8:25 PM – 22 March, 1979 — Ramstein Air Force Base Main Gate, Frankfurt, West Germany
“Christ, now they’re sitting in the fucking thing,” Jorge compined, watching as the gate guards took turns climbing into the stolen car. Paul wasn’t positive, but it looked like a Lamborghini Countach. Bright orange. Loud as sin.
How someone thought they could steal a car like that and get away with it was a mystery. It wasn’t like you could just park it in your driveway and expect no one to notice.
Moron, Paul thought of the man who’d already departed the scene in the back of a Frankfurt police car.
As he watched, Paul noticed a shift in the guards’ behavior. Someone in uniform had come out and spoken to them. A few seconds ter, pytime was over. One of the guards began walking the line, stopping at each civilian car, speaking briefly with the driver. Most turned around or continued down the broad avenue.
The line shortened quickly to just military vehicles. A few minutes ter, the orange roadblock was winched up onto a ftbed tow truck and hauled away.
Jorge rapped twice on the partition to alert the six men in the back. Then he caught something in the jeep just ahead of them.
“They’re not wearing their caps,” he said, pointing.
“Hats off!” Paul called out as he yanked his own from his head. He wasn’t sure if the Army and Air Force had different rules, but better not to take chances.
“Nice and easy,” Jorge muttered as they rolled toward the checkpoint. “We’re just a bunch of American imperialist murderers returning from our daily rape and pilge.”
Paul rolled down the window.
“What’s going on?” he asked before the guard could speak.
“Some terrorist assholes hit an Army base in Schweinfurt,” the guard replied. “We’re on heightened alert.”
“Was that before or after you got to sit in that orange piece of Italian artwork?” Jorge asked, recognizing the guard as the first one to take the Countach’s driver’s seat for a test drive. “Leather seats? How’d it feel? Did you get to start it up?”
The guard’s face broke into a grin. He and Jorge traded car talk for a few seconds—makes, models, top speeds—until the driver of the truck behind them bellowed from his window.
“Hurry the fuck up! I gotta piss like a fucking racehorse!”
“You guys should’ve impounded it,” Jorge said, still grinning.
The guard ughed and waved them through. “Maybe next time.”
They rolled past the gate.
Where before—at the training mock-up—there had been plywood walls and spray-painted lines, there were now real streets and real buildings. Jorge gnced back just in time to see more vehicles and men arriving. It looked like the next truck in line was going to be searched.
They’d gotten through by the skin of their teeth.
With a little help from a stolen car.
“You!” a tall man with an MP armband shouted at Sabine. “Stand still!”
The charges had been set on a five-minute timer. Sabine should have been ready for them—but she’d lost track of time. When they went off—sending a shockwave and shards of steel and rubber from the tracked vehicle in every direction—she bolted from her hiding pce and ran. That’s how the fshlight beams found her.
She didn’t need to fake the shaking. Her body was doing that on its own. Her hand trembled too much to shield her eyes from the light.
“Show me your hands! Walk toward us! Nice and slow!”
Her legs carried her most of the way, but she colpsed four feet from the two men, who now had their weapons leveled at her.
“S-s-s-o-o-r-r-y,” she stammered, head between her knees. She hadn’t eaten in twelve hours—which was the only reason she didn’t vomit.
One of the men approached, fshlight beam steady.
“Are you hurt?”
“N-n-o-o. No. J-just. Sc-cared.”
“What’s your name and unit?”
At least she’d prepared for that.
“S-s-ally C-c-onner. B Company, 35th Transport Battalion. God. I’m gonna be sick.”
“Hang in there, Conner. What were you doing out here this time of night?”
She swallowed hard, focusing on her breathing. And her story.
“M-m-meeting my b-boyfriend.”
“His unit?” the man asked—not unkindly. Her fear was real. He just didn’t know why.
“2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry.” She drew a full breath for the first time. It felt like heaven.
He lowered the fshlight and offered a hand. She rose unsteadily, finally seeing his colr pins—three stripes.
“You guys need to stop having sex in the APCs,” he said dryly. “You should know that.”
She nodded, but remembered not to salute.
“Yes, Sergeant. Did you find my boyfriend? His name’s Mike. Michael. Cruze.”
