Red Inferno

CHAPTER 29

I mmediately upon his return from Iceland following his daylong conference with Colonel Tibbetts, Burke found himself held incommunicado at SHAEF headquarters. He was given no tasks and told not to talk to anyone or leave the compound. Meals were brought to him by an unsmiling cook and he had his own bathroom facilities. He had been ordered by Beetle Smith, who still did not know anything but the roughest outline about his assignment, to prepare notes and thoughts. Very soon after, he’d had a one-hour meeting with Eisenhower, who listened thoughtfully, then took Burke’s notes to read at his leisure.

Burke wasn’t surprised that the high command wanted him out of circulation so that he would not even inadvertently tell about his trip. The secret he had been told in Iceland had been so vast and significant that the knowledge of it had almost rendered him speechless. Thus, Burke felt a degree of anticipation when Beetle Smith entered his tent and returned the stack of papers Eisenhower had taken from him.

Smith was subdued. He had read them and understood their significance. “Burke, there will be a meeting in half an hour at Ike’s conference bunker. You are to be there and you will bring these papers. Eisenhower has made a lot of his own notes, but he feels he may have to call on you for something specific. Now, there will be a lot of very senior officers there, so you know exactly how you are to behave, don’t you?”

“Absolutely, General. I am to sit with my hands folded in my lap and I will not speak unless called upon by my betters.”

Smith grinned. “I knew I could trust you.”

The meeting was held in a sandbagged and heavily reinforced underground bunker that was as bombproof as such a place could be. Even though the Red air force had crumbled, there were still enough scares to make such security efforts a good idea, and there was always the fear that a suicide bomber might try to plunge through.

Of the other men in the room, only the scarred Godwin was even remotely of Burke’s own relatively low rank. Godwin winked, an incongruous act considering his lack of eyelids, but said nothing. Like Burke, he took a seat in the rear. The furnishings ranged from folding chairs to overstuffed couches.

Eisenhower, Bradley, and Field Marshal Alexander were the most senior officers present. Simpson, Patton, and Smith were the only other men who weren’t either a field marshal or a full general. It was a fairly exclusive meeting of the Allied high command, and one the Russians would have loved to have bombed. After only a few moments, the room was thick with cigarette and pipe smoke. The ventilation system was totally inadequate and the air turned stale very quickly.

Eisenhower began the conference by giving them a ten-minute summary of the atomic bomb and its estimated capabilities. The others were stunned and there were exclamations of shock. While there had been suspicions regarding the possible existence of a super-weapon, the extent of its potential destructive power left them incredulous. Even though Burke would have bet good money that Bradley had already been informed, he apparently hadn’t, as he too looked surprised and even dismayed. Burke was also flattered by the fact that Ike’s information was almost word for word from what Burke’s notes had said.

“Gentlemen,” Ike went on, “we believe that we have, in this bomb, a weapon that can shorten, if not end this war. We have been ordered by the president to use it at our discretion. All we have to do is decide when and where.”

Ike looked to where Burke was seated. “A few days ago, I sent Colonel Burke to meet with Colonel Tibbetts, who will fly the plane that carries the bomb. The information I received from Colonel Burke is the basis for this discussion and he is here if he is needed to amplify anything. While I will welcome all comments, the final targeting decision is mine.”

Patton spoke. “I guess we can assume that this atomic bomb will be used in Brad’s area since that’s the main thrust of the Commie attacks.”

“Correct,” said Ike. “Further, we have only three bombs, so it is imperative that we use them wisely. By the way, the physical size of the bomb is so great that it can be carried only in a B-29. The bombs will be loaded at one of our bases in England.”

Bradley still looked concerned. “Logically, that leaves the Russian perimeter to the west of the Weser. Since their high-water mark at Dortmund, they have pulled back about a third of the way to the river and there are several areas where there are very large concentrations of men and tanks.”

Everyone glanced at the map. It showed a Russian perimeter that was still seventy-five miles wide at its thickest point near the Weser, and between sixty and seventy-five miles deep, depending on the curvature of the river. The American forces shown were not in direct contact with the Russians. It had been Ike’s choice to not engage in force until the bomb was used.

