The Red Line

by Walt Gragg

  Much to his surprise, the world around him was about to turn upside down.

  CHAPTER 44

  January 30—11:03 a.m.

  On the Eastern Fence

  Ramstein Air Base

  A dozen satchel charges were tossed from the trees.

  Without warning, the chain link exploded. Gaping holes appeared everywhere. In the confusion, scores of parachutists rushed through the eastern fence before anyone could react to what had happened. A similar group burst through the southern wire.

  The largest force, nearing one hundred in number, broke through in the center of the shattered eastern wall. They appeared out of nowhere. They ran toward Rios’s bunker.

  Caught by surprise, the two hundred American airborne soldiers inside the base moved to counterattack. But in the heavy fog, the bewildered Americans had no idea what had just transpired. The Bradleys and M-1s were picking up movement everywhere.

  Rios leaped to his feet. Fifty gray ghosts were headed straight for him.

  “Jesus! Goodman, get up here quick! The Russians have broken through the fence.”

  Rios grabbed Goodman’s M-4. He fired at the attackers. It didn’t even slow the parachutists down. The Russians ran in every direction. They raced past the bunker. Running at full speed, a parachutist hurled his body into the sandbags. The bunker collapsed. It fell in on the still-firing Rios. The airman was pinned beneath the heavy layers of sand. He struggled to free himself from the trap. But it was too late. The parachutist was on him in a flash.

  Arturo Rios stared into the angry features of the man who was going to take his life. The remorseless Russian, five years older and fifty pounds heavier, stared back at him. The menacing parachutist’s long knife glistened as he raised it to plunge deep into Rios’s heart.

  The six-inch blade flashed as the Russian struck. At the last possible instant, the desperate airman freed his left arm just enough to partially deflect the powerful blow. The knife missed its target by the narrowest of margins. It sliced into Rios’s shoulder. The steel dug deep into the struggling airman’s flesh. The blade sank to its hilt. It tore a huge gash just below his collarbone.

  Rios screamed in pain. His face was distorted with anguish. His arm went limp against his side. The Russian ripped the knife from his victim. He prepared to stab a second time to finish the kill. This time there’d be no escape. The American wouldn’t survive. The parachutist raised the knife over his head. Its silver blade flashed once more in the suffocating mist. Rios was trapped by the sand and pinned by his heavier opponent. He lay helpless. Death was full in his eyes. The Russian’s arm swung downward.

  Goodman wrenched Wilson’s M-4 from the grinning corpse’s hands. He fired a long burst from five feet away. The rounds caught the attacker square in the face. He was dead before what little remained of his head hit the ground.

  Two parachutists turned toward the sound of the firing. They spotted the American standing at the rear of the demolished bunker. Both opened up with their machine pistols.

  Bullets riddled Goodman’s body. He crumpled to the ground. Within seconds of killing the Russian assassin, Goodman followed him into the next realm.

  Hidden by the sand, Rios lay unmoving. The parachutists were in a hurry to reach their objective. There was no time to waste. In their haste, the severely wounded airman was overlooked.

  It was a race to see if Ramstein would remain in the war. The Russians had caught the Americans off guard. The parachutists ran at full speed toward the ammunition depot. It would be a half-mile run through deep snows before they’d be in a position to fire their final four antitank missiles into the base’s armaments. The Russians were superbly conditioned. But exhausted by the relentless events of the eternal night and weighed down by their equipment, they would need five minutes to arrive at a point where they could release their missiles with any hope of success.

  The parachutists were on foot. Their enemy was in fast-moving vehicles. Even so, the American response was slow and disjointed. They hadn’t anticipated such a bold move. And with the poor visibility, the Americans were still uncertain of what had actually occurred. One thing was definite, something was happening, and they needed to figure out what it was as quickly as they could. The 82nd Airborne battalion commander had been busy with the reports coming in from the caustic battle in the woods. He refocused his attention on the new threat. The confusing information from his armored forces about what their thermal sights were seeing wasn’t helping.

  “Send a half dozen scout vehicles to the fences to find out what the hell’s going on,” the battalion commander ordered.

  Six Humvees rushed away. In each Humvee, a pair of Americans roared into the clouds and disappeared. Small groups of Russians raced in every direction to confuse the Americans and mask their true intentions. All six Humvees quickly came under fire from these roving bands of raiders. The confusion inside the fence continued. Each scout team reported that they’d made contact with the enemy. The Russians appeared to be everywhere. How many there actually were, and from exactly where they’d come, no one knew. More importantly, what they were attempting to accomplish was still undetermined.

  It was the teams in the two Humvees on the far left who were the first to figure out the parachutists’ true intentions. They spotted a significant Russian force carrying satchel charges and missiles running toward the ammunition depot.

  The sergeant in the Humvee second from the far left keyed his headset. “Sir, they’re after the ammunition-storage area!”

  “That’s right, Colonel!” the corporal in the final Humvee said. “There’s no doubt about it! Must be about a hundred of them headed that way.”

