Three Kings

Chapter 25

The British position on the Egyptian Frontier was far from secure. The 6th Australian Division was now penned up in Tobruk, and the 9th division held a wide defensive arc that stretched from Bardia through Sidi Azzeiz to Hafid Ridge, but it wasn’t staying. A German General in Rommel’s Afrika Korps had looked at his map and made a telling pronouncement on the position around Bardia and Sollum. “It was a tactician’s dream and a logistician’s nightmare,” he had said, and that was now proving true.

With O’Connor’s plane down and the General lost in the desert somewhere north of Siwa, Brigadier General Neame was in command of the withdrawal. He took a look at the map as well, and concluded the same thing. Bardia could not be held as it was north of Sollum, where a steep escarpment finally reached the coast again from positions well inland to the east. Largely impassible to armor or vehicles, there were only a few narrow defiles that permitted motorized traffic to pass the barrier of that escarpment. The best of these was Halfaya Pass, very near the small coastal town of Sollum itself.

With only the 9th Australian division in hand, and the scattered remnants of his 2nd Armored division, he realized there was no way he could hold off the enemy advance. So he determined to withdraw the 9th Australian division from its defensive perimeter around Bardia and through Sollum, to a safe position behind that imposing escarpment. It was like a king falling back to the safety of a hard stone castle. Now his badly outnumbered troops only had to defend the few passes at Sollum, Halfaya and further south at a place the British called “Halfway House” near hill 617, a pass about half way down the length of the long escarpment, 30 kilometers east of Sollum.

It was a wise move, for now it would force Rommel to continue east for another 70 to 80 kilometers if he wanted to get beyond the escarpment where any flanking move would again have a chance to cut the vital main coastal road. The tactician’s dream was that escarpment, and the natural castle in the desert it formed, well supplied by that coastal road running up to Sollum. The Logistician’s nightmare was the fact that in making a further move east to try and isolate that position, Rommel had only thin secondary roads through increasingly rough terrain in front of him. The ground became more stony, with deeper sand in small pockets, and occasional depressions to dry lake beds that would impede vehicular traffic.

Yet what Brigadier Neame did not know was the real strength of the force that the wily German General now had in his Afrika Korps. What had started as a blocking force and reconnaissance in force over a month ago had now become a full fledged offensive that OKW had been feeding with new units as fast as the ships could get them to Tripoli.

General Keitel had been busy those last weeks, and he delivered on his promise to Rommel in spades. Not only was Malta being targeted for Axis occupation, the 5th Light Division had been rapidly reinforced with additional armor and halftracks, and re-designated “21st Panzer Division.” More than this, a second Panzer Division, the 15th was quickly moved to Tripoli, much sooner than it had arrived in the history Fedorov knew. Keitel had also put together a new motorized Schnell Division, designated the 90th Light, again formed early in this retelling of events, and though it did not yet have its trucks, the Germans leaned on their new found friends in Vichy North Africa and politely asked them to sell them 1500 trucks from Tunisia and Algeria. They could move them by rail into Tunisia, and from there they could make their way to Tripoli. When the troops of the 90th Light arrived by sea, they would find their vehicles waiting for them.

Rommel’s daring advance in December of 1940 had recovered all of Cyrenaica and drawn Hitler’s attention. At first he was surprised, as he had given Rommel orders to simply stop O’Connor and wait for reserves. But the Führer did not waste any anger over the fact that Rommel had pressed on under his own initiative, much to the chagrin and frustration of the Italians, who thought they were still in overall command in North Africa.

“He has certainly stopped the British,” said Keitel. “Yet it is clear that Rommel has made true the old maxim first espoused by Napoleon: the best defense is a good offence. He’s driven O’Connor off, taken Benghazi, which will augment our supply deliveries by over 1200 tons per day. In this light, we can supply three divisions now, possibly even four. He’s taken Derna, another minor port, and invested the British fortress of Tobruk.”

“He has not taken it?” Hitler gave Keitel a sharp glance, his dark eyes playing over the map.

“He’s bypassed it for the time being, and pushed the British all the way back to Bardia, here my Führer.” Keitel indicated the place on the map. “The Italians have invested Tobruk with five infantry divisions.”

“Then they will take it?”

“Perhaps, but Rommel is making sure that the British will not be able to reinforce it by land.”

“And what about Malta?”

“That operation is well underway. Student has two regiments on the island now, and he is presently landing the third. Resistance is much lighter than we expected. I do not think we will need to commit the 1st Mountain Division as planned. Apparently the British had only a single brigade defending the island, and not the two brigades Canaris said he had identified. In another day we will have four regiments of Fallschirmjagers on Malta, and the entire 22nd Luftland Air Landing division in reserve.”

“And the 1st Mountain Division? They performed admirably at Gibraltar. What do we do with them?”

“We could send them over to the operation in Greece. These are experienced mountain troops.”

“We have over 20 divisions there,” Hitler waved his hand, his eyes still fixed on the map, with that strange inner fire burning from a well of blackness. “The Greek Army won’t last another two weeks. Is that Rommel’s present position?”

