His hand fell to the radio he always carried at his belt. It was jammed. “There’s jamming everywhere,” Montagne reported, as they jogged round a corner into more drab grey soviet-era corridors. Trautman had never liked them; military bases weren’t designed by freethinkers, but the Russians had taken the entire concept to extremes and stamped out any trace of personality. “I think that this is happening everywhere as well.”
Trautman remembered the spread-out deployment of EUROFOR’s forces and shuddered. He had talked the Poles, several times, out of mobilising their army. If every EUROFOR base was under attack, and he couldn’t see this attack as being anything other than the first moves in a war, the Russians were all-too-likely to get quite far into Poland before they bumped into something that could stop them. How far could they go?
He shuddered again; Germany still remembered the Russian hordes looting, raping and burning their way across Germany, in the last war. If some of those tales were exaggerated, and Trautman knew enough to know that folk memory often was nothing of the sort, there had still been enough horror for everyone. Was that what life was going to be like again?
The elevator ahead beckoned him. “Not bloody likely,” Montagne snapped. Trautman remembered, embarrassed, that the power was out. They headed down the stairs and came to a halt as a burst of fire shattered concrete and sent chunks of debris everywhere. Montagne didn’t hesitate; he pulled a grenade off his belt and tossed it down the stairs, the paratroopers crashing down in the wake of the explosion, firing ruthlessly into the smoke. “Move!”
Trautman had seen carnage before, but the sight of the Russian bodies was something new; they were torn and broken by the force of the grenade. A single Russian was still alive and Montagne shot him, quickly, through the head; Trautman opened his mouth to protest and decided that it wasn't worth the effort. His very survival, and the only chance of organising a counterattack, depended upon his escape from the horror that the camp had become.
He took a breath; more drab grey corridors, more blank walls, more sense of danger, of imminent threat. Part of him was wondering if it was an endless nightmare, or if he would wake up; the sheer level of detail reminded him constantly that it was no dream. His hand felt sweaty around his pistol; he had to keep reminding himself that it was dangerous and that he couldn’t put it away or drop it. A voice ahead shouted out a challenge in thick French; Montagne shouted back in the same language. Trautman had prided himself on his command of French, but he didn’t recognise the words at all, just the language.
“Come on,” Montagne hissed. There was another explosion; this time, plaster and dust drifted down from the ceiling. The vehicle bay was empty; his jeep, he remembered now, had been outside with the other official vehicles, and was either useless or in enemy hands. He wondered if they should surrender, if a surrender would be accepted, but how could they offer it in the midst of bloody chaos? It wasn’t possible and he knew it; commando raids tended to have very high casualties because of the chaos.
He looked up at Montagne. “What’s the plan?”
Montagne looked around; there were nine paratroopers left. “We’re in the middle of the camp,” he hissed. Trautman hadn’t needed the reminder. “We’re going to have to head to the north side, where the exercise and training facilities are; they have to be at the bottom of the Russian list of priorities. We can’t get to the barracks by now; unless the Russians have forgotten all they knew, they will be targeting the barracks and the armoury and ammunition dump first, along with the vehicles. Once we’re there, we’ll cut our way through the fence and escape into the countryside.”
He nodded briefly at his men. “Jean, check the side,” he ordered. “Come on, sir.”
Trautman followed him into the chaos. The camp seemed to be half on fire, half destroyed; the entire place seemed to be in total chaos. A collection of dead bodies, hit and killed by a mortar round or a grenade, lay in front of him as they moved carefully through the smoke, staying low. The sound of firing was drifting over from the eastern side of the camp, the barracks, but the soldiers there would have little in the way of supplies. The European Defence Commission had drawn up the guidelines and Trautman — he cursed himself for a fool — had implemented them; soldiers would not have their weapons unless they were issued from the armoury. The guards were armed, but how long could they hold out alone?
“Some of the lads will have kept their weapons anyway,” Montagne said, when Trautman broached the subject. He had had a vague idea that they could retake the armoury and issue weapons. “The modern soldier knows that he could be plunged into war instantly and therefore keeps his weapons ready for action, even if it means a week of fatigues if he gets caught at it.”
Trautman realised that the Sergeants and Military Police must have known… and had said nothing about it. As long as the soldiers weren’t causing problems, and European soldiers were very well disciplined, they would have allowed the forbidden practice to continue; their failure to act might have saved some lives. The firing was starting to weaken, however; Trautman knew what that meant. The defenders were running out of ammunition… and, once it was gone, they would be hacked apart by outraged Russians. The sneak attack meant only one thing; the Russians intended to be merciless.
A shout, in Russian, brought them back to reality. Montagne fired once, dropping the Russian, and shouted at them to run. Other Russians fired back as Trautman fell to the ground, firing twice towards the shapes in the smoke and haze; he saw flashes of light as the Russians returned fire. The Russians, at least, seemed as surprised as they were to meet them, but they had the advantage in firepower and determination. Laroche was shot four times by a Russian as he struggled to pick some of them off; Trautman shouted in rage as the Frenchman was blown apart, dead in the prime of his life.
“Sir, get out of here,” Montagne shouted. The tough paratrooper had been hit, badly; blood was trickling from a wound in his arm. Trautman caught up his assault rifle and fired a long burst towards the Russians, knowing that it was his last stand. He didn’t dare be taken alive, not after what the Russians had done to any number of Chechen leaders. They had been forced to broadcast radio messages ordering their people to surrender… and EUROFOR wasn't composed of rogue fanatics. If ordered to surrender, they might just surrender, particularly if he sounded normal. “Sir…”
A bullet shattered Montagne’s head. Trautman kept firing, seeing Russians everywhere… and then a burning pain flared through his head. There was an instant of pain, and then he hit the ground, dead. Half an hour later, every European in the camp was dead, a prisoner, or fled somewhere into the Polish countryside.
No warning had been transmitted.
Chapter Nineteen: A Day That Will Live In Infamy, Take Two
The art of concentrating strength at one point, forcing a breakthrough, rolling up and securing the flanks on either side, and then penetrating like lightning deep into his rear, before the enemy has time to react.
Polish-Belarus Border, Poland
General Aleksandr Borisovich Shalenko crossed over to Polish territory with a theatrical flourish worthy of George Patton or Douglas Macarthur. The president had understood that his old friend yearned to command the largest military operation in the history of the world, and if he was denied a direct combat command, he would have the pleasure and duty of coordinating the offensive. Around him, thousands of tanks drove onwards into Polish territory, while above him, the streaks of MLRS-launched missiles and jet aircraft lit up the sky.