The Red Line

by Walt Gragg

  CHAPTER 20

  January 29—2:00 a.m.

  Spetsnaz Team Five

  The Zugspitz

  The expensively clad figure dangled in the darkness one thousand feet above the precipice. Seventy-mile-per-hour winds buffeted him. The blowing snows tore at his anguished face. The blizzard slammed him relentlessly against the side of the icy overhang.

  He had no choice. To save his life, he slid the one-hundred-pound pack from his back. He let it drop into the abyss. His life now depended upon a thin nylon line, the sole artery connecting him to his fellow climbers. With their powerful arms, the other two commandos lifted him out of the void and onto the side of the mountain.

  He staggered to his feet.

  The fall really hadn’t been his fault. They were five hundred feet above the area they’d surveyed earlier in the week. In the darkness, the leader had fallen into the undetected crevice.

  The mighty storm ripped at the trio. Their heavy ski outfits were little defense from the blizzard’s fearsome sting. Icy particles tore pieces of flesh from their exposed cheeks. They had no protection from the fierce elements. At nearly ten thousand feet, they were well above the tree line.

  They turned to continue their torturous climb toward the mountain’s peak. The crest of the Zugspitz, the highest mountain in Germany, was still a few hundred feet above them. Even with their superb conditioning, every step was agony as they struggled toward the top.

  • • •

  The commandos had arrived in Garmisch a week earlier. Their cover as ordinary tourists here for a ski vacation had been a convincing one. Each day, with their backpacks full, they would take the ski lift up the Zugspitz. The lift would deposit them two thousand feet beneath the mountain’s summit. From there they’d hike ever higher up the mountain, often coming within a thousand feet of the peak.

  They’d scaled the heights to deep-powder ski, to ski the snows no one else had skied. At least that was their story.

  In reality, they were mapping the trail as far up the mountain as they possibly could. A trail they would follow a final time when the command came. On their first day on the slopes, they dug a cave in the snow. There, they made a daily deposit of weapons, explosives, and climbing gear. Each day they would stay on the mountain working out the climb for as long as they could without arousing suspicion. They would then break powder and ski down the steep mountainside. The three were magnificent skiers. Each was much admired by the mountain’s enthusiasts as they made their way down from the fearful heights.

  Not a single person noticed that while their backpacks were full on the way up the mountain, they were empty when they returned to the lodge.

  They were the darlings of the ski season on the Zugspitz. All three were blond, powerfully built, and captivatingly handsome. All three were vicious, brutal killers.

  Rich Swedish students, they told the beautiful women who lounged by the chalet’s gigantic fireplace. Their English and German were impeccable. Between them, they’d conquered many of the pampered kittens who curled by the fire lapping up every word of the assassins’ contrived tales. Nearly all of their conquests had been wealthy American girls. Girls eager to try anything to relieve the boredom of their meaningless existence, if only for a fleeting moment.

  Not a bad assignment, each commando told himself, while heading back to his room late in the evening with another empty-headed admirer on his perfectly tanned arm. The saboteurs had even become friends with a group of American soldiers on holiday in the Alps. They liked the amiable soldiers much more than they cared for the shallow girls who were so eager to be a night’s entertainment.

  Not a bad assignment at all. At least until tonight.

  Their contact in the chalet’s dining room had given them the signal at breakfast. The mission was on. In the afternoon, the team loaded their backpacks a final time. The trio told the indulgent ones by the fire that after they made one last ski run, they had to drive to Munich on business. But not to worry, they’d be back by morning.

  The killers had suffered a shock when they arrived at the ski lift at a little before three. The lift had been shut down. The chairs that reached well up the mountain sat still and silent. Without the lift to carry them the majority of the way, they’d never make it to the top of the Zugspitz in time.

  They rushed into the lift building. The pimply-faced teenager who ran the lift sat staring out an icy window.

  “What’s going on here, Franz?” the leader asked. “Why isn’t the lift running?”

  “They closed it down, Mr. Ardesen. There are high winds on the mountain, and it’s too dangerous to ski. So they told me to shut it down.”

  “Franz, we’ve got to go into Munich on business tonight. We want to make one more run down the mountain before we do.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Ardesen. They told me to shut it down.”

  “I understand, Franz, but all our lives we’ve wanted to ski a mountain in these kinds of conditions. We’ve been waiting for a challenge like this forever. Now you’re telling us we’re going to miss that chance.”

  “I really am sorry, Mr. Ardesen, but that’s what they told me.”

  “Look, you like us, don’t you, Franz? And you know what great skiers we are. So why don’t you open the lift long enough to let us go up, then shut it back down again.”

  “I can’t, Mr. Ardesen. If I did, and somebody saw me, it could mean my job.”

  “Well, maybe if we made it worth your while . . .” The leader reached into his pocket and withdrew a huge wad of euros.

  The boy’s eyes grew wide. He’d never seen so much money in his entire life. And the ski lift ran just long enough to deposit the darlings of the Zugspitz at a place far up the jagged mountain.

  Shortly after dark, dressed in outfits belonging to the commandos, the waiter and two of his accomplices drove the saboteurs’ Mercedes out of the chalet. They headed down the road that led to Munich. They made sure to wave from a distance at the pampered ones who watched the car drive away.