“Yes, my Führer. The British have not been able to stop him. He is now thinking he might kick them out of Bardia and Sollum, and possibly continue east. It appears OKW cannot stop him either.”

Hitler smiled. The lines of the battle were advancing into Egypt now, well ahead of schedule. “I heard that man said he would give me the Suez canal in 90 days. I told him to take up a blocking position, but I did not think he would choose one so close to the Egyptian Border! He’s taken back all of Cyrenaica! Well, he has sixty days left to deliver on that promise about the canal. Can he do this, Keitel?”

“Supplies must be wearing thin after a his long advance. Note how he has kept his troops well inland, away from the coast where the Royal Navy could become a factor.”

“What of Operation Anvil?” That was the code name for the air/naval maneuvers now underway. Malta was the anvil, and the heavy squadrons of planes and ships were the hammers.

“The Italians believe they can finish the job, though our Western Task Force out of Gibraltar has just rendezvoused with the French fleet from Toulon. The Royal Navy is coming out to challenge the Italians, just as we thought they would. They can match the Italians, and their experience at naval warfare may make all the difference, but we will make sure they do not succeed. Admiral Raeder has assured me of this. Lütjens is on the Hindenburg, moving east at this very moment. With any luck, we will soon find and destroy the last of the Royal Navy, and then you may have the pleasure of getting the good news that Hindenburg is shelling Alexandria!”

Hitler laughed at that, clearly pleased. “I like this man, Rommel. And Raeder’s advice has proven well taken.” And Volkov’s advice as well, he thought. That man told me to send strong forces to North Africa… And why not? I have divisions sitting in Spain that are not needed there, strong troops that could be put to better use in Rommel’s able hands. Then he made one of those snap decisions taken in a moment of jubilation that would have dramatic effects on the outcome of the desert war in North Africa.

“Give Rommel anything he needs, supplies, tanks, anything. In fact, you may send him the 1st Mountain Division if it is not needed on Malta. And start putting together more motorized infantry at once.”

“We are presently forming a new division, the 90th Schnell. The French made good on their promise and they will deliver the trucks to Tripoli as planned.

“Then they are good for something after all,” Hitler jibed. “One new motorized division will not be sufficient. What about the Grossdeutschland Regiment that was used at Gibraltar?”

“It has been reforming as a full motorized division in Spain, my Führer.”

“Yes, I was also going to order it to the buildup on the new front we will form near the Ukraine frontier, but this battle in North Africa is looking very interesting now. Once we finish off Greece, only Turkey separates our forces from those of Ivan Volkov. Can our armies in the Balkans subdue Turkey?”

“We are presently war gaming that very question, my Führer.”

“If the results are satisfactory, then move Grossdeutschland to Italy. From there we can send it to Rommel as another strong motorized reinforcement. Feed a good fire, Keitel. I am not yet ready to smash Sergei Kirov’s Soviet Russia. All things in time. If we can link up with Volkov and the Orenburg Federation, that will make Kirov think twice about his advance into the Caucasus. In the meantime, feed a fire. Support Rommel with everything you have. Send someone over there to see what he needs. Who is a good man for the job?”

“General Paulus is available.”

“Good. Send Paulus. Tell him to report on Rommel’s condition, intentions, and timetable. Have him work up a list of everything needed to take the Suez canal in sixty days time. That is the real prize. If we take the canal we have all but knocked the British right out of this war. And at the moment, there is nothing but a few demoralized Commonwealth divisions and the empty desert between Rommel and Cairo! Raeder was correct. I would have to commit over fifty divisions in Russia to get this far, and here this Rommel has brought us to a place where we have the English on the ropes, and with what, two divisions? Send him more! Build that force up to a full Korps, as quickly as possible, Keitel. Fan those flames.”

Hitler’s assessment was largely correct, and he might be forgiven for having overlooked one other odd report that had found its way into the intelligence stream that day. It was from the Italian garrison at Giarabub, and they seemed to be concerned that the British were sending heavy reinforcements to the Siwa Oasis, perhaps intending to attack their own position, or execute a deep flanking maneuver to surprise Rommel. Keitel mentioned it in passing, but Hitler brushed the matter off.

“The Italians,” he said shaking his head. “They are afraid of their own shadow. What could the British possibly have to send that far south to Siwa? It is 230 kilometers from their positions near Bardia and Sollum. Why would they do this when they can barely hold the main coastal road?”

“The report indicated that troops bearing the insignia of the British 7th Armored had been spotted, mostly artillery supporting the light Australian patrols snooping around Giarabub.”

“7th Armored?”

“That was the division the British used to make their bold offensive last month. It almost single handedly destroyed the entire Italian 10th Army. Yet all our intelligence indicates it is still reforming at Alexandria. The British are also bringing up the 2nd New Zealand Division. Apparently they have decided not to attempt a reinforcement of Greece.”

“In that they are very wise,” said Hitler. “They would have simply thrown those troops away.” Now Hitler’s eyes darkened, a cloud of worry there. “I was told that we have intercepted a message indicating General O’Connor is no longer commanding the British withdrawal.”

