Red Army

A machine gunner and a rifleman covered the main entrance on the ground floor. Gordunov ordered the rifleman to follow him, as much because he did not know how much longer he could manage the pain in his ankle as to have a runner for communications.

Automatic weapons fire chased them between automobiles in the parking lot. The bridge was very close, but there was an open square just off of the main feeder road that had to be crossed to get to it. An enemy fire team positioned on the far side of the main route covered the direct approach. The street itself had cleared of traffic now, except for a few burning or abandoned automobiles and the smoldering wreck of the infantry fighting vehicle that had been destroyed by the gunships.

There was no sign of Levin or the squad he had taken with him. "I'll kill the bastard," Gordunov promised himself, wondering where the 137

Ralph Peters

political officer had gone. Gordunov was sorry now that he had not put more men down on the roof of the hospital. It had seemed too great a risk, and he had not even told his superiors about that small detail of the plan. Too many officers assigned to airborne and air-assault units and formations still had not been to Afghanistan. Too many of them were soft, and weak-willed, like Levin, and they might have objected to even the most limited use of the hospital. Gordunov felt as though he had enemies to overcome in both camps.

"You go back," Gordunov told his rifleman companion. "Get up on the roof." Gordunov pointed to the southwest corner of the hospital building. "Up there. Tell Sergeant Dubrov I said to put suppressive fires on the far side of the street."

Before the rifleman could sprint off, a ripple of grenade blasts dazzled along the far side of the street, shattering the glass in the last intact storefront windows. Hard after the blasts, rushing forms took the enemy position from behind. In a matter of seconds, automatic rifle bursts cut in and out of the buildings, and enemy soldiers stumbled out of the shadows with their hands in the air, calling out in a foreign language.

The near end of the bridge was clear.

Captain Levin had taken the assault squad well around behind the enemy position. Gordunov understood at once, feeling simultaneous relief that an immediate problem was out of the way and a peculiar sort of embarrassment that the political officer had performed so well.

Gordunov caught the rifleman by the arm. "Forget what I told you before. Just go up to the top floor and tell Sergeant Bronchevitch to bring the battalion command radio down to me. Do you understand?"

The soldier nodded. There was fear in the boy's face. How much of it was fear of battle and how much was fear of the commander, Gordunov could not tell.

As the rifleman scrambled back toward the hospital, Gordunov raised himself for a dash across the street, weaving behind the partial protection of wrecked cars in case any enemy troops remained on the scene. Each step on his bad ankle meant punishment.

Levin had already sent a team forward onto the bridge. The action continued on the far bank, but there was no more firing on Gordunov's side of the river. Levin was excited, elated. His delight in his accomplishment made him look like a teenager.

"Comrade Battalion Commander, we have prisoners."

"I see that."

"No. 1 mean more. We surprised them." He turned to the alleyway.

"Sergeant . . . bring up the prisoners."

138

RED ARMY

The night had grown full around them. But the hot light shed by the burning vehicles revealed a string of eight more men in strange uniforms, all of them thirtyish or older, and some of them clearly not in shape for combat.

"They were up the road," Levin said. "I think they were trying to decide what to do. We just came up on them. And we helped them decide."

"You know all the uniforms. These are Germans?"

"Yes, Comrade Battalion Commander. Enlisted soldiers. This one is equivalent to a senior sergeant."

The prisoners looked pathetic. In Afghanistan, when you managed to take the enemy alive, he showed one of two faces. Either the prisoner was sullenly defiant, or he blanked all expression from his face, as though already dead. Which he soon would be. But these men looked frightened, surprised, sheepish. They didn't look like soldiers at all, really.

"The others are British. The ones who were shooting. We have three of them."

In the background, two tank main guns fired in succession. Across the low arch of the bridge, streaks of automatic-weapons fire cut the fresh night. The rain had slowed almost to a stop, and the damp river air carried acrid battle smells.

"This town," Levin went on, his speech rapid with nervous energy,

"you have to see it to believe it, Comrade Battalion Commander. When we were enveloping the enemy we came from back there." Levin gestured toward the dark alleyway. "It's like a museum. So beautiful. The houses in the center of town must be four or five hundred years old. It's the most beautiful town I've ever seen."