second regiment north, loop around and head for the bridges, fast as they can. Disregard losses and charge for those damned bridges! Operations Officer, keep pressure on all enemy units. We want to trap them on this side and finish them if we can," Alekseyev ordered. "Sergetov, come with me. I have to go forward."

The attack had ripped the heart out of his lead regiment, Alekseyev knew, but it had been worth the cost. The NATO forces would have to move their units through a smashed town to get to the bridges, and having the allied units on the north side disengage first was a godsend. Now with a fresh regiment he'd be able to run over them and, if he were very lucky, get the bridges intact. This he'd have to supervise himself. Alekseyev and Sergetov boarded a tracked vehicle, which motored southeast to catch the maneuvering regiment. Behind them his operations officer began to give new orders over the divisional radio net.

Five kilometers on the far side of the river, a battery of German 155mm guns was waiting for this opportunity. They had remained silent, waiting for their radio-intercept experts to pin down the divisional headquarters. Quickly the gunners punched the target data into their firecontrol computers while others loaded high-explosive shells. Every gun in the battery trained out on an identical azimuth. The ground shook when they began rapid fire.

A hundred shells fell in and around the divisional headquarters in less than two minutes. Half the battle staff was killed outright, most of the others wounded.

Alekseyev looked at his radio headset. His third close brush with death. That was my fault. I should have checked the siting of the radio transmitter I must not make that mistake again… Damn! Damn! Damn!

Alfeld's streets were clogged with civilian vehicles. The Americans in their Bradley tracked vehicles avoided the town entirely, hurrying down the right bank of the Leine and crossing to the other side in good order. There, they took positions on the hills overlooking Leine, and set up to cover the crossing of the other allied troops. The Belgians were next. Only a third of their tanks had survived, and these covered the southern flank on the far side of the river, hoping to stop the Russians before they were able to cross. German Swatspolizei had held back civilian traffic and allowed the armored units to pass, but this changed when Soviet artillery began bursting in the air close to the river. The Russians had hoped it would impede traffic, and it did. Civilians who had been late to follow orders to leave their homes now paid for their error. The artillery did scant damage to fighting vehicles but thoroughly wrecked civilian cars and trucks. In minutes, the streets of Alfeld were jammed with disabled and burning cars. People left them, braving the fire to run for the bridges, and the tanks trying to make their way to the river found their way blocked. Their only escape was over the bodies of innocent civilians, and even when ordered to proceed, the drivers shrank from it. Gunners rotated their turrets to face over the rear and began to engage the Russian tanks now entering the town. Smoke from burning buildings wafted across everyone's field of view. Cannon fired at targets glimpsed for a moment, rounds went wild, and the streets of Alfeld turned into a slaughterhouse of soldiers and noncombatants.

"There they are!" Sergetov pointed. Three highway bridges spanned the Leine. Alekseyev started to give orders, but they weren't necessary. The regimental commander already had his radio microphone keyed, and directed a battalion of tanks with infantry support to proceed up the west bank, following the same route, still relatively open, that the Americans had used.

The American fighting vehicles on the far side of the river opened fire with missiles and their light cannon, killing a half-dozen tanks, and the remainder of the regiment engaged them with direct fire while Alekseyev personally called down artillery on the hilltops.

In Alfeld the battle had come to a bloody standstill. The German and British tanks took up positions at intersections largely hidden from view by wrecked cars and trucks, and backed toward the river slowly as they fought to give the civilians time. The Russian infantry tried to engage them with missiles, but too often debris lying in the streets tore the flight control wires, causing the missiles to fall out of control and explode harmlessly. Russian and allied artillery fire churned the town to rubble.

Alekseyev watched his troops advancing toward the first bridge.

South of him, the commander of the lead regiment swore at his losses. More than half his tanks and assault vehicles had been destroyed. Victory was within his grasp, and now his troops had been stopped again by impassable streets and murderous fire. He saw the NATO tanks pulling slowly back, and, enraged that they were escaping, called in for artillery.

Alekseyev was surprised when the artillery fire shifted from the center of the town to the riverfront. He was shocked when he realized that it was not tube artillery fire, but rockets. As he watched, explosions appeared at random over the riverfront. Then rounds began exploding in the river in rapid succession. The rate of fire increased as more and more launchers were trained on the target, and it was already too late for him to stop them. The farthest bridge went first. Three rockets landed at once, and it came apart. Alekseyev watched in horror as over a hundred civilians fell into the churning water. His horror was not for the loss of life-he needed that bridge! Two more rockets landed on the center bridge. It did not collapse, but the damage it took was serious enough to prevent tanks from using it. The fools! Who was responsible for this? He turned to Sergetov.

