The Ten Thousand

CHAPTER 18

"TEN MINUTES! TEN MINUTES TO THE DROP ZONE." The sudden shouting of the jump master broke the long silence that had settled over both the crew and the paratroops in the ancient C-141 transport. From where he sat, the sight of nervous young men, younger than the airplane that had transported them across the Atlantic to their drop zones west of Bremerhaven, Germany, was not new to Major General Benjamin Matthew. With over thirty years invested in the Army, which had started during the dying days of Viet-Nam, nothing that he saw, heard, or smelled that morning was new.

Fighting the weight and bulk of the parachute and personal equipment strapped to his body, Matthew pulled himself forward and looked down the length of the aircraft at the young soldiers he was about to lead into battle. They were no different than thousands of other young paratroopers who had on many occasions in the past stepped out into thin air and jumped into hell. The big difference this time was that this would be the last time that Americans would do it. His division was scheduled for deactivation. There was, planners in Washington had determined, no place in the twenty-first century for airborne forces in the new model Army that was being built. "The airborne division," one brilliant young staff officer in the Pentagon had stated, "was like the dinosaur, big, clumsy, and unable to adapt to the changing environment of the modern battlefield of a new century."

Easing back into the nylon jump seat, Matthew shook his head. Well, he thought, at least I'll be able to go out like my division, in a blaze of glory and doing what I was trained to do. Matthew had already decided that he would retire after this command. In fact, he had requested that his last day of active duty coincide with the day the 17th Airborne was scheduled to deactivate. If the Army was so ready to bury this old dinosaur, Matthew told his wife, they'd have to get someone else to kick the dirt into the grave.

But that was still in the future. Right now Matthew was preparing to throw the war in Germany into a new phase that would serve notice to Germany that the United States was not prepared to sit idly by and allow the soldiers of the Tenth Corps to be swallowed up, regardless of who was right or wrong. "Without us," he had told his command before leaving Fort Bragg, "the Tenth Corps doesn't even have hope. Only we can make a difference. Though some of us will die, we will die fighting in the only cause that really makes sense, to save our fellow soldiers."

On command from the pilot, the jump masters prepared for the jump. Opening the door and deploying the large spoilers that would protect the paratroopers from the blast of the jet engines as they exited the aircraft, the jump masters brought the 122 paratroops to life. Everywhere, in Matthew's plane and dozens like it following in formation, the men and women of the 17th Airborne checked their personal equipment, parachutes, and personal effects as they waited for the jump master's next command. Even Matthew was occupied checking his gear out for the fourth time when the jump master tapped him on the shoulder. Looking up, he saw the jump master holding his earphones, connected to the aircraft's intercom system, out to him. Over the roar of the engines and the air rushing in, the jump master yelled, "General, the pilot wants to talk to you." The pilot on this particular aircraft was no ordinary throttle jockey. Taking his cue from Matthew, and seeking to salvage the reputation of the Military Airlift Command after the Sembach debacle, the commander of the air division from which most of the transports in this armada came from, Major General Eddie Bower, flew the lead aircraft, Matthew's aircraft. Before leaving, he had told Matthew that if he didn't put him right on the money, he'd turn in his stars too. It was a show of faith that everyone in the 17th Airborne appreciated.

As he pulled his helmet off and slipped the earphones on, Matthew hoped that this operation was not being called off for some foolish reason by some weenie in Washington who had suddenly gotten cold feet. Ready, he pulled the microphone up to his lips and clicked the intercom button. "Eddie, this is Ben. What's up?"

"Ben, I just got the strangest damned message over the radio. A German who claims to be the commander of the German 27th Parachute Brigade is calling for you by name. Says he wants to talk to you. It's coming in over the clear on the commercial airlines channel. You want to talk to him?"

Matthew shook his head and thought. He had met the colonel who commanded the 27th Brigade twice before but couldn't remember the name. If he had the face right, he wasn't a bad sort of fellow. Friendly, tough, professional, and, according to Matthew's intelligence officer, straight as an arrow when it came to following orders. The 27th Parachute Brigade, charged with preparing the defenses of Bremerhaven, was a crack unit that would be the principal obstacle in the 17th Airborne Division's path into the city. Fact was, the 27th, with three battalions organized and ready on the ground, could be more than a match for the eight battalions the 17th was dropping that morning if the German commander reacted quickly and aggressively. That he knew Matthew and the division were on the way and near enough to communicate told Matthew that the German commander was ready. Seeing that there was nothing to lose, Matthew asked Bower to switch over his headset to the radio and monitor. When Bower passed on that his mike was hot, Matthew keyed the radio. "This is Major General Matthew. Over."

Ready and waiting, the German commander responded. "This is Colonel Fritz Junger, commander, 27th Parachute Brigade. The pathfinder detachment of my brigade has prepared drop zones for your division. We are ready to assist the drop of your division and will not resist. I repeat. We are ready to assist the drop of your division and will not resist. Acknowledge, please."

Looking up at the jump master with a dumbfounded look, Matthew was about to ask him if he had heard right but remembered that the jump master couldn't hear. Instead he keyed the radio again. "Eddie, did you hear the same thing I heard?"

"That's a roger. It seems the German commander has gone over and wants to help us."

Since Matthew's conversation was still going out over the radio, as he knew, the German commander heard his conversation with Bower. "I have, after conversations with the Chief of the German General Staff, General Otto Lange, ordered my soldiers to stand down and avoid contact with the soldiers of your command. I have declared, in cooperation with the civil authorities, Bremerhaven as an open city. You may jump if you desire or land at the military airfield. If you decide to drop, my operations officer is ready to turn on beacons to guide your aircraft in. All drop zones are marked using standard NATO markings and have smoke pots ready to be lit for wind direction and identification. Over."

Still unsure what to make of this, Matthew looked about at his men and pondered the most difficult question of his life. To trust this German, a man whom he was until seconds ago prepared to fight, could result in the failure of his mission and the loss of not only his division but the Tenth Corps. On the other hand, Matthew realized that if the German commander really had gone over, so to speak, to the American side, then a peaceful drop, assisted by the German Army, would mean a great deal when it came time to end this conflict. Matthew, as had all commanders, had been alerted that German commanders were starting to break with Berlin and that they were to take advantage of these defections whenever and wherever possible. "Ben, this is Eddie. Drop zone in six minutes. Right now we're committed to a jump. To make radical changes in direction would be difficult, not to mention potentially hazardous. What are we doing?"

With one more look at the upturned face of a young paratrooper seated across from him, Matthew decided. "Colonel Junger, have your operations turn on the beacons. We will drop using your drop zones. Please meet me on the ground as soon as possible. I will be the first man coining out of the lead aircraft. Over."

"I acknowledge that you will be dropping at our designated drop zones. Please have your lead pilot switch to frequency 27.05 for meteorological update and frequencies of guidance beacons. General Lange and I will meet you on the ground. Over."

"This is Matthew. I'll be on the ground in less than six minutes. Out."

Finished, Matthew took off the jump master's headset, handed it back to the jump master, and began to put his helmet back on. Ready, he looked up to the master sergeant who had as many years and jumps as he and shouted, "Okay, Sergeant, it's all yours now. Let's hit the silk."

On the ground, Colonel Fritz Junger, Major General Horst Mondorf, and General Otto Lange turned their faces up to the pale blue early-morning sky as the first olive drab parachutes of the 17th Airborne Division began to blossom over the flat, muddy German countryside. For a moment Junger looked around at his men standing idly about the drop zone, rifles harmlessly slung over their shoulders with their muzzles pointed down. He then looked at the two generals. "I am sure, General Lange, that you understand that we might be branded traitors."

Lange, without turning his face away from the spectacle of a mass airborne drop, sighed. "When von Clausewitz refused to submit to French rule and went over to fight with the Russians against Napoleon, the Prussian King called him a traitor. When the Saxon Corps, with drums beating and flags flying, marched across the fields of Leipzig in 1813, leaving the French and joining the Allies, the French, who had occupied Germany for years, called them traitors. When Count Von Stauffenberg planted the bomb on July 20th, 1944, in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the Nazis called him a traitor. If I am allowed to join the ranks of men such as they, who put the best interests of Germany over their own, then I will lift my head with pride every time I am called a traitor."

Junger, still unsure, was about to say something more when he noticed that there was no sign of stress or strain on either Lange's face or Mondorf's. They simply stood there watching the American invaders slowly drift down to earth under their huge parachutes as if this were a peacetime NATO maneuver. These generals, Junger realized, were committed. They had made up their minds and were convinced that what they were doing was right. If that was so and they were right, Junger thought, how can I do otherwise. They were the voice and conscience of the German Army. It was, after all, his sworn duty to follow them. Satisfied, Junger turned to his operations officer standing next to the radio van and ordered him to start looking for the American airborne general after the first wave was on the ground and before the second wave began to exit their aircraft.

The major, untroubled by concerns of right and wrong, since there were so many senior commanders present to do that for him, carried out his orders as directed.

Like dozens of others separated from units that had ceased to exist or had moved north long ago, Hilary Cole was alone, frightened, hungry, cold, and lost. Fear and a sense of alienation dominated Cole's reactions. And the manner in which she dealt with her separation could only be termed reaction, for she had no clear idea of where she was, what was happening, or what to do. In fact, it could be said that Cole, like other ragtag survivors of the Battle of Central Germany, no longer was responsible for her actions. Nothing in all her training or even in her wildest dreams had prepared her for being so lost, so isolated, so miserable. She was in every sense hanging on to the lower rung of Maslow's ladder by her fingertips.

In a dreamlike state Cole wandered about without purpose, without direction. After days of being bombarded with horror after horror, that was the only state in which her mind could function. Even as she walked from tree to tree in the pale light of a new day, images of the dead and dying drifted before her eyes. And it didn't matter whether she was awake or asleep. The images came as they saw fit, confusing her efforts to deal with reality and causing her to swing from the depths of depression to an animated state of terror when she would start running in whichever direction she happened to be facing at the moment. Though she, like other members of her unit, had received rudimentary training in fieldcrafts and survival on the battlefield, no one and nothing had ever prepared her for the carnival of death that she had so recently been a player in.

In those brief moments when Cole was able to compose herself and think clearly, she was able to piece together some of what was happening. That she was alone, lost, and hungry was clear. All she had was the parka she had taken with her from the truck. She had no water, no food, no emergency medical kit, nothing. Even worse, she had no idea where she was and what was happening. There were only a few things that Cole did know. After watching the annihilation of her field hospital by German tanks, she was convinced that the Germans would kill her. So she never went back, even after the sounds of battle had faded. Nor did she dare approach any place where there might be Germans. They were the enemy in every sense of the word.

So Hilary Cole had spent the entire day after the destruction of her unit wandering about the woods aimlessly in the vain hope that she would somehow find another American unit. She didn't. Most units, once the word was out that there was a rogue unit roaming throughout that area, avoided it. That left Cole to spend another night alone in woods that were beginning to take on the appearance of a prison. With nothing but her parka to keep her warm, Cole threw herself on the ground and, between the shivers and sobs, cried herself to sleep.

On that morning, when stray beams of the morning sun came dancing through the trees and lit upon Cole's face, it took her several minutes to understand where she was. When she finally realized that her situation that morning was no better than it had been the night before when exhaustion had compelled her to drop to the ground and sleep, Cole began to cry. There was no sense to this. Crying would do nothing to improve her situation. Crying offered no solution. But then nothing made sense anymore.

In the midst of her own despair she heard a voice. It wasn't a very strong voice, and it had a rather mournful quality to it. But it was a human voice. Though she couldn't be sure if it was real or her imagination, that voice was the only thing she had. Pulling herself up with the aid of the tree she had slept huddled up against, Cole looked about, trying to determine where the voice came from. At first, with her mind still clouded by sleep and despair, Cole was unable to determine from which direction the voice came. It was as if the trees and her mind were playing a cruel trick on her, mocking her.

Then, as if it had suddenly been conjured up out of thin air before her very eyes, Hilary Cole saw it. At a distance of only twenty, maybe thirty, meters was the wreckage of some kind of overturned vehicle, half hidden by the wild chorus of trees that had been both a prison and a safe haven to Cole. She realized that she had spent the entire night not more than a few simple steps away from another human being who was probably as lost as she was. That she could have, in the state of mind that she was in the previous night, walked right past the man and his vehicle didn't dawn on Cole. The only thing important to her at that moment was that there, within easy reach, was another human being, a human who needed help, something that Cole was trained to deal with.

With a few easy bounds, Cole began to make her way to the overturned vehicle. As she drew near, the wreckage began to take on the appearance of a humvee. It was then that Cole realized that she hadn't paused to determine if the voice had been German or American. No matter, she thought as she weaved between the tree trunks. It was another person, a real person who was alive, and that was all that mattered. Only when she came to within a few feet of the vehicle did she slow down and then stop. Trapped under the vehicle, a hardtop humvee with a machine-gun mount on top, the gunner who had been manning the machine gun when it overturned lay silent, crushed to death. The sight of the body, still pinned beneath the humvee, drew Cole near. The soldier, a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty, still wore his helmet and web gear. His hands clutching the rim of the hatch and the grimace on his face told Cole that he had not been killed outright. Rather, he had survived the crash and had in his death throes struggled to free himself.

Cole turned away from that image but found no relief when her eyes fell upon the corpse of another soldier. This one, several meters away from the humvee, was that of a woman, a mere girl from the looks of her. Slowly Cole approached her, following the bloodstained snow that led from the humvee to her. When Cole reached the female, she slowly knelt down, reaching out to touch the face that was stone cold to feel. The female soldier, whoever she had been, was dead. Slowly Cole turned the body over. As the corpse came to rest on its back, strands of long red hair were caught by a slight breeze that stirred through the woods. A few wisps of hair fell across the dead soldier's face, now frozen in a sleeplike serenity. Were it not for the ashen color, it would have appeared to a casual observer that the young female soldier had fallen asleep instead of bleeding to death in the snow. For a moment Cole allowed herself to reflect on this tragedy and wonder why a girl who looked like she should have been at a prom instead of a battlefield had been shot and had died like this.

"She lasted most of the afternoon before she died."

The words, spoken by an unseen observer, startled Cole, causing her to jump back away from the female body and begin to scramble in panic back into the woods. Only when the voice spoke again, a hasty plea, did Cole manage to slow down and look for its source. "No! Don't go. Please don't go."

When she finally managed to stop and look around, she saw where the voice came from. Another soldier, a black man in his early thirties, sat against a tree across a small paved forest trail that she hadn't noticed before. He wore no helmet. His web gear and field jacket were pulled open in front, exposing his uniform shirt and a massive dark stain that covered his entire abdomen. As she looked, Cole could see that the field dressing that rested on the abdomen had turned colors and now was the same color as everything else that the soldier's dried blood had touched.

While Cole was still staring, the black soldier spoke again. "She lasted most of the day yesterday. Was able to get out of the humvee and crawl some." He paused, gasping for air while holding back a sob that threatened to cut off his story. "But she couldn't make it over here. And I…" There was another pause, now more to hold back the tears and sobs that so much wanted to come out. "I just couldn't, just couldn't get to her. So she just laid there, talking to me for nearly an hour before she finally stopped talking and…" Now there was no more stopping the tears. They just came."…And she died. Right there. Right in front of me. She died. And I didn't do a damned thing. Not a damned thing." The last comments were angry ones, angry words spoken through tears that flowed down the black soldier's face.

With one quick rush Cole ran up to the black soldier, knelt down, and began to wipe the tears away with her bare hand. "It's okay," she said automatically in the same tone, in the same manner, that she used to talk to patients as they were carried into triage. "It's going to be okay. Now please relax, just lean back and let me look." Without waiting for a response, Cole, with one hand on the soldier's face, reached down and carefully began to pull the blood-soaked field dressing away from his abdomen. There was some resistance as she started, because some of the dried blood held the field dressing to the bloodstained shirt and the wound itself. Slowly, gently, Cole managed to free it slightly, pulling it away so that she could see what was behind it.

Just as she succeeded in freeing the field dressing, the black soldier stiffened as sudden spasms of pain racked his body. Cole felt this but continued until she could see behind the field dressing. When she could, she knew why he had jumped. Even before she had moved the dressing a fraction of an inch, dark red blood slowly began to ooze around the dressing and run down across Cole's hand. Though she wanted to stop, Cole eased the dressing a little further away in an effort to see how bad the wound was. This, however, stopped as soon as she saw a section of intestine fall away from his abdomen and against the dressing.

Having seen all that she needed to, Cole carefully eased the dressing back into place. Though she tried to do so without causing the soldier any further pain, that was impossible. With the same effort that Cole put into being as gentle as possible, the soldier fought off wave after wave of pain and the urge to scream. When she had finished and the soldier had managed to compose himself, Cole looked at him, face-to-face. "I'm a nurse. And you're hurt real bad. I don't know what I can do, but I'll do what I can. Okay?"

Still not recovered fully from the pain and his efforts to keep from yelling out at the top of his lungs, he merely nodded. He couldn't even open his eyes, still tightly shut. "Okay, soldier. I'm going to go over to the humvee and see if I can find an aid kit. Okay?"

Placing the soldier's left hand over the dressing in an effort to keep pressure on it, Cole looked at him one more time. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go over to your vehicle and look for a first aid kit. Is that okay?" Again there was no comment. Just another nod. Without waiting, Cole stood up and looked at the soldier one more time. Taking off her parka, she carefully laid it over him, turned, and hurried back to the humvee. There she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the open door that both the dead female and the black soldier must have escaped through. As she searched the humvee for an aid kit, Cole worked her way around the lifeless legs of the machine gunner and a varied knot of personal gear, equipment, ammo boxes, maps, and sundry other items that made her search difficult. But Cole prevailed, finding not one but two aid kits. Pleased, she backed out of the vehicle, ignoring the dead machine gunner, got onto the road, and stood up.

Just as she did, a new voice from down the road shouted, "HALT!" Spinning about, she saw less than fifty meters away a pair of German soldiers, one of whom held his rifle up to his shoulder and pointed at Cole. It was the enemy. They had returned. Taking a step back, Cole glanced over at the black soldier.

Seeing Cole's action, the soldier had managed to turn his head enough to see that she was in trouble. With every ounce of strength he had left, he pushed away Cole's parka, grabbed the dressing with his left hand again and pushed it as tight against his abdomen as he could. With his right hand he reached down to his side, grabbed the M-16 rifle that had been lying there, and laid it across his lap.

The German who had been in the lead had also seen Cole's reaction and, looking over to where she had turned her head, saw the wounded black soldier, now preparing to bring his rifle to bear. The German, seeing that he himself was in danger, swung the muzzle of his rifle away from Cole, took a quick aim at the black soldier, and fired a short three-round burst.

At that range, the German's volley found its mark. Cole watched in horror as the first round struck the black soldier's left shoulder. The second round, due to the climb of the German's rifle muzzle, hit the soldier in the head. With the muzzle still climbing as the third round left the barrel, the bullet hit the tree just above the soldier's head. But Cole didn't see that. After watching his head jerk after being hit by the second round, his lifeless eyes rolling back into his head, Cole dropped the two aid kits she held, turned, and fled back into the woods followed by random shots from both Germans that missed her but kept her going.

When she finally stopped running, Cole found herself alone again, lost in the woods and more frightened than ever. What shreds of rationality she had managed to hold to until that morning were now gone. Dripping with sweat from her exertions but with no parka to protect her from the chilling winds that began to sweep through the woods, Cole slowly began to wander about without any thought, without any purpose. Only total physical exhaustion stopped her. At the end of her strength, Cole simply dropped onto the ground, curled up into the fetal position, and went to sleep.

It wouldn't be until the spring, when the forests shone in a wild blaze of lush greens and vibrant colors and the last of the melting snows had long disappeared, that Hilary Cole's body would be found.

"The chances of pulling this off, Madam President, are almost nonexistent. There's just no way in hell I can support you in this."

Peter Soares's reaction didn't surprise Abigail Wilson. For days, despite the fact that he was still her Secretary of State, Soares had been looking for a way to distance himself from Wilson's administration. That he was using her recent decisions as a pretext for leaving it was both logical and, after his recent lack of support for her, a relief. "Do you, Mr. Secretary, see any reasonable alternatives?"

Like a slap in the face, Wilson's response caused Soares to recoil. The expression on his face changed in an instant from one of anger to a blank, almost embarrassed look.

Without asking for an explanation or making even the slightest effort to pursue the subject with him, Wilson looked down at some papers before her. There was, as she began to speak, the slightest hint of satisfaction on her face. "I find it strange, Mr. Secretary, that the same man who less than a month ago came into this very room and campaigned vigorously for this administration to invade a sovereign nation in pursuit of a more ambitious objective should, in the throes of an international crisis, back away from an operation which is aimed at doing nothing more than saving the lives of our fellow countrymen. This just doesn't make sense to me."

Soares resented having Wilson turn on him like this. He had watched her treat other men of power as if they were children, embarrassing them and making them so angry that they reacted in a manner that made them look like fools. In the past he had enjoyed watching his political enemies squirm under Wilson's subtle and manipulative attacks. He had on many occasions engineered such scenes during Wilson's climb to power. Now that he had become the target of just such a setup, Soares couldn't deal with it. "Madam President, I will let the American voters be my judge."

That Soares at a time like this should put this issue into political terms was to her distasteful. How could someone, she wondered, even think about elections and politics when the lives of Americans and the role of the United States as the leader of the free world hung in the balance? There were times, Wilson believed, when leadership, true leadership, demanded that hard decisions be made, political consequences be damned. Leaning forward with her arms resting on the table and her hands joined before her, Wilson responded with a voice that was clear and confident. "I, Peter, will trust to God to be my judge."

From the end of the table, Ed Lewis, who had been watching this outbreak building up for several minutes, finally added his own fuel to the flames that Soares was fanning. "You do understand, Mr. Secretary, that both the British and the French, not to mention the rest of NATO, agreed to support our expanded operations in Germany only if we would go in and secure the nuclear weapons that we lost control of after your failed adventure. Though we would have preferred to wait until the Tenth Corps had made it to the coast, it was decided that—"

With fire in his eyes, Soares leaned across the table and turned to face Lewis. "Who in the hell do you think you are, you little bastard, to come in here with these half-assed schemes and act as if you were the Secretary of State?"

Unable to resist the opportunity to take a slap at Soares, Lewis leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Well, it seemed to me, Mr. Secretary, that someone needed to act like the Secretary of State."

With that, Soares's face flushed with rage. Before Wilson could say anything, he was on his feet and shaking his fist at Lewis. "You bastard! You little slimy bastard!"

Wilson, upset by Soares's reaction, slammed the flat of her hand down on the table. "MR. SECRETARY! I will not have this meeting turned into a locker-room brawl. Now sit down and let's get on with this. There is much to do."

