He pulled on a pair of strange glasses and triggered the sighting beam. A beam of coherent light, invisible to all, save him, lanced down and tracked the car and its escorts as they drove past the tower block. A single press of the trigger sent a burst of pellets on their way… and the effects were remarkable. The pellets themselves left no trail… but the black car seemed to flicker with the fires inside, and ground to a halt.
“Should have been a bigger blast,” he muttered. He knew that the underground had more spectacular weapons, but he’d been forbidden to bring any of them, or any gun. If the NKVD caught him, he knew that he would be safer trying to lie to them than trying to resist.
Smiling, he jumped into the shaft and slid down to the second floor, which he had hired as his assigned place of residence. Quickly removing his overcoat and stuffing it in the nearest bin, he entered his flat and took up his sketchbook. He doodled idly, planning one day to draw an image of the scene.
I’ll call it the death of Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, he thought, as a diagram for a new improved tank took shape under his pen. The school was very insistent that they learned how to design tanks. That should really impress girls later…
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Onwards
Battlezone
Netherlands/Germany Border
11th June 1942
The German attack came out of nowhere, three trucks rushing down the road, Wehrmacht infantry jumping out of the cabs as the machine guns on the Franks tanks began firing, ripping the trucks to sheds. One truck was lucky, it hit a blockade, span around and slammed into an American tank. The massive explosion shattered both tanks.
Suicide tactics, Captain Robinson thought. He shuddered as five more German trucks, equipped with armour to ward off machine guns bullets, charged down the road. “Fire,” he snapped, and the main gun barked once, blasting one of the trucks into flaming ruin. The explosives inside the truck detonated with a powerful blast, shattering the enemy formation.
“That was too close,” his driver muttered. One tank had been lost and two more had been damaged. As mortar rounds began to detonate near the tanks, Robinson barked orders; the infantry moved forward to secure the enemy positions.
“Gunner, three rounds through that wall,” he snapped, as a small house appeared through the woodland, an enemy position dug into the side. The high explosive rounds detonated, blasting the German position, even as one of the Germans fired a rocket at the advancing tank. It missed, the tank returned fire with its machine guns, but the damage was done; their confidence had been blunted.
“Captain, they’re all through the fucking village,” the infantry leader snapped. “We need air support!”
“Acknowledged,” Robinson said, calling the forward headquarters. Now that some Harriers were permanently based in Europe, they could drop their dumb bombs anywhere near the front. The British might have run out of the super-weapons that made the USAAF drool at the mouth, but they still had plenty of the napalm warheads.
He cursed as he studied the situation through the periscope. The tiny German village – they didn’t even know its name – had been turned into a strongpoint by the Wehrmacht and heavily fortified. The Germans had been adapting their tactics, moving forces around by night and confusing the orbital satellites. Instead of trying to meet the Allies tank for tank, they had elected to keep their own tanks back, while systematically sabotaging the main line of advance. Ten days after the invasion had begun, it had stalled.
A screech across the sky announced the arrival of the Harrier jump jets. He knew that the USAAF had offered serious money for even a handful of the tactical support craft; they had more than proved their value. Dumb bombs began to fall on the town, even as the black puffs of German anti-aircraft fire began to explode in the air.
“Missed, you fuckers,” someone shouted, as the massive napalm bombs began to detonate, blasting waves of fire across the German town. Germans fled from the blast, some burning, and Robinson gave the order to fire. It was a mercy; the facilities for wounded personnel were overwhelmed.
“Advance,” Robinson ordered, and the Franks tank began to move. The gunner fired once as an enemy lorry roared out of a burning building, destroying it, and they moved on to the next target. The village was still burning; the tanks entered the village, leaving the infantry behind.
General Flynn was on the field satellite phone, talking to Eisenhower and the SHAFE staff. He scowled; Hanover had promised him tactical control, but Eisenhower was insisting on at least being consulted. The operations were far larger and more complex than Iran – or Norway – had been, and there just wasn’t time.
I need a bigger staff, he thought grimly, and knew that that was nonsense. He trusted his people, particularly the ones who’d fought in Iran, but trying to coordinate the entire battlefield was difficult. It was a good thing that both armies believed in initiative; he would have found it much harder without it.
“We’re getting more of the localised German counter-attacks,” he snapped into the phone. A hail of brilliant flares announced an attack by a German rocket-launcher, one of the Stalin organ knock-offs that the Germans had duplicated. They weren’t a serious threat to his heavy tanks, but they were lethal to the infantry. “I think we’re about to hit their main line.”
There was no ‘think’ about it. The Germans had worked hard, creating a fortified line in seven days, skilfully using the River Ems as part of a delaying tactic designed to slow the advance as much as possible, while building the defence line itself. From Bremen to Hanover to Dortmund, the Germans were digging in, bringing up reinforcements from Poland and France.
“I understand the situation,” Eisenhower said, as calmly as only a man in an office could be when soldiers were fighting and dying. He’d made one visit to the front, just one. “What do you want to do?”
Finally, Flynn thought. “I want to launch an attack,” he snapped. He stared at the map, even with German attempts at hiding the satellites and the SAS had a pretty good idea of what was where. The Germans, knowing the terrain well, had dug in mainly between Bremen and Hanover, expecting that the Allies wouldn’t want to go the long way around. They were right.
“Do you believe that we can challenge the defences that exist between Bremen to Hanover?” Eisenhower said. Flynn, who knew that a major defeat would be blamed on Eisenhower, felt little sympathy. “Can our logistics handle the attack?”
Flynn nearly laughed. Eisenhower had mainly devoted himself to logistics, something that he’d done with considerable skill and verve. “Yes, they can,” he said. “The attack can be supplied with everything it needs.”
“And you plan to launch the attack today,” Eisenhower said. “No time for preparation?”
He meant softening up the Germans through shellfire. “No need,” Flynn said. “That would just warn the Germans that we are coming,” he said. “We have the ability to move forward rapidly, and catch the Germans in a vice, which would destroy almost all of their armoured forces in the region. Once we have punched a hole through their defences… we can drive directly to Berlin.”
There was a long pause. “I approve the operation,” Eisenhower said finally. “You may launch when ready.”
Fire when ready, Gridley, Flynn thought absently. “The operation will be launched in a few hours,” he said, and put down the field telephone. “Colonel Nott?”
“Sir?” Nott asked. “What can we do for you?”