Ralph Peters - Red Army

Trimenko dropped a flame-shaped pistachio back onto the table and waved his hand. "And you'll have worse difficulties yet. The war has hardly begun. I'm giving you a full antitank regiment. And an additional battalion of engineers to tuck them in and lay minefields along your flank.

But getting them here is your problem."

111

Ralph Peters

Khrenov caught the signal. He was doing well. He was being reinforced. The army commander counted his efforts a solid success.

"Now tell me," Trimenko continued, "about support issues. What are the real problems?"

Khrenov sighed. It was almost a womanish gesture. In the background, plates rattled. Soldiers fooling around in the kitchen, eating when they needed to be working. Trimenko let it pass for the moment.

"Comrade Army Commander," Khrenov began. It was almost a litany, the way he said it, and it annoyed Trimenko. "I have too many reports of excessive tank main gun and artillery ammunition consumption to ignore. If it were one unit, or two, I'd assume they were overreacting, or just getting greedy, trying to stock up. But I have several reports of tanks shooting up their entire on-board units of fire in their first engagements.

And the artillery is loaded down with calls for fire. It was all right as long as we were on the phased fire plan, but now, even with the battle-management computers, we can't really tell exactly who is in firing position or who's still on the road, who's low on ammunition or who's just sitting around with his elbow up his ass. My chief of missile troops and artillery is out on the ground trying to sort it out personally."

Trimenko thought for a moment.

"But no fuel problems?" he asked.

Khrenov shook his head. "Not a whisper."

"Of course not," Trimenko said. "But get me better details on the ammunition problems. Not just generalities. Numbers. And burn this into your brain, Khrenov. I don't want any unit stopping just because it runs out of ammunition. They can just go on a sightseeing ride to the Rhine. We're on the edge of cracking those bastards now. You can feel it, Khrenov. The battlefield's gotten away from them. And a tank with nothing but a few belts of machine-gun ammunition is still a tremendous weapon if it's deep in the enemy's rear." Trimenko sat back and smiled one of his thin, rare smiles. "Think of it. If you were a fat rear-area soldier and you woke up to find enemy tanks all over your comfortable little domain, would you stop to ask yourself whether or not they had ammunition on board?" Trimenko tossed a shell toward the map. Then he locked his facial muscles once again.

"Make sure you maintain good communications with Malyshev as he comes up. Cooperate, and no nonsense. I want his division's tanks across the autobahn tonight. I expect you to ensure personally that all control measures for his forward passage have been worked out and fully agreed upon. There must be no pauses, no letting up. Hit them, Khrenov. Get them down on their backs, and drive your tanks and fighting vehicles 112

RED ARMY

right over them." Trimenko paused at the power of his mental vision.

"Let me know when the first vehicle crosses the autobahn line. That triggers the deep air assaults on the Weser crossing sites." Trimenko stared at Khrenov, measuring this man who had already accomplished so much this day. "You have the opportunity to do great things, my little major general. Great things. But first you need to stop building yourself a headquarters palace here. I find this sort of indulgence totally inappropriate. Commanders should be farther forward. I can hardly hear the guns from here," Trimenko exaggerated. "You need to get moving, Khrenov."

"What's your hurry, you little bastard? You're going the wrong way, anyway. You think this is a retreat?"

In response, Captain of Transport Troops Belinsky looked up fiercely at the tall major of motorized rifle troops. Around them, their vehicles—

Belinsky's cargo trucks and the major's battalion of combat vehicles—

had intermingled with smashed headlamps, shouts, curses, and confusion. No traffic controllers had been posted at the intersection. Now the combat troops were in a self-righteous rage, furious that a lowly transport unit had muddled their progress.

"First of all, Comrade Major," Belinsky said calmly, "you're on a support route. This is not a combat artery."

"You're the one who's on the wrong road, you snot. Now you can get those trucks off out of my way, or I'll drive right over them."

"Major, this is my road, and I'm carrying important cargo."

"To the rear?" The tall major laughed. He pawed his foot at the ground like a prancing stallion, head thrown back in mocking hilarity.

Belinsky glowered up into the other man's eyes. Bully's eyes, beneath a dripping helmet rim. Belinsky was already unhappy with his unexpected mission, but he was determined to carry it out.

"Come with me, Comrade Major. Just for a moment. You need to have a look at my cargo." And he turned his back on the man, drawing the motorized rifle officer along behind him by the magnetism of his insolence.

The major followed Belinsky down the crumbling, rain-slicked road, cursing as though the outcome of the war depended on his vulgarity.

Belinsky casually slipped off his glasses and dropped them into the pocket of his tunic. He felt no need to inspect his cargo in detail yet again.

The tall major did not even have to stretch to see into the bed of the first cargo truck. As Belinsky drew back the tarpaulin, admitting the smoky daylight, the sounds of raw human misery greeted the two officers.

113

Ralph Peters

Belinsky watched the major's face change expression. And it kept changing, unable to settle on an appropriate mask.

Abruptly, the major slapped down the canvas and stalked off. Belinsky hurried along beside him. "This motorized rifle battalion," Belinsky said coldly, "is returning from the front, Comrade Major. The complement of ambulances was a bit short, as were the stretchers."

But the major wasn't listening. He simply shouted orders in multiple directions, telling his men to edge to the side of the road and let the damned trucks pass.

114

NINE

Guards Colonel Anton Mikhailovitch Malinsky sat in his command car, eyes lowered to his map, thinking about Chopin. His fingers tapped and touched delicately at the milky plastic map bag, forming chords and absentminded arpeggios across the routes and rivers, cities and towns of central Germany. Remembering a favorite passage, a quick flourish into melody, he closed his eyes, the better to hear the vibrating strings and wires of memory. He loved Chopin. Perhaps, he thought to himself, it was the Polish blood that had poured heatedly into the Malinsky lines back in the days of hussars with ornamental wings rising from their armored backs.

Anton regretted the war, although his formation had not even been introduced into combat as yet. He regretted his spectacular rise to the command of a premier maneuver brigade at a jealousy-inspiring age. He regretted all of the things his father had never been able to see clearly.

The old man made such a fuss about accepting no patronage for Malinskys. Yet, Anton thought, were it not for his position, it's unlikely I would be more than a middling major. Were it not for the name, the name and its iron burden of traditions, I would hardly be a soldier.

Colonel of the Guards. Guards colonel. It sounded marvelously romance, the stuff of operettas and oversized epaulets. Strauss might have had a 115

Ralph Peters —

grand time with such a character. Or Lehar. Better yet, a more common touch. Romberg. Well, you could not dismiss light music so easily. There was a need for more lightness in the world.