Eyes still wild, Soares turned on Wilson. "If there's more to be done here, you'll do it without me. My resignation will be on your desk within the hour."

With the measured control that had seen her through tough elections and had made her an effective governor, Wilson pushed her anger aside. Without any hint of disappointment or regret, she looked up at Soares. "I am sincerely sorry that you find it necessary to leave this administration at this time." Her emphasis was lost on Soares. Instead, he stood, growing madder by the minute as this woman sat there barely concealing a smile, talking to him in this manner. Still he let her finish. "I cannot tell you how much your wise counsel and support in the past have meant to me. For that I thank you. I do, however, understand your position on this matter and accept your resignation." Then, as if the whole incident had never happened and Soares was no longer in the room, Wilson turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Now, General, you were saying that General Malin has accepted Operation En Passant as reasonable and is already taking steps to prepare his corps for their role?"

Without so much as a second glance at Soares, the Chairman responded to Wilson. "Yes, Madam President, he has. I was on the phone to him just before we adjourned and…"

While the general spoke and everyone at the table listened, Soares realized that somehow, somewhere, he had lost control. He had suddenly fallen from being the power behind the throne to becoming an object of scorn. As the conversation went from one member of the Security Council to another, Soares's heart sank. He had for the moment lost. Now all that remained was to play out this hand, sit back, and watch what happened, hoping that somewhere along the line Wilson would stumble and leave him free of stain to pick up the party's political leadership and in a few years nomination for President. Without another word and with no one except Ed Lewis paying any attention to him, Soares left the room.

There was a light knock on the door, followed by the appearance of his aide's head. "General Malin, General Prentice has returned, sir."

Malin, who had been mechanically reading a stack of messages and requests for information with no great enthusiasm, looked up. "Great. Tell him I would like to see him as soon as possible, if not sooner." Then he added, "And tell the chief I need to see him after I finish with General Prentice."

Knowing that the first thing the corps chief of staff would ask was if the aide knew why Malin wanted to see him, the aide asked, "Sir, any particular subject you want to discuss with the chief?"

With a sweep of his hand across the scattered messages and reports sitting on his desk, Malin grunted. "Yeah. I want him to do something about all this bullshit the Pentagon dumped on us after we reopened our channels with them. Half of this stuff is pure crap that has no relevance to what we're doing, and I have no intention of providing a response."

The aide, who had organized the general's incoming correspondence, knew exactly what Malin was talking about. Though "officially" the Tenth Corps had severed communications with the National Command Authority when Malin had declared himself a renegade and begun his march north through Germany, selected channels had been maintained. In this manner, intelligence from the Defense Intelligence Agency freely flowed into the Tenth Corps and had given Malin information he needed that his own corps couldn't gather. Since this intelligence was sent out over a network that the Tenth Corps, like all the other major American commands scattered across the world, had access to, there was no compromise of Wilson's administration. The only direct two-way communication was between Malin himself and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was limited to a single phone conversation made each evening after Malin had received his last formal update for the day. This timing allowed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to report to the President in the late afternoon every day. The number of people who were involved in this chain was held to the bare minimum. Though no one had any doubt that the Wilson-Lewis-Malin conspiracy would eventually come to light, the longer they maintained the renegade corps commander story, the better, especially when dealing with other nations.

The commencement of hostilities, the refusal of the German Chancellor to open reasonable negotiations with Wilson, and the internal German conflict, with the Parliament demanding that Ruff accept a UN-mediated armistice and his refusal to do so, had altered the international political landscape. Careful manipulation of the stories fed to the media and well-worded press releases, not to mention round-the-clock discussions with members of NATO, were slowly shifting popular and official thinking. Malin, rather than being an insane and uncontrolled maverick, was now being viewed by many as a hero, a man with the foresight and courage to stand up against an aggressive and resurgent German leader bent on altering the political, military, and nuclear balance in Europe. This, coupled with Wilson's pledge to the American public that she would not sit idle while the Germans destroyed the Tenth Corps, allowed her to broaden the conflict with the consent of the American public and all major NATO allies.

Hence, the commitment of the 17th Airborne to secure Bremerhaven, round-the-clock air cover from bases in Great Britain, and the dispatching of a Marine expeditionary force to the Baltic to threaten the German coast became possible. Along with these operations came the opening of all communications nets and channels, followed by a virtual avalanche of messages, requests for information, directives, and helpful advice from Pentagon staff officers who were far removed from the trauma of the battlefield. Tasked with updating their own charts and briefings, well-meaning Pentagon staff officers immediately inundated the Tenth Corps staff with message after message requesting information that the Tenth Corps staff had no need to accumulate or track. The Tenth Corps staff, which had been quite happy to operate as an independent entity, free from the curse of modern communications that allowed higher headquarters to talk to practically anyone, soon found itself in danger of being paralyzed by these requests.

All these requests came on top of the need to deal with the current battle, the drafting of new plans that would incorporate other American units coming into the theater, and the necessity of moving every twelve to twenty-four hours. When faced with the imperatives of dealing with the current battle and preparing for the next, the staff of the Tenth Corps, almost to a man, ignored the requests for information and the advice from Washington. When this happened, the well-meaning Washington staff officer informed his commander, who had tasked him to get the information, that the Tenth Corps was not cooperating. The higher-ranking officer in Washington in turn sent a message to a higher-ranking staff officer on the Tenth Corps staff repeating the request. The higher-ranking officer in Germany, with no more time to deal with outside requests than his subordinate, did as his subordinate had done; he ignored the request. Back in Washington this started a whole new chain of calls, message generation, etc., until finally almost all requests for information were being addressed to General Malin himself. It was a system gone berserk, and Malin intended to stop it.

He had to, for important orders and information were being crowded off the communications channels by mindless correspondence. Operation En Passant, a directive signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself, had been lost in the flood of lesser messages. It wasn't until the Chairman called Malin and asked for Malin's opinion on the operation that Malin, who had still not seen the directive and was therefore caught off guard, began to appreciate the seriousness of the communications glut. Even Malin's chief of operations, Brigadier General Jerry Prentice, was unaware of Operation En Passant. A quick search found that the message was still waiting patiently in an electronic computer queue in Washington for its turn to be bounced off a satellite and down to the Tenth Corps.

Unable to apply the normal planning procedures, Malin, Prentice, and selected staff officers came together, quickly worked out their end of Operation En Passant, and then scattered throughout the corps area to personally issue the necessary orders to units that would play. Prentice, the senior officer involved, had himself gone to the most important Tenth Corps participant, Company A, 1st Ranger Battalion, 77th Infantry.

Without knocking, Jerry Prentice strolled into Malin's office and took a chair next to Malin's desk. "I almost didn't find them."

Big Al, looking for any reason to stop reading the drivel that overwhelmed his desk, smiled and eased back in his seat. "Map reading a little rusty, Jerry?"

Prentice shook his head. "No, the grids were right on. Couldn't have been any better. The problem was that they were too well hidden." Knowing that his commander appreciated a good story every now and then to help break the stress and strain of command, Prentice leaned back in his seat, accepted a cup of coffee from Malin's aide who had suddenly appeared as if by magic, and related to him his problems and observations. "The grid for Ilvanich's assembly area turned out to be in the center of a large abandoned warehouse complex just outside of town here. My driver and I came to the most obvious entrance but found it was blocked by a large disabled truck. So we went around the corner and found another entrance. It too was blocked. Doubling back, we went around the third side of the complex and, guess what?"

"It was blocked."

Prentice, seeing Big Al was enjoying hearing about Prentice's trials and tribulations, slapped his knee with one hand. "That's right. How'd you know? Anyway, we stopped and looked at the map and the warehouse complex. Now the fourth side of the warehouse butted right up against a wooded area that showed no access to any main road or the rail lines. That's why I didn't try that side. But seeing no way in from any of the roads, I decided, what the hell. We parked the humvee and I walked along the fence of the—"

"You walked? One of my staff officers got out? I don't believe this!"

He was definitely enjoying this, Prentice thought. This was the first time in almost a week that Big Al had actually laughed. So Prentice went on with his story. "Yes, sir. I walked. Read about that once. Seems the Army used to do that all the time. Anyhow, I started walking along the fence, and I found a section that looked like it had been cut, then wired back. Turning to the woods, I couldn't see any tire marks, but I could see a forest trail several meters inside the tree line. Going back to the fence, I shook the chainlink and tried to force my way in. I was about to succeed when I heard the bolt of a machine gun slide back, followed by a low, solemn 'Halt, who goes there?' "

"So what did ya do?"

"I did, sir, what any self-respecting general officer would do. I froze in place. Don't forget, these were rangers I was dealing with. After a minute or so, when the ranger had finished having his fun watching a general officer stand perfectly still while trying to keep from shitting his pants, a sergeant wearing an American Army parka, German Army field pants, and boots from God knows where came up to the fence and asked me for the password."

"Don't tell me, don't tell me, you forgot the password."

Prentice shook his head. "Sir, I never knew the password. That's my driver's job. Anyway, I'm standing there, hands on the fence, feet spread apart, waiting for the sergeant to do something while his sentinel, hidden God knows where, trains a loaded gun on me, when Ilvanich comes up. Now he's wearing a Russian Army field cap, a German Army parka, American camouflage trousers, fur-lined boots, and is carrying a shotgun that he got from God knows where in the crook of his arm. He comes up to me, stands face-to-face, and asks, in perfect German, 'Was wollen Sie?' "

By now, Big Al had a grin that ran from ear to ear. "I would have loved to be there. It does my heart good to see a general reminded every now and then that they too are human."

"Well, if you'd been there, I have no doubt that you'd have been hanging on to the fence next to me. I finally convinced Ilvanich that I was the real thing, after taking out my wallet, laying it on the ground, stepping back ten meters, which by the way put me into the woods, and waiting there till they checked my wallet for ID."

"Well, Jerry, I would just like to say I'm glad there's still someone else besides me in this corps that knows how to handle general officers."

"Well," Prentice continued, "they finally let me in, escorted me to this warehouse where they're set up, and then offered me a breakfast of fresh bread, hot wurst, and cold beer, compliments of the German Army. You know, those guys eat better than we do. Anyhow, while I was there I didn't see a single soldier dressed the same way or any American Army vehicles. And there was a detail painting new bumper markings on their trucks, getting ready to deal with the 1st Panzer Division."

"The morale of the soldiers, no doubt, was excellent."

Prentice nodded. "They were alert, appeared to be well rested, clean, and animated. Every weapon I saw was clean, properly lubricated, and handled with respect. Except for the ungodly uniform combinations, they were the best-looking troops I've seen in this corps in the past two weeks."

Malin got serious now. "Doesn't surprise me in the least. They're a good unit and they've got a great record. They have been given some of the dirtiest jobs and pulled every one off brilliantly. And when we've left them on their own, they've gone out and pulled off some really incredible stunts, every one of which has been of immense material benefit to us and served to shake up the Germans. And best of all, they've done it without the loss of a single man."

The smile on Prentice's face disappeared after Malin's last comment. Seeing the change in mood, Big Al also dropped his smile, looking down at the edge of his desk instead. Both men knew that the mission they had just assigned to Ilvanich and the rangers of Company A would be even under ideal circumstances a bloodbath. Prentice finally broke the silence. "After Ilvanich had assembled his senior leaders, I laid out the maps of the weapons storage site, the surrounding area, and the operations graphics. As I briefed them on the mission, no one said a word. When I finished, everyone, to a man, looked at Ilvanich and he looked at them. Finally he looked over to me and said, 'It shall be done.' There were no questions, no complaints, no sign of fears or doubts, no false heroics. Just Ilvanich's simple statement."

Leaning back in his seat as far as it would go, Malin folded his hands over his stomach and mused. "I wonder if those brilliant minds back in Washington, the ones who dream this stuff up, would issue the orders they do if they had to deliver them to the men expected to carry them out, face-to-face, like you did."

"Of course they would, sir. As long as there are young men in this world willing to accept orders from old men like you and me, people like those in Washington will continue to generate them and issue them."

Malin nodded his head but said nothing. Instead he took another minute to reflect on what they had just asked Company A, 1st Ranger Battalion, to do before pushing all thoughts of that operation to one side of his mind to make room for the next issue he needed to talk to Prentice about.

After sequestering himself in a comer office for the better part of an hour, Ilvanich called in Fitzhugh, both platoon leaders, their platoon sergeants, and all squad leaders. Taped up on the walls of the office were the maps, photographs, diagrams, and operational graphics of the nuclear weapons storage site west of Potsdam that this group of men were to attack and seize. Since most of the assembled leaders had heard Prentice's order to Ilvanich firsthand, Ilvanich skipped the preliminaries. Using a map spread out on the table set in the middle of the room he had used in developing his own plan, Ilvanich briefed his command. "This operation is rather similar to the one we executed in the Ukraine. We break in, secure the weapons, and prepare a landing zone for follow-on forces. Those forces are heliborne Marines coming in from the naval squadron sitting in the Baltic. When they arrive, we assist them in securing the area while the weapons are removed, and then we are evacuated." Ilvanich paused, looking around the room at the company's leadership as he waited for them to accept this. They, like he, knew this was not the same.

After an appropriate pause, Ilvanich folded his arms across his chest and continued. "Unlike the Ukraine, we will be outnumbered. The unit guarding the site is the 2nd Battalion, 26th Parachute Brigade, one of the best units the Bundeswehr has. That battalion has light armored vehicles, heavy mortars, and will outnumber us in riflemen by a factor of six to one. Add to that the following. Surprise will be minimal, since the Germans expect us to try for the weapons. Support from the Navy, Marines, or Air Force will be nonexistent for the first twenty to thirty minutes because the planners in Washington do not want to betray the purpose of the mission by having helicopters headed for or near the target until we have secured the weapons. And best of all, the storage site itself, built by the Red Army in the 1950s, is surrounded in all directions by flat fields, with no place to hide, for a distance of two kilometers."

From across the table, Sergeant First Class Rasper murmured, "They'll see us coming forever."

Ilvanich looked up at him. "Exactly. So stealth will be impossible."

"Hence," Rasper added, "the brass-balls approach."

Throwing a pencil that he had been using as a pointer down onto the table, Ilvanich sighed. "Yes, that's right. We go in there using the German convoy technique. Though the Germans guarding the site will suspect that we are not reinforcements, they will not know our intentions for sure. We go as far as we can go playing Germans, and then, when they move to stop us, we shoot our way forward."

Again there was silence. Finally Second Lieutenant Fitzhugh asked the question that everyone else had been pondering. "Major, do they really expect us to make it all the way to the weapons and secure them, and a landing zone?"

Having spent the last weeks with the American rangers as their leader and in word and deed becoming one of them, Ilvanich looked around the room at each man's face. Letting his arms fall to his sides, Ilvanich shook his head. "No, I truly don't think so. Though the general didn't say so in so many words, the Marines don't expect to find many of us still standing when they arrive."

The anger in Rasper's voice was unmistakable. "Then why in the hell are they throwing us away? Isn't that what they're doing, sir? Throwing us away?"

Leaning forward and resting the knuckles of his hands on the table, Ilvanich admonished Rasper. "We are not being thrown away. This is a desperate plan made necessary by a desperate situation. It is a political necessity. To secure the support of the other nations in Europe for the intervention of the 17th Airborne and the deployment of the Air Force from Britain, the American President pledged to stage a raid to secure the weapons immediately. For an operation against a target like this to succeed with minimal losses and a good chance of success, you need a great deal of time to gather intelligence, formulate your plan, rehearse that plan, and coordinate the efforts of all forces involved. When time does not permit, like now, you cut corners, go for what your planners call a quick and dirty solution by using whatever you have at hand, and hope for the best."

Easing off a bit, Ilvanich stood upright again and explained while the leaders of Company A listened in stone-cold silence. "The Germans are ready for an airborne assault. They are counting on that. Their heavy automatic weapons are placed to achieve maximum elevation and grazing fires across all likely landing zones within the storage site. Were the Marines to go in there with all these weapons in place, fully manned, even with a preliminary air strike, most would die before the first helicopter set down. Our sole purpose is to go in there and raise hell with the neat well-planned German defense. We are the first punch that will attempt to smash a hole into the defensive perimeter that the Marines will be able to exploit. Failing that, our goal will be to keep the German battalion in an uproar and off balance until the Marines arrive." Slowly Ilvanich began to walk about the room, placing his hand on the shoulder of each of the rangers assembled there as he went by. "That is why everyone who is a combat leader is here receiving the plan from me. When I go down, Lieutenant Fitzhugh will know what is expected and carry on. After he is gone, Sergeant Rasper will lead the company. Then Sergeant Johnson. Then the platoon sergeants. Then the squad leaders. And when they're gone, even when the last man in this room is down, I expect each and every ranger to carry on."

When Ilvanich stopped, his back was to the assembled group. Turning his head slightly, he looked over his shoulder. His voice was solemn now, almost hesitant. "We, the American general and I, do not endorse suicide missions. It is not part of the traditions of either of our countries. But, like he told me and I told you, desperate times call for desperate solutions. I therefore asked the general that I be allowed to leave behind any man who does not want to go. This will be a purely voluntary mission." Pivoting slowly on his heels, Ilvanich put his hands behind his back as he looked again at each of the rangers in the room. "Go back to your men and tell them what I have told you. Tell them what we will be doing and why. Then let the men decide, each one for himself. I place no time limits on their decision, no special conditions. If when we load the trucks tonight, they choose not to get in, then so be it. Is that understood?"

After all of them had nodded or mumbled a muted response, Ilvanich walked back up to the table and continued. "Now I expect each squad leader to bring his men up here and, using all of this information and photos, go over the plan with every man. I expect each and every ranger in the company to know where all of the heavy weapons are located and where the key points of the German defense are. Unless there are further questions, you are dismissed."

With that, the assembled rangers saluted and filed out of the room without another word, leaving Ilvanich alone to continue his study of the maps, photos, and graphics.

CHAPTER 19

Unable to sleep or sit, Abigail Wilson wandered about the room that served as her private study. Though she could have gone down and joined the others in the War Room buried beneath the house that had been home to some of the most important men in American history, Wilson knew that her presence there would only serve to heighten the nervous apprehension that always seemed to hang in that room like a cloud. Through years of practice Wilson had learned the fine art of hiding one's emotions and acting as those about you expected. Yet there were times when she simply could not stuff her emotions away like so much dirty laundry. She never made excuses for this, a trait that some of her male opponents in private referred to as a flaw. Instead she trusted her own instincts, for she knew there were times when it was wise to remove herself from public view and in private give free rein to whatever emotions swept over her.

Tonight her fears and doubts came forth like a spring storm. At first there was only a slight darkening on the distant horizon, so subtle that one hardly noticed it. Then came a gentle stirring of the wind, first that way, then this, as if Mother Nature herself was vacillating, unsure if she wanted to unleash her fury. But this lasted only a few minutes. With the measured pace of a great musical composition, the various elements began to make their presence felt. The clouds rolled in, casting their shadows across everything beneath them. The wind gave up its hesitancy and began to move across the face of the earth with purpose and force. Finally in the distance, like great kettledrums announcing a storm of war-horses, thunder warned all who heard that a great storm was coming. Finally, when all the elements were ready, wind, rain, darkness, and thunder, the storm unleashed its full fury and came crashing down.

In the beginning, during her first few years of public life, Wilson had discounted her feelings, telling close friends that they were nothing more than silly emotions that she needed to master. But as her political career blossomed and she grew in both importance and ability, Wilson also matured and found that she didn't need to deny herself or her emotions. For she found that, like the spring storm, an occasional venting of her fears or anger in private served to release her tensions and cleanse her soul in the same way that a spring storm unleashes the pent-up fury of the heavens and makes way for the cool, fresh calmness that inevitably follows.

So Wilson chose not to sit in the War Room with key members of her staff like mourners attending a wake. Instead she stayed in her private apartments and allowed her emotions and thoughts free rein for a while. In a few hours she would need to be in complete control of herself, for it would be in the aftermath of the operation to take back the nuclear weapons from the Germans, an operation that was about to commence several thousand miles away, while the wounded were still being tended to and the dead counted, that her struggle would begin.

In her wanderings, Wilson came to the window and stopped. Looking out, she could see the lights of the city that lit the streets and the many imposing statues and monuments that made the city of Washington an open-air museum. Even at this hour there was a fair amount of traffic, something that never ceased to amaze her. She still didn't understand cities, even after living in Denver for years and now Washington. They were alien places with their own rules, their own codes of ethics, their own ways of life.

In many ways, Wilson thought, her inability to understand the city was like her ignorance of the innermost psychology that drove the military machine that she now commanded. While the organizational charts and mission statements of each of the services and units were simple to understand and their use easily explained, she lacked a real appreciation of what it meant to be a soldier or an airman or a sailor. Nothing in all her years of college, life as a mother, member of Colorado's leading law firm, and governor of that state gave her any idea of what motivated young men and women to place themselves with such casualness into harm's way in defense of a vague idea, a principle. How shallow such words as duty, honor, country, must seem when facing death. Or were they shallow? Was there real meaning in those words that only a person faced with his or her own mortality could really understand and appreciate?

Leaning her head against the window, Wilson felt the coldness of the glass against her warm forehead. When she had been a young girl in Colorado and her head seemed so full of troubled thoughts that it appeared that it must burst, she would go over to the window and place her head against the pane of glass. Somehow, in the mysterious ways that elude explanation or logic, the image of the soft, quiet landscape and the feeling of the cold glass against her brow served to calm her.

There was nothing more to do. She had done what she had felt was right. Now it was up to others to do what was necessary, leaving her to deal with her emotions alone and prepare for the consequences of her decisions.

With every turn of his staff car's tires, he rolled closer to the front gate of the storage site. Seated in the front passenger seat clutching the assault rifle that lay across his lap, Ilvanich could feel his heart beat louder, more violently. Though he tried not to, his eyes remained fixed on the muzzle of a machine gun that protruded from the aperture of a concrete bunker that sat next to the front gate. Ilvanich knew that behind that gun there was a young German soldier, a paratrooper, with his finger wrapped around the trigger and his gaze fixed along the sights of the machine gun that was locked on his vehicle. In silence, while Sergeant George Couvelha seated to his left drove them forward at a steady, unrelenting pace, Ilvanich waited for the machine gun to fire. At this range there was little doubt that both he and Couvelha would perish in the first volley. Yet there was nothing he could do. It had to be this way. It was expected of him. He had known all of his life that nothing less would be acceptable.

Still, sheer terror that tried to wrestle away Ilvanich's sanity couldn't be denied. It was like the feeling of helplessness he got when he sat in the front seat of a roller coaster. Slowly, with mechanical precision, the roller coaster was cranked up the first incline. Ilvanich hated roller coasters, hated them with a passion. To please a girl he was with or a little nephew he was entertaining, however, he would always go, as was expected of him. There would be when the lead car reached the top nothing but sheer terror, panic that Ilvanich was expected to master because he was, in the eyes of those with him, the strong one. Today, as on those occasions, there was no other place he could be. He was where he was expected to be and nothing and no one could change that. It was his fate, and he accepted it in silence.

