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He now knew that only the living could cause him pain, for he had no fear of the dead.
The sounds of the spectral battle in the whispery corners of the shattered woods disappeared. Another plane loaded with dependents was approaching for takeoff.
Rios looked at the faces in the windows and wondered if any of them were bound for Miami. He realized he should have thought of that earlier. Get one of the women to carry a message to his mother and sisters telling them he was all right. He’d do that first thing when they came to relieve him at midnight. He’d find someone to take a message for him. But what would he say? “Dear Mother: How are you? I am fine. Killed fifty Russians this week. One almost killed me. Your loving son, Arturo.”
Well, he’d eight more hours out here at the end of the world to figure out what to tell her. Maybe after dark, Goodman and Wilson would help him come up with something.
The airliner’s engines wailed. Rios turned to watch. The plane started down the lengthy runway. It wasn’t long before the aircraft lifted its struggling wings a few feet into the air. As it did, the 150-kiloton nuclear detonation burst above the control tower. The silver airliner vanished in a mighty flash. Arturo Rios would never see the second and third blasts of fusing atoms that smashed into the air base a fraction of a second later. For the first brilliant flash of light had forever stolen his eyesight.
The massive explosions tore the flesh from Rios’s limbs. They ruptured every blood vessel in his lungs. His eardrums burst from the thunder of the imploding atom. Rios was dead a second later when the nuclear blasts’ four-hundred-mile-per-hour winds picked him up and impaled him on the fence. The scattered pieces of the ancient forest disappeared forever.
In seconds, Ramstein was nothing more than a smoking crater beneath three rising mushroom clouds. When the tiny atom was through, there’d be nothing left of the once-mighty air base.
There would be no survivors.
• • •
Goodman and Wilson were waiting when Rios climbed down from the fence. Wilson had that stupid grin on his face. Goodman handed Rios the machine gun. Without a word, the three of them returned to the bunker to continue battling the ghostly Russians until eternity itself reached its end.
CHAPTER 60
February 1—5:37 p.m.
1st Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division
East of Heilbronn
In the early-evening darkness, the battalion’s lead tank moved east. Tim Richardson stood in the open commander’s hatch. They’d been the last tank in. Now they were going to be the first tank out. His Abrams was battered. And his driver had one good arm. In front of Richardson, Jamie Pierson did his best to steer the monster with his useless right arm wrapped against his side. There was no one else available to handle the M-1.
Inside the turret, Richardson’s Abrams had a new gunner. He also had a new loader, whose name Richardson had yet to learn, sitting next to him in the bullet-scarred turret. The two were 1st Armor Division soldiers he’d rescued on the previous evening.
Tony Warrick was barely alive when they’d arrived early in the morning. He hadn’t survived a hurried helicopter ride to Landstuhl. He had been pronounced dead upon arrival.
Richardson and Pierson felt his loss deeply.
The 3rd Infantry Division had been re-formed. The division was less than the size of one of its original brigades. The 3rd Brigade was less than one of its battalions. With the arrival late on the previous night of its final tank, the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Brigade was smaller than company size.
For half a day, they’d been off the front lines. They’d received twelve precious hours of respite while the 24th Infantry held the enemy long enough for their countrymen to lick their gaping wounds. They’d been reorganized, fed a hot meal, and prepared to go forth into battle once more. And for the first time in four days, Richardson and Pierson had actually slept. A five-hour sleep of the dead for the two survivors of the twelve-man tank platoon.
While they slept, hasty repairs were performed on their crippled tank. Any tank, even a badly damaged one, was of too much value to abandon. In the short time they were given, the maintenance crews succeeded in replacing the loader’s machine gun. They’d cannibalized a working one from the burned-out shell of an Abrams whose crew hadn’t been so fortunate. But Richardson’s tank would have to enter battle without the tank commander’s antiaircraft machine gun. There hadn’t been enough time to install one even if they could have located a functioning replacement. In its belly, the M-1 had seventeen shells for its main gun.
As they rumbled toward the coming battle, the battalion’s last eleven tanks and four surviving Bradleys split up. Two tanks and the four Bradleys headed back down Highway 19.
They were moving forward to meet a strong enemy force twenty miles distant and closing fast. The remaining Abrams tanks, including Richardson’s, were churning toward where two of central Germany’s main autobahns met ten miles east of Heilbronn.
