“But there are is fact a reinforced division there. A yet I can find no information about it, they have no designation but they are there. And I have heard they are launching an assault on Bayreuth. In the morning, at dawn.”
“Rubbish.” Grigori called for a map and snatched it out of his clerks grasp, spreading it across an elegant marble topped table pushed against the wall in a corner of the room. “Damn it, I’m his second in command.” Grigori lowered his voice, almost whispering to himself. “It would not be possible to form and equip and then launch in to battle a whole division without my knowing. No, quite impossible.”
His forefinger tapped up and down on the map. “Anyway, what point would there be? There is one American supply depot in Bayreuth, but nothing else of interest. The border with Warsaw Central Command is only a few kilometres north so there would be no advantage in going that way and to the west its just farmland and forests. They charge into that and a dozen division would just disappear.”
“There is this as well.” Pritkov withdrew a single sheet of good quality paper from his pocket and handed it over.
“Now you want me to keep an eye on the Red Cross as well?” Gregori noticed the letter heading and its distinctive emblem. He read the five lines of the letter. It was often enough that they got this sort of thing from aid organisations. “A request for information. So what.”
“If you will read it again, the numbers involved, and the location.” Pritkov was almost hopping up and down with frustration as he waited for the general to unfold the letter again and go through it once more.
“…In the area of Bayreuth. A new refugee camp. A rumoured twenty thousand. Twenty thousand! That would be the biggest camp in the whole of the Zone!” Grigori spun around to the map again. He still had the letter in his hand but now he had unthinkingly crushed it into a ball.
“A mysterious division with armour and artillery bolted on to it…. twenty thousand refugees. Zucharnin has always favoured human wave tactics. He has used civilians to clear minefields by marching across them before now. Perhaps he intends to do something like that again, but the figure of twenty thousand, if it is correct, that has to be wrong. A few hundred to tramp over minefields would do any job adequately. But where, where would he…” realisation struck Gregori. “Shit, he’s going to use them to get his division through the NATO lines and wheel them south west to get behind Nurnberg and so threaten Regensberg from the rear as well”.
“I was right to come to you then?”
“Yes, quite right. This is valuable information. I shall not forget this.” With eyes only for the map Lieutenant General Gregori made a vague dismissive wave at the Staff Captain.
“Where to start!” Gregori’s brain clicked in to cold calculating mode. If even half what he suspected was true then at last he had Zucharnin where he wanted him. He made a fist and closed it so tight his stubby nails drew blood from his palm. Step one would be confirm the existence of the ghost division that his commander had formed. Then find out about the refugees and at the same time try and get confirmation that an assault was soon to be launched. He had to find out if he had surmised the object of the attack correctly. It had to be done quickly.
He wrenched open the door and bellowed for a pad and pencil. On successive pages he wrote brief notes, writing so fast and hard that he gouged the paper. Each one he ripped off, shoved in to the hands of a clerk and told him what staff officer he wanted to deal with the matter. That done he retreated back in to his office. So Pritkov had come up with the goods. Rather late in the day but it still gave Gregori a few hours advantage over any one else. Although the only other people that mattered were the oily politicians in Moscow and in particular the Army Committee in the Kremlin. It was how he presented all this to them on which everything hinged.
As he waited for the first pieces of the information to flow back to him he forced himself to be calm. He sat in his swivel chair and made it turn gently from side to side while he leant back with his hands behind his head. At the end of each turn to the right he again saw himself in the mirror. The new uniform looked good. It was going to look even better with the new badges of rank on the collar and cuffs.
The Iron Cow was being driven fast and being used as a weapon in itself. Twice Burke drove in to the centre of Russian artillery positions, scattering sandbags, equipment, stacks of ready use ammunition and gun crews in wild confusion.
The Russian reserve lines were only thinly held and the vehicle that launched itself at them from behind caught them all by surprise. With the cannon blasted away at point blank targets and machine gun fire hosing from the gun ports it charged in succession through a small field headquarters, a radar directed anti-aircraft site and a mortar battery. Only once in that first rush was a single shot got off against them. That was a shell from a dug-in anti-tank gun. Aimed at their rear after the vehicle had raced past, the shot from the towed 100mm gun ricocheted off the ground beside them and whirled high into the sky.
Snaking lines of trenches presented no obstacle but twice they encountered deep anti-tank ditches and had to run along parallel to them for some distance before finding crossing points. In both cases they were temporary wooden structures, very likely rigged for instant destruction but there was no one manning their defences. It was unlikely that any Russian would in any event have taken it on himself to destroy the structures in their path.
“I estimate these defence lines will be about three kilometres deep. The next one, the reserve line, will be the one most likely to be manned.”
“I think we’re coming up on it now major.” Burke sent the hovercraft through a long skidding turn to avoid a battery of field guns and charged through their vehicle park, the hovercrafts blaze of weapons setting several vehicles on fire and mowing down at least ten men as they dived for inadequate cover.
In keeping with usual Russian practise the guns were set out almost wheel-to-wheel and gun crews raced for them. They would be too late. By the time the heavy calibre weapons were loaded and aimed the Iron Cow would be out of sight. And it was, but only to run into other trouble.
Twice they took hits from small calibre automatic weapons, 7.92 and 12.7mm machine guns. The thick aluminium hull was proof against them but still they made a frightening hail of noise on the armour. The larger rounds in particular smacking the metal viciously hard, two of them boring into the thick ride skirt panels but just failing to penetrate.
They tore in to the reserve line at close to the machines maximum speed, using a short stretch of road unobstructed by craters or gun pits. A command car tried to drive out of their way and was clipped hard. Both its rear tyres punctured noisily as they were scrubbed sideways and then it was left rocking wildly, throwing out all loose equipment and its driver.
From the turret Libby sent cannon shells in to any potential opposition. A dug in T84 began to traverse its gun towards them, the commander, half out of the top hatch urging the gunner on by slapping the sides of the turret. As he realised the gun could not be brought to bear fast enough he reached for the roof mounted heavy machine gun.
Cannon shells from the racing APC splashed sparks and molten metal from the massive dome of cast steel that was all that was visible of the Russian tank. The machine gun was ripped away and one high explosive round striking the hatch in front of the commander snapped it back to crush his chest.