World War III

Whoever commanded this militia of part-time soldiers was no amateur. He knew how to employ inferior force tactics. But he wouldn’t get away, Vorashin thought. This was a one-time incident, and rather suicidal at that. The American commander was both brave and foolish. He’d hurt the column, but the damage wasn’t crippling. They’d be moving again in several hours. It was a temporary hesitation and a costly lesson. If it were to happen again, he’d be ready for it. But it wouldn’t happen again. The Americans would be tracked through the snow and eliminated. It was that simple.

Vorashin jerked the field glasses back to the west when he heard the distinctive thuup-thuup-thuup of slicing rotor blades.

The two Huey choppers rose over the distant ridge like a pair of deadly wasps. They swooped down side-by-side, barely off the frozen tundra, their fixed machine guns blazing, ripping through the middle of the column.

Bullets stitched a jagged line of divots through the snow. Vorashin dove to the bottom of the gully. He fell on his back, covering his head with his hands. He heard the major’s death-shriek, and saw his chest turn suddenly crimson before he disappeared over the crest of the gully.

The gunships passes directly overhead — Vorashin saw the underside markings clearly — in an earsplitting scream of engine roar and machine-gun fire. They were heading directly for the missile carrier. Vorashin suddenly realized what the strategy was. The rocket-launcher was aimed in the wrong direction to protect itself. Vorashin was out of the gully instantly, running to the armored troop carrier.

“Open fire! Open fire! Alert the rocket-launcher!”

He jumped on the moving vehicle and found two of its gun team dead. He pulled one of the men off the fifty-caliber machine gun and began firing it himself. Tracer rounds stung the air in an arc after the two helicopters.

“They’re after the rocket-launcher!” he screamed at the other gun crew. “Shoot them down! Shoot them down!”

Over the ridge ahead, Vorashin saw two more helicopters. They were moving slowly, keeping low, straining under heavy loads they were not designed to carry. It was the attack patrol, he realized. They were using the tiny gunships as troop carriers. He cursed violently. The American commander was a clever bastard. And he was escaping.

“Keep firing!” Vorashin yelled. “Keep firing!”

The heat of the fireball from the explosion of the first attack helicopter stung his face. He protected his eyes from the debris. When he glanced up again, he saw the burning wreckage hit the snow and break apart. The second helicopter was already fading into the distant horizon, trailing heavy black smoke.

The attack was over, Vorashin thought. One helicopter destroyed, the other badly damaged. But they’d done their work. Vorashin’s missile carrier was on fire. Men were clammering out from its hatches. A missile fired itself and zagged in a flat, winding trajectory, exploding harmlessly in the tundra half a mile away.

The colonel climbed down from the gun turret and stood silently, watching his men. They were crawling out of their defensive positions, checking the sky for hints of another attack, tending to the cries of the wounded. He counted a score of bodies scattered across the battlefield. Whisps of smoke swirled in the gusty wind.

“Alex! Alex!”

Vorashin turned quickly to see Major Devenko running toward him from the direction of the missile carrier. His forehead was bleeding.

“Alex, I—” he gasped for breath and knelt on one knee. “Where did they come from?”

“That isn’t the question,” Vorashin said. “Where did they go?” He leaned down to Devenko. “How badly are you—”

“It is nothing,” Devenko said quickly. He touched the gash with his glove. “I was standing in the way of a slight explosion.”

“See to it, Sergei. We must get the column moving again.”

“Of course. I—” Devenko stopped when he saw Saamaretz approach.

“So, Colonel Vorashin,” the KGB officer growled, “the small American detachment poses no significant threat!” He gestured around him. “What would they have done if they were not so threatening?”

“The responsibility is mine,” the colonel said. “I underestimated.”

Saamaretz stared at him as if he were waiting for something more. Finally he said, “Is that all you have to say?”

“What would you like me to say, Major? It”won’t happen again?”

“It can’t happen again! It shouldn’t have happened at all!”

“Yes, but it did.” Vorashin looked at Devenko. “Get that bandaged, Major. Then I want to see all platoon leaders… in ten minutes. We must salvage what we can and get this column moving again.” He glanced at the sky. “They won’t come back today.”

“Come back!” Saamaretz was almost hoarse. “You don’t think they’ll come back?”

Vorashin looked at him calmly. “Of course.”

“Then you must find them first. You must destroy them before they have a chance to regroup!”