Free Anvil by Dirk Patton Page B

of a circle and two Bradley fighting vehicles bracketed the
camp.  The sounds of the battle were loud and we couldn’t have been more
than half a klick from the front. 
    Blanchard
ran to where a Major and two Captains were leaned over a large, plastic covered
paper map.  All three of them had radios pressed to their faces, listening
to reports and shouting orders as they made marks on the map with grease
pencils.  A little old school, but then so am I.
    I stepped
behind the shortest man and looked over his head at the map.  To the
uninitiated it looked like uncontrolled mayhem, the symbols they were drawing
appearing to mean nothing.  But they did mean something, and if you knew
how to read them they told a story.
    And it
wasn’t a good story.  The Russians were spread across a five-mile front
and had both light and heavy armor supporting them.  The Infantry Division
was spread thin, but appeared to be holding the higher ground.  The
Marines had broken through enemy lines to the north, flanking a company of Russian
armor, but they were now pinned down. 
    Two
companies of Rangers were holding fast, using the terrain to their advantage,
but another was in serious trouble.  They were flanked on two sides by
Russian infantry and were in danger of being encircled as a spearhead of light
armor and ground troops pushed ahead.
    Another
company of Rangers was trying to reach them, but had made contact with the
largest concentration of enemy armor.  They were stalled, unable to make
progress.  I turned my radio on, the shouts and screams of men in contact
with the enemy immediately filling my ear.  I listened for a few moments,
sorting out who was who as I kept studying the map.
    Rachel
stepped up next to me and grabbed my injured hand.  She’d apparently found
a medic kit, probably in one of the Hummers.  While I studied the map, she
splinted and taped my broken fingers.
    “Going to be
a bitch handling a rifle with that,” I mumbled to her without taking my
attention off the map.
    “I’m sure
you’ll figure it out,” she said, applying a final piece of tape and stepping
away.
    “Pull them
back!”  Blanchard said to one of the Captains, stabbing a point on the map
where there was still a chance for the company in dire straits to escape before
being completely surrounded and decimated.
    “No comms,”
the man replied.  “We can’t reach them.”
    “Send a
runner,” Blanchard shouted.
    “We’ve sent
two.  Neither made it.  Third’s on the way, but we’ve lost contact
with him.”
    Everyone
ducked as a pair of A-10s roared overhead, seemingly low enough to count the
rivets in their skin.  The sounds of rifle fire, light automatic weapons
and high explosives seemed to be coming closer.  From farther away there
were several explosions as American and Russian jets joined in aerial
combat.  Two hundred yards to our front, a pair of Apaches were hovering only
feet above the ground.
    They were
screened from the battle by a low hill, using the sensor suite mounted above
their rotors to see over the terrain and select their targets.  As I
watched, they popped up in unison.  Clear of their cover, each fired two
hellfire missiles at targets I couldn’t see. 
    Before they
could drop back into protection, one of them exploded as a Russian missile found
it.  The other jerked sideways, away from the blast, making it to
safety.  The shockwave ripped over us a second later, nearly knocking
everyone to the ground.  The smell of burning aviation fuel came with the
wave of heat that arrived moments after.
    “Goddamn it,
get a squad out of Charlie Company in there to pull these men out.  What
do we have available for air support?”  Blanchard shouted to be heard.
    “All ground
attack air assets are fully engaged with their armor and we will lose the MEU
if we re-task,” the Captain I was standing behind answered.
    “A-10s?” 
The Colonel turned to the other Captain who I realized was wearing an Air