“What?”
“Use the bucket to disable the tanks. Come in from behind and catch the tracks with the corner of the bucket. They can’t move if their tracks break off.”
The driver signaled that he understood and roared off to disable the armor. Joseph found the other man in tears as he wept at the sight of the dead bodies. He didn’t bother to explain. He jerked him out of the cab and drove the tractor himself.
Since the tanks were still blind, they were very easy to ram from behind. The huge buckets quickly snapped the links in the tracks, and the vehicles stopped. Within fifteen minutes, they had disabled twenty of the forty tanks in the battalion and were cruising to disable the rest.
The reports between the tanks alerted the drivers that something was out there making the tanks inoperable. Yet no one could exit to see what it was. Boris had made the decision to stop their movements when the fifth tank went down. He still ordered the guns to fire in the hope they would hit whatever it was, but until then, he was trapped, and his driver was still blind.
The tide was turning against them. Boris had never imagined that the crowd would be aggressive. Throughout his life, he had seen tanks roll across protesters, but those protesters had always taken a defensive position because of the arms and military power. This tactic was new. Worse, it seemed to be working, and he was in trouble.
As long as his men stayed inside, they would be safe for a while. He had to address the issue of getting the covers off. It was imperative that he see. He had to make every move count. Boris tried to lift the hatch on the top of his tank and found that it wouldn’t budge. It was because three men stood on top to keep the crews inside while the front-end loaders ran up and severed their tracks. More calls came in from commanders saying that their tanks were now stalled.
It was the last straw. He had to take the fight to a new level. He gave the order for the remaining mobile tanks to rotate left and for the gunners to open fire, but to hold the burst until they were ready to rotate back. The fifty-caliber guns spit out rounds that ripped at least fifteen deep into the crowd. Those who weren’t expecting the guns to fire were sawed in half. The ground was thick with human entrails, and the air filled with cries of more people dying. Many couldn’t stomach the fight and fled to the safety of the streets, trying to hide anywhere.
Joseph screamed in horror as he watched his fellow demonstrators get mowed down. People attempted to run for safety, sprinting away in pure terror. He couldn’t believe that he was so close to winning before the movement broke. Then he looked around and saw the magnitude of the slaughter.
Bodies were piled upon one another. The wheels of his tractor were caked with blood, and the path that the remaining tanks had taken was embedded with flesh. His counterpart on the other loader was still tearing the tracks off the remaining vehicles; all Joseph could do was weep.
The crowd had scattered in all directions. Though many of the tanks were immobile, their remaining imposing force did not allow for even the Moscow police or ambulances to intervene. They stayed at a great distance, waiting for the fight to end. A few brave souls ran out and began to drag to safety those who were wounded and crying for help. Within several mounds of bodies, arms would protrude and wave to indicate that people were alive under the dead and needing help.
The command tank Boris was in felt the thump from the tractor outside. His driver knew right away they had lost their track. The machine guns had been silent for at least two minutes. No one was pounding on the sides, and he couldn’t hear the screams of people. He knew that it would be a gruesome sight, but he expected that when he gave the order to shoot. Analyzing his situation, he figured that he could turn the incident to his advantage when he spoke to the Russian Congress and told them to reinstate communist rule. It would show that their intent was genuine, and they were ready to sacrifice any life — even the whole city with a nuclear bomb, if need be.
Still, when he found he could finally open his hatch, he gagged at the carnage that surrounded him. To the back, he saw the culprits who had immobilized his whole battalion. Two men sat atop the front-end loaders and stared back in amazement. People now were only trying to save the injured. He reached down and pulled the piece of fabric covering the sights of the driver. His battalion would only be out of commission for a short time while his men repaired the broken links in the tracks. His tanks were still positioned to do heavy damage, even if many could not move. Even now he felt that he could pull off his demands.
The rest would be simple. He was going to walk to the Kremlin and tell the first senior official that if he didn’t meet with Ochinkin in fifteen minutes, his tanks would roll on. He would have at least ten back to command by that time. Then his demands would be conveyed to the parliament building for the Russian Congress to be put to a vote. If the hard-liners didn’t come through for him, then he’d roll. There were very few options. Boris hoped that it would all go very swiftly. After all, the Russian Congress was made up of enough old Soviets that it was possible.
As he climbed out to let his men begin repairs, he glimpsed at the piece of fabric that had covered his tank. The red cloth was emblazoned with the traditional hammer and sickle insignia of the Soviet Union. He grabbed the cloth and held it up, spreading it before him. Then the tragic irony hit. Boris could extrapolate enough from the scrap that the crowd gathered there today was not for the support of Ochinkin, but against him. He had attacked his own people. People who were trying to attain the same goals. Revelation of the catastrophic error almost made him faint.
The first explosion was close. It was halfway down the line. From the back, a shell slammed into one of the T-33s and set it ablaze. Then another. Boris didn’t have time to react because it was his tank, with him standing beside it, that was next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Poker Game
The pictures were broadcast live. Though the journalist stayed at a distance, anyone watching the TV could make out the holocaust. Russia did nothing to censor it because even the president of Russia had no idea exactly what was taking place. It wasn’t a bad deal having his old communist opponents wipe one another out in Red Square. The citizens of the world were transfixed by the mass killing — even the president of the United States. My fucking God.
The event was so grisly that it stunned Levi as well. “We’re told those are the tanks sent up from Kiev to restore order.” He motioned to the armor behind Boris’s broken battalion now assaulting the immobilized units and destroying them completely. “They were closer than we thought. They were on a train en route to a base north or Moscow. When the fighting broke out, they unloaded and drove in.”
“Oh fuck, did I do the right thing?” wondered the president.
“Yes, you did. You were acting in the best interests of your country. We didn’t know what the end would be.” Levi tried to sound reassuring. “Nothing was hurt from our position.”
“You little bastard! People weren’t supposed to die,” yelled the president. It prompted his secret service agent to poke his head in and make sure everything was all right. “A week ago you had all the answers! ‘Don’t worry, Mr. President. This could be the opportunity to fulfill your campaign promises. Revive the economy. Let the sub go. It’s in our best interest!’ Remember that pile of shit, Levi? I never once thought that it would end like this! You could see into the future then! You were very fucking confident about it.”