The Ten Thousand (2 page)

Scott Dixon, at age forty-six, was a complex man who had the ability to deceive those who met him with an easygoing manner. Physically he was equally unpretentious. A casual observer standing on the street corner of any large American city would never pick Scott Dixon out of a crowd as the commander of four thousand men and women. His five-foot, ten-inch body and medium build would be classified as average. The 170 pounds he carried about were well distributed, although there was a hint of a spreading waist when he wasn’t wearing baggy fatigues or an oversized parka like today. Even if the observer were to look at Dixon’s face from a distance, there wouldn’t be anything of special note other than the fact that he wore his hair shorter than the average American male and his face still failed to betray the forty-plus years his body had clocked. Even the facial expression that would have betrayed his personality and emotions was carefully hidden from view. The only external feature that differentiated Scotty Dixon from any other middle-aged American male was his eyes. His eyes betrayed Scott Dixon.

Like many veterans who had seen war and knew that they had not yet seen their last, his eyes were often fixed in a sad faraway gaze. On those rare occasions when he allowed his mind to wander, the sadness in his eyes would deepen and glaze over with moisture as his mind’s eye passed before him again and again a parade of faces and horrors of wars past. It was these memories and Dixon’s determination to ensure that the parade didn’t grow any longer that gave him the drive that made him a successful combat commander. And it was the sad realization that regardless of what he did, regardless of how successful he was, the parade would grow. For Scott Dixon knew that the one cruel hard fact that endured through the ages was that war meant killing and not all the killing was done by your side. It was this sad truth that gave Scott Dixon the one external characteristic that marked him as something different, something special. So Dixon, like so many other commanders in the past, stuffed his personal thoughts and emotions into a dark corner of his mind and revealed to friends, subordinates, and superiors only what they expected.

The crunching of snow behind him caused Dixon to turn as he absentmindedly finished tying his hood’s drawstrings. It did not surprise him that it was the Russian colonel making his way up the hill to join him.

Further down the slope Dixon could see his operations officer, also wearing a white parka, standing where they had parked their humvees. Cerro and the Slovak Army officer that served as their translator and liaison officer were talking to an angry farmer who had come up to chase them off his land. Cerro would, he knew, join them as soon as he had calmed the farmer down and sent him on his way.

As the operations officer for Dixon’s brigade, Cerro spent, in his opinion, far too much time tied down at the brigade command post. Never missing a chance to get away from there and given a chance to play rifleman, crawling about in the snow, mud, and dirt, Cerro was, therefore, quite put out when Dixon had left him to deal with the farmer. Looking back down the hill at Cerro, Dixon smiled to himself and shook his head. Strange breed, the infantry, he thought. Of course, he totally discounted the fact that he, despite his twenty-two-year career as an armor officer, never passed up a chance to crawl around and play rifleman. Before turning back toward the border, Dixon noticed that Cerro had a white helmet cover, a commodity in even shorter supply than the white parka. Where in the hell had Cerro gotten that? More importantly, Dixon wondered, were there any more?

While the tall Russian colonel eased himself down into a kneeling position next to Dixon, Dixon turned his mind away from the trivial concerns of parkas and helmet covers to the matter that had brought these four men and their drivers to this spot. Between deep breaths and his efforts to pull the white hood over the brown pile cap he wore, Colonel Anatol Vorishnov spoke in a sigh, half to himself, half to Dixon.

“This snow, it will be the death of me one day.”

Twisting his head toward Vorishnov, Dixon raised an eyebrow. “I thought you guys loved winter and the snow. You know, General Winter, General Mud, and all that stuff.”

Vorishnov laughed. “You, my friend, are a victim of propaganda and popular myths. When the wind blows, my nose and toes grow cold, like yours. And the snow pulling at my ankles is no lighter than that which you plow through. Unless, of course, one waits until someone else has beaten a path through it, like you just did.”

Smiling, Dixon nodded. “Ah, now I understand why you took your time before following.”

“We Russians, Colonel Dixon, at times seem to be dull and slow, but we are not stupid.”

“Never thought you were, Colonel. Are you ready?”

Vorishnov grinned and motioned to Dixon. “After you, Colonel.”