The map also showed that Patton, to the south of the perimeter, had reached but not crossed the Weser. Farther to the east, one lonely marker indicated the besieged garrison at Potsdam. Burke thought it interesting that the map showed no attempts at advances from the British and Germans who had crossed the Kiel Canal north of Lubeck and Hamburg and were probing the Soviet armies.

“Ike,” asked Bradley, “just how on earth does Tibbetts plan on delivering one of these things safely? If that B-29 should crash with the bomb on board, there could be a catastrophe.”

“Brad, there’s always some risk, but the scientists and Tibbetts have gone out of their way to minimize it. The bomb will not be fully armed and ready for detonation until just before they approach Russian-held territory. Some very brave or foolish man in Tibbetts’s crew has volunteered to do the final assembly while the plane is actually airborne.”

Patton chuckled. “How about both brave and foolish.”

Ike continued. “For some time now, Tibbetts has been misleading the Russians into thinking his planes were for harmless photoreconnaissance purposes. He has been flying them at high altitude and in groups of three, and the Reds have been ignoring them for the past couple of weeks. In one way, they have been lulled to sleep, but it also reflects on their lack of fuel and planes. They probably consider attacking Tibbetts’s few B-29s a waste of their limited resources. There will be a high probability of success that he will deliver the bomb safely and accurately.”

“But will it go off?” Field Marshal Alexander asked. “And will we not be giving away all our secrets if it does not?”

“There is an altimeter in the nose of the bomb,” Ike said. “When it registers that it is just under two thousand feet from the ground, it is supposed to detonate. If that fails, or if the bomb just doesn’t work, it is our fond hope that it will be destroyed when it impacts the earth. We are, however, very confident that it will detonate. We just don’t know exactly what the results will be. Tibbetts will be dropping the bomb from an extremely high altitude to protect himself and his planes. Since pinpoint accuracy is not essential, this is an acceptable tactic. It’s hoped that the distance he can gain by banking and diving while flying away before the bomb goes off will save him and his crew from destruction. For safety reasons, I will be grounding all of our planes that day and I will be ordering all our men to stay heads down at a certain time of that day to protect themselves from burns and blindness.”

“You won’t possibly reach all of them,” Bradley said sadly.

“I know,” responded Ike. “I know.”

Alexander seemed nonplussed. “Gentlemen, I find it difficult to comprehend that a plane flying at nearly 32,000 feet and at a speed of 320 miles an hour might be in danger of damage from a bomb it drops nearly a minute earlier.” He looked at Eisenhower for a correction to his statement. There was none. “Great God,” he murmured.

Patton looked distressed. “Explosions, burns, even blindness from the glare are things I can understand, but what the hell is this radiation thing you mentioned? It sounds like some goddamn death ray.”

Ike checked his notes and decided to defer. “Burke?”

Steve stood up. His knees were shaking. Even though it was intoxicating, he still wasn’t used to this kind of audience.

He focused on Patton. “Sir, as you doubtless know, atomic material in the bomb, uranium, gives off invisible rays called radiation. In years past, people died from what they thought was harmless radiation, such as those workers who applied radium to watch faces to make them glow in the dark. I was told by Colonel Tibbetts that a couple of scientists developing the bomb in New Mexico got exposed to radioactive material and died after becoming quite sick. He said the effect is very much like some kinds of cancer. What the scientists don’t really know is exactly what the effects will be when an explosion takes place and the radioactive material within the bomb is disseminated over a wide area, making anyone and anything in that area radioactive to the degree that they are exposed. Tibbetts said that some of the scientists believe that the effect will diminish to nothing within a couple of days, while others feel that the effects could linger on for years, even decades. Perhaps,” he said, suddenly aware of the utter silence in the room, “for centuries.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Patton. “That’s not war. That’s fucking slaughter. Burke, are you implying that the ground that the bomb radiates might not be livable for years, even longer?”

“Yes, sir. At least, that’s what some scientists feel.”

