Advance to Contact

CHAPTER FOUR

A figure moved cautiously over the snowy forest floor north of Moscow, there was only a couple of inches on the ground, which in itself was unusual because as a rule this far north they received at least three times what would fall on western Europe. The thaw from the winter proper, had barely finished before the weather went crazy, decided the figure, but it was still bitterly cold all the same.

Hunkering down in the snow his one-piece hooded coveralls blended in with the white forest floor and he raised a thermal imager to his eyes, studying a building ahead.

Udi Timoskova had been nicknamed ‘Weasel’ very shortly after starting elementary school, and the name not only stuck into adulthood, it fitted too. A flair for burglary and a talent with all things electronic had brought Udi to the notice of the authorities, following a long run of thefts from the IT community. Udi would bypass the electronic security to gain entry to whichever site had the latest software and hardware, remove what he wanted and depart, carefully covering his tracks as he went. No evidence of the burglary was detected, but the losses were. Suspecting a crooked employee to be responsible, one firm installed a tracking device within its latest hardware products, and a young Udi Timoskova had been caught red handed.

The thefts had not gone unnoticed by the intelligence service, which viewed them potentially as a matter of state security, so Udi was visited in his cell and ‘rigorously interrogated’ to ascertain what, if any, threat to the state existed.

After four long days in custody Udi was given a choice, spend fifteen years as some lifers bitch or work for the state counter espionage arm, it wasn’t much of a choice really but it meant his ultimate goal of getting to the USA and starting his own private enquiry agency, was almost unreachable from that moment on.

He was a loner and once his trustworthiness had been established, then that was how he generally worked.

Since the start of the war his department had been exceedingly busy, bugging the homes of anyone the premier felt could possibly be a threat to his position, and that turned out to be an awful lot of people.

This present assignment involved someone who was away from the city, and if not at the premier’s side, then at his beck and call. The brief stated that the subject had some cause to return to the city on operational matters on occasion, so all possible haunts were to be covered. Udi himself could not see why the subject would come to their personal dacha, if he were that person he would spend as little time as possible away from the hardened bunker they’d come from.

The imager showed a totally cold building, and his other devices showed that infrared, ultra violet and ultra-sonics were not present either, not inside nor out. He could have wasted an hour or so looking for other detection systems, such as old-fashioned pressure pads just below the surface of the earth but it would have been a waste of his time. Packing away his various electronic gadgets he moved around to the driveway and simply walked straight up to the front door.

Gaining entry took but a few moments, and once inside Udi took out a digital camera, photographing all the rooms. He was disappointed that the interior had little by the way of luxury items, everything was basic and functional. One bedroom at the top of the stairs held nothing but a few plain chairs and a mattress on the floor, covered in a dustsheet, as was everything else in the building.

Udi would have preferred to use fibre optic to connect the tiny cameras and microphones to the telephone lines, but he did not have the time for that. He placed his remote devices where the dacha’s own electrical appliances magnetic fields would hide them from electronic sweeping, checked their batteries were full and then fixed his receiving device to a tree 50m away. From this he ran thin cables to a telephone cable junction box beside a road, and spliced them in before finally checking all was functioning properly. Returning to the dacha he again got out his camera, bringing up the images of each room he made sure everything was exactly as it had been before he had gotten to work and then he left, leaving no clue that anything was amiss.

From their orbit high above RAF Gütersloh, ‘Chain Gang’, a flight of four F-16s had escorted the Boeing VC-25A, tail number 28000, as it left Europe the way it had arrived, far lower than peacetime regulations allowed. The low altitude gave it the option of hiding in the ground clutter of radar returns if necessary. The further from the front it, and its escort travelled, it gained a little more altitude until passing Ireland it began a slow climb from 10,000’ to 30,000’.

Lt Colonel Arndeker, commanding the F-16s, was 2000’ above the Boeing with combat spacing between himself and his wingman, the second pair were in trail five miles behind. All aircraft were totally blacked out as an added precaution against interception, and an air exclusion corridor was being maintained. In another 230 miles the escort would tank and then himself and the pair in trail would head back to Germany, leaving one F-16 to continue on in company with the diplomatic flight to the States. They had drawn straws for that duty, as it meant the winner got to spend a few precious hours with loved ones before returning to the war. Even for the remaining three pilots it constituted something of a breather, the duty was in stark contrast to the previous sorties flown since war had raised its ugly head, this hop was almost boring in comparison.

Aboard the blue and white liveried airliner Senator Rickham was annoyed that a young woman in Air Force blue, and a mere Sergeant at that, was strictly enforcing a seat belts on, and no movement about the cabin rule. He had however managed to get himself seated in the Presidential office of the aircraft with the German Chancellor and British PM, playing the ‘Special Envoy’ and alluding to confidences greater than he actually had with the President. Both men were friendly enough but would only engage in subjects non-related to sensitive issues, even without the Presidents warning, there was little about Senator Rickham that inspired confidence and trust in the PM. Aside from the premiers and senior representatives of the governments, there were their aides and personal assistants, in all forty-two passengers had boarded in Germany and were now enroute to the first face-to-face summit since the war began.

The aircraft’s new tyre was less than 1/8^th of a pound heavier than it should have been, but had the bogus Herr Koenig known that the tyre would not be weighed as a security measure, it would have been heavier. Arndeker was taking a moment to look up at the heavens and admire the stars when he was brought sharply down to earth.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday… this is Military Flight One Four Eight, explosion in starboard wing, our position is… ”

Arndeker rolled inverted as the diplomatic flights AC read off the GPS position as displayed on the navigation panel, and looked straight down. He shouldn’t have been able to see the Boeing, all external lights were off as a precaution, but a tongue of flame was trailing from its starboard wing and illuminating it.

“Chain Gang flight, maintain positioning on Military One Four Eight, I am going down to him!” Pulling the F-16s sidestick back, he brought the nose down to point below the horizon, descending inverted so as to keep the airliner in sight.

The RAF AWAC for this sector of sky had been charged with the additional task of keeping the sky around the airliner clear as well as looking for potential threats, when they received the Mayday call their senior controller took direct charge. The UK and Eire coastguard were alerted and Air Sea Rescue scrambled a helicopter. The controller needed more information than they currently had, and with the Boeings crew fully employed trying to keep the aircraft in the air, an external damage assessment was the logical first step.

Arndeker had rolled level and was closing on the Boeing when his back-up radio came alive

“Chain Gang lead… this is Overview Four Nine on Guard!”

“Go ahead Overview.”

“We have you closing on One Four Eight, assume you are intending visual, over?”

“That’s a Rog… monitor Guard and relay to One Four Eight please.”

The airliners nose was about 5’ below the horizon in a shallow turn to the right. The fire was reduced to a fraction of what it had been when the emergency had first occurred and he allowed himself to hope that all was not as bad as it first seemed. Lt Col Arndeker switched back to the primary set and hailed the Boeing.

“Military One Four Eight, Chain Gang lead?”

He received a brief.

“Go,” and continued. “Chain Gang lead is approaching from your Six, slightly high and right for a damage look-see.”

“Rog… be advised that we are experiencing control problems… amongst a few dozen other items… possibly damage to control surfaces is the cause. Number Three is out, maybe due to lack of gas reaching it, but we have not attempted an engine restart at this time. Currently we have shut off fuel supply to that engine and we are pumping fuel to the port wing tanks from the starboard to try and re-establish trim… in case you were wondering, this turn to the right is none of our doing Chain Gang… We are aware of a hole in the upper wing surface… appreciate anything else you can tell us.”