“Somehow, Colonel Vorishnov, I thought you’d say that.”

“Do you think, Colonel Dixon, that your young major will be able to convince our curious Slovak farmer that we are simply sightseeing?”

Dixon smiled. “Not to worry, Colonel. Major Cerro is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute.

That makes him more than qualified to fabricate tall stories.”

Realizing that Dixon was still joking, Vorishnov smiled. There was a special affinity between Harold Cerro and Scott Dixon. Though both conducted themselves in a manner befitting the proper relationship between an operations officer and his commander, their regard for each other ran much deeper. Had they been peers, Vorishnov knew they would be best of friends. As it was, the conversations between Dixon and Cerro sometimes left one in doubt as to who the subordinate was and who the commander was. But then again, Vorishnov reminded himself, this is the American Army. They, he thought, had their own ways, not all bad, not all good. The one habit that both Dixon and Cerro seemed to share was a sense of humor that at times seemed inappropriate and irreverent. After having served in an army racked for a decade by social and political change, Vorishnov enjoyed the humor as much as Dixon did and participated whenever possible. “I thought in your country only the Irish could tell stories?”

“Yes, that is true. The Irish are gifted in that way. That is why Cerro had to go to a special school to learn.” Looking over to the west, Dixon grunted. “We are losing the daylight. If we wait for Major Cerro, we will see nothing.”

Vorishnov looked at the setting sun and agreed. “Yes, it would be a shame to come all this way for nothing.”

Slowly Dixon began to make his way to the crest of the hill. It was a strange world that Dixon found himself moving through that evening. Even now, as his mind leafed through a mental file that stored the many concerns of command and the impending operation, Dixon could not escape the irony of the situation in which he found himself. Twenty years earlier, as a second lieutenant of armor, Dixon had been assigned to a unit tasked with defending West Germany against an attack from Soviet-led Warsaw Pact forces. It was east of Fulda, in central Germany, where he made his first trip to the border for recons.

Then he commanded five M-60A1 tanks, tanks that could reach the breathtaking speed of twenty miles an hour on a downhill slope with favorable tail winds. His men wore the old-style World War II helmet, and the adversary he was looking for was Russian. Now, Dixon thought, the political situation and the world were moving as fast as the M-1A1 Abrams tanks that equipped the two armored battalions in his brigade. And his adversary today was as different as the uniform he had worn. Had someone told Dixon during his days at Fulda that he would be leading a combat command into the Ukraine, and using a serving Russian officer as an advisor, he and his fellow lieutenants would have considered him nuts. But it was about to happen.

When Dixon and Vorishnov reached the crest of the hill, Dixon was struck by the beauty of the scene before him. In many ways the mountains, forests, and high pasture lands, all blanketed in heavy snow, reminded Dixon of southern Bavaria. Even the small farmhouses and barns that dotted the countryside looked the same from a distance. But this wasn’t southern Germany. This part of the world was, for the United States Army, new territory. The southern rim of the Carpathian Mountains dominated the horizon to their left and front as far as the eye could see. To their right, the forested and snow-covered foothills of the Carpathians slowly gave way to the Alföld plain, which eventually led into Hungary. Dixon, with a degree in history, understood the significance of what was about to happen and dwelt on that thought as he and Vorishnov settled down to study the border, which now lay less than one hundred meters from where they were. After a quick scan with their naked eyes, both men in silence hoisted their binoculars up and began to study the wire fence, the anti-vehicle ditch, guard towers, and the border crossing.

Except for the thin trail of smoke slowly curling up from the stovepipes in the guard towers and the guard shack at the border crossing, neither man could see any sign of unusual activity. There was no evidence of new excavations or weapons emplacements. Satisfied that there would be no surprises at the border trace itself, Dixon trained his binoculars on the road that ran from Slovakia into the Ukraine.

There was nothing to indicate that it was mined or that any preparations had been made to crater it. After watching a Ukrainian customs official casually pass a truck overloaded with pigs without even bothering to check the papers the vehicle driver waved from a partially opened window, Dixon lowered his binoculars. He took one more look from horizon to horizon before he spoke. “Well, either they don’t know we’re coming or they are the coolest customers this side of the Rhine.”

