the skids a little so that your command can slide into Germany just a little easier.'
Dixon looked at Vorishnov as he tried to figure out what the Russian was up to. Finally he shrugged. 'Obviously you have something in mind. I am, as the saying goes, all ears.'
'There is, serving with one of your ranger companies, a Russian major who, while I was serving here in Czechoslovakia, commanded a Desant, or special purpose air-assault detachment in the Central Group. He speaks German fluently and is passable with his Czech. One of his tasks as a Desant detachment commander was to travel throughout southeastern Germany posing as a truck driver in order to learn all he could of the area in preparation for the day when he would lead his detachment there in advance of an invasion of Germany.' Then, realizing what he had said, a sly smile lit Vorishnov's face as he quickly added, 'If, of course, aggression by NATO had forced the peace-loving Soviet Union to launch such a counteroffensive.'
Dixon grinned at Vorishnov's sudden backpedaling on the invasion issue. 'Of course.'
Continuing with his discussion, Vorishnov quickly got to the point. 'This major, Major Nikolai Ilvanich, also happens to be in temporary command of the ranger company he is with. Given his experience as a commander of a Desant detachment, his knowledge of our proposed area of operation, and the group of elite soldiers in hand, I have little doubt that he could give your brigade the extra margin of safety that it will need to make this operation a reality. Besides, he and his company are being held at a hospital just north of here as if they were prisoners. I see no reason why we should not put them to good use.'
Dixon, always one to take advantage of every opportunity to stack the odds in his favor, liked the idea. Before saying so, however, he asked Vorishnov if Ilvanich, a Russian, would risk his life in an American operation, leading American troops.
A smile came to Vorishnov's face. 'When I was a student at the General Staff Academy, we had a tactics instructor who enjoyed a little joke now and then. One day he presented a tactical problem to our class. We were told to place ourselves in the role of a tank division commander who had broken through the main NATO defensive belts and was headed west to the Rhine River. Our problem was that two NATO divisions were being thrown against us, with a German armored division coming at our flank from the south and an American armored division advancing from the north. The instructor asked us to determine which threat we should deal with first, the German division or the American, and then explain our reasoning. A classmate of mine, a very clever if arrogant fellow, quickly finished weighing the pros and cons of both options. He stood up and announced that we must turn against the German division first. The tactics instructor, making a great show of it, pounded on his desk and yelled, 'No, no, no. You're wrong!' Shocked, and a little embarrassed, but determined to prove his point, my classmate started to enumerate the reasons for his decision. Again the instructor cut him off, yelling this time, 'The Americans, you must deal with the Americans, first and always.' Frustrated, my classmate finally blurted, 'But why? Why always the Americans? Why leave the Germans till later?' With a sly grin the instructor stated, 'That is obvious. As soldiers, we must always deal with business before pleasure.' '
Dixon chuckled. He had heard the same story, but with different nationalities, before.
Then suddenly Vorishnov's entire demeanor changed. When he spoke, his tone was cold and serious. 'A resurgent Germany armed with nuclear weapons is something that Russia cannot live with. This fight which we are about to enter is not simply between the United States and Germany. It is a struggle to crush an evil thing in the womb, before it can endanger decency and humanity again.'
Vorishnov's sober statement didn't need any further comment. After taking one last look around, Dixon turned to Vorishnov. 'Well, the corps commander promised me anything that I wanted. Let's take a ride over to that hospital where they're holding your major hostage and see if he's interested in having some fun.'
From his tank, Second Lieutenant Ellerbee watched his brigade commander and the Russian colonel climb into a humvee and drive away. As they did so, his heart sank. Ellerbee had been sitting there for the better part of an hour watching Colonel Dixon, trying to screw up enough courage to go over and protest the manner in which he and his platoon were being treated by Captain Kozak. But just as he was about to, just when he had built up enough gumption, Ellerbee talked himself out of it. No, he reasoned, odds were, if he did, the colonel would ignore him. Or, Ellerbee told himself, Colonel Dixon would tell him that, based on his personal performance in the Ukraine, he deserved it, or that Kozak, as the commander, could run her company as she saw fit. No, he convinced himself, it would be futile to complain.