  The battalion commander trusted completely in the judgment of his scouts. “Roger,” he said. “We’re on our way.”

  Both Humvees circled even farther to the left. They were determined to cut the Russians off and hold them at bay until help arrived. The parachutists could hear the Humvees racing ahead of them. But they were just as handicapped by the fog as the Americans while playing their deadly game of hide-and-seek. They knew the Humvees were out there somewhere. Nevertheless, in the dense fog, they couldn’t determine where.

  Three hundred yards closer to the depot, both Humvees were waiting in the dull gray. When the first running Russian appeared through the haze, the Humvees opened fire with their machine guns. A handful of parachutists went down. The rest fell back. Using the fog to protect them, they dropped to the ground fifty yards from the Americans. The Humvees continued to fire, pinning the Russians’ noses in the snow.

  Given time, the parachutists would’ve sent men to the left and right to encircle the Americans. But they had no time. Time belonged to their enemy. Every second they delayed was one more second American reinforcements had to arrive. The Russians could hear the armored vehicles and Humvees roaring across the wide base in their direction. They couldn’t wait. They had to destroy the American soldiers who stood in their way. Ninety machine pistols opened fire.

  A Humvee’s crew went down. Their machine gun was forever silenced. The other Americans remained in the fight. The Russians scrambled to their feet. Firing as they ran, they charged straight for the sound of the American machine gun. The corporal and his driver fought back with everything they had. One after another, more of the Russians appeared through the fog. Each crumpled to the ground when hit by the steady stream of machine-gun bullets and rifle fire. Even so, the parachutists didn’t waver. They continued their feverish charge toward the spitting guns.

  From out of the gray a hand grenade landed five feet from the Humvee. The grenade exploded. The Americans fired no more. Seventy-five parachutists had survived. They raced past the dead soldiers sprawled across the battered vehicles.

  The Russians were in the clear once more. In another minute, they’d be in a position to fire their missiles. They ran through the masking world toward the ammunition d
epot.

  In large numbers, the quicker Humvees raced ahead of the Bradleys and M-1s. They swept through the ground-hugging fog in their desperate search for the Russians. Behind the Humvees, an overpowering force of venomous armor roared across the runways. The Americans hurried toward the sounds of the battle the destroyed scout teams had been waging. With the world gone quiet once again, the burgundy berets scoured the swirling mist for the enemy.

  By now, the battalion commander was certain of what the Russians were up to. The parachutists were making a suicide attack on the ammunition-storage area. After what his men had gone through, there was no way he was going to let the parachutists snatch victory from the jaws of their impending defeat. He had to protect the ammunition depot at all cost. Three M-1s were ordered to change course and head for a blocking position in front of the bomb-storage area.

  The trio of tanks peeled off. They rushed toward their objective. The remainder of the battalion continued to search for their elusive prey. The Russians had to be out there somewhere and not too far away.

  They were.

  Four parachutists knelt on the cold ground. They’d penetrated far enough into the base to have reached a point where they could try firing a missile into the storage area’s front gate. They shoved their night-vision equipment over their faces, hoping it would somehow help them penetrate the heavy fog. It didn’t help much. From this distance, they were really guessing. It was going to be a long, difficult shot. Yet if any of the four succeeded, eighteen hours of watching their comrades die would’ve been worth it. Ramstein would be leveled in a mighty blast. American Air Force Headquarters would be destroyed. The American munitions would be gone. The great air base would be out of the war. Russia’s victory would be assured.

  The kneeling parachutists waited. It had been a difficult run across the snows. Each had a single missile. If they were going to have any chance, they’d have to bring their labored breathing under control. For thirty seconds, they waited for their heavy panting to subside. It seemed like an hour. All around, their fellow parachutists fanned out to protect them.

  The time had come. Their breathing and their nerves were finally calm enough to attempt the desperate volley. Each raised his missile to his shoulder. They could just make out in their sights what they were certain was the depot’s opening.

  Suddenly, the opening disappeared. Something had moved in front of the depot’s entrance. Each parachutist recognized that his shot was gone. Three M-1s had materialized from nowhere. They were sitting side by side one hundred yards from the depot’s gate. The huge tanks had formed an impenetrable barrier that only a miracle could breach. There was no way to fire a missile into the American munitions. For an instant, the parachutists thought about firing anyway. Destroying an M-1 would at least let the parachutists go to their graves with a moral victory. There was no chance, however, that their small missiles could defeat any of the three monsters’ heavy frontal plating and destroy an American armored vehicle. The gunners dropped the weapons from their shoulders and hung their heads.

  In the fog, the lead Humvee’s team was right on top of the Russians before they spotted them. The Americans roared forward. The Humvee’s machine gun blazed. Burst after burst ripped into the exposed parachutists. The Russians responded with their automatic weapons. Three more Humvees leaped into action. They jumped into the middle of the fray. More were right behind. The Russians fell back. They’d been caught in the open. The nearest fence was a half mile away. There would be no chance of escape. They knew they’d pay for their failure with their lives.