“That is correct.”

“So the rat has fled the sinking ship, eh? What will the newspapers say about the man now that our Rommel is stealing the headlines?” He thought again. “Well, could this 7th Armored Division possibly be ready this soon? Might this man, O’Connor be planning another of his bold offensives?”

“Highly unlikely, my Führer. Not from that deep southern flank. And if he did throw the 7th Armored Division that far south, how could the British keep it supplied?”

Hitler nodded. “Very well,” he said. “But move those units to North Africa as soon as possible. Move Grossdeutschland to Italy, no matter what your war games tell you about Turkey. Cut the orders today.”

It was one of those impulsive decisions that Hitler was noted for over the course of the war. He never concerned himself with logistics, except in the grandest scheme of things as he set his mind on getting control of oil and resources. How his armies would actually extract and use those resources was not his concern.

Keitel might explain the difficulties of supplying troops in the desert, the limits of daily tonnage they might get through the few good ports they had at Tripoli and Benghazi, but Hitler did not wish to hear any of that. He simply wanted divisions moved about, and what the Führer wanted, he almost always got. In this case, however, Hitler’s impulsive order to reinforce Rommel was to prove very timely, for the Western Desert was about to have visitors, with weapons and capabilities the Führer could only dream about now.

The Italians had been both right and wrong with their report from Giarabub. There was a small detachment from the 7th Royal Horse Artillery that had just arrived at Siwa, the artillery that had been requested by Colonel Fergusson for his attack on Giarabub. He had also requested tanks, but what he would actually get was beyond his wildest imagining. Something was blowing in from the heart of the sandstorm that had bedeviled the area the last 24 hours. Something wholly unexpected even now slipping through a crack in this broken world to arrive at this fateful hour in the lonesome, wild deserts of a forsaken land.

The instant Troyak saw that odd glow in the sky his instincts for battle served him well. “Marines! Battle order!” He shouted, and his men reacted with the same ardor, weapons in hand, with troops fanning out in a wide perimeter forward of the KA-40. One man was setting up an 82mm mortar to the rear, another lowering the auto grenade launcher to its tripod mount. Still others had taken up positions behind any cover they could find, with riflemen darting behind some large rocks while other men with the RPG-30s looked for a depression where they could get a good field of fire on anything advancing on their position.

Popski stood there for a brief moment, eyes puckered, hearing a strange growl coming from the south, out of the heart of the high plateau they were on. There was a sudden, foreboding wind, blowing opposite the direction of the storm, and it gave him a shiver, a cold wind that raised his hackles, as though he were standing at the edge of infinity and about to slip over.

Who could be up here, he wondered? Could the Italians have patrols this far out? Now he clearly heard the sound of advancing vehicles, but they did not sound like anything he had heard before. They were certainly not those jeeps from the Long Range Desert Patrol he had talked about, and the Aussie Cavalry unit had forsaken its light tanks and reorganized in trucks for this deployment.

There was a heavy growl to the engine sound, deep and menacing. Might this be the armor that Fergusson and his Aussie detachment had requested? Perhaps the Desert Rats had managed to get a battalion of tanks fit for duty, but how would they get them here so soon? They would have had to go by rail out past the rocky hill country beyond Al Fayum and Birkat Karun. From there they could have taken the long desert road through Aweina and Zabu. He had scouted it himself on his last trip out to Siwa, but why would they climb up here? The oasis country was well south and west, in the low depression. Were they lost?

Yet there was no mistaking the sound now. The telltale rattle of tank tracks could be heard above the low growl, and he could see dark shapes emerging from the chilling wind. Something big was out there, something with power behind it, and now instinct compelled him to move, joining the Russian Marines in a desperate search for any cover he could find.

Chapter 26

In the year 2020, with the energy crisis deepening after renewed fighting in the Ukraine had severed natural gas pipelines feeding a hungry Europe, oil prospecting efforts reached a fever pitch. All the world’s great fields had already edged over the top of the oil peak depletion curve and now were in steady decline. The United States had been blasting and squeezing shale oil and gas from the Green River and Bakken shales in the US, but the oil was deep underground, embedded in the rock and difficult and expensive to extract. Aside from the new superfield at Kashagan in the Caspian Basin, there had been little in the way of good old fashioned light sweet crude found for many decades…. until the year 2020.

An oil man on a safari road trip from Mersa Matruh to Siwa had stopped and wandered off the desert road in an isolated area at the southern tip of the dreadful Qattara Depression, and he saw something in the rocks there that prompted him to return with a survey team to take another look. British Petroleum soon followed up on his survey by quietly negotiating further exploration rights in the region, promising a cash starved Egypt a substantial royalty on any significant finds. The discovery that would be known as the “Great Sultan of the Desert” would rock the oil world when BP finally announced that they had used new deep lateral drilling techniques to locate a massive field of both oil and gas, with reserves expected to exceed 70 billion barrels, the size and scale of Saudi Arabia’s renowned Ghawar field, now fitfully soaked by water infusion to force out its remaining oil, and in rapid depletion.

