Part 42 (1/2)

Mackall adjusted his helmet and microphone as he peered out the view ports built into his commander's cupola. The thick armor plate kept most of the noise out, but when the ground shook beneath them, the shock came through the treads and suspension to rock the vehicle, and each crewman reflected to himself on the force needed to budge a sixty-ton tank. This was how the lieutenant had bought it-a one-in-a-thousand shot from a heavy gun had landed a round right on his turret, and it had burrowed through the thin overhead armor to explode the vehicle.

Left and right of Mackall's tank, the largely middle-aged German territorials cowered in their deep, narrow holes, their emotions oscillating between terror and rage at what was happening to them and their country-and their homes!

”Good fire plan, Comrade Colonel,” Alekseyev said quietly. A screaming sound pa.s.sed overhead. ”There is your air support.”

Four Russian ground-attack fighters wheeled overhead to trace parallel to the ridgeline and dropped their loads of napalm. As they turned back toward Russian lines, one exploded in midair.

”What was that?”

”Probably a Roland,” the colonel answered. ”Their version of our SA-8 rocket. Here we go. One minute.”

Five kilometers behind the command bunker, two batteries of mobile rocket launchers ripple-fired their weapons in a continuous sheet of flame. Half were high-explosive warheads, the other half smoke.

Thirty rockets landed in Mackall's sector and thirty in the valley before him. The impact of the explosives shook his tank violently, and he could hear the pings of fragments bouncing off his armor. But it was the smoke that frightened him. That meant Ivan was coming. From thirty separate points, gray-white smoke billowed into the air, forming an instant man-made cloud that enveloped all the ground in view. Mackall and his gunner activated their thermal-imaging sights.

”Buffalo, this is Six,” the troop commander called in over the command circuit. ”Check in.”

Mackall listened in closely. All eleven vehicles were intact, protected by their deep holes. Again he blessed the engineers-and the German farmers-who had dug the shelters. No further orders were pa.s.sed. None were needed.

”Enemy in view,” the gunner reported.

The thermal sight measured differences in temperature and could penetrate most of the mile of smoke cover. And the wind was on their side. A ten-mile-per-hour breeze was driving the cloud back east. Sergeant First Cla.s.s Terry Mackall took a deep breath and went to work.

”Target tank, ten o'clock. Sabot! Shoot!”

The gunner trained left and centered the sight reticle on the nearest Soviet battle tank. His thumbs depressed the laser b.u.t.ton, and a thin beam of light bounced off the target. The range display came up in his sight: 1310 meters. The fire-control computer plotted target distance and speed, elevating the main gun. The computer measured wind speed and direction, air density and humidity, the temperature of the air, and the tank's own sh.e.l.ls, and all the gunner had to do was place the target in the center of his sights. The whole operation took less than two seconds, and the gunner's fingers jammed home on the triggers.

A forty-foot muzzle blast annihilated the shrubs planted two years earlier by some German Boy Scouts. The tank's 105mm gun jerked back in recoil, ejecting the spent aluminum case. The sh.e.l.l came apart in the air, the sabot falling free of the projectile, a 40mm dart made of tungsten and uranium that lanced through the air at almost a mile a second.

The projectile struck the target one second later at the base of the gun turret. Inside, a Russian gunner was just picking up a round for his own cannon when the uranium core of the shot burned through the protective steel. The Russian tank exploded, its turret flying thirty feet into the air.

”Hit!” Mackall said. ”Target tank, twelve o'clock. Sabot! Shoot!”

The Russian and American tanks fired at the same instant, but the Russian shot went high, missing the defiladed M-1 by nearly a meter. The Russian was less lucky.

”Time to leave,” Mackall announced. ”Straight back! Heading for alternate one.”

The driver already had reverse engaged, and twisted hard on his throttle control. The tank surged backward, then spun right and headed fifty yards to another prepared position.

”d.a.m.ned smoke!” Sergetov swore. The wind blew it back in their faces, and they couldn't tell what was going on. The battle was now in the hands of captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. All they could see was the orange fireb.a.l.l.s of exploding vehicles, and there was no way to know whose they were. The colonel in command had his radio headset on and was barking orders to his subunit commanders.

