woefully inadequate for the task. Though he didn't like the idea, he had ordered each of his other two battalions guarding the two nuclear weapons sites near Potsdam to send one of their companies to Berlin to augment the battalion already there.
This problem was only one that the parachute colonel had to deal with. Besides his own units, he discovered two battalions from the 3rd Panzer Division in Berlin. They had come into the city in the middle of the night after the President of the Parliament had made a personal appeal to the commander of the 3rd Panzer. By dawn Haas had learned that the President of the Parliament, fearing that Ruff had brought Haas's battalion into Berlin to intimidate them, felt the need to counter Haas's battalion with units loyal to the Parliament. So, although he had wanted to deal with Radek, Haas had felt that it was more important to meet with the commander of the 3rd Panzer's units in Berlin and ensure that they established a clear understanding of where each stood on the matter of loyalty to the government. The last thing Haas wanted to do was to have various units of the Bundeswehr start tearing away at each other because of misunderstandings.
Yet now, seeing the lead vehicle of the convoy start to roll through the front gate of the storage site, Haas regretted his earlier decision. Something was happening here, and he didn't like the looks of it. Haas began shouting to his driver and making gestures. 'Go around. Go around this convoy and head for the front gate, now!'
Caught off guard by his commander's sudden shouts, the driver did exactly as he was told. Jerking the wheel to the left, he stepped on the accelerator and began to race down the road in the left lane so that he could pass the trucks as the lead vehicles of the convoy began to roll into the storage site.
At the gate the guard corporal turned his attention away from the trucks passing him as he heard the gunning of an engine. Looking down the flat, straight road, he saw a staff car headed right toward him and gaining speed. Throwing up his right arm and waving violently, he yelled halt three times in quick succession. The driver of the staff car only drove faster. Realizing that he was in danger, the corporal began to run for the cover of the bunker, yelling to the paratroopers inside to open fire as he ran by.
The sudden order to halt, followed by the rattle of the machine gun behind them, caused Ilvanich to snap, 'NOW! STEP ON IT.'
Like Haas's driver, Couvelha complied without hesitation. The inner secure area was straight ahead, less than three hundred meters away. With luck they could cover that distance in a matter of seconds and have a real chance to grab the weapons. Couvelha ignored Ilvanich as Ilvanich kicked his door open, leveled his automatic rifle, and began to spray the bewildered Germans along the side of the road as they emerged from buildings.
Radek had just opened the door of the commandant's building when the shooting started. Stepping out onto the front step, he gasped in horror as he watched a staff car careen madly past him. It was going as fast as it could while the passenger on the side opposite from where Radek stood fired wildly out of his open door. Radek was still standing there, bewildered and disbelieving, when the first truck of the convoy went by. In the rear of the truck, the canvas sides were rolled up, revealing the German soldiers inside crouching behind the thin sides of the truck's cargo bed as it came roaring past. Like the soldier in the staff car, they too were firing their rifles as they went. Though their aim was wild, the volume of fire they put out more than made up for it. Hit in the shoulder, and then the chest, Radek was thrown backwards through the open door of his office. There, bleeding and unable to get up or even call for help, he lay listening to the sound of trucks rushing by, punctuated by screams of pain, panic, shooting, and every now and then a random explosion.
Outside the site, Colonel Haas pulled himself out of his overturned staff car. His driver, crumpled up like a ball of rags behind the steering wheel, was dead. And from what he could tell, he had two broken legs. Once he was out on the paved road leading into the site, Haas looked toward the gate, still gaping open. Like Radek, he listened helplessly to the sounds of battle as they moved away from him and closer to the inner secure area.
Specialist Kevin Pape ignored the wind whipping in his face, made harsher by the speed of the truck he was riding in. Instead, he prepared to fire the machine gun that he had cared for and manned for many days but had never had the opportunity to fire in anger. Leaning into the weapon, Pape tucked his chin up against the shoulder stock, took careful aim at a group of three Germans running for cover behind a bunker near the gate of the inner secure area, and opened fire. Seeing his first burst of seven to ten rounds fly over his targets, he stretched himself up slightly and fired again. This time he was on target, sending the middle soldier tumbling down and causing the man behind him to make a quick leap lest he trip over his fallen comrade. With a slight correction, Pape caught the German in midair.