"Call up the engineers. Get bridging units and assault boats to the front. They have absolute priority. Next, I want every surface-to-air missile and antiair gun battery you can find. Anyone who gets in their way will be shot. Make sure the traffic-control officers know this. Go!"

The Soviet tanks and infantry had reached the only surviving bridge. Three infantry vehicles raced to the far side and were taken under fire by the Belgians and Americans as they raced to cover. A tank followed. The T-80 rumbled across, got to the far side and exploded from an impacting missile. Another followed, then a third. Both reached the west bank. Then a British Chieftain emerged from behind a building and followed the Soviet tanks across. Alekseyev watched in amazement as it ran right between the two Soviet vehicles, neither of which saw it. An American missile ran just behind it and plowed into the ground, raising a cloud of dirt and dust. Two more Chieftains emerged at the bridgehead. One exploded from a point-blank shot by a T-80, the other fired back, killing the Russian tank a second later. Alekseyev remembered a tale from his boyhood of a brave peasant on a bridge as the British tank engaged and killed two more Soviet tanks before succumbing to a barrage of direct fire. Five more Soviet vehicles raced across the bridge.

The General lifted his headset and dialed up 8th Guards Army Headquarters. "This is Alekseyev. I have a company of troops across the Leine. I need support. We have broken through. Repeat: we have broken through the German front! I want air support and helicopters to engage NATO units north and south of Bridge 439. 1 need two regiments of infantry to assist with the river crossing. Get me support and I might have my division across by midnight."

"You'll get everything I have. My bridging units are on the way."

Alekseyev leaned against the side of his BMP. He unbuckled his canteen and took a long drink as he watched his infantry climb the hills under fire. Two complete companies were across now. Allied fire was now attempting to destroy the remaining bridge. He had to get at least a full battalion across if he wanted to hold this bridgehead for more than a few hours. "I'll get the bastard," he promised himself, "who fired on my bridges."

"Boats and bridges are en route, Comrade General," Sergetov reported. "They have first priority, and the sector traffic-control officers have been informed. Two SAM batteries are starting this way, and I found three mobile AA guns three kilometers off. They said they can be here in fifteen minutes."

"Good." Alekseyev trained his binoculars on the far bank.

"Comrade General, our infantry carriers are amphibious. Why don't we swim them across?"

"Look at the riverbank, Vanya." The General handed his glasses over. As far as he could see, the far side was all set with stone and concrete to prevent erosion. It would be difficult if not impossible for the tracked vehicles to climb that. Damn the Germans for that! "Besides, I wouldn't want to try that in anything less than regimental strength. That bridge is all we have, and it can't last very long. With the best of luck we won't have any assault bridges in place for several hours. The troops on the far side are on their own for at least that long. We'll run as many troops and vehicles across the bridge as we can, then reinforce with infantry assault boats as soon as they arrive. The book calls for this sort of crossing to be made in assault boats, under cover of darkness or smoke. I don't want to wait for night, and I need the guns to fire live shells, not harmless ones. We must break the rules, Vanya. Fortunately the book allows for that also. You have performed well, Ivan Mikhailovich. You are now a major. Don't thank me-you've earned it."

"We didn't miss 'em by much. If we'd seen them five minutes sooner, we could have taken a few out. As it was-" The Tomcat pilot shrugged.

Toland nodded. The fighters had orders to remain outside Soviet radar coverage.

"You know, it's a funny thing. There were three of them flying a nice tight formation. I had them on my TV system from fifty miles away. No way in hell they could tell we were there. If we had better range, we could follow them all the way home. Like that game the Germans played on us once upon a time-send a bird right behind a returning raid and drop a few bombs right after they landed."

"We'd never get anything through their IFF," Toland replied.

"True, but we'd know their arrival time at their bases to within, oh, ten minutes. That's gotta be useful to somebody."

Commander Toland set his cup down. "Yeah, you're right." He decided he'd put that idea on the printer to Commander, Eastern Atlantic.

There was no mistaking it. NATO lines had been decisively broken south of Hannover. Two brigades were taken from the perilously thin NATO ground reserve and sent toward Alfeld. Unless this hole was plugged, Hannover would be lost, and with it all of Germany east of the Weser.