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The Russians were three miles east of where Jensen’s platoon would attempt to enter E48. And the Bradleys were four miles north.

While Jensen and the remnants of his platoon plowed through the night toward an inevitable meeting with the massive Russian column, he wondered out loud, “How the hell did this happen?”

CHAPTER 7

There’d always been that 20 percent in both the East and West who refused to accept the changes occurring at the end of the first Cold War. Instead of joining the new world, they continued on with a policy of fear and suspicion. In the East, they seized the opportunity a struggling Russia created. A new hatred was born, stronger and more resolute than ever.

This was a prideful people with a thousand years of history. And the degradations, real and imagined, felt by their ultimate defeat by the West in the last half of the twentieth century lay heavy upon far too many souls.

That was never more evident than by the aggressive, dictatorial actions in the second decade of the new millennium by the Russian President Vladimir Putin. While his nation’s economy floundered and his people’s suffering spread, he focused his single-minded attention on rebuilding a vast Russian military whose evolving power was capable of threatening even the strongest of his country’s neighbors.

Russia steadily drifted away from the tantalizing promises of a democratic society and back toward those dark, terrifying days of repression and dread.

What Putin didn’t understand, however, was that his actions would much too soon lead to his own ruin. As yet another crippling recession appeared to ravage the world, the unrest within his disjointed country soon grew well beyond his control. He’d been caught in a vise squeezing in from those on the left, who found themselves unable to feed their children, and those on the far right, who demanded he take even more extreme action to reclaim Russian’s rightful place as the ruler of Eastern Europe.

That churning turmoil would quickly erupt into an all-consuming civil war.

Six years prior to Russia’s surprise attack on that bitter German January night, the country had fallen. What they’d failed to win at the ballot box, the Communists and Nationalists rose up to claim in the streets. The coup was intense and bloody. The cruelty knew no bounds. Hundreds of thousands died. The lovers of democracy fought with the resisters of change to determine the destiny of the Eastern world. In the end, the West stood helplessly watching as the disheartened masses chose an ineffective, but familiar, Communist system over one that promised them a future filled with uncertainty.

It was over in a matter of weeks. When it was finished, the Communists had reclaimed their rightful place.

From the chaos of the new government emerged Cheninko.

He’d always been there—an unnoticed, second-tier leader of the Communist Party. In the confusion that followed the civil war, Cheninko saw his opportunity and struck. He seized power and held on to it with a viselike grip.

He’d been only seven when Stalin died. Yet in his mind’s eye he remembered Stalin’s years as the truly glorious ones for the Soviet Union. So he returned Russia to those dark and terrifying times. Purges, repression, and murder became Cheninko’s path to attaining his vision of the new Russia. He knew, however, that his world would never be complete without the strength of a unified Soviet Union. And like his countrymen, he could never rest without the security of a communistic East to buffer his country from the frightening power of the West.

The brutal dictator’s biggest obstacle in reaching such a goal was NATO’s incursions into the East following the first Cold War. Many of those he needed to return to the Soviet sphere were firmly entrenched in the Western military alliance. He knew if the Russians invaded a NATO member, the Americans would have no choice but to fiercely respond to crush him. If he was going to succeed, his country would have to appear to have no direct role in the internal struggles and civil wars designed to topple the democratic leadership of the East one by one.

Aided by the same allies that had helped in the conquest of Russia, Cheninko’s agents began harvesting the seeds of discontent in the countries of the East. Rivers of blood soon flowed. And again, the results were the same. Within two years, even the most progressive countries of Eastern Europe were back under the Communist thumb.

Within days of the Communists’ return to power, each country withdrew from NATO and rejoined the Warsaw Pact.

A new Cold War, more gripping than ever, reached out a frozen fist to dominate the planet. The fences went back up. East and West were separated once more. A curtain of barbed wire and steel, mistrust and misunderstanding, seized the northern half of this tiny world.

Still, Cheninko wasn’t satisfied. For he was convinced that Russia had yet to reclaim the preeminent world position that was rightfully hers. There was one thing standing in the way of obtaining that lofty goal.

Unified Germany.

The savagely horrific stories Cheninko had been told of the last world war were as vivid as if the battles had occurred yesterday. He knew Russian children could never sleep soundly in their beds as long as there was one Germany. In the previous world war, over twenty million Russians had lost their lives at the hands of a ruthless German invader bent on conquest. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

The Russian nightmare could never be quelled without putting an end to the threat a unified Germany posed to Mother Russia.