At the command post that served as the headquarters for the 2nd Battalion, 26th Parachute Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Jakob Radek greeted the news that there was a convoy of trucks carrying troops approaching the front gate with a great sigh of relief. His pleas to Colonel Haas, his brigade commander, had been heard. It had been a stupid decision to strip away one of his companies and send it to Berlin for riot control just when the Americans were growing closer and the danger of a strike against the storage sites was at its greatest. Radek knew it. And Haas knew it.

In stormy conversations, both when he had received the order early the night before and again not more than three hours ago, Radek had told Haas exactly what he thought of the decision, not to mention the fools in Berlin who had placed such a demand on him. Though he knew he had been wrong to do so, it was, he felt, necessary to make his protest in the strongest possible terms. That Haas, or one of the idiots in Berlin, had finally come to his senses and realized what he had done didn't surprise Radek. Without further thought, he ordered the sergeant of the guard at the gate to have the company commander of the returning company report immediately to his office. Radek was anxious to get his third company back into the defensive positions inside the inner secure area where the nuclear weapons were stored. Hanging up the phone, he finally felt that he could breathe easy. Given the choice of having a strong force in the inner secure area at the expense of weakening his outer perimeter, Radek had opted for the strong outer perimeter. Since it was his mission, after all, to keep the Americans away from the nuclear weapons, it made perfect sense to Radek that the further away from the inner secure area he could keep the Americans the better. Besides, he reasoned, if the outer perimeter broke at some point, he could always withdraw units on the outer perimeter that were not under pressure into the inner secure area. That this gamble in deployment of his forces would never be put to the test was for Radek a great relief.

At the gate the sergeant of the guard looked at the receiver of the telephone, then at the corporal who stood across from him. Radek's last instructions, in light of the standing orders that no one under any circumstances was to be allowed in, did not make any sense at all. Of course, pulling one of the companies away from the battalion and sending it to Berlin for riot duty didn't make sense either. Carefully replacing the receiver, the sergeant looked at the convoy, now less than fifty meters away, and then back to the corporal. He shook his head before he gave an upward motion of his arm, the signal to his men to remove the barriers at the gate and let the convoy through.

At this range, Ilvanich knew that the machine gunner couldn't miss. There would be no chance to duck, no opportunity to strike back. He would fall with the first burst. It came as a shock when Couvelha shouted, "They're opening the gate for us, Major. The fools are going to let us in!"

Tearing his eyes away from the sinister black muzzle of the machine gun, Ilvanich looked over to the gate and saw a German corporal waving them through a now opened gate. For the briefest of moments Ilvanich was flabbergasted. What, he wondered, was going on? But quickly he recovered from his surprise and ordered Couvelha to continue forward. "They must be expecting someone and they think we are them. Go, go. Keep going but do not speed up."

Just as Ilvanich's vehicle pulled even with the front gate, Colonel Johann Haas's staff car came out of the wood line and into the open stretch of road that led to the storage site. He saw the convoy of trucks entering the storage site and wondered what was going on. Already angered by the tone of his last conversation with Radek, Haas began to slip into an absolute rage.

Under ordinary circumstances, Haas was a reasonable man. But these, as people kept reminding him, were not ordinary circumstances. Besides, he was not used to having his subordinates argue with him over such important issues. While Haas was always willing to listen to the thoughts and ideas of his subordinates, when he gave a final order he expected discussion to stop and for the order to be carried out. Radek's continued badgering and the tone of his conversations had infuriated Haas, who was already angered over his dealings with his own superiors. After Radek's second phone call of the morning, Haas wanted to run from his office, jump into his vehicle, and drive immediately to the weapons storage site and relieve Radek on the spot. But there were other, more pressing matters that needed to be tended to. The battalion he had sent to Berlin for riot duty had turned out to be woefully inadequate for the task. Though he didn't like the idea, he had ordered each of his other two battalions guarding the two nuclear weapons sites near Potsdam to send one of their companies to Berlin to augment the battalion already there.

This problem was only one that the parachute colonel had to deal with. Besides his own units, he discovered two battalions from the 3rd Panzer Division in Berlin. They had come into the city in the middle of the night after the President of the Parliament had made a personal appeal to the commander of the 3rd Panzer. By dawn Haas had learned that the President of the Parliament, fearing that Ruff had brought Haas's battalion into Berlin to intimidate them, felt the need to counter Haas's battalion with units loyal to the Parliament. So, although he had wanted to deal with Radek, Haas had felt that it was more important to meet with the commander of the 3rd Panzer's units in Berlin and ensure that they established a clear understanding of where each stood on the matter of loyalty to the government. The last thing Haas wanted to do was to have various units of the Bundeswehr start tearing away at each other because of misunderstandings.

Yet now, seeing the lead vehicle of the convoy start to roll through the front gate of the storage site, Haas regretted his earlier decision. Something was happening here, and he didn't like the looks of it. Haas began shouting to his driver and making gestures. "Go around. Go around this convoy and head for the front gate, now!"

Caught off guard by his commander's sudden shouts, the driver did exactly as he was told. Jerking the wheel to the left, he stepped on the accelerator and began to race down the road in the left lane so that he could pass the trucks as the lead vehicles of the convoy began to roll into the storage site.

At the gate the guard corporal turned his attention away from the trucks passing him as he heard the gunning of an engine. Looking down the flat, straight road, he saw a staff car headed right toward him and gaining speed. Throwing up his right arm and waving violently, he yelled halt three times in quick succession. The driver of the staff car only drove faster. Realizing that he was in danger, the corporal began to run for the cover of the bunker, yelling to the paratroopers inside to open fire as he ran by.

The sudden order to halt, followed by the rattle of the machine gun behind them, caused Ilvanich to snap, "NOW! STEP ON IT."

Like Haas's driver, Couvelha complied without hesitation. The inner secure area was straight ahead, less than three hundred meters away. With luck they could cover that distance in a matter of seconds and have a real chance to grab the weapons. Couvelha ignored Ilvanich as Ilvanich kicked his door open, leveled his automatic rifle, and began to spray the bewildered Germans along the side of the road as they emerged from buildings.

Radek had just opened the door of the commandant's building when the shooting started. Stepping out onto the front step, he gasped in horror as he watched a staff car careen madly past him. It was going as fast as it could while the passenger on the side opposite from where Radek stood fired wildly out of his open door. Radek was still standing there, bewildered and disbelieving, when the first truck of the convoy went by. In the rear of the truck, the canvas sides were rolled up, revealing the German soldiers inside crouching behind the thin sides of the truck's cargo bed as it came roaring past. Like the soldier in the staff car, they too were firing their rifles as they went. Though their aim was wild, the volume of fire they put out more than made up for it. Hit in the shoulder, and then the chest, Radek was thrown backwards through the open door of his office. There, bleeding and unable to get up or even call for help, he lay listening to the sound of trucks rushing by, punctuated by screams of pain, panic, shooting, and every now and then a random explosion.

Outside the site, Colonel Haas pulled himself out of his overturned staff car. His driver, crumpled up like a ball of rags behind the steering wheel, was dead. And from what he could tell, he had two broken legs. Once he was out on the paved road leading into the site, Haas looked toward the gate, still gaping open. Like Radek, he listened helplessly to the sounds of battle as they moved away from him and closer to the inner secure area.

Specialist Kevin Pape ignored the wind whipping in his face, made harsher by the speed of the truck he was riding in. Instead, he prepared to fire the machine gun that he had cared for and manned for many days but had never had the opportunity to fire in anger. Leaning into the weapon, Pape tucked his chin up against the shoulder stock, took careful aim at a group of three Germans running for cover behind a bunker near the gate of the inner secure area, and opened fire. Seeing his first burst of seven to ten rounds fly over his targets, he stretched himself up slightly and fired again. This time he was on target, sending the middle soldier tumbling down and causing the man behind him to make a quick leap lest he trip over his fallen comrade. With a slight correction, Pape caught the German in midair.

Absorbed by his engagement, Pape did not notice that a machine gun in the bunker where his targets had been running was now firing on Ilvanich's staff car. It wasn't until that car, its driver hit, made a sudden turn to the right and went crashing into the barbed-wire fence that Pape realized what was happening. The driver of his truck, Private Ken Hillman, cut the wheel to the left to avoid crashing into the rear of Ilvanich's staff car. In doing so, he lost control of the truck and, like Ilvanich's staff car, the truck went crashing into the barbed-wire fence. Unlike Ilvanich's car, the heavier truck continued through the fence and into the anti-vehicle ditch beyond. The front wheels bit into the soft mud of the ditch and buried the front fenders.

Even before the truck stopped, Sergeant Rasper slapped Pape on the side of his leg. "OUT! OUT! EVERYONE OUT!"

Reaching forward, Pape pulled the pin that held his machine gun in the truck's ring mount, dropped inside, and yelled to the driver as he started to duck out the door on the left. "Don't forget the ammo. Grab the ammo boxes."

As Pape began to go out the door, Hillman yelled, "Got it," and leaped from his.

Rasper, in the middle, was right behind Pape as a stream of bullets smashed the track's windshield. "Go, damn it. Get your ass out of here." Excited, Rasper gave Pape a shove.

Caught off balance, Pape and his machine gun went flying down, face-first, into the mud of the anti-vehicle ditch.

Pulling himself out of his vehicle, Ilvanich paused only long enough to satisfy himself that Sergeant Couvelha was beyond help. Then, with his automatic rifle in his right hand, he jumped up onto the hood of his staff car, placed his left hand on top of the pole that the barbed wire was strung on, and boosted himself up and over the wire fence. Like any well-trained paratrooper, he brought his feet and knees together while he was still in the air and prepared to roll as soon as he felt the shock of hitting the ground. The mud in the ditch, however, was softer than he had anticipated. He sank several inches into it and never rolled until he remembered to do so.

His timing was impeccable. Ilvanich's gymnastics caught the attention of the Germans manning the machine gun in the bunker at the entrance of the inner secure area. Finished with the truck for a moment, the machine gunner brought the muzzle of his weapon around to the left and fired a burst at Ilvanich. He had, however, disappeared into the anti-vehicle ditch. Cursing, the gunner slapped the side of his weapon. "Why in the hell did they dig a ditch like that right in front of the bunker's field of fire? The Russians must have had a death wish."

The sergeant behind him smacked him on the side of his helmet. "Shut up and go back to the truck. The enemy are deploying."

But by the time the machine gunner had managed to bring the gun back to the right, the last of the rangers that had been in the rear of Rasper's truck were in the ditch and rushing forward to the wall of the anti-vehicle ditch nearest to the inner secure area.

Throwing himself against that wall, Ilvanich paused for the first time since the shooting had started to assess the situation. Twenty meters to his left he watched for a second while Rasper deployed his men against the wall and, like him, stopped to catch his breath and sort things out. Behind him he could hear firing from the direction of the buildings they had gone through. Lieutenant Fitzhugh, no doubt, was deploying the rest of the ranger company and engaging the bulk of the German garrison. Though Ilvanich didn't know what had happened that had allowed them to get so far, he knew that if they didn't do something in the next minute or so, the Germans to their rear would be able to assemble their overwhelming numbers. They would then be free to wipe out Ilvanich and the rangers, now trapped between the inner secure area and the main compound.

Desperate measures for desperate times. Over and over Ilvanich repeated that to himself. Desperate measures for desperate times. When he was mentally ready, he yelled over to Rasper, "Sergeant! We must get out of this ditch and into the secure area before the Germans recover. I am going for the machine gun. Cover me."

Rasper didn't stop to think about what Ilvanich was saying or what it meant. He simply turned to his men and yelled, "Everyone, up and fire. Up and fire." While his men did so, Rasper yanked a smoke grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it over to where Ilvanich would be coming from.

Swinging the heavy German machine gun up, over, and down onto the dirt parapet of the anti-vehicle ditch, Pape took the best possible aim he could and began to fire at the bunker. As his bullets began to splatter against the concrete around the aperture of the bunker, the German machine gunner brought his weapon to bear on Pape and returned fire, throwing clods of mud kicked up by near misses back into Pape's face.

When Ilvanich saw this, he took a deep breath, pulled himself up out of the ditch, brought his rifle up to his hip, and began to race for the bunker at a dead run. Inside the bunker, the German sergeant's attention was drawn back to Ilvanich. From behind his machine gunner he pointed his finger toward Ilvanich. "To the left. Get that bastard." Without letting up on the trigger, the German machine gunner brought the muzzle of his weapon around, cutting Ilvanich down just as he reached the halfway point.

For the briefest of moments there was a stunned silence as the rangers with Rasper watched Ilvanich go down and roll over twice before coming to rest on his back. After all that they had been through in the past few weeks with him, to see him cut down like that was a shock. But it only lasted a second. Rasper knew what Ilvanich had been after, and he knew what needed to be done. Taking a second smoke grenade, Rasper pulled the pin, threw it out to his front, and watched its clouds of yellow smoke build up. Ready, he yelled to his men again. "I'm going for the bunker. Cover me."

Again the rangers in the ditch popped up and began to fire at the bunker as fast as they could while Rasper this time scrambled up over the edge of the ditch and headed for the bunker. And as before, the German sergeant in the bunker, despite the building clouds of smoke, saw the danger and directed his machine gunner's attention to it: Without a sound, without a single moan, Rasper pitched forward and fell flat, sliding to a dead stop only meters from where Ilvanich lay.

The thud of Rasper's body and the strange noise of the air leaving his lungs while he died caught Ilvanich's attention. Though his mind was drifting in an almost dreamlike state and he didn't seem to have any control over a body that he hardly felt, Ilvanich managed to bring his head around until he was facing Rasper. It took several seconds for his eyes to focus. When they did, Ilvanich quickly understood what had happened. Rasper lay there with bulging eyes and his face half buried in mud that had been plowed up as his body had pitched forward and slid along the mud. He had, Ilvanich realized, followed his lead and had for his efforts been killed.

Suddenly understanding that they were going to fail, Ilvanich began to sob. He still didn't feel any real pain, but he knew he was hit bad. Nothing except his head responded to his efforts to move. This was no way for a well-trained Russian paratroop officer, a man proud of his skills and abilities, to die. Not at the head of a foolish attack that was doomed to failure. No, these men deserved better than this.

In what appeared to be a foolish attempt to mock him even further, Ilvanich watched as another man came up and out of the ditch in an effort to reach the German machine gun. They were, he thought, doing exactly as he had asked them to do. And they were dying, for the ranger that had sprung up grabbed his face and fell backwards before he even managed to get both feet out of the ditch. Unable to watch anymore, Ilvanich closed his eyes and prayed to any god that would listen to take him now, before he had to see one more man die.

The shock of seeing Private Ken Hillman's body being thrown back into the ditch right next to him broke Pape. There, not more than a meter away, his friend Ken Hillman lay on his back clutching his bloody face with both hands, screaming at the top of his lungs and kicking wildly with his feet. Everything, the sudden rush from the front gate to the inner secure area, the truck crashing into the ditch, watching Ilvanich, followed by Rasper, and now Hillman, cut down like this was too much for Pape. Without any conscious thought, Pape let go with the yell of a man who had lost control. Hoisting his machine gun up to his side, he bounded out of the ditch and began to rush forward toward the bunker.

Across the field from him, through the thinning clouds of yellow smoke, the German sergeant saw the new target pop up out of the ditch and start running at him. "God in heaven! Are these men mad? Who are they?" For a second he, the machine gunner, and the assistant machine gunner watched in utter amazement as another man in a German uniform, screaming at the top of his lungs, came lunging toward them, a machine gun at his hip and firing as he went. Recovering from this spectacle, the sergeant simply said, "Kill him. Now." Seeing no need to rush, the German machine gunner prepared to comply, taking careful aim. When he was ready, he braced himself and pulled the trigger.

It took only a fraction of a second to realize that although the bolt had gone forward, the machine gun had not fired. Behind him, the sergeant, who had not heard the bolt go forward, yelled, "Fire! Fire, damn it."

Pulling the trigger a second time, the gunner confirmed that the bolt had gone forward. "AMMO! MORE AMMO. HURRY!"

Caught off guard and totally absorbed by the nonstop rush of events, the assistant machine gunner looked over to the gunner with a dumb look on his face. He stood there for the briefest of seconds before he realized what the gunner was saying. "AMMO. I'M OUT OF AMMO! HURRY!"

The sergeant, seeing the confusion, didn't wait for the assistant gunner to respond. Instead, he bent down and grabbed for the first ammo box that he could reach. The machine gunner, pushing the assistant gunner out of the way, raised the cover of his weapon, pulled the bolt back, and reached for the fresh belt of ammunition just as Pape stuck the muzzle of his machine gun into the aperture of the bunker and let go with a long burst of fire.

From across the anti-vehicle ditch, Fitzhugh, leading the rest of the company, had watched in horror as Hillman had gone down and then Pape, like a man possessed, had risen and rushed for the bunker. When he saw Pape cover the distance from the ditch to the bunker and stick his machine gun into the opening, Fitzhugh yelled to the men following him, "Okay, rangers, let's go. All the way. We're going all the way."

Without breaking stride, the rangers with Fitzhugh poured into the ditch through the hole in the fence made by the truck, ran through the muddy bottom, and scrambled up over the other side. Those rangers who had been with Rasper and were still in the ditch joined Fitzhugh and his men in the mad dash for the inner secure area.

Once they were clear of the ditch, their momentum carried them forward, overcoming any resistance that remained and leaving the German battalion, back in the main compound of the storage area, thrashing about in an effort to assemble and reorganize. Fitzhugh, short of breath but still fired up, paused for only a moment as he passed Pape and slapped him on the shoulder. "That was great! You did great. Now let's go. Follow me."

Pape, however, was in a daze. Allowing the muzzle of the machine gun to drop to the ground, Pape fell back against the side of the bunker and looked across the open field to the ditch. The last of the smoke from the grenades was being carried away by the breeze. There, under a thin veil of yellow, he could see both Ilvanich and Rasper lying still. In the ditch, though he couldn't see him, was Hillman. That much he knew. What puzzled him, and it would puzzle him for the rest of his life, was how in the name of God he had gotten to where he was now standing. Neither the eyewitness accounts nor the citation that accompanied the Medal of Honor he was given would ever satisfy Pape. What he had done, and why, during the longest and most important fifteen seconds in his life would always be a mystery to him.

From where he lay, Ilvanich could hear the sounds of battle move on. That and the trampling of feet past him and Rasper, accompanied by Fitzhugh's shouts, told Ilvanich that somehow the tide of battle had swung back in their favor. With nothing left to do but wait, Ilvanich closed his eyes and tried to relax. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought that he could hear above the din of battle helicopter blades beating against the cold winter air. That would be nice. Yes, it would be very nice if the Marines came now. Perhaps then this would have been justified. Yes, that would be nice.

Outside the storage site, Colonel Haas sat on the side of the road propped up against the wreckage of his staff car. Looking up, he watched the first of the dark green helicopters with large black letters spelling U.S. Marines stenciled on their sides come swooping down overhead and into the storage site. When he saw no anti-aircraft fire directed at them from the storage site and the helicopters following taking no evasive maneuvers, Haas knew it was over. Chancellor Ruff's great adventure in making Germany a nuclear power was at an end. Haas wondered if that meant that Germany too would soon be coming to an end. Though he hoped in his heart that such a thing would not happen, the specter of such a grim future for the country he so loved and had served so long suddenly became real.

Then, as if struck on the head, Haas realized that Germany had again placed itself into the hands of an ambitious man. "Maybe," he said to himself out loud, "we should disappear. Perhaps the German people are too great to live in such a small world."

There was a soft knock on the door of the study. Abigail Wilson, pulling herself away from the window seat, called out, "Come in, please."

When the door opened, one of her military aides stepped inside the study. Though he had never seen the commander-in-chief in a bathrobe and slippers, he pretended not to notice. Instead he submitted his report. "Madam President, we have confirmation that both storage sites have been secured. Though the inspection teams that went in with the Marines are still in the process of inventorying the nuclear devices, we're sure we got them all."

Wilson nodded. Then she looked up. "Casualties? How bad were our losses?"

The colonel smiled. "Initial reports say they were minimal."

Wilson frowned, looking down at the floor. Minimal, she thought. Minimal to whom? To us, the people who had issued the orders? How would she, a mother, like it if someone told her that her son had been one of the minimal casualties? She wouldn't. She knew that. But this was not the time to make an issue of the colonel's poor choice of words.

Instead Wilson simply thanked him and turned her head back toward the window. There, in the privacy of her study, she would be the first to mourn for those minimal casualties, whoever they were.

CHAPTER 20

At first, no one seemed to notice. The excuses rendered by those who failed to show up for work were, given the time of year and the advent of a new strain of flu, quite reasonable. Only when the flood of absenteeism spread to the General Staff did Colonel Hans Kasper begin to realize that the absences were not acts of God but wholesale desertion of Ruff's government. Following the example of General Lange, more and more officers openly declared their support of the unilateral cease-fire declared by the Parliament or simply failed to report for duty.

Even more ominous was the action of entire units that were declaring "active noninterference" with American forces. Not satisfied that acceptance of the unilateral cease-fire was enough, commanders of battalions, brigades, and even divisions were lending logistical and medical support to American units as they streamed north. Some even intentionally maneuvered themselves between American forces marching to the sea and German units still considered loyal to Ruff, raising the danger of civil war. When Kasper, in a private conversation with the commander of the 5th Panzer Division, mentioned this, the general became quite blunt. "Your Chancellor Ruff will be gone soon. And I hope the devil takes him. But we and the German people will still be here to atone for his sins. Someone, Herr Colonel, has to defend the soul of Germany. Because when this is over and our day of reckoning comes, we will have to be able to stand up and show that we Germans truly understand right from wrong and that we deserve to sit at the table with other civilized nations."

Those words, like Lange's words to him a week before, haunted Kasper as he moved about the half-empty offices of the Chancellery, trying hard to catch up with the work that used to be done by those who no longer could support a man that they themselves had elected into office. This was not easy. There was no way that Kasper, with the aid of a handful of loyal staffers, could replicate the effort that had required twice their number. But they tried and for the most part succeeded by judiciously dealing with only those matters that were absolutely essential. Since Kasper was a trained General Staff officer, this was a relatively simple task. With a firm hand and a trained eye that was quick to sort out trivia from important information, Kasper was able to keep Ruff informed. This additional work was for Kasper a godsend, since it kept his mind busy and left him little time to ponder the questions of right and wrong, good and bad, and, even more pressing for an officer, duty versus a vague notion of personal conscience.