“Roger One Four Eight, a little light on the subject would assist.”

There was a momentary pause, and then the exterior of the aircraft began to light up as anti-collision and landing lights came on.

“Thank you One Four Eight, monitor Guard while I relay observations to Overview Four Nine.”

“Roger.”

The F-16 had closed to within a quarter of a mile and maintained its position there as the aircraft commander updated him; he now increased power slightly and closed, keeping clear of any debris that may come off the aircraft. The flames had disappeared but he was very conscious of the fact that substantial amounts of fuel were in tanks within that wing, so although his approach was not gingerly, it was cautious, the whole aeroplane still contained over 40,000 gallons of fuel, 800 plus barrels worth.

From above, it was clear that the aerofoil shape of the wings upper surface had been badly distorted from the wing root to within a few feet of the starboard inner, the number three engine. There was a gaping hole about three feet across, some eight feet from the wing root, and the wing was bulging upwards, almost blister like around it. Arndeker began relaying this to the RAF AWAC, all the while trying to match the Boeings involuntary turn, which was varying by degree from moment to moment. The aircrafts wings clean silver finish was blackened and burnt from the wound in the wings upper surface, back to the trailing edge, where a slight movement caught his eye. Nudging in closer, he could see that the nearside end of the starboard aileron was effectively clamped in place by buckled aluminium in the damaged area; it could only be raised and lowered slightly. He could see the aileron moving fractionally, in response to commands from the cockpit but unable to comply fully. He also voiced doubts that the flaps could be relied upon, when the time came. The F-16 pilot wondered how well a standard Boeing would have fared under the same circumstances.

There was much about this 747-200B, actually designated as VC-25A that was not fitted as standard, from the ECM suite to the self-sealing fuel tanks, which were effectively rubber bladders with a polymer shell. They didn’t stop the tanks from being pierced, but the rubber walls let the offending item penetrate and closed up behind it. Should the object carry away plugs of the rubber then the first trickle of fuel to touch the polymer shell would cause a chemical reaction as it reacted to leaking petroleum by first becoming gum-like, swelling and then hardening, sealing the hole. Even a tracer round would have little detrimental effect, as there was no air inside the tanks to allow an explosion to occur. The fuel tank nearest the seat of the explosion had been pierced by shards of jagged metal travelling at 1000 feet per second, and absorbed both they and the impact of the blast-wave, which would have sundered a standard fuel tank. The fuel line to the starboard inner engine had been severed and the fuel ignited, it was only prompt action by the USAF crew in cutting off the feed to that engine that had prevented the fire spreading. With the engine, a General Electric CF6-80C2B1 shut down; it was no longer adding its potential of up to 56,700lbs of thrust, so it was now a lump of metal causing more drag.

Arndeker let down a few feet to see the underside of the wing, edging in closer because there was little in the way of white light to help his inspection, just the sweeping amber glare of the rotating anti-collision beacon on the aircraft’s belly. If anything, the damage from below was more obvious, the wheel bay doors were missing, and here too the wing shape was distorted, a large bulge marring the otherwise flat surface. Jagged aluminium edges protruded like the teeth of a predator at its centre, where the wheel bay had been located. Moving underneath he peered up into the gaping maw where the starboard gear should have been.

“Overview, Gang Lead… I don’t know if anyone ever tried landing one of these on just the port wing and belly gears, but there isn’t much left of the starboard undercarriage… whatever happened, it happened in the starboard wheel bay.” Everything he was saying was being recorded, and design engineers were being woken up at home in America and collected by police cars for fast runs to their workplaces. He kept up his commentary until there was nothing else left to report, and then he backed away to a safe distance and called up the Boeing again.

“Military One Four Eight, Gang Lead?”

“Go Gang.”

“How are your control problems now?”

“Well as you can see, we’ve so far turned through one eighty once and are well on our way to doing it again… port tanks are about full, so we are going to commence a fuel dump from the right side… its restoring trim slowly.”

“Roger… any thoughts on how you are going to put that thing back on the ground?”

“So far we seem to be limited to shifting fuel from wing to wing and throttling back individual engines in order to steer… a guy put a DC-10 on the ground, after a fashion, at Sioux City a few years back, steered by altering trim this way. He wasn’t able to get even close when he tried duplicating it in the Sim, and neither has anyone else… so I’ll take a rain check on replying to that one Gang.”

Arndeker checked his altitude, they were down to 27,000 feet, and the 747 still had a slight nose down attitude.

“Roger that… are you able to get the nose up?”

“Fella, we’re both hauling back like son’bitches in here… next step is to move passengers toward the rear of the cabin, and hope that helps.”

Arndeker gained a few feet in altitude to stay clear of the fuel that would be entering the slipstream from the damaged wing.

Sergeant Nancy Palo entered the Presidential office and smiled at the occupants, the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister received the genuine ones, but Senator Rickham’s was of the strictly professional variety.

The PM returned the smile.

“Sergeant, are you able to tell us what is going on yet?”

“Prime Minister, one of the escorts has looked us over and there has been some kind of explosion in the starboard wing wheel bay. It has damaged that wings control surfaces and fuel lines to one of the engines… ”

Senator Rickham mopped his brow with a handkerchief, his heart was pounding, and had been since the emergency began, the conversational tones of the Limey and the bitch in blue served only to irritate him further, and he snapped at her, cutting her off in mid-sentence.

“Just what the hell does that mean?”

Sergeant Palo opened her mouth to answer, but the PM was talking.

“It means Senator, that we cannot steer properly and there are three engines running instead of four.” Rickham coloured, sure that the PM was talking down to him, but the PM did not apparently notice his discomfort and looking back to the Sergeant he gave her an apologetic half smile. “Please excuse me Sergeant… do carry on.”

“Sir’s, we have pumped a lot of the fuel out of the starboard wing and into the port wings fuel tanks, now we are going to jettison some of the remaining fuel in the starboard wing. That will bring the wings level, but at present we are losing height slowly, so I will be moving people to the rear of the aircraft, that should help bring the nose up.”

The German Chancellor had a suggestion that met favour with the PM, although the senator was not so sure, but forced himself to keep silent in case either of the supercilious, European sons of bitches put him down again.

“I would be correct in assuming that the rear of the aeroplane is the safest place to be, if we force land, yes?”

Statistically he was right, so she nodded in affirmation. “Then if I may suggest that the ladies are moved first?”

It was a very gallant suggestion, typical of the Chancellors Old World values, but she suspected one or two of the females aboard would take umbrage at the suggestion that they were ‘little women in need of protection’.

The front of the cabin was emptied until the Boeings nose rose again to the horizontal, and the wings slowly came level as the fuel was dumped.

Lt Col Arndeker sat above and behind during the entire process, feeling relief as the Boeing held its current height, in a wings level attitude. One by one the valves in the wing tanks were closed as the desired trim approached, until just one remained open, that nearest to the fuselage.

“One Four Eight, Gang Lead.”

“Go ahead Gang Lead.”

They were one hundred and twenty miles off the Irish coast, but heading almost due north.

“Your attitude looks lots healthier now, are you going to complete the dump before turning?”

“Gang Lead, we completed jettisoning fuel a few minutes ago, we will reduce power on number four to effect a turn to the right, commencing in about one minute.”

Arndeker did not reply immediately, he brought the F-16 in a few feet, peering at the starboard wing, in the area occupied by the tank nearest the seat of the explosion. There in a steady stream, was fuel that was faintly visible whenever the amber collision light swept over it.

