now! Before the Amis can dig in any deeper!”
“Negative, Herr Oberstleutnant. General Montagne’s orders are explicit,” Feist sniffed. “Units from the French 5th Armored and the III Corps have also run into stronger opposition than expected. Corps believes we must regroup and rethink our plan of operations in light of these new developments.”
Von Seelow saw red. The one thing the enemy needed was time, and now Montagne and those other idiots were handing it to them on a silver platter. “Tell corps to stuff its ‘developments’ up its ass…”
“I suggest you comply with your orders, Herr Oberstleutnant,” the major said coolly, apparently unmoved by his outburst. “You have thirty minutes to begin withdrawing. If not, I’m sure we can find someone else to command your brigade. Feist, out.”
Willi stood staring at the appalled faces of his staff for several seconds before growling out the string of orders that would put the 19th Panzergrenadier’s drive toward Gdansk on hold.
Major Tad Wojcik climbed down from his F-15 Eagle feeling like he’d run a marathon and then boxed a few barefisted rounds with a gorilla. Flying combat missions all day and doing paperwork all night was bleeding away his last carefully hoarded stores of endurance and energy. Even now, after a hectic air-to-air combat mission, his work wasn’t done. One of the squadron staff, Sergeant Jerzy Palubin, was waiting, both with information about the rest of the regiment and with questions about the mission he’d just finished flying.
His new slot as 1st Squadron’s operations officer, and the promotion that came with it, had come quickly — but holes in the composite fighter regiment’s organization had to be filled as soon as they opened up. Major Wolnoski had died an airman’s death, crashing trying to land a crippled Eagle. Tad had taken over his job and rank the same afternoon. He was one of the last of the squadron’s original pilots. Wolnoski had been another.
Now, just a few days later, it felt like he’d been doing the job forever. He’d been ready for it, having proven himself a survivor as well as a skilled pilot. He’d kept flying, of course — just like his predecessor. There just weren’t enough pilots.
In spite of his fatigue, Tad was pleased. The morning’s mission had been a good one, the first in a long while. Ten Eagles had managed to intercept a EurCon raid near Stargard that morning, well before they could reach the rail yards there. For once, French and German fighter cover had been light, and they’d torn into the enemy attack aircraft, downing at least a quarter of the thirty-plane raid.
His own flight of four planes, about all that was left of 1st Squadron in flyable condition, had accounted for five Mirages all by themselves.
“It’s just too bad none of them were Germans. I really wanted to kill a few more Krauts on this hop,” he remarked grimly to Palubin, as they walked back to the ops building.
The older noncom glanced back at him, obviously puzzled and a little disgusted by the disappointment in his voice. “Who cares whether they’re German or not? They’re all the enemy, aren’t they?”
Evidently reminded of the disparity between their ranks by Tad’s shocked look, Palubin quickly apologized for his outburst, but Tad waved it off. “Never mind, Jerzy. You’re right anyway. It doesn’t matter.”
He followed the sergeant back to the ops building in a pensive mood. He had spoken reflexively, but maybe it was stupid to count Germans apart, as if they were some sort of evil breed. After all, France was at least as much to blame for this war.
He wondered how his parents were faring. A brief message passed through official channels had told him that they were alive and safe in Warsaw. Make that relatively safe, he decided. There were too many rumors that the Russians could come pouring across the border at any moment. If that happened… Tad felt cold. If the Russians sided with EurCon, then all their sacrifices would be in vain. Poland would fall. He pushed the depressing thought away, focusing his worries instead on his mother and father.
The fragmentary message hadn’t said where exactly his parents were living in Warsaw. Probably in one of the sprawling, dirty refugee tent cities that were springing up on the capital’s outskirts. Did they have enough food to eat? Probably not. The war had badly disrupted Poland’s own food distribution systems, and the limited supplies coming in by sea went to the armed forces first. While their nation was under threat, civilians would have to fend for themselves. Tad grimaced. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to hate the French, after all.
But did he have to hate to do his job? That was worth thinking harder about.
When they got to the operations building, the 1st Squadron’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lyskawa, congratulated him on his two kills. They raised Tad’s score to nineteen.
Then Wojcik saw him smile for the first time in a week.
“We’re getting some new aircraft, Major. Eight ‘C’ models will be delivered tomorrow, along with three new pilots. Our two oldest planes get sent to England, for rework.”
Tad’s mind raced. New planes and pilots? They were the first in weeks — the first tangible signs that Poland’s American and British allies were winning their battle to open the sea and air corridors to his adopted country. They already had more pilots than F-15s, so the reinforcements would almost double the squadron’s available aircraft. As operations officer, it would be his job to assign missions to the squadron’s planes. Suddenly his options had grown, and he felt as if there was a chance. They weren’t overstrength enough to pull any pilots out of the line, but they’d be able to stand a few down for a day’s rest.
It gave him a small measure of hope. Maybe not for him personally, but for Poland, at least.
CHAPTER 32
Knife Edge
For hundreds of years, the vast primeval forest of Bialowieza had served as a kind of sanctuary — a refuge for the endangered European bison during times of peace and for Polish and Russian partisans during times of war. Now a new armed force laired beneath the forest’s thick leafy canopy, seeking shelter from American spy satellites orbiting hundreds of miles above the earth.
As sunlight filtered through to the forest floor, the sound of thousands of murmuring voices, the clanking noises of metal and machinery, and the smell of thousands of small cook fires all wafted skyward. The soldiers of Russia’s 25th Tank Division were stirring to life after another night spent camped beneath the camouflage netting covering their T-80 tanks and BMP-2s.
Near the center of the sprawling encampment, alert sentries, tents, and a circle of parked command vehicles signaled the presence of the division headquarters. Inside the headquarters itself, the telephone wire strung from tree to tree to tent identified the main communications center — a canvas roof covering two eight-wheeled BTR-80 APCs, a radio van, and tables piled high with radios, field phones, cryptographic gear, and scrambling equipment. A portable electric generator thumped noisily in one corner, supplying power to save valuable batteries.
A tall, black-haired man stood near one of the tables, talking into a secure field phone. The ragged scar running diagonally from his forehead down across his nose and left cheek ruined what would otherwise have been a handsome face. Years before, while serving as a battalion commander during the Afghan War, Major General Sergei Rostopchin had been seriously wounded — badly disfigured by fragments from a mujaheddin mortar shell. “Yes, Colonel. I understand completely. You may tell the general staff that the 25th will be ready to move on time.”
Rostopchin was young for his post as a division commander, especially in Kaminov’s purged and restructured Russian Army. The marshal, an old man himself, had a notorious penchant for equating age with competence. Rostopchin had earned his command, in spite of his age, through a varied set of converging circumstances — his family’s long record of military service, his own exemplary war record, and, perhaps most important of all, a complete lack of interest in politics. The leader of the 25th Tank Division adhered to one, unswerving principle: he obeyed orders from those above him without question, without exception, and without reservation. That made him valuable in a time when loyalties seemed to change with every shift in the political wind.
Now Rostopchin hung up and turned to find his chief of staff waiting anxiously close by. “That was Colonel Soloviev, Mikhail. We can expect the authorization to launch our attack sometime in the next twenty-four to thirty- six hours.”
The colonel nodded abruptly, ready for further instructions.
