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"Order all units to halt where they are and assume a hasty defense. All units this time." He looked at the map. The colored arrows seemed to be teasing him, refusing to hold still. If the Americans had already slipped some elements behind them, his brigade could still block any forces that tried to follow in the wake of the lead elements. Yet no one seemed to know exactly where the enemy was located. It was all such a mess. There were too many possibilities.

Anton swept his hand along the trace of the brigade's march routes.

"Defend the intersections. Block them. Commandeer any civilian vehicles in the area and build antivehicle barricades. Use our support vehicles, if necessary. But I want every major intersection blocked and covered with fire."

"Artillery?" the chief of staff asked.

Anton tried to think. He wanted to be firm, to offer a worthy example to his staff. But it all seemed a bit distant and dreamlike.

"The guns will be positioned near the roads, where they can bring direct fires to bear in an emergency." Anton thought. There was a dull physical pain associated with each new thought now. "Protect the rocket launchers. Position them at a central location where they can support as much of the brigade as possible."

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He felt nauseated. Dizzy. He had to sit down. Hold on, Anton told himself. Just hold on. It can't last forever.

General Malinsky carefully avoided contradicting Starukhin in front of the Third Shock Army staff, but he watched and listened closely, ready to intervene if the situation became critical. He had complete faith in Starukhin in the attack, but he worried that the passionate aggressiveness that served an advancing force so well might prove unsuited to the very different demands of a hasty defense and the give-and-take exchanges required to stabilize a major enemy counterattack. Malinsky found himself wishing that Trimenko were still alive and in command of this sector. Trimenko had possessed balance, a cool mind behind a steel fist.

Malinsky looked at Starukhin's broad back. He realized that the army commander was behaving with unusual restraint in his presence, aware that Malinsky did not like incessant displays of temper. It was like a game between them.

Would nuclear weapons soon be a part of a greater game? Since the alarm in the night, the High Command of Forces had been silent on the subject, and the KGB boys were pulling their own twisted strings. Malinsky dreaded the thought of a battlefield turned nuclear.

But he did not want to be caught unprepared. He did not want to give the enemy the first blow. It was bad enough now with the damned Americans.

The Americans had moved more quickly and powerfully than anyone had expected. The bits and pieces of intelligence information that had been trickling in now seemed like obvious clues in retrospect. But they had all committed the age-old sin of underestimating the enemy.

Malinsky shrugged to himself. He was not interested in history lessons.

But he made a mental note. For the next war. The technical means of reconnaissance were sufficiently powerful. But the men behind them, who had to analyze the data and make judgments, needed further development. One good man like Dudorov could not do it all by himself.

Starukhin's quartering party had selected a fine site for the command post, tucked into a row of West German warehouses spacious enough to hold all of the command and support vehicles. The lessons of the first two days had been assimilated very quickly. Command posts set up in the countryside could be located and targeted almost effortlessly. The cover and concealment of built-up areas at least offered a chance at survival.

Increasingly, this was a war of cities and towns, and of roads.

The din of generators wrapped the command post in a cocoon of noise within the outer shell of the warehouses, and fumes clotted the atmo-307

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sphere. But the opportunity to work with all of the lights turned on around the clock more than compensated for the bad air.

Starukhin suddenly raised his voice, drawing Malinsky's eyes. The army commander quickly got his temper back under control, but it was clear that things were not going well. In the rear, the encircled German corps was attempting a breakout from the Hannover area. Malinsky believed that the inner ring of the encirclement was sufficiently powerful to hold the Germans, or, at a minimum, to channel them onto routes where they would become hopelessly vulnerable and impotent to affect the main thrusts of the front. Still, the added pressure of yet another subbattle was hardly welcome at the moment.

Starukhin dispatched a nervous staff colonel on a mission, waving his big paws in the air. Then the army commander turned toward Malinsky, wearing the look of a dog who suspects he might have a beating coming, Starukhin came up so close that Malinsky could smell the big man's stale sweat. The army commander looked down at his superior, clearly ill at ease.