Red Metal

by Mark Greaney

  Paulina shrugged. “It’s easier for me. I should have died two days ago. I’ll die today probably—we all will—but I got two days that I had no right to.”

  This only made the other young woman more terrified; she waited for more explanation, but none came. Paulina just turned away and began loading the launcher.

  She wasn’t going to make friends with this girl. That would just make this horrible situation even worse, and it would only give Paulina more pain if she somehow managed to survive again.

  Normally she carried a cheap radio—most everyone in the Territorial Defense Force did—but the officers had gone around and collected them on the train before they arrived in Wrocław. The rank-and-file militia couldn’t be trusted not to use them. The radio silence meant the Russians wouldn’t pick up transmissions that could tip them off to the trap closing around them, but it also meant no one in the militia had a clear picture of the tactical situation right now.

  She felt a low rumble in the bottoms of her feet, and then it passed up to her ankles, her knees, and then the rest of her body. She knew she was scared, possibly shaking a little from fear, but this wasn’t the reason her knees quivered.

  Russian armor was approaching from the west.

  “Everyone to your positions,” she said, doing her best to sound detached and unafraid.

  The young man whom she’d chosen to help with the weapon spoke to her now. “My aunt lives four blocks from here.”

  Without looking up she said, “Well, pray for her when you’re done praying for us.”

  Just then, a young uniformed PLF lieutenant leaned into the little corner office. “I need a volunteer. Someone not in uniform.”

  No one in Paulina’s group wore a uniform now, but no one volunteered, either. One of the two fat men said, “What for?”

  This regular army officer wasn’t used to working around militia, so he bristled at the way he was being spoken to, but only for an instant. “I need somebody to take some RPGs across the street to the town hall. There’s a position there with a launcher but no rockets.”

  The other of the two older militiamen asked, “Who the fuck sets up an emplacement and forgets to bring any ammo?”

  “Polish SF has spent six hours building fighting positions for themselves and the militia in the dark. They couldn’t even use flashlights. Give them a break.”

  They could all hear the distant rumble and grinding of the armor now. It sounded like it was coming right up the street outside.

  “I’ll go.” It was Paulina. She turned to her team and looked to the tall boy. “You are the grenadier now. Pick one of these guys to assist. Good luck.”

  “Wait,” said the younger girl. “You are our leader.”

  Paulina shook her head. “You’re probably safer without me.” She pointed to the boy. “He is your leader now. Just shoot at the Russians when the shooting starts, and if you die today . . . well, congratulations, because the war is over for you.” And with that, she followed the lieutenant out of the room.

  * * *

  • • •

  CENTRAL POLAND

  27 DECEMBER

  The runway at the 31st Tactical Air Base at Poznań, two hundred kilometers due north of Wrocław, had been cratered by Russian bombs, and it remained unusable. The taxiway had been hit as well, although it had been repaired the previous evening and would have been able to accommodate aircraft heading to the runway if there had been a runway to take off from.

  There had been next to no activity anywhere outside the hangars of the base for the entire morning, but slowly the massive doors on two large hangars on the southeastern edge of the airfield slid open simultaneously, both under the power of several men.

  And then, one by one, eight F-16s rolled out into the early-morning light. The sound of their engines grew, rumbling low across the flat ground.

  The Russians had the airfield under constant observation by UAVs, and within seconds of the nose of the first F-16 appearing, calls went out on the Russian tactical air network.

  The sergeants watching the UAV feeds wondered if the Poles were going to test the runway with a takeoff attempt, and the young men made quick bets with one another whether the aircraft would crash in the first crater, 500 meters down the runway, or the larger one some 250 meters farther.

  But the first Fighting Falcon in the row did not head toward the damaged runway. Instead, it oriented itself in the center of the narrow taxiway, and then a five-meter plume of flame shot from its single engine and the aircraft lurched forward. The sergeants realized at the same time that the pilot was attempting to take off by using the repaired taxiway as a runway.

  Five seconds after the first craft went to full afterburner, a second F-16 shot flame and launched up the taxiway behind the flight lead.

  The rest of the flight followed suit.

  Four of the eight aircraft were loaded with air-to-air missiles, both radar and infrared, as well as pairs of five-hundred-pound Mk 82 bombs.

  The other four F-16s each had one air-to-ground munition on its center axis pylon.

  It was the JASSM, the joint air-to-surface standoff missile.

  GPS satellites over Europe had been operational for only a couple of hours, but it was enough time for the Poles to take the “dumb” iron bombs off their weapons pylons and replace them with these sat-guided standoff munitions. The JASSMs could strike from much farther away than the bombs, increasing the chances for both the success of the mission and the survival of the crew.

  * * *

  • • •

  At the same time eight F-16s took off from Poznań, ten identical model F-16s rolled out of three partially damaged hangars at the 32nd Tactical Air Base at Łask, two hundred kilometers to the southeast of Poznań, and less than that northeast of Wrocław.

  Four of these aircraft had JASSMs, and the other six were equipped to fight off Russian attack aircraft with air-to-air missiles.