Cheninko’s single-minded purpose became separating the Germans, East and West, one last time.

His plan for conquest took form.

Cheninko had two powerful assets in East Germany. He would call upon both to return the East Germans to their proper place. First, just as there had been in Russia and Eastern Europe, in every major city there still existed a loyal cadre of East German Communists. Just as importantly, under the provisions of the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements, Cheninko had demanded and, after much saber rattling, received the right to return ten thousand Russian soldiers to East German soil.

The plan was simple. Cheninko would utilize these resources to realize the same result he’d effected throughout his Communist empire. He would disperse the gospel of dissatisfaction once more. He would use his eager band of German Communists to spread his brand of truth. And when the time came, ten thousand of his finest soldiers were waiting inside enemy lines to sway the battle. He was certain he wouldn’t fail. With his sword of propaganda, he’d sever the German brothers.

Once again, blood would flow in the streets of Europe. This time, however, Cheninko would watch with great satisfaction, for the blood would be German.

What Cheninko couldn’t comprehend, however, was the obsession the Germans held for the day their defeated country would be whole once more. The Russian nightmare presented by a unified Germany was matched by an equally vivid German nightmare that their country would again be torn apart. In the German mind, once the two Germanys had become one, nothing on earth was going to rip the East from the West’s hands.

• • •

The time had come to finish the job—the time had come to return East Germany to the Soviet sphere. Cheninko’s orders went out. First, his Communist cadre would take to the streets with banners, leaflets, and speeches. They would deride the policies of the West. They would point to their inability to care for their families without the jobs the latest recession had stolen from them. They would call for a general uprising to throw off their oppressors and return to the old ways. More than anything, they would search for an opening to create incidents of violence while looking the part of the innocent victim. It was a formula Cheninko had used on many occasions.

Cheninko knew it would be a few hours, a few days at most, before such an event would occur. The Communists would then put down their banners and pick up their stones and sickles.

Cheninko was right. In April, nine months prior to the beginning of the war, on the second day of their “peaceful” protest throughout all of East German

y, the justification the Communists needed appeared. It happened in Leipzig. A small group of men, women, and children “innocently” found themselves face-to-face with a roving band of neo-Nazis ten times their size. A push, a shove, a placard smashing a shaved skull, and the battle for East Germany had begun. The Leipzig police were slow to respond to the unanticipated crisis. Before it was over, three Communists, including a six-year-old child, lay dead.

Thousands took to the streets. In every city in the eastern half, with red banners held high, they staged “spontaneous” and “peaceful” protests intended to be neither spontaneous nor peaceful.

“The fascist murderers must be brought to justice!” they cried. There was blood in their voices and menace in their hearts.

“The fascists must be rooted out and destroyed!” they screamed.

“Long live the proletariat! Long live the Communist brotherhood!”

The battles were soon being fought. And blood did flow in the cobblestone streets of Germany. Each side justified the perversion through their own warped perceptions of the world.

The Germans of the West watched in horror as civil war struck like lightning in the East. When the German government’s attempt to control the slaughter failed, Cheninko was certain his vision of the new world would soon be complete. In a short time, East Germany would be his.

Cheninko was convinced the bloated West would always be more concerned with holding on to its riches than in holding on to its East German brothers.

He was very wrong.

For two months, a civil war of unspeakable horror raged in the East. Sabotage, terror, and murder became the realities of East German life. The tide of battle swung decisively toward the Communists. Their victory was nearly complete.

It appeared to be over.

But much to the surprise of all involved, it wasn’t nearly so.

CHAPTER 8

Enter the German savior—Fromisch.

From the depravity of the horrendous conflict, he arose. Manfred Fromisch, fifty-two-year-old leader of one of the strongest pre–civil war neo-Nazi sects. He was an evil man of no more than five feet. His deformed body was every bit as twisted as his ravaged mind. But his vision of the world was just as strong and compelling as Cheninko’s. Fromisch brought order to the bitter struggle’s chaos. He brought the Nazis back to prominence.

On the brink of losing the East, the new Führer was born. He marched out his brown-shirted thugs and defeated the Communists at every turn. His brilliance at orchestrating the horrific little battles of the narrow streets and dirty alleyways knew no equal.