the sea. What possibly is there to gain from one more battle?'
Lewis stood up and looked over to Wilson. His face was a mask betraying no emotions. 'The 2nd Panzer Division will attack for exactly the same reason that Scott Dixon will keep his mouth shut. A sense of duty that even soldiers can't explain.'
It suddenly dawned upon Wilson what Lewis had left unsaid a moment ago. Dixon, who was still out there exposed to danger, might not make it, leaving only three people to share — their secret. Standing upright, Wilson was about to call Lewis a bastard, but then held herself in check. Not that she had to, for the look on her face told Lewis what she was thinking.
Lewis said nothing. There wasn't anything more to say. Whatever happened in Germany in the next twelve to twenty-four hours was out of their hands. The fate of Dixon and the soldiers who rode with him was back where it probably always had been, in the hands of tired and exhausted men and women, armed with the best weapons their nations had to offer, lurking about under leaden gray skies in search of each other.
With the roads leading west finally cleared of wreckage caused by ceaseless air strikes and hordes of refugees that always seemed to be in the way, Major General Erich Dorsch was free to unleash his 2nd Panzer Division. Though there was little chance of his division's doing serious damage to the American 4th Armored Division, Dorsch felt a certain amount of satisfaction that the little chunks of that unit he was about to scoop up and crush were the same ones that had frustrated his operations a week before in central Germany. The attack of the 4th Armored Division's 1st Brigade into his exposed flank had slowed and then stopped his advance, denying him a great victory. For that he intended to make every soldier in that unit pay. So with the same ruthlessness that he had driven his motorized rifle regiment in the old East German Army, he drove the soldiers of the 2nd Panzer Division on. The final fight, he promised himself, would be his alone.
Far removed from the command post of the 2nd Panzer Division, the weary soldiers of the 2nd Panzer prepared for one more effort. In the gathering darkness, under cloudy and forbidding skies that told of a new winter storm coming, Captain Friedrich Seydlitz grimly led the pitiful remains of his company forward one more time. That this would be the last battle, there was no doubt. Already the word had filtered down throughout the division that the bulk of the Americans they had been pursuing across Germany were already safe and out of reach. Only a few stray rear-guard units remained to be eliminated. Though Seydlitz had no idea why these units needed to be dealt with, he'd said nothing when he had been given his orders.
The attack, scheduled to commence just before dawn, would be a difficult one. The rash of warm weather had softened the ground and restricted cross-country maneuver to a few patches of solid ground, trails, and hard- surfaced roads. Were it not for the low cloud ceiling that was preceding the new weather front, this restriction on maneuver would have meant an end to the attack. For the Americans controlled the air. Even German Army aviation no longer was available, as it had been in central Germany. There would just be a handful of panzer and panzergrenadier battalions, backed up by field artillery, for the morning's fight.
But that, Seydlitz decided, would be more than enough to satisfy his division commander's honor, pride, or whatever foolish emotion was driving him to continue this insanity. That there was no good reason to do what they were doing was obvious. It had been obvious to his loader over two weeks ago. Only Seydlitz, of all the men in his company, had been unable to see what they had seen. Perceiving the obvious, however, was not the same as knowing what to do. That was where they, the men in his command, had failed and where Seydlitz himself now failed. By all rights, Seydlitz realized as his company prepared to move out, he should refuse to follow his latest set of orders. Others, particularly the pilots in the Luftwaffe, had done just that. They simply refused to do what they had been told. But then their failure had cost the German Army a sure victory. Even worse, the absence of the Luftwaffe had cost German soldiers their lives. Most of those who had fallen had been good Germans, men who had been guilty of nothing more than doing their duty and following their orders. Was the refusal then justifiable? In the course of the past two days, whenever an American ground attack aircraft had rained down destruction on his company, Seydlitz had felt anger at the German pilots who had refused to do their duties. How could fellow countrymen allow this to happen?
