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The men accepted this speech as elite troopers usually did, in total silence. Chosen most of all for their intelligence, each of them knew that the speech was merely that. The mission depended largely on luck, and their luck had already gone bad. Every one of them wished that Major Chernyavin were there, and wondered if somehow the mission might have been blown. One by one, they set these thoughts aside. Soon every man was reviewing his part in the mission to destroy Lammersdorf.

The drivers were KGB agents well experienced at working in foreign lands, and wondering exactly the same thing. Both vehicles stayed together, driving conservatively, wary of vehicles that followed them. Each had a scanner radio tuned to the local police frequencies, and another for communicating with each other. The KGB officers had discussed the mission an hour before. Moscow Center had told them that NATO was not yet fully alerted. The lead driver, whose regular cover job was driving a taxi, wondered if a "full" NATO alert meant a parade through Red Square.

"Turning right now. Car three, close in. Car one, turn left at the next intersection and get ahead of them." Colonel Weber spoke over a tactical radio of the sort used by FIST-fire-support team-units. The ambush had been ready for several days now, and as soon as their targets had emerged from their safe house, the word had been flashed all over the Federal Republic. NATO establishments already on alert were brought to full battle-readiness. This could only be the opening move in a shooting war... unless, Weber admitted to himself, they were simply moving from one secure place to wait further in another one. He didn't know which way things would turn, though surely it had to begin soon. Didn't it?

The two trucks were now in a rural part of Western Germany, driving southeast through the German-Belgian Nature Park, a scenic route often traveled by tourists and sightseers. They had chosen this side road to avoid the military traffic on the major highways, but as they passed through Mulartshutte, the lead driver frowned as he saw a military convoy of tanks on low-hauler trailers. Strangely, the tanks were loaded backwards, with their massive guns facing aft. British tanks, he saw, new Challengers. Well, he hadn't expected to see any German Leopard tanks on the Belgian border. There had never been any possibility of preventing a German mobilization, and he tried to convince himself that the rest of the NATO countries had not moved as quickly as they could have. Ah, if this mission were successful, then NATO's communications would be seriously damaged, and maybe the armored spearheads would indeed come to rescue them. The convoy slowed. The driver considered pulling around them, but his orders were to be inconspicuous.

"Everyone ready?" Weber asked from his chase car.

"Ready." Bloody complex op, this, Colonel Armstrong thought. Tankers, SAS, and the Germans all working together. But worth it to bag a bunch of Spetznaz- The convoy slowed and stopped at a picnicking area. Weber halted his car a hundred meters away. It was now in the hands of the English ambush team.

Flares erupted around the two small vans.

The KGB driver cringed at being in the center of so much light. Then he looked forward to see the barrel of the tank just fifty meters ahead of him rise from its travel-rest and center on his windshield.

"Attention," a voice called in Russian over a megaphone. "Spetznaz soldiers, attention. You are surrounded by a company of mechanized troops. Come out of your vehicles singly and unarmed. If you open fire, you will be killed within seconds." A second voice began speaking.

"Come out, Comrades, this is Major Chernyavin. There is no chance."

The commandos exchanged looks of horror. In the lead vehicle the captain started to pull the pin on a grenade. A sergeant leaped on him and wrapped his hand around the captain's.

"We cannot be taken alive! Those are our orders!" the captain shouted.

"The devil's mother we can't!" the sergeant screamed. "One at a time, Comrades-out with hands high. And be careful!"

A private emerged from the back door of the van, one slow foot at a time.

"Come to the sound of my voice, Ivanov," Chernyavin said from a wheelchair. The major had told much to earn the chance to save his detachment. He had worked with these men for two years, and he could not let them be slaughtered to no purpose. It was one thing to be loyal to the State, another to be loyal to the men he'd led in combat operations. "You will not be hurt. If you have any weapons, drop them now. I know about the knife you carry, Private Ivanov... Very good. Next man."