If Vorishnov didn’t quite understand the term Dixon used, he understood his meaning. “Yes, I agree. It would appear, Colonel, that the buildup of Russian forces along their northern and eastern borders has fooled the Ukrainians. We will have tactical, and possibly operational, surprise in the morning.”

Dixon glanced over at Vorishnov. He liked the big Russian. Forever correcting Dixon and his officers on the correct pronunciation of the names of Ukrainian towns, cities, and rivers, Colonel Vorishnov had an easygoing manner while maintaining a professional bearing and conduct. He was, Dixon thought, very Russian, never missing a chance to tell anyone who would listen about the greatness and beauty of his native land. Nor would Vorishnov’s pride allow him to miss the opportunity to remind the Americans of the role that the Russian Army was playing in this operation. Although the only Russians who would actually enter the Ukraine during the upcoming operation were the advisors serving with all American units, it was fear of the Russian Army deployed along the northern Ukrainian border that would paralyze the bulk of the Ukrainian Army and allow the Americans to seize the two nuclear weapons depots near Svalyava. If nothing else, Vorishnov gave Dixon a peer, another officer of equal stature outside the normal chain of command, in whom he could confide and with whom he could compare ideas and thoughts. That Dixon would be glad to find a friend and confidant in a Russian officer was another sign that the world they were living in was, as Dixon’s wife, Jan, often mused, “getting curiouser and curiouser.”

Satisfied that he had seen all that there was to see from where they were, and noting the long shadows cast by the guard towers, Dixon nudged Vorishnov. “Well, I’m sold. Our friends down there aren’t expecting us.”

Without looking at Dixon, Vorishnov continued to study the border trace with his binoculars. “No, no.

I don’t believe they know what is about to happen. You should have a good morning tomorrow morning.”

Dixon grunted. “It’s not tomorrow morning and crossing the border I’m worried about. It’s the road from Uzhgorod to Mukacevo that gives me the willies.”

While still holding his binoculars up, Vorishnov twisted his head toward Dixon. “It is pronounced Moo-kay-see-vo, Colonel. And yes, I share your concern about that part of the operation. I still believe you are sending far too small a force south to block the Ukrainian armored brigade garrisoned at Uzlovaya. You are, in my humble opinion, placing too much reliability in your attack helicopters and the skill of the commander of that blocking force. I do not agree with your lovely young intelligence officer’s assessment. After you strike across the border and move east, the Ukrainian brigade at Uzlovaya will move north to strike your exposed flank, not northeast to shield Mukacevo. And when that happens, you will need to shift portions of your main body south to deal with them. When that happens, you will find yourself involved in a meeting engagement in which they, operating on their own territory, will have the advantage.”

Used to Vorishnov’s corrections, Dixon let the comment about Mukacevo pass. But he defended his decision to use just one company as a blocking force. “Yes, I can understand your concern. Under most circumstances, I would agree. In this case, however, I feel justified in taking, what you consider, a risk.

Captain Nancy Kozak, the commander of the blocking force, is a proven commodity. Even if the attack helicopters are grounded or diverted, we will have more than enough artillery in support to give Kozak the edge. Besides, with only two tank and two mech infantry battalions, I can’t afford to disperse my force to protect against threats. If the Ukrainian armored brigade becomes a danger, then we’ll deal with it.”

Dixon paused, waiting for Vorishnov’s response. Vorishnov, however, said nothing. He knew from Vorishnov’s expression that the Russian remained unconvinced. The idea of placing that much confidence in an officer as junior as Kozak was to Vorishnov’s mind foolish. But he said nothing, for this was not his brigade. He, Vorishnov told himself, had said his piece. Dixon, the commander, had made up his mind and was, he realized, prepared to pay the price if he was wrong.

When Vorishnov said nothing, Dixon sighed. I guess, he thought to himself as he looked at Vorishnov, old habits and ways of thinking are hard to break. With a shrug, Dixon looked away from Vorishnov and back at the border crossing before he spoke. “I think, Colonel, we are finished here. Let’s head on back and see what the young’uns are doing.”