He shook his head. “All we found were dead terrorists. Check in with your unit, then look for your boyfriend. And get a fucking room next time.”
“Yes, Sergeant.” She wasn’t sure whether to say thank you, but before she could decide, the two men turned and resumed their sweep of the motor pool.
She walked away, toward the nearest building—then angled toward the fence. Once she stepped off the concrete pad, the shadows swallowed her.
The main gates offered nothing. Her path to freedom y ahead.
The question was: did she have enough strength in her arms and legs—and adrenaline in her blood—to scale a ten-foot fence?
She would have her answer soon enough.
“Ma'am, you need to step away from the perimeter!” The man said for the third time. The look on his face convinced Ada that she wouldn’t get a fourth warning.
She held up her hands. “I just want to know if my boyfriend is OK. His name is Aric. That’s his barracks right there.” She nodded to the long building on the left. He’d taken her through it once. She couldn’t imagine living in a pce like that. Not for all the whatever in wherever.
“Ada!” A man called from somewhere inside a cluster of men dressed for combat. She’d never seen so many weapons, not real ones, not this close. Her skin shivered in response.
A familiar face emerged from the group. But her mind drew a bnk when it came to his name.
She realized that she still had her hands raised and lowered them. “Is Aric OK? We heard the gunfire, and then the explosions.”
He was tall, nky. His coarse dark hair was hidden under an American style steel helmet with a camoufge covering. He held an M16 in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“He’s fine. He’s still inside. It was only second ptoon that got called out. But you shouldn’t be out here. This might not be over.”
Both gates were closed, and there had to be close to one hundred men in the square. All armed, all with grim faces. Ada thought that anyone would have to be crazy to attack a force like this.
“You really think they’ll try again?” she asked the man.
Robert! she finally remembered. His friends called him Robot because he ate like three men but never gained weight.
Robert shrugged. “They might drive by and spray the square with automatic fire. You don’t want to be standing there if they do.”
For some reason she couldn’t expin she was suddenly on the verge of tears, and her voice was a half sob.
“I just want to know that he’s alright.”
Her tears finally escaped. The guard turned away, giving them as much privacy as possible while still keeping the street in clear view.
Robert stepped up to the fence and reached through the wrought iron balusters. He took her hand and gave it a friendly squeeze, the cigarette in his mouth sending up a trail of smoke that made his eye squint.
“I guarantee he’s fine.” He let go of her hand, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and then pointed to the barracks.
“He was standing in that window a while ago. Watching us. He must have got bored and went back to his room.”
Ada drew a deep breath and wiped her eyes. She was about to say thank you but was interrupted by a commotion. It moved through the group like wind passing over stalks of corn. It reached them quickly.
“They’re attacking Ramstein Air Base!” someone shouted to Robert.
Ada suddenly doubted that Aric was still in his room. Without thinking, she looked up—her head tilting back as her eyes scanned the sky.
“What are you looking at?” Robert asked.
I’m looking for Aric. Flying west. To Frankfurt.
“Nothing.”
Sabine dropped to the ground, her impact softened only slightly by her feet. She came to rest on her left hip with an unintentional Ma— sound escaping her throat. Quickly, she scrambled upright and began walking stiffly south along Franz-Schubert-Stra?e. She cut through a parking garage, doubling back north once she’d put distance between herself and the base that had killed her comrades—but not her.
She slowed as she neared Niederwerrner Stra?e.
Still in her stolen American uniform, her face and hands bore scratches from climbing the tall wrought iron fence. Dirt streaked her sleeves, and the acrid scent of gunpowder clung to her skin. Her cover would only hold if she didn’t run into someone from the unit she cimed to belong to.
At the intersection, she gnced left and right. To her left: a nearly empty Vietnamese restaurant. To her right: an ice cream café, with a cluster of American GIs in uniform outside, all facing the base.
Sabine ducked into the restaurant, eyes low, avoiding contact. In the restroom, she scrubbed her hands and face until the water ran pink. When she reemerged, she was cleaner—damp in patches, but at least presentable.
“Thank you,” she said to the waiter as she left. She smiled, waved, and hoped he’d forget her face.
