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  Only now did Glowski grin. He pumped his fists in the air. “We’ve done it, boys!”

  A wild cheer rang out in the room.

  CHAPTER 27

  HIGH SNOW MOUNTAIN (HOHER SCHNEEBERG)

  DĚČÍNSKÝ SNĚŽNÍK LOOKOUT TOWER, CZECHIA

  25 DECEMBER

  0119

  Děčínský Sněžník is the highest peak in the Czech Republic’s Elbe Sandstone Mountain Range, with an unobstructed view across hundreds of miles of Germany’s Elbe Valley to the north. The vista was so commanding that 150 years ago Prince Franz of Hohenstein erected the Děčínský Sněžník Tower on the summit to use as a triangulation point for mapping and navigation through the region. Now the old tower served as a restaurant and rest stop along romantic bike trails used by many German and Czech tourists.

  This area was alive in the summer with hikers and bikers who explored the trails through the cliffs and forests of what was locally known as “Bohemian Switzerland.” In winter, however, the station and its restaurant were closed, although the manager and his wife lived on the grounds, and they opened the kitchen whenever a small group of brave souls weathered the elements and hiked to the top of Děčínský Sněžník.

  The previous day the middle-aged Czech couple had been astonished to look out the window of their kitchen into the fresh snowfall and see well over a dozen heavily laden hikers marching up the road toward them. Both husband and wife excitedly put on their heavy coats and boots, ready to greet the travelers. They then stepped outside the front door, waved their hands at the group approaching some hundred meters away, and were promptly shot dead.

  The architect of Red Metal, Colonel Yuri Borbikov, had himself given the order to dispatch the hapless locals. As he neared the tower with the rest of his Spetsnaz troops in civilian clothes, he saw smoke rising from the chimney in the main building, and he knew there would be no way to keep his mission covert with civilians on the property. No one would believe the ruse that he and his sixteen soldiers were just tourists here on a hike. They could fool someone passing by, but once they pulled out their weapons and commandeered the tower to place a laser navigation aid at the top, it was a safe bet that their cover would be blown.

  So Borbikov had ordered the compromise removed.

  The colonel didn’t have to be here; Spetsnaz could have accomplished this objective in northern Czechia without him. But Yuri Borbikov saw himself as a soldier as well as a leader of soldiers, and he wanted his own boots and his own weapon involved in this operation. Right now he had over two dozen teams taking over railway switching stations, finishing the last details of calibrating the lasers, and monitoring airfields and military bases for aircraft and troop movements. Borbikov knew he could not expect his men to brave any dangers he wasn’t prepared to undertake himself, so he had chosen this mission to Czechia at the beginning of Red Metal to demonstrate his willingness to lead from the front.

  He planned on doing the same in Africa in a few days’ time.

  After their late-morning arrival at the tower, the team had spent the entire afternoon and much of the evening setting and calibrating the laser navigation aid. To their surprise they did not encounter any more civilians, in large measure due to the sleet and freezing rain that had persisted throughout most of the day. It was past one a.m. now, and the work was complete other than maintaining the team’s security while they waited for their helicopter extraction.

  They spent their time availing themselves of the warm fireplace inside the building and the meat and cheeses in the larders meant for weary travelers who happened by at the wooden two-story overlook restaurant. And even though the colonel had forbidden them from doing so, some of the men had snuck mugs of beer from the open tap system.

  What the hell? they thought. We’re homeward bound now. The remaining work would be that of the Spetsnaz teams at the railroad junctions.

  For this group, the European part of Red Metal was coming to an end. They knew they’d be heading for Africa in just days, so they’d have to clean their weapons, reload their magazines, and pack their bags with warm-weather clothing.

  The colonel walked through the snow off the road one hundred meters in front of the tower. Around him the Spetsnaz soldiers carried the last of their gear into the clearing, and there they stacked their packs and equipment cases for easy loading once the helicopters landed.

  There was no longer any pretense that they were anything other than a military unit. Although they still wore civilian clothing over their uniforms, AKS-74U carbines hung from slings around their necks, NVGs hung in front of their eyes, and the men carried bandoliers of rifle ammunition and grenades over their shoulders.

  Borbikov looked at his watch and saw their extraction wasn’t due for another ten minutes, but just then one of his men called over to him from where he sat with his radio.

  “The tower watch says he hears helos inbound, sir.”

  “Very well,” Borbikov said. “Tell them to break down the tower watch. I want everyone here at the LZ.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Borbikov flipped down his NVGs, looked up at the big looming tower at the top of the hill, and thought about its history. He hoped to revive the ancient purpose of the structure, this time with some vastly updated technology compared to his nineteenth-century cartography and topography counterparts. The colonel scarcely understood the science behind the ytterbium rare-earth lasers he’d ordered deployed along the route Dryagin’s armor would take, but he knew what they did. They allowed the Russian assault forces to “see” their way without the aid of global positioning satellites.

  This would give the Russians an incredible advantage over NATO, which by now should be totally blind.