“And what about the people affected by this radiation?” Bradley asked, his face pale. “Will all of them die?”

“General, there is the strong possibility that many apparently unhurt people will sicken and die within a couple of months, while others might not show the effects for years.”

Bradley was stunned. “And we’re going to use this thing, this death ray?”

Eisenhower responded and was firm. “Yes, Brad, we are. Truman has ordered it and I concur. We all believe that the current pause is just so the Reds can resupply and that they’ll commence their attacks as soon as possible. Using the bomb will save American lives, and that’s all there is.”

“What do the Germans know about this?” Alexander asked.

“Very little,” Eisenhower admitted. “We told them we were going to intensify the bombing in the area and that there would necessarily be many civilian casualties. They accepted that.”

Patton chuckled. “Gawd, are the Russians going to be surprised. I just hope we can someday drop one right down Stalin’s throat.” Burke noted to himself that Patton had quickly gotten over any reservations regarding the use of the bomb.

The discussion then focused on the matter of selecting a specific target. Alexander wondered whether conventional carpet bombing of an area wouldn’t be as effective and less sinister than an atomic bomb. Ike agreed to a point but insisted that the shock value of a single atomic bomb would be so much more effective.

Within the Russian perimeter west of the Weser, there were three major areas of concentration. Ike reviewed the virtues of each and decided on the northernmost area and that the bombing would occur as soon as possible. The next morning if it could be done. All were in agreement that the sooner the terrible bomb was used, the more devastating the effect would be, as the current massive troop concentrations could easily disperse.

With that, the meeting began to break up. Burke was concerned. The generals had missed a point.

“General Eisenhower,” he said, “may I speak?”

This earned him a deadly glare from Beetle Smith that told him whatever he was doing had better be worth it.

“About what?” asked Ike.

“Sir, it’s about the Russian command psychology and how using the bomb might affect that.”

Eisenhower, who had risen, sat back down and smiled slightly. “All right,” he said and turned to the others, who had paused. “Gentlemen, before joining us Burke was General Marshall’s resident expert on the Soviet Union and, most particularly, an expert on our antagonist, Josef Stalin. He is also the man who brought Marshall the warning that the Reds were going to attack the Potsdam column what seems an eternity ago.”

Burke saw many eyes staring at him with surprise. Even Patton seemed respectful. “General,” he began after taking a deep breath, “the Russian command structure is very tightly controlled. The Russians are taught to obey their orders and not to deviate from them. In the past, anyone who deviated in the slightest from Stalin’s orders was dismissed, even executed.”

Patton whistled. “What a nasty bastard. And he was our ally?”

Burke continued. “When their war with Germany started, most of the Russian generals were sycophants who had survived on their loyalty to Stalin, not because of their military abilities. Stalin is a pragmatist, so, when the defeats began to pile up, he replaced those toadies with real generals like Zhukov, but the psychology of the structure remains the same. You obey your orders, no matter what they are. Disobedience can be fatal, even if that disobedience results in victory. Stalin cannot stand the thought of a rival.”

Ike leaned forward. “What will happen after the war to men like Zhukov?”

“Sir, Zhukov and others have been given considerable latitude in order to win the war against Hitler, and now against us. As a result, they have become personalities and heroes. In my opinion, they will either be banished or executed when their usefulness is over.”

Patton laughed. “Shit, I think I prefer our method of retirement, even with the lousy pay.”

After the chuckles stopped, Ike asked Burke just how that would affect their target selection.

“Sir, if you can take out their commanders as well as cause casualties, the survivors will be a leaderless mob until such time as Stalin is able to correct things. If the bomb is as good as it is supposed to be, that might be never.”

“Burke,” said Bradley, “are you suggesting we murder Zhukov and other leaders?”

“Yes, sir,” he responded without hesitation.

“Why not?” chided Patton. “They’re all soldiers, aren’t they? Didn’t we go after and kill Yamamoto in the Pacific? And didn’t we spend some tense moments last December when it appeared that the Nazis were going to try and kill Eisenhower?”