The new BP concern promised a much needed boon to energy reserves for the West, and a reinvigoration of the tired Old Man of the Middle East, Egypt. The initial development phase, designated Sultan-A, or Sultan Apache, proved very promising. Yet once again, the oil and gas the developed West so desperately needed, was lost in the heartland of a desolate and forbidding desert, and a land populated by resentful Arabic cultures that had been radicalized over many years of dissention and conflict. Situated half way between the Oasis of Siwa and the smaller Qara Oasis to the northwest, high atop a prominent rocky outcrop, the oil engineers of British Petroleum staked out their claim and began intensive development. Soon there was a thriving encampment in the midst of nowhere, with barracks and facilities to support several hundred oil workers, engineers and some of their families.

When Berber militias near Siwa became a problem for Egypt, the Egyptian Army deployed a mechanized force to the area, but the tactic soon backfired. With the central government weak, and power falling to the Army, the forces sent to Siwa simply joined the rebel forces, compounding their mischief now that they had heavy AFVs and tanks. The BP oil men watched nervously from behind the miles of chain link fences surrounding the site, topped with barbed wire, but it was a thin defense.

Then, in October of 2020, the renegade force launched a daring raid on the site. It resulted in the massacre of over fifty oil workers, with many more taken as hostages, and the wanton destruction of valuable drilling rigs and other equipment. Great Britain appealed to the Egyptians to intervene with troops loyal to the government, but the on again off again ‘revolution’ in Egypt saw the current central authority collapse as it had done so many times before.

It was then that Great Britain decided to take matters into its own hands, in true American fashion, and dispatched its formidable 7th Armored Brigade to Egypt to secure the Sultan Apache oil concern and protect the lives of British citizens and property of the Crown.

No strangers to the desert, the Brigade still bore the insignia that had become world famous under the banner of the British 7th Armored Division. The unit had fought in the bitter conflicts in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, all other operations aimed at securing the safety of oil reserves, and was well experienced in the art and trial of desert warfare. After military reforms it had lightened up considerably in its force structure, becoming largely a motorized infantry brigade when serving in Afghanistan. While there it patrolled in light armored trucks like the Mastiff, Wolfhound and Husky, but for this deployment the British Army wisely decided to return the unit to its former glory as a fully armored force.

There had been much debate and budget wrangling over how to equip a new mechanized force for the Army 2020 program. Many vehicles had been tested and considered, Germany’s Boxer, The Swiss built Piranha V, and finally the French VCBI Armored Infantry Combat Vehicle, which eventually was purchased by the British until they could come up with something better. It could serve well as an infantry AFV with a modular “DRAGAR” turret, mounting a 25mm NATO autocannon and a coaxial 7.62mm machinegun. An eight wheeled vehicle, the VCBI had decent armor for its class at 14.5mm, a speed of 100KPH and a range of 750 kilometers. It was perfect for a fast scouting role.

The British renamed it the “Dragon” after its turret design, and purchased enough to outfit a squadron of the 12th Royal Lancers as a Recce unit. Two older infantry units that had served in the 7th Brigade in the past were recalled, the 3rd Mercian Battalion and the Highlanders Battalion. They were both still using the well tried upgraded Desert Warrior IFV, a tracked vehicle that was designed to keep up with the best British tanks at 75KPH. These units had been upgraded to the new 40mm main gun, and had a little more secondary armament with two 7.62mm guns, one a chain gun, and the other a standard MG. Some were fitted with the deadly American made TOW anti-tank missile for added defense against enemy tanks.

The real power of the brigade was in the tank battalion sent to deal with the armor in the renegade Egyptian unit. The Royal Scotts Dragoon Guards were called, fielding 45 of the superb Challenger 2 main battle tanks. The unit had been slated to be gelded and down scaled to a light cavalry force in the Army 2020 plan, but this had not yet happened, and thankfully so. Britain needed some muscle now, and the Dragoons were still there to provide it.

One of the most heavily armored tanks in the world, it used 2nd generation Chobham armor, known as “Dorchester” armor in the service, with twice the strength of steel systems. The sloping armor was designed to deflect AT rounds away from vital areas, and the protection could be further enhanced by mounting Explosive Reactive Armor kits.

When the tank hit back, it used a formidable 120mm main gun, with the same 7.62 chain and machine gun systems on the lighter vehicles, and provisions for a grenade launcher and larger 12.7 MG.

All these formations were grouped under the banner of the 7th Armored Brigade. Now, after 80 long years away, the Desert Rats were returning to their old stomping ground in Egypt, where their forefathers had once hallowed the battlefields like Beda Fomm, Tobruk, Sidi Rezegh, El Alamein, and the pursuit of the German Afrika Korps to Tunisia. Now it would face a wild and wily foe in the Berber tribes of middle Egypt, functioning as a heavy security contingent, largely within the border zone of the Sultan Apache fields, a rough equilateral triangle measuring 50 kilometers per side.

