“Not east,” Reese said, his voice betraying a slight tremble. “They’re coming from the north, down Interstate 26. At least battalion strength—no, make that a division—and these guys aren’t the Chinese.”
John swung in the other direction and felt the blood drain from his face as he saw what Reese had meant. “God help us.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Moss said, scrambling for a better look. “What do you see, John?”
John lowered the binoculars, his mouth suddenly bone dry. “The Russians are coming.”
Chapter 56
The forward edge of the enemy advance was still about two miles north of where the interstates met when John radioed General Brooks and told him what was coming. Their own artillery was recessed a few miles from the front lines and could be called on at any time.
“An entire division?” Brooks asked. “Are you certain?” He’d been anxious to whip the retreating Chinese not long ago but he suddenly didn’t sound so sure anymore.
“Positive,” John said. “When you notify General Dempsey, tell him to send whatever support he can.”
Brooks scoffed at the idea. The chances were slim the Americans along the main line had much help to offer. “Tell your men to stay hidden,” the general advised him. “We’ve still got the element of surprise on our side.”
A second later, the order went out. They would wait for the Russians to be drawn in before they sprang the trap.
Benson was next to John on the industrial roof and he racked his M249 and smiled. “Think we’ll make it out of this one, Colonel?”
The corner of John’s mouth turned up in a half-hearted grin. “Of course we will,” he lied.
The others around them stayed low, prepared to spring when the signal was given.
Unexpectedly from the north came the telltale whoop of approaching helicopters.
“Reese, that what I think it is?”
The moments of silence ticked by with painful slowness. “Yes, sir,” came the reply. “We got half a dozen Havocs closing fast.”
Havoc was the NATO designation for the Russian Mil Mi-28 attack helicopter. An upgrade from the troop-carrying Hind made popular in so many movies, the Havoc looked more like the Apache and was just as deadly.
John switched channels, alerting the Stinger teams. The Americans’ cover was about to be blown one way or another. It wasn’t uncommon for ground forces to send air assets to scout ahead in order to avoid the very type of ambush awaiting them now.
John swore under his breath. They hadn’t fired a single shot and already they were in serious trouble.
Seconds later the sound of the helicopters grew louder as small dots on the horizon grew in size. Painted in a green camo pattern, the choppers prepared to make a pass over the city of Colonial Heights when the first Stinger missiles streaked into the air, leaving white vapor trails in their wake. Since the choppers were flying low to the ground, there wasn’t time for evasive maneuvers or to release flares to fool the incoming missile.
More missiles went up, exploding four of the six choppers in mid-air. Their flaming wreckage spun to the ground in slow circles, creating fireballs where they landed. The fifth chopper veered left, trying to flee, a newly fired rocket streaking up after it. The final Mi-28 fired its 30mm cannon wildly and managed to release flares as it too attempted to break contact. That was when a .50 caliber gun emplacement beneath it let loose. Sparks flew off the cockpit as it was riddled with fire. The helicopter made a lazy roll to the left and plummeted into a row of empty houses.
The main Russian formation was still over a mile away when many of the Americans rose up and cheered. One particularly boisterous bunch danced on the rooftop of a house on the northern side. Even the men along the embankment were giving each other high-fives.
“Get down and stop showboating,” John shouted to their company commanders over the radio. “This isn’t the Super Bowl.”
He’d no sooner released the actuator on his walkie when that same house across the highway exploded into a giant fireball, instantly killing the men on the roof as well as the soldiers on the nearby embankment. John watched in horror as more bombs fell all along the line. They were getting bombed from the air, likely by Sukhoi Su-27 fighters, flying at altitudes beyond the range of the American Stingers. But without spotters on the ground, their bombs were falling blind, although the effect was still devastating.
“We gotta get off this roof,” Moss said.
“And go where?” John replied. “One of those bombs hits this building, doesn’t matter if you’re on the roof or inside. You’ll be lucky if they even need a spatula to pick up what’s left of you. This is where we put our heads down and hope for the best.”
“Colonel,” Henry said over the walkie. “They’ve just taken out all of our artillery.”
The air caught in his lungs. Catching the Russian armor in tight formation with a sustained barrage of cluster munitions would have been the difference between victory and defeat. John was no longer sure they’d be able to hold this position.
When John looked out with his binoculars, he saw the main body of the Russian advance had stopped about a mile away. A secondary element of what looked like TOS-1 mobile rocket launchers moved off to set up their own firing positions. Within a matter of minutes, this stretch of highway would be as heavily cratered as the surface of the moon.
Chapter 57
A dazzling explosion at least twenty thousand feet up in the air drew everyone’s attention. The distinct roar of a fighter jet firing its afterburners was then followed by more explosions.
For a moment John wondered what was happening, until the new jets came screaming over the American position.
“They’re ours,” Moss cried. “F-22 Raptors. Man, look at them go.”
And Moss was right in more ways than one. The bombs from overhead had stopped raining down on them, but it seemed their newfound guardians were moving off target just as quickly as they’d come.
John called Rodriguez at once.
“Compliments of General Dempsey, sir,” Rodriguez told him.
“Yes, that’s great,” John barked. “But there’s a huge column of tanks and rocket artillery about to tear us to shreds.”
“They don’t have the fuel, Colonel. I’m afraid it was all they could spare.”
No sooner had John finished than Reese was on the line. “Russian armor’s on the move.”
“They’re going to do a creeping barrage,” John said.
Moss gave him a look. “A creeping what?”
“You pepper the enemy with artillery just ahead of your advancing units. That way there’s a lot less of them to fire back at you.”
“So is it time to find a good place to hunker down yet?”
John shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. “Negative. It’s time for the last thing the Russians would ever expect. We’re gonna go on the offensive.”
Within minutes, twenty members of the Rough Riders were on horseback at a full gallop, heading west along a depression of ground that ran parallel to I-81. They were armed with assault rifles, light machine guns and most important of all, AT-4 anti-tank rockets. They were about to do what guerrillas did best: sneak behind the front lines and strike the enemy where he least expected it.
On their right the metallic squeal of Russian armor pushing east toward the American position sent chills racing up John’s legs, tightening his scalp. But it was those TOS-1s and their thirty multiple rocket launcher tubes that frightened him most. Only one BTR-T infantry fighting vehicle had peeled off to support them. That meant if John’s men could get close enough to knock them out, it might just give the Americans a fighting chance.