Those feelings, those thoughts, were like a great trap. When he questioned the loyalty of the Luftwaffe pilots, Seydlitz realized he was questioning his own. How would he be able to condemn them if he himself failed to carry out his own orders and as a result allowed an attack by a sister unit to fail in a bloody repulse? He couldn't. Right or wrong would not be determined by him or the men in his unit. All they could do was trust that their commanders were looking out for their best interests and those of Germany. In the meantime, all Seydlitz could do was what he had always done, his duty.
So when the time came, he keyed his radio and gave the order for his company to start engines and move out to the west for one more battle.
It was several moments before Chancellor Ruff noticed that he was no longer alone in his office. Seated at his desk, with one leg held straight out to one side to ease his discomfort, Ruff had been staring at the open box that glistened under the harsh light of the desk lamp. With all other lights in the room extinguished, the highly polished box with its bright red lining and black-sheathed knife sat in the center of Ruff's desk as if it were on a stage under a spotlight. With his hands resting on the arms of his padded chair, Ruff sat for the longest time looking down at the box and the knife.
To Colonel Kasper, who had quietly slipped into the Chancellor's office, Ruff looked as if he were watching a little television set or a child's video game. He half expected something to come popping up out of the box that Ruff was staring at so intently. But nothing happened. Ruff simply sat there looking at the box. Kasper, leaning against the wall in the shadows, watched, waited, and began to have second thoughts.
Finally, without any indication as to what alerted him, Ruff looked up from the little wooden box and straight at Kasper. For a moment Ruff's eyes betrayed the look a child gets when a parent catches the child doing something wrong. Leaning forward in his chair quickly, Ruff reached out with his right hand, slapped the lid of the wooden box shut, and sat up straight in his seat. With a gruffness in his voice that barely concealed his anger, Ruff called out, 'What is it you want, Colonel?'
For the longest time Kasper said nothing. He merely stayed there in the shadows looking at Ruff and wondering what this man, considered by all who knew him to be a great politician and a wise statesman, was thinking. Loved, until he had initiated this crisis, by Germans in both the East and the West, Ruff had brought the nation together like no other man could have done. Not since Konrad Adenauer had a single German commanded such respect. Why, Ruff thought, had he thrown all of that away? Why?
Becoming angry at the failure of Kasper to answer his question, Ruff slammed his hand on his desk and shouted, 'What do you want, Colonel? Either tell me or leave.'
In a whisper that made the question more of a plea, Kasper simply said, 'Why?'
Already agitated, Ruff twisted his face in anger. 'Why what, Colonel? What are you talking about?'
'Why, Herr Chancellor, this foolish war? We have lost so much and gained nothing. Nothing!'
Ruff fell back in his chair. 'You think, Colonel Kasper, that we have gained nothing? You think all of this was a waste? How could you not see what we were truly fighting for? How could you be so blind?'
Kasper didn't move. Remaining at the wall near the door, he spoke out. 'We have gained nothing. The precious nuclear weapons that started this whole thing are gone. Not only was the German Army unable to stop an enemy force a fifth its size and was crippled while doing so, that pitiful performance created a split in the officer corps and left the Army racked by internal dissent. The Luftwaffe has turned its back on the Army and dishonored itself and Germany. The streets of our cities are being torn by riots against this government while police stand aside and watch. In the world councils, nations who had once been our allies condemn us. And years of patient rebuilding of our nation and its image have been endangered. What possible reason can you or anyone give that could justify all of this?'
Slowly Ruff stood, pushing his chair away from his desk. With the look that had won him election after election, Ruff puffed out his chest. Pulling back the coattails of his suit jacket, Ruff placed his hands on his hips. 'We have, Colonel, regained our pride and our honor.'
With a deep sense of dread, Kasper looked down at the floor at his own feet as Ruff continued. 'For the first time in over sixty years, Colonel, Germany is almost free of occupation forces. Once all this internal foolishness has been given a chance to settle, we will sit with those whom you call our former allies. With the same determination and skill that led to the removal of Russian forces from Germany, we will negotiate away the remains of America's broken forces as well as the others. Freed from the heavy hand of occupation and the stigma of our defeat in the last war, Germany will be able to resume the role of leadership in Central Europe that is Germany's by right. Don't
