ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (29 page)

General Shaw had a
small bunk all to himself with a locking door to add a
little security for sensitive papers. It wasn’t as if sneak thieves were likely
to be a problem in such a facility though.

A standard metal lined documents case
held what papers Henry kept, and that sat below the single metal framed
bed. 

On arriving back at the bunk Henry reach
beneath the bed and drew out the case, lifting it and checking that its locks
were still secure. Satisfied, he crouched to slide it back in its place and
that is when he paused, seeing the faded beer mat that was no longer with its
five brothers inside an internal compartment, laying where it had fallen
unnoticed during an otherwise professional search.

Germany.

Well before dawn the 43
^rd
Motor Rifle Regiment had oriented towards the south west in hastily prepared
positions, guarding against a possible counter attack by NATO. They were now
three miles inland and five from the bridgehead, out of earshot of the roaring
of engines as tanks, APCs, self-propelled guns and all the hardware of armoured
warfare crossing the ribbon bridges to the western bank of the Elbe.

At the bridgehead a tenth bridge had just
been completed. By the time dawn arrived a further five would also be carrying
the weight of the Sixth Shock and Tenth Tank Armies fighting and support units
as they moved forward into the offensive.

As yet no work had begun on the autobahn
bridge; the combat engineers were still clearing the booby traps left by NATO,
a dangerous task at the best of times but doubly so now in the dark. The
platoon of engineers tasked to perform the clearance had already lost three
men, one dead and two wounded, but had no option but to continue. The schedule
called for prefabricated bridging sections to be laid between the spans
starting at first light, and to that end a detachment of field police were
ensuring that the engineers did not waver from their explosive ordnance
clearance duties.   

In order t
o fulfil the role the planners of this campaign envisaged, Colonel
Lužar’s regiment had been re-equipped with whatever equipment had been left
over after the two, mainly Russian, armies spearheading the drive to the
channel had been refitted. His battalions consisted of a mixed bag of MBTs and
APCs of differing types and marks. The latest types to be added to the
regiment’s inventory were not new; indeed
his own
command tank wore the tell-tale signs of previously having been knocked out. A
crudely patched area on the outside of the turret had its twin on the inside,
an area of scorched metal and blistered paint

His battalions’ main battle tank
companies now consisted of T-62, T-72, T-80Bs and T-80Us, plus the
inferior T-90s. As for his APC companies, well they
were also a mixture of BDRMs, BMP1s, 2s and 3s with ancient BTR-60s in evidence
here and there. It was hardly a first class unit anymore but he had been
assured that NATO units were in a worse state, and any moves made against him
would be half-hearted efforts.

Only one company of his faithful PT-76
amphibious tanks remained of the battalion he had first attempted to force the
Elbe with. The survivors had been reformed into one large company the next day.
So many of his men had fallen that night without
knowing that they were merely a diversionary attack, a side show to
divert reserves from being able to repel the Red Army’s main effort, which
itself had proved a long drawn out affair and an eventual failure.

For Colonel Lužar the shooting of the
other
unit commanders after that night
had been monstrous, they had not been expected to succeed and yet they died for
failing.

Thus far Colonel Lužar had not seen a
single enemy fighting vehicle and the only reaction to their presence had been
several artiller
y strikes. Taking all
things into account the resistance they had met had been pathetic, although the
artillery had been highly accurate, and up to that time he had begun to wonder
if they had killed all of NATOs brave young men and women, and the rest had run
away.

To his right sat the charred remains of a
BRDM infantry fighting vehicle. Flames still flickered in the molten rubber of
what had been its tyres. An entire infantry
section
had perished with the vehicle and its crew, without so much as firing a single
shot. It was just one of the eleven AFVs he had lost in that thirty minute
attack, and the way the enemy fire had been corrected, to walk across fighting
positions pointed to the presence of a spotter in close proximity. 

Patrolling had discovered the spotter’s location
in the ruins of a building only 300m in front of the colonel’s own position,
but sloppy command and control by the infantry patrol’s commander had left an
escape route open. His infantry came under effective automatic fire from the r
uins, which allowed the enemy troops to slip away in
pairs until only a single weapon remained. Frustrated by the lack of aggression
shown by his infantry, Lužar had ordered his own vehicle forward to break the
impasse, but if he had thought the sight of his approaching T-80UK command tank
was going to intimidate the remaining enemy soldier he was mistaken. The enemy
soldier had continued to pin down the infantry with short economic bursts,
buying more time for his comrades to make good their escape. Lužar had been forced
to drop down inside the turret to avoid the fire directed his way, after which
his gunner had fired a single main gun round into the ruins, silencing the
weapon.

Colonel Lužar had left the tank after
unclipping from its storage place an AMD 65, the tank crews folding stock
version of the AKM. His loader, similarly armed, had accompanied him into the
ruins where Lužar had half hoped to find his enemy still alive. It had taken
courage to remain there all alone and in the knowledge that the bes
t you could hope for was to be captured once your
ammunition ran out, but you had to be a real optimist to count on that as an
outcome.

His enemy had been lying face down in the
rubble, one leg at an unnatural angle and the material of the camouflage trous
ers soaked in blood. Lužar gently rolled him over onto
his back and using a penlight he’d looked at the face of a young man in his
early twenties. One side of the soldier’s head had a strange uneven look about
it; the result of being crushed by flying masonry but the colonel had felt for
a pulse anyway. The half lidded, dead eyes stared back at him as Lužar had
looked him over. The uniform and equipment were British, and he had read the
name on the tag above his victim’s breast pocket before removing the 9mm Glock
from its webbing holster on the dead soldiers fighting order.