  He next scanned the night sky with his NVGs for the three helicopters, knowing they’d be flying without their lights. Just as he heard them in the distance, his radioman said, “Sir, the birds are not responding on the air mission frequency. The coded network IDs show either we or they are not on the correct cryptographic radio band.”

  Borbikov sighed. He’d punish someone severely for this stupid mistake. “All right. Deploy flares.”

  Two sergeants moved away from the pack and pulled the pins on four flares. Each flare ignited with a loud pop that echoed crisply against the wood line of the dark forest all around them. The light flickered eerily against the snow-covered pines, casting ghostly dancing patterns onto the old stone tower.

  It sounded like the helos were less than two kilometers away now, but the engine noise seemed to emanate from over the cliffs, on the German side of the mountain. They were supposed to approach from the direction of Czechia, masking themselves by flying through the low valleys there.

  “Get those assholes on the radio!” Borbikov commanded.

  Suddenly the helos came into view in Borbikov’s NVGs. There were two of them when there should have been three. “Where is the other bird? Who the hell at Central Command is fucking with my mission? I will have some asses when I get back!”

  A massive spotlight flicked on from the lead helicopter, drenching them in bright light and causing the men to frantically flip up their NVGs.

  Borbikov’s fury gave way to the realization that these were not, in fact, his helicopters after all. “Cover!”

  Men leapt to their feet and lunged for their weapons. Borbikov stumbled back over a stack of plastic equipment cases as he drew his own GSh-18 9mm pistol.

  He righted himself quickly, shouted the order to fire, and began squeezing off rounds from his handgun at the approaching helos. As he did this, green 7.62mm tracers blazed upward from the clearing, fired from the AKs and targeting the approaching aircraft. The spotlight arced away quickly as rounds met their mark and the pilot of the lead helo took evasive action.

  The response from the second helo was immediate. A fusillade of cannon fire from its 20mm pods slammed into the middle of the clearing.
Explosions, spark showers, and flying shrapnel sent the Russians sprawling in all directions, the clearing offering them no protection from the incoming rounds.

  The spotlight raked back into the clearing as the first helo sighted the area with its cannons. The light jerked and danced around the area—the gun pods shook the aircraft as they fired, making it difficult to keep the spotlight in place. More explosions rocked the center of the Russian force, demolishing equipment, fraying fiberglass cases, tossing bodies through the air like rag dolls.

  But the gunfire from the ground continued as well, and both helos had to break off the attack.

  Three Russian soldiers sprinted to the edge of the forest and turned around to face the enemy in the air, and soon three RPG-30 “Kryuk” rocket grenades streaked skyward. Two missed their target, but the other struck home. A blast and a small ball of flame in the night sky encouraged the missilemen, and all three reloaded quickly.

  The aircraft pulled pitch and roared back, barreling left as it did so. It was followed by the second helo, which weaved wildly through the air to hamper the enemies’ aim. One more rocket from the Russians narrowly missed the retreating aircraft, both of which dipped below the escarpment of the distant Bohemian cliffs.

  “The one in the rear was smoking!” yelled a soldier.

  “I have wounded, over here . . . I have dead!” said another.

  Borbikov climbed back to his feet, surprised to be both alive and uninjured. “We’ll all be dead if we don’t prepare for action! Those helos that hit us could be carrying troops. Captain, send teams to cover the area from the forest, and more men up into the tower. Our extraction will be here soon.”

  The captain and the rest of his men began collecting weapons and gear. The wounded who were able to move under their own power dealt with their injuries on their own and then joined in. Those too badly injured to get up just lay there alone, unattended in the snow.

  The 20mm cannon rounds had damaged much of the Russian equipment. Small arms and a few machine guns were quickly amassed and divided as the team split into two groups. The captain took four men with him to the tower, and Borbikov led five men into the forest to the west of the tower to set up a defensive position.

  * * *

  • • •

  French special forces Captain Apollo Arc-Blanchette moved up the hill through the forest, shrouded by the darkness, the trees, and a heavy winter mist that crept down from the mountains. The men with him moved as silently as their captain, using their night-vision equipment and throat mics to stay together.

  They’d been dropped off by one of the French Super Cougars fifteen minutes earlier, and they’d climbed silently but quickly the entire time.

  Apollo pulled the NVGs back and looked at the sergeant and the other men gathered there in the woods, three hundred meters below the tower. “Sergent-Chef Dariel, we’ll take your team and flank the tower off to the right.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything from Escadrille 3 on their second aircraft?”

  “She’s down hard, sir, but there were no serious injuries. Sergent Coronett has his team coming up a small deer trail. He says he’s five minutes out.”

  “Good. Make sure he doesn’t unmask himself and walk into the clearing. You can bet the tower and even the woods will be filthy with Russians. I want him to set up a machine-gun support section at the edge of the wood line while we flank from the right. Also, place snipers in the trees. We’ll stay in touch on the squad radios and connect our attack as they provide suppressive fires.”

  “Got it, sir. Relaying now.”

  Apollo crept forward to see what else was visible in the night. Small flames flickered on the far side of the clearing, near the road that led down the mountain. The light made the tower ahead on his right appear to shift demonically, twisting in the spitting flames of the flares. In moments the fires petered out, and the tower, the clearing, and the restaurant were once again plunged into total darkness.