Ike tapped the table with his pencil. “Brad, do we have a good idea where Zhukov is?”

Bradley nodded. “Yes. The OSS people we left behind have reported that he is with Chuikov and they are just east of Paderborn. We can’t pin it down to a precise place, but we are pretty sure they are in the center cluster, not the northern one. It makes sense when you figure that the center is where Zhukov’s old command is.”

“Then,” Ike said grimly, “it’s decided. We hit the center group. Brad, see if you can get more specifics on Zhukov’s possible location and convey them to Tibbetts. I still want them hit tomorrow, if possible. The sooner we kill Russians, the more Americans are saved.”

The generals left the bunker, and Burke found he was almost alone. “Now you’ve gone and done it,” said Godwin. “You’ve given yourself a place in the history books, at least the larger ones. Not bad for a clerk or scribe,” he teased, “but do you really understand what you’ve caused?”

“I’m not certain,” said Burke.

“To begin with, you’ve just been instrumental in determining the place where the weapon that will change war and history will be used.”

“That I understood.”

“But, by helping to change the target from the northern group to the middle one, you also just condemned men who were scheduled to live to instead die a horrible death, while others, whom Ike had previously determined would die, get to extend their lives. In short, you’ve played God, just like a real war leader. Rather much for a university professor, wouldn’t you say?”

Burke walked up the stairs and into the night. It had gotten dark since the meeting started. He walked briskly to his tent. He would have to write down everything that had transpired at this meeting before his memory dimmed. Somewhat against regulations, he had been keeping a journal since that fateful night in Washington when the Russian colonel slipped him the message.

If the atomic bomb did work and wiped out the Russian command, his comments could have indeed affected history. What would Natalie think of what he had done? And, he thought, what about his future students? They would be told as well. What would their reaction be? Would they consider him a hero or a murderer? Suddenly, he had doubts.

He could hide behind the fact that the ultimate decision was Ike’s, but his comments had affected the choice of where the most horrifying weapon in mankind’s history would be used. He had the feeling that the date of August 6, 1945, was going to go down in history.

A macabre predictability developed regarding the Russian artillery barrages at Potsdam. Although infrequent, the bombardments always began during the night and shook Logan and his men out of their sleep, so that they spent the rest of the night either cringing from the shells or awaiting the infantry attack that they all knew would someday follow. With the fighting on the Weser coming to a head, it seemed logical that the Russians would soon decide to end the siege of Potsdam once and for all.

But the bombardments, although heavy, came at intervals. The shells would land all along the defenses and then the Russian artillerymen would walk their following rounds through the perimeter and in the general direction of the river. It was as if, lacking solid knowledge of specific targets, they were going to try to destroy everything. As before, American counterfire was limited to specific targets to conserve ammo and not give away the guns’ locations. The American command wondered if the Russians had gotten more ammo or they were using up all they had.

By midafternoon it seemed apparent that this day’s softening-up process would continue for a while, although the outposts had noted no signs of any major Russian troop movements in the direction of the American positions.

“We got us another lull,” said Bailey. He was covered with dirt from earthshaking near misses, as were Logan and the others. “You gonna check?”

Logan was in agony. Were they safe? But could he leave his men?

“Lieutenant,” snapped Bailey in a low voice the others couldn’t hear, “get the fuck out there and find out. All of us want to know. You’re not the only one who likes her.”

Logan darted from the bunker and found one of his men’s bicycles undamaged on the ground. He mounted and pedaled furiously to where Elisabeth and Pauli had been sheltered in the basement of a church. When he arrived, there was a crowd around the entrance and there were bloodied bodies on the ground.

“No,” he said, and then he saw Lis and Pauli, bedraggled but unharmed, standing a short distance away. He dropped the bike and ran up to them, and they hugged.

“What happened?” he asked, although the answer was fairly obvious.

“Part of the roof collapsed under the shelling. It was terrible. The screams of the injured were awful and the blinding dust made helping them almost impossible. So many are dead. It was just like Berlin.” She started to shake, and he held her again to calm her.