“One Four Eight, Gang Lead… check your gauges please, you are still venting from whichever valve is nearest the starboard wing root.”

“Roger.”

There was silence for a few minutes, and then he heard the Boeings AC call the AWAC.

“Overview Four Nine, Military One Four Eight… we have a problem.”

Admiral Gee had just settled onto the camp bed in the CJOs office in the Haddon’s Rock facility when the phone rang. Rolling off the flimsy device he grabbed the handset off the receiver.

“Gee!” He listened to the senior communications supervisor for a minute without comment and then sent a questing foot, outwards for his shoes whilst he replied. “Okay, let me speak to the Brit AWAC guys.”

Admiral Gee was a good listener, provided the speaker knew what he was talking about and all relevant information was included. Once the details were passed over as to what had happened, what was still occurring and what action was in progress 4316 miles away, he went to wake the President.

“Gun Lead, One Four Eight.”

200m away, Lt Col Arndeker thumbed the send switch. “Go.”

“We’ve reset the switches… standby while we try again.”

The Boeing had completed its wide turn back to the south before running a systems diagnostic, the F-16 backed off whilst the manoeuvre was in progress, and then moved back in where it could watch and report.

“Roger, One Four Eight… observing.”

For five minutes he watched, willing the flow of fuel from the wing to stop, but it continued unabated.

“One Four Eight, Gun Lead.” His tone conveyed the message as succinctly as a picture would have.

“Roger Gun, had to try… we are beginning our let down now.”

There was nothing else for it, the Boeing Corporation engineers were in agreement that something was broke, and it wasn’t going to fix itself.

Mid-air refuelling was only going to prolong the inevitable, so it was left up to the AC as to where he was going to set it down. He was 100 % convinced that trying to land on a runway was not an option, he couldn’t manoeuvre worth a damn so he elected to ditch off the Irish coast once there were rescue services on scene. In his words, there was less tall stuff about to bang into, and an ocean was easier to line up on than a strip of tarmac.

The President was wearing an expression that said it all, “What the hell else can go wrong!” but the way the war was going, he wasn’t about to tempt fate by saying it aloud.

Striding into the situation room, he asked the question without directing it at anyone in particular.

“Do we have an up to date passenger list… and are the various governments aware?” Seating himself he rubbed hard at his eyes and the back of his neck, seeking to remove the last vestiges of sleepiness.

He scanned the list that was put up on screen and muttered a thank you when a mug of hot fresh coffee was placed beside him.

“Are there any options apart from ditching or forced landing, for getting anyone off?” It was a throwaway comment that he already knew the answer to, only in the minds of Hollywood screenwriters did the schemes to evacuate passengers from aircraft in flight exist. Even parachutes were fanciful, the Boeing would endanger itself further by slowing to above a stall in order for a parachutist to exit safely, not that the VC-25A carried any of them anyway. He had little doubt that even if there were only two aboard, neither the German Chancellor nor the British Prime Minister would use them themselves, they were ‘women and children first’ kind of folk.

“At least Henry Shaw isn’t aboard, or more state heads.” He looked up as Admiral Gee entered. “Is it possible to listen in to voice communications, Admiral?”

“Yessir… do you want to speak to anyone out there, we can do that too?”

“No… and I’d just as soon they didn’t know I was listening either.” He did not want to add to the pilot’s pressure by knowing the boss was looking over his shoulder.

“Who is in the drivers seats aboard 28000, by the way?”

“Lt Col Redruff and Major Pebanet.”

Jaz Redruff and Sara Pebanet had flown the President all around the world, he was confident that if either pilot were on their own, they could still put it down safely if anyone could.

“So what’s the plan, Admiral?”

Gee brought up a map of the west coast of Ireland, and zoomed it in.

“Mr President, they are flying south at the moment and letting down gradually, in the meantime we are scrambling helicopters and rescue craft to the Galway Bay area of Eire. The aircraft will turn again, a wide turn to the right to come around onto a roughly north-easterly heading to line up on the bay and continue letting down… aiming to ditch somewhere between Roadford and Murroogh. The aircraft’s flaps may also be impaired, but we won’t know that until they are extended… if they are screwed, then it will be a higher speed landing than one would wish for. The IRCG, Irish Coast Guard, will be running the show; they will have six Sikorsky S-61s on scene. A minesweeper and a fisheries vessel will be backing up the four inshore lifeboats already in the area. Britain has an ocean-going lifeboat and two inshore's on the way, and of course they have signed off on the Irish using the AWAC for communications and rescue co-ordination.”

The President looked at the aircraft’s icon on the big screen map, and puffed out his cheeks.

“So now we wait.”

As the aircraft got lower, so too did Senator Rickham’s spirits. The Presidential office was situated against one side of the cabin, midway down the airframe. There were people still seated forward of them, but that was only due to the lack of seats in the office. He desperately wanted to be at the rear of the aircraft, he could see in his mind’s eye the Boeing hitting the sea and breaking up, the tail section floating whilst the rest sank, with him still attached to his seat, drowning. Everyone was now wearing life vests, with strict instructions about how, and more importantly when to inflate them. Sgt Palo, the bitch in blue, had come around and personally checked the vests were on correctly, and repeated her trolley-dolly speech, but Rickham had deliberately ignored her.

The Kraut and the Limey were busy talking with members of their cabinets and parties by phone, so he made a decision. The PM looked across as the senator undid his seatbelt and stood up, but his party chairman on the other end of the phone, was speaking in urgent tones so his attention swung back to matters of state. He gave the chairman the location of the combination to the safe in his home, should anything go wrong, and requested that what he had outlined for the country be continued if anything happened tonight. It was all in the safe on paper and floppy discs, ideas and solid plans dating back to the 70’s.

He heard someone sit back down in the senators’ seat, and fiddle with the seatbelt, adjusting its size for a far slimmer person; he glanced across and then did a double take. The senators young aide, Janette something or other, was doing up the belt in jerky, agitated movements, shooting him an ever so brief nervous smile, with eyes close to tears.

The Chancellor gave a puzzled look as the PM left the office; the German was still in conversation with his defence minister so he couldn’t ask. He hadn’t noticed the senator leave so he cast a questioning look at the young aide, but she looked away in embarrassment. A minute later and the cabin door was violently thrown open, and the senator preceded the way inside, the large American politician’s face was contorted in pain as he came through sideways into the office, and then the PM appeared. It almost seemed that they were walking arm in arm, yet the PM had both his hands clasped around the back of the American’s left hand, and his forearm was trapped between the Englishman’s right arm and body. Rickham was leaning to his left in an effort to relieve the awful pain being caused by the gooseneck hold that the PM was applying to his wrist. He hardly heard the Englishman speak to his aide, telling her to go back to her own seat at the back, so great was the pressure that was being applied to the joint. He tried to reach over with his own right hand to pry away the offending fingers but the pain increased sharply, and he screamed shrilly. The young aide hurriedly vacated the seat at the Englishman’s request, then crossed to the door, stopped and was about to say something but then decided against whatever it was, and disappeared from sight. Sgt Palo entered through the doorway that the aide had just vacated, she had been alerted to a scuffle at the rear of the aircraft, and stopped just inside the office. The PM was back on the phone; the Chancellor was still talking and looked for all the world as if all was calm and normal with the universe. Senator Rickham was nursing his left wrist, his face a mask of misery as he sprawled in his seat. Nancy crossed the office and bent to strap him back in, but had to grab the back of his chair as turbulence shook the airframe. Her own crash position was in this office, in a fold down seat against the forward bulkhead, it was her job to ensure that these VIPs got out safely, but she wouldn’t strap in until just before they ditched.