Still, Kasper had nagging doubts that Ruff himself did nothing to quiet. Rather than embarrass the General Staff, which was losing its officers to the Parliament at a prodigious rate, Kasper himself gave Chancellor Ruff the early-morning update on military operations in progress and those planned for that day. Kasper kept these updates brief, for he quickly realized that Ruff didn't seem to have much of an interest in the detailed workings of the military machine which he had so recently tasked to perform a mission that was now tearing it apart from within. Ruff was satisfied with a quick overview of where major American units were and what they were up to, where units still loyal to him were and what they were doing, and, most important of all to the Chancellor, how many Americans had been killed and wounded in the last twenty-four hours. His insistence on knowing the precise number of American losses, neatly broken down into the number of killed, wounded, and missing, bothered Kasper, since he showed no similar concern for the cost of this war to Germany.

At first Kasper thought he was imagining things. For three consecutive days he had briefed Ruff and after enumerating American losses had been dismissed before mentioning German casualty figures. This caused Kasper to wonder what was going on inside of his Chancellor's mind. So he decided while walking through the quiet halls of the Chancellery that morning to test a theory he had. He was going to present German losses first and not mention anything about American figures.

Looking at his watch, Kasper saw that he had only a few minutes to finish putting his update together and he still lacked the information from the General Staff. Reaching over to the secure line that went directly into the joint operations center used by the General Staff, Kasper punched in the number for the duty officer. When Colonel Siegfried Arndt answered, Kasper was surprised. "Siggie, this is Hans. I thought you were on duty last night? What are you still doing there?"

Arndt's voice was tired. "I'm still here because my relief hasn't reported for duty yet."

Since duty watches ran twelve-hour shifts and the night duty officer should have been relieved at six in the morning, over an hour ago, this meant that chances were good that another officer had come down with what was being referred to in private as the parliamentary flu. When Arndt spoke again, there was a less than subtle hint of disgust in his voice. "I'll tell you, Hans, if it weren't for the easterners who had been senior officers in the former East German Army that Ruff had insisted on reinstating, work over here would have come to a grinding halt yesterday. Word's out this morning that the entire operations staff has gone over."

This piece of news caused Kasper to stiffen upright in his seat. "Then who's in charge of current operations and the plans section?"

Arndt sighed. "They're still discussing that. I suppose another easterner will take over those duties."

"Yes," Kasper responded, trying not to betray his dismay, "of course. Listen, I called to get an update on what's happening. I brief the Chancellor in a few minutes."

"All right, here it is. The lead elements of the American 55^th Division are just outside Bremen. We expect them to bypass that city to the west and strike north to Wilhelmshaven. Unless something stops them, which is unlikely, they will link up with the American forces in Bremerhaven tonight or early tomorrow. The American 4th Armored Division continues to screen the eastern flank of the American line of advance from a point just north of Paderborn, across the Mittellandkanal. And the 14th Cavalry Regiment continues to screen the rear and to the west."

"Who," Kasper interjected, "are they screening against in the west?"

Arndt chuckled. "Good question. The 7th Panzer, of course, has assumed a posture of active noninterference. It is the fuel from their supply trains that's keeping the American march going. The 5th Panzer, as you know, has assumed defensive positions in the east to protect the Ruhr east of Düsseldorf."

"And who are they protecting the Ruhr from?"

Ignoring Kasper's last question, Arndt continued. "The 1st Panzer expects to commence its attacks against the American 4th Armored later this morning with two brigades. Its axis of advance will be due west from Hannover north of the Mittellandkanal. The 2nd Panzer Division, which will not be in place until late in the afternoon, will join that effort, attacking on the right or north flank of the 1st Panzer. The commander of the Second Corps, coordinating the effort, expects to be able to penetrate the 4th Armored Division's screen and, with luck, isolate most of that division."

Pausing to look over his notes, Kasper asked why the 1st Panzer was attacking with only two brigades. ' "The other brigade, the 1st Brigade, is not responding to orders. They have gone into an assembly area south of Hannover and refuse to acknowledge all communications with their division headquarters."

"And the other divisions?"

Referring to a summary that he had prepared an hour ago, Arndt went through them one by one. "Well, as you know, the 4th Panzergrenadier was badly mauled and is unable to get around the rear guard of the 14th Cavalry Regiment. Those bastards continue to make the 4th Panzer bleed for every kilometer. The 10th Panzer, after its lackluster performance several days ago in central Germany, hasn't moved. It still needs time, according to its commander, to complete its reconstitution. The 3rd Panzer is watching the Poles, covering Berlin, and dealing with the riots while the 6th Panzergrenadier is waiting to see if the American Marines in the Baltic are going to land."

"So," Kasper announced, "we have more than three divisions that are no longer reliable, one, the 4th Panzer, that is approaching combat ineffectiveness, and two tied down in the east. That, according to my figures, leaves us less than two panzer divisions for offensive operations."

"Yes, Hans, that's about right. Even when you take their losses into account, we have, in effect, been cut down to near parity with the Americans."

"Well, that should be more than sufficient to severely punish the 4th Armored Division."

Arndt hesitated and then lowered his voice. "Well, yes of course, we can do that. But to what purpose, my friend? I mean, what exactly are we doing?"

This caught Kasper off guard. "Doing? What do you mean, what are we doing? We are defending Germany against its enemies."

Slowly, carefully, as if to feel out his fellow officer, Arndt spoke. "Are you so sure, my friend, that we are dealing with the proper enemy?"

Kasper wanted to ask Arndt to clarify that question, but he decided not to out of fear that he wouldn't like the answer. Instead, with a brisk voice, Kasper told Arndt that he needed to finish preparing his briefing for the Chancellor, thanked him for the information, and hung up the phone without so much as a good-bye.

When Kasper hung up, Arndt knew that he had gotten the answer he had expected. Looking about at the operations center, he listened to the dozen or so conversations that were going on about the room, watched as numerous staff officers went this way and that, and thought about his conversation with Kasper. Then without any further thought he stood up and turned to the young major sitting next to him. "I am going out."

The major, one ear glued to a phone, covered the mouthpiece. "I don't blame you, Herr Colonel. If someone asks where you are, I'll tell him you're taking a break."

Arndt smiled. "Yes, you do that." Turning, he walked out of the room, down the hall where their coats hung, grabbing his as he went by, then headed for the elevators. Taking the elevator to the ground floor, Arndt stepped out, walked through another series of corridors "to the main entrance which led out to the street. Pausing as he put his cap on, Arndt smiled when he saw the sun. Returning the salute of the two guards posted at the main entrance, Arndt walked down the flight of steps to the street, made a right, and began to walk home. For him the war was over.

From where his tank sat, Second Lieutenant Tim Ellerbee had a clear shot straight down the main highway as it came out of the small German village they had evacuated less than an hour ago. Two hundred meters to his front right, and out of sight, sat Sergeant First Class Ralph Rourk and his tank, covering a side street that came out of the town and into a cluster of fields that surrounded the village. The Germans, Ellerbee figured, would probably use one of those two exits from the village. If they didn't, they'd have to take a long detour to the west. And if they did that, they would run smack into another platoon of Captain Nancy Kozak's company.

There was another way out of the village, a mere alley, that Ellerbee should have covered with a third tank. And he would have if he'd had a third tank. But he didn't. Like all of the platoons in Kozak's company, Ellerbee's platoon had been substantially reduced in strength through a combination of combat losses and mechanical failures. The first tank he had lost had been his wing man, A32. The platoon had just broken contact west of Kassel with the advance guard of a German panzer battalion and were making a high-speed run to their next blocking position when a pair of German attack helicopters sitting in ambush fired on both Ellerbee's tank and A32. Ellerbee saw the incoming missiles and took evasive maneuvers. A32 didn't. Though there was only one man wounded on A32, and Ellerbee was able to retrieve him and the rest of the crew after the German helicopters moved on, there wasn't time to recover the damaged tank. So it was abandoned. The wounded man was evacuated and the remainder of A32's crew was reassigned to one of Kozak's infantry platoons to make up for some of their losses.

Rourk's wing tank, A33, sheared a drive sprocket while maneuvering across the side of a muddy hill. Though the damage was not catastrophic, since a replacement drive sprocket could have been cannibalized from another damaged tank that had been written off, the fact that Ellerbee's platoon was part of the division's rear guard made recovery impossible. So, like A32's crew, this crew was forced to abandon their tank and join one of Kozak's platoons as infantrymen.

As every other platoon leader in the Tenth Corps had to, Ellerbee adjusted his tactics to compensate for his losses. Actually, Ellerbee found dealing with only two tanks much to his liking, especially since the other tank was commanded by Rourk, an experienced NCO who needed no real guidance from Ellerbee. That, coupled with his brief but sorry combat experience in the Ukraine which he had taken to heart, allowed Ellerbee to more than survive their recent battles in central Germany. Grudgingly, ever so grudgingly, Rourk and the other noncommissioned officers in the platoon began to recognize Ellerbee as a competent tanker.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of Captain Nancy Kozak, he was unable to shed his image of a bungling idiot. Ellerbee's actions of five days before that had saved Colonel Scott Dixon and his tactical command post were seen by Kozak for what they were, a happy series of lucky accidents and errors. In all her dealings, she continued to treat him as if he were a first-year cadet at West Point. In fact she had never dropped her requirement that Rourk, Ellerbee's platoon sergeant, be present whenever she issued orders to him. Determined to show that he was a better man than she, Ellerbee said nothing, knowing that when all was said and done and the fighting was over, his record and performance would speak for themselves and he would be able to show that it was Kozak, not he, who had been unreasonable and unprofessional. So Ellerbee said nothing, for this was not the time or place to deal with such trivial matters. Instead he concentrated on doing his duty and building a reputation that would allow him when peace came to extract a measure of revenge against the female infantry captain who had embarrassed him and his platoon.

Over the radio Ellerbee heard Rourk's voice calling, "Alpha Three One, this is Three Four. There's a German crawling along the ditch on the side of the road about fifty meters past the last house. Can you see him? Over."

Ellerbee keyed the mike. "Three Four, wait One. Out." Then, letting go of the lever that keyed the radio transmitter, Ellerbee called out to Specialist Wilk, his gunner. ''Yo, Wilk. Can you see the German Rourk is talking about?"

With his eye glued to the gunner's primary sight, Wilk traversed the turret slowly to where Rourk had seen the German. When he thought that he was looking at the right spot, Wilk reached up and flipped the lever on the primary sight that moved the sight from a three-power wide-angle field of view to a narrow ten-power field of view. After a moment Wilk grunted. "Ah, there's the little bastard, LT, moving up next to that shot-up Mercedes about fifty meters beyond the last building in the village."

Leaning forward and putting his head up to his extension of the primary sight, Ellerbee saw what Wilk did. "Yeah, I see him." For a moment both he and Wilk watched as the German, moving with great care, inched his way forward. Every now and then the German stopped, popped his head up out of the ditch, and looked around before proceeding a little further. "Well, what do you think?"

Wilk laughed. "I think this guy needs to go back to basic training and learn how to low-crawl. God, look at that. His ass is sticking up so high a helicopter would have to swerve to avoid running into it."

When he was ready, Ellerbee rekeyed his radio. "Three Four, this is Three One. I see the German. From the way he's sneaking about, I think he's a tanker taking a look-see before his unit breaks cover. Over."

Rourk's response betrayed a slight chuckle. "Yeah, Three One, he's a tanker all right. Even the Germans, it seems, can't teach a tanker how to low-crawl right."

Ignoring Rourk's comment, Ellerbee issued his order. "Three Four, this is Three One. I think they'll come bounding out of town right down the main road. If they do, odds are every eye will be glued on where I'm sitting. So you wait until you've got a good flank shot and then pop the lead German vehicle. When you do, back up and get going to our next position. They may come down the street after you, in which case I'll be able to get a flank shot and cover your withdrawal. If the opposite happens and the Germans try to sneak out of town using the side street instead of the main road, I'll fire first and then you cover me. Do you copy? Over."

"This is Three Four. Good copy. I'll see you at the next position. Over."

"Roger, Three Four. Three One. Out."

Ellerbee and Rourk didn't have long to wait. With the confidence of a man who was sure that no one was watching, the German in the ditch stood up, walked into the middle of the road, and waved at someone in the village. In less than a minute Ellerbee could see the form of a Leopard II tank emerge from around a street corner in the village and begin to roll down the road toward him. Knowing that Rourk couldn't see the German tank yet and, from the manner in which the lone German on the road and the Leopard were moving, that his own tank hadn't been seen by them, Ellerbee keyed the radio. "Three Four, there's a Leo coming down the main road fast and dumb. Get ready. Over."

When Rourk responded, he betrayed no emotion. "Roger, Three One. We're ready."

Slowly, like an animal sticking its nose out to sniff for danger, Rourk saw the end of the German tank's long 120mm main gun appear from behind the cover of the last house in the village. Then the front fenders, followed by the massive body of the Leopard tank. Finally, when the entire tank was visible, Rourk called out to his gunner, who had been tracking the German. "Not yet, Chuckie, not yet." For a moment, Rourk's gunner wanted to protest, but then stopped when he saw the German tank slow down. "Hold your fire, Chuck. We'll wait until the guy in the ditch begins to climb on board."

The gunner didn't respond to Rourk, calling over to the loader instead. "Billy, you up?"

The loader, watching his commander and gunner, reached over, threw the spent cartridge guard that also served to arm the main gun over to the ready position. Flattening himself against the side of the turret wall, he yelled back. "Yeah, I'm up."

When the German tank came to a complete halt and the German who had been in the ditch began to climb onto the front slope of the tank, Rourk all but whispered his command. "Fire!"

With his sight laid dead on the black German cross that adorned the side of the Leopard's turret, Chuck hit the laser range finder button with his thumb, glanced down at the range readout that showed up at the bottom of his sight picture, and yelled out, "On the way," before he pulled the trigger.

With that, the main gun of Rourk's tank spit out an armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot round. When the depleted uranium penetrator left the muzzle, it was traveling at over a mile a second. Inside, Rourk and his crew felt their M-1A1 tank shrug and lurch as the main gun recoiled, automatically opening the massive breech block, kicking out the small base plate of the expended round. By the time this action was finished, the loader already had a new round in hand, Rourk was sticking his head up out of his open hatch, shouting to the driver to back up as he went, and Chuck, the gunner, was searching for a new target.

There was no need to fire a second round at the German tank. Smacked in the side of the turret with a dart measuring little more than one inch wide and a foot and a half long, made from the densest metal available to man, the German tank was consumed by a catastrophic explosion.

From his position, Ellerbee watched. Two and a half hours of patient waiting had resulted in the destruction of another German tank and the successful completion of his mission. When he was sure that Rourk was well on his way and he saw that there were no Germans in immediate pursuit, he ordered his own driver to slowly back away from their hidden position. They had done what he had been ordered to do, delay the Germans. It would be at least a half hour before the commander of the German unit in the town figured out that their attackers were long gone. By then, both he and Rourk would be in their next position, getting ready to play the deadly game of hide-and-seek with the same German advance guard unit.

In silence, both Colonel Scott Dixon and Colonel Anatol Vorishnov watched as a sergeant from the brigade's intelligence section plotted the latest location of the 1st Panzer Division. With maddening regularity, the sergeant moved the red stickers that represented German tank and infantry companies further and further to the west. With the same maddening regularity, a sergeant from the operations section, paper in hand listing the location of Scott Dixon's tank and infantry companies, would move the blue symbols that represented them on the map to the west and away from the advancing red symbols. Every now and then, a blue symbol would be removed, like a chess piece that had fallen to an opponent's attack.

But these were not chess pieces. Every blue symbol removed represented a unit of fifty to one hundred men and women that had ceased to exist as an effective organization. Without taking his eyes away from the map that the two sergeants were working on, though they now had less than one hundred miles of their long and painful odyssey to go, Vorishnov summed up what Dixon already knew. "We're in trouble."

At first Dixon said nothing. Instead he waited until the two sergeants had completed posting their respective updates and then moved forward to the map. Vorishnov followed. Coming up to Dixon's left, Vorishnov jabbed at the symbol that represented Company C, 1st Battalion, 37th Armor. "This company, because of the terrain, cannot move west. It will soon be forced to move to the south, away from the rest of its parent battalion, if the Germans continue to advance."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Dixon looked at the company symbol, at the German unit symbols closing on it, and then at the other unit symbols scattered about the map. Taking a deep breath, he paused a little longer before he spoke. When he did, his voice betrayed the despair he felt. "And if that happens, ping, the Germans have a free road to the northwest. If the company retreats, it must retreat to the northwest."

Moving his finger down, Vorishnov placed it on another symbol. "That means that this unit, Company C, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, must speed up, get north across the Mittellandkanal, and block the Germans here. Because once the Germans find their route to the northwest blocked, they will simply deflect off the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor, advance to the southwest, and…"

Dixon nodded his head and finished the sentence. "And cut this brigade in half, leaving two battalions north of the Kanal and two south of it."

"Do you think, Colonel, that Major Cerro will be able to get north, across the Kanal?"

Turning to Vorishnov, Dixon looked at him for a moment. "What do you think?"

Without a word Vorishnov looked back at the map, mentally measured the distance that the advancing German units had to cover, then the distance that Cerro's battalion had to cover, before answering Dixon. When he was ready, he looked Dixon in the eye and shook his head. "No. I do not think so."

Dixon looked down. "I agree. Even if they managed to shake that German unit that has been dogging them all the way from Kassel, they wouldn't be able to get everything across the Kanal. The question, then, is what do we do?"

Vorishnov placed one hand over the symbols that represented Dixon's two battalions that were north of the Mittellandkanal, and his other hand over the two that were south of the Kanal. Pulling them apart, he moved the hand over the northern units further north and those south of the Kanal first to the west, and then north to the Kanal. "As much as I hate to say this, you must split your brigade, leaving those who have crossed the Kanal to continue to the north and those south—"

"To attempt to cross the Kanal further to the west and follow as best they can."

Dropping his hands to his sides, Vorishnov looked down at his boots, then back up at Dixon. "I am sorry, my friend. I understand what such an order means. But you must face facts." Vorishnov pointed at the map, moving his finger to indicate the units he was talking about. "If you order your 37th Armor to hold its ground, it will be overwhelmed, and you will still lose that company as well as the two battalions in the south. Better to save two battalions for sure than lose one trying to save two that are beyond help. Your four battalions, all of them approaching half strength and exhausted from the long march north, are no match for the full-strength well-rested battalions of the 1st Panzer Division. To make a stand would be to risk everything, even the uncommitted battalion in the north." Stepping back, Vorishnov allowed his observations to sink in.

For a long time Dixon said nothing. Instead he looked at the map, pulling his right hand out of his pocket and moving it from one unit and terrain feature to the next. Finally he looked at Vorishnov. "Even if we do this, someone will have to delay the lead elements here, just north of the Kanal, so the two battalions south of the Kanal can outrun the Germans to the next good crossing point to the west."

Vorishnov nodded. "Yes, that will be necessary. And that force will be sacrificed."

"Yes, I know." Sliding his right hand back into his pocket, Dixon stared at the symbol that represented Cerro's battalion, 3rd of the 3rd Infantry. ' "They will need to hold as long as possible, then when they're about to be overrun, they make a break and hope they can get out of the way of the Germans and find their own way north."

Placing his right hand on Dixon's shoulder, Vorishnov attempted to reassure him. "I understand. They are all your soldiers, my friend, but these concerns are best left to the commander on the spot, Major Cerro."

Dixon turned his head and smiled at Vorishnov. "As always, Colonel, you are right. I should leave that fight to the battalion commander. But I will be there to advise and encourage him, just as you have done with me, my friend."

Vorishnov raised an eyebrow. "You appreciate that, given the distance, you may not be able to control your entire brigade if you place yourself south of the Kanal."

"I have," Dixon countered, "no intention of attempting to control the entire brigade. When we split, I will go south with the tactical command post and command this half of the brigade. You will remain here with the main command post and command the rest."

For the first time since joining Dixon, Vorishnov was flabbergasted. He started to protest. "But I am a Russian officer!" — "And a damned good one. Listen, Lieutenant Colonel Yost has his hands full keeping the brigade trains together, functioning, and moving north. The same argument I used when I sent Cerro to the 3rd of the 3rd Infantry still applies. If Yost leaves, we stand a good chance of losing the trains." Dixon pointed to one of the northern battalions, then the other, as he spoke. "The commander of this battalion is a major, like Cerro, and the lieutenant colonel in command of this one has his hands full with what he already has. He's not brigade command material." Turning to face Vorishnov, Dixon tapped his chest. "So tag, Colonel. You're it. I'll leave you the tank and I'll take one of the personnel carriers. I want to go fast and be as inconspicuous as possible."

"Your division commander will never agree to my taking command, Colonel Dixon."

Now Dixon smiled, truly smiled for the first time in days. "Sorry, won't work. I've already talked to him about your succeeding me. He agreed."

Outmaneuvered there, Vorishnov turned his head toward the brigade staff and surveyed them. Those who were in earshot returned Vorishnov's stare. "And them?"

Turning his head also, Dixon let the smile on his face fall away. When he spoke, it was so that the staff officers and sergeants listening would hear what he had to say. "They, Colonel Vorishnov, are professionals, each and every one. They will do as they are told, regardless of who is in command." Finished, Dixon looked back at Vorishnov. "Besides, I am only lending this command post and those battalions to you. I intend to take them back as soon as I reach Bremerhaven."

Closing his eyes, Vorishnov smiled and nodded. "Fine. That will be fine."

With that, the two colonels parted. Dixon went out to gather his gear and head south before his route was blocked by the Germans, while Vorishnov turned to his staff and began to issue the orders that would be necessary to break contact with the 1st Panzer Division and continue the long march to the sea.

While he waited for Captain Nancy Kozak to arrive, Major Hal Cerro paced along the side of the road, Across the road, the crew of his M-2 Bradley infantry righting vehicle watched him as he would walk several meters, stop, look at his watch, turn, look at them, and then retrace his steps. When he had reached the limit of his small circuit, Cerro would stop again, look at his watch, look over to the Bradley again, and repeat the process. His gunner, sitting on the turret roof with his feet dangling down the open hatch, and his driver, half hanging out of the driver's compartment, watched, munched on tasteless rations, and exchanged comments.

"The major's in a hurry."

Swallowing, the driver wondered out loud, "How long do ya think he'll wait before we go lookin' for her?"

Even though the driver couldn't see the gunner, the gunner shook his head as he answered. "Don't think the major's in a hurry to get back on board. You scared the piss out of him on that last series of turns."

"I didn't mean to. He did say move out, didn't he?"

"You're going to have to take it easy," the gunner advised, "until the major gets used to us and the Bradley."

"I thought," the driver protested, "that he knew what he was doing. How the hell was I to know he'd never commanded a Bradley before."