The British press made good mileage from the motto of the heavy Royal Scotts Dragoons Battalion: “No one provokes me with impunity.” British units in Challenger tanks had destroyed a total of 300 enemy fighting vehicles in the Gulf War, without losing a single tank to enemy fire. There were no further attacks on BP facilities after the Desert Rats arrived, and Britain was soon busy again with the business of extracting oil from the deep depressions when the threat of growing war loomed heavily in 2021.

The 7th Brigade was still in Egypt when hostilities opened in the Pacific, and over nine bitter days of increasing escalation, the flames of war burned ever closer as all the world’s energy centers became prime targets of opportunity. The fighting had started over an isolated rock in the East China Sea, the Senkaku Islands to Japan, the Diaoyutai Islands to mainland China. It had soon spread to Nigeria, the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf, and the Kashagan fields of the Caspian Basin.

Too isolated to be threatened by land, the 7th Brigade stood its watch with its air defense units on high alert. Only an air strike could really do any harm…. Or a missile. All was quiet over those first eight days in the desert. The soldiers manned their patrols, the desert heat remained relentless and the cold nights equally unforgiving. Then the ire of man became a fire of wrath and doom on that ninth day, the last day that humanity and civilization itself would have any need for oil and gas on planet earth. The 9th day was the day the first missiles fired and, as might be expected, Sultan Apache was high on the target list.

When they got the brief emergency flash message indicating a missile was inbound, the 7th Brigade rushed to activate its Aster-30 Block III Ballistic Missile Defense Battery, the only one in the unit capable of responding. It fired at dusk that day, the thin trails streaking up through the sky as the Berbers watched from the nearby oasis settlement at Siwa. They had seen the heavy British armored units, the tough, professional soldiers that manned the Brigade, and they wanted nothing more to do with their war on Western oil men. Now they wondered what the British were firing at, as news travels slow in the desert, even news of the impending end of the world…

Brigadier General Jacob “Jake” Kinlan was in his command vehicle when it came, high up in the desert sky, three explosions as the Aster missiles hungrily sought out their targets. They got two of the three warheads from the incoming missile, a mini MIRV re-entry vehicle with three 15 kiloton bombs. The third was jarred enough by the explosions that it was sent careening off target, falling wide of the mark over the desolation of the Qattara Depression and exploding in a massive aerial fireball, about a thousand meters above ground. It was meant to fall just a little lower, and ignite its awful nuclear fire directly over the Sultan Apache site, but fate or good luck had intervened in the tip of that third Aster missile, and the Desert Rats would be spared.

The Brigade was “buttoned up” when the attack came in, their desertized, air conditioned fighting vehicles on full NBC alert, many already hull down in revetments dug into the chalky yellow loam of the desert soil. They would survive the blast to a man, with not a single casualty, but they would never fight for the government that had sent them to Egypt again… at least not for the government that died that day when the missiles fell on London in the year 2021.

Yet strangely, the battle history of the Desert Rats would not end that day, the 9th day, the final day of the long escalation that brought hell to earth and ended human civilization. It was the day that left behind little more than the blighted, charred remains of cities all across the globe, places seen only by the living eyes of a very few, and most of those aboard one brave Russian ship that had disappeared a month before the fighting began — the battlecruiser Kirov.

“Pony up!” Major Reeves gave the order to his Recce Troop, 1st Squadron, 12th Lancers, well outside the brigade perimeter that night, and with orders to scout the way north. The brigade had been hunkered down in NBC mode, all buttoned up with filters running and snorkels sipping and cleaning the air. The men had just completed air samples for radiation levels, tapping their touch screen digital panels in the new Dragon IFVs, which formed the bulk of this squadron. To their great surprise and relief, everything was green and clean. The Russians had thrown an ICBM at them, with a MIRVed warhead. They got two of the three bombs that meant to destroy this vital unit in the British Army where it stood its security watch over the even more vital oil facilities at BP Sultan Apache. That third warhead had gone off, but it was well wide of the target zone, and 7th Brigade would live to fight another day… but not in the year 2021.

One man had inadvertently seen to that, though history would never record his name. Was he the hungry young mishman who had taken that last sweet roll in the bakery bins of Kirov’s mess hall? It did not matter. The only thing that did matter was that Gennadi Orlov found himself at Bir Basúre that night, about seven kilometers from the place that would one day mark the northern border of Sultan Apache oil field. And Gennadi Orlov had brought something with him in his pocket, though he did not know what it was.

Major Reeves was leading his troop, as he often did. He was a self described “desert loving Englishman,” a line he filched from his favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia. He had signed on for Army service as soon as he was of age, and specifically requested service in the 7th Brigade, the Desert Rats, his Great Grandfather’s old unit. The stories he had heard as a boy had stayed with him all his life, from the sand boxes where he once played them out with his toy soldiers, to the real deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a Desert Rat, through and through, and knew the proud history of his Brigade chapter and verse.

They were going to use infrared and night vision sensors to advance, their lights dark as the sleek new eight wheeled IFVs rolled forward over the tough ground. He had orders to move out and scout the road north through Bir Basúre. The Brigade wasn’t sticking around for the Russians to drop another egg on them, and he would lead the way out.

