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By the eighth minute of carnage, the final eleven were chewed to pieces by the powerful Americans. Not a single one was spared. Not a soul survived. A multitude of Russian combat vehicles lay crushed and burning in the melting snows of western Germany. A thousand parachutists were dead or dying.
Nor were American losses insignificant. The attack had destroyed thirty-four Humvees, eleven Bradleys, and two M-1s. The American death toll neared two hundred. Among them was the trio of smiling soldiers who’d awakened Rios an hour earlier.
There was no time for either celebration or mourning. The American companies split. They raced after the escaping enemy. The small Russian vehicles were quick and had a significant head start. The point elements of both groups were nearing the southern and eastern woods.
The Warthogs headed toward the southern column to cut off the enemy. Two miles away, a small band of parachutists waited to protect their escaping brothers. Air-defense weapons nestled on a half dozen shoulders. The A-10s opened fire. Russian missiles leaped into the air to seek and destroy. The awkward little aircraft had no chance of evading such a concentrated attack. The pilots knew their lives were over. Even so, both Americans frantically clawed at their canopy releases in a desperate attempt to escape their fates. Each hoped against hope that he could somehow free himself from his ammunition-laden tomb before it was too late. But it was no use. The ground-to-air missiles were much too near and far too fast.
Both Warthogs were struck by multiple missiles. Silhouetted by the fading wisps of an orange-tinged sun, burning pieces of the defeated aircraft plummeted toward the earth. The Warthogs’ dead pilots were firmly strapped into their fiery cockpits.
In the south and east, the Americans reached the initial line of screening vehicles. They released an immense barrage of machine-gun fire against the Russians’ blue-bereted defenders. On each side of the base, the 82nd Airborne blew right through the parachute regiment’s thin defensive line. Forty proud Russians perished in a handful of fluttering heartbeats.
And in the south, another Bradley went down.
Rios watched the Russians racing east. The enemy vehicles were almost to their goal. The security of the trees was right in front of the frenetic invaders. Well behind the blue berets, the 82nd Airborne was now in sight as they destroyed the first group of parachutists and hurried forward.
A dire chase was on. Yet despite their best efforts, the Americans were going to be too late.
In the south and east, the parachutists’ leading elements raced up to their objective. Two hundred Russians abandoned their vehicles at the edges of the twisted evergreens and ran toward the trees. They vanished into the heavy forest outside Ramstein’s fences.
Still more were on the way. With each passing minute, another fifty escaped into the timber. Four miles from them, the burgundy berets rushed toward the woods. Two more lines of covering vehicles waited on both sides of the base to slow them down. The Americans would first have to deal with these before they could address the problems created by the strong enemy force immersing itself in the nearly impenetrable woods.
• • •
“Lock and Load!” Rios yelled. “Lock and load!” He didn’t know what was happening outside the fences. But he was certain of one thing. A battle that had been taking place miles from his position was reaching out for him.
With dusk taking a firm hold on the lingering remains of the fading day, the 82nd slammed into the second wave of enemy defenders at both ends of the base. As they did, in the distance, more parachutists ran into the heavy thickets and disappeared.
• • •
The second line was effortlessly shoved aside and left to die in the crimson fields outside Ramstein. Forty more Russian lives had ended. Another handful of Americans was also gone, never again to fight on the battlefields of the great war.
The American battalion pressed on. A last line waited to slow their advance. The parachutists knew they had no chance. In the four minutes it took for the Americans to reach the enduring group of defenders, an additional three hundred of the enemy found their way into the snow-covered branches in the east and south. And countless others were drawing near.
The Russian’s final line in the east fired first. They hoped to catch the Americans by surprise and slow them just a little more. But their desperate volley had little effect on the unrelenting Humvees coming straight for them. Overmatched and outgunned, eighty Russians braced to die. Lethal curtains of machine-gun fire rained down from the onrushing burgundy berets. Within seconds of each other, the Americans brushed aside the razed resistance and hurried on. Even more unspeakable deaths had been added to the tally.
