be serious. I mean, these guys are probably pissed off. After all, we just killed three of their buddies and damned near killed them. I know Colonel Dixon is a smart man, but I really don't think he's considered all the angles as far as prisoners are concerned. How do we know that they won't join the first unit they come across, get themselves rearmed, and come back looking for blood?'
'We don't, Gross. Odds are that's exactly what's going to happen. I know that's what I would do.'
With a look of excitement on his face, Gross threw his free hand out to his side. 'Then why in the hell are we letting them go? So they can come back and have a second chance to kill us?'
Angry at Gross's manner and persistence, Kozak reached down, unsnapped her holster, and pulled her pistol out. Pulling the pistol's slide back in a sharp exaggerated motion to chamber a round, Kozak flipped the safety off and offered the pistol, butt first, to Gross. 'Well, Second Lieutenant Marc Gross, if you feel so strongly about leaving live prisoners behind, then here, go shoot them. Because that's the only other way we have of dealing with them. The entire corps has no transportation to haul them, no food to feed them, and no one to guard them. So if you're so hell-fired concerned about dealing with them, this is it. You said there's fifteen of them? Good! There's fifteen rounds in my pistol. Just enough to do the job.'
The response by his company commander shocked Gross. She was normally a reasonable person who took great pains to explain everything to her subordinates, and Gross was not prepared to deal with her preposterous proposal or caustic response. Stepping back, Gross let his head hang down for a moment before looking back up at Kozak. Seeing the anger etched into her face, added to the signs of strain and lack of sleep, Gross knew that she was right. There was no good alternative. He also realized for the first time that this whole affair, the race for the sea and the fighting, had entered a new and very deadly phase, one in which there were no guarantees that they would make it. This was, Gross suddenly realized, a real life-and-death struggle, one which every one of his men, as well as Kozak and he, could very easily lose.
Looking up at Kozak, he began to apologize, but Kozak cut him short. 'Listen, Marc. Odds are, unless we do everything right, you and I will be sitting over there with our hands on our heads in a matter of days. We, you, me, the battalion commander, Colonel Dixon, and anyone who calls himself an officer in this corps can't afford to forget that. We can't afford to make mistakes either. You understand that. I know you do, damn it. I taught you better than this. Now pull your head out of your ass and stop acting like a first-year ROTC cadet running around on a weekend maneuver.'
Softening her tone, Kozak asked if he had anything more to report. After seeing him shaking his head slowly, Kozak turned and walked back to her Bradley, C60. As she did so, she looked over every now and then at the prisoners. For she knew, unlike Gross, that unless their luck changed soon they would indeed all be prisoners, or worse. All the plans, all the speeches, and all the pep talks, together with all the fancy maneuvers they had just done, had finally come down to luck and hard fighting, period.
That was what wars were all about.
Major Bob Messinger would have disagreed violently with Nancy Kozak's observation that luck was an important ingredient in military operations. A tried and true military technician by training, Messinger was proud to the point of arrogance of his skills as an Army aviator. Only his abilities as an operations officer, which had landed him the job as the battalion operations officer for the 14th Cavalry's air cavalry battalion, ran a close second. From that platform Messinger preached his doctrine that good combat pilots make their own luck. Praying that the enemy will make a mistake or depending on luck, he told his company commanders, was for weenies.
To this end he was meticulous with his planning. Nothing was left unaccounted for?fuel required for each mission; weapons mix carried by his squadron's attack helicopters; attack routes in and egress routes out; location of primary, alternate, and subsequent battle positions; command and control procedures; engagement sequence; suppression of enemy air defense; friendly fire support; forward rearm and refuel point locations and defense?nothing. And Messinger, unlike many of his contemporaries, had a natural skill for pulling all of these diverse elements together into a deceptively simple and coherent plan. Though he would have shunned being called an artist, for there is in fact a high degree of creativity involved when crafting a plan, few officers in the Tenth Corps could equal his skills. If there was one serious fault that Messinger did have, it was that he knew he was good and felt no shame in making sure that everyone around him knew that too.
