BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
“It’s gotta happen soon,” COMAIRCENT observed. “Shit, they got their troops as ready as I’ve ever seen. They can’t wait until all our Reforger units are fully in place. They have to hit us soon.”
“I know what you’re saying, Charlie, but we can’t move first.”
“Any word on our visitors?” The Air Force general referred to Major Chemyavin’s team of Spetznaz commandos.
“Still sitting tight.” A unit of the elite GSG-9 German border guards had the safe house under continuous surveillance, with a second English ambush team between them and their supposed target in Lammersdorf. Intelligence officers from most of the NATO countries were part of the surveillance team, each with a direct line to his government. “What if they’re bait, trying to get us to strike first?”
“I know we can’t do that, General. What I want is a green light to initiate Dreamland when we know it’s all for-real. We have to get our licks in fast, boss.”
SACEUR leaned back. Trapped by his duties in his underground command post, he hadn’t been to his official residence in ten days. He wondered if any general officer in the whole world had gotten any sleep in the past two weeks.
“If you put the orders up, how fast can you react?”
“I have all the birds loaded and ready now. My crews are briefed. If I order them to stand to, I can have Dreamland running thirty minutes from your signal.”
“Okay, Charlie. The President has given me authority to react to any attack. Tell your people to stand to.”
“Right.”
SACEUR’s phone rang. He lifted it, listened briefly, and looked up. “Our visitors are moving,” he told COMAIRCENT. To his operations officer, “The code word is Firelight.” NATO forces would now go to maximum alert.
AACHEN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
The Spetznaz team left the safe house in two small vans and drove south on the road to Lammersdorf. With their leader killed in a traffic accident, the second in command, a captain, had been delivered copies of the papers his boss had died to get, and fully briefed his men. They were quiet and tense. The officer had taken pains to explain to his men that their escape had been carefully planned, that once clear of the target they’d get to another safe house and wait for their Red Army comrades to arrive in five days. They were the cream of the Red Army, he’d told them, thoroughly trained to carry out dangerous missions behind enemy lines, hence valuable to the State. Every man had combat experience fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan, he reminded them. They were trained. They were ready.
The men accepted this speech as elite troopers usually did, in total silence. Chosen most of all for their intelligence, each of them knew that the speech was merely that. The mission depended largely on luck, and their luck had already gone bad. Every one of them wished that Major Chernyavin were there, and wondered if somehow the mission might have been blown. One by one, they set these thoughts aside. Soon every man was reviewing his part in the mission to destroy Lammersdorf.
The drivers were KGB agents well experienced at working in foreign lands, and wondering exactly the same thing. Both vehicles stayed together, driving conservatively, wary of vehicles that followed them. Each had a scanner radio tuned to the local police frequencies, and another for communicating with each other. The KGB officers had discussed the mission an hour before. Moscow Center had told them that NATO was not yet fully alerted. The lead driver, whose regular cover job was driving a taxi, wondered if a “full” NATO alert meant a parade through Red Square.
“Turning right now. Car three, close in. Car one, turn left at the next intersection and get ahead of them.” Colonel Weber spoke over a tactical radio of the sort used by FIST-fire-support team-units. The ambush had been ready for several days now, and as soon as their targets had emerged from their safe house, the word had been flashed all over the Federal Republic. NATO establishments already on alert were brought to full battle-readiness. This could only be the opening move in a shooting war . . . unless, Weber admitted to himself, they were simply moving from one secure place to wait further in another one. He didn’t know which way things would turn, though surely it had to begin soon. Didn’t it?
The two trucks were now in a rural part of Western Germany, driving southeast through the German-Belgian Nature Park, a scenic route often traveled by tourists and sightseers. They had chosen this side road to avoid the military traffic on the major highways, but as they passed through Mulartshutte, the lead driver frowned as he saw a military convoy of tanks on low-hauler trailers. Strangely, the tanks were loaded backwards, with their massive guns facing aft. British tanks, he saw, new Challengers. Well, he hadn’t expected to see any German Leopard tanks on the Belgian border. There had never been any possibility of preventing a German mobilization, and he tried to convince himself that the rest of the NATO countries had not moved as quickly as they could have. Ah, if this mission were successful, then NATO’s communications would be seriously damaged, and maybe the armored spearheads would indeed come to rescue them. The convoy slowed. The driver considered pulling around them, but his orders were to be inconspicuous.
“Everyone ready?” Weber asked from his chase car.
“Ready.” Bloody complex op, this, Colonel Armstrong thought. Tankers, SAS, and the Germans all working together. But worth it to bag a bunch of Spetznaz-
The convoy slowed and stopped at a picnicking area. Weber halted his car a hundred meters away. It was now in the hands of the English ambush team.
Flares erupted around the two small vans.
The KGB driver cringed at being in the center of so much light. Then he looked forward to see the barrel of the tank just fifty meters ahead of him rise from its travel-rest and center on his windshield.
“Attention,” a voice called in Russian over a megaphone. “Spetznaz soldiers, attention. You are surrounded by a company of mechanized troops. Come out of your vehicles singly and unarmed. If you open fire, you will be killed within seconds.” A second voice began speaking.
“Come out, Comrades, this is Major Chernyavin. There is no chance.”
The commandos exchanged looks of horror. In the lead vehicle the captain started to pull the pin on a grenade. A sergeant leaped on him and wrapped his hand around the captain’s.
“We cannot be taken alive! Those are our orders!” the captain shouted.
“The devil’s mother we can’t!” the sergeant screamed. “One at a time, Comrades-out with hands high. And be careful!”
A private emerged from the back door of the van, one slow foot at a time.
“Come to the sound of my voice, Ivanov,” Chernyavin said from a wheelchair. The major had told much to earn the chance to save his detachment. He had worked with these men for two years, and he could not let them be slaughtered to no purpose. It was one thing to be loyal to the State, another to be loyal to the men he’d led in combat operations. “You will not be hurt. If you have any weapons, drop them now. I know about the knife you carry, Private Ivanov . . . Very good. Next man.”
It went quickly. A joint team of Special Air Service and GSG-9 commandos collected their Soviet counterparts, handcuffed them, and led them off to be blindfolded. Soon only two were left. The grenade made it tricky. By this time the captain had seen the futility of his action, but it proved impossible to locate the pin for the grenade. The sergeant shouted a warning to Chernyavin, who wanted to come forward himself, but couldn’t. The captain came out last. He wanted to throw the grenade at the officer who, he thought, had betrayed his country, only to see a man whose legs were swathed in plaster.
Chernyavin could see the look on the man’s face.
“Andrey Ilych, would you prefer that your life should end for nothing?” the major asked. “The bastards drugged me and learned enough to kill you all. I could not let them do this.”
“I have a live grenade!” the captain said loudly. “I will throw it into the truck.” This he did before anyone could shout to stop him. A moment later the truck exploded, destroying the group’s maps and plans for escape. For the first time in a week, Chernyavin’s face broke into a wide grin. “Well done, Andrushka!”
Two other Spetznaz groups were less lucky, and were intercepted within sight of their targets by German units privy to Chernyavin’s capture. But twenty additional groups were in the Federal Republic, and not every NATO site had gotten the word in time. A score of vicious firefights erupted on both sides of the Rhein. A war to involve millions began with squad- and platoon-sized units fighting desperate actions in the dark.