  The Łask Air Base flight of multirole tactical fighters was not forced to use the taxiway as a runway, although the one runway at the airfield was still damaged. They’d determined beforehand that they could safely take off in single file by using the northern lip of the runway, using the runway edge marking line as the center strip. It was a dangerous tactic, but one by one and in as quick succession as the flight from Poznań, the Polish pilots pushed their throttles past the full power indent and sent their engines to afterburner. All ten aircraft raced down the runway, their tires missing deep holes by less than a meter, and they rocketed into the air, one after another, soon after.

  From the moment the first aircraft in Poznań appeared to enemy drones until the last of the F-16s at Łask went wheels up, only 151 seconds passed.

  All eighteen F-16s immediately banked toward Wrocław on their afterburners.

  * * *

  • • •

  Eduard Sabaneyev showered and shaved, then headed back up toward the command car in a positive mood. Still, the general expected another two hours of mild tension as Dryagin’s force moved through Wrocław.

  The last report he’d received, just before stepping into the shower, was that so far not a single round had been fired in anger from either side. There were reports about police cars swerving out of the line of advancing armor, shocked citizens staring in horror, and some chaos at busy intersections, but it seemed to be going better than either he or Dryagin had imagined.

  Soon enough he knew he’d get the call that his lead elements had reached the few militia barricades and made short work of the weekend warriors manning them. He caught himself hoping the militia would put up something of a fight, still thinking about his memoirs and how he could characterize his return from Stuttgart as some sort of a perilous journey where success or failure hung in the balance.

  As he entered the command car, his communications officer looked up from his console. “Sir! Air
defense reports multiple fighters taking off from Łask and Poznań simultaneously.”

  Sabaneyev raised an eyebrow. “How many?”

  The young man conferred over the radio a moment, then said, “Ten at Poznań, eight at Łask. All appear to be F-16s. We have Su-30s and MiG-29s closing to engage now, sir.”

  “Very well.” He turned and addressed Colonel Smirnov. “Our fighters will be on them in minutes. The Poles got word we’re moving into Wrocław, and they are going to posture a little because they know we’ve slipped their ambush.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Sabaneyev was correct that the MiGs and Sukhois in the Russian arsenal would close on the Polish F-16s quickly, but he did not yet realize that the ground-attack portion of these two flights wouldn’t need much time in the air before fulfilling their mission.

  The F-16s were in the air less than four minutes when the order came to release the JASSMs.

  Soon the big GPS-guided weapons raced across the sky to the south, from both the aircraft from Poznań and the others flying out of Łask. Some of the pilots crossed themselves, knowing they had likely just condemned fellow Poles to death by their actions, but they understood their mission, which was to say they understood the ramifications of doing nothing and letting Russia traverse Poland with impunity.

  And within moments of launching his munition, the first F-16 pilot received a warning in his headset telling him that air-to-air missiles had been fired at his aircraft.

  * * *

  • • •

  Paulina Tobiasz pushed a baby carriage down the sidewalk, away from the incredible sound coming from the multitude of vehicles approaching from the west.

  There was no child in the carriage, only three long, fat RPG high-explosive anti-tank rounds covered by a blanket. She wore a bright green puffy coat, a white knit cap with a tassel, and thick mittens, and she kept her gaze ahead of her, not on the Russian armored personnel carriers rumbling closer and closer behind her as they moved into Market Square.

  The RPG rounds weighed twenty pounds each, so Paulina struggled to push the carriage through the fresh snowfall on the sidewalk, and her left arm hurt like hell, but she did her best to appear relaxed lest the Russians grow suspicious that she wasn’t pushing a baby.

  Paulina kept trudging along until she found herself across the street from her destination. By now the cacophony of engines was painful. She looked to cross and realized the lead vehicle in a group of five was rumbling closer. It was a Bumerang, the same type of armored personnel carrier that overran her position two days earlier. She knew there was little chance this was the same vehicle, loaded with the same troops, that she had encountered on the low hill near Radom, but that made it no less psychologically damaging to see it here. It was thirty meters away when she pushed the carriage in front of it, heading toward the main entrance of the town hall.

  She looked to her left, eyeing the approaching vehicle as she crossed the street. A man about her age wearing goggles and a helmet looked down at her from the open hatch. He gave her a smile.

  She forced a smile back, then looked away, pushing the carriage to the other side. The Bumerang rolled on toward the town square, obviously heading to one of the bridges that crossed the Oder, three blocks east.

  The second of five vehicles passed by just as Paulina entered the town hall through the front door, and there she was met by two militiamen, who quickly hefted the rockets out of the carriage and started for the stairs.

  “What about me?” she asked.

  One of the men turned back to her. “Can you fire the launcher?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come on. Hurry!”

  CHAPTER 50

  RED BLIZZARD 2

  WEST OF WROCŁAW, POLAND

  27 DECEMBER

  In the command car the comms officer spoke above the din of conversation. “Sir! Air defense reports multiple missile launches from the Polish F-16s!”