Mackall was in his first alternate position in less than a minute. This one had been dug parallel to the ridgeline, and his ma.s.sive turret trained to the left. He could see the infantry now, dismounted and running ahead of their a.s.sault carriers. Allied artillery, both German and American, ripped through their ranks, but not quickly enough . . .

”Target-tank with an antenna, just coming out of the treeline.”

”Got 'em!” the gunner answered. He saw a Russian T-80 main battle tank with a large radio antenna projecting from the turret. That would be a company commander-maybe a battalion commander. He fired.

The Russian tank wheeled just as the shot left the muzzle. Mackall watched the tracer barely miss his engine compartment.

”Gimme a HEAT round!” the gunner shouted over the intercom.

”Ready!”

”Turn back, you mother-”

The Russian tank was driven by an experienced sergeant who zigzagged his way across the valley floor. He jinked every five seconds, and now brought his tank left again- The gunner squeezed off his round. The tank jumped at the recoil and the spent round clanged off the turret's rear wall. Already the closed tank hull stank of the ammonia-based propellant.

”Hit! Nice shot, Woody!”

The sh.e.l.l hit the Russian between the last pair of road wheels and wrecked the tank's diesel engine. In a moment the crew began to bail out, ”escaping” into an environment alive with sh.e.l.l fragments.

Mackall ordered his driver to move again. By the time they were in their next firing position, the Russians were less than five hundred meters away. They fired two more shots, killing an infantry carrier and knocking the tread off a tank.

”Buffalo, this is Six, begin moving to Bravo Line-execute.”

As platoon leader, Mackall was the last to leave. He saw both of his companion tanks rolling down the open reverse slope of the hill. The infantry was moving also, into their armored carriers, or just running. ”Friendly” artillery blanketed the ridgeline with high explosives and smoke to mask their withdrawal. On command, the tank leaped forward, accelerating to thirty miles per hour and racing to the next defense line before the Russians could occupy the ridge they were leaving behind. Artillery fire was all over them, exploding a pair of German personnel carriers.

”Zulu, Zulu, Zulu!”

”Get me a vehicle!” Alekseyev ordered.

”I cannot permit this. I cannot let a general-”

”Get me a d.a.m.ned vehicle! I must observe this,” Alekseyev repeated.

A minute later, he and Sergetov joined the colonel in a BMP armored command vehicle that raced to the position the NATO troops had just vacated. They found a hole that had sheltered two men-until a rocket had landed a meter away.

”My G.o.d, we've lost twenty tanks here!” Sergetov said, looking back.

”Down!” The colonel pushed both men into the b.l.o.o.d.y hole. A storm of NATO sh.e.l.ls landed on the ridge.

”There's a Gatling gun!” the gunner said. A Russian antiaircraft gun carrier came over the ridge. A moment later a HEAT round exploded it like a plastic toy. His next target was a Russian tank coming down the hill they'd just left.

”Heads up, friendly air coming in!” Mackall cringed, hoping the pilot could tell the sheep from the goats.

Alekseyev watched the twin-engine fighter swoop straight down the valley. Its nose disappeared in a ma.s.s of flame as the pilot fired his ant.i.tank cannon. Four tanks exploded before his eyes as the Thunderbolt appeared to stagger in midair, then turned west, a missile chasing after him. The SA-7 fell short.

”The Devil's Cross?” he asked. The colonel nodded in reply, and Alekseyev realized where the name had come from. From an angle, the American fighter did look like the stylized Russian Orthodox crucifix.

”I just called up the reserve regiment. We may have them on the run,” the colonel said.

This, Sergetov thought incredulously to himself, is a successful attack?

Mackall watched a pair of ant.i.tank missiles reach out into the Russian lines. One miss, one kill. More smoke came in from both sides as the NATO troops fell back another five hundred meters. The village they were defending was now in sight. The sergeant had counted a total of five kills to his tank. He hadn't been hit yet, but that wouldn't last. The friendly artillery was really in the fight now. The Russian infantry was down to half the strength he'd first seen, and their tracked vehicles were laying back, trying to engage the NATO positions with their own missiles. Things looked to be going reasonably well when the third regiment appeared.

Fifty tanks came over the hill in front of him. An A-10 swept across the line and killed a pair, then was blotted out of the sky by a SAM. The burning wreckage fell three hundred yards in front of him.

”Target tank, one o'clock. Shoot!” The Abrams rocked backward with yet another shot. ”Hit.”