Across the field from him, through the thinning clouds of yellow smoke, the German sergeant saw the new target pop up out of the ditch and start running at him. "God in heaven! Are these men mad? Who are they?" For a second he, the machine gunner, and the assistant machine gunner watched in utter amazement as another man in a German uniform, screaming at the top of his lungs, came lunging toward them, a machine gun at his hip and firing as he went. Recovering from this spectacle, the sergeant simply said, "Kill him. Now." Seeing no need to rush, the German machine gunner prepared to comply, taking careful aim. When he was ready, he braced himself and pulled the trigger.
It took only a fraction of a second to realize that although the bolt had gone forward, the machine gun had not fired. Behind him, the sergeant, who had not heard the bolt go forward, yelled, "Fire! Fire, damn it."
Pulling the trigger a second time, the gunner confirmed that the bolt had gone forward. "AMMO! MORE AMMO. HURRY!"
Caught off guard and totally absorbed by the nonstop rush of events, the assistant machine gunner looked over to the gunner with a dumb look on his face. He stood there for the briefest of seconds before he realized what the gunner was saying. "AMMO. I'M OUT OF AMMO! HURRY!"
The sergeant, seeing the confusion, didn't wait for the assistant gunner to respond. Instead, he bent down and grabbed for the first ammo box that he could reach. The machine gunner, pushing the assistant gunner out of the way, raised the cover of his weapon, pulled the bolt back, and reached for the fresh belt of ammunition just as Pape stuck the muzzle of his machine gun into the aperture of the bunker and let go with a long burst of fire.
From across the anti-vehicle ditch, Fitzhugh, leading the rest of the company, had watched in horror as Hillman had gone down and then Pape, like a man possessed, had risen and rushed for the bunker. When he saw Pape cover the distance from the ditch to the bunker and stick his machine gun into the opening, Fitzhugh yelled to the men following him, "Okay, rangers, let's go. All the way. We're going all the way."
Without breaking stride, the rangers with Fitzhugh poured into the ditch through the hole in the fence made by the truck, ran through the muddy bottom, and scrambled up over the other side. Those rangers who had been with Rasper and were still in the ditch joined Fitzhugh and his men in the mad dash for the inner secure area.
Once they were clear of the ditch, their momentum carried them forward, overcoming any resistance that remained and leaving the German battalion, back in the main compound of the storage area, thrashing about in an effort to assemble and reorganize. Fitzhugh, short of breath but still fired up, paused for only a moment as he passed Pape and slapped him on the shoulder. "That was great! You did great. Now let's go. Follow me."
Pape, however, was in a daze. Allowing the muzzle of the machine gun to drop to the ground, Pape fell back against the side of the bunker and looked across the open field to the ditch. The last of the smoke from the grenades was being carried away by the breeze. There, under a thin veil of yellow, he could see both Ilvanich and Rasper lying still. In the ditch, though he couldn't see him, was Hillman. That much he knew. What puzzled him, and it would puzzle him for the rest of his life, was how in the name of God he had gotten to where he was now standing. Neither the eyewitness accounts nor the citation that accompanied the Medal of Honor he was given would ever satisfy Pape. What he had done, and why, during the longest and most important fifteen seconds in his life would always be a mystery to him.
From where he lay, Ilvanich could hear the sounds of battle move on. That and the trampling of feet past him and Rasper, accompanied by Fitzhugh's shouts, told Ilvanich that somehow the tide of battle had swung back in their favor. With nothing left to do but wait, Ilvanich closed his eyes and tried to relax. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought that he could hear above the din of battle helicopter blades beating against the cold winter air. That would be nice. Yes, it would be very nice if the Marines came now. Perhaps then this would have been justified. Yes, that would be nice.
Outside the storage site, Colonel Haas sat on the side of the road propped up against the wreckage of his staff car. Looking up, he watched the first of the dark green helicopters with large black letters spelling U.S. Marines stenciled on their sides come swooping down overhead and into the storage site. When he saw no anti-aircraft fire directed at them from the storage site and the helicopters following taking no evasive maneuvers, Haas knew it was over. Chancellor Ruff's great adventure in making Germany a nuclear power was at an end. Haas wondered if that meant that Germany too would soon be coming to an end. Though he hoped in his heart that such a thing would not happen, the specter of such a grim future for the country he so loved and had served so long suddenly became real.
Then, as if struck on the head, Haas realized that Germany had again placed itself into the hands of an ambitious man. "Maybe," he said to himself out loud, "we should disappear. Perhaps the German people are too great to live in such a small world."
There was a soft knock on the door of the study. Abigail Wilson, pulling herself away from the window seat, called out, "Come in, please."
When the door opened, one of her military aides stepped inside the study. Though he had never seen the commander-in-chief in a bathrobe and slippers, he pretended not to notice. Instead he submitted his report. "Madam President, we have confirmation that both storage sites have been secured. Though the inspection teams that went in with the Marines are still in the process of inventorying the nuclear devices, we're sure we got them all."
Wilson nodded. Then she looked up. "Casualties? How bad were our losses?"
The colonel smiled. "Initial reports say they were minimal."
Wilson frowned, looking down at the floor. Minimal, she thought. Minimal to whom? To us, the people who had issued the orders? How would she, a mother, like it if someone told her that her son had been one of the minimal casualties? She wouldn't. She knew that. But this was not the time to make an issue of the colonel's poor choice of words.
Instead Wilson simply thanked him and turned her head back toward the window. There, in the privacy of her study, she would be the first to mourn for those minimal casualties, whoever they were.
CHAPTER 20
At first, no one seemed to notice. The excuses rendered by those who failed to show up for work were, given the time of year and the advent of a new strain of flu, quite reasonable. Only when the flood of absenteeism spread to the General Staff did Colonel Hans Kasper begin to realize that the absences were not acts of God but wholesale desertion of Ruff's government. Following the example of General Lange, more and more officers openly declared their support of the unilateral cease-fire declared by the Parliament or simply failed to report for duty.
Even more ominous was the action of entire units that were declaring "active noninterference" with American forces. Not satisfied that acceptance of the unilateral cease-fire was enough, commanders of battalions, brigades, and even divisions were lending logistical and medical support to American units as they streamed north. Some even intentionally maneuvered themselves between American forces marching to the sea and German units still considered loyal to Ruff, raising the danger of civil war. When Kasper, in a private conversation with the commander of the 5th Panzer Division, mentioned this, the general became quite blunt. "Your Chancellor Ruff will be gone soon. And I hope the devil takes him. But we and the German people will still be here to atone for his sins. Someone, Herr Colonel, has to defend the soul of Germany. Because when this is over and our day of reckoning comes, we will have to be able to stand up and show that we Germans truly understand right from wrong and that we deserve to sit at the table with other civilized nations."