After a moment, Logan grabbed her arm and she pulled Pauli along. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” she sobbed.

“If I can’t find anyplace else, I’ll take you back to my bunker.” At least, he thought wryly, the roof had held up so far. The sight of the ruined shelter confirmed his worst nightmare. The military bunkers were far better constructed than those for the civilians, and the carnage among nonmilitary personnel was bound to be awful.

The three of them ran, painfully aware that the Russians could begin shelling at any time. They were in the misleadingly calm eye of a military hurricane. Suddenly, Logan stopped and stood in amazement. An airplane was coming straight down the street at him. It was Ames the reporter in his Piper Cub. He had found a stretch of level ground and was planning to take off.

“He’s leaving,” yelled Logan. He ran directly in front of the slowly moving plane and waved. Ames, looking pale and confused by the interruption, stopped, but did not cut the engine.

“Get out of my way, soldier.”

Logan opened the passenger door and grabbed Ames by the arm. “You’re taking two people out of here.”

“Bullshit, this plane is full.”

Logan pulled his pistol, cocked it, and placed it next to Ames’s skull. Ames paled and tried to pull back. With his free hand, Logan yanked on Ames’s duffel bag and threw it on the ground. “I say this plane has room.” Logan grabbed another sack and flung it to the ground.

“Hey,” screamed Ames, “some of that stuff doesn’t even belong to me.”

“Tough shit. And don’t move this plane when I take this gun off your head. If you even try, I’ll put a bullet through you or that gas you got stored in the back. If it goes up, you’ll be just another large grease fire.”

Ames glanced back at the stack of five-gallon cans loaded for extra fuel, gulped, and nodded reluctant agreement. Logan picked up an unprotesting Elisabeth and pushed her into the plane. Then he handed her Pauli, and the boy settled in on Elisabeth’s lap on the seat behind Ames.

“Now,” Logan snarled at Ames, “get the fuck out of here.”

A relieved Ames needed no further encouragement. Logan stepped away as Ames turned the little craft in the direction of the clear ground. Logan stared as Elisabeth looked at him through the small window. Neither attempted to say anything. He tried to memorize her pale and frightened face. It had all been so sudden, and one way or another, she and Pauli were actually leaving Potsdam.

The Piper Cub picked up speed and quickly lifted off until it was about fifty feet off the ground, then it began to settle back down. Logan screamed in horror, thinking it was going to crash, until it steadied at the ridiculously low altitude of only about twenty feet and headed toward the river. It was barely visible when he saw it turn left toward Berlin. He understood Ames’s plan. The reporter was going to try to fly northwest toward the Danish border. That way he might stand a chance of staying out of the great battles to the west. As to the low altitude, it would help him stay invisible and avoid any conflicts he couldn’t possibly win. Logan could only pray that Ames’s skills as a pilot were up to the demands of flying at what was less than treetop height. He also prayed that he had done the right thing for Elisabeth and Pauli.

He heard footsteps pounding up to him. “I ought to court-martial your ass!” snarled an infuriated and livid Captain Dimitri. “That was a dumb fucking trick to pull.”

Logan stood up. “Guess what, Captain, I don’t really give a shit! I just hope I did the right thing for them and that maybe they’ll have a chance to live. You saw what happened at the church. The civilians are going to die. Maybe we’ll get lucky and become prisoners, but not them. Even if they survive the artillery, they’re going to get butchered if we lose. If I saved them from that fate, then anything you have in mind for me is okay.”

Dimitri stared at him, his anger quickly ebbing. “Go back to your bunker, Lieutenant,” he managed to say. “We stay out here any longer and the Russians are going to start shelling again. We’ll talk about it later. If there is a later, that is.”

Field Marshal Georgi Zhukov growled as the air-raid sirens went off again and then suddenly cut short, as if someone had pulled the plug. “What now?”

Chuikov put down a field phone and shrugged. “More American planes, comrade. Perhaps it’s our turn to be bombed. Shall we go to a shelter?” They were in the basement of a ruined farmhouse.

