Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  Polish and Czech aerial intervention had put all those plans on hold.

  Fearful of being bounced by marauding F-15s and MiGs, EurCon Air Force commanders were refusing to mount strike missions without heavy escort and thorough preparation. As a result, the air units stationed in Austria were flying fewer sorties and had slower reaction times when they were presented with fleeting targets of opportunity. Hungarian columns that should have been obliterated by cluster bombs and strafing cannon were reaching the front almost unscathed.

  There were also worrying signs that Poland and its allies might be considering entering the conflict on the ground. Fabvier had seen signals intelligence intercepts that suggested at least two Czech tank divisions were massing near the Slovak capital, Bratislava — just north of the Hungarian border. His brow furrowed as he frowned. If the Czech Army moved south to face him, he would need substantial reinforcements to continue the attack. And even if their tanks and APCs stayed on the right side of the line, they could cause him significant problems. He’d be forced to keep one eye perpetually peeled over his left shoulder as he pushed closer to Budapest. The need to guard his northern flank against possible attack would force him to divert large numbers of badly needed troops from his spearheads.

  “General!” Boots rang on the cobblestones behind him.

  Fabvier turned. His aide, Major Castellane, hurried closer. “What is it, Major?”

  “Rochonvillers wants us to move faster. They claim we’re already several hours behind schedule and falling further behind all the time. I tried to explain the situation, but they want to talk to you directly.” Castellane was apologetic. Rochonvillers, near Metz, was the site of the French Army’s underground war headquarters.

  The IV Corps commander turned purple with rage. He loathed the rear-area slackers and civilian ninnies who infested the headquarters’ neon-lit corridors. Not one of them knew what real soldiering was all about. He stabbed a finger at his aide. “You tell Minister Guichy and the rest of his bootlickers that I’m busy fighting a war here. And tell them that we’ll be able to advance faster when they clear the goddamned Poles and Czechs out of the sky and out of our way! Not before!”

  “Yes, sir.” The major saluted and headed for the command vehicle carrying their secure communications channels. Fabvier’s ill-tempered words were about to stir up more trouble than he’d imagined.

  JUNE 1 — CONFEDERATION DEFENSE COMMITTEE, ROCHONVILLERS, FRANCE

  Eleven men sat around the large circular table that nearly filled the underground War Room. Aides occupied chairs behind them, ready to run errands or to translate. Six of the men at the table, the service chiefs of the French and German armed forces, wore uniforms. The rest were in civilian clothes. Although the ventilation system was running on high, a haze of cigarette smoke hung near the low ceiling. The high-ranking members of the European Confederation’s Defense Committee had been meeting in urgent session since early that morning.

  “Clearly, gentlemen, we can no longer operate under the delusion that this action will be swift and painless.” Jurgen Lettow, Germany’s Defense Minister, sounded exhausted. “Perhaps we should consider the possibility of a negotiated end to this crisis — before it worsens. As I see it, the Swiss offer to mediate could yield…”

  Nicolas Desaix listened with mounting irritation. With the Confederation already at war, it was far too late for any misgivings about the use of force to restore Hungary’s military government to power. Now that the shooting had actually started, the only thing that mattered was to win, and win quickly. Anything short of unmistakable victory would shatter the Confederation he had so painstakingly forged.

  Several of the smaller countries, Austria included, were already increasingly reluctant to honor their treaty commitments. Austrian troops that should have been guarding IV Corps supply lines were being held inside their own country — ostensibly for “national security” reasons.

  The French Foreign Minister shifted restlessly in his chair. He abhorred this necessity to wage war by committee. By their very nature, deliberation and compromise were the enemies of swift and decisive action. If it were possible to talk one’s way to victory, French and German tanks would have been in Budapest two days ago.