“Well where’s the bloody road?” said Reeves, tapping his digital terrain map. GPS was down, most likely the result of the EMP effects from that big air burst they had just ridden out. They still had their map available, but it failed to locate their present position, or that of any other vehicles in the brigade. The satellites are probably gone as well, he thought. Communications had been spotty all evening before the missile alert came in. Things were heating up in the war, and now it had finally come to the desert.

“Can’t see a thing,” said Cobb, the driver. “We should be right smack on the road, sir. In fact we were right on the road when that alert came in, and we’ve only moved a few yards to the hull down revetment. It should be right under our noses.”

“Well it’s not under our noses, Cobber. You must have canted off into another bloody salt pan of something.”

“No sir,” Cobb protested. “I’d feel that bang away. We’ve got good wheel traction, the ground is firm, but the road… well it’s just not there any longer, sir.”

“Probably buried under a foot of sand by now with this wind, Move us out. I’m signaling the column to follow. The damn thing can’t all be under sand, and we’ll find it soon enough.”

Reeves was going to get his job done, road or no road. Frustrated, he opened his top hatch and stuck his head out, wanting to put his human senses to the test where the digital sensors had failed. The smell and sting of blowing sand was all he got for his trouble. Yet the column was ready to move out, and he was the tip of the spear, fearless, because right behind his squadron was a Sabre of heavy Challenger 2 tanks from the Royal Scotts Dragoons. The deep growl of those big tank engines could be heard over the whine of the restless desert wind, and that had a way of giving a man confidence in his job.

Reeves looked over his shoulder, squinting through his protective goggles, and could barely see the tanks behind his column, though he could hear them even better now. It was pitch black, and the wind was bitter cold. He could not even see the lights from the perimeter towers back at the Sultan Apache facility, which seemed odd, in spite of the obscuring sand storm.

He was a scout, and it was his job to lead the tanks forward, but here they had gone and blundered right off the road, and it was nowhere to be seen. Good enough. He was back through the hatch, shutting it tight as he pull off his protective eye goggles.

“Off you go, Cobber, ahead one third. Gunners ready! I don’t want to be surprised by one of those bloody Egyptian T-72s. Watch that infrared, boys, the night vision is all dodgy in this blowing sand.”

The surprise he hoped to avoid was out there, just a few hundred yards ahead, but it was not a T-72—far from it. He was about to run up on a heavy squad of Russian Marines who had just landed here in a helicopter, and he would get the surprise of his life soon after.

Chapter 27

Popski had seen the cool precision of the Russian Marines, and his opinion of the men ticked up a notch when they deployed. Zykov’s humor was well stowed, and he was all business now, seeing to the proper sighting of the squad’s machine guns. He had a Bullpup on each flank, satisfied that they had good overlapping fields of fire. So Popski found Fedorov near the KA-40, and waved him away.

“You won’t want to be anywhere near that thing,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “Get over here. Quickly!”

Fedorov ran for the covered position where Popski huddled behind a large boulder. “I hope your men don’t get trigger happy,” said Popski. “We don’t know what’s in front of us yet.”

“Troyak!” Fedorov hissed. “Weapons tight. We fire only if fired upon.”

The Sergeant signaled he understood, and then passed the word to his men, though he didn’t like the order. He knew how vulnerable they were now on the ground, and he had taken everything Popski had said about the dangers of the desert to heart. The KA-40 was sitting there like a fat cow, an easy target if this was enemy armor. Like a good sonar man, he had filed away his own inner recollection of various vehicle sounds, and this one gave him a shiver. There were tanks out there, and they sounded like heavy tanks, something he had not expected he would encounter here. So now he knelt by the mortar team and waited, the tension building with every second.

The wind… it was cold and biting now, and the blowing sand seemed strangely luminescent. Troyak had a very bad feeling about it, and then he heard the higher whine of wheeled vehicles, closer, wafting over the deep growl of the tank engines. He enable the grenade launching function on his assault rifle, his finger at the ready near the trigger.

“Nobody fires a single round until I do,” he rasped. And they waited.

Reeves could see it clearly now on his infrared screen, a massive heat signature on the ground, dead ahead. “Something big out there, he said aloud, and began tuning his image to get a better picture. It looked for all the world like…

“We’ve got company. Anyone hear about a helo scheduled in tonight?”

Nobody said anything. “I didn’t think so. Well that’s one fat helicopter sitting about 300 yards out, or I’m a Leprechaun.” He was on his radio set at once, speaking through his headset microphone.

“1/12 Lancers on point. We have a helicopter on the ground out here, about seven kilometers outside the perimeter, over.”

There was some wait, and nothing came back, so he tried again.

“1/12 Lancers on point. Lieutenant Reeves reporting. Please respond, over.”

“HQ Staff. Say again, 1/12. What’s that about a helo?”

“1/12 on point, sir.” And he repeated his report, hearing a lot of talk in the background when the HQ Staff returned.