The F-16 known as Chain Gang Lead had followed the Boeing through its last turn, and now edged down toward the cold seas as the airliner did.

County Clare was at the three o-clock position, and five thousand feet below, to the left was nothing except the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Chain Gang Lead… Military One Four Eight, on Guard.”

“Go ahead One Four Eight?”

“How’s your fuel state Gang Lead, you gotta be getting close to bingo?”

Arndeker didn’t bother checking his gauges; he knew he had enough to recover to RAF Aldergrove in Ulster, to refuel and then head back to Germany.

“Gun Lead is fine… I haven’t flown this slowly since I soloed in a Cessna, I think at this speed I could make Alaska without topping off… it must be real peaceful for you old folks, tooling around at a walking pace in big ‘ole buses like that one.”

The last remark was answered by a snort of laughter.

“For your information junior, that toy you think so highly of couldn’t catch my last ride to kiss its ass.”

“And what would that have been One Four Eight?”

“It was black, it was beautiful, and it cruised at over two grand at eighty-five thousand.”

Only one aircraft on the air force inventory had ever been able to do that, the 90^th Strategic Reconnaissance Wings SR-71A.

“I’m impressed One Four Eight… it’s a real shame they retired the Blackbirds.” He had to touch the rudder pedal to ease away a fraction, as a particularly rough patch of turbulence caught the aircraft. Between 30,000 and the cloud ceiling at 6000

Wings move, they are supposed to, but for the uneducated/nervous flier it can be a worrying sight. Lt Col Arndeker wasn’t a signatory of either category, but he was worried about the movement in the Boeings damaged wing with that last piece of bumpy air.

“One Four Eight, Gun Lead… I’m going to look you over again… don’t go away now, hear?”

“Rog.”

He brought the F-16 back to a position behind and below the airliner, where its slipstream wasn’t going to slap him around. The big tail section loomed above and ahead, as he concentrated on the two wings before him. Updrafts from the ocean were making for a less than smooth ride, he had to jockey to stay in position, but he could only imagine what it must be like for the pilots aboard the Boeing, they had to working like hell to keep trim and hold their course. After three minutes of observation he was certain that what he was looking at was not good news, and changed frequencies on his main RT to one the Boeing would not be monitoring.

“Overview Four Nine, Chain Gang Lead on Local Tactical Two.”

“Go, Chain Gang Lead.”

“I am sat aft of Military One Four Eight, and observing more play in its starboard wing than its port, whenever there is turbulence present.”

“Roger Gun Lead… how much variation are we talking about?”

“Enough for me to feel right uncomfy about being sat just behind.” He edged back on the F-16 throttle, sliding back and to the right before applying power once more.

“Gun Lead, this is Overview.”

“Go ‘View.”

“I think we’ll be in agreement that there is nothing more we can do to help, that we aren’t doing already… 28000s AC already intends to favour his starboard side when he puts down.”

Arndeker thought about that, asking himself if he would want to know, if he were driving the Boeing? Yes, of course he would.

“Thanks Overview, I’ll break the news… Gun Lead out.”

The AC aboard the Boeing received the news without any apparent emotion, factoring it in with everything else they had to allow for. They had let down to just below the cloud ceiling and he had previously decided to continue a gradual descent, but now held at their present height. Major Pebanet leant forward in order to crane her head around to look back at the wing, she couldn’t see all of it, but being able to see it wouldn’t help a damn if it failed. As she stared at it the aircraft hit more turbulence, and she winced involuntarily before sitting back upright.

Far below, fishermen aboard a small smack paused to look up as the airliner and fighter flew over, the sound of their passing lasted long after the poor visibility masked them from view, and the work on the nets recommenced.

Lt Col Arndeker sent the remainder of his flight to the RAF station in Northern Ireland, where they would hot refuel and return to resume their CAP, in the meantime the lone F-16 shadowed the VC-25A on its final journey.

In the Oust Forest, north of their opponent’s line of march, Captain Nikoli Bordenko gave his men the equivalent of a night off, sentries were still posted, or ‘stagging on’ as the Brits called it, but he sent out no patrols. Once they had carried out a clearance patrol to ensure there were no enemy in the immediate vicinity, his men had hacked out shell scrapes and prepared a meal before getting some sleep. Had he had more men, he would have sent out recce patrols further into the surrounding forest, but he hadn’t, so he did not discover the presence of other soviet troops not much farther away than the clearance patrol had ventured.

The battalion had laagered-up for the night, listening patrols, recce patrols and two fighting patrols laying ambushes, had gone out just after last light. The rest of the battalion was dug in, the infantry in a protective ring about the armour and APCs.

Lt Col Pat Reed was curled up in his green maggot when a signaller crunched through the snow to his shell scrape, summonsing him to the mobile CP. His teeth were chattering as he pushed through the blackouts and into the APCs interior, squinting against the light over the communications gear.

“Bollocks… it’s as cold as a tarts heart out there!”

The Adjutant had the duty watch keepers seat, he moved aside for the CO and handed him a signal’s pad, re-seating himself in the shadows and earning a grumble from an off-duty signaller who was sleeping there. The CO stole the Adjutants coffee without any word of apology, sipping at the hot brew and making a face, as he read the decoded BATCO message.

“Who the bloody hell are ‘Address Group, Quebec Kilo’ when they’re at home, Timothy?” and handed back the mug. He next stole the duty signallers, took a tentative sip and again screwed up his face.

“I do wish you children would forget all that health crap, and start taking sugar in your tea and coffee.”

The Adjutant gave his boss a moment and then answered the question.

“They are forces under direct control of SACUER, sir. In this case its ‘Twenty Two’, or at least the G Squadron part of it… their Sunray should be coming through the perimeter shortly, I sent Sarn’t Higgins from the Defence Platoon to guide him through.” ‘Twenty Two’ or ‘The Regiment’, being the names the SAS are often referred to as.

“Oh Christ… no doubt we’ll be reading about ourselves in some book after the war, in unflattering terms that bear no relation whatsoever to reality, and entitled ‘How the war was won by me… and everyone else was a wanker’.”

The Captain laughed aloud and Pat joined him, the tales of alleged real-life daring-do had done ‘The Regiment’ few favours in the last few years, which was a shame because the good soldiers in its ranks far outnumbered the cowboy/authors.

The adjutant looked at his watch.

“Whoever he is, he’s taking his sweet time.”

“Probably on the phone to his bloody publisher.”

A few minutes later Major Thompson did appear, clearing his weapon outside the FV432 before ducking inside and peeling off his white head-over.

“Good morning sir, Craig Thompson… late of 1^st Battalion Welsh Guards.” The Adjutant leant forward into the light. “Hello Craig… cut any good throats lately?”

Major Thompson grinned.

“Timbo… how the devil are you?”

“Let me guess.” Pat said. “You were at school together, or Sandhurst, hmmm?”

“Oh, far more wretched than that sir, he’s my brother-in-law.” Admitted the adjutant.

Lt Col Reed did a theatrical double take, now thoroughly enjoying himself.

“Good lord Major… you don’t mean to say you are the… and I quote, ‘Frightful sheep-shagger who owns half of Gwent’ are you?”

“No sir, I think you must be confusing me with another fraction, I’m the frightful sheep-shagger who owns about a quarter.”

The CO turned to the signaller.

“Be a good chap and rustle up a couple of mugs of coffee will you… four spoons of white death in mine, please.”