  “Air-to-air?” General Sabaneyev asked.

  “Negative. Too slow.” After a pause he said, “They appear to be JASSM 158 cruise missiles.”

  “Cruise missiles?” He looked around the command-and-control vehicle. “Launched at what possible targets? We’re on the move; there is no sane reason to fire a cruise missile at a target that won’t be where it was when you launched.”

  The comms officer said, “I . . . I don’t know the targets, sir.”

  Now the fifty-two-year-old general let his concern show. “Those are GPS guided. Should have kept the European satellites knocked out for a bit longer. Well . . . I trust we’re going to shoot them down.”

  Colonel Smirnov said, “Da, General.”

  The communications officer added, “Current course has the first missiles arriving in vicinity of Wrocław in two minutes twelve seconds, if they don’t terminate before.”

  This was not much time to knock them out of the sky before impact.

  The general looked around at the command car; baffled faces looked back at him. After several seconds the general shouted, “Halt the train!”

  An order was given, but before the train began to slow the general said, “Tell Dryagin to disperse his elements from formation and get off their routes until I put them back on. The Poles might be trying to get their cruise missiles to hit the train and the column.”

  Now the train slowed quickly, and the order was passed to Colonel Dryagin.

  Sabaneyev sat quietly thinking for several seconds, still trying to figure out what was going on. Then it hit him. He realized suddenly these missiles had not been fired by Poland at him. No, they’d been fired by Poland at Poland.

  As the colonel began relaying the order to disperse over the radio, Sabaneyev grabbed the communications officer by the arm. “The bridges! They are going to blow the fucking bridges over the Oder!”

  He took the radio from the man and repeated this to Dryagin. The colonel’s reply came over the net quickly. “That’s madness, sir. We’ll wipe out their militia positions in minutes. Why would they want us stuck in the middle of their city?”

  Sabaneyev barked back. “We’ve missed something! This is a trap!”

  “What are your orders, sir?”

  Sabaneyev looked at the plotting board on the wall, indicating the location of both the train and Dryagin’s force. He keyed the mic. “We can’t back the column out of the city; you’re in too deep already. You must advance! We need armor on the eastern side of the Oder—now, to protect a river crossing!”

  * * *

  • • •

  WROCŁAW, POLAND

  27 DECEMBER

  Junior Sergeant Bogdan Nozdrin ordered his driver to floor his Bumerang APC toward the nearest bridge over the Oder River, following the order that had just been passed on to the forward elements of the column to get armor over the bridges as fast as possible.

  He was five back from the lead vehicle, having just passed through Market Square in front of the town hall and trailing two more Bumerangs and two GAZ Tigrs. Behind him were another four APCs and two more reconnaissance utility vehicles.

  This small convoy was on the left flank of the main column passing through Wrocław just to the southwest, but Nozdrin and his section had been sent ahead to scout the bridges before the tanks arrived. This put them closest to the Oder when the call came, so Nozdrin’s driver was pushing his heavy vehicle forward to stay close to the big green hulks in front of them.

  Just as Bumerang Roman One-Four reached Swietego Ducha, a street only a block from the river, an explosion in the distance shattered glass out of the buildings around Nozdrin, rocking him hard onto his heels and sending him ducking for cover back down under the lip of his hatch.

  His headset came off as he crashed down into his station, so he rushed to put it back on. As he did this he heard another explosion, smaller but much closer. He cal
led his driver, five meters away up a narrow crawl-through, past the vehicle’s engine and at the front of the Bumerang. “What’s happening?”

  “RPGs, sir! Roman One-Three took a turret hit right in front of me, but he’s still moving.”

  “The first explosion sounded like—”

  Another impact rocked Nozdrin’s vehicle from behind. “Shit!” he said, scanning with his camera to try to orient himself. “Gunner, return that fire!”

  There were more loud booms to the northeast, and Nozdrin just scanned on his camera, desperately trying to find information about what the fuck they were driving into.

  An instant later the turret in front of Nozdrin’s station swiveled to the left, and 12.7mm cannon fire began pulsating from it, a painful sound even down here inside the armor covering the vehicle.

  Over the radio he heard from the lead vehicle in his column. “This is Ambal One-Two. We’re at the river, but the bridge has been destroyed! Part of it is in the water and smoking. We will turn left to cross at the—” A few seconds later: “Two! Two bridges are down!”

  “Three bridges left standing?”

  There was no answer.

  “Ambal One-Two, how do you copy?”

  “Ambal One-Two. A third bridge has been hit. Assessing damage.” A pause. “It’s partially down. I can’t see the other two from here. We’ll have to get closer to—”

  Nozdrin heard the explosion through the microphone. Seconds later he heard the same boom outside his vehicle as the sound waves reached him from Ambal One-Two’s position.

  Over the mic a voice said, “This is Ivan One-One. Ambal One-Two is hit. Anti-tank rocket fired from across the river. Vehicle destroyed. Nobody could have survived that!”

  Nozdrin ordered his driver to continue to the Oder, although it was the last place in the world he wanted to be right now.

  * * *