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Austin stood holding an armload of snow one hundred yards away.
“Seth, get word to the Bradleys that the enemy’s behind us!” Jensen yelled. “Tell them to crank their turrets around and get ready to repulse an attack from the west.”
When Austin acknowledged the command, Jensen turned to the soldiers nearest the roadway.
“Let’s go!”
Six soldiers, rifles in hand, raced with their sergeant toward the town. What the pitiful group was going to do to stop an armored column not a single one of them had a clue.
• • •
The instant the lead tank’s immense hull eased around the narrow corner, its commander spotted Ramirez and Steele. The African-American private was pounding on a door. His partner was standing on the corner across the street from him, casually drinking a beer. Neither had a weapon.
The menacing tank closed to within a few feet of the defenseless soldiers.
The commander’s hatch opened and a head popped out.
“Who the hell are you two?” the tank troop commander asked over the noise of the M-1s’ engines.
Ramirez placed his right arm behind his back in a feeble attempt to hide the beer. “Well, sir, our sergeant told us to get everybody out of this town.”
“That’s great, but who the hell’s your sergeant, and where the hell is he?”
“Sergeant First Class Jensen, sir. We’re what’s left of 2nd Platoon, Delta Troop. Our sergeant’s up there.” Ramirez pointed down the roadway. “He’s getting our Bradleys ready for the Russians.”
“How many Bradleys, and where are they?”
“They’re in the orchard on the other end of town, Captain,” Steele said. “We’ve only got five left. The Russians got the other ones when we fought them up at the border.”
“So you men have seen some action?”
“Shit yes, sir. You think I got this bandage on my head for nothing?” Ramirez said. He neglected to mention it was cement, not bullets, that had caused his injuries. “We’ve been in two battles already. Musta killed a thousand of those sons a bitches.”
Next came the question Ramirez had hoped to avoid.
“Where’d you get the beer, son?”
“Well . . . ah . . . you see, Captain, there’s this Gasthaus right up the street and . . .”
“You mean you found a Gasthaus open in the middle of the night, in the middle of a war?”
“Well . . . it . . . it wasn’t exactly open, sir.”
• • •
Jensen and his men scrambled from doorway to doorway, edging up the ageless street. The squeaking of the tank treads had stopped. The soldiers knew the tanks were no longer on the move. Unfortunately, the rumble of tank engines was extremely close. So they also knew the tanks were right around the next bend. When he reached the corner, Jensen signaled to Marconi to cover him. Ever so carefully, Jensen peeked around the bend.
There stood Ramirez and Steele in the middle of the street passing out bottles of beer to an entire troop of 1st Squadron tank crews.
“Ramirez!”
Hearing the thunder in his sergeant’s voice, Ramirez let go of the two beers he was carrying. They dropped harmlessly into the snows.
“Marconi, go back to the orchard and tell Austin it’s a false alarm. Tell him to continue preparing for an attack from the east.”
“Will do, Sarge.” In a slow trot, Marconi took off for the orchard. He was sure glad he wasn’t in Ramirez’s or Steele’s shoes right now.
Jensen stomped over to where his wayward privates stood staring at the ground. As he opened his mouth to begin a richly deserved tirade, Jensen spotted the captain standing in the open hatch of the tank above the pair.
“Oh, sorry, sir. Didn’t see you there.” Jensen didn’t salute. He and the captain knew that when the shooting started, the saluting stopped. “Sergeant Jensen, 2nd Platoon, Delta Troop.”
“That’s all right, Sergeant. Captain Murphy, Commanding Officer of Bravo Troop. I know you didn’t send your men out to serve as bartenders for a bunch of tank jockeys. But after your privates told me about all the Russian tanks waiting up ahead, I thought we might have one final beer for the road. I mean, at this point, what’s it going to hurt?”
Jensen thought about it, reached down, and picked up one of the bottles Ramirez had dropped. “You know something, Captain, I believe you might be right.”
The captain and his vehicle commanders dismounted. While they enjoyed what was likely to be the last beer of their lives, Jensen reported on what had happened to his platoon. His audience froze in midswallow when he told them he suspected the Russian force the Apaches had ch
ewed up consisted of at least three armored divisions.
Even if the attack helicopters had destroyed the one hundred armored vehicles Jensen believed they had, there were still over nine hundred Russian tanks and an equal number of BMPs with which to contend. Captain Murphy considered the possibility of a second beer. They knew their vastly superior tanks could run circles around the Russians. Even the T-90 had little chance against the M-1. A well-trained American tank unit could easily destroy three or four times its number in enemy armor. This, however, was eighty tanks to one.
Jensen glanced at his battered watch. It was 12:58. The war was one hour and thirteen minutes old. He wondered how many eternities that had been.
The final drops of strong beer savored, Captain Murphy walked toward the front of the orchard with Sergeant Jensen.
While they walked, they came up with a plan.
CHAPTER 15
January 29—12:58 a.m.
1st “Cobra Strike” Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment
Rhein-Main Air Base
Army Sergeant Larry Fowler drove the two-and-a-half-ton truck out the gaping nose of the C-5 cargo plane. On the back of the truck sat a modest-sized metal compartment with a small rear door. Clear of the plane, Fowler’s ground guide, Private First Class Jeffrey Paul, scrambled into the truck’s passenger seat. All around them, C-5s were in the final stages of disgorging their cargo—a Patriot missile battalion.
The first thing Fowler noticed was that the Germany he’d left over a year earlier was the same. Although, Fowler had to admit, the snow was deeper than he’d ever remembered seeing in any of his previous German winters. The damp cold of Europe was quite a change from the high desert air of El Paso. Fowler’s truck inched across the tarmac. It took its place at the rear of the Charlie Battery line.
“Sure is cold out there,” Jeffrey Paul said, trying to make conversation.