The FV432 is a box on tracks that saves walking, is the opinion of the Infantry, and it kept them dry until it threw a track, which was about every ten miles, and usually in the biggest, muddiest, puddle around. However, it had exhausts just big enough to accommodate Compo canned rations, which were held inside with the aid of a long stick until heated, and a water boiler on the inside of the rear hatch. Such luxuries were so few and far between that it was rumoured they were built for the American’s, who rejected them for not being gas guzzley enough. The signaller handed his headset to the CO and set about complying, filling two mugs from the boiler and dumping in the makings from a box that held only packets of powdered coffee, tea bags, sugar and non-dairy whitener.

“I am assuming this is not a social call, Major?”

Craig Thompson reached into his smock and removed his mapcase, from which he withdrew a map of the area they now occupied, and the SACEURs written orders.

“You are aware of the soviet special forces who have been active behind the lines?” He got nods from Pat and the Adjutant.

“The majority are army, but one or two groups are KGB Special Forces. The other night, three such groups joined forces to overrun the USAF airfield that the airborne early warning and JSTARS aircraft operate from. It would seem to have been a pre-planned operation, using deep cover operatives with access to the location. German Intelligence raided several homes after the attack and found in one a notebook with the location of safe houses and supply caches… terribly careless of someone, that.” He opened his map and pointed to the forest that was to their north. “We estimate that there are between fifty and a hundred soviet Special Forces in here, near the centre.”

Pat leant across to peer at the map.

“How do you know that?”

“Piss sniffers sir. The Yanks dropped remote devices in the forest after the notebook was found, they detect the ammonia present in urine.”

“Humph!” The CO was not greatly impressed with gimmicks. “I seem to recall they did the same along the Ho Chi Min trail… not a great success really.”

“Perhaps not, but half an hour before first light an MLRS Battery will drop several loads on the forest, and those of your unit not acting as cut-offs, will sweep through and clear it. I have already spoken to General Allain, and your battalion and attached sub units are now tasked.”

Pat had already read the line in the orders that authorised G Squadrons OC to call on assistance from other units, and it took some clout at such a time as this to collar a whole MLRS battery, however.

“Major, admittedly it is a danger having Special Forces loose in the rear areas, but you know where they are now so why not just flatten the wood and have done with it?”

“Geilenkirchen AFB was not the only raid this trio of groups has carried out, but it is the rape and mutilation of prisoners, female and male during the process of each raid, that has made the good general order that they should be, um… annihilated.”

“Major, whereas I can see SACEURs point of view, I am not… not, going to order my men to kill enemy wounded, or those trying to surrender. A war crimes trial will investigate any allegations SACEUR wants to lay against any prisoners taken.”

Major Thompson frowned momentarily.

“Strange, I heard that your men did exactly that at Leipzig airport.”

“Well you heard wrong!” Leipzig had been a hard fight that followed straight after one where the soviets had killed all the wounded when they overran the Guards position. Some men in his battalion had not given quarter, when perhaps it would have been the case had they not lost mates that way in the first battle. It hadn’t been ordered or encouraged, it had just happened.

“You require my men Major, so you will have them.” Pat looked at his Adjutant. “O Group here in one hour, no move before… 0330hrs.” he declared after doing a quick mental, time appreciation.

The F-16 was maintaining its position to the right rear of the Boeing and it resumed its descent toward the waves. Updrafts caused the fighter to buck and shake, making its pilot stare worriedly at the airliners damaged wing. Hidden by the darkness over to his right, was the sea Lough that led up to Shannon, the land north of that was County Munster, its northern boundary being the Galway Bay. He looked down to his right, seeing the Loop Head light and knowing the Boeing had only forty miles further to go from this point.

“One Four Eight, Gun Lead.”

“Go ahead Gun.”

“How are your passengers holding up?”

“Oh, about the same as us… the clinical term would be, ‘about as well as can be expected under the circumstances’… which for me means, right now I’m wearing elastic bands around the bottoms of my trouser legs, to stop my socks filling up with brown Adrenaline.”

The humour in the otherwise flat calm of the ACs voice brought a wide grin to Arndeker’s face. He didn’t know either pilot’s names, but he was determined to hoist a drink or two with them after this was over, and find out.

At Galway Lifeboat station the volunteer boat crews who lived furthest away were still arriving, having been summoned from their beds. The ready lifeboat was far out in the bay, manned by the first arrivals and so the remainder made themselves tea and sat around where they could hear the RT set. All anyone had been told was that an airliner was in trouble, and it was going to ditch in the sea because it couldn’t steer.

Liam McGonnigle, a lifeboat Cox’n and local dentist was the last man in through the door, still dressed in his best suit and hot from the dance floor at the local Rotary Club. “Who’s taken her out?” he asked as soon as he made it through the door.

Someone answered without looking around, unwilling to take his attention from the constant chatter on the radio, as if it were a TV set “Big Sean, little Sean and Patrick with the limp.”

“Jay’zus… there I was fending off the desperate blue rinsers, and the ugliest trio in all of Ireland are going to be fishing grateful stewey-desses from the bay!” said Liam with a strong note of irony.

The speaker, who was the station’s manager, turned and replied.

“Those are harsh words to be coming from the face of such a hideous looking man, Liam.”

Liam grinned back at the speaker before squinting at a dry marker board fixed to the far wall.

“Has the new carburettor arrived for the left outboard on the number two boat?”

“It has so… but I’ve had no time to bless me own face today… are you thinking on taking it out Liam, the starboards fine but the others still as like to pack it in?”

“I’m thinking it’s awful cold tonight, and some that gets into the water won’t be making it into the boats.”

The station manager refilled the kettle and took down another mug for Liam.

“Who will you take, to crew with you?”

“Young Terry and that Adrian fella… I know one’s from Sligo and the others English, but I’m thinking they’re good hands.” Adrian had been born and raised in Galway, as had his father, but his grandfather had hailed from Liverpool, and that was enough for him to wear the label.

It took fifteen minutes to get ready and then get the reserve boat in the water; Liam started up the twin 70hp Evinrudes, listening carefully for signs of trouble from the bothersome portside motor as his two crewmen cast off. It seemed to be behaving, so with a last wave he opened the throttles, turning the Atlantic class boat westwards toward the ocean.

Arndeker carried on down to five hundred feet with the Boeing before slipping into trail five hundred metres behind, and fifty feet above it. Small ships and lifeboats were strung out in a five-mile long line, somewhere along that line the VC-25A would ditch.

Twenty thousand feet above them, the Royal Air Force AWAC orbited the area, its operators tightly controlling not only the helicopters and vessels, but a small fleet of ambulances that were in holding areas too.

Sgt Palo was buckled in on her seat against the bulkhead, sat upright but deliberately leaving her hands open in her lap, creating a picture calm. She wore a headset attached to a waterproofed, voice activated radio strapped to her waist, the pilots would give them the word that ditching was imminent, after which the cabin crew would use them to co-ordinate the evacuation. The German Chancellor and British PM were silent, deliberately ignoring the buffeting, constant vibration, and Senator Rickham, who was dry retching into an almost full puke bag.

From the left-hand seat Lt Col Jaz Redruff depressed the transmit button on the ‘stick’.

“Gun Lead, One Four Eight.”

Arndeker responded instantly.

“Go, guy.”

“How we looking?”

“Like a fat, rich, Ft Lauderdale widow, deciding if she wants to get her feet wet.”

“Just to let you know… in one minute we will commence throttle-back.”

“Roger… luck guys.”

Redruff glanced across at Sara Pebanet after checking the gauges one last time.

“Ok?”

