Red Army

Attempting to steer the vehicle off the road, the driver had misjudged the angle of an embankment. The tank began to slide to its left.

Now that Barak had opened the net, everyone tried to speak at once.

301

Ralph Peters

"Everybody clear the net," he shouted, as though raising his voice would empower the transmission. "Clear the net. Air-defense commander, where are you?"

"This is the air-defense commander."

"Enemy helicopters. Why aren't you firing? What good are you?"

"We are firing. The targets are out of range. We can't even pick them up on radar."

Barak clung to the inside of the turret. The driver fought the slide of the tank and seemed to have arrested it. Barak tried to understand how he could be attacked by something at which he could not strike back. How could the enemy be out of range, or invisible? What were the air-defense troops for, after all?

"They can't be out of range," Barak insisted. "Fire at them."

Abruptly, the tank resumed its slide. The sickening motion felt tentative at first, then it gained in velocity. Barak stared wildly down into the hull. The tank stopped with a jerk that banged Barak down against the gunner. The big vehicle had come to rest at a forty-five-degree angle.

"We're in the mud," the driver said matter-of-factly, as though it were something to be routinely expected.

"Get it out, "Barak ordered. "I don't care what you do, but get us out of here." He switched from the intercom back onto the radio net. "All vehicles clear the road. Get in among buildings or trees. All vehicles take cover."

Barak's tank growled and shook, then powered back down. The driver tried again, filling the compartment with fumes. The efforts only seemed to grind them deeper into the mud. Barak knew from experience that they would need to be towed out.

He switched over to the long-range radio, calling brigade headquarters.

Again, he received no response. The airwaves buzzed with static and surrealistic tones. The enemy were jamming everything. He sent his message anyway, hoping that someone would copy it, reporting that he was under heavy attack by enemy antitank helicopters. Finished with the transmission, he began to climb out of the tank, intending to take over a vehicle that remained mobile.

The sight of his battalion stopped him. Dozens of vehicles stood ablaze, marking the long trail of the battalion in the darkness. There were more fires than he could count, stretching down the road as far as he could see. It seemed impossible, a joke. It had been minutes, seconds.

Here and there, an untouched vehicle moved against the fiery backdrop like a stray dog scavenging. One of the roaming vehicles exploded just as Barak turned his eyes to it. Then another went up. It was as if some 302

RED ARMY

godlike enemy were out there, patiently exterminating them all. Barak almost jumped to the ground and fled. But he took command of himself, unwilling to be a coward, no matter how hopeless the situation. He slipped back into the hold to order his crew to evacuate the helpless vehicle with him.

A noise enormous beyond imagination stopped him.

The brigade's senior officer of transportation troops watched helplessly as his supply column began to explode. He had pulled off the road on a hilltop, positioning his vehicle so that he could count the trucks of the materiel support battalion as they passed, wondering how many had fallen out. And without warning, the faint dawn blew up. Enemy tanks, sleek, with flat, angular turrets, emerged from the murk across the valley, bristling into small-unit formations as they rolled north. They used their main armaments sparingly, raking the column of trucks with machine-gun fire. The steel phantoms seemed to float over the terrain, enhancing the ghostly effect of their unexpected appearance east of the Teutoburg forest. The transportation officer's concern with lone lost vehicles quickly disappeared.

A motorized rifle subunit assigned to protect the convoy tried to deploy and return fire. The transport officer watched with a surge of hope as sparks flew off an enemy turret. But the tank kept coming, impervious to the weapons of the infantry fighting vehicles.

The tanks opened up with their main guns to engage the guardian combat vehicles, destroying each with the first shot.