  The parachutists did the only thing they could. They fought and died on the bloody ground of Ramstein. At the very least, they were determined to drag a few more Americans into the netherworld with them. They’d been close to victory. In the end, however, the parachutists’ defeat was complete. In a one-sided battle, all seventy-five went down beneath the power of the swarming Americans.

  The depot had survived. Its immense supply of bombs and missiles would continue to be carried to the flight line. The bellies and wings of the American fighter aircraft would be filled with death and destruction over and again in the days to come.

  Throughout the base, the handfuls of surviving parachutists were soon identified, isolated, and destroyed. With a vengeance, the Americans swooped down upon the remaining pockets of resistance. They swiftly eliminated the last of their airborne adversaries.

  The process of cleaning up the battlefield began. Wounded parachutists were shown no mercy. The revenge-minded Americans killed them on the spot. Far too many of their friends lay dead in the fields and woods surrounding Ramstein for them to show any compassion to their ruthless opponent.

  It was all over. The Americans had won. Ramstein was back in their control. The parachutists had been swept clean from the evergreen forest and the runways of the immense base. The time had come to sweep the German skies clean.

  Squadrons of virulent fighters rose from Ramstein’s runways. They burst through the fog and headed into the late-morning sky. Flight after flight roared east to vanquish the enemy.

  It was now almost a certainty. With Ramstein back in the war, the skies on the second day would belong to the Americans.

  • • •

  In another hour, the air police would discover the lone surviving airman in the collapsed bunker near the middle of the eastern fence. Rios was plucked from the sand. The critically wounded airman was rushed to the base hospital.

  Inside the chaotic hospital, Arturo Rios lay unmoving while medics applied sutures and dressings to his mauled shoulder. The young airman knew he’d survived to fight another day. That thought, however, gave him little comfort. He’d witnessed far too much death and come much too near his own to ever again be the same. He’d straddled the line that separates the living from the dead, and he was no longer sure on which side of the line he truly belonged.

  Stoically, he stared at the ceiling while they attended to his wound.

  The light in his dark eyes no longer burned.

  In many ways, he envied Wilson and Goodman.

  CHAPTER 45

  January 30—1:15 p.m.

  NCO Housing Area, United States European Command Headquarters

  Patch Barracks, Stuttgart

  Sergeant Major Harold Williams lifted a crushed and twisted bed frame. He passed it up to those at ground level. Twenty feet away, the teenage boy dug in another section of the shattered building. The two were well into the bombed-out basement. All morning long, they’d been painfully raising cement and furniture over their heads and handing it to those above.

  For the past twenty-four hours, the exhausted fifteen-year-old had worked on without thinking. With every inch of his tortured body pleading with him to stop, he continued his demented digging. For each member of the determined group, it had become an all-encompassing fixation. Using only their bare hands, they were going to defeat the tons of mortar and concrete to reach into hell and rescue those trapped below.

  If they could find anyone alive.

  The boy peered into the twisted rubble. A curious expression spread across his face. For a better view, he knelt and pressed his nose against a small opening next to a crumbling cement slab. He looked up at the sergeant major with a start.

  “Hey, Sergeant Major! I think I see something down there!”

  “What is it, Ryan?” Williams answered.

  The boy stuck his face into the opening once again. He turned back to the sergeant major. “It’s a baby! And he’s alive!”

  Williams rushed through the jumbled refuse toward the boy’s position. “Are you certain?”

  “Yeah. I can see him moving.”

  The rescue party scrambled into the hole. The weariness of twenty-four hours of mind-numbing toil was swept away in an instant. Harold Williams was the first to arrive. He knelt and looked into the opening next to the top of one of the laundry
room’s dryers. Three feet below, he could see the small child.

  “Christopher! Christopher!”

  The baby moved in response to Williams’s words.

  “It’s okay, little one; lie still. We’ll have you out of there in no time.”

  While he stared into the hole, the sergeant major saw something else. He looked up at the group of rescuers.

  “There’s an outstretched hand a few inches from the baby.”

  “Is it moving?” one of the women asked.

  “No,” Williams said. “Mrs. Reed, why don’t you and Laurie go see if you can find those medics who were around here a few hours ago. I think Christopher’s going to need them real soon.”

  The woman and her daughter hurriedly climbed to ground level. Each set out in a different direction in search of the medics.

  While they walked through what remained of the housing area, the news spread like a raging forest fire. A tiny survivor had been found at the bottom of the pit where Building 2417 had stood.

  The sergeant major and the teenage boy started working at eliminating the three feet of debris separating them from their prize. After a full day of backbreaking effort, the valiant rescuers’ reward was within their grasp.

  • • •

  Williams lifted the dazed handful of a child from the depths of the depravity. He handed him to the taller of the waiting medics. A crowd of forty had gathered at the edge of the pit. As the little one was carried out, the cheer from the exhausted onlookers was meager but genuine.

  The medic placed Christopher in a thick woolen blanket. He handed the blanket to Mrs. Reed. She held the confused child as lovingly as if he were her own. The medic started examining the filthy toddler.