She nodded in reply and took her left hand off the controls, placing it atop the throttles and began to ease them backwards. Jaz Redruff kept both hands on the controls, straining to keep the nose level. The next step would be the difference between hitting the ocean at 240 knots or 160; he knew which one he preferred.

Outwardly both pilots’ were a picture of calmness, and in truth they were a hell of a lot calmer than most of the planets population would have been, if they had been in the cockpit. Training, and later experiences, had taught them that panicking pilots died that much quicker than cool ones. However, they were human and both had families that they wanted to see again, so both were saying silent prayers as the indicated airspeed reached 240.

“Flaps 20.”

With an audible whine the flaps began to extend, and then the starboard wing dropped sickeningly as the starboard flaps met resistance from buckled metal within the wing, but the port side extended smoothly. Both pilots turned deathly pale and Sara’s hand shot back toward the gated flap control. With a screech like fingernails being drawn down a blackboard, the obstruction was forced aside, and the wing rose as its lifting surface was expanded to match that of the port wing.

Five hundred metres away Lt Col Arndeker had applied hard left rudder when he saw the airliner lurch to the right like a drunk trying to find home.

As the wings came level again he cancelled the manoeuvre and realised he’d stopped breathing. Letting the air escape from his lungs in a rush, he shook his head from side to side, no way was he ever going to play high stakes poker against guys with that kind of luck!

At 190 knots he lowered his own flaps in order to stay with the big Boeing, and as he did so he saw below them the lights of a small vessel, the head of the line of waiting rescue craft. As the aircraft roared past, the lifeboats Cox’n opened the throttles to the stops, and spun the wheel to race north after them.

Despite the turbulence Jaz Redruff was able to keep the aircraft’s nose up at 2.5 degrees above the horizon, and keeping it from going beyond that, with little physical effort. His movements on the controls were transmitted electronically to motors that did the physical job of moving the aircraft’s control surfaces. The buffeting and vibration was increasing to the point where he had to raise his voice to be heard.

“Flaps 25!”

Sara’s left hand eased the lever through the next gate to the 25’ position, and with a whine the flaps extended further.

Arndeker lowered his own landing gear in order to keep station behind the Boeing as its speed decreased. Time seemed to standstill as it drew closer to the ocean surface, and then a white wake appeared as the rear of the fuselage belly slapped wave tops. Lt Col Redruff kept the aircraft’s nose up as long as he could because once the four scoop-faced General Electric engines met the ocean the deceleration, and stress on the airframe would be harsh.

From its initial nose high attitude the speed fell off rapidly, and as it did so the nose came down toward the waves.

Arndeker saw the moment that the engines dug into the ocean surface, but little else because the aircraft vanished below him in a huge cloud of spray. The weakened starboard wing came away at the damaged section and whipped up and over the fuselage, decapitating the vertical fin from the tail. The VC-25A was no long balanced; the port wing dug in and spun the airframe so it was travelling sideways for a time at over 90 knots. The pressure on the starboard cargo doors was something that had never been catered for, or envisioned by her designers. The doors were stove in and the bay instantly flooded by a deluge that smashed into the cargo containers within, tearing them free to slam into thin aluminium bulkheads. A jumbled mass of containers holding the passengers’ baggage was shunted forward by the weight of water entered the aircraft’s hull. As it hammered into the forward bulkhead it gave, along with a seam on the hull, and the edges of the seam buckled inwards against the pressure of the ocean playing on it.

When the aircraft came to a halt the cockpit and nose were already under water, 28000 was sinking fast, canted over at an angle by the weight of the port engines.

Galway’s first lifeboat received the radio message that the airliner was down and opened its throttles. She was the boat at the end of the line, nearest the southern end of Galway Bay and a mile from the crash site, but she beat the Irish minesweeper Deirdre there, despite the ships 18-knot speed. The lifeboat hit her wake at 32 knots, becoming airborne briefly as she tore past.

Two other lifeboats were already on scene when she arrived, the Boeings nose section and almost half of the fuselage was already invisible below the surface as it lay at an angle with its tail raised above the waves, and the aircraft was visibly getting lower in the water by the moment.

Lt Col Arndeker had been waved off by the AWAC, which wanted the air clear for rescue helicopters, so he climbed up above the cloud to 15,000, feeling totally impotent.

Liam McGonnigle turned in his seat briefly to say some kind words to the port engine, promising to be nice to it providing it didn’t get up to its old tricks, the words were whipped away by the cold wind as they bore into the night.

Nancy Palo had been stunned by the impact with the ocean, and the seat belt that had saved her life, had also driven the breath from her. The cabin crew of 28000, and its sister 29000, were regularly drilled using various disaster scenarios, but this one was new however. Apart from having the stuffing knocked out of her, she was plunged into total darkness in a cabin canting over thirty degrees… and then the sea burst in.

Still groggy from the crash, Nancy’s senses were restored as the freezing waters bursting open the door and drenched her. She gasped with the cold and groped for the lamp on her life vest, it showed her the three other occupants of the office, still in their seats and the level of water rising quickly. Senator Rickham was sat open mouthed and staring as he clutched at the uppermost armrest on his seat, and the PM was reaching across the table that separated himself and the German politician feeling for a pulse on the Chancellor’s neck. The German’s head hung to one side and his arms and legs were angled toward the water, the PM had to grip the edge of the table as he leant over precariously. It was a matter of public record that the Chancellor had undergone bypass surgery the previous year, but what was not was his doctors warning that it his heart condition was worsening, and a major coronary failure was a distinct possibility.

“I’m afraid he is dead sergeant, and I think we should get out of here, don’t you?” He pulled himself nimbly over on to the Chancellors seat, taking care not to tread on the dead man, and taking a firm hold on the bottom most armrest he lowered himself toward Nancy, outstretching his free hand. From the noises beyond the partition, in the cabin section nearest the tail, they could hear the sounds of the emergency exits being opened and Nancy’s colleagues shouting instructions. She should have been hearing her colleagues in the radio headset, but there was nothing at all, and she didn’t want to think of the reasons for that.

She did not have armrests to keep her from sliding off her seat into the water, and if that happened then there was nothing for her to use to climb up toward the emergency exit, so she grasped the PMs wrist with her left hand before releasing her seatbelt, and he pulled her up to the Chancellors seat. Senator Rickham had sat unmoving, with the look of shock on his face and it took the PMs shaking him violently before he stirred. It was very apparent that Rickham had soiled himself, and the PMs expression softened, he knew what it was like to be scared. “Senator, it’s time to go, yes?”

The emergency exit for the Presidential office was situated at one of the windows, and Nancy stretched up to release it, and then hesitated. “Oh crap, this section’s under water already.” The water inside the office had already engulfed the seat she had vacated, so time was of the essence.

“Okay Gentlemen… listen carefully now!”

The PM was struggling against the angle that they were canted over as he helped the senator climb onto the seat. “Do go on sergeant, we are not ignoring you.”

“Once I open this hatch the water is going to pour in, so we cannot get out until this part of the cabin is full of water… ok so far?”

If anything the senators expression became even more fearful, but he seemed incapable of saying anything. The PM nodded at her, so she continued. “Start taking deep breaths, really expand your lungs because you need to saturate your blood with oxygen… it will help you hold your breath much longer, ok?” The PM was already drawing in big gulps of oxygen, and the senator nodded back dumbly.

“But… I can’t tell how deep we are so once you get out, you cannot keep the air in your lungs, you must slowly breathe out or your lungs will explode as you get closer to the surface if we are too deep!”