  In any event, Lettow was right about one thing. Their initial timetables and casualty estimates had been wildly optimistic. The invasion planners had believed the Hungarian government-in-exile’s claims that their soldiers wouldn’t fight hard for the new regime. Of course, the Hungarian generals had been wrong — and not for the first time. According to intelligence reports, nearly all of Hungary’s tank and motor rifle brigades were actively siding with the revolutionaries in Budapest.

  But the appearance of Polish and Czech aircraft over the battlefield had been the biggest and most unpleasant surprise so far. Operating from sanctuaries inside their own territory, their fighters and fighter-bombers were proving a serious annoyance. More than that, in fact, if General Fabvier’s reports could be believed. Desaix had to admit that he had never imagined that the Eastern European “free trade” states would offer Hungary more than moral support, American and British backing must be making them bolder than prudence would otherwise dictate.

  Desaix glanced down the table toward Schraeder. Did the German Chancellor share Lettow’s belated misgivings? He couldn’t tell. The Chancellor just sat there, saying little and showing even less.

  Still, Schraeder had studied history. Whether or not he had misgivings, he must know that generals and politicians who led their nations into unsuccessful wars never held power for long afterward. It was too late to back away now.

  Desaix leaned forward in his chair, interrupting Lettow. “The Swiss offer may be kindly meant, Herr Lettow. But I really do not see that we have anything to talk about!”

  He aimed his words toward the German Chancellor’s end of the table. “We support the legitimate government of Hungary — a fellow member of this Confederation. All our actions to restore that government and good order are in accordance with international law and our own treaty obligations.” Desaix put steel in his voice. “If anyone backs away from this crisis, it must be Poland and its friends — not us!”

  Several of the others muttered their agreement with his hawkish stance. Schraeder nodded reluctantly. Lettow merely looked appalled.

  “And how do you think we should persuade them of that, Nicolas? With a diplomatic communiqué?” Michel Guichy asked sharply. His position as head of the Defense Secretariat made him the most vulnerable of all if their attack on Hungary’s rebel government ended in failure or even a bloody, Pyrrhic victory.

  Desaix shook his head. “No. Words mean nothing when bombs are falling. I have a somewhat more practical form of communication in mind. A way to put Warsaw and the rest on notice that we will not let them meddle in Hungary — not without paying a very high price.”

  He turned toward the short, sallow-faced commander of the French Air Force. “General Vichery is better qualified to brief you on the military aspects. General?”

  “Of course, Minister.” Vichery rose and strode to a wall map at one end of the War Room. Symbols showed the location of all known friendly and enemy ground and air units along the Confederation’s eastern border. One after the other, he pointed to three airfields, two in Poland and one in the Czech Republic. “These are the linchpins of the enemy air campaign against us. But all of them are vulnerable to attack. One swift, coordinated strike could cripple these facilities.”

  Lettow broke in suddenly. “You cannot be serious, Minister Desaix! There are American air force technicians and advisors stationed at those bases!”

  “What of it?” Desaix said coldly. “With or without an official declaration, Poland and the others are making war against us, Herr Lettow! The air bases General Vichery has identified are being used to mount attacks that are killing Confederation pilots and ground troops. By remaining there, by continuing to work with the Poles, these Americans have become combatants. And as co
mbatants, they are at risk.” He scowled. “It is time to make the American people and their Congress aware of the dangerous games their President is playing with American lives!”

  Lettow swallowed visibly. “But the risk of war with the United States…”

  “Is minimal,” Desaix finished for him. “Except for a few hundred technicians and trainers, the Americans have no significant military presence in Europe. And no easy way to get any more soldiers to Poland in time to matter.” He shrugged. “They would also be fighting a war on our ground and at the far end of a very long line of communications. Given that, I believe Washington will very quickly see reason. They will not fight a war they cannot win.”

  He looked expectantly at Schraeder and the rest of the Confederation Defense Committee. “So the question remains, gentlemen. Do we allow the Poles and Czechs to attack us with impunity? Or will we strike back and put an end to this nonsense once and for all?”

  One after the other they nodded their approval for the retaliatory air raids he proposed. Only Lettow grimly shook his head.