  • • •

  The trio fought their way to the very crest of the mountain. One hundred yards away were the twinkling lights of their objective. The killers moved toward the small compound. Every few feet, they stopped and watched. There was no guard. Taking out a pair of wire cutters, they ran in a low crouch the final yards. A few quick snips, and they were inside.

  The pair of airmen on duty at the relay on top of the Zugspitz had heard Donnersberg’s warning two hours earlier. They’d gone to the building next door and awakened the six companions who shared with them the most isolated assignment in Europe. After an uneventful hour, the master sergeant in charge of the facility told the others to go back to bed. Shortly thereafter, he retired himself. They felt safe and secure on their mountain perch. After all, for seven months of the year the only way to gain access to the communication site was by helicopter. Even in the middle of summer, in the best of weather, it took a snowcat to get to where the eight lived.

  There was a blizzard blowing on the mountain. And it was the middle of the night. Nothing could be better protection from the enemies of the outside world. The airmen felt so protected in their home of ice and snow that they’d never uncrated their M-4s. The weapons sat in a metal storage container on the far side of the compound.

  Their coworkers snug in their beds once more, the two airmen returned to their game of gin rummy. While they played, they listened to the activity between the communication sites and the voice at DISA who continued to restore the critical circuitry. As a radio relay, they had no direct role in the activity. Their sole function was to keep two microwave radio systems—one from Donnersberg to the top of the Zugspitz and the other from the Zugspitz to Coltano, Italy, on the air. None of the circuits broke out at the relay. Their involvement in George O’Neill’s efforts was little more than that of interested spectators. Donnersberg and Coltano would take care
of the rest.

  The door burst open. The blowing snows poured into the room. The airmen’s cards flew in every direction. The startled pair looked up to find themselves face-to-face with a figure dressed in an expensive ski outfit. The intruder was holding a machine pistol. He motioned for the airmen to raise their hands.

  Next door, the barracks entrance also flew open. Snow rushed in upon the sleeping airmen. An arm reached inside and tossed a grenade onto the floor. The arm disappeared. The perpetrator dove for cover in the snow. Five seconds later, the exploding grenade killed all six airmen. To make sure the job was completed, a second commando appeared in the doorway. He fired a long burst from his black machine pistol into the room.

  The moment the explosion sounded next door, the saboteur in the communication building gunned down his captives with two quick pulls of his automatic pistol’s trigger. The airmen fell dead on the floor.

  With the enemy eliminated, there was no need to hurry. The commandos removed the plastic explosives from the two remaining satchels. Even without the leader’s backpack, they had more than enough to finish the job. The leader attached explosives to the legs of the communication tower. A second killer prepared the communication building for destruction. The third placed charges throughout the small barracks, moving an occasional body part aside to complete the job. In twenty minutes, they were ready. They set the timers for half an hour and hurried down the dark mountain as fast as they dared.

  Five hundred feet below the peak they stopped beneath a large rock formation and waited. Six minutes later a trio of explosions rocked the Alps. American strategic communications between Germany and Italy were no more.

  They cautiously made their way back down from the heights. The descent wasn’t as physically challenging as the climb had been. Even so, it took every skill the commandos had to safely reach the chalet. At a little before seven they crept through the lobby and up to their rooms. Not a soul was around. It was hours before the guests sleeping in the warm chalet would awaken for brunch.

  Early in the afternoon, the Swedish gods would be seen skiing the mountain a final time. As they hurriedly packed their Gucci bags, their panicked admirers paid scant attention to them. In a few hours, the rich young women would cross the border into Austria to continue their holiday safe from the war.

  For the first time ever, the boy failed to show up for work at the ski lift. Just before dark, they found his body in a snowbank near the building where the chalet’s workers lived. His throat had been cut. His pockets were empty.

  • • •

  Unaware that the Zugspitz relay had been destroyed by the commando team moments earlier, George O’Neill continued to work at keeping the Americans in the war.

  “All right, Coltano, are your patches all set?” O’Neill said into the microphone.

  No response.

  “Coltano, are you ready?”

  Still no response.

  “DISA, this is Donnersberg. We’ve lost Coltano.”

  “God dammit!”

  “What’s wrong?” Colonel Cossette asked.

  “We’ve lost everything going south to Italy, sir.” He held the microphone to his lips. “Zugspitz, what’s the story with Coltano?”

  Silence.

  “Zugspitz, what the hell happened to Coltano?”

  More silence.

  “Zugspitz?”

  O’Neill took a moment to gather his thoughts.

  “Lieutenant Templeton, tell Colonel Morrison we’ve lost the forty-eight channels to the States through Italy. Tell them I’m going to redirect the eight circuits I already ran through Coltano onto the Landstuhl satellite.”

  He’d been holding the old, second-generation satellite’s twelve channels as his final reserve. But now he had little choice. All he had left were those twelve and the sixty channels through Feldberg to Martlesham Heath to satisfy the needs of every command in Germany.

  General Yovanovich’s noose was tightening.

  “Donnersberg,” he said into the microphone, “Landstuhl, we’re going to take the following circuits and move them onto the satellite . . .”