Nancy took two deep breaths and activated the hatch release, but even though she had been bracing herself for it, the effect of the weight of water on the outside of the hatch came as a shock. The only way to release the hatch was from directly in front because it was a two handed operation; it wasn’t something that could be done from the side. Only her outstretched arms prevented the hatch from braining her as the ocean propelled it inside the fuselage. Hammered backwards into the water that was filling the lower end of the office, the breath was driven from her and she began to choke on seawater. Hands grasped her under her armpits and she was pulled toward the rapidly diminishing air pocket. The Prime Minister had jumped in after her and pulled her to safety, allowing her the time to take three precious breaths before the office was completely engulfed.

As the waters closed over Senator Rickham’s head, the panic that had lurked so close since the explosion first shook the aircraft, now took over. The opening in the fuselage represented life and he swam the two strokes that separated him from the opening and tried to pull himself through it. Had his wits been with him he would possibly have waited the few seconds remaining for the pressure to equalise. He managed to hook a hand through to the outside rim, but pull as he might he could not get out. Rickham’s free hand sought the toggle that would inflate the life vest, and to his mind lift him against the force of the incoming waters, and up to the surface. His chest was beginning to hurt when his fingers found what they sought, and pulled hard, opening the valve in the small compressed air cylinder that filled the life vest. The effect was immediate, Rickham shot upwards, and his head emerged through the exit but then stopped dead, the inflated vest jamming him in the narrow opening. The realisation that he was going to die struck home as he clawed at the fuselage with his only free arm, and Senator Rickham opened his mouth to scream.

Only a foot or so of space remained out of the waters grasp when the PM ducked below the surface, and Nancy took a last deep breath before kicking off and following him. On finding the senators body, still kicking feebly and blocking the way out she felt the first spike of panic, grabbing his legs and trying to drag him away. The Prime Minister fumbled into his trousers pocket and withdrew a pocket knife, the venerable MOD issue knife known as an ‘oil the joints’, after the only words to adorn its strictly functional body that had been issued to him as an officer cadet years before. He stabbed at the senators’ life vest, puncturing it and working the knife blade, enlarging the rent as the air boiled from it. The PM kicked the body away and reached down for the USAF sergeant, gripping her by the wrist and pulling her up to the exit. His chest was bursting and there were spots appearing at the edge of his vision as he thrust her through the opening. The fuselage started to move and the lamp on her life vest snagged the edge of the exit momentarily, and then it tore loose and she was free. The fuselage rolled as the last pockets of air in the tail section escaped and the fierce undertow played against the port wing, and the Boeing wearing the livery of the United States of America sank toward the ocean bed.

Galway’s number two lifeboat arrived on scene as the stump of the Boeings tail fin disappeared amidst the waves, the odd item of clothing; floating wreckage and stink of aviation fuel were all that remained. After sinking at a steady rate the big aircraft’s demise happened in a rush, as passengers were still emerging from emergency exits in the rear of the aircraft. There were three helicopters overhead illuminating the scene with 'nitesun' searchlights, their pilot earning their pay as they struggled with heavy gusts of wind in order to stay on station.

Liam throttled back and headed toward the other Galway boat that seemed full to overflowing with sodden, shivering humanity that glittered in the light reflecting off survival blankets. Its Cox’n waved and hailed the newcomer as it hove into view. “Would that be yourself, Liam McGonnigle?”

“Aye, and who else would it be on such a night as this Patrick Kilarey, when sensible men are tucked up warm and dry in their beds!”

“You have a point there Liam… no one ever accused you of having wits about you!”

Liam stuck two fingers up at the other Cox’n. “How many are out?”

“Just those that you see… no more than twenty… I’m heading for the Deirdre now, but I’ll return to help recover bodies!”

There was only one boat now still at the spot where the aircraft had gone down, and that held a pair of survivors besides its three crewmen. Liam gunned his own lifeboats engines to head over to where he could shout to its Cox’n.

“Take them on in before they catch their deaths… we’ll hold station here!”

The ocean was in a quarrelsome mood with the odd six-foot swell making the business of looking for anything in the water difficult, despite the light from overhead. The first person they saw in the water was that of a woman in uniform, Terry from Sligo saw her as a wave lifted her from a trough briefly and Liam went in the direction the compass said he had pointed. He had to jockey the engines to get close to her, as the wind was strong enough to have an effect on even their low profile. Adrian helped Terry pull her over the side and into the boat where they got to work on her, trying to get the seawater from her lungs and carrying out CPR. It was a hopeless task and she lay in the bottom of the boat staring through filmy eyes, the life having fled from them. Liam looked at the woman’s nametag and the gold oak leaf on the epaulettes of her uniform shirt from his seat behind the Lifeboats helm; it matched the colour of the wedding band on her ring finger. “It’s a sorry time coming in the Pebanet household today,” he muttered to the wind.

They found two more bodies in the water by looking for the lamps on their life vests, and the helicopters were also busy, their lights picking out the shapes below and their divers went down on the hoists to recover them on litters.

Liam decided that they were too overloaded and should take their sorry cargo to the minesweeper, unload and return once more, so he turned the boat away from all the activity and opened the throttles some more. After no more than a minute or so, to Liam’s utter disgust the port engine missed, coughed and then fell silent. “Ah… you’re an awful contraption and that you are… an’ after the sweet words and flattery I’ve been heaping on you too!” He brought the bow around to point into the waves and throttled back, intending to open the engines casing long enough to give it a blast of WD40 in the carburettor and a hefty rap with a spanner.

Nancy had expended all the air from her lungs and still not reached the surface. The bulky mass of the aircraft had her trapped in its sinking wake, but she didn’t know this, she did know that she needed air or she would die. In desperation she fought back the instinctive urge to open her mouth and gulp, instead she pulled the toggle on her life vest, breaking the fatal hold the aircraft had on her as the vest inflated and carried her upwards.

She broke the surface and gasped at the precious air as a wave rolled over her. Salt water burned her sinuses and throat; she choked on the water, coughed and spluttered to evict it, in order to take in oxygen.

Each time a wave lifted her she waved an arm and shouted toward the lights, but the wind and the noise from the helicopters rotors drowned her pleas.

The cold was like a living thing, sapping her strength and her will as it first seeped into her limbs, and then her brain.

She didn’t know at what point she slipped from reality and into a dream world, but the warmth of the summer sun in Montana replaced the all-pervading cold of the Atlantic. She was hiking with her parents and brother again in the holidays before she started high school, tramping across the wooded hills of Glacier National Park. The scent of pine and wild flowers was heavy in the air along with the heavy drone of insects. She paused on the trail when she caught sight of a deer amongst the trees; the deer was motionless, staring right back at her. It was a magical moment that she had spoiled the first time by calling out to her family what she could see, and the deer had bolted. This time however her brother hadn’t shouted at her to leave the deer alone and catch up, he grabbed her by her pigtails and pulled hard. That in itself was very strange, because she knew for a fact she’d never worn her hair that way.

The light from Liam’s own lamp caught the pale face as it drifted just beyond the stern of the Galway lifeboat. He saw the pasty white face and blue lips, and took it for another dead body until the lips moved, mouthing, “Look at that!” He leant forward to grab her by an arm but she was drifting out of reach and he caught a handful of long dark hair instead. Taking a firm hold he pulled the body in to the side of the boat where he and Terry lifted her inboard where Terry felt for a pulse.

“We’ll be needing a helicopter, she has a pulse … but it’s terrible weak.” He pulled open a space blanket, wrapping it around the figure in the water-logged USAF uniform, and activated chemically heated hot bags which he placed atop her torso whilst Liam called in one of the S-61s to airlift her to hospital.

