“Very doubtful,” said the military man.
“I agree, but possible.”
“But not probable. Each time we have waited it has cost us — territory, lives,” intoned the colonel. “Each time we struck first the pacifists around the world whined, but shortly their sniveling went away. And then the State of Israel was safer for our actions.”
“This is different. This is the nuclear threshold. Every assessment tells me that only the atomic weapons your planes carry disguised as fuel tanks will do what is necessary to destroy the depot.” Felderman slumped in his chair. “I could use a drink.”
“No, Prime Minister, I will not order a drink for you. Your decision must be made with a clear head.”
Aaron Felderman rose and paced. So much was at stake. The present. The future.
“Levi, I hear what you say, but this time we lose nothing by waiting. I will tell these Englishmen that we must leave tomorrow. By that time, if we do not know, we shall strike.”
“Dawn is the best time for surprise.”
“In that, colonel, you are wrong. Everyone expects an attack at dawn — or in the early-morning hours, like when the Americans struck Iraq. No, we shall let tomorrow’s events play themselves out. No one expects his enemy to hit him in the middle of the day. We shall wait until then to take action. I pray to Yaweh Himself that we shall not find that action necessary.”
The colonel rose. “With your permission, I go to make the preparations.” “Yes, of course. Thank you, Levi.”
He was almost out the door when Felderman stopped him.
“I am an old man, not qualified to fly. Otherwise, I would be there myself. I must trust you, and only you, to lead the flight over Kriegspiel. If the Americans are in control, you must pull off. If the Germans own the depot, then you must go in. You may not be able to communicate with me. Your father forgive me, and you forgive me, for what I ask.” The Israeli Air Force colonel pulled himself to his full height, that, though small, was great enough. “You ask only that I do my full duty, and that I shall.” The colonel looked at his watch, conscious that by the middle of the next day he might be responsible for the third use of atomic weapons in this century. “It grows late. I must get back to the planes.”
“Good night, Levi.”
“Sleep well, Mr. Prime Minister.”
A picture of Pauline’s smiling face before him, that night Aaron Felderman didn’t even close his eyes.
“Ironhorse Six, Blue Two. I’ve got vehicle noises and movement vicinity grid 886332. I think Uncle ’Rad’s getting ready to check us out.”
McKay awoke from the half sleep that afflicts cavalrymen while monitoring their radios. “This is Ironhorse. Roger.” He reached for the radio; tuned to the brigade command frequency; and passed the message to Cooper, who in turn relayed it to the battalions, who then passed it down to their companies. Several minutes later Nick Watson, Billy Travers, and Roosevelt Lawson acknowledged the information and alerted their soldiers. Half asleep in turrets and on the ground, minds beginning to numb from fatigue and too many hours of staring through tank or Bradley sights or trying to see through forest darkness, the soldiers on the counter-recon screen line shook themselves as awake as they could.
Through his commander’s sight, Corporal Shelley could make out a half-dozen hot spots, but none of them had moved all night and the infantry told him they weren’t enemy vehicles. He took his eye away from the sight and downed a long drink from his canteen, the chill from the cool water making him a little more alert. He checked his watch. The time was 1:15—in another quarter hour he could wake up Winchell and catch a few minutes as they traded off observing their sector.
All seemed normal when he put his eye back to the sight — the hot spots were still there, all eight of them. Then it struck him: There were only six before. He fiddled with the sight’s controls, trying to decide if his tired eyes were playing tricks on him. Now there were six again. Had there been eight before? He couldn’t be positive. Report it? No, there’d been too many false alarms already; he’d wait until he was sure.
Almost three miles away the commanders of the two recon Luchs armored cars breathed a little easier, having made the dash from one farmhouse to another. They stopped to drop off the squads of infantry stuffed inside the already cramped vehicles. With the infantry out and on the ground, the vehicle commanders picked their route carefully, noting that with some luck they might survive the series of short dashes from the farm buildings through several stands of trees and into the American lines. The dismounts would have an easier time of it: By infiltrating in pairs and small groups, crawling through the drainage ditches and furrows, their trip would be slower, colder, and much dirtier — but eminently safer. They might even get lucky, Lieutenant Rusht thought as he stood in the Luchs’ turret, and perhaps take out an enemy vehicle or two. Maybe even a tank.
Having heard nothing since the initial warning, Sergeant Watson decided to contact Lieutenant Travers and prod the system for information. There was an off chance that the threat had gone and that battalion had just forgotten to tell them about it. It had happened before, a squad out on a battalion-directed mission long since made irrelevant by a change in the situation. Watson remembered sitting on a bridge during a winter Return of Forces to Germany (REFORGER) exercise, guarding it so that the 1-89th could retreat over it. His squad had damn near froze there. Finally, a controller drove up and told him the battalion had changed its mission from defense to attack and that Watson was now thirty kilometers behind the power curve. Detached to battalion control or not, when he caught up to the company a day later, he made sure that the first sergeant and company commander heard about what had happened, and in no uncertain terms. Watson shook his head. That wouldn’t have happened with Lieutenant Walker.
“Tarantula Five, this is Cobra on your frequency.” Even at its lowest volume setting, the radio sounded loud, and Watson knew the voice.
I don’t even have to speak of the devil, thought Watson.
“This is Tarantula Five. Negative sitrep.”
“This is Cobra. Roger, but not for long. I just called higher. The radars reported tracked vehicle movement in your direction about twenty minutes ago, but the ’rads made the tree line before they could get arty in on them. From the last bearing they got, it looks like they’re headed your way. Contact with the scouts is sketchy, either because of the ground or because they’re nodding off. Stay alert out there.”
“This is Tarantula Five. Wilco.”
“Roger. Keep me advised. Cobra out.”
Watson’s head jerked up in alarm as he put the hand mike down. From about a thousand meters down the trail — about where the scouts should be — he heard first the sound of some kind of antitank round impacting, then the secondary explosions of a Bradley’s ammo cooking off inside. The scout platoon had standing orders to dismount an OP for local security — something the new brigade commander had directed — but Watson knew l-89th’s scouts dearly loved being able to button up and smoke cigarettes, trusting to the Bradley’s thermal sight to detect infiltrators. As the glow from the burning Bradley brightened a spot on the horizon, Watson figured out the obvious. The ground surveillance radars had detected the enemy and the scout had oriented his turret to track the attackers. With orders not to engage with direct-fire weapons, the scout had probably tried to call artillery on the Germans, but for whatever reason it never came. The tracked vehicles— definitely not tanks or the el-tee would have said so — meant Marders and their infantry inside. Once inside the wood line the German panzergrenadiers would have dismounted to check out the area before the vehicles advanced. Working their way through the trees to the trail, they must have found it blocked by the scout vehicle and then decided to take out the American track so their Marders could pass. Even now, Watson reasoned, they must be working their way toward the intersection. Which means we’ll have company soon, Watson thought — maybe mounted, maybe dismounted, maybe both. Watson kicked himself for not taking the time to register an artillery target on each trail. Although Walker had insisted that Watson plan indirect fires in support of the ambush, Watson forgot the most essential step— having the arty and the mortars fire in a smoke round to mark exactly where the indirect would hit. Now the data existed only on paper. Watson had no guarantee that the computed data wouldn’t drop the high explosive on top of him and not the bad guys, not that he knew exactly where the Germans were, anyway.