Taking time to lick the tomato sauce off his plastic spoon, the gunner slowly responded. "Come on. Use some common sense. You see all those badges he's got? Master parachutist, jump master, pathfinder, ranger, combat infantryman's badge. That's a leg infantry collection. I'll bet he never spent a day in a mech infantry unit till he got assigned to us."

The driver grunted. "Yeah, ain't we lucky. We get to do some on-the-job training."

"It could be worse," the gunner reminded the driver. "We could have been stuck with the ops officer."

The driver shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't think it makes much of a difference. All officers get kind of strange when they get promoted to major. The best we can hope is that this one lasts longer than the last two."

The gunner was about to ask why he had said that, but caught himself. Of course the driver hoped that nothing happened to Major Cerro. Because his fate was now tied to theirs. Odds were, if something bad happened to the major, they'd be right there getting the same thing. "Yup. Sure hope this one's luckier than the last two."

The driver saw Cerro stop and look down the road. From the direction Cerro was staring in, the driver heard the whine of another Bradley's engine cut through the cold, damp morning air. "Looks like the Nose has arrived."

Turning his head, the gunner also looked to see if the Nose, the nickname Nancy Kozak had earned after breaking her nose during the campaign in Mexico, had finally arrived. From around the corner, a Bradley came into sight. When the gunner saw the black image of a wolf's head painted on the gunner's side of the turret, he knew it was Kozak. Sergeant Wolf had done the painting himself as a little extra show of pride. When Kozak saw what Wolf had done, she insisted that he do something similar on her side. Of course, all the junior NCOs in the battalion dared Wolf to paint the silhouette of a large crooked nose on her side. But Wolf, knowing that he'd have to put up with her for a long time, opted to paint a palm tree, resembling the symbol used by the German Afrika Korps during World War II, with a K in the center of the tree's trunk instead of the swastika. Kozak loved it and Wolf was harassed in a friendly sort of way by his fellow NCOs for weeks after that.

But that all seemed like ancient history to the gunner now as he watched Kozak's Bradley come to a halt across from Cerro's. Both Kozak and Wolf were riding low in their open hatches. Even from where he sat, Cerro's gunner could see that they were both exhausted. Neither Kozak nor Wolf looked as if they had washed their faces in days. While Wolf's face, stub-bled with beard, looked bad, Kozak's was worse due to the dark bags that hung under her eyes and seemed to drag her cheeks down from their sheer weight. The gunner had no doubt that her eyes were just as bloodshot as Cerro's. That was becoming the first indicator that an officer was approaching. Though everyone was dragging tail, the officers, to a man, seemed twice as bad off as any enlisted man. There was, Cerro's gunner thought to himself, no way that he'd put up with all the shit that officers had to. No way.

From below, Cerro's driver shouted to get the gunner's attention. "Hey, you have something up there to trade for my dehydrated peaches?"

In the two and a half days since Cerro had assumed command of 3rd of the 3rd Infantry, Kozak had seen him nine times. At most of those meetings the format was the same. She'd give him a quick update on the status of her company, the location of her platoons, significant contacts or sightings, and what they were doing or about to do. Cerro, if time permitted, would explain what was happening elsewhere in the battalion and brigade area of operations, potential enemy threats that they needed to consider, and then issue Kozak new orders. When he was sure that she had a firm grasp of what was expected of her company, Cerro would mount his Bradley and head down the road in search of the next company commander. Only twice, due to the fact that they were in almost constant contact, was he able to muster more than two company commanders together at the same time. There just wasn't time.

Ordering Paden, her radiotelephone operator, to lower the troop ramp of her Bradley, Kozak dropped into the turret and through the small access door that led to the Bradley's troop compartment. Cerro walked around her Bradley and met her at the ramp. Kneeling down, he threw his map down on the ramp, took a notebook out of his pocket, and prepared to issue his order. Before he started, however, he asked Kozak, map in hand, which of her two infantry platoons was in the best shape.

Kozak didn't need to think about that. "2nd Platoon. Marc Gross's. He has three fully operational Bradleys and three dismount teams with four men each."

Cerro looked up at Kozak. "Is Gross reliable?"

Kozak nodded. "He's the best I have left."

Cerro, in a hurry and not keen on the order he was about to issue, snapped back, "I didn't ask for a comparison. I asked if he was reliable."

Cerro's sharp tone and the look on his face took Kozak aback. She realized that he, like her, was not thinking and tempers were short. Kozak rephrased her answer. "He is an experienced and capable platoon leader. The former battalion commander used him as an advance guard detachment on several occasions."

When Cerro spoke, there was no apology, no regret for his reprimand. He simply began issuing orders. "You're to take your company across the Mittellandkanal, here." With pencil in hand, Cerro pointed to a circle drawn on his map case. "Once across, Gross and his platoon will occupy a blocking position here. His mission is to hold up the advance of the German units moving along the Kanal for as long as possible. You and the rest of your company will move west, along the main road here, as quickly as possible and secure the cross point here. There you'll remain in place to cover the crossing of the rest of this battalion and the 35th Armor. Hold there until a company from the 35th comes up and relieves you. Once the brigade's across, we go north as fast as we can."

Kozak looked at the two points on the map that Cerro had marked and shown her. "You realize, Major, we wouldn't be able to support Gross and his platoon at all."

Cerro nodded. "I know."

"How long," she continued, "does Gross need to hold here?"

"Until he can't hold on any longer." There was, Kozak noticed, no emotion in his voice.

"Will Gross be able to join me when the 35th Armor relieves me or is he expected to join the 35th?"

Locking his eyes on Kozak's, Cerro leaned forward. "Let me make myself perfectly clear. Gross will hold that position until he is no longer able to hold it. I do not expect him to join us or the 35th. He digs in as best he can and he holds, period. If and when his position is overrun, the survivors will be free to make their way north as best they can, on their own."

Slowly the look of surprise on Kozak's face was replaced with a mask of horror as she realized that she was expected to order one of her platoons to literally die in place. That was not, she thought, the way we did things. Last stands, she thought, had been dropped from American military doctrine at the end of the nineteenth century. Besides, she wondered, how could she be expected to order almost half her remaining company to stand fast, fight, and die while she fled north to safety?

Cerro saw the look on her face and knew what she was thinking, for he had considered the exact same thing when Colonel Dixon had issued him his orders little over an hour ago. Looking down at Kozak, Cerro was suddenly struck by how out of place Kozak looked at that moment. As hard as this was for him, Kozak's big brown eyes and smooth round face, looking more like a hurt child's than a combat commander's, made all of this harder. Even with her long auburn hair, except for a stray wisp that always seemed to fall across her face, wrapped and tucked-up into an olive drab wool watch cap, and layers and layers of bulky winter clothing that made Kozak look more like a stocking doll than a woman, Kozak was for an instant a female, someone he suddenly felt the need to protect, to comfort. Only with a great effort was Cerro able to pull his tired thoughts back onto track. She's an officer, damn it, a captain in the United States Army. A company commander. Nothing more, nothing less. Taking several deep breaths, Cerro continued.

"Look, Captain, the Germans are crashing down on the corps' flank with two panzer divisions. If we don't get out of the way, we'll be crushed. As it is, the units north of the Kanal are already giving way. Our only chance is to turn to the west and cross somewhere else, and then run north as fast as we can.

And we can make it in less than twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, so can the Germans. The Air Force can chew 'em up and delay them some. Unfortunately they can't stop them. Only ground forces can do that."

"And Gross has been elected." As soon as she said it, Kozak was sorry she had.

Angry, Cerro clenched his fists. He didn't like what he was doing any more than she did. But he had been convinced that it was necessary, had accepted the order, and now he expected Kozak to do likewise. He could have blamed Dixon, who had originated the order. That, Cerro knew, would have been easy and would have made Dixon the bad guy. To do so, however, would be wrong, for the order did make sense, and it was after all an order.

Barely holding back his anger, Cerro glared down at Kozak. "Yes, goddamn it. Your Lieutenant Gross has been elected. He elected himself when he took his oath of office and put on the uniform. No officer who understands his or her responsibility to his profession and duty should ever imagine that there's always an easy or safe way out. It just doesn't work like that. Being a soldier means killing, and sometimes being killed. Well, I'm here telling you that I expect your Lieutenant Gross to take his men there, north of the Kanal, and kill Germans. And they will continue to kill Germans until they can't kill any more. This is no time to debate the wisdom or merit of orders regardless of who generated them. You have your orders, and I expect you to issue Gross his. Is that clear, Captain?"

Kozak sat there on the ramp of her Bradley and looked up at Cerro. There was a rage and anger in his eyes that she had never seen before in a human being. He was, she realized, a man beyond reasoning. What kindness or emotions this man had once possessed had been crushed by the weight of his responsibilities and the horrors of war, just as her own spirit and hope had been extinguished as she had watched the soldiers of her company drop or disappear one by one during the long march. That none of this made sense anymore seemed a moot point. All that seemed to matter anymore was to follow orders and keep going north, regardless of cost, regardless of consequence. To stop now was not possible. They had all gone too far and paid too much to stop or allow this enterprise, right or wrong, to fail.

Slowly, as if the weight of the entire world were on her shoulders, Kozak pushed herself up off the cold metal ramp and faced Cerro. Though in her heart she was dying, Kozak choked back her tears and saluted him. "Yes, sir, your orders are clear."

Unable to speak, and not knowing what to say anyway, Cerro reached down, grabbed his map, and fled across the road to his own Bradley, leaving Kozak to pass on the order.

CHAPTER 21

Despite the fact that she had been finished several hours ago, Jan Fields-Dixon couldn't bring herself to leave the World News Network studios. In Germany, where it was still mid-afternoon, the flow of Tenth Corps units into the perimeter held by the 17th Airborne Division, south of Bremerhaven, was beginning to turn into a flood. At checkpoints all along the southern tier of that perimeter, news teams stood by recording what some correspondents called completion of the greatest military march since Xenophon led his ten thousand Greek mercenaries out of Persia in the year 400 B.C. Like everyone else, the experts, real and imagined, sat by television monitors shaking their heads in disbelief and watching as the soldiers of the Tenth Corps finished what many had said could not be done. "Every man and woman in the corps," one retired colonel had told Jan during an interview earlier that day, "should be proud of what they have accomplished."

Jan, ever watchful for any sign of her husband, could see no hint of pride in the vacant eyes of the survivors as column after column of soldiers rolled past the electronic eye of the news media. Few in Germany seemed to share the wild joy most Americans back home felt now that the great march to the sea was coming to an end. Instead, when a correspondent managed to make his way to a group of survivors, his questions were often left unanswered as the soldier stammered or simply lapsed into a stunned silence. At one assembly area, where the remains of a tank battalion had been marshaled, a reporter found every man, officer and enlisted, spread out over the fenders and tops of their tank turrets asleep. It was, the reporter commented as his cameraman panned the slumbering crewmen, as if the only thing that had kept the men and women of the Tenth Corps moving, in spite of the terrible hardships and odds, was stubborn pride and fear of failure, and now that they were safe, they could go no further.

Having been long associated with the military, Jan knew better. Men like her husband, Scott Dixon, his operations officer, Harold Cerro, and the corps commander, Al Malin, went on doing things that often could not be explained and defying common sense because they couldn't do otherwise. There was a vague and indefinable force known as duty that drove her husband and those that followed him to keep putting themselves in harm's way. Jan, like others, knew that stubborn and mindless male pride, coupled with a childlike fascination with danger and the primeval animal-like drive to kill, played a part in the process. But these drives alone could not justify or explain what Scott did for a living. Neither could high-sounding words, such as duty, honor, country, justify the brutality that Scott and others like him meted out to others and suffered in return. That was something that defied explanation. Something kept Dixon in the Army and allowed the soldiers of the Tenth Corps to do what everyone in Washington had termed impossible.

While such thoughts were never far from her mind, there were other, more pressing concerns that Jan had to deal with. For in spite of the fact that the end was clearly in sight, the dark and nebulous forces that had driven the Tenth Corps on were still at play. With the same blind and mindless determination that had kept the Tenth Corps moving north, units still responding to the orders of the German Chancellor continued to hack away at the rear-guard elements of Big Al's tattered corps. It was in the words of one of Jan's male co-workers as if some Germans couldn't admit defeat as long as they had a chance to strike out and hit an American unit. Forgetting for a moment that her husband was still very much a part of the story, Jan's friend predicted that there would be one more final killing frenzy, one last mindless battle, regardless of how pointless it was, before serious political negotiations could begin. Though she hoped that everyone in Germany would simply allow the battle to die away quietly, Jan knew in her heart and soul that as long as men like her Scotty still stood on both sides of the battle lines that wouldn't happen.

So she watched the videos as they were beamed in live from Europe and prayed that somewhere on one of them she would be able to catch a glimpse of his face.

Flanked by Secretary of Defense Terry Rothenberg and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Wilson moved with such a brisk pace down the corridor that those following began to think she was trying to run away from them. They didn't realize how right they were. Tired of briefing after briefing on the military situation, Wilson was looking for any excuse to shake her entourage of stern-faced military bureaucrats and generals. So when Wilson saw Ed Lewis come around the corner out of a side corridor quite by accident, she called out, "Ed, before you return to the State Department, there's something I need to go over with you."

Without even a polite smile, she turned to Rothenberg. "Terry, if you'd excuse me, there's a few things I need to discuss with the Secretary of State designee before he leaves." Not waiting for a response, Wilson stepped away from Rothenberg and his gang of military men. Grabbing Lewis's arm, Wilson snatched him away from his assistant and started to head for the Oval Office as quickly as she could. Only after they were in the office and a member of the Secret Service closed the door behind them did she let her newly named Secretary of State go.

Walking over to the front edge of her desk, Wilson stopped, placed her hands palms down on it, and leaned forward. "How much longer do you think it will be, Ed?"

Walking over to one of the overstuffed chairs, he allowed his tired frame to drop into it and settle before he answered her. "From what I've been told, maybe another six, seven hours before the last of the rear guard makes it to the 17th Airborne's forward outpost, providing the Germans don't cut the road again."

Shaking her head, Wilson corrected Lewis. "No, not that. I know about the counterattack that the Germans are preparing." Spinning around, she folded her arms across her chest. "No, what I'm talking about is how long before everyone figures out that we, with the help of General Malin, duped them?"

There was no need for Lewis to consider that question. "Never." For a moment Wilson stared at Lewis before he continued. "There is no need for anyone to know. There are only four people who know exactly what happened and how this whole thing got started." Lewis held four fingers up. As he named each of the conspirators, Lewis dropped a finger. "To start with, there's you. But I don't think that you're going to go on national television and announce, 'Guess what, folks, I fooled you.' No, even if you had a burning desire to repent for your sins, this country has had far too rough a time. The last thing you need to do is follow the Ukrainian adventure and the German crisis with a Washington scandal like this."

Holding herself close, Wilson considered what Lewis had said. There had been times, especially when she was alone, when she'd considered doing exactly that. But she didn't tell him, or anyone else, for she still wasn't sure which way she would go on that issue. Even as Lewis continued, Wilson decided that she was still undecided.

"Then, of course, there's me. I can assure you, Madam President, this has not been the highlight of my career as a public servant. Yet I have no intention of slitting my own wrists in public. You see, as much as I hate what we did, I consider what we did the best choice from a whole stableful of bad ones. I am confident that in time our actions will be able to stand on their own merit."

"What about Malin? Remember, I'm obligated to relieve him as soon as he reaches Bremerhaven and bring him to Washington to stand court-martial."

Lewis dropped his hand and let a slight chuckle slip. "Yes, I know. And I've noticed that he has not been seen by anyone, especially the media, since his corps started re-entering friendly lines."

Not having made any special effort to track him, Wilson pondered this for a moment. "Do you suppose he's trying to skip out, escape or hide?"

"No, no need to worry about that. He's just waiting until all of his units are safe. When the last of the rear-guard units make it back safely, he'll turn himself over to the most senior commander on the scene and come back here to face his court-martial, just as we agreed to."

"But then the nice little story about a renegade commander will be exposed as a lie."

Lewis shook his head. "No, not at all. He'll ask for a trial by a military judge only, which will eliminate the jury. Since much of the evidence that will be brought against him deals with national security issues, the session will be closed-door. And his defense attorney will be able to present only that information that Malin himself provides. So the trial will be quick. General Malin will be found guilty, sentenced, and after a few weeks forgotten. After all of his appeals have run out and the trauma of this crisis has been replaced on prime time news by another hot issue, you will pardon him."

"Do we have to go through this charade?"

Shrugging his shoulders and clapping his hands together, Lewis sighed. '"Fraid so, Abigail. The German Parliament, which is on the verge of gaining control in Germany, is watching your every move. They are looking for anything that will allow them to bring this affair to an end. You see, the German Parliament, through their own little staged trial, will bring Ruff to justice, as they see it, just as you will bring your renegade corps commander to justice. Ruff, who took the nuclear weapons from us and placed unreasonable demands on you, will be gone. Malin, who violated German territorial integrity and started the German crisis, will be gone. Since neither the German Parliament nor you had any direct control over those events, the ones that precipitated the actual shooting war, there'll be no barriers to open and free negotiations. Resolution of outstanding issues will be quick, and everyone will trip over themselves as they rush to re-establish the prewar normalcy, whatever that was."

Though she knew Lewis was a tough character, she had never viewed him as being a cynic. Unfortunately that happened to anyone who worked too long within the Beltway. She looked at Lewis. "Who's number four? I thought there were only three of us?"

"Number four, Madam President, is Colonel Scott Dixon."

"The same Dixon that's married to Jan Fields, the correspondent on WNN?"

"The very same. Malin insisted that Dixon, whom he considers one of the brightest minds in the Army, be in on the initial discussions when we were considering the feasibility of this whole escapade. Dixon made a quick study, came up with some initial planning guidance, and turned it over to Malin so that it appeared that Malin had done it on his own. The plan I brought back from Prague and that Malin executed was Dixon's."

"And how will he react when Malin takes the fall for this whole affair?"

"Scott Dixon, Madam President, is a professional soldier. He will do what he is told. Before I left Prague over two weeks ago, General Malin, in my presence, asked Dixon to promise that he would never divulge any of the conversations that Malin and I had."

"Dixon will adhere to that promise?"

"Abigail, Dixon's a soldier, not a politician. Of course he'll keep his word. Besides—" Lewis stopped.

"Go on, Ed. You were about to say something?"

Lewis looked down at the floor a little sheepishly before he answered. When he did, there was a hint of remorse in his voice. "You know, of course, that the rear-guard detachments from the 4th Armored Division are part of Dixon's brigade?"

Cocking her head, Wilson tried to remember if she had been told about that, but in the blizzard of military briefings she had been given, she was sure that she had never made the connection. Finally shaking her head, she responded, "No, to tell you the truth, I really didn't. But what has that to do with this?"

Slowly Lewis explained himself. "The 2nd Panzer has not been stopped by naval or Air Force aviation from Britain. They're the ones that took a hammering back in central Germany, and if reports are to be believed, they're out for blood, anyone's blood. Since that unit is mostly easterners who have remained steadfastly loyal to Ruff, we expect that they'll make one more effort."

"But why? I mean, it's over. They have no more nuclear weapons. Most of the Tenth Corps has made it to the sea. What possibly is there to gain from one more battle?"

Lewis stood up and looked over to Wilson. His face was a mask betraying no emotions. "The 2nd Panzer Division will attack for exactly the same reason that Scott Dixon will keep his mouth shut. A sense of duty that even soldiers can't explain."

It suddenly dawned upon Wilson what Lewis had left unsaid a moment ago. Dixon, who was still out there exposed to danger, might not make it, leaving only three people to share — their secret. Standing upright, Wilson was about to call Lewis a bastard, but then held herself in check. Not that she had to, for the look on her face told Lewis what she was thinking.

Lewis said nothing. There wasn't anything more to say. Whatever happened in Germany in the next twelve to twenty-four hours was out of their hands. The fate of Dixon and the soldiers who rode with him was back where it probably always had been, in the hands of tired and exhausted men and women, armed with the best weapons their nations had to offer, lurking about under leaden gray skies in search of each other.

With the roads leading west finally cleared of wreckage caused by ceaseless air strikes and hordes of refugees that always seemed to be in the way, Major General Erich Dorsch was free to unleash his 2nd Panzer Division. Though there was little chance of his division's doing serious damage to the American 4th Armored Division, Dorsch felt a certain amount of satisfaction that the little chunks of that unit he was about to scoop up and crush were the same ones that had frustrated his operations a week before in central Germany. The attack of the 4th Armored Division's 1st Brigade into his exposed flank had slowed and then stopped his advance, denying him a great victory. For that he intended to make every soldier in that unit pay. So with the same ruthlessness that he had driven his motorized rifle regiment in the old East German Army, he drove the soldiers of the 2nd Panzer Division on. The final fight, he promised himself, would be his alone.

Far removed from the command post of the 2nd Panzer Division, the weary soldiers of the 2nd Panzer prepared for one more effort. In the gathering darkness, under cloudy and forbidding skies that told of a new winter storm coming, Captain Friedrich Seydlitz grimly led the pitiful remains of his company forward one more time. That this would be the last battle, there was no doubt. Already the word had filtered down throughout the division that the bulk of the Americans they had been pursuing across Germany were already safe and out of reach. Only a few stray rear-guard units remained to be eliminated. Though Seydlitz had no idea why these units needed to be dealt with, he'd said nothing when he had been given his orders.

The attack, scheduled to commence just before dawn, would be a difficult one. The rash of warm weather had softened the ground and restricted cross-country maneuver to a few patches of solid ground, trails, and hard-surfaced roads. Were it not for the low cloud ceiling that was preceding the new weather front, this restriction on maneuver would have meant an end to the attack. For the Americans controlled the air. Even German Army aviation no longer was available, as it had been in central Germany. There would just be a handful of panzer and panzergrenadier battalions, backed up by field artillery, for the morning's fight.

But that, Seydlitz decided, would be more than enough to satisfy his division commander's honor, pride, or whatever foolish emotion was driving him to continue this insanity. That there was no good reason to do what they were doing was obvious. It had been obvious to his loader over two weeks ago. Only Seydlitz, of all the men in his company, had been unable to see what they had seen. Perceiving the obvious, however, was not the same as knowing what to do. That was where they, the men in his command, had failed and where Seydlitz himself now failed. By all rights, Seydlitz realized as his company prepared to move out, he should refuse to follow his latest set of orders. Others, particularly the pilots in the Luftwaffe, had done just that. They simply refused to do what they had been told. But then their failure had cost the German Army a sure victory. Even worse, the absence of the Luftwaffe had cost German soldiers their lives. Most of those who had fallen had been good Germans, men who had been guilty of nothing more than doing their duty and following their orders. Was the refusal then justifiable? In the course of the past two days, whenever an American ground attack aircraft had rained down destruction on his company, Seydlitz had felt anger at the German pilots who had refused to do their duties. How could fellow countrymen allow this to happen?

