“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Mine. Ours. You just get to the command vehicle, and then your boss will tell you what’s going on and what he wants.” He stood to leave. “And watch out for those security goons. I think we got them all, but there might be a couple still running around.”
The colonel smiled his understanding. “How do you say it? ‘No problem?’ Thank you, Herr…”
“They call me The Griffin.” And he was gone.
The colonel set to work freeing the others.
“This is crazy,” mumbled one captain as he rubbed the soreness out of his just-freed wrists. “First the Americans are our friends, then our enemies, now are they our friends again?”
“It appears so.”
“Then who’s the enemy?”
“I hope we shall find that it is those who have made it necessary to ask such questions.”
His pistol at the ready, Joel Guterman stormed through the canvas entrance to his TOC. Without blinking he drilled the two Special Security guards who always hovered around Shror. The high-command colonel, seated facing the situation map, rose and fumbled for his pistol.
“Drop your weapon, Herr Shror. I am in command now.”
Griffin and two of his team members entered the TOC. Shror smiled, then shrugged and tossed the pistol on the table.
“So I see you have deserted to the enemy. Then you are both a coward and a traitor. But it does not matter. The battle is joined; your brigade and the Americans will destroy each other; and, by the end of this day, we will hold the Americans’ families and possess the armaments we need. Then you will join the others in the Frankencitz jail.”
Guterman walked up to Shror, tucking his pistol back into its holster as he moved.
“That, Herr Shror, remains to be seen.”
“You are a trusting fool, Guterman.” Shror went for the gun on the table.
Guterman’s fist hit him so hard that Shror flew through the air. Guterman went for him, yanking him up and throttling Shror with both hands.
Griffin grabbed his friend’s shoulder and shook him.
“Joel! Joel! We have other business!”
Guterman came back to his senses and shoved the purple-faced, gasping colonel to the ground.
“Take this swine out of here and secure him so that he cannot hurt himself. And secure that foul mouth of his, too.” Two soldiers hustled Shror out of the TOC. Guterman turned to Griffin.
“Joel, you know such nice people.”
“Mark,” Guterman said, biting his lip. “I know how to start a war. I have never stopped oner.”
“There’s a first time for everything. Let’s get to the radios.”
The air was thick with the smoky haze of war. Standing in the cupola of his Bradley, Stern couldn’t see his units in their battle positions. Beneath the smoke, the Germans were likewise invisible. The artillery had stopped — only the radio blared sightings and reports — and then it came. Along Autobahn 5 a lone American missile hissed toward an oncoming target, closely followed by a second missile. More. A tank fired. Then another, then a third. Then the deep-throated spatter as first the four tanks in a platoon, then all the Bradleys in a company, began to engage targets simultaneously. The Germans came on, ignoring losses, firing back. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles on both sides blew up. Layers of missile guidance wires crossed each other, like black strands of spaghetti draped over the bushes, with their ends in a flaming mass. Staccato thumps of autocannon were punctuated by volleys of tank fire. His own artillery — except for the guns he’d dedicated to Travers, held back for lack of ammunition — began to fall on the advancing columns. An odd blast from a mine floated to him, interrupting what would otherwise have been a second of silence. The sounds of war rose and fell to a dull roar, like the background static of a radio station that was too far away.
The cracks of rifle fire reached Stern, and he felt the Germans hit his line. By now Cooper had collated all the reports and confirmed the enemy’s intentions, which Stern had somehow known from the start. Machine guns poured out steady bursts. Trying to bull through the middle, are they? thought Stern. I think we have an answer for that. That was his job under fire. While riflemen defended small pieces of real estate in front of them and tankers engaged advancing targets, Stern’s job was to wait, to take in all the information presented to him, and to decide. Never mind that the lives of hundreds — more than a thousand — soldiers, rested on that decision. Maybe his own life too. Maybe the world. Never mind. Think about the weight and it gets too great, interferes with the thought process. Must do what I know how to do, the best I know how to do it, with what I have right here, right now. Should have left her a long time ago. Get out of here, think about the battle, dammit! Situation reports coming in; we’re holding, but taking casualties. Whole platoons gone, and they have a big, black mass still pouring at us. They’re reinforcing their success on the left side of the highway. Reposition the reserve against the main threat. He called Lawson’s company commander. Move forward, take up attack positions, stand by.
Below him, almost visible as the smoke and dust and fog burned off and blew away in the morning’s gentle breeze, a tank platoon counted down as vehicles were hit. The enemy was bloodied, but still coming. A gap, then a breakthrough. Germans trickling toward the neck of the bottle. They’d be a torrent if he didn’t stop it. Commit the reserve. Go, take charge. He sent D Company the message, then flicked the switch to “internal.”
“Eads, we got a little problem down there. Let’s go check it out. Move out left front; follow the road downhill.”
Stern’s Bradley lurched toward the battle.
“Tango, this is Tango Zero-One. Enemy has broken through in at least company strength.” Here we go again, thought Lawson. The bottle’s popped open, and we get to cork it. “Tango element leads company counterattack on advancing enemy columns vicinity grid 844678. Form wedge, follow me. Move now. Out.”
Walker was out of his Bradley and on the ground, one radio strapped to his back, the other carried by the soldier — his RTO — running alongside him. He and the RTO flopped down beside the second platoon leader’s hole. Walker pressed his head into the ground as bullets kicked up dirt around him, then he looked up. The forest in front of the platoon position seemed almost solid gray, filled with the forms of advancing Germans. His RTO said it for him.
“Good God, lookit all them ’rads.”
Second won’t be able to hold, Walker thought. Two tracks burning already, at least one of their machine guns is out of action. He wrestled the handset to where he could speak into it.
“Tarantula, this is Cobra.”
“Tarantula.”
“The 2d is being hit hard. I want you to leave your vehicles to cover your position. Pull your dismounts around behind 2d’s position and hit the Germans in the flank. That should break up this attack. Move now.”
“This is Tarantula. Wilco.”
“Cobra out.” The fire picked up as the Germans pressed forward. C’mon, Sergeant Parker, you’re the platoon leader now. Have those new squad leaders get them moving.
“Let’s go, people,” shouted Macintosh. “The platoon leader wants us back at the rally point — now! Let’s move!”
There were only five of them left in the squad. So, as the soldiers scrambled out of their holes, the squad leader took his position at the apex of their wedge. He looked over his shoulder as he began to jog off, counting heads to make sure he had them all. It was a good thing he had — they were one short. No, there he was, just lagging behind. “Arlen, you dipshit, get up here and get where you’re supposed tobe.” “What’s the hurry?”