World War III

DUGGAN’S FALL 1145 HRS 62 MILES WEST OF WHITE HILL

Caffey strained to hear against the wind, squinting at the white fog in the distance as if the exercise would somehow help locate the column. He’d been here, on this hill, in this prone position, for nearly seven hours— waiting.

It wasn’t a perfect choke point, but it was good. The frozen river was to the north and the hill was to the south. The column would pass between them, slowing where the heavy vehicles would have to negotiate a series of washboard-type moguls. That’s when they’d hit them, Caffey planned, when they were deep into the choke point. The four fifty-five-gallon drums of fuel had been buried at strategic spots and their tops marked by small, twiggy pine trees to give the marksman an aiming reference. The men were dug in and the choppers camouflaged with nonglossy white paint and parked behind the hill for quick access. Everything was ready. All they needed now was the column to show up.

It’s funny what a man allows himself to imagine, Caffey thought. Especially when his life and the lives of his men depend upon his making the right decision. Especially when he’s sitting in the middle of a snowstorm silently waiting for a superior enemy to show itself. Caffey knew it was a good plan. He knew the enemy would have to come this way, but, still, doubts lingered at the edge of his judgment.

What if they’d taken a different route? What if they’d split the column into halves or thirds and were at this moment flanking his position? What if didn’t come for seven more hours? What if—

Caffey cleared the snow from his goggles. He changed his position in the snow slightly. They’d come this way, he told himself, and they wouldn’t split their force. That wouldn’t have been smart. Caffey was counting on that. He was counting on whoever was in charge of that strike force to be smart.

He heard the sound across the distant fog before Lieutenant Parsons nudged him. It grew into the distinct noise of small gasoline engines.

Snowmobiles.

It was the scout patrol, the point unit ahead of the main body. Then he saw them, the tiny machines skipping over the hard snow and out of the fog. Five snowmobiles each pulling four white-clad figures on skis, semiautomatic weapons strapped across their backs. They drove into the heart of the choke point. And stopped.

Now’s the time not to get nervous or trigger-happy, Caffey thought. He prayed the men followed his orders. No shooting, no matter what happens, until the flare. A misstep now and the whole ambush was lost. We don’t want the scout patrol. We want the main body. Hold your fire until you see the flare.

He picked out the scout patrol leader through the binoculars. He was pointing north toward the river, then south toward the hill, then east. The men unlaced their skis and set out in pairs, weapons down and locked. Caffey wondered how many times they’d done this already today. And yesterday. There had been other prime spots along the route that might have been good choke points. A good point commander would have checked each one, which Caffey also counted on. There were better places for an ambush along the terrain the column had already covered since their initial contact. And at every place the scout patrol would check them out. The column would stop and wait until given the all-clear signal, then move again. It was the smart thing to do if you wanted to protect your men, but it was also time-consuming, dreary, tiring work. After thirty hours of it, men get sloppy; they get tired of searching and finding nothing, hour after hour. Which is why Caffey chose this place. It wasn’t the perfect site for an ambush — the wooded hill wasn’t strategically defensible — which the scout commander would recognize, but it was good enough because Caffey didn’t plan to stage a battle here wherein he had to hold his position. He wasn’t going to hold anything, just hit them hard and get the hell out.

The three pairs of scouts assigned to the hill didn’t even come all the way to the crest. The wind swept snow in swirling gusts in their faces and it was plain they could barely see each other much less find Caffey’s men in their spider holes.

It took the point patrol twenty minutes to join up again and another five minutes to get into their skis.

They started up the snowmobiles and moved out, heading east, but left one team behind. That was the sign Caffey was waiting for. It meant the column would go through the choke point. The Soviet scouts were left to guide the vehicles through the least bumpy section of the pass.

Caffey waited fifteen minutes before he heard the first sounds of the main column. He aimed his binoculars at the sound and held his breath.

“There,” Parsons whispered, nudging him. He pointed at a shadow emerging from the whiteness.

“There they are!”