“How many planes?” asked Zhukov. He waited a moment while Chuikov asked for and got the needed information. Great waves of American bombers had been attacking to the north. These were fairly ineffective attacks, as his tanks were hidden and not parked in tight rows. Even so, they did cause damage. He needed at least one more day to complete the allocation of scarce fuel among the vehicles to ensure a continuation of their attacks on the American positions.

“Just three,” said Chuikov. “Probably those damned photo planes they send over every now and then. That is why the sirens cut out so quickly.”

Zhukov accepted the comment and dismissed the planes as relatively unimportant. Once again he pored over the maps of the area and how they tied in with the complex plan for the next series of assaults. He would not let the Americans rest and recover, even though his own resources were severely limited.

“Look,” someone yelled. “You can see them.”

Curious, Zhukov stepped outside and stared upward. He could just barely make out the reflection on the distant belly of the plane. “What kind of pictures can they possibly take from that altitude?”

Chuikov laughed. “I have no idea, comrade Marshal, but should we not smile and wave? Or better, I shall have our soldiers expose themselves.”

Zhukov smiled tolerantly at his protege. “Not now. And didn’t you say there were three planes? Where are the other two?”

A staff major was watching the sky with binoculars. “Two others peeled off a moment ago, sir. Oh, look, the bomber has dropped something.”

Chuikov was puzzled. It couldn’t be just one bomb, now could it? That made no sense at all.

Zhukov snatched the binoculars from the unprotesting major. He found the falling object fairly easily as it reflected light quite brightly. The plane was in a steep banking turn. Whatever the plane had dropped did look like it could be a bomb. But one bomb?

A feeling of sick dread seized him. What had he heard about the Americans and a secret weapon? A superbomb? The object seemed to grow as he watched it draw closer. He knew it was too late to flee.

At under two thousand feet in the sky, a second sun dawned with unprecedented fury. For many who saw it, whether they survived or not, it was the last thing their scorched eyes took in. Those farther away described it as a pink-white incandescent flare and an incredibly glowing orb. Almost immediately, there was a tremendous and deafening clap of thunder. It was followed by a howling, shrieking wind and a suffocating blast of heat.

Within a three-quarter-mile circle from the center of the explosion, everything died.

Outside the circle, the shock and heat destroyed structures and vehicles, started fires, and caused secondary explosions. The force took the debris it made and turned the most innocent of objects into lethal projectiles that seemed to seek out and penetrate screaming and terrified flesh. Above, the fireball turned into a churning black cloud that raised itself into the sky like a horrific, monstrous, living thing.

Almost two miles away, Suslov had been inside his tank, shifting supplies and ammunition. He shrieked when the light brilliantly illuminated him through the open hatches. Seconds later, he felt the tank lift up on its side as the shock wave slammed into it and flung him about helplessly inside. He felt something snap in his arm. With a crash, the tank righted itself and landed back down. Suslov screamed again as his shoulder smashed against the inside of the hull.

He waited a moment for the chaos to subside and for his breathing to become regular. What had happened? The most logical conclusion was that a bomb had landed nearby. Damn the spotters for letting a plane sneak in. And where the hell were Latsis and the others? And what on earth could be burning?

Cautiously nursing his broken arm, Suslov took several minutes to ease himself out the hatch and down onto the ground. The sights surrounding him were appalling. Bodies were everywhere, although some were twitching and trying to move or crawl. Despite the lack of fuel, many vehicles were on fire. A number of tanks were billowing black, greasy smoke, and ammunition was exploding everywhere. Worse and most frightening, he was in the shadow of a tower of flame and smoke that seemed to have engulfed everything in that direction. He froze where he stood, afraid to move.

“Latsis,” he finally managed to call. “Popov, Martynov, where are you?” They had been outside when the explosion occurred. He called again, finally getting a whimper of a reply. He moved as quickly as he could without jarring his arm. He found his crew just behind the tank, where what looked like Latsis was squatting on the ground, bent over two other figures.