Those feelings, those thoughts, were like a great trap. When he questioned the loyalty of the Luftwaffe pilots, Seydlitz realized he was questioning his own. How would he be able to condemn them if he himself failed to carry out his own orders and as a result allowed an attack by a sister unit to fail in a bloody repulse? He couldn't. Right or wrong would not be determined by him or the men in his unit. All they could do was trust that their commanders were looking out for their best interests and those of Germany. In the meantime, all Seydlitz could do was what he had always done, his duty.

So when the time came, he keyed his radio and gave the order for his company to start engines and move out to the west for one more battle.

It was several moments before Chancellor Ruff noticed that he was no longer alone in his office. Seated at his desk, with one leg held straight out to one side to ease his discomfort, Ruff had been staring at the open box that glistened under the harsh light of the desk lamp. With all other lights in the room extinguished, the highly polished box with its bright red lining and black-sheathed knife sat in the center of Ruff's desk as if it were on a stage under a spotlight. With his hands resting on the arms of his padded chair, Ruff sat for the longest time looking down at the box and the knife.

To Colonel Kasper, who had quietly slipped into the Chancellor's office, Ruff looked as if he were watching a little television set or a child's video game. He half expected something to come popping up out of the box that Ruff was staring at so intently. But nothing happened. Ruff simply sat there looking at the box. Kasper, leaning against the wall in the shadows, watched, waited, and began to have second thoughts.

Finally, without any indication as to what alerted him, Ruff looked up from the little wooden box and straight at Kasper. For a moment Ruff's eyes betrayed the look a child gets when a parent catches the child doing something wrong. Leaning forward in his chair quickly, Ruff reached out with his right hand, slapped the lid of the wooden box shut, and sat up straight in his seat. With a gruffness in his voice that barely concealed his anger, Ruff called out, "What is it you want, Colonel?"

For the longest time Kasper said nothing. He merely stayed there in the shadows looking at Ruff and wondering what this man, considered by all who knew him to be a great politician and a wise statesman, was thinking. Loved, until he had initiated this crisis, by Germans in both the East and the West, Ruff had brought the nation together like no other man could have done. Not since Konrad Adenauer had a single German commanded such respect. Why, Ruff thought, had he thrown all of that away? Why?

Becoming angry at the failure of Kasper to answer his question, Ruff slammed his hand on his desk and shouted, "What do you want, Colonel? Either tell me or leave."

In a whisper that made the question more of a plea, Kasper simply said, "Why?"

Already agitated, Ruff twisted his face in anger. "Why what, Colonel? What are you talking about?"

"Why, Herr Chancellor, this foolish war? We have lost so much and gained nothing. Nothing!"

Ruff fell back in his chair. "You think, Colonel Kasper, that we have gained nothing? You think all of this was a waste? How could you not see what we were truly fighting for? How could you be so blind?"

Kasper didn't move. Remaining at the wall near the door, he spoke out. "We have gained nothing. The precious nuclear weapons that started this whole thing are gone. Not only was the German Army unable to stop an enemy force a fifth its size and was crippled while doing so, that pitiful performance created a split in the officer corps and left the Army racked by internal dissent. The Luftwaffe has turned its back on the Army and dishonored itself and Germany. The streets of our cities are being torn by riots against this government while police stand aside and watch. In the world councils, nations who had once been our allies condemn us. And years of patient rebuilding of our nation and its image have been endangered. What possible reason can you or anyone give that could justify all of this?"

Slowly Ruff stood, pushing his chair away from his desk. With the look that had won him election after election, Ruff puffed out his chest. Pulling back the coattails of his suit jacket, Ruff placed his hands on his hips. "We have, Colonel, regained our pride and our honor."

With a deep sense of dread, Kasper looked down at the floor at his own feet as Ruff continued. "For the first time in over sixty years, Colonel, Germany is almost free of occupation forces. Once all this internal foolishness has been given a chance to settle, we will sit with those whom you call our former allies. With the same determination and skill that led to the removal of Russian forces from Germany, we will negotiate away the remains of America's broken forces as well as the others. Freed from the heavy hand of occupation and the stigma of our defeat in the last war, Germany will be able to resume the role of leadership in Central Europe that is Germany's by right. Don't you see, Kasper? What I did was no different than what Arminius did to the Romans in 9 a.d. Arminius and the German tribes, united in their hatred of the Romans, hounded the Roman legions until they were wiped out. We are within a hairbreadth of doing the same to the Americans. Don't you understand? Can't you see that?"

"Then, Herr Chancellor, you intend to continue this war?"

Ruff drew in a deep breath. "I see no other options that make sense. It is the heart and soul of Germany that I fight for. What Germany once was can be again. But we must have the courage of our convictions. We must do what is right regardless of the consequences, regardless of the cost." Ruff paused. When he spoke again, his tone was like that of a father talking to a son. "You know, Colonel, being a German has never been easy. We, our people, have always been at the crossroads of European history. Sometimes we have served as the bridge between East and West, sometimes as the West's shield to protect them from the terrors of the East. But always we have been here, a proud, free, and strong people. This business of collective shame and perpetual atonement for the Holocaust and occupation by foreign armies must end. It is time to put all that foolishness behind us and go forward, as our ancestors always did. Surely you see that?"

Pulling himself upright to the position of attention, Kasper finally stepped out away from the wall and advanced to the edge of Ruff's desk. "You are right, Herr Chancellor, this foolishness must end. But not by looking back into our dark past for answers. To compare yourself to a hero like Arminius is to denigrate his name and memory. The gift your actions are bestowing upon this land is not honor or freedom. No, it is a plague, the same plague that Adolf Hitler brought to our people. Any illusions you have that what you have done is good for Germany is a sin against logic and humanity. So I am here to bring this to an end."

Ruff looked at Kasper. He was totally unprepared for seeing his loyal military advisor standing before him speaking to him in such a manner. Dropping into his chair, Ruff looked up and was about to admonish Kasper when he saw the pistol Kasper held tightly at his side. Slowly Ruff dropped his head, took a long hard look at the pistol, then looked back up into Kasper's eyes. "So, you are to be my Graf von Stauffenberg."

Lifting his pistol up to waist level, Kasper shook his head. "No, Herr Chancellor. I am no Von Stauffenberg. You are right in many respects. Germany has lived in the shadow of its past for too long. But we must shake ourselves free of our own brutal history, not relive it."

"And by killing me you believe that you will solve Germany's problems? That we will be able to make right what you believe is wrong?"

Again Kasper shook his head. "No. We cannot make the past right. But we can make the future right. You must atone for your crimes against our people. You must be held responsible and brought to justice."

Ruff smiled. Pointing a finger at Kasper, he warned the colonel. "Yes, you do that. You bring me to trial. Stand me before the German people and let them judge. And when you do, when I stand before them, I swear to you you will be sorry. For they and history will judge me to be right, and you, all of you who would castrate this great nation and leave us pitiful eunuchs serving foreign masters, will see your errors."

Unwilling to allow Ruff to continue, Kasper took two deep breaths, as if steeling himself for carrying through what he had started. Ready, he spoke deliberately, as if he were reciting a well-rehearsed speech. "There will be, Herr Chancellor, no public trial, no chance to make a mockery of Germany again. Even if you were found guilty of something, you would live, for we have no death penalty, even for murderers like you. No, you cannot be allowed to spread your distorted vision of our future, not from the courtroom docket, not even from the cell of a prison. No, Herr Chancellor. Your dreams of Germany, your rape of my country will end here tonight, now."

Allowing his arms to fall to the padded armrests of his chair, Ruff half smiled. "Am I to understand that you, a simple colonel in the Army, have decided to take justice into your own hands?"

"No, Herr Chancellor. As I have said, I am no Count von Stauffenberg. I cannot do what I believe needs to be done." With that, Kasper threw the pistol onto the desk. "Instead, I am going to allow you by your own hand to bring an end to this insanity of yours."

For a moment Ruff looked at the pistol, and then up at Kasper. "What makes you think that I would do such a thing, Colonel?"

"Because, Herr Chancellor, the devils that have driven you to extract a blood revenge against the Americans have by now been satisfied. Even you realize that once the last of the Tenth Corps is within the perimeter of the American airborne division, the fighting will stop. And if there is no more fighting, no more Americans can be killed."

In utter amazement, Ruff looked at Kasper and tried to figure out how he had discovered his deepest and darkest secret. Had his justification for this war been so transparent? Had this colonel seen through Ruff's mask of German nationalism and into his very soul? How had he betrayed himself?

Satisfied by the silence and the look on Ruff's face that he had hit his mark, Kasper continued. "A public trial will do your reputation and your lust for revenge no good. Your story and all your great high-sounding claims that what you did for Germany was in the name of the German people will be revealed for what they were, false words spoken by a false prophet. What you have done in the past will be forgotten as your name is dragged through the newspapers of the world day after day, as the real purpose behind this war slowly comes out. And as the trial reduces your stature from that of a head of state to that of a mad, demented murderer, you will very soon live to regret allowing yourself to be held up to such scorn and ridicule."

After considering Kasper's statements, Ruff looked around the room, then back at Kasper. There was the hint of a smile on Ruff's face when he spoke. "And so, Herr Colonel, you think that I will take your suggestion and end my life with my own hand?"

"I am only giving you that option."

"And if I don't?"

Kasper brought himself to a rigid position of attention and said nothing. Ruff waited for Kasper to say more, but then realized that the colonel had said all he intended to say. Ruff was about to make a comment but stopped. He knew that there was nothing more to say. Over the past few weeks he had said everything that he had wanted to say. And even more important, he had done everything that he had set out to do. His life's work, he realized, was finished. There was nothing more that he could do. His task to punish those who had destroyed his nation, who had killed his father and made his family suffer, had been completed. Looking at the pistol, then up at Kasper, Ruff thanked his military aide, asked that he be given five minutes alone, and then reminded him to close the door as he left.

When the heavy wooden door of his office was closed, Ruff reached out with his left hand and opened the wooden box sitting on his desk. With his right, he took the pistol and lifted it to his head. As he sat there looking at his Hitler Youth dagger, he regretted that he had never had the opportunity to use this cherished symbol of his childhood for its intended purpose. Yes, he thought, that was unfortunate. With that, he pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 22

From his M-1A1 tank south of the 17th Airborne's perimeter Colonel Anatol Vorishnov had a clear view of the hard-surfaced road that ran south like a straight black ribbon through the muddy brown fields to either side of it. Along that road on the right side sat a farmhouse and barn approximately one thousand meters to the south. That farmhouse, clearly marked on all their maps, was the designated link-up point where he was to make contact with Scott Dixon and the remaining battalions of the 4th Armored Division's 1st Brigade. Dixon's forces, coming up from the south along the road, would come out of a tree line that sat just a little over two thousand meters past the farmhouse.

Looking about to his left and right, Vorishnov watched the young company commander of the unit he was traveling with deploy his tanks to cover the link-up. Not that he had very many tanks to deploy, Vorishnov thought cynically. The company, commanded by a second lieutenant who had finished the armor officers' basic course just three months before, had a grand total of six tanks. The other four officers and eight tanks that had begun the march a mere ten days ago hadn't made it this far. Like every unit in the Tenth Corps, this small company had taken its losses, reorganized itself, and kept going. Whether that effort had been worth the cost had yet to be determined. Soldiers only pay the price. It's the diplomats and the deals they strike afterwards that fix a value to those sacrifices.

Edging his own tank forward as far as he dared go, Vorishnov looked beyond the obvious and studied the terrain more closely. From his new vantage point, he noticed a cluster of trees sitting about twelve hundred meters due east of the farm. There was an elevated trail that cut across the muddy fields and connected that group of trees with the hard-surfaced road running south past the farm. From his map, he couldn't tell for sure how far that trail continued to the east into the woods. Looking back up from the map and over to the woods, he was about to order the company commander he was traveling with to send a platoon over to occupy those woods when an armored personnel carrier came screaming up behind him. Turning around, Vorishnov saw the man standing in the carrier's commander's hatch shout something into the intercom. Getting off onto the left shoulder of the road, the driver of the carrier waited until the last possible moment before he slammed on the brakes. The sudden stop caused the M-113 armored personnel carrier to lurch nose down and then rock backwards. The commander, anticipating the sudden stop, hung on to the barrel of the.50-caliber machine gun mounted at his position and rocked back and forth with the motion of the carrier. Even the two people riding in the rear, heads popping up out of the open cargo hatch of the carrier, took the sudden stop in stride. Only when the carrier finally came to rest did Vorishnov notice that one of the two people in the cargo hatch was the commander of the Tenth Corps, the man everyone called Big Al.

Deciding that he had best dismount and go over to brief the corps commander, Vorishnov ordered the driver of his tank to cut the engine at the same time that the man riding the commander's hatch of Malin's carrier had his driver cut their engine. The sudden silence enveloped the patch of woods, Vorishnov, Malin, and the tiny tank company like a blanket. Now all the subtle noises, like people talking or sponson box doors being slammed shut, that had been masked by the sound of diesel engines drifted throughout the cold, damp morning air. With one eye on Malin and an occasional glance down the long straight road to the south, Vorishnov started to dismount when Malin from his carrier waved over to him and yelled, "No, stay where you are, Colonel. I'll join you over there on your tank." Without waiting for a response, Big Al ducked down and out of his carrier through the troop door in the rear.

Vorishnov saw that Malin, like everyone else in the corps, was tired. His walk and the way he carried his head reminded Vorishnov of a man carrying a heavy load. Of course, Vorishnov knew that the general did have a heavy load, several in fact. He just didn't know which one, the responsibility of commander or his anticipated arrest and trial for disobeying the American President, was weighing heaviest on him at that moment. Climbing up, Malin smiled at the driver, who could only manage a simple nod in return. Even the loader, a large jolly fellow, was slow in coming to attention as he stood on his seat and saluted the general. Pulling himself up and onto the turret, Malin came up next to Vorishnov and squatted down on his haunches. "Any contact with Dixon yet?"

Pulling his combat crewman's helmet off and setting it down on the roof of the turret, Vorishnov nodded as he ran his gloved fingers through his matted hair. "Yes, General, about ten minutes ago, just before we broke out of the tree line here. Colonel Dixon, who is traveling with the lead element, announced that he expected to reach the link-up point within fifteen minutes." Looking down at his watch, Vorishnov studied it for a moment, then pointed down the hard-surfaced road to the tree line three thousand meters to the south. "I expect them to be coming out of there any time now."

Malin followed Vorishnov's outstretched arm, looked at the far tree line, and simply nodded. "Good. Good. I'll be glad when Scotty and his wandering strays are finally back with us."

Vorishnov was about to ask Malin if it was a good idea for him to be so far forward when he heard a call for him come in over the headphones of the crewman's helmet that he had laid on the turret in front of him. Picking it up, he recognized Dixon's voice. "Excuse me, General, that's Colonel Dixon calling now."

Smiling, Malin reached out. "Here, Colonel, could I have that?"

Knowing of the close relationship Malin and Dixon had, the request did not surprise Vorishnov. "Of course, General."

Without bothering to put the crewman's helmet on, Malin put the earphone as close to his ear as he could and pulled the boom mike over to his mouth. Then, before he spoke into the mike, he glanced over to Vorishnov. "This thing in the secure mode?"

Vorishnov nodded.

"Good." Then depressing the transmit lever, Malin called Dixon. "Colonel Dixon, this is Big Al. What took you so damned long?"

For several moments there was silence. Finally Dixon, realizing that it really was Malin, came back with the best response that he could think of. "Sorry, sir. But I forgot something in Prague and had to go back for it."

This caused Malin's face to light up. Watching, Vorishnov knew for the first time that all was going to come out all right. The Americans were beginning to regain their terribly unmilitary and inappropriate sense of humor.

"Scotty, this is Big Al. You almost at the link-up point? Over."

"Affirmative. I have the farmhouse in sight. Over."

"Great. I'm in the wood line to the north of the farm with your Russian counterpart. How about I meet you at the link-up point? Over."

There was a pause. "Roger. As soon as we fire the recognition signals. Over."

Turning to Vorishnov, Malin asked about the recognition signal. Having heard Dixon's request, Vorishnov was already reaching down for the two star clusters. "Here, General, a green star cluster followed by a red. They respond with a green and white."

"Okay, then fire away."

"Before I do, I need to bring a tank up to go with you to the link-up point."

Malin smiled. "I don't think that'll be necessary, Colonel."

Vorishnov insisted. "We are still, as you would say, in Indian country. I am afraid as the senior tactical commander here I must insist that you have an escort."

Knowing that Vorishnov was right, Malin nodded. "Okay, Colonel. Bring up your tank and fire the star clusters. I'm going over to my carrier to get ready."

Without a salute, Malin stood, moved over to the edge of the turret, and climbed down. As he went, Vorishnov felt a sudden pang of sorrow. This would be Malin's last official act. For once Dixon and the two battalions traveling with him had passed through this point, his career would be over. How terrible, Vorishnov thought, to end such a great effort on such a melancholy note. Then, with a slight shake of his head, as if it were necessary to shake his mind free of his last thought before he could move to the next, Vorishnov yelled to the young company commander to have one tank prepare to move out to the link-up point as soon as he fired the star clusters.

From his position behind the lead tank of his column, Seydlitz looked up through the barren tree branches to the west at the brooding gray clouds. He had greeted this cruel winter day with mixed feelings. The low gray clouds would limit the interference they could expect from American ground-attack aircraft. Though capable of flying, finding their target, and hitting it in just about any kind of weather, the American pilots showed a distinct distaste for coming in low and exposing their expensive aircraft to the murderous anti-aircraft fire that Seydlitz's company and the attached Gepard anti-aircraft guns threw up at them. Still that didn't mean they were impotent. Even at an altitude of ten thousand feet the guided weapons and deadly 30mm cannons of the ground-attack aircraft took their toll. And the further north the 2nd Panzer went, the worse it became. Of the seven tanks that Seydlitz had lost, four had been to air strikes.

So there was much to be thankful for today. If only the ground would freeze again. Then, rather than being restricted to roads and a few patches of high ground, Seydlitz would be able to freely maneuver his company. Again, the further north they went and the closer to the sea, the worse things became, especially in this area. Marshes in this part of Germany were numerous and, to a tank, as deadly as a minefield. Already that morning they had passed three Leopards and two Marders that had strayed onto what they thought were fields of solid ground that had turned out to be bottomless pits of mud. Mired in the soft black mud all the way to their fenders, the tanks were as useless to the battalion as if they had been hit by an enemy anti-tank missile. The only good thing about this miserable weather was that the Americans too would be confined to the roads.

Taking one more glance at the skies, out of habit, since he was sure there would be little flying today, Seydlitz was about to turn around and check on the progress of the tanks behind him when the blazing trail of a star cluster to his front right caught his attention. Standing up as far as he could in the open hatch, Seydlitz watched as the star cluster reached the highest point of its flight, then burst into a sudden flash of green. This star was no sooner beginning to fade when a second star cluster, this one red, followed the first and burst. Judging the distance to be not more than fifteen hundred meters due west, Seydlitz keyed his radio and issued a warning to all the tanks in his column to stand by for action. Switching the radio to the battalion net, Seydlitz began to report his sighting but stopped in midsentence when from the south he saw a green and white star cluster fired as if in response to the first. Correcting his initial report, Seydlitz updated his battalion commander with his latest observation and then dropped back to the company radio net as he prepared to close with the enemy.

From across the open expanse to his front, Dixon could see a tank move out of the tree line three thousand meters north of his position and head straight down the hard-surfaced road for the farm even before the green and white star clusters Major Harold Cerro fired in return went off. Though he couldn't see it, he had no doubt that Big Al's personnel carrier was following close behind the tank. For a moment, Dixon wondered if the tank was his own tank carrying Vorishnov out to greet him. That would be a bit foolish. He already felt a little uncomfortable at allowing Big Al to come out like that before the area was secure. Senior commanders, after all, just didn't do things like that. Not even brigade commanders. But in this case he could understand why Malin was doing this. For even if, after all was said and done, Big Al was allowed to retire gracefully, this would be the last time he would ever ride into battle in the service of his country.

Ready, Dixon took one more look around to make sure that everything and everyone at his end were set. Captain Kozak and her small company were just about in place. She had her one remaining tank deployed to the left of the road, while the two infantry squads of her one infantry platoon were deployed in the woods to the right. Kozak's Bradley sat on the right side of the road keeping a watch to the northeast while Cerro sat on the left side of the road watching the farm and road itself from his Bradley. Satisfied that all was ready, Dixon ordered his driver to move out and head for the farmhouse.

Just as the Leopard tank to Seydlitz's front was about to break out of the tree line, the tank commander of that tank stiffened upright in the open hatch. He stood there for only a second before he disappeared into the turret of the tank with such speed that it looked as if someone inside had pulled him down. Immediately after that the turret of the lead tank made a quick, short jerk to the right, or northwest. For a moment it stopped and then slowly began to move back to the left, as if it were tracking something moving south. Seydlitz, guessing what was going on, was about to call to that tank commander when he heard the tank commander report in. There was great excitement in his voice as the tank commander of the lead tank reported that he was about to engage an American tank moving south along the road.

Not sure that he wanted to initiate such an engagement before he had deployed at least some of the company out of the column formation, Seydlitz was about to order the lead tank commander to hold his fire when that tank fired its main gun, shattering the cold winter air with a sharp crack.

Ordering the commander of his personnel carrier to pull over to one side of the road, Malin stood up as high as he dared and leaned over the side in an effort to see around the damned tank that Vorishnov had insisted come along. Suddenly, without any warning, the tank to his front was engulfed in a huge shower of sparks, flame, and black smoke. The terrible screeching noise of metal tearing metal cut through Malin like a knife. Even before he had time to twist his head the fraction of an inch necessary to look from Dixon's personnel carrier to the tank less than fifty meters to their front, the first of the tank's large metal blow-off panels that covered the ammo storage area had already been torn free. Like a dead leaf, the blow-off panel was flipped off the turret and sent flying straight up, followed by a solid sheet of flame. Allowing himself to fall back into the personnel carrier, Malin continued to rotate his head to the left in the direction from which he thought the attack had come.

When he finally was facing the east tree line, Malin saw the sinister form of a Leopard II tank, its main gun still smoking as it emerged from a clump of trees. They were, he realized, in trouble.

His personnel carrier, moving as fast as it could roll, was about to reach the tank leading Malin's personnel carrier when out of the corner of his eye Dixon saw a flash. Instinctively his head cut over in that direction, but then, when the tank on the road to their front began to tear itself apart, he twisted his head back in that direction. Not needing long to assess what was happening, Dixon jumped up, hit the sergeant that was serving as the commander of his personnel carrier on the left shoulder, and yelled, "Get behind the burning tank. Go left and get behind the burning tank on the left. Ambush from the woods."