Absorbed by his engagement, Pape did not notice that a machine gun in the bunker where his targets had been running was now firing on Ilvanich's staff car. It wasn't until that car, its driver hit, made a sudden turn to the right and went crashing into the barbed-wire fence that Pape realized what was happening. The driver of his truck, Private Ken Hillman, cut the wheel to the left to avoid crashing into the rear of Ilvanich's staff car. In doing so, he lost control of the truck and, like Ilvanich's staff car, the truck went crashing into the barbed-wire fence. Unlike Ilvanich's car, the heavier truck continued through the fence and into the anti-vehicle ditch beyond. The front wheels bit into the soft mud of the ditch and buried the front fenders.
Even before the truck stopped, Sergeant Rasper slapped Pape on the side of his leg. 'OUT! OUT! EVERYONE OUT!'
Reaching forward, Pape pulled the pin that held his machine gun in the truck's ring mount, dropped inside, and yelled to the driver as he started to duck out the door on the left. 'Don't forget the ammo. Grab the ammo boxes.'
As Pape began to go out the door, Hillman yelled, 'Got it,' and leaped from his.
Rasper, in the middle, was right behind Pape as a stream of bullets smashed the track's windshield. 'Go, damn it. Get your ass out of here.' Excited, Rasper gave Pape a shove.
Caught off balance, Pape and his machine gun went flying down, face-first, into the mud of the anti-vehicle ditch.
Pulling himself out of his vehicle, Ilvanich paused only long enough to satisfy himself that Sergeant Couvelha was beyond help. Then, with his automatic rifle in his right hand, he jumped up onto the hood of his staff car, placed his left hand on top of the pole that the barbed wire was strung on, and boosted himself up and over the wire fence. Like any well-trained paratrooper, he brought his feet and knees together while he was still in the air and prepared to roll as soon as he felt the shock of hitting the ground. The mud in the ditch, however, was softer than he had anticipated. He sank several inches into it and never rolled until he remembered to do so.
His timing was impeccable. Ilvanich's gymnastics caught the attention of the Germans manning the machine gun in the bunker at the entrance of the inner secure area. Finished with the truck for a moment, the machine gunner brought the muzzle of his weapon around to the left and fired a burst at Ilvanich. He had, however, disappeared into the anti-vehicle ditch. Cursing, the gunner slapped the side of his weapon. 'Why in the hell did they dig a ditch like that right in front of the bunker's field of fire? The Russians must have had a death wish.'
The sergeant behind him smacked him on the side of his helmet. 'Shut up and go back to the truck. The enemy are deploying.'
But by the time the machine gunner had managed to bring the gun back to the right, the last of the rangers that had been in the rear of Rasper's truck were in the ditch and rushing forward to the wall of the anti-vehicle ditch nearest to the inner secure area.
Throwing himself against that wall, Ilvanich paused for the first time since the shooting had started to assess the situation. Twenty meters to his left he watched for a second while Rasper deployed his men against the wall and, like him, stopped to catch his breath and sort things out. Behind him he could hear firing from the direction of the buildings they had gone through. Lieutenant Fitzhugh, no doubt, was deploying the rest of the ranger company and engaging the bulk of the German garrison. Though Ilvanich didn't know what had happened that had allowed them to get so far, he knew that if they didn't do something in the next minute or so, the Germans to their rear would be able to assemble their overwhelming numbers. They would then be free to wipe out Ilvanich and the rangers, now trapped between the inner secure area and the main compound.
Desperate measures for desperate times. Over and over Ilvanich repeated that to himself. Desperate measures for desperate times. When he was mentally ready, he yelled over to Rasper, 'Sergeant! We must get out of this ditch and into the secure area before the Germans recover. I am going for the machine gun. Cover me.'
Rasper didn't stop to think about what Ilvanich was saying or what it meant. He simply turned to his men and yelled, 'Everyone, up and fire. Up and fire.' While his men did so, Rasper yanked a smoke grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, and threw it over to where Ilvanich would be coming from.
Swinging the heavy German machine gun up, over, and down onto the dirt parapet of the anti-vehicle ditch,