“Sorry 1/12, there’s a bit of confusion here. Bloody sand storm is thick as pea soup. Can’t see three feet here, but we copy on your helo report. Nothing scheduled. Proceed with caution and ID contact, over.”

“Copy that, HQ, advancing to point of contact. Over.”

Reeves tapped his driver on the shoulder. “Ease us on up to that contact,” he said. “Nice and slow.” He was reaching for his external megaphone to broadcast a warning. “Helicopter on the ground, please identify. This is the British Army.” His voice boomed out on the external speaker.

It was a well rehearsed procedure the unit had developed in their dealings with the locals here. They would ID themselves as British Army, which was usually enough to quell any trouble or disturbance they might come upon during a patrol. By day it didn’t matter, for their vehicles and insignia were now well known to the local Berbers. By night they used the megaphone to warn anything they came upon, and if they didn’t get a satisfactory answer he would fire a warning shot and repeat his challenge. That was usually enough to settle the matter, but this was a hair-trigger situation now with a squad of Russian Naval Marines training every weapon they possessed in his direction.

“British Army?” Popski heard the challenge and had his wits about him. “Anyone have a lantern handy?”

“In the helo,” said Fedorov, and he led their guide back to the KA-40 to fetch a beacon lantern from the side supply compartment. “Now you tell your boys to just lay low and keep cool while I flash our recognition signal.”

He stepped well away from the helo, and flashed out some light signals, simple Morse Code for L.R.D.G., the Long Range Desert Group. Anyone in the British Army should know what that meant.

Reeves saw it, looking from his driver to his gunner with a frown. “Recognition flash,” he said in a low voice. “Anybody read that?”

“I think it’s Morse code, Lieutenant. Yes sir… that’s dot, dash, dot, dot… dot, dash, dot… I think they’re sending L.R.D.G., and it just repeats again.”

Reeves ran that through his head until it rang a very loud bell there — L.R.D.G…. “Someone playing games tonight?” he said.

“What’s it mean, sir?”

“Can’t mean what I think it does. That’s the old Long Range Desert Group from the last war, the big war here in North Africa.” So he thought this was most likely someone getting cheeky from a supply helo that had run in from Mersa Matruh. Anyone who knew about the L.R.D. G. was most likely British out here, but it wasn’t very smart to play word games in a situation like this. And why hadn’t they heard about this helo run? Nothing had been scheduled. Perhaps they were going somewhere else, and just set down here because of the storm. He had it exactly right, though he wasn’t quite sure of himself just yet. So he got on the external speaker system again.

“Come forward and identify yourself. Nice and slow, please.” Then he took a risk and had his driver flash the headlights on his vehicle. It would give his position away, but the growl of those tanks behind him had his dander up, and he was willing to take the chance. Otherwise he was going to have to dismount a squad and have them advance on foot, which he now ordered anyway.

“Number three,” he said quickly in his headset command mike. “Dismount and advance.”

“Aye sir,” it was Sergeant Williams, and he had his men out the back exit ramp of his Dragon IFV, a squad of five fanning out, with two men to either side of the column and the Sergeant leading on point.

“I’d best handle this,” said Popski. “Have your men lie low.”

“I’ll come with you,” Fedorov insisted.

“Better you wait here, Captain.”

“No, I think I should come along. Lead the way, Major.”

A Major ranked a Captain in the army, but this man was navy — the bloody Russian Navy at that. A Captain was a bit of a demigod in the Navy, and this man had the ear of General Wavell himself, so Popski relented.

He stood up, still holding the signal lantern, and started off on foot, fearless. If this was the British Army then he should have nothing to fear, but he kept his right hand on his sidearm where it rode on his hip just the same.

Shadows loomed ahead in the blowing sand, like ghosts materializing on the wind. Then they became the more familiar shape and form of men… soldiers… weapons at the ready. He waited, confident and eager to see who was coming for dinner. When the squad came up they were well forward of Troyak’s Marines, which was just what Popski wanted. One false move here and the whole scene could erupt in a firefight that nobody wanted.

He saluted to the Sergeant, not headstrong enough to wait for him to do so first. He wanted to defuse the situation as quickly as possible.

“Major Peniakoff, Long Range Desert Group,” he said, noting the Sergeant’s shoulder patch and the black beret he wore. He was a Desert Rat, he knew at once, but what was the 7th Armored doing out here? These had to be the reinforcements that the Aussies had been hoping for.

The Sergeant returned his salute. “Major,” he said. “May I ask what you’re doing out here?”

“I’ve the same question, mate,” said Popski. “I suppose you lads are here for the Aussies and Giarabub. Well, you’ve come too far north. Siwa is off that way, well south of here. It’s to be expected in these damn sandstorms. Can’t see a bloody thing.”

He heard a tinny voice that sounded like it was coming over a radio, and the Sergeant pinched a spot on his field jacket collar and spoke quietly.

“A Major Peniakoff, sir. But he says he’s with the Long Range Desert Group.”

“That’s rather handy,” said Popski. There was something odd about this man and his equipment, though he could see he was of good British stock, and clearly a soldier in the 7th Division by his insignia. The uniform looked new, and unlike any he had seen, and the radio was a first. He could not see how this man could possibly have a wireless stowed in his field jacket.

