Tom Clancy: Command Authority

A thousand meters away the cloud of dust and smoke over the gymnasium settled enough so that Lapranov could see behind it. Into his mike he said, “I want more rounds in that building beyond the previous target. HE-FRAG. Without proper air support I am not moving forward on that road until I can see what’s to the right of the intersection.”

“Yes, sir!” Lapranov’s gunner shouted from below.

The gunner pressed a button, and the autoloader computer chose a high-explosive-fragmentation round from the magazine, and its mechanical arm chambered it. The gunner used his video-viewing device to find the building, then put his forehead against the rubber pad on the sight panel and aimed his crosshairs on target. He pushed the fire button on the control panel, and then, with a violent lurch, the 125-millimeter smoothbore gun launched a shell through the blue sky, across the fallow field in front of them, and directly into the building.

“Hit,” said the gunner.

They had been proceeding like this all morning. So far they had moved through four villages, shelling big targets with their 125-millimeter gun and raking small targets with their coaxial machine guns.

Lapranov had expected more resistance, but he was starting to allow for the fact that Russia’s president, Valeri Volodin, had been right. Volodin had told his nation NATO would have no stomach to fight for Estonia.

In his headset, Lapranov heard a transmission from one of the tanks under his command.

“Storm Zero Four to Storm Zero One.”

“Go, Zero Four.”

“Captain, I have movement in a ditch in front of the last target. Range one thousand. I see multiple dismounts.”

Lapranov looked through his binoculars, scanning slowly across the ditch.

There. Heads popped up out of the mud, then disappeared again. “I see them. Small-arms position. Don’t waste a one-twenty-five. We’ll clean them up with the coax when we get closer.”

“Roger.”

Another salvo was fired into the buildings on a low hill beyond the intersection, and Lapranov scanned through his optics. The town was deathly quiet; there was virtually no resistance.

“Keep firing,” he ordered, then he knelt back down into his commander’s station to get a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Wipe this place off the map.”

Seconds later, another transmission came through his headset: “Storm Zero Two to Storm Zero One.”

“Go,” Lapranov said as he lit his smoke.

“Movement to the south of the hospital. I… I think it is a vehicle.”

Lapranov dropped his lighter back inside and looked through his binoculars. It took a moment to find the area; the hospital was a few kilometers beyond the high school, on a small hill. But he scanned to the south of the building and finally he saw the movement on the road in the shadows.

At first he thought he was looking at a jeep, or maybe an SUV.

Another T-90 called in. “Storm Three to Storm One. I think it’s a helicopter.”

“Nyet,” said Lapranov, but he looked closer. The dark vehicle seemed to stop at an intersection, then began moving laterally into a parking lot.

“What the fuck ?” Lapranov said. “Maybe it is a helo. Gunner, can you ID it through your Catherine?” The Catherine long-range fire-control thermal imager built into each tank allowed the gunner to see distant targets on a video screen. Lapranov himself had access to a Catherine screen, but he’d have to sit down inside the turret for that, and he was having too much fun up here.

The gunner came over Storm Zero One’s intercom. “Confirmed light helicopter. Single rotor. Can’t make out markings—he is behind a truck in the shade. Shit, he is low. His skids must be just a meter aboveground.”

“Armament?” Lapranov asked. He squinted into his binoculars to get a better view himself.

“Um… wait. He has twin pylons with machine guns. No missiles.” The gunner chuckled. “This guy wants to come out and play against us with his pop guns?”

Lapranov heard a commander of one of the other tanks on the net laughing.

But the captain did not laugh. He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Designate it as a target.”

“Roger. Designated as a target.”

“Range to target?”

“Four thousand two hundred fifty meters.”

“Shit,” Lapranov said.

The effective range of the 9M119 Refleks missile system, used against tanks as well as low and slow aircraft like helicopters, was four thousand meters. This small helo hovered just out of range.

“Where is my air support? They should have seen this fucker on radar.”

“They won’t see his signature. He’s moving between the buildings. Too low to the ground. He must have flown over the hill through the entire town like that to stay off radar. Whatever the hell he’s doing, he’s a good pilot.”

“Well, I don’t like him. I want him dead. Call in some support. Pass on his coordinates.”

“ Da, Captain.”

“All Storm units, load HE-FRAG and resume the attack.”

“Da!”

Within seconds, all six tanks fired 125-millimeter main gun rounds into the buildings at the center of Põlva, killing four and injuring nineteen with this single salvo.

Edgar Nõlvak heard the shells tear through the sky overhead, and he looked back over his shoulder in time to see them impact against the city hall and the bus station. When the smoke cleared, he noticed a vehicle moving along a road, higher on the hillside. At first he thought it was a black or green SUV; it even seemed to stop in a parking lot. It was difficult to see because it was shaded by the big hospital building next to it, but eventually Edgar realized what it was.

It was a black helicopter. Its skids were no more than one or two meters above the ground.

The man lying next to him in the mud grabbed Edgar by the arm. He pointed at the helicopter and shouted hysterically. “They are behind us! They are attacking from the west!”

Edgar stared at the helicopter, unsure. Finally he said, “It’s not Russian. I think it is a news helicopter.”

“They are filming this? They are just going to watch us die?”

Edgar looked back to the tanks as another shell came crashing down, hitting just sixty meters from the ditch where he lay. Mud rained down on him and the others. “They are going to die themselves if they don’t get the hell out of here.”

Lapranov was enjoying his cigarette. As he took a long drag, a transmission came through on the net. “Storm Zero Four to Storm Zero One.”

“Go, Four.”

“Sir, looking at that helo again on the Catherine… there seems to be some sort of a pod above the main rotor.”

“A what?”

“A pod, sir.”

Upon hearing the last transmission, Lapranov dropped down into the commander’s compartment and looked at his own Catherine long-range monitor. He could see the helo better now. Yes. There was a round device on top of the main rotor shaft of the little aircraft.

“What the hell is—”

The cigarette fell from his mouth.

Oh, shit.

Lapranov had studied the silhouette of every aircraft flown by every NATO force. Softly, he said, “That’s… that’s an OH-58.”

The driver in Storm Zero One came over the net. “Negative, sir. The Estonians don’t have—”

Lapranov shouted into his mike now as he launched upward, frantically grabbing at the hatch handle so he could pull his turret hatch shut. “It’s the fucking Americans!”