Latsis looked up and gestured him over. There was a great brown-and-black burn on his face, and his shirt had been torn off showing other burns as well. “We are here, comrade. Come and look at us.”

Popov was clearly dead. A piece of wood had been driven through his skull. Young Martynov, if that was indeed him, was a horror. The skin had been burned entirely off his face and his teeth gleamed at them like a smiling horse. There were holes where his eyes should have been. Martynov kept trying to open and close his mouth as if he was trying to say something.

“Let me have your pistol,” Latsis said, and Suslov handed it over. He placed it against Martynov’s temple and pulled the trigger. “Goodbye, my friend,” Latsis muttered. The explosion was puny in comparison with what had caused the devastation about them and no one noticed, even though there were others walking about, most of them in an apparent daze.

“At least we don’t have to worry about Commissar Boris reporting us as malcontents,” Latsis said, waving feebly to his left. “He’s that smoking lump over there.”

Latsis helped put Suslov’s arm in a sling, but Suslov had nothing to help care for the other man’s terrible burns. The pain must have been agonizing. Even so, Latsis made it back into the tank and tried to start it. If they could, they might be able to drive it a few miles away from this awful field of death before they ran out of fuel. They were not in luck. It would not start. The shock wave had caused too much damage. For the first time, Suslov noticed that some of the tank’s paint had bubbled from the heat.

Latsis climbed out and shrugged. “I guess we walk.”

Suslov looked about him. “Can we make it back to Russia?”

They looked at the sky, which had darkened even more as what looked like rain clouds moved in. “No,” Latsis said. “And don’t even think about walking. We are much too weak. I guess we stay here and wait for our future, comrade.”

It began to rain. The drops were dirty, filled with specks of dark matter. Latsis said he felt dizzy and vomited.

Twenty miles to the west, Tolliver’s men had grumbled when they received the order to stay in their holes and keep their heads down for a period of almost an hour. Since the order was not accompanied by any explanation, rumors ran wild, as did a litany of complaints. The most logical rumor was that a Commie ammo dump was going to be blown and the soldiers might get hit by flying shells. The craziest was that Jesus was going to come down from heaven on a shaft of light while riding a white horse. Tolliver put his money on the ammo dump. He had long since decided that Jesus was nowhere near the front lines.

Tolliver was in his foxhole, squatting on his haunches and facing the rear as ordered when the area was bathed with an unholy brilliance. His first thought was that the rumor about Jesus had come true. Then he realized that there had been an enormous explosion somewhere in the Russian area. He waited a few seconds and stood.

“Unbelievable,” Tolliver muttered, and the soldiers nearby echoed him. The mushroom cloud was clearly visible as it formed and billowed on its way to the sky. Some of them actually saw the shock wave as it raced across the ground. Fortunately, by the time it hit them, it was a gust of air and virtually devoid of any power to injure. Even so, Tolliver called for a nose count to see if everyone was all right.

One GI was injured. The young PFC had caught a blast of light from a reflection off a mirror he’d had out to help him shave.

“I can’t see, Lieutenant.”

Tolliver and a medic checked the man over. “Can you see anything at all?” Tolliver asked as he looked in the boy’s eyes. There was no apparent damage, but his skin did look a little pink and flushed.

The boy blinked. “A little, sir, around the edges. But there’s a dark spot in the middle of my eye and I can’t see through it.”

The medic bandaged the boy’s eyes and guided him back to the rear. Tolliver looked into the distance at the cloud and wondered just what kinds of hell the Russians were enduring. He had no idea what had actually caused the explosion, but he was certain that it had been a bomb and not some kind of accident or natural event like a volcano. After all, wasn’t a bomb the best reason for the order to stay heads down?

Tolliver saw a vehicle about a mile away, in the Russian area. It looked like some kind of truck. From a distance, it seemed to move with exquisite slowness, but he realized it was going very quickly and was running all over the road as if the driver was in a panic. Or blind. Who the hell could blame him? Tolliver thought. The truck hit a rock and turned over.

For the first time, he felt a kind of sympathy for the Russians. What the hell was going on?