“Chaps call me Popski,” he said. “Maybe you’ve heard the name? In any case, we’re out here on a search and rescue. The General’s plane has gone down, and we came in on…” He looked over his shoulder, hesitating.

“A helicopter,” said Fedorov, who had been studying the Sergeant very closely, noting every line and detail of his equipment and uniform. The collar microphone comm system had not escaped his notice, and now his heart was racing, his mind a whirlwind of possibilities in the blowing sand. No one from the British Army in 1940 could possibly have such equipment. No one… Who was this man?

“Popski,” he said. “Ask him what his unit is, please.”

“That’s clear enough,” Popski said in Russian, then he turned and smiled at the Sergeant.

“No worries,” he said. “I’m in as a guide and interpreter for this man and his rescue team. We’ve a squad back there, and these men are Russian military.”

“Russians?”

“Right,” said Popski. “Out here on the General’s orders — Wavell, I mean. Your general is the one we’re after, O’Connor. His plane went down somewhere north of here and we’re out to fetch him, before the desert does the man in. Can’t do anything until this storm lets up, but you’re a sight for sore eyes out here. Thought we had a Dego patrol that got lost, and we’re glad to see you.”

Sergeant Williams took that in, then conveyed the essence of it to Reeves over his comm link. “Sir,” he finished, “I think you’d better come up here. Looks like we’ve got some bloody Russian military here, or so this man says. He’s speaks the King’s English, though.”

“Russians? I’m coming up.”

Reeves could not make sense of that. Why, weren’t they just taking pot shots at us with 15 kiloton nukes? Bloody hell, what’s going on here? He might want to inform the Sergeant that they were presently at war with the damn Russians, but he needed to see what was happening up front with his own eyes. So he tapped Cobb on the shoulder again, nodding for him to move out.

“Easy does it,” he said. Then on his command line he gave another order. “Number two, follow me up. Twenty yard interval, if you can see that far.”

The Dragon’s engine purred and the IFV moved forward, the turret gunner at the ready. As they moved up they could now begin to see the dark shadowy mass of the helicopter in the distance, still largely obscured by the blowing sand.

A Major Peniakoff… Russians… What in god’s name was going on here? Could this be a Spetsnaz commando unit out here as a fifth column? Maybe these sons-of-bitches have been sighting for that ICBM, and vectoring the damn thing in! He steeled himself for that possibility, but as his vehicle approached the scene he could see only the five man ground team led by Sergeant Williams and two other men.

“Stop right here,” he said to Cobb. “Cover me, boys. I’m going to try and sort this kettle of fish out.”

He exited the vehicle, goggles fixed tightly over his eyes now in the blowing sand. There they were, the Sergeant and two men, one in what looked to be old style British kit, right down to the boots and cap. The other was clearly Russian, with a black leather jacket, and he looked to be an officer, though he was certainly not army, or rigged out for desert operations. If these were Spetsnaz commandos, then he was a ninny goat, so he decided to try and solve the mystery.

“Lieutenant Reeves, 1/12 Royal Lancers, 7th Brigade. I don’t suppose you gentlemen are looking for us? What’s the Russian military doing out here, eh? There’s a bloody war on mates, and we don’t take it well when you lob 15 kilotons at us like that bit a while back. Now what in hell are you doing here?”

Popski looked very surprised. What was this man talking about? “Yeah? There’s a bloody war on alright, but we’re on your side, mate, or haven’t you heard?”

Reeves tightened his lips, eyes obscure behind those goggles. “Well, sir,” he said. “Begging the Major’s pardon, but you and your whole lot are now prisoners of the British Army! What’s that you have parked out there?” Reeves gestured to the dark mass of the helo.

“Helicopter,” said Popski. “From the Russian navy. We’re on search and rescue out here, looking for the goddamned general.” He was beginning to lose his temper now, but his eye kept straying to the vehicle this man had climbed out of, and the longer he looked the stranger he felt about it. Had to be something new, as he had never seen anything like it. Fedorov was looking at it too, and now he knew he was suddenly facing another one of those impossible moments that had been strung out like pearls for all these many long months. Those were modern Infantry Fighting Vehicles, he knew, and he also knew who the 12th Royal Lancers were in the modern British Army. What was going on here? How could this man be standing here… How?

Then he realized that his own presence here at this moment was an equal impossibility, yet this moment was real, as iron clad as reality ever got in the cold steel of what he now recognized as the barrel of a 25mm autocannon pointed his way. He could hear the engines of many more vehicles obscured by the blowing sand. Something had happened. The mirror of history had cracked again, and they had moved one way or another. Either these men came here through the fire of time, slipped through a crack in fate’s battered hourglass, or he and the KA-40 had flown through a hole in time again, only to reach their own day and era in 2021…

Then he remembered Orlov, and that thing he had been playing with that had burned like a fallen star and nearly scalded his hand. My God, he thought. We’re riding the tiger’s back again, and heaven help us now.