  This gave Apollo an idea. “Hey, Dariel.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I have an addition to the plan. Collect 40mm grenades from the men here, leaving each man with one. Give the rest to Coronett when he arrives to distribute to his team.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ten minutes later Apollo knelt in the snow at the edge of the forest, held his throat microphone, and spoke in a soft whisper. “I have mark in two minutes. All teams roger up that you are set in your attack positions.”

  “One Team, ready,” said Dariel.

  “Two Team, ready,” said Sergent Coronett.

  “Three Team, ready,” came the call from the mortar section.

  Apollo and the men of One Team hunkered lower and awaited the start of the fireworks.

  Twenty seconds before the timeline, a soft whump . . . whump could be heard. Then three seconds and another five whump sounds. One Team knew these were the sounds of the support team’s mortars firing off. They had perfectly calculated the time of flight of the 47mm mortars and their own hand-launched 40mm grenades to land simultaneously.

  Apollo and his men stood quickly from the snow and swept back their NVGs, replacing them with their darkened snow goggles. Right on cue, three French 47mm mortar shells exploded in bright light on the grounds on the far side of the tower. Forty-millimeter grenade flares joined their bigger brothers, bathing the back and sides of the tower in an impossibly brilliant white light.

  Apollo and his men advanced rapidly in the shadow of the tower on the opposite side of the light. The flares would blind the defenders, who were likely scanning the area through their NVGs. The French captain knew Russian Spetsnaz prided themselves on having the latest fourth-generation gear, but it would be to their detriment now, enhancing the flares’ light and robbing the men of their night vision.

  The effect would be fleeting, but it allowed Apollo and his men enough time to advance more than two hundred meters in darkness. They sprinted across the clearing and the driveway in front of the tower, aiming for a wall near the tower’s base.

  A single sniper shot rang out through the cold night from the top of the tower, and one of Apollo’s men fell in the snow. While two dragged the wounded soldier toward the cover of the building, the rest of the group hammered the tower with suppressive fire.

  The flares burned out one by one, fizzling as melted snow extinguished them, once again enshrouding the scene in darkness.

  Apollo and his men arrived at the wall, lowered their goggles to their necks, and replaced their NVGs over their eyes. Knowing most of the Russians would still need a few minutes to regain sight in the darkness, even with the aid of their night vision, the French now owned the night.

  The Dragoons wasted no time; a breacher hammered the hinges off the frame as six men waited stacked behind him. The door crashed in and one half of One Team, led by Dariel, entered through the tower door. They surprised two Russian troops inside, killing them both with their suppressed submachine guns.

  Apollo and the other half of the One Team men moved cautiously around the sides of the wall, closely scanning the opposite wood line. In moments a fusillade of fire illuminated the dark pine forest as the Spetsnaz men positioned there opened up.

  Apollo and his men dove for cover while his own support unit in the trees, back on the eastern side of the tower, identified the location of the enemy in the forest. French FN Minimi light machine guns opened up, blazing fire onto the Russians’ position.

  CHAPTER 28

  ELBE SANDSTONE MOUNTAINS

  CZECHIA

  25 DECEMBER

  0159

  Rounds ripped through the trees, red tracers making laserlike lines in the air as they zipped over and around Borbikov, forcing his head lower into the snow and rocks.

  “Captain, you must shift fire to that wood line!”

  “Yes, sir!” yelled
the captain, who knew enough to shift his guns without being told, although he didn’t dare talk back to the colonel.

  The team radioman shouted over the incoming and outgoing gunfire. “Colonel, Captain, I have our extraction team up on the net. They are en route; they report they are five minutes out. They want to know where it is safe to land.”

  “Give me that radio,” demanded Borbikov, seizing the handset. “You are to land no more than one hundred meters away from our position! There is a logging trail to the south. You will put all three aircraft there.”

  “Yes, sir!” came the response.

  * * *

  • • •

  A battle between snipers had begun. Two Russian marksmen, using the open fifth floor of the stone tower and the crenellated walls, fired down on the French machine-gun forces two hundred meters away. In turn, three French snipers in the trees kept up slow but steady return fire, rushing the men in the tower and keeping them cautious and inaccurate.

  Apollo and his portion of One Team used the cover of a low wall alongside the driveway. From this position, they were able to keep up a deadly cross fire on the Russian position in the woods.

  “Hand me the hook.” Apollo reached up as the radioman inched around the stone wall to give him the radio handset.

  “Three Team, stand by for polar fire mission for the mortars. Adjustments will follow.” Apollo used the tactical radio, not wanting to chance the mortar team being outside of squad radio range.

  “Copy. Standing by,” came the swift reply.

  He gave them a simple call for fire based on the flares they’d launched moments earlier. The mortar team would have to make a fuse adjustment to fire high explosives, but the ranges would all be tight.

  Seconds later Apollo heard a soft crump as a high-explosive mortar crashed in the woods. The impact seemed well beyond and far to the left of the Russian machine-gun position, but the fire momentarily skipped a beat.