  Nicolas Desaix paid little attention to the rest of General Vichery’s briefing. He found details on ordnance loads, mission parameters, and flight paths utterly uninteresting. Only the effects mattered. Poland and its partners were about to learn that defying the European Confederation could be an extremely expensive proposition.

  JUNE 2 — OVER GERMANY

  Six pairs of swept-wing, single-tailed Mirage F1E fighters roared off the main runway of the old Soviet air base at Juterbog, leaving one after the other at precisely timed intervals. None climbed higher than five hundred meters above a gently rolling landscape of forests and farmland.

  Originally intended primarily as an interceptor, software and radar system upgrades were supposed to make the F1 a capable all-weather strike aircraft. The pilots flying this mission intended to prove that beyond any doubt. Each Mirage carried two long, angular shapes slung under its wings — Apache cruise missiles. The Apache was one of the newest French weapons, a stealthy, ground-hugging cruise missile specifically designed to evade enemy radars and air defenses.

  Formed up in three four-plane flights, the F1s dove even lower and turned toward the rising sun. Their shadows rippled across a patchwork of fields and woodlands as they flew east at five hundred knots.

  WROCLAW AIR FORCE BASE, POLAND

  Staff Sergeant Jim Frewer, USAF, stood near the hardened aircraft shelter’s open doors, watching carefully as a Polish Air Force captain realigned the APG-70 radar antenna on an F-15. Quick, efficient work was critical because this fighter would leave for Brno in a few hours and from there for Hungary and combat. To get at the radar system, they had the Eagle’s pointed nose unlatched and hinged all the way back. Technical manuals stuffed full of Polish-language crib sheets were stacked on a wheeled parts and tool trolley nearby.

  Frewer smiled. Captain Aleksander Giertych was good, but he still had trouble with some English technical terms. Even after some months spent as part of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Poland, the sergeant found it strange to see officers doing maintenance work that would have been handled by enlisted men back in the States. Different systems, different ways of doing things, he reminded himself. It was a reminder he’d used many times while watching the Polish fliers and their ground crews make the faltering leap from Russian MiGs to American F-15s.

  In the Russian system, which the Poles had inherited, officers handled all the technical work, while their conscript enlisted personnel did little more than sweep up. Eventually that would have to change, but it couldn’t possibly happen overnight. To their credit, the Polish maintenance officers hadn’t stood on rank, they’d listened to his lectures like rapt schoolboys.

  They had done more than that, of course. Despite the differences in their ranks, his “students” had taken him into their homes and families. They’d made him part of the 11th Fighter Regiment. He thought of them as his “boys” and their planes as his “birds.”

  Poland was a long way from Minnesota, where he’d grown up, and Langley Air Force Base, in Virginia, his last duty station, but he could easily relate to the men here and what they were doing.

  Right now Frewer’s formal classes were on hold. The entire regiment was on a war footing, working almost around the clock readying a second squadron for service over Hungary. He spent all his time on the line with them, performing systems tests and making final adjustments. Six months of MAAG training just wasn’t enough to teach the 11th’s maintenance crews everything, and he’d be damned if he let men go into battle with planes that weren’t ready.

  Like this one. Red 201 couldn’t fly south — not with an out-of-whack radar. The sergeant moved a little closer, ready to offer advice if Giertych asked for it. He stayed near the doors, though. They’d left them open to let in much-needed light and fresh air, and he wanted to take full advantage of both. After a long, cold winter it felt good to stand in the sunlight with a cool morning breeze on his back. The only thing he’d disliked about serving in Poland had been the long spell of wet weather they’d endured. Maybe he’d spent too much time in the hot, bone-dry air at Nellis Air Force Base, deep in the Nevada desert north of Las Vegas…

  Warbling, high-pitched sirens went off all around the airfield. An air-raid warning! Frewer and Giertych stared at each other in shock for a single instant and then reacted. The captain shouted something in rapid-fire Polish to one of his men near the door controls. Nodding rapidly, the corporal whirled around and hit a switch on the panel. Smoothly and quickly, with a roar like a volcano rumbling to life, the massive armored doors slid into place, sealing the shelter in dimly lit darkness. The solid slam as they came together was almost loud enough to mask the sound of the first explosion outside.