There was only a light powdering of snow on Nikoli’s Gortex bivi bag when he emerged into the pre-dawn with a full bladder. He had a Bergen and an arctic ‘maggot’ beside the bivi bag, which were not of Russian issue but British. All the items were at least second-hand when he had acquired them, but they were of superior quality to that which his troops had to make do with. Since arriving back from the UK the kit had earned a few envious glances, but he had brought back to the Red Army something else acquired from the British, it ensured that if his men couldn’t get out of the wind, rain and cold, then neither did he. He didn’t eat until his troops had done so, and he did not practice the Russian military class system. The one senior NCO who had displayed the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude had found himself doing every shitty job that had needed to be done, and a few that hadn’t. By the time he had been promoted to Captain after the Leipzig operation, everyone in the Regiment had heard of his unusual command style. It made him a popular, yet respected figure with the junior ranks, and one viewed with an element of suspicion by the more senior ones, as someone who’d ‘gone native’ whilst in the West. Only one of his peers had taken it upon himself to criticise Nikoli to his face, and that individual was still baffled by his reply.

“My heart pumps purple piss, hinney… now sod off before I back squad yer teeth to Week One!” Nikoli had said in an appalling attempt at a Geordie accent.

As he watered the side of a tree this morning he looked around at the position. All his men were below ground level in shell scrapes spread about in a roughly triangular position; he had instigated its use, dispensing with the established Russian circular orientation. A machine gun sat at each of the three points, so an attacker coming from any direction would have at least two of them, plus two thirds of the units rifles to contend with. It wasn’t a Russian invention, it wasn’t British or American either, but Australian. The ‘Iron Triangle’ had been proven when a company from 1RAR, 1^st Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, had found itself surrounded by almost a regiment of regular troops from the NVA, North Vietnamese Army, on 8^th January 1966 near Cu Chi, in an area known as the Ho Bo Woods. Several other factors had leant a part in the Australians successful defence; the personal weapons carried by the Australians were the GPMG and the SLR, which used the same calibre ammunition, the heavy 7.62 round. The SLR was self-loading but did not have an automatic fire capability, so the infantrymen only fired single, aimed shots; there was none of the extravagant expenditure of ammunition that was the norm with US troops who used the M-16. The Australian troops had received no significant ammunition resupply during the action, although about 6000 rounds of belted ammunition in boxes had been dropped, quite literally, through the tree canopy to them from a helicopter that just happened to be passing and heard a short range radio message toward the end. The Aussie troops had carried everything in with them, in their webbing pouches and packs. The gimpies had run low on belted ammunition, and this had been solved by the riflemen contributing some of their spare 7.62 ball. The gun groups emptied the rounds from the SLR magazines tossed to them and made up fresh belts using links from already expended belts that lay in heaps below the guns. It was not a practice that could have been duplicated by an American unit who’s M-60s and M-16s used incompatible calibre ammunition. The Australians had been unable to call in artillery or air strike as the one radio with the range to reach anyone friendly was an early casualty. The NVA had tried both infiltration and human wave tactics from most points of the compass, but the Australians had dug in and held. When the NVA had withdrawn nine hours later, they left over two hundred of their number behind, the boys from Oz lost eight dead and twenty-nine wounded.

Nikoli had not learnt of that battle in a Russian military school, but whilst sat at the back of a classroom in Brecon during one of CSM Probert’s lectures. Colin had ended that particular lesson by pointing out that a single hit from an SLR, even on a limb, would put the recipient out of action due to the stopping power of the 7.62mm round. The M-16 on the other hand had to be altered by the US servicemen, quite illegally, in order to make its lighter round tumble, to achieve something close to the same effect. This affected its range, which was not a great problem if in the jungle, and its accuracy, which was. With a wry smile he had held up an SA-80. “And guess which round this thing uses.”

It irked Nikoli that Colin had bested him, not once but twice now. The village had been taken far quicker than he would ever have expected, and then at the copse, his plan to embroil the enemy battalion in at least a two company, and time consuming action, had failed because the Guards warrant officer had seen through it. Well, the decision had now been taken to withdraw to brigade lines, so they would not be locking horns with each other again.

Dawn was approaching, and now was the time to pack everything away and be ready to face a dawn attack, if one were to come. The paratrooper captain did up his flies and went back toward his own shell scrape, once there he tugged rapidly on the communications cords.

Conrad Mann’s flagship, the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, sat on the south side of a warship screen around forty-eight merchant ships.

A sizeable chunk of his command, twice the size in numerical terms than in peacetime and now spread over twenty-five square miles of ocean, came from the USN Reserve fleet. He had relatively few ‘modern’ warships that were purpose built for dedicated tasks such as ASW or air defence. Financial restraints placed on the armed forces had led to a breed of ‘multi-role’ hulls that the politicians thought sounded sexy. The difference between an air defence destroyer, and a multi role destroyer, was that the multi role could only carry half the munitions and half the trained personnel for either role. In the Pacific the multi-role ships that had met the Chinese head on were either on the bottom, or only existed now as highly irradiated dust. Off the North Cape the dedicated anti-aircraft ships that had survived the mass attacks had only done so by carrying far more munitions than they were designed to do. So the admiral had confidence that although the Reserve Fleet ships may lack the latest upgrades, they were in no way ‘second best’. Conrad Mann was personally very concerned that before the war the United States had no plans to replace its present frigates, once decommissioning of individual ships took place at the end of their planned lives. With luck and a little common sense, that decision would undergo some serious reconsideration.

The previous evening his battle group had joined with the merchant ships, come about and carried out a RAS, replenishment at sea, of all the usual items. Taking a leaf from the North Cape task force, they had taken on additional air defence stocks and the Health and Safety officer had taken a Valium, there was so much explosive ordnance lining the passageways of the warships.

As the ships sailed east once more Admiral Mann cast his eyes over the list of supplies they had taken onboard the Gerald Ford. Although budgetary concerns were no longer something he had to fret over, he was still seriously pissed after looking at the figures in the right hand column, and put in a call to Henry Shaw on the generals mobile phone.

Since her Sea Harriers had flown off to join the North Cape Task Force, the flight deck of the Royal Navy warship had seen steady but not excessive flying activity.

The Type 42 destroyer, HMS Edinburgh was a mile to the north, whilst the Type 22 ASW frigates HMS Sheffield, HMS Cumberland and HMS Campbeltown held a triangular formation seven miles out with the carrier at the centre. The base of the triangle faced the direction the threat would come from, the north. The nearest neighbours to the carrier were the fleet replenishment ship and the oiler, Fort George and Oakleaf, the groups supermarket and filling station.

Four elderly Sea Kings had arrived three days ago from Scotland via the Faeroes to supplement her compliment of Merlins, and the technicians had immediately had to ground them. The private contractors charged with their storage and upkeep in the UK had apparently been claiming a lot of money from the taxpayers whilst failing to meet the maintenance requirements.

The Captain of Illustrious had been planning on keeping his men rested until they came within range of the soviet submarine force, but his engine, airframe and electronics technicians had been working around the clock to get the aircraft in a fit state to do the job expected of them. When he had fired off his report on the matter to the MOD, he couldn’t help wondering which Minister and official’s had shares in the maintenance company, under assumed names of course, taking advantage of the legal loophole in British law that permitted the practice, and one that successive governments had refused to close. He had to wonder about the integrity of such people who would not only fight to retain such a thing, but also remove the independence of the only department set up