“I hate them and their new order,” Guterman spat. “But with all the terrorist attacks — even the one on your unit in Baumflecken…” “Wrong. German Special Forces unit.”
Guterman went pale. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as the boots I’m wearing. I was there.”
“And the attack on the convoy?”
“Evidently the same.”
“But they said terrorists did it! I saw the reports!” Guterman shook his head in a daze. “But if there were no terrorists, then how could Hilda and little Joel…”
“Hilda? Little Joel? Ah, I see. You’ve kept busy all these years. Wife and son?”
“Yes. They’re both dead.” Guterman hung his head. “You would fight too, Griffin, you would fight alongside the devil himself to get back at those who killed your family.”
“That’s tough. Sorry. I didn’t know.” He didn’t know why, but he asked anyway. “You got a picture?”
“They are always with me. It is in my wallet. Cut this and I’ll get it.”
“Uh-uh,” Griffin said. He pulled out his knife and cut the bonds around Guterman’s ankles. “There, now stand up and turn around.”
Guterman did as he was told. Griffin slid the wallet out and flipped it open.
The woman. The boy. And the bear.
“You had quarters around Platzdorf.”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“Sit down, Joel. Here, use this and get yourself loose.” Griffin dropped the knife on the cot, then dug in his rucksack. When he turned around, the bonds were cut and Joel was standing again, knife in hand.
Griffin unwrapped the bear. As Joel Guterman saw what was within the plastic, he began to shake. Through his tears and grief, Guterman spoke.
“How?”
“I was in Platzdorf with a friend. The Special Security was tailing us. Little Joel used to unbuckle himself from his car seat when he dropped something in the back, didn’t he? Your wife would unbuckle herself to turn around and check on him, wouldn’t she? And when he did and she did, a car with Special Security license plates broadsided them. It was an accident.”
Joel Guterman sat quietly for a few minutes, letting it all sink in, slowly stroking the toy’s worn fur. Then he squared his shoulders and stood.
“I will kill every one of them. With my bare hands.”
“I don’t care what you do in your off-duty hours, but we have something to take care of first.”
“What?”
“Your brigade and mine are about to tangle.” He cocked his head and they both listened. In the distance the artillery began to thunder. “If they do, a lot of people are going to get killed needlessly. And whoever wins…”
Guterman finished the sentence for him. “Then the only two forces powerful enough to stand up to Blacksturm will have battled each other to impotence.” Guterman paced. “I need to get my commanders released. We need to take out Shror and his Special Security thugs.” He looked at his watch. “The units are already moving toward their attack positions. How do we stop them?”
Griffin pulled out the radio and hit the transmit button. C’mon technology.
“Sep, this is The Griffin.”
Nothing.
“Sep, this is The Griffin.”
Talk to me, Szezpantski, talk to me Griffin thought.
“Sep, this is The Griffin.”
“The Sep.”
Whew. “This is The Griffin. Change of mission.”
“Make up your mind, boss.”
“New targets. I want you to…” In the woods Sep circled points on the sketch as Griffin spoke. Griffin took only a minute to change the plan.
“This is The Sep. It’ll take at least twenty minutes to reset everybody.”
“Roger. Execute when ready.”
“Wilco.”
Griffin put down the radio.
“Mark, by that time, they’ll already be engaging.”
“Can’t move any faster and still have any chance of surprise. Your people outnumber mine ten to one.”
“Those security thugs are not my people!”
“Okay, okay.” He thought for a minute. “Let’s get you a weapon and work our way toward the TOC. This tent won’t be a good place to be when the shooting starts.” Guterman nodded. Griffin checked outside the tent, then waved for his friend to follow. Together they slipped through a darkness already fading into the gray light of another day.
ELEVEN
From his vantage point near the center of his brigade’s defensive sector, Stern watched. First the woods of the Burbenheim Bowl, then the hills where Middletown’s ITVs had fought the previous day, and finally the valley farmlands, all erupted in flames. The Germans poured in barrage after artillery barrage, clouds of black smoke rising and combining to form a pall over the battlefield. His own small hill, prominent enough on the map to warrant the Germans’ attention, received a dousing of artillery, forcing Stern and Eads to button up and back off the hill for ten minutes until the fire lifted.
Yet because Lawson, Travers, Watson, and soldiers like them had kept the Germans out of the 195th’s defensive positions, the artillery generally fell where the troops were not. Travers’s and Lawson’s nighttime positions took a fearful pounding, yet the infantrymen crouched in their holes more than a thousand meters away from the impact and Lawson’s tanks had long since returned to D Company’s reserve position. The empty intersection where Watson ambushed the two Marders became a parking lot as the big shells felled trees and churned up the forest while the bleary-eyed squad put the finishing touches on the positions their platoon had prepared for them while they were outposted forward. Along Autobahn 5, the German artillery tore basement-sized holes out of the asphalt, attempting to neutralize an armored force that wasn’t there. Only the infantry holding “Middletown Ridge” suffered accurate bombardment, but even that shelling had less effect than it should have. Knowing full well what the morning would bring, Alex Stern had three times inspected the positions, his instructions the same each time: Dig deeper, put in more overhead cover, increase dispersion. No hole is shellproof, but with the infantrymen there now calling themselves “mole people” after digging so deep for so long, only one Bradley and a single fighting position were lost to the tidal wave of German artillery fire.
The shelling went on for nearly an hour. From reports his battalions sent him and from the sightings reported by McKay’s troopers, Stern knew the Germans were on the move. Then the fire slackened and the smoke began to build, the Germans’ obscuration rounds mixing with the dust and smoke already thickening the air.
Throughout the night he’d done what commanders do in the defense: He’d checked, and checked, and checked again. Where weapons weren’t sited properly, he moved them. Where artillery wasn’t registered, he watched as forward observers fired in marking rounds. There were rehearsals to monitor; contingencies to plan; back-briefs to receive; and the last of their ammunition to shuffle so that everyone had at least some, if not enough. He took time to visit his wounded and a long moment to count the dead. He even managed to steal almost two hours of sleep, not counting the few minutes between stops.
As Stern sipped his breakfast — a cup of lukewarm instant coffee made from an MRE packet — he trusted as much as he could to his training and preparations and ran it through again and again, searching for some overlooked flaw. Coming up with nothing, he put down his coffee and lit his pipe. He’d done his best, given all he had to give. It would have to be enough.