The sergeant, having seen the same thing, was already preparing to do that, since he knew that it would have taken longer to turn around and run back to the woods they had just left. The driver, on the other hand, who had been shocked by what had just happened, immediately let his foot off the accelerator. The sergeant commanding the vehicle heard the engine change pitch and yelled, while Dixon was yelling to him, "NO! DON'T STOP! DON'T STOP. GO! GO!"

When he heard both the sergeant and Dixon, the driver quickly overcame his initial panic and stomped his foot down till it couldn't go down anymore. With a sudden jerk, Dixon's personnel carrier lurched forward and went screaming toward the burning tank, still being racked by secondary explosions, and the farmhouse.

Unable to get the commander of the tank in front of him to acknowledge his calls, Seydlitz watched helplessly as that tank commander allowed his tank to continue to roll west, out of the tree line and into the open. Though Seydlitz still couldn't see around the lead tank, it was obvious that he was preparing to engage another target. Seydlitz watched the turret of the lead tank jerk to the right a little and then as before begin to drift back slowly to the left. Not waiting any longer, Seydlitz ordered his own driver to move off the trail to the left and then instructed his company to commence deploying.

From where she sat, Kozak had only seen a faint muzzle blast from the tank to the northeast that had fired. At that moment it was still too far in the woods and masked by trees. Still, as she had on many occasions before, she dropped into her seat, issuing her initial fire command to Sergeant Wolf, her gunner, as she did so. "GUNNER! MISSILE! TANK!"

Wolf, who had not seen the telltale muzzle blast, yelled back, "Cannot identify!"

Once she was settled in her seat and had her eye pressed against her sight, Kozak grabbed the control handles and slewed the turret to the right until the sight was sitting at the edge of the tree line to the northeast some two thousand meters away. Believing his commander had made a mistake, Wolf yelled again, "Cannot identify!"

Kozak was animated. "The tree line, Wolf. The enemy tank is still in the tree line. Keep your eyes open and be ready to pop him when he sticks his nose out."

Leaning as far into his sight as he could, Wolf watched and waited. Then he saw it. At a range of two thousand meters, the 120mm gun tube of the Leopard tank, even in the Bradley's high-powered sight, looked like a thin pencil line. Still Wolf was able to see it, yelling when he did. "Okay! I got 'im! Here he comes." Depressing the palm switches on the turret controls, Wolf tried to traverse the turret but saw that it didn't move. Immediately, without taking his eye from the sight, he yelled out, "I see the enemy tank, Captain. Let go of your controls!"

In her excitement, Kozak had forgotten that she was still hanging on to her matching set of turret controls. As with a tank, the commander's controls override the gunner's, denying the gunner the ability to traverse the turret or elevate the gun until the commander releases the palm switch on his control. When Wolf yelled, Kozak let go of the turret control as if she had been shocked by an electric current. That, she thought, had been dumb. Really dumb.

With the turret under his control, Wolf watched the gun tube. As soon as the German tank began to appear, Wolf started to track it. He was about to announce the launching of his first TOW missile when, to his surprise and Kozak's, the German tank jerked suddenly, was bathed in a shower of sparks, and then began to spew black smoke.

Leaping up on her seat and sticking her head back up out of the turret, Kozak realized that an American tank in the tree line due north of their position had also been tracking the German tank and been able to get its shot off first. As she peered across the field, a sudden feeling of disappointment swept over her because they had missed a shot, though she didn't stop to think that in truth they had never had a clear shot. That feeling was quickly pushed aside when she heard Cerro calling her on the auxiliary radio receiver. Reaching down, Kozak flipped the remote radio frequency selection lever, taking her off her company command net and over to the battalion command net.

Waiting a second for the radio to reset, Kozak was about to respond to Cerro when the distinctive boom and screech of a TOW missile launch to her right caught her attention. Glancing over in that direction, she didn't see any indication that the 1st Platoon Bradley next to her had fired. It had to have been the other 1st Platoon Bradley. Looking out across the field, back to the northeast at the woods where the German tank had come from, she saw no sign of another enemy tank or a TOW missile headed that way. Something, she realized, was coming up on their flank through the woods. Anxious to reset her radio to the company net and find out what was going on, Kozak blurted a quick report on the battalion net. "Hotel 60, this is Charlie 60. I think we're in contact over on our right flank, in the woods. I'll report back in a minute. Out."

Without waiting for any sort of acknowledgment, Kozak flipped her frequency selection lever back to the company net and began calling her 1st Platoon.

Sitting next to the road, Cerro, perched atop his Bradley, felt overwhelmed. In quick succession he had watched the M-1 tank coming south toward him blow up, leaving his brigade and corps commanders on the road and exposed. Then he had watched a German tank come trundling out of the woods to the northeast while he was talking on the radio and had done nothing. Finally, just as things seemed to be getting under control, the commander of the company he was with called in, told him she thought they were in contact with enemy forces due east of their position, and then disappeared off the battalion radio net. Though he could clearly see Kozak's Bradley to his right, less than thirty meters away, it could have been a million miles away for all the attention she was paying him. Determined to solve one of his problems, he ordered his driver to back up and then move over to where Kozak's Bradley was sitting. If they couldn't talk on the radio, they could at least shout at each other.

Inching his way out to the edge of the tree line, Seydlitz, hunched low in his open hatch, scanned the open field to the south and west for any sign of danger. His gunner, able to see the hard-surfaced road to the west for the first time, saw an American personnel carrier racing north on that road toward the burning American tank and yelled out his acquisition report. "Achtung! Personnel carrier!"

Seydlitz, who was looking for more dangerous targets, ignored the gunner's sighting. His vigilance was rewarded when off to their left he caught sight of a Bradley in the wood line to the southwest backing up. Now he was ready to issue his fire command. "Achtung! Bradley, traverse left!" The gunner, aware of what was happening, complied until in the center of his primary sight he caught a glimpse of the retreating Bradley. Seydlitz, who had allowed the driver to advance a little further out to the edge of the tree line, finally ordered him to halt and prepare to engage the Bradley.

Unable to see anything from where his tank was, Second Lieutenant Ellerbee ordered his driver to move forward slowly. As they did so, Ellerbee ordered his gunner to keep his eyes open for the clump of trees across the field that would appear to their right once they had cleared the trees they had been hiding behind. With his head up out of his open hatch, Ellerbee looked first to his right at the trees to the southeast and then south down the hard-surfaced road where he watched Colonel Dixon's personnel carrier pull up next to another one behind the burning tank. They were using the destroyed tank as cover. He was thinking about how clever this was when his gunner screamed, "ENEMY TANK! TWELVE O'CLOCK IN THE WOOD LINE!"

Without even looking, Ellerbee dropped back into the turret, ordering the driver to stop and issuing a fire command as he went. As the gunner and loader yelled their responses, Ellerbee gave the command to fire before he even got his eye to his primary sight extension. Used to the rock and recoil of the powerful 120mm main gun by now, Ellerbee eased his eye up to the commander's extension just as the tank was settling back down from firing its first round. Though he could see from the fading whiffs of smoke that they had hit the Leopard tank, he knew they hadn't killed it, for its 120mm main gun, exactly the same type that was mounted on Ellerbee's tank, was now being trained on them.

At first neither Seydlitz nor his gunner realized that they had been hit. A sudden shudder and a soft scream from the driver's compartment, more of an excited exclamation, were the first clues that something was wrong. Only when Seydlitz noticed his tank jerk to the right did he call out, "Willie, what are you doing?"

"Captain, we've been hit. Right track I—"

The gunner's scream cut him off. "ACHTUNG! PANZER!"

Looking back up to his sight, Seydlitz saw the American tank that had just fired on them as it appeared in the far right corner of their sight for the first time. "Forget the Bradley, engage the tank, now!"

Laying his sight on the center mass of the target, the gunner announced he was ready. Knowing that the American would continue to shoot till he saw his tank burn, Seydlitz didn't hesitate. "FIRE!"

They had hit it. Ellerbee knew they had hit the damned thing. But it wasn't dead. Without another thought, he yelled his new command as he watched the German's gun come to bear. "TARGET! RE-ENGAGE!"

Without waiting for the loader to finish announcing "UP!" Ellerbee's gunner screamed, "ON THE WAY!"

In quick succession, as if one finger had pulled the two triggers, both the Leopard and the M-1 fired. And with the skill and precision of veteran gunners aided by high technology, both gunners hit their marks. It was Ellerbee's tank, however, that got the worst of the exchange. Punching its way through the frontal armored plate on the left side of the turret, the armor-piercing round fired by Seydlitz's gunner scattered hot scraps of metal and debris as it continued through the crew compartment and into the ammo storage racks to the rear of the turret. There it ignited the propellant and the warheads of several rounds, beginning the process of destroying Ellerbee's tank.

The scream of the loader, the sudden discharge of the onboard fire extinguishers, and a searing pain that shot through Ellerbee's body told him he needed to get out now. There was no real conscious thought. He didn't feel the pain or comprehend everything that happened in the few seconds it took him to pull himself up out of the turret and onto the turret roof. Nothing registered. No pain, no thoughts. -Not even when he rolled off the turret, hit the right front fender, and bounced off it like a rag doll and onto the ground did he understand what he was doing. Only vaguely was he aware of his gunner and driver, who both came down next to him, grabbing him by either arm and dragging him back into the woods as his tank, the last of four tanks in his platoon, tore itself apart.

Shaken, but alive, Seydlitz looked about the turret of his tank, first at the loader, then the gunner. "What happened? What in the hell happened? Did we get him?"

The gunner, anxious to see, put his eye to his sight, then cursed. "SHIT! He got our sight."

Putting his own eye up to his sight, Seydlitz saw that the primary sight was gone. "The telescope. Is it still good?"

From above, Seydlitz watched the gunner pull his head away from the eyepiece of his shattered primary sight and move over to the telescope mounted on the side of the main gun's cradle. "Yes. Yes, it's still good. And the American tank, it's burning!"

Popping his head up, Seydlitz looked across the field and saw that their shot had been true. Though he couldn't see Ellerbee and his crew as they fled back into the woods, that didn't matter. Looking back to the left, where he had last seen the American Bradley, Seydlitz confirmed that it was now gone. With no primary sight, one track shot out, and no targets in view, he decided that he needed to check in and find out what was happening to his left and right and then report to battalion.

From his vantage point, Vorishnov had no idea who was coming out on top. He could see that both Dixon and Malin were for the moment safe to the right of the burning hulk of the tank that had been Malin's escort. To the southeast, in the woods that the Germans had come out of, there was at least one German tank destroyed and a second one that had been hit. Due south, where Dixon's force had been, he could see dense clouds of dirty black smoke rising on what should have been the right flank for those forces and another column of dense black smoke to the left of that. While Vorishnov didn't quite understand exactly what was going on, he realized that the enemy attack had two prongs, only one of which, the one coming from the woods to the southeast, that he could do anything about. Contacting the commander of the battalion he was with, Vorishnov ordered him to deploy more forces to their left and prepare to send infantry over into the woods where the first German tank had come from. In the meantime, he ordered his fire support officer back at the brigade main command post to call for every piece of artillery he could find and begin to pound the woods to the southeast.

When Dixon and Malin finally realized they were safe, Dixon pulled himself out of the rear of his personnel carrier and stood on its roof. Carefully he looked up and over the burning tank that was giving them cover. From below, Malin, who was just now catching his breath, called up, "Can you see what's going on, Scotty?"

Just as Malin asked that question, Dixon saw a muzzle flash from the German woods to the east. A flash of tracer streaking from those woods came to an abrupt halt in the tree line not far from where Malin had come from. A sudden bright flash, followed by a sheet of flames, told Dixon that another American tank had been hit. His reaction told Malin that something bad had happened. Finally ready, Big Al pulled himself up and jumped over onto Dixon's personnel carrier. Together they stood there side by side powerless to do anything effective to influence the battle as they watched the next series of exchanges.

Just as they came around a bend in the forest trail and caught sight of the 1st Platoon Bradley guarding the right flank, Kozak watched in horror as it was struck by a high-explosive anti-tank round fired by an unseen assailant. Because the back ramp was down, left open after the dismounted infantry had exited, much of the force of the explosion was vented out and in her direction. Still that didn't seem to make much difference to the Bradley's crew. Of the three men she suspected had been left to man the Bradley, only the driver popped up and out, leaping onto the ground and rolling across the trail as soon as he hit the ground. With no time to lose, Kozak pulled herself up, reaching for her rifle and gear as she went. "I'm going forward to find that squad of dismounts," she yelled to Wolf as she prepared to jump down. "Have Paden grab some LAWs and follow me. You get the Bradley into a good position here and cover the trail." Kozak didn't wait for Wolf to acknowledge. With a small hop she jumped down off her Bradley onto the soft floor of the forest. Even as she struggled to slip the straps of her web gear over her shoulders, Kozak was trotting forward to where she thought the dismounted infantry squad of the stricken Bradley would be.

Seeing a soldier hugging the ground for all he was worth, Kozak came up next to him and dropped to one knee. "Where's Sergeant Manning?"

Without a word the soldier pointed to his right. She glanced to her right, saw Manning, and then pushed herself up off the ground and headed for Manning. Behind Kozak, Specialist Pee Paden came running, carrying the AT-4 light anti-tank rockets Wolf had ordered him to grab. Called LAWs, the AT-4s were designed to be man-portable and disposable, each AT-4 LAW being a single round of ammunition. Paden, carrying three of them, first headed to where Kozak had stopped by the soldier for directions and then, seeing her shift to the right, changed directions to join her and. Manning.

Even before she reached him, Kozak called out. "Manning, what have you got?"

At first he said nothing. He didn't even look over at his company commander. He simply pointed east as he whispered, "Leopard, twenty, maybe thirty meters straight ahead."

Looking in the direction that Manning was pointing, Kozak listened for a second, then heard the deep throaty rumble of the Leopard's diesel engine. From the sound of it, it was sitting still, idling. No doubt the commander of that Leopard was either waiting for orders or uncertain how to proceed. Looking to her left and right, she saw that each of Manning's dismounts had an AT-4 LAW. "Okay, Sergeant Manning, go get it."

Again Manning didn't look at his company commander, staring intently instead in the direction from which the sound of the Leopard's engine came. Like Kozak, he had been listening for any change in pitch, any sign that it was moving or being joined by another tank. Only when he was ready did he bring himself up to a half crouch, reaching down for the AT-4 LAW that had been lying next to him. Calling out to his squad, he gave his orders. "Larson, Evestus, grab your rockets and follow me. The rest of you, cover us." From a short distance behind, Kozak, followed by Paden, went forward with Manning and his tank hunters.

Pulling up to where Kozak's Bradley should have been, Cerro discovered it was gone. Confused for a second, he looked down on the ground next to his own Bradley. Seeing where the tracks of Kozak's Bradley had torn up the ground when it had pulled back out of position, Cerro knew that he was in the right place. Kozak, however, had moved. Looking up to his right, he saw a second Bradley some thirty meters away. Cerro was about to dismount and go running over to it, hoping to find out if the commander of the other Bradley had seen where Kozak had gone, when he saw that Bradley launch a TOW anti-tank guided missile. Turning his attention across the open field to the woods to the northeast, Cerro watched the TOW as it streaked across the muddy field toward a target that he couldn't see.

The gunner of the Bradley that had fired, however, could. The TOW blew up as soon as it reached the far tree line and disappeared behind the trees that had been masking Cerro's view of the target. A ball of black smoke was already rising above the trees when the sound of the warhead's detonation reached Cerro's ears. Shaking his head, he turned back to look at the Bradley that had just fired and watched as it pulled back to hide in the woods. Fearing that he was going to lose contact with this Bradley, Cerro had just begun to wave at the commander of the Bradley when the sound of several small explosions further to his right came echoing through the trees. Since there was no distinctive high-pitched crack that characterized a tank cannon firing, or enough of a report to indicate the launching of a TOW, Cerro guessed that someone was firing anti-tank rockets on the battalion's right flank. Though he had heard Kozak's report of enemy activity over there, he hadn't imagined that it was so close or a major threat, since the obvious danger to the front across the field had so dominated his attention.

Grabbing his map and spreading it out before him, Cerro forced himself for the first time that morning to consider everything that was happening and come up with a clear, effective, and coherent plan of action.

When the first round of artillery came screaming in and impacted somewhere in the woods behind him, Seydlitz thought that the artillery battalion firing in support of his company had made a horrible error and was shelling his position instead of the enemy's. Pulling his hatch to the opened covered position, Seydlitz was about to call the fire support officer at battalion and tell him to cease fire when he saw across the field a series of explosions shake the farm buildings. That, he suddenly realized, was his artillery. The rounds behind him were American. While he was watching to see what effect his artillery had on the enemy and listening to the drumbeat of their artillery on his position, he wondered why he had discounted, almost without thought, the possibility that the enemy would respond with artillery too. He shouldn't have. And he knew he shouldn't have, since they had, until recently, been allies. Still Seydlitz reminded himself that all too often one allows himself to fall into the common pitfall of feeling that his side is superior or he is clever and his foe is dumb. The worst foe in war, Seydlitz had been told by one of his instructors, was often one's own arrogance.

Seeing that the first volley of his artillery had fallen too far to the west, Seydlitz calculated in his head how much of a correction he needed to give to his fire support officer before they fired the next volley. When he was ready, he attempted to contact the fire support officer. As he waited for him to respond, Seydlitz glanced over his shoulder, then to the northwest where the American vehicles had first come from, wondering if some American company commander wasn't doing exactly the same thing at that moment.

The first volley of German artillery had caught both Malin and Dixon standing on top of Dixon's personnel carrier watching as a momentary lull set in over the morning's fight. Without having to look about to decide what had happened, both men dropped onto the top of the personnel carrier as if someone had pulled their feet out from under them. When he was sure that the last round had landed, Malin looked up and over to the farmhouse, now ablaze. "Scotty, they know we're still here and want our asses."

Lifting up his head, Dixon looked over to where the shower of tiny cluster munitions had come down. "Jesus, that was close."

Looking to his rear, in the direction that he had come from not more than five minutes ago, Malin could see the tree line through the smoke of the burning tank that was offering them cover. "Yeah, we're lucky this time. Think they'll make a correction and try again?"

Dixon looked at Malin, in the direction that he was still looking, then back at Malin. He knew what Malin was thinking without asking. "Do you think we could make it?"

Slowly Malin turned his head toward Dixon. "Well, Scotty, we bet our lives if we stay here that the Germans won't shoot at us again. And we bet our lives that the smoke from the burning tank and the speed of these tinker toys will get us back in one piece if we make a run for it. What do you think?"

Dixon didn't need to think. It wasn't in him to sit and do nothing. "Do we go by road or trust the fields?"

Looking back again, Malin considered that. The fields to the west of the hard-surfaced road were a good three feet lower than the level of the elevated roadway. "Fields, I think. There's a chance we'll get stuck. If we do, we unass and go it by foot."

Dixon nodded. "Okay, General. I'm right behind you."

The loss of the two lead tanks in his column attacking into the flank of Kozak's position convinced the German commander of the tank company moving through the woods that staying in the woods was more dangerous than pulling out into the open. With a crisp, curt command he ordered his driver to make a hard right, taking a trail that led out of the woods. Once they broke the tree line, he ordered his driver to hug the tree line and his gunner to keep a sharp eye out. If they ran into someone, he told his gunner, it would be very close. He knew they would have to get the first round off or die.

The call by Dixon that both he and Malin were making a run for it in his direction didn't surprise Vorishnov. From his position, he had watched the first German volley go in at the farmhouse, and like Malin he had wondered if the Germans would try again. With a quick call to the brigade fire support officer, Vorishnov ordered him to switch to high-explosive mix with smoke rounds and continue to repeat the mission against the German woods to the southeast until he, Vorishnov, gave permission to cut it off. Though not as effective as a dual-purpose conventional round that spewed out dozens of sub-munitions, Vorishnov felt the high explosive and smoke slamming into the edge of the tree line would serve to disrupt any gunner's aim long enough for Malin and Dixon to have a chance.

"There they go! The Americans are running."

Seydlitz looked first to the northwest, the direction he thought that his gunner was talking about, then, seeing nothing, to the west, toward the burning farmhouse. Without his primary sight, he couldn't see what his gunner was talking about. "Who? Who's running and where?"

The gunner, excited and already tracking his new targets, shouted back to Seydlitz, "The American personnel carriers, two of them. On the other side of the roadway. They're running from the farm north."

Leaning forward, Seydlitz looked hard. Only after a second of intense search did he manage to see the very tops of two vehicles, mostly hidden by the elevated hard-surfaced road, crawling north. "Yes, I see them. Prepare to engage."

The gunner hesitated. He had not used his telescope in a long time for a main-gun engagement. Like many of his peers in the German Army, he had come to rely on the computer-driven electronic/hydraulic fire-control system that gave the Leopard such a high probability of first-round hits. With the primary sight out and only the telescope available, he, the gunner, would have to make many corrections, such as target tracking and range estimation, that the automated system had done for him. Still, as he looked, he figured that he had more than enough time to get off three, maybe four shots before the Americans reached safety among the trees in the north. A miss with the first round, therefore, would not be catastrophic.

Unable to see or do anything where he was, Cerro ordered his driver to slowly move forward. With his gunner looking to the left and him watching the German woods to the northeast, Cerro allowed his Bradley to inch out of the protective tree line slowly. If all went well, he would have the driver cut to the right and follow the tree line looking for somewhere to duck back in a little further to the east. Though this didn't make good sound tactical sense, Cerro was tired of being left out of this fight and was looking for the quickest way to find Kozak so he could get an accurate assessment from her and start exerting some command and control.

Unfortunately, when you defy good tactical sense, you often get caught. No sooner had the Bradley come halfway out into the open than the image of a huge gray Leopard tank, its gun pointing right at him, struck Cerro square in the face. "BACK UP! DRIVER, BACK UP! NOW! NOW!"

Cerro's sudden screaming and the decibel level told the driver they were in trouble. Without hesitation, he slammed the transmission into reverse and began to back up. The gunner, seeing what had caused Cerro to yell, slew-laid his sight onto center mass of the German tank and squeezed the trigger, firing whatever ammunition and weapons were ready, without waiting for Cerro to issue a fire command. In this case, unfortunately, it was only the 25mm cannon and not the TOW antitank missile.

Across the way the German gunner had been as surprised to see the American Bradley pop into his sight. He was about to alert his command to this when suddenly the American Bradley began to shower his vehicle with a volley of 25mm high-explosive rounds. Though not particularly lethal to a tank's frontal armor, the hail of 25mm rounds served to startle the German crew and delay their first round. When the commander yelled fire without giving a proper fire command, the gunner took a snap shot that passed within inches of Cerro's Bradley as it gained speed and disappeared into the woods, firing as it went.

