Her eyes rolled back in her head and her breathing stilled.
“Give me the gun, Kate,” Clark said, holding his hand out for the pistol.
She did as he asked, then turned away, went back to the cockpit, and sat down on the sofa.
76
Rich Belanger stood on the second-floor balcony of the small farmhouse he’d chosen as his command post, feeling the cold, wet night blowing across his exposed skin. On his right was his sergeant major, and both men held binoculars to their eyes. They peered off into the dark, in the direction Early Sentinel had predicted for the Russian armor advance.
There wasn’t much to see. Although there was a moon above broken clouds, most of the scene at ground level was obscured in the predawn by a heavy fog bank coming off the river basin and from the soggy fields all around them.
“What do you think, sir?” Sergeant Major Garcia broke the silence in a hushed voice.
Belanger replied, “This isn’t the location I would have picked. We’ve got good ground to protect, but our view of the village on the other side of the river is going to suck, even when the fog clears.”
“It’s a little late to move,” the sergeant major said. They’d spent the last four hours getting into position and digging in.
Belanger kept peering through the glass. “Couldn’t if I wanted to. This Early Sentinel voodoo told us to come here and do this, and my orders are to follow Early Sentinel, even if that means driving off a cliff.”
“Don’t worry, sir. If Early Sentinel turns out to be a complete clusterfuck and we all get caught up in a Slavic meat grinder, I bet that computer can write a nice letter home for all our loved ones.”
“You always make me feel better, Garcia.”
Sergeant Major Garcia had been in the Marine Corps longer than Belanger, and was the oldest man in the battalion. He’d seen many commanders in his time, and his duty was always to remind them of the price of making a poor tactical decision. The sergeant major had been around Belanger enough to joke easily with him about everything from the ubiquitous Marine Corps equipment shortages to their Marines’ personal quirks. But when the sergeant major took his eyes away from the binos, he saw that his chief was really struggling with the issues at hand.
“What’s bugging you, sir?”
“Yesterday when we met the Russians at the border, their rockets pushed us back before we could engage. Since then our Harriers and F-18s have come through for us, and we think they’ve knocked out a lot of the enemy’s capability to hit us at real distance. The Russians are stalled in the south because of U.S. and Polish air mostly. But we don’t have air up here for the next hour. If the Russians figure that out, they’ll come and they’ll come hard.”
“That bridge is a bottleneck,” Garcia said. “They’d only try to cross if they thought they were clear of opposition.”
Belanger nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”
Early Sentinel had told them to focus their fire on a patch of woods to the north and on the two-lane bridge to the northeast. This put them in the town of Punžonys, Lithuania. Its sister village of Punžionys, with an i, lay across the Neris River to the east. The heavy bogs in the area made the ground soft, and the thick pine forests gave the infantry a distinct advantage. Belanger had walked through as much of the forest as he could during the day, and he and his operations officer had spent four hours personally inspecting every fighting position of the two companies dug in behind the wood line around him.
Belanger didn’t really trust that the computer program had put them in the right spot, but if it had, he felt they were ready.
The Darkhorse forward operations center had brewed some coffee using the farmer’s stove and an old coffeepot they had scrounged. All the locals had fled, leaving everything in place, including weak, flavorless coffee. A lance corporal brought a mug each for Belanger and Garcia on the balcony. Belanger took a sip and called out to the lance corporal as he headed back toward the kitchen. “I should have you court-martialed for this shit.”
The nineteen-year-old saw the half-smile on his lieutenant colonel’s face, and he left the balcony knowing his life wasn’t over just yet.
Belanger stepped back inside and looked at the Blue Force Tracker computer map of the area. The terrain seemed right. The bridge between Punžonys and Punžionys appeared capable of holding heavy armor, but the small villages lay at no major intersection. Regardless, if the intel was correct, there might be a hell of a lot of tanks and fighting vehicles headed into their lines somewhere, and soon.
Belanger knew his job seemed complicated, with a thousand moving parts. But at its essence, his responsibility was very simple. He was here to kill tanks.
And that, he was certain, he could do.
A Javelin system, operated by one Marine, weighed upward of fifty pounds. It was “fire and forget,” unlike the TOW system, which was wire-guided and required the operator to guide it all the way into the target. That made the TOW gunners vulnerable the entire time they engaged the enemy tank.
Belanger had positioned Lima Company, code-named “Havoc,” in two engagement areas at the bridge east of Punžonys. One on the east side of the bridge, and another on the west. He put India Company, code-named “Diesel,” on opposite sides of a rail bridge farther to the south of the villages on the Neris.
The weapons company, call sign “Vandal,” had spread their combined anti-armor teams, CAAT-1 and CAAT-2, out between the various positions, and Vandal mortars were far enough back to drop shells in both villages as well as east of the river.
Belanger had his engineers laying mines and both his rifle companies rushing like hell to form ambush positions at the moment, but there was little for him to do now except wait.
He forced himself to drink the full mug of coffee while he stood over his map. Just as he put the empty mug on a table, his radio man called out to him. “Sir, you have Diesel Six on the net.”
“Okay, thanks.” Belanger walked over to the radio room and picked up the handset. “Six” was the commander of the unit, in this case the captain in charge of Lima Company, the force Belanger had positioned well to the south of the villages, near the rail bridge.
“Diesel Six, this is Darkhorse Six, send your traffic.”
“Copy, sir. We’re seeing movement along our phase line Jenna.”
Belanger stretched the handset back to the intelligence officer’s map. The intel officer was pointing out the area Diesel 6 was talking about.
“Copy, Diesel, looking at it now. I have no friendlies at that location. Havoc, concur?”
A new voice came over the radio. “Roger, sir, this is Havoc Six, we’re still getting all elements into place on the east side of the bridge.”
This was followed by new radio traffic.
“Darkhorse Six, Diesel Six. My lead platoon is telling me they are hearing the sound of armor coming from near Punžonys… or Punžionys… whatever, sir, the village with an i, up near Havoc’s sector.”
“Shit,” said Belanger. He directed his response to Havoc 6. “Havoc, I don’t care how well your positions are set on the east side. Get to the far side of the bridge and prepare your ambush. The enemy is on his way.” He pointed to the operations officer and weapons commander to get ready to start battle tracking.
The enemy attack was on.
Minutes later a report came from the team setting their ambush on the eastern side of the river. “Havoc Six, this is Havoc Two. I have a SPOTREP to follow. I identify a reconnaissance element of four BTR-90s and approximately forty, that is four-zero, troops moving through the eastern village, inbound my vicinity from phase line Jenna to phase line Hanna.”