The battalion would wait on the snow-tinged fields in a wide valley of ancient farms and small villages. There they’d engage an enemy force forty times their size. On the open ground, air support would be critical. Unfortunately, the few surviving Apaches were spread much too thin to be counted upon. And with Ramstein only a memory, gone nearly two hours earlier beneath the billowing mushroom clouds, the battalion would be depending upon Lakenheath and Mildenhall for assistance.
There’d been no time to prepare firing holes. The battalion would take up positions on the open ground and await the enemy’s appearance. Inside the lead tank, all four soldiers understood they’d seen their last sunset.
Two hours earlier, Pierson and Richardson had sat on a serene riverbank watching the winter sun go down. Both had refused to leave the sacred spot until the final fleeting wisps of its warming rays completely disappeared. Richardson had known for quite some time that there was little chance of their living to tell the tales of the great war. With Warrick’s death, Pierson had also come to understand the awful truth. Each knew he would be added to the bloody list of American dead long before the sun would rise again over central Europe. By morning, the tank’s crew would be nothing more than four additional names on the ever-growing rolls.
Behind the battalion, there was no organized resistance on this side of the Rhine. When the small group of tanks and Bradleys was gone, in this portion of Germany the Russians were going to be able to roll unimpeded to the banks of the mighty river.
Richardson’s struggling Abrams continued moving east.
“Richardson, before we left, did you happen to get any further word on how far away the Russian armor is?” Specialist Haines, his new gunner, asked.
“Nothing more than what they told us at this afternoon’s briefing,” Richardson said. “They think it’ll probably be a few more hours before Comrade’s attack begins. But just in case battalion’s wrong, keep your eyes open wide and your hand on that trigger.”
From Richardson’s and Pierson’s camouflage uniforms, a shiny silver star dangled at the end of a red, white, and blue ribbon. The medals had been awarded a few hours earlier to the survivors of the brave tank platoon that had held the crucial highway. The division commander promised that Tony Warrick’s and Clark Vincent’s medals would be presented to their families in an appropriate ceremony in the near future. In a moving speech, the general stated that without their valiant actions, the entire battalion would’ve been lost. The battalion would’ve been cut off and destroyed during the previous night’s battle if not for the lone tank’s willingness to stick it out against overwhelming odds.
After the horrors of the past two days, Richardson was in no mood for speeches. Even if the speeches praised him. They’d done what they had to do. There was nothing more to say.
A week ago, the surviving tankers would’ve given anything to be awarded a silver s
tar. Now neither of them cared one way or the other.
In thirty minutes, the tattered remnants of the once-powerful battalion arrived at the deserted autobahns. With the Russians drawing near, the broad roadways’ final frantic refugees had disappeared in the past half hour. The tanks continued on. Five miles to the east, they reached their objective. The nine M-1s spread themselves across the wide valley. In front of them, Richardson spotted the position he wanted.
“This spot looks as good as any, Jamie. There’s an off-ramp just ahead. Let’s set up at the top of it. We can use the ramp’s incline for protection.”
The creaking tank moved up the incline. As it neared the top, Jamie brought it to a halt. Richardson leaped down and guided the M-1 forward. When he was finished, only the Abrams’s turret was visible over the crest of the ramp. Richardson viewed his efforts. He liked what he saw. The position was nearly as good as being dug in. Ground forces or armor units were going to have a difficult time killing the M-1.
He knew, however, that helicopters or MiGs were going to be another story entirely. If Russian air forces successfully penetrated the last elements of the battalion without help arriving, Richardson realized with resounding clarity that the one-sided battle would soon be over.
The stoic sergeant climbed back onto the tank. He dropped into his hole and pulled the lid shut behind him. For three hours, they sat in the bloodstained interior of the foul-smelling M-1. Outside, it was a wondrous, star-filled winter night. Alone in their reflections or talking quietly on the intercom, the four of them waited for the enemy to appear. They knew it was only a matter of time.
At shortly after nine, Richardson spotted the first of the Russian armor as it crested a distant hill. The enemy tanks and BMPs were widely spaced. Richardson continued to watch. A steady stream of armored vehicles eased over the hill and moved toward the valley floor. The line appeared to go on forever.