The wild firing of Cerro's gunner also served to alert one of Kozak's Bradleys to the danger. With a quick glance to the right, the commander of that Bradley saw the German tanks being well marked by the tracers from Cerro's wild volley and issued his fire command. Since he had been looking for tank targets at long ranges, the Bradley commander had his TOW missile pod up and in the ready-to-fire position. It was a simple matter for him and his crew to dispatch the German tank company commander that had frightened Cerro so badly and sent him scurrying back into the woods.

While Cerro was recovering from his near calamity, Seydlitz gave the order to fire. With great deliberateness, his gunner watched and tracked the two personnel carriers. Estimating their range, based on the range that he had used during his last engagement, the gunner took what he believed to be a good proper lead and prepared to fire. Ready, he announced he was shooting and squeezed the trigger.

Well on their way, Dixon dodged the great mud clods that the tracks of Malin's personnel carrier were throwing up as he endeavored to keep his personnel carrier as close to Malin's as prudent. They hadn't gone fifty meters before Dixon began regretting their decision to go by field instead of the road. Both his personnel carrier and Malin's were sliding about this way and that in the mud as their spinning tracks grabbed for traction and found little. He was about to call over the radio to recommend that they get onto the hard-surfaced road and make their run up there when a large geyser of dirt and rock sprang up from that road. Looking to his right, Dixon quickly saw that someone from the German woods to the east had seen them and was engaging them. Knowing that it was too late to switch to the road now, Dixon dropped the idea. Fixing his stare — on Malin's head as it bobbed this way and that in the open cargo hatch of his personnel carrier, Dixon tightened his grip on the lip of his hatch and began to pray.

Without having to think about it, Vorishnov knew what needed to be done. With cold, emotionless determination, he ordered his driver to move out and head south down the center of the road. When he heard the transmission slip into gear and felt the tank lurch forward, Vorishnov reached down, grabbed the tank commander's override, and brought the main gun to bear on the woods to the southeast where he thought the Germans firing on Dixon and Malin would be. "Gunner, look for a German tank in the tree line to the left."

As they came out of the tree line and began to gain speed, the gunner looked and tried to track but realized that he didn't have control of the turret yet. With no sign of distress or fear, the gunner called out to Vorishnov, "I've got the tree line in sight. Let go of your controls, Colonel."

Releasing the tank commander's override, Vorishnov looked first at the woods, then at the two personnel carriers struggling through the muddy fields. He wondered as he watched if this crew with him realized that he was setting them all up as a decoy, a diversion. Vorishnov knew that as soon as the Germans saw his tank sitting high atop the hard-surfaced road, they would forget the personnel carriers and go for him, the more dangerous target. That was, of course, provided that there was only one German tank shooting. If more than one enemy was in a position to engage them and the two personnel carriers, then he, his crew, Malin, and Dixon all stood a good chance of getting killed, making his sacrifice an empty gesture.

Watching, Seydlitz felt like he needed to say something. He felt the urge to make some sort of correction, issue an observation. Something. But he knew his gunner had seen his first round strike short. The gunner had yelled out a short, crisp "Shit," while he continued to track his intended target and correct the lay of his gun.

So Seydlitz said nothing to the gunner. From his position, half in and half out of the turret, he watched the loader fumble about with the large tank cannon projectile. Now he wanted to speed up the loader. Shouting at him, of course, wouldn't do any good either. The loader was a good man and there wasn't anything that Seydlitz could say or do at this moment that would improve his performance. With nothing to do, he stuck his head out of the open hatch, looked across the field at the two personnel carriers, and waited.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the gunner announced, "Shooting now," just as Seydlitz caught sight of the American tank, its gun aimed directly at them as it came charging south down the hard-surfaced road at full speed.

"Enemy tank twelve o'clock in the wood line." Jerking his head to the left, Vorishnov caught sight of the German tank's muzzle blast. Doing as he had seen Dixon do, Vorishnov dropped to his sight, yelling as loud as he could on the way down, "GUNNER—SABOT—TANK!"

In unison, the gunner and loader yelled out, "IDENTIFIED!" "UP!"

Without a pause, Vorishnov responded, "FIRE! FIRE!"

The heat and the brilliant bright flash of the penetrator impacting on the front of the turret's armor plating blinded Seydlitz. Though his tank did not blow up and the onboard fire extinguishers kept the tank from burning, Seydlitz was now blinded, his gunner was dead, and the loader, panicked by the whole process of being hit again, abandoned the tank, fleeing into the woods just as the artillery mission Vorishnov had requested came crashing down about them. He would survive, making his way to the next tank just before it pulled out of position and, like the rest of Seydlitz's company, withdrew to the east away from the battle to regroup.

That the battle was over was not immediately evident to Cerro from where he sat. Looking out over the vast open field, he had watched with macabre fascination the duel between the personnel carriers, the German tank, and the American tank that had come charging down from the north in an effort to save the personnel carriers. That the tank had managed to save one of the personnel carriers was both fortunate and, considering the intensity of the battle, lucky. Before turning back to the matter of finding out what was happening within his own battalion, Cerro looked back at the road north of the farm. He watched for a second as the tank came up and stopped on the road, shielding the two personnel carriers from any future attacks from the woods to the east. On the left side of the road, Cerro studied the two personnel carriers through his binoculars. He could see that they were now sitting side by side, with the crew of the undamaged personnel carrier working frantically to pull out the crew and passengers of the damaged personnel carrier before it was totally engulfed by flames. On the hard-surfaced road the tank stood motionless, guarding the carriers and their crews.

Though he knew who those personnel carriers belonged to, Cerro didn't pause to wonder whose had been hit. There was a battalion he needed to get in hand. If his performance and luck up to this point of the fight were any indication, it would be a while before he would be able to achieve that. For some reason nothing was working right that day for him. Nothing.

CHAPTER 23

There was a certain strangeness to everything. Somehow, when Second Lieutenant Tim Ellerbee was finally able to open his eyes and keep them open, he noticed that everything had changed. The early-morning light filled the room he was in and made everything seem so bright, so white. Looking straight ahead, he could see the ceiling, the light hanging from the ceiling, and the pole next to him. Still this didn't help him. With his head still clouded from drugs and painkillers, Ellerbee didn't have any idea where he was. He wasn't even sure, for that matter, if he was conscious or in the throes of a seriously weird dream. With an effort that required every bit of conscious thought he could muster, Ellerbee forced his head over to one side. Unfortunately, once it started moving, Ellerbee felt a momentary panic when he realized that he couldn't stop it. So his head rolled to the side until the side of his face flopped down on the thin pillow.

For a moment he rested from this exertion, gathering the strength and presence of mind he would need to continue his explorations. Ready, he pried his eyes open again, noting that everything was terribly blurry, making every object soft and ill defined. Eventually, after his cloudy brain was able to identify the objects he saw, Ellerbee realized that he was looking at a bed, a hospital bed, with someone in it. Taking this discovery into account, it wasn't long before Ellerbee was finally able to deduce that since he was looking at a hospital bed, this meant that this was a hospital. If this was true, his erratic logic ran, then he must also be in a hospital bed. If all of that proved true, he finally concluded, he was wounded and not quite dead yet. After working all of that out, Ellerbee allowed himself to relax and rest. There was, as he did so, a certain feeling of joy, but not for having survived, because it was way too soon to come to such sophisticated levels of self-awareness. Instead, his source of joy was having been able to figure out where he was.

When he was ready to continue, Ellerbee looked closer at the patient in the bed across from his. His fellow patient was sitting up busily writing away at something on the little hospital tray that sat suspended over his lap. Clearing his throat, Ellerbee attempted to speak but couldn't muster any coherent words on his first try. That effort, however, was not wasted, since the patient heard his croaking and turned his head toward Ellerbee. Having the other patient's attention encouraged Ellerbee to redouble his efforts. Ready, Ellerbee slowly forced the words out of his mouth, almost syllable by syllable. "You Am-er-can, or Ger-man?"

The other patient, without any change of expression, responded, "Russian. And you?"

Not sure if he heard right, Ellerbee had to think about what he had asked and what the response had been. Blinking, he decided to try something else. "Tim Ell-er-bee, second lieu-ten-ant, U.-S.-Ar-my. You?"

"Nikolai Ilvanich, major, Russian Army. Welcome to Bremerhaven."

At first Ellerbee couldn't understand what a Russian major was doing in Bremerhaven. Closing his eyes, Ellerbee tried to sort this out. If this major was a Russian, whose side had he been on? Only slowly was he able to recall that many Russian advisors had stayed with their American units after the Ukrainian operation. With that problem resolved, Ellerbee opened his eyes again.

When he did, the room was different. The overhead lights that had been on were now off. The major across from him was no longer writing. He wasn't even sitting up. Instead he was lying down. Ellerbee didn't realize that a couple of hours had passed. Anxious to find out more, Ellerbee called out as best he could. "Ma-jor, you a-wake?"

As before, the head turned. "Yes, Second Lieutenant Tim Ellerbee. And you?"

"Yes, I'm a-wake. What un-it?"

"Company A, 1st Ranger Battalion, 77th Infantry."

Ellerbee sighed. Without thinking, he replied, "Lucky."

"Why do you say I am lucky, Second Lieutenant Tim Ellerbee?"

"No wom-en. My com-pany com-mander. A fe-male in-fan-try cap-tain."

After pausing to think about what Ellerbee had said, Ilvanich responded, "Oh, I see. She failed to get the company back."

Ellerbee surprised himself when he shook his head. He was getting better, he thought. He could now move his head and control it at will. "No. Com-pany made it. All the way."

"Oh. Then she lost every battle you were in. Wasted a lot of lives."

Again Ellerbee shook his head. When he answered, there was a hint of pride in his voice. "No. We did good. Didn't fail any missions. Took all objectives."

"Oh. Then she mistreated you and your men. Didn't get you food or supplies on time."

"No. We ate what-ever was on hand. Never went hungry. She only yelled at me when I did some-thing—" He was about to say wrong, but changed the word. "Something dumb."

"Oh. Then her tactics caused unnecessary losses?"

This one didn't require any thinking. All their losses, Ellerbee had noted throughout the march to the sea, had seemed reasonable and unavoidable. And when compared to the damage they had done to the Germans, they had always been light. "No. We lost, lost a lot. But really punished the Ger-mans. Kicked ass."

"Then," Ilvanich exclaimed, "what's the problem with your company commander? I don't understand. You are here. Your company did the best it could. Succeeded in all of its missions. Won battles. Suffered losses but reasonable losses. And it finished the march. It sounds like this company commander, other than the fact that she's a woman and you don't like that for some reason, is good."

This was almost too much for Ellerbee's mind to absorb as it floated about in a state of drug-induced bliss. While the Russian major's comments were good ones, each and every one, there was something that Ellerbee and the Russian were missing. Perhaps if he rested a little while, the missing element that would justify his dislike of Captain Nancy Kozak would come to mind. Closing his eyes, Ellerbee quickly drifted back to sleep.

Roused from a fitful sleep at 3:05 a.m., Jan Fields-Dixon was" not prepared to greet her unexpected visitor. Her mind was so clouded with sleep that she didn't even make any effort to consider who would be disturbing her at this hour. Not that this was an unusual occurrence. After working for an outfit like World News Network for as long as she had, Jan had learned that nothing, not even her home life, was ordinary. Just about everything that could have happened had happened to her, sometimes more than once, in her years as a correspondent. Still there were times when even a hardened news veteran like Jan could be caught by surprise. Reaching the doorknob, Jan stopped, swept back the stray hairs that had cascaded lazily across her eyes, and opened the door.

In her worst nightmare, Jan couldn't have imagined a sight more frightening, more terrible, than the image of the Army colonel standing before her in the open doorway. For a moment the two of them stood there staring at each other. Jan in an old white terry-cloth bathrobe faced the colonel, standing erect and alert in his overcoat topped with a green scarf that covered his neck and a hat pulled down so low that it hid his eyes in the shadow of its brim.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Jan could feel her knees begin to tremble. Grasping the doorknob with her left hand, Jan almost fell over as she reached out with her right to steady herself on the door frame. Though her mouth fell open and she wanted so to scream, she couldn't. Nothing, not even a wisp of air, came out. It was as if her entire being, everything that she was, had suddenly locked up and come to a sudden, terrible dead stop. Without having to be told, without having to hear it, she knew that Scott was dead. The one man who had touched her heart and soul as no one ever had was gone.

After an embarrassingly awkward moment, the Army colonel reached out ready to catch Jan but did not touch her. Finally with great trepidation the colonel leaned down and spoke. "Mrs. Dixon, are you going to be all right?"

Responding to the words, Jan looked up at the eyes under the highly polished hat brim, nodded, and even managed a weak, stoic "Yes."

Taking her word for it, the colonel took a deep breath and prepared to carry out his orders. But before he could, Jan spoke first. "How, how did it—" Then she stopped. How stupid. What difference did that make now? Why in the hell was it so important to know how? Wasn't it bad enough that it had?

Confused, the colonel looked at Jan, who was obviously having a problem with his being there, and started again. Though he thought it probably would have been better to go inside, and he wondered why this woman in front of him didn't invite him in, the colonel decided to go ahead and just blurt it out. "Mrs. Dixon, I'm here on behalf of President Wilson. She sent me to personally inform you that your husband reached Bremerhaven."

There was silence as Jan's expression quickly changed from pain to confusion, and finally to wonder, all of them reflecting the jumble of thoughts that raced through her mind. When Jan looked up at the colonel, he wasn't ready for her next question. "Then," she said with great trepidation, still struggling to keep her knees from buckling, "his body has just been recovered?"

Now it was the colonel's turn to be confused. Cocking his head to the side, the colonel asked quite innocently, "Excuse me, ma'am, what body?"

Looking up with wide eyes at being asked such an extraordinarily dumb question, Jan shouted, "Scott's! My husband's body."

Finally it became clear to the colonel. With a quick shake of the head, as if to clear it, he almost laughed. "Oh! Oh, my God, no, Mrs. Dixon, you don't understand. Your husband isn't dead. He's alive. He made it back with the last of his brigade. When I said that he had returned to friendly lines, I meant that—"

Jan didn't let him finish. In a flash her near paralysis caused by the grief she felt over Scott's death turned to anger. "YOU BASTARD! You rotten bastard! How dare you wake me in the middle of the night, scare the living shit out of me, and then stand there and laugh at me?" Without waiting for a response, Jan slammed the door in the colonel's face and fled to her bedroom. There she threw herself on her bed and let go with a flood of tears brought on by an avalanche of emotions that she had up until that moment held in check.

Back at Jan's front door, the Army colonel stood motionless for several seconds in front of the closed door, not quite sure what he had done or what to do now. Finally, satisfied that he had accomplished his assigned mission and not wishing to disturb the crazy woman inside the house again, the colonel slowly pivoted about and headed back to the sedan that was waiting to take him back to the White House. As the driver pulled out of the driveway, the colonel looked back at the house one more time and wondered what he was going to say when he got back. Finally he decided that in this case the truth was the safest bet. With that decided, he pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes, folded his arms across his chest, slumped down in the passenger seat, and went to sleep.

Though the Thirteenth Corps had assumed control over all tactical operations in northern Germany and relieved the battered and exhausted Tenth Corps staff of that responsibility, the press corps continued to hover about the final command post site of the Tenth Corps like a pack of wolves waiting for food. Located only a few kilometers from the flat sandy beaches that bordered the North Sea, the staff throughout the Tenth Corps command post waited for the same thing that the media did— the appearance of Lieutenant General Alvin Malin, the renegade general. The correspondents, like the rest of the world, waited to see if Big Al, the most controversial American military figure since MacArthur, would stay true to his word and surrender himself to American authorities.

Though rumor abounded that Malin had in fact returned to American lines the day before, no one outside the staff of the Tenth Corps knew where he was. This failure to report immediately as he had promised was causing problems for the President in Washington and delaying the scheduling of her talks with representatives of the German Parliament. Though both were anxious to put a quick end to what both sides were now referring to as a regrettable affair, the issue of General Malin had to be cleared up before anything on the diplomatic level could go forward. The silence surrounding the whereabouts of the man who had led the Tenth Corps in the dead of winter from the mountains of the Czech Republic to the North Sea seemed to weigh heavily on everyone's mind.

It was in the late afternoon, just as the pale winter sun was preparing to fade off in the distant southwest, that the reporters and camera crews of the media pool, camped out across the road from where the Tenth Corps main command post sat, noticed a stirring throughout that headquarters. Alone and in pairs, the officers and the noncommissioned officers of the Tenth Corps staff emerged from their expandable vans and tents and began to line the road in front of the headquarters main entrance across from where the newsmen sat waiting. As the newsmen watched, the officers and NCOs gathered around the corps chief of staff, who was standing at parade rest, legs slightly spread apart and hands held together loosely in the small of his back. The look on his face, one of great sorrow, was no different than that of other staff officers and NCOs as they lined the road to either side and assumed a similar stance. Not knowing what was going to happen next but sensing that something was amiss, newsmen and camera crews began to record their observations with words and images.

Critics would later claim that the grim procession was staged for the eye of the camera that caught every moment, every participant. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Even if someone had thought of doing so, neither the corps staff nor the soldiers who made up General Malin's escort would have agreed to such a cynical plan.

As the sound of an armored vehicle moving north along the road became audible, the chief of staff of the Tenth Corps, in his best parade-ground voice, shouted out his commands. "CORPS STAFF, ATTEN-TION!" With that, every man across from the newspeople came to a rigid position of attention with a snap. When the armored vehicle that had caused the chief of staff to call his staff to attention came into sight just down the road, he shouted out his next order. "PRE-SENT ARMS." As before, the response was immediate and snappy.

Only the soft hum of generators in the background, the muted comments of correspondents talking into tape recorders, and the wail of the mournful winter wind blowing in off the North Sea disturbed the silence of the headquarters that had been the eye of an international storm for so long.

In the lead was a young female captain riding low in the open hatch of her M-2 Bradley fighting vehicle. The haggard expression on her face made Nancy Kozak look ten years older than she was. Next to her, Sergeant Wolf, her gunner, grimly looked ahead with eyes that didn't seem to blink at all. -As Kozak's Bradley came abreast of the corps chief of staff, Kozak turned her head slightly, saluted the chief for a moment, then, after dropping her salute, she turned her attention back to the front without changing expression. Immediately behind Kozak's Bradley came a second Bradley, the only other combat vehicle of her company that had survived the long trek north. The other eleven Bradleys and four tanks, as well as far too many of their crews, littered their route of march that started in Bavaria and ended here. Though the abandoned hulks of her vehicles were only metal, rubber, and plastic, each stood as a temporary headstone that marked where an American had fallen and where a little more of Captain Nancy Kozak's heart had died.

Next came the battalion commander's Bradley. No one on the ground realized that the young major riding high in the hatch had not started out in that position. Not that Major Harold Cerro's story was any different than that of hundreds of other officers and sergeants in the Tenth Corps. Military necessity, a term often applied to something that was often unpleasant, had resulted in the sudden shifting of officers and NCOs into positions vacated by those who had fallen in battle, collapsed due to stress and strain, or proved incapable of dealing with the responsibilities of the position. In peacetime, Cerro, like many of his fellow officers, had joked about the wonderful opportunities that war offered a professional soldier. The reality of how such opportunities came about, coupled with the grim realization that a friend or peer had to fall in order to advance in such a manner, made such a promotion a thing to dread. For Cerro, because he lived, there was no escaping the price that others had paid so that he could be where he was. When his Bradley slowly trundled by the corps chief of staff, he like Kozak saluted him. After passing, Cerro looked to the north, toward the sea, and returned to his own grim thoughts and memories.

Next came an ancient M-113 armored personnel carrier with a Russian colonel standing upright in the open cargo hatch. With his field cap pulled down low over his eyes, Colonel Vorishnov looked neither left nor right until his vehicle came abreast of the corps chief of staff. He too saluted and then looked back to the front, his gaze, unblinking like Sergeant Wolf's, fixed straight ahead at nothing in particular.

Finally came the tank. As it came up even with the corps chief of staff, the chief seemed to stiffen his already rigid position of attention just as every officer and NCO gathered about him did. There was no loader in the hatch of this tank. Only Colonel Scott Dixon, commander of the 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division. Dixon stood in the commander's hatch of the tank, exposed from his hips up. Holding on to the open hatch with his left hand and the machine gun with his right, Dixon never altered his expressionless stare from a fixed point on the distant horizon to the north. He did not salute the corps chief, for the salute that the corps chief and his staff were waiting for from this vehicle could not be returned. For Lieutenant General Alvin Malin, whose body lay wrapped in a poncho and strapped over the loader's hatch next to Scott Dixon, had been killed in action on the morning of the 25th, just as his greatest military feat was coming to an end.

Only after the procession had passed did anyone take the time to tell the press what had happened. When they found out, there was an immediate rush north to follow the procession. This rush, much to their anger, was stopped short of the coastline. Only the five vehicles of General Malin's funeral procession were allowed onto the flat windswept expanses of the desolate cold beach. There, the deputy corps commander and the corps sergeant major waited to receive the body of their former commander. Behind them stood a small honor guard with the corps flag and the national colors. Behind them, in an extended line that stretched out to either side, stood representatives from all the units of the Tenth Corps, each with its own unit flags, flags that represented all of the units that had made the long march north. As before with the corps staff, when the procession had passed the main command post, the party assembled on the beach saluted the arrival of their commanding officer.

Slowly and in turn, the lead vehicles of the procession moved to one side to make way for Dixon's tank. When they were all clear, Dixon ordered his driver forward until, finally, the treads of his tank were only meters away from the edge of the North Sea. By the time Dixon had stopped his tank and climbed out of his hatch, Cerro and Kozak had come up to his tank and climbed aboard. Together they undid the straps that held Malin's body securely to the top of the turret. Dixon, dismounting, was joined by Vorishnov, the deputy corps commander, and the corps sergeant major on the left side of Dixon's tank. When these four men were ready, Cerro and Kozak slowly, carefully passed Malin's body down to them.

Hoisting the general's body aloft on their shoulders, with the deputy corps commander on the front right, Dixon to his left, and Vorishnov and the sergeant major in the rear, this party carried Big Al's body the few feet that separated them from the sea. When they reached the surf, the party in unison lowered Big Al's body down until it rested on the beach so that the waves rushed about his lifeless body. Having completed their last duty to General Malin, the four men took several steps back, lined up, and, without any order being necessary, saluted their former commander.

For several moments as the sun began to dip below the horizon behind them, the assembled mourners stood there in silence looking at their fallen commander; and then, to a man, each lifted his gaze beyond him to the sea.