Today, as he and Warrant Officer Larry Perkins stalked a column of armored vehicles and trucks belonging to the 4th Panzer Division's 1st Brigade as they moved north along Highway 19, Messinger was again afforded the opportunity to demonstrate his skills as a military artist. Ordered to screen the Tenth Corps' eastern and southern flank, the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment ordered its air cavalry squadron, reinforced with two attack helicopter companies, to find and attack elements of the 4th Panzer Division, delaying and disrupting their deployment. Coming up from the southeast, that panzer division not only threatened to turn the maneuver of Scott Dixon's brigade into a trap, it threatened to add the weight needed to break the 2nd Panzer Division's deadlock as it continued to pound its way into the center of the Tenth Corps. In preparing his order, Messinger used the same words that regimental operations used when defining their mission: delay and disrupt. To these he added his own, reminding the company commanders that the best way to delay and disrupt the enemy was to kill them. To this end, Messinger laid out in detail how they would do it.
Working from an ancient OH-58D, an aircraft frame that was almost as old as he was, Messinger deployed his units. Scouts from one of his troops secured the ambush site, north, south, and east, keeping their eyes open for German attack helicopters as well as any anti-aircraft guns or surface-to-air missile launchers. If encountered before Messinger sprung the ambush, he would decide whether to press the attack or break it off. If the scouts ran across these threats after the ambush had been initiated, the scouts would deal with them as best they could and keep Messinger advised.
Messinger himself would be with the Apache company making the attack. From there he could judge the effectiveness of their fire and determine when they reached that point where a continuation of attack became counterproductive or too costly to them. Due to the increased work load placed on his squadron, insufficient time to properly maintain their aircraft, the exhaustion of critical spare parts, and the need to conserve fuel, none of the units of the Tenth Corps, particularly the aviation units, could afford to waste precious resources in pursuit of marginal gains. In most ambushes, the majority of the killing is done in the first few seconds or minutes when the enemy is surprised and off balance. When, because of the actions of the enemy commanders or an inability of the attacker to maintain the pressure, the unit under attack is given time to recover from that initial shock and rally, the tables are often turned and the attacker becomes the victim. Bob Messinger's primary job that morning was to ensure that every one of his aircraft was long gone before that happened.
With well-measured ease, Larry Perkins slowly brought his aircraft up above the treetops until the golf-ball- like instrument dome mounted on top of the rotor blades had a clear view of the road. With one eye he watched the trees to his front and with the other the instrument screen. Messinger, his eyes glued to his observer's display, didn't speak. He didn't need to give Perkins directions or corrections, since the instrument dome had free rotation. Messinger himself could traverse his sight to cover the area that he was interested in, leaving Perkins free to fly the aircraft. When Perkins reached the proper height that allowed the instrument dome to clear the last of the tree branches, Messinger merely muttered, 'Okay, that's good.'
While Perkins held the helicopter steady, Messinger scanned the road. To his front a column of armored vehicles, Leopard tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, interspersed with trucks and other vehicles, was moving north in a steady stream.
Though he was interested in all of them, it was the tanklike Gepard armed with twin 37mm anti-aircraft cannons, and Rolands, tracked vehicles mounting surface-to-air missiles, that Messinger was looking for. They would be given priority when the killing started, since they were the most effective defense against just the kind of attack that Messinger was about to initiate.
When he found what he was looking for, he depressed the radio transmit button and called the other scout that was doing the same thing. 'Kilo Nine Five, this is Kilo Five Three. I have a Gepard near the head of the column, three vehicles behind the lead. Over.'
There was a pause while the observer in the other scout looked and confirmed. 'Roger, Five Three. I see 'em. I've got nothing in the middle or rear. How 'bout you? Over.'
Traversing the joy stick that controlled the instrument dome, Messinger scanned the entire length of the column a second time. When he was finished, he looked up from his sight, rubbed his eyes, and then put his head back down against the brow pads of the sight again before responding. 'Negative. The Gepard in the front is the only gun I see.' He was about to say that he would take out the self-propelled Gepard antiaircraft gun but thought
