don’t shoot. The idea is to leave them alone, so no patrolling, no harassing fire with artillery, no air strikes. We watch, and we wait.”
“What about the French?” Reynolds asked.
“If you can ID a target as French, give it everything you’ve got.”
CHAPTER 37
Collapse
Deployed in a wedge formation, fifteen M3 Bradley fighting vehicles and M1 tanks rolled southwest. They were moving through a flat, drab countryside dotted by beet fields, small orchards, and gray slag heaps. Tiny helicopters flitted ahead of them, climbing only to clear power lines — OH-58 Kiowas probing for the first signs of any EurCon force. Behind the scouts, shark-nosed Apache gunships flew even tower, ready to pop up and unleash salvos of deadly, laser-guided Hellfire antitank missiles. The Belgian border with France lay just twenty kilometers up the highway.
Hundreds of M1tanks and M2 infantry fighting vehicles, the rest of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, were further back, moving in columns behind the advance guard. Their presence was signaled by billowing dust clouds and a low, deep, grinding, growling, clanking roar. More dust clouds along the western horizon revealed units of the Belgian Army advancing alongside the Americans.
Riding with his turret hatch open, Lieutenant Colonel John Chandler, the commander of the U.S. division’s cavalry squadron, studied his surroundings intently. Eighty-four years before, during one of the World War I’s opening battles, Britain’s khaki-clad riflemen and the Kaiser’s spike-helmeted infantry had clashed at Mons. Thousands had died on both sides. Now, as the century drew to a close, it seemed bitterly ironic that men were still prepared to fight and die across the same bleak, polluted landscape.
Chandler shook his head somberly, listening to the steady stream of reports crackling through his headphones. The French and Germans had started this insane war. If they were foolish enough to fight on against overwhelming odds, he and his troopers would certainly oblige them.
Like a stone and glass phoenix, Germany’s resurrected Reichstag — its Parliament Building — stood almost alone in the vast, darkened expanse of the Platz der Republik. Inside a corner office in the building’s east wing, Chancellor Heinz Schraeder turned away from his inspection of Berlin’s blacked-out skyline. He glanced at the clock on his desk. It was just past midnight. How appropriate, he thought wryly.
He looked up from the clock toward the five grim, determined men standing on the other side of his desk. Germany’s Defense Minister, her Foreign Minister, and the three uniformed service chiefs stood motionless, waiting for his permission to speak. Even in the face of certain defeat, certain formalities had to be observed. “Well, gentlemen?”
“The strategic situation is hopeless, Chancellor.” Jurgen Lettow, the Minister of Defense, never minced words. “Belgium’s defection and the Dutch declaration of war against the Confederation have finished us.”
Schraeder nodded. Together, the Americans, the British, and their new Dutch and Belgian allies now had well over 150,000 troops and nearly two thousand tanks massed within striking distance of Germany’s virtually unguarded industrial heartland. With most of its army tied down in Poland and refusing any orders from higher headquarters, Germany had almost nothing left to throw in their path. Little more than a corporal’s guard of reservists and a single panzergrenadier division. It was not enough.
He cleared his throat. “Then what do you suggest, Herr Lettow?”
“That we seek a separate peace while we still can,” Lettow replied. His companions muttered their agreement. The Defense Minister’s eyes flashed. “We owe the French nothing.”
That much was certainly true, Schraeder thought angrily. Entranced by the man’s vision of a Europe united under French and German influence, he’d backed Nicolas Desaix down the line — only to have his trust betrayed at every turn. The secret negotiations with the Russians had demonstrated only too clearly that France was perfectly willing to sacrifice Germany’s vital strategic interests for its own short-term gain. And the murderous French attack on the 7th Panzer’s headquarters only confirmed what many Germans already suspected: France viewed its ally not as an equal partner, but instead as a puppet to be used, bled white, and then contemptuously discarded.
Still he hesitated. Too much of his own political prestige and power was bound up in the French alliance. Could he afford to walk away from Desaix so lightly?
Lettow leaned across the desk. “I speak for the rest of the cabinet and for the armed forces, Chancellor. Abandon this absurd alliance and this lost war before it is too late.”
Again, heads nodded their agreement. Every man in the room knew only too well the horrible price Germany had paid for her last military defeat.
Schraeder slumped back in his chair. “Very well.” His shoulders bowed. “What must I do?”
“Sign these orders.” Lettow began laying documents in front of him.
Suddenly weary beyond his years, the Chancellor paged through them. The first formally notified Paris that Germany was withdrawing from all its treaty obligations as a member of the European Confederation. The second authorized the Foreign Minister to open immediate peace talks with the Combined Forces. The third and final document instructed the country’s two railway systems — the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the Deutsche Reichsbahn — to halt all supply shipments to French forces in Germany or Eastern Europe.
Moving slowly, almost unwillingly, Schraeder uncapped his fountain pen and scrawled his signature across the bottom of each page.
Before he’d put his pen down, one of the waiting officers picked the orders up and hurried out of the room. Lettow tossed another piece of paper onto the desk. His voice turned ice-cold. “You have one more document to sign, Chancellor.”
Schraeder stared down at it. “What is this?”
“Your resignation.”
“Movement to the front!”
The shout woke Reynolds from an after-lunch siesta. Two days of relative peace and quiet made the sudden warning almost as startling as it would have been during his first days in Poland, but his reflexes were still solid. In seconds he was out the CP’s door, weapon in hand.
The rest of Alpha Company’s soldiers were just as fast. They dove into foxholes and readied their weapons, all the while scanning the ground to their front for signs of the approaching enemy. Or was “enemy” still the right word? The scuttlebutt filtering up from the rear areas said that EurCon was breaking up.
Was the war really over? Reynolds wasn’t sure, but with the practical cynicism of a combat soldier, he’d decided he wouldn’t let down his guard until he had definite proof.
The CP was fifty meters back from the center of Alpha Company’s sector. Reynolds covered the distance in what seemed like three strides.
Sergeant Robbins reported as he slid into position, “We’ve got a single Marder cruising up the road, Captain. Nothing else.” He managed to shrug, even while tracking the vehicle on binoculars.
Reynolds lifted his own field glasses. The German APC was roughly five hundred meters away and still closing. “Tell the company to stand to. No chances.”
The Marder was just coming into Javelin range. Whatever the bastards inside wanted, if they made trouble, they’d have a short life and a violent death.
He studied the vehicle, as if its steel sides could tell him the intentions of the people inside. In a way, they could, because as the Marder drew near, he saw that its turret and 25mm cannon were reversed, “Pass the word to Battalion. I think they want to talk.” Now Reynolds was almost sure the Germans had peaceful intentions. Either that or they had a strong death wish.
The Marder stopped well short of their positions, about a hundred meters out. Two officers in German battle dress got out, carefully walking down the lowered rear ramp. One was tall and thin, but looked fit. He wore the green beret of armored infantry. The second German was shorter and older. His beret was black, indicating a tank
