Leaning forward, Wilson made a fist and pounded it on the desk. "That doesn't make me feel any better, Ed. I hear your words, but in my heart I feel like dirt. After despising and condemning male politicians all these years for doing the same thing to me and other female politicians, I suddenly realized that, given the opportunity, I would do the same thing." Easing back into her chair, Wilson thought for a moment before speaking again, this time with a softer, almost mournful tone. "It's, it's like I've lost the last of my innocence. I suppose that I've become nothing more than a political whore like everyone else around here, and it will be easier from now on."
Standing up, Lewis walked over to the front edge of Wilson's desk. Leaning over with his arms resting on his knuckles, Lewis stared at Wilson. "Abby, no one will ever be able to call you a whore. And the fact that you feel like this should be enough to convince you that you'll never be like the rest of us. You are something special. Despite what your detractors say, you've made, and will continue to make, a difference. Don't buckle now. You've got too much going for you, and we've got a lot to do."
"Do you think, Ed, that Ms. Fields knows that her husband is leading the main effort?"
Lewis, standing up, folded his arms and shook his head. "I really doubt it. But that doesn't make a difference. Scotty Dixon has a reputation for hanging his tail end over the edge. Jan knows without having to be told that Scotty is doing his duty and doing it from the front."
"You know, Ed, I wish he weren't leading that effort. For Jan's sake, I wish he weren't."
Leaning down, Lewis placed his knuckles back on the desk. His voice became rather stern. "No you don't, Madam President. Scotty Dixon is the best that you, the commander-in-chief, have. No. You, as the President and not the woman, want Dixon exactly where he is. Besides," Lewis concluded as he stood up, "he's a soldier. That means he's an expendable commodity. He knows that, Jan knows that, and you, the commander-in-chief, know that. It's when commanders become so concerned about the welfare of their soldiers that they are no longer willing to risk them in battle that men die needlessly and all is lost."
Wilson shook her head. "That might be true, Ed. But it doesn't make this any easier."
"And, Madam President, so long as you and those who follow you feel that way, this country will in my opinion be a cut above the rest." Finished, Lewis stood there for a moment. He suddenly felt very foolish for having lectured the President. It was, he realized, not the way things were done. But then again no one would ever accuse Lewis of doing things in a conventional way. Wanting to end this particular discussion, Lewis smiled. "Besides, Scotty Dixon's a brigade commander, a full colonel. There's so many people between him and the shooting that only an incredible stroke of bad luck could put him in harm's way."
Sensing that the mood had suddenly changed, Wilson sat up and looked Lewis in the eye. There was a hint of a smile on her face. "Ed."
"Yes, Madam President?"
"Thanks."
Though he didn't know exactly what Wilson was thanking him for, Lewis took it that the personal crisis she had been suffering when he had walked in had passed and that she was ready to get down to the business at hand.
Knowing that there was no time to lose, Captain Albrecht Benen ran up and down the line of flatbed rail cars sitting in the Dermbach rail yard in an effort to hurry his men. With the sound of the rest of the 4th Panzergrenadier Division's 1st Brigade already moving north through the town, Benen knew he didn't have much time to get his men and equipment offloaded and moving to their assigned forming-up point. Looking at his watch and seeing that it was not even twenty hundred hours, Benen wondered how the rest of the brigade, using roads, had gotten there before him, formed up, and moved to join the 2nd Panzer Division. But the noise of tracked vehicles and heavily laden supply trucks rolling through the town told him that at least some elements of the brigade had.
With no time to lose, Benen did his best to ignore the rumbling ground caused by tanks and tracked vehicles and to hasten the efforts of his soldiers. They had twelve Jaguar 1 antitank guided-missile tank destroyers, two trucks, and a small jeep to untie and get off the rail car. Doing it in the darkness of the deserted rail yard without the help of any railway workers only served to make things worse. The workers were no doubt screwing off with the police somewhere. No matter. The whole operation, from the first day that they had rolled out of their kasern to the receipt of the orders that had placed them on this train while the rest of the brigade had road-marched, had been a muddle. Why, he asked his first sergeant, should this be any different?
The first sergeant grunted his agreement. Then, looking in the direction of the town center, the first sergeant asked if maybe it would be a good idea for someone from the company to go into town and let someone from brigade know that they had arrived. Benen, embarrassed that he had arrived late, told the first sergeant that he would do so as soon as the company was ready to move. Besides, he needed every man he had to get the company's vehicles off the rail cars and moving. That decision, however, was countered by the captain himself with his next breath. Seeing that the lieutenant who commanded the one platoon that was already off the train had his men and vehicles assembled and ready to move, the captain shouted to the lieutenant to take his platoon of three anti-tank guided-missile tank destroyers up to the center of the town and wait there until the rest of the company was ready.
The first sergeant was about to point out that the personnel from that platoon could help offload the other Jaguar anti-tank guided-missile tank destroyers but didn't. Seeing that his commander was quite agitated and as confused in his own mind as the situation within the division appeared to be, the first sergeant shrugged and walked away. Officers, he thought, were sometimes difficult to understand. Tired from the long series of marches and countermarches that had taken them from one end of Germany to another, the first sergeant decided that this was neither the time nor place to argue with another confused and tired man. Better just to shut up and do as he was told while the officers sorted out this mess. Besides, the sound of tank engines growing fainter and fainter told him that whoever had been passing through the town's center had left. With the village cleared, at least for the moment, of military traffic, there would be little danger of their three tank destroyers getting mixed in with another convoy or adding to some other commander's confusion in the village. While the revving of engines of the lead tank destroyer platoon began to fill the rail yard, the first sergeant walked the line and shouted to his soldiers to hurry up and get a move on.
As the last tank of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Armored Division, left the north side of Dermbach, Scott Dixon and his tactical command post entered the town from the south. Leading the small convoy from his tank, Dixon was anxious to catch up to the rear of the 2nd Battalion, if for no other reason than to tuck up within it for security. The single M-1A1 tank, three M-113 armored personnel carriers, and one M-577 command post carrier didn't offer much in the way of defensive firepower. In a pinch, against anything bigger than a platoon, the best Dixon could hope for was a valiant last stand.
Looking down to his left, Dixon watched Colonel Vorishnov for a moment. Standing upright in the loader's hatch of Dixon's tank, Vorishnov was leaning over on his folded arms that rested on the flat race ring of the loader's 7.62mm machine gun while he looked to the front, keeping track of where they were going while watching for any sign of trouble. Like Dixon, Vorishnov was bundled up in a heavy parka with its fur-lined hood pulled up over his armored crewman's helmet. A wool scarf wrapped around his neck several times was pulled up over Vorishnov's nose to protect his mouth and nose while a set of heavy plastic and rubber goggles were pulled down to keep his eyeballs from freezing in their sockets. Like every armored crewman who had to hang out of his vehicle and face the freezing temperature and the cutting winds, both Dixon and Vorishnov had every square inch of skin covered by as many layers of clothing as they could wear while maintaining their ability to function.