Returning to his command tank he had
climbed inside and closed the hatch, turning up the internal lighting before
unloading the pistol and stripping it for inspection. He’d found the weapon had
been recently cleaned and lightly oiled, which were hardly the actions of
demoralised troops at the verge of
breaking.
With the lighting doused once again Lužar had unbuttoned the hatch and watched
the infantry place inside a shallow grave the body of 2Lt Reed. J, Royal
Artillery.

Back in the here and now the colonel was
still mulling over the significance of app
arently
well-trained and motivated troops, and their conspicuous absence from the
field. 

Russia: Same time.

The van passed through the talkative
baker’s hamlet, the buildings all in darkness and not a soul was in sight. So
far the roads had been empty of civilian traffic that were for once complying
with the curfew, thanks to the extra militia drafted in from surrounding
regions, but those extra men not employed on enforcing the curfew, they were
committed to the house searches and cordoning suspect areas such as the forest
the van was heading for.

Five miles from the edge of the forest,
the van turned onto a farm track and from then on its passengers were treated
to a rough ride. Caroline powered down the laptop she had been plotting their
course on, it was impossible to work whilst being jolted about.  True to
his word the contact knew another way, the network of tracks linking the fields
of various farms, but after two miles in low gear the engine was overheating
badly and the makeshift repairs on the hose gave out. Steam enveloped the van,
preceded by a loud report as the hose burst and followed by curses from the
driver’s cab.

They arrived at the airstrip tired and
muddy, having crawled along a ditch to avoid a pair of sleepy militiamen. Any
hopes of rest were dashed when Caroline and Patricia were informed that their
target was to be attacked as soon as possible

Germany.

Black, oily smoke rose above the emergency landing
field as Lt Col Arndeker turned onto finals and brought the speed down to
160knots. Without any effort on his half, the flaperons lowered in response to
the lower speed setting and Arndeker peered ahead. There was a lot of activity
on the grass to the left of the single runway. Fire trucks were clustered
together near a burning aircraft but it was too far to yet see anything more.

A country lane, bordered by hedgerows, ran across the
bottom of the landing field and Arndecker’s F-16 passed a few feet above it
before touching down. He had seen the fresh scars in the grass as he had gotten
closer to the field, pointing like a finger to the wreck, which he now
identified as a German Tornado F3. It had apparently slid along on its belly
for some distance before performing a ground loop, ending up on its back and
facing the way it had come. Silver suited firemen on two of the fire trucks
were pumping foam from nozzles mounted above the driver’s cabs, covering the
aircraft in a white shroud. Arndeker swept past, getting a momentary glimpse of
two bodies, covered from head to foot by blankets, laid out side by side next
to one of the fire trucks.

Turning off the runway he followed the perimeter track
around the field, passing the mobile control shack before turning off onto a
prefabricated road made of perforated aluminium strips that led to an orchard.
Amongst the trees were parked a dozen aircraft, which like him had run low on
fuel and now awaited the field’s solitary fuel bowser.

Arndeker’s eyebrows rose as an airman guided him to a
spot next to an aircraft wearing the Triple Crown insignia of Sweden. Having
intervened in the Soviet attacks on Norway and the North Cape the Swedish
government had back peddled somewhat, aligning itself with NATO ‘in principle’
but ducking the question of committing forces outside of its own borders. The
presence of a JAS 39A Gripen indicated something not included in any of the
briefings Arndeker had attended.

On shutting down, Arndeker clambered down the ladder
an airman had put against his cockpit and took a look at the neighbours. The
Gripen was the only Swedish aircraft there; the remainder consisted of another
Luftwaffe Tornado, a pair of RAF Jaguars and eight F-16s in the liveries of
Norway, the USA, Belgium and The Netherlands.

The airman, a Royal Air Force aircraftman, informed
him that the bowser was refilling and that a NAAFI wagon would be coming around
with tea and sandwiches. Thanking him he then headed for the
cluster of men and women in flight gear sat beneath
the Tornado.

None of the American’s was from Arndeker’s squadron
but he knew them by name and introductions were made all round. The German’s
were grim faced having witnessed the death of two of their squadron mates, and
said little. He sat beside the pilot of the Gripen, a good looking blond with
high cheekbones and striking blue eyes who introduced herself as Lojtnant
Ulrika Jorgensen. Ulrika’s flight had been responsible for taking out the Red
Air Forces AWAC cover far behind the Elbe, clearing the way for airborne drops.
It was the first Arndeker had heard that NATO had taken offensive action, and
he thanked her and her country for finally stepping beyond the border. Her
response had been curious, laughing and telling him he had better make the most
of it because the air force would as like as not be behind bars this time
tomorrow. He was about to ask what she’d meant by that but the promised NAAFI
arrived and there was a scramble to be at the head of the line. Over plastic cups
of sweet tea and cheese sandwiches, which the RAF crews called ‘mouse meat
sarnie’s’, they had all described their experiences of that morning. Arndeker
congratulated Ulrika on the Il-76 and Mig-31 she had brought down that morning,
bringing her score to three when added to a Flogger bagged on the day the
Soviet’s had overflown her country to attack Norway.

Arndeker himself had brought down his fourteenth enemy
aircraft and the thirteenth of this conflict. On being scrambled before dawn he
had led his entire squadron, numbering just seven aircraft, against a Red Air
Force regiment heading for the main highways from Antwerp. For the first time
in two weeks they had taken to the air fully loaded with ordnance, courtesy of
the newly arrived convoy from the States. Being able to carry more than just
one AMRAAM per sortie had been a joy to the NATO pilots and an unwelcome shock
to the red fliers who had become accustomed to their opponents increasingly
limited offensive capabilities.