That arrangement suited Dixon just fine. After a week in the desert he was ready to stand down. During the long road march to Matruh, one Dixon had opted to make on his tank, he had continued to ponder his future. There was much to consider, but he had little to go on. Whatever happened to him rested in the hands of people he barely knew or had never met. Dixon had begun to list the possibilities but soon gave that up as futile. Perhaps he would be asked to retain command of 3rd of the 5th and redeploy back with them to Fort Carson. An equally possible scenario was his reassignment back to Cairo as the assistant operations officer with the 2nd Corps (Forward). Then there were wild cards galore that the Department of the Army could play, such as reassignment to a training command slot. On top of this there were family considerations. Dixon needed to get back to his children, wherever they were, as soon as possible. The loss of their mother and readjustment to a single-parent family were going to be tough for them regardless of what the Army did.
And then there was Jan. The mere thought of her overwhelmed Dixon with feelings and thoughts that were contradictory and, at the same time, arousing. In his mind's eye he could still see her naked body lying in her bed. He could almost feel the warmth and softness of her skin under his hand. Perhaps it was nothing more than sheer animal attraction. But it was something that he could not easily pass off or forget. Eventually, Dixon would have to face Jan, like everything else, and decide.
The sudden halt caught Dixon off guard, throwing him forward.
Grabbing the machine gun, he steadied himself and began to look about in order to discover why they had stopped. Up ahead was Major Grissins, the task force XO, directing tanks to the left and into a line. Sent ahead as an advance party, Grissins was greeting each column as it came in and directing it to its own motor park and assembly area. Deciding that there was nothing more to be gained from playing tank commander, Dixon called to his gunner to come up and take over while he dismounted and became task force commander again.
Slowly, carefully, six Egyptian infantrymen made their way forward in two lines, removing mines from their path as they did so. Fifty meters behind them, their M-113 armored personnel carrier followed. In the open hatch, a soldier manning the caliber .50 machine gun surveyed the horizon, watching for any sign of enemy activity. Two hundred meters further back, half a dozen M-60A3 tanks of the Republican Brigade sat in shallow fighting positions. They, too, were watching for the enemy.
Standing on the top of his tank's turret, Colonel Hafez watched the progress of the infantrymen through his binoculars. They were being too careless in their clearing of the abandoned Soviet mine field. Though it was a hasty, surface-laid mine field, the Soviets always managed to booby-trap some of the mines. At the rate his infantry was going, they would eventually stumble across such a booby trap.
He knew their slow and laborious progress was due mostly to exhaustion. Hafez's entire unit, like the infantrymen in the mine field, was exhausted, near collapse, and becoming careless. Even he felt the effects. His ability to think, reason clearly, and react were definitely impaired. The fact that he had not yet taken action but was merely watching his men stumble about in the mine field, taking no precautions to guard against booby traps, was ample evidence that Hafez was losing his ability to continue.
In the last seventy-two hours they had advanced over two hundred miles, mounted an attack, and repulsed a counterattack. In the process they had expended all but a handful of tank main-gun rounds and run their tanks and personnel carriers dry of fuel. Even if his men could muster the courage and determination to repulse another attack and Hafez, somehow, managed to sort out the situation and issue appropriate orders, they really didn't have the means to do so.
As if his very thoughts brought his worst nightmare to life, an excited message reported the approach of a column of tanks from the west. Shifting his gaze from the infantrymen to the horizon, Hafez began to sweep it until he saw the clouds of dust. Dropping his binoculars for a moment, he looked around in order to get his bearings. The distant column was approaching from the north, not from the south as a Soviet attack would come. Since the report had not identified the tanks by type, Hafez bent over and grabbed his tank crewman's helmet. Keying the radio and speaking into the-boom mike attached to the helmet, he warned all units to hold fire. No one was to engage the approaching tanks until they had positively identified them as enemy. They could just as easily be tanks of the 1st Army coming out to greet them.
When all commanders acknowledged his warning, Hafez put the helmet down. Calling to his loader, Hafez told him to pass the two green star clusters up from the storage rack in the turret. Used for signaling, two green star clusters fired by one force would be answered by a green and red if the approaching tanks were Egyptian. Deciding that it was better to establish now if the tanks were friendly rather than wait until they were on top of them, Hafez fired the star clusters in quick succession.
Once he had let the last star cluster go, he stood up and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. The immediate response of the approaching tanks was a sudden change of direction. They were now headed straight for him. Then the lead tanks slowed, almost stopping. This caused Hafez's heart to sink. Not only had he been wrong, he had helped the enemy locate his force. Letting his binoculars fall down around his neck, Hafez was about to jump down into his open hatch and prepare to fight when a green star cluster erupted from the third tank in the approaching column. He paused, looked, and waited to see what color star cluster, if any, followed. The wait was unnerving. Though it was only a matter of seconds, it seemed like an eternity to Hafez.
In the early-evening darkness, a second star cluster erupted from the same tank that had fired the green star cluster. When the rising pyrotechnic exploded into a brilliant red shower of sparks, there was a moment of silence. Then, from everyone in the Republican Brigade who saw the two star clusters, a spontaneous cheer went up. It was over. They had finally accomplished what they had failed to bring about seven days before — the salvation of the 1st Army. That the war might continue was unimportant to him. Perhaps his unit would have other battles to fight. Perhaps they would lose in the end. Hafez knew that anything was possible. But even if they did fight, and he died, he would die secure in the knowledge that the shame of his treason had been expunged. His success as a soldier would be remembered, not his failings as a man.
While she waited for the red record light on the camera to come on, Jan prepared herself. She was anxious to finish shooting the piece tonight. As soon as they did, Jan and her camera crew were slated to catch a military helicopter flying to Matruh. With the conflict winding down and the dangers diminished, the public affairs officer for the 2nd U.S. Corps had granted permission for correspondents to go forward as far as Matruh. There, on Christmas Day, while other correspondents were touring the battlefields, Jan and her crew were scheduled to interview the soldiers of the 16th Armored Division and 11th Air Assault Division as they prepared to leave Egypt. When offered the choice of the tour or the interviews, Jan surprised everyone by taking the interviews. Only Tim, her cameraman, understood why she had done so.
Knowing that Scott didn't expect her, she intended to surprise him by going to his unit first. No doubt Scott would be glad to hear that his children were safe with Fay's mother. And if one thing should lead to another, as Jan hoped it would, she could count on Tim and the sound man to make themselves scarce. Though she considered the possibility that Scott might not feel the same for her as she did for him, Jan had to go. She had to find out if her love was a one-sided affair. If it was, things could be embarrassing. But Jan was ready for that. At least she had convinced herself that she was ready.