  • • •

  Twenty minutes later, the bus from Ludwigsburg pulled up in front of the building. Fourteen of the agency’s personnel flashed their badges and entered. O’Neill looked up from the computer to see the faces of the five other people in the organization capable of doing what he was doing standing in the operations-center doorway.

  It was 3:35 a.m. As Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Denny Doyle entered the operations center, O’Neill noticed that his coworker was carrying a suitcase.

  “Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Doyle said.

  “You can say that again. Where the hell have you guys been?”

  “Oh, you know, mostly playing tag with our bus and every parked car in Stuttgart. There’s not an undamaged fender between here and Ludwigsburg. What’s the situation here?”

  O’Neill began briefing the five on what had happened and the actions he’d so far taken. In midsentence, O’Neill stopped. “Denny, what’s with the suitcase?”

  “Man, you must’ve been busy. You and I are on our way out of here, remember?”

  “Jesus, I forgot about that in all the excitement.”

  Should war be declared, the plan called for European Command Headquarters to immediately dispatch a staff to England to set up a backup command location.

  From everything O’Neill had been told in the past thirty months, Patch Barracks wouldn’t be around much longer. It was common knowledge they were sitting at one of the Russians’ first-strike targets. The belief was by this time tomorrow, few buildings at the American headquarters would be standing. Six members of the organization would accompany the EUCOM backup staff to England. They’d prepare to run all communication activities from the Hillingdon communication facility on the outskirts of London. Colonel Hoerner, Major Siebman, Senior Master Sergeant Doyle, Petty Officer First Class Gallagher, Technical Sergeant Becker, and Staff Sergeant O’Neill were to head to England at the first sign of trouble.

  “You’d better turn things over to us, so you can get home and grab a suitcase,” Doyle said. “We’re leaving on the next plane to England, old buddy.”

  “Oh my God! Kathy! Christopher! What about them?”

  “They’ll get evacuated with all the other dependents, I guess,” Doyle said.

  “But they’re not supposed to be here. They promised us we’d have at least two weeks’ notice of any Russian attack. They said there’d be plenty of time to get all the dependents out of harm’s way.”

  “They also said the Russians would never be crazy enough to actually attack us. Looks like they were wrong on both counts.”

  “Denny, I’m not going. I won’t leave my wife and baby here by themselves.”

  “You really don’t have a choice, George. You know we’re going to need you in England. Now, if you want to spend a little time with that beautiful wife of yours before we leave, you’d better get your butt in gear.”

  • • •

  George O’Neill raced out of the operations center. His mind was spinning. He absentmindedly put on his gear and left the building. As he headed for his apartment, he wondered how he was going to break the news to Kathy.

  Locked deep in thought, he didn’t notice that the snows had stopped. The storm was gone. The sky above held a beautiful moon and hundreds of shimmering stars. It was 4:00 a.m. In four hours there was going to be an incredible winter sunrise over Germany. But George O’Neill wouldn’t be there to see it.

  In an hour, he’d have to somehow find the courage to leave his wife and child sitting in the middle of a war while he escaped to the safety of England.

  CHAPTER 21

  January 29—12:58 a.m.

  1st Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Te
am, 3rd Infantry Division

  Wurzburg

  The first sergeant rushed down the ancient barracks’ second-floor hallway, throwing open doors and rousing his men. The final door on the left side of the cavernous structure Hitler had ordered built flew open. An arm reached in and flicked on the lights. The booming voice of the tank-company first sergeant filled the room, shattering the slumber of the soldiers inside.

  “Warrick, Richardson, up and at ’em. Division’s called an alert. Form up in the company area in ten minutes.”

  Seeing the soldiers stir, the first sergeant hurried to the other side of the hall to continue his distasteful task.

  “God dammit,” Specialist Four Anthony Warrick said, “another stupid alert.”

  He sat up and rubbed the crusty sleep from the corners of his eyes.

  “What time is it?” Tim Richardson asked.

  “Man, I don’t know . . .” Warrick looked across the room at the clock radio on his bureau. “Shit . . . it’s only one o’clock.”

  The specialist and sergeant reluctantly left the warmth of their beds. Richardson used his forearm to rub away the moisture from the window next to his bunk. He peered through the glass.

  “Christ. It’s still snowing like crazy out there.”

  “Wonderful,” Warrick said. “Just what we needed. Standing outside in the freezing cold until some idiot up at division decides he’s had enough fun for one night.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Richardson said. “We just had a practice alert last week.”

  Warrick shrugged his shoulders in response to his tank commander’s question. Each threw on his camouflage uniform. With minutes to spare, Richardson hurried down the hall. He pushed open the door to the foul-smelling latrine with its rusting pipes and dripping faucets. He stuck his head beneath the nearest one. The young sergeant ran cold water over his face until he could stand it no longer.

  Richardson stared into the mirror while dragging a comb through his auburn hair. The twenty-three-year-old face looking back at him was boyish and pleasant. The eyes in the mirror were bright and blue. Although tonight they stared back at him with a bloodshot tinge at their edges, the result of too many liters of German beer consumed a few hours earlier.