Then, when he had given up, Ellerbee saw Dixon looking right at him. Maybe, just maybe, Ellerbee thought, the colonel would recognize him, come over, and ask him how things were going with his platoon. Now, Ellerbee reasoned, if the colonel asked, then it would be all right to complain. Then it wouldn't sound like sour grapes or simple bitching. He had been told once that so long as the senior officer asked, it was okay to give an honest answer. Ellerbee had no sooner psyched himself up when a soldier who had been serving breakfast to the company came up and offered the two colonels some more coffee. Dixon turned his head away from Ellerbee, accepted the coffee, and continued his conversation with the Russian colonel.
Ellerbee was still sitting on top of his tank bemoaning his fate and freezing when Dixon and Vorishnov drove off. Sighing, Ellerbee quietly resigned himself to his fate. He would be stuck there, serving under an airhead female captain who treated the male soldiers in her command like trash during an operation that had about as much chance of succeeding as a snowball's chance in hell. This was not, Ellerbee thought, what he had joined the Army for. This was nothing but horseshit, pure and unadulterated horseshit.
Having completed his morning inspection of his now widely dispersed company, Captain Seydlitz was about to settle down to enjoy the wurst and roll he had picked up in a town along his route when his battalion commander's vehicle came into sight. Quickly stuffing the food back into its bag and dumping it behind the seat of his small open-air Volkswagen jeep, Seydlitz prepared to greet his commander. How fortunate, he thought, his timing had been. It was good that he had inspected the company before the battalion commander arrived to conduct one of his notorious unannounced inspections. Of course, there was always the possibility that his platoon leaders and tank commanders had failed to correct the deficiencies that Seydlitz had discovered in his own inspection. Not that it mattered to him, for as long as he had done his duty as an officer and troop commander, he could not be faulted.
When the battalion commander's vehicle stopped, the commander didn't bother to get out before he started talking to Seydlitz. 'You have one hour to prepare to move your company, Captain.' Elated over his battalion commander's announcement, Seydlitz reached down and grabbed his map case on the seat of his jeep before hurrying over to his commander's vehicle. Giving Seydlitz time to open his map before he began to rattle off his orders, the battalion commander looked about. 'Can you be ready in an hour?'
Seydlitz, glad to be able to do something to break up the dull routine of dry fire drills and inspections, all but shouted out in great enthusiasm, 'If necessary, Herr Oberst, we will be ready in five minutes.'
The battalion commander's response sounded more like a warning than encouragement. 'You wouldn't be so excited if you understood the magnitude of the mess our fearless Chancellor in Berlin has created.'
Standing before his commander, Seydlitz stared at him, wondering what exactly his commander was talking about. Seeing the puzzled look on his subordinate's face, the battalion commander, as a way of venting his own frustration and at the same time informing him what was in store for their commands, began telling Seydlitz everything that he knew at that moment. 'We will assemble the battalion here,' he said, pointing at a spot northeast of Marktredwitz on the map Seydlitz held. 'From there we will move to an assembly area southeast of Chemnitz via the E51 and E441 autobahns. By the time we arrive there, the brigade commander expects to be in receipt of further orders that will tell us where we go from there and what will be expected of us.'
The battalion commander paused before he explained these new orders to his attentive but bewildered company commander. 'It seems that despite what the American President is saying, and the moves by American units left here in Germany appear to support her position, the Americans in the Czech Republic are massing on the Czech border south of Chemnitz and Dresden. There exists, according to Army intelligence, the very real danger of a move by the American corps into Germany aimed at recovering the nuclear devices we seized from them.'
Seydlitz thought about that for a moment before he asked the question that had been bothering every German officer, from General Lange right down to Seydlitz's battalion commander. 'And what, Herr Oberst, are we expected to do if the Americans do make such an effort?'
He did not get an immediate answer. Instead, the battalion commander pondered the question himself. When he and the commander of the other active duty battalion had met with their brigade commander earlier that morning to receive their orders for the pending move, that very question had been debated for over half an hour. After years of working hand in hand with the American Army, the very idea of suddenly turning on them was a
