He raised the scope again, scanning in what he thought was the right direction. The damned rain was interfering with sounds as well as sight. One thing was certain. Whoever was out there wasn’t friendly. There were no other Hungarian Army units this close to the border, and absolutely no civilian traffic allowed in this sector.
Now that he knew what to listen for, he heard the engine noises again. There were at least two enemy vehicles out there — feeling their way slowly through the rain-soaked woods. He nudged his radioman. “Contact Brigade HQ. Tell them we hear movement to our front.”
The engine noises were growing louder. Tereny stiffened. The enemy must be almost right on top of them. He cocked his Soviet made AKR, a carbine version of the AK-74 assault rifle. The radioman did the same while the gunner readied an RPG-16 antitank rocket launcher.
Then the three soldiers flattened themselves, burrowing deeper into the mud. Something clanked out to the front and the lieutenant swiveled his scope toward the sound. There! A six-wheeled, turreted shape loomed out of the darkness and falling rain. He could make out a gun as well, a big one. Another shape materialized off to the right, trundling in the same direction.
As the first vehicle turned, maneuvering between two trees, Tereny recognized its distinctive silhouette. It was a French AMX-10RC, a reconnaissance vehicle armed with a powerful 105mm cannon. EurCon had its own scouts out, probing for the first signs of Hungarian resistance.
The lieutenant put his mouth to the radioman’s ear and whispered. “Send ‘Two AMX-10s moving east! Am engaging.’” While the private relayed his message, he turned to his RPG-armed gunner. “We’re going to have to take these bastards here. We’re too close to bug out now. Right?”
The corporal nodded vigorously. Their briefing on the AMX-10 had included the unwelcome news that its fire control system was one of the most sophisticated ever installed in a light recon vehicle. Trying to run away from a gun system equipped with a laser range finder, ballistic computer, and low-light TV cameras would be suicide. Even in the rain they wouldn’t get fifty meters before being spotted, engaged, and destroyed.
“Good. Give me thirty seconds and then take the one on the right.”
The corporal acknowledged the order — ”Sir!” — through clenched teeth.
Tereny slithered out from under the tarpaulin and got to his feet, careful to keep a tree trunk between himself and the French vehicles. Then he scrambled uphill to their own camouflaged scout car. The little BRDM only mounted a single heavy machine gun, but at this range it might be able to penetrate the side armor on the French armored cars.
He clambered up onto the BRDM’s deck and lowered himself in through the open commander’s hatch. The wide-eyed, pale face of his driver turned toward him. “Christ, Lieutenant! What do we do now?”
“We fight,” Tereny said brusquely, worming his way into the scout car’s cramped turret. He settled in behind the grips of the 14.5mm machine gun and frantically cranked the gun turret around. Any second now…
A streak of fire tore through the night. The sudden burst of light illuminated the two French vehicles, both caught broadside. He had only a fleeting glance before the corporal’s RPG-16 rocket slammed into one of the AMX-10s, tore through the light armor at the base of its turret, and exploded.
The French armored car fireballed. Sheets of flame poured out through open hatches as its ammunition and fuel ignited. Shadows fled in all directions, eerily flickering in time with the crackling flames.
Without waiting Tereny centered his sights on the remaining AMX and fired. The heavy machine gun chattered, spraying glowing tracer rounds toward the enemy vehicle. Sparks flew as bullets slapped into its hull and turret, punching holes through aluminum armor designed to fend off shell fragments and lighter infantry weapons. The French armored car ground to a halt, lifeless.
Elated, the Hungarian lieutenant let go of the machine gun and clambered back into his commander’s seat. He stuck his head out the open roof hatch. “Corporal! Take Markos and check out those AMXs for prisoners!”
Obeying those orders, his gunner and radioman abandoned their hiding place and moved cautiously toward the wrecked vehicles. Both men held their weapons at the ready.
A shell screamed overhead and burst higher up the hill. The explosion took away his sense of victory. Now that they were detected, the French were abandoning stealth in favor of firepower.
More shells rained down along the slope, splintering trees and sending deadly fragments sleeting in all directions. Tereny had the sudden horrified feeling that he’d kicked open a hornet’s nest. It was time to get his platoon to safety. He grabbed the BRDM’s radio mike. “All Sierra units! This is Sierra Alpha! Withdraw to Phase Line Bravo! Repeat, withdraw to Phase Line Bravo!”
Hurried acknowledgements crackled over radio circuits flooded with other urgent sighting reports and calls for fire support. From what he could hear, French recon forces were advancing across the border at several widely separated points.
Tereny ducked beneath the hatch coaming as a shell slammed into the ground only fifty meters away. Splinters whined overhead and clanged off the BRDM’s side armor. He raised his head cautiously, looking for his gunner and radioman. Why the hell were they taking so long?
A parachute flare burst high overhead, lighting the tree covered hillside and valley below with its harsh white glare. As it drifted downward through sheets of falling rain, the lieutenant saw his two missing crewmen staggering up the muddy slope toward him. They were supporting a wounded Frenchman between them. He waved them on and leaned out of the hatch, ready to help hoist their prisoner aboard.
“My God.” Tereny froze again, staring into the valley. There were tanks and armored personnel carriers moving down there. Dozens of them. This wasn’t a skirmish. EurCon was invading in force.
He hauled the injured, bleeding man through the BRDM’s open hatch and then scrambled out of the way as his gunner and radioman tumbled inside. They slammed the hatch shut behind them and stared wild-eyed as Tereny leaned over the driver’s shoulder shouting, “Crank it up! Let’s get out of here!”
With the teeth-rattling roar of incoming artillery fire urging them on, the Hungarian scouts raced for the dubious safety of their own lines.
It had taken the EurCon warplanes just twenty minutes to hammer Tokol into oblivion. Protected by fighters, three separate waves of Mirages and Tornados loaded for ground attack had roamed across the Hungarian airfield, bombing and strafing practically at will. Only two antiquated MiG-21s had managed to get airborne before the raiding force arrived. Both had been bounced and blown out of the sky without ever seeing their attackers.
When the French and German jets turned for home, they left nothing but wreckage behind them. Every runway was cratered, torn apart by French-made Durandals. Laser-guided one-thousand-kilogram bombs had turned rows of heavily reinforced shelters into mounds of twisted steel and shattered concrete. Burned-out wrecks littering the scorched and bullet-pocked tarmac showed where aircraft had been caught out in the open. And dense columns of black smoke in a ring around the horizon marked destroyed SAM sites and radar installations.
Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky climbed out of his car and walked over to the tiny knot of grim-faced air force officers surveying the destruction. Four of Oskar Kiraly’s best bodyguards moved with him, each carefully watching in a different direction. Having already lost one of the democratic revolution’s top leaders, Kiraly had no intention of losing another.
The air force officers stiffened to attention as he approached. Although he held no place in the formal military hierarchy, his position as national security advisor to the provisional government commanded respect.