The final obstacles in their path surmounted, the Americans raced toward the waiting trees. But now they faced the most difficult task of all: how to eliminate the vast enemy force that had slipped into the sheltering branches.
With the sacrifices of their dead countrymen, nearly one thousand parachutists had successfully reached the forest’s bosom. On each side of Ramstein, the final fifty to enter the woods ran thirty yards into the evergreens and stopped. With a preciseness born of years of practice, they spread out to protect their compatriots. Machine-gun nests sprang up in a half dozen locations. Antitank missiles were raised onto strong shoulders. Mortar teams hurriedly prepared their emplacements.
The remainder of the regiment’s forces moved even farther into the shadowy timber. Without hesitation, they headed straight for the fences.
The Americans charged across the open ground toward the woods. They had to catch the Russians before they reached the deep foliage. Their valiant efforts, however, would be without reward.
The 82nd Airborne roared up to the trees just as the last of their elusive prey melted into the fearful twilight.
The Americans hesitated at the forest’s edge, unsure of what their next move should be. From out of the woods on the eastern end, a pair of shoulder-mounted missiles ripped through the heavy branches. Two Humvees burst into flames. Russian machine-gun fire spewed forth. The burgundy berets fell back, dragging their dead and wounded with them. The night’s oppressive blanket was quickly closing in around them. The bloodied Americans, the disjointed battle concluded, were in disarray. They needed to regroup and catch their breath. They needed to organize and plan. One thing was for certain. Digging one thousand immensely skilled parachutists out of the thick woods wasn’t going to be easy.
Within the dense forest, thirty Russian snipers crept through the gathering darkness. Their brethren moved forward through the fading shadows to protect them. They could see their objective.
The chain link was just ahead.
Their single-shot sniper rifles could kill from a mile away. When they reached the trees just outside the fence, their targets were a scant fifty meters from them. There was no way the snipers would miss.
The long black barrel of a sniper’s rifle peeked out from the tree line in front of Rios’s bunker. The marksman took careful aim at an airman inside the sandbags. The back of the American’s head was dead center in the crosshairs of the sniper’s sights.
Within the bunker, Wilson was a changed man now that his stomach was full. Despite all that was happening, he continued to regale Goodman and Rios with a steady stream of stupid jokes.
“He’s the one with the clean bowling shirt,” Wilson said. He started to laugh at his own bad joke. Inside his parka, his sated belly jiggled.
Goodman had first heard the tired joke when he was nine. And he hadn’t thought it all that funny then.
“Rios, what do ya think? Do I have to wait for the Russians, or can I shoot him myself?” Goodman asked.
Only the faintest traces of daylight remained. The dejected Rios knew it was going to be another endless night behind his deadly machine gun. This time, however, he realized he wouldn’t have to endure the long hours alone.
“Yeah, Goodman,” Rios said, ?
??go ahead and shoot. It’s obvious he’s not going to shut up until somebody kills him.”
The sniper squeezed the trigger on his rifle.
CHAPTER 40
January 30—12:17 a.m.
NCO Housing Area, United States European Command Headquarters
Patch Barracks, Stuttgart
In her vivid dream, Kathy was very cold. She could hear Christopher calling for her in the darkness. But she couldn’t move to help him. She couldn’t move at all.
Suddenly, she realized it wasn’t a dream.
An icy shiver soared down her spine. Terror gripped her. The surreal nightmare of twelve hours earlier rushed into Kathy’s anguished mind. She began to understand, even as she refused to accept, the helplessness of her situation. She’d no idea how long she’d been there. Buried facedown beneath tons of suffocating rubble, she was unable to move in the slightest. The crushing weight of the shattered building pressed in upon her. It threatened to squeeze the last bits of fleeting air from her tortured lungs.
Her entire body was wracked with pain. Her right leg was mangled. Twisted and distorted, it screamed out to her. She shivered again, cold and clammy. Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip and fell upon the cold floor.
She could hear her child whimpering. He was only inches from her. Still, despite everything she tried, she couldn’t reach him.
“Christopher, Mommy’s here, baby.”