As she neared the group of Americans, she adjusted her hair and cap to match one of the women. She slid into their orbit just as one of the men spoke.
“How much longer, you think?”
“No idea,” another replied. “Let’s see if Donny learned anything.”
A few minutes ter, a GI approached from the direction of the barracks. Sabine drifted to the edge of the group, positioning herself behind the rgest man. Her scraped hands ached with each heartbeat. She resisted the urge to hide them in her pockets—none of the others were doing so.
“All the terrorists are dead,” Donny said, “but they’re not letting anyone in. Conn’s closed too. Ramstein’s getting hit as well. Brass are losing their shit. The fucking MP pointed a weapon at me—even though I stitched up his hand two weeks ago.”
“Damn,” said a Bck woman nearby, stretching the word into two sylbles. “What are we supposed to do—sit here and eat ice cream all night?”
“The shuttle’s still running. Askren Manor and Yorktown Vilge only,” Donny said. He pulled off his cap and ran a hand over his head. “This is seriously fucked up. Dead bodies in the motor pool. They were dressed like GIs, but they had AKs. People are stranded everywhere—no way back to base. Not here, not Conn.”
“Dr. Lemon lives in Yorktown,” the man in front of Sabine said. “I helped him move in. Maybe he’ll let us crash there.”
He turned—and saw her.
“Whoa. Sorry, missy. Didn’t see you there.”
He smiled, and she took a calcuted chance. She smiled back.
“I’m easy to miss.”
“You stuck out here too?”
She nodded. “I was at the Vietnamese pce.”
He offered a rge hand. “Rodney.”
Her smaller one disappeared into his. “Sally.”
“Not with anyone, Sally?” he asked, hope bleeding into the question.
She shook her head. Any port in a storm… “Just me. Dinner for one.”
His smile widened. He still hadn’t let go of her hand.
“Well, you’re welcome to come with us. Looks like we’re in this together.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “yes we are.”
The door opened and Green’s face appeared.
“Ammo in here?” he asked as he scanned the room.
“Not here," Tisk replied as he stared at the chess board that separated him and Bobby Lee.
“His girl was at the fence a while ago looking for him. Maybe he snuck out to be with her,” SP4 Robert E. Lee suggested.
“I would if she were my girl,” Trujillo said. Lee was about to put his hand on his rook but stopped when Trujillo shook his head.
West stood up from his bunk quickly and began to pace. “He’s ghosting again. Fucking gives me the creeps.”
“You need to stop smoking so much dope,” Nick Tiscarro said. “It’s melting your brain. He’s probably just in the trine.”
“He’s ghosting I tell you. I know it.”
“No,” Nick said as he stood up deliberately and stepped towards the Okhoman. “You don’t. You don’t know. You don’t know shit.”
But Nick did know. He’d seen it—felt it—himself. The impact of the car had propelled him twenty feet. He’d been drunk, but not enough to even begin to dull the pain. He could hear someone screaming but it took him a second to realize that it was him. His mind still bore details of that night. The stars in the sky. The cool of the cobblestones against his back. The pain. And then Aric’s face above him, and his voice.
“Look at me, buddy. You’re gonna be OK. He barely touched you. Got it? Remember that. He. barely. touched. you.”
But mostly what Nick Tiscarro remembered was the glow that began with Aric’s hands before spreading to him. With that glow came an end to the pain, and a feeling of warmth. He’d felt calm, serene even. Almost like he’d just woken up from the best nap in his life.
You’re gonna be fine, Ammo’s voice said again, though this time it sounded sort of strange. He barely touched you.
Standing in the rge room filled with metal bunks and lockers Tisk stared at West and pointed a finger at him.
“Say it.”
West had been there. So had Trujillo. But they hadn’t moved a muscle to help him. Only Aric had. Afterward—despite the blood on his clothes—he and Aric had convinced them—and the driver—that it was just a scratch. Mostly convinced. West was stubborn as a mule.
“I don’t know shit,” West said finally.
Tisk opened his hand and patted West on the cheek.
“Good man.”
The door opened again and Sergeant Housewright’s face appeared.
“Anybody seen Ammo? His girlfriend keeps calling the CQ’s desk.”
Nick took his pce at the chess board, giving West a final gnce.
“No,” West answered.