  Frewer followed Giertych toward the personnel exit on the side of the reinforced aircraft shelter. Standing regulations be damned. He needed to see what was happening.

  Smoke billowed up from one side of the base — right where the operations center was located. Just as they tumbled out the shelter door, another low rumble and a shock wave rattling through the pavement carried more bad news.

  They turned to see a flaming cloud and debris arcing through the air. A small shape, no more than a black streak, flashed into view and dove into the same area. A second blast shook the ground. Oh, Jesus, Frewer realized, those were the repair shops. The other members of his training team were on duty there. Without pausing for further thought, he started running. Giertych took off after him.

  The repair shops were at least a quarter mile away, but they could already see red and orange flames dancing through the rising smoke.

  Another streak, identifiable this time as a cruise missile, skimmed over the rooftops at blinding speed. It had to be French or German, he thought. It was coming from the wrong direction to be Russian.

  The missile came apart in midair, suddenly dissolving into near-invisible black specks. Bomblets, Frewer thought dully. Sounding like firecrackers popping off in one long, crackling string, they smothered the maintenance sheds in hundreds of individual explosions. Unlike the aircraft shelters, Wroclaw’s repair facilities weren’t armored or protected in any way. Thousands of white-hot fragments sliced through thin aluminum roofs and walls and into the rooms and corridors inside.

  Frewer knew what they could do. The U.S. Air Force had its own bomblet dispensers, spewing out softball-sized devices by the hundreds. Each weighed a few pounds, and was equally capable of penetrating armor, scything down exposed personnel, and even starting a good-sized fire. He was sure the EurCon weapons were just as advanced.

  Even as he neared the burning buildings, he cursed himself for knowing so much about what those weapons could do to the men trapped inside. Then he cursed the enemy who’d used them, struggling to breathe in with lungs that were laboring under the strain of running so far so fast.

  The two men pulled up short of the building, about a hundred meters away. Thick, greasy smoke and the heat c
oming off the fire made it impossible to get any closer.

  Fire crews, some in shiny, asbestos hot suits, were making some headway against the flames, but there was nothing left to save. Frewer looked frantically for survivors. He couldn’t see any — only corpses lying silent on the grass nearby, not yet covered. Some wore Polish uniforms, but many, too many, wore U.S. Air Force blue.

  Anger and grief flowed through the sergeant. They’d all speculated on how EurCon might react to the Polish intervention in Hungary, but the idea that the French and Germans would attack Polish bases, especially without some sort of ultimatum, had been dismissed as insane by everybody.

  Everybody had been wrong, Frewer realized. The cruise missiles, weapons capable of incredible precision, had to have been deliberately targeted on buildings full of American personnel. EurCon knew that, he thought angrily. They just don’t give a shit. Well, he did, and as far as he was concerned, America was in the war now, all the way.

  Almost against his will, his weary feet carried him over to the bodies. He recognized one, Mike Cummings, and thought he knew another, but the rest were too torn or burned to identify. He could hear Giertych muttering and choking back sobs.

  His own eyes full of tears, Frewer looked away from the mangled bodies of his friends and coworkers. The EurCon attack had plastered the whole base. Fires raged out of control on all sides. Besides the operations center and repair sheds, cruise missiles had hit fuel and ammo storage areas. More smoke curled from the air traffic control center.

  Only the aircraft shelters and flight line looked untouched. The American sergeant nodded somberly. Why waste hits on single aircraft when you could knock out the control, resupply, and maintenance capabilities that kept them flying? For the time being at least, the 11th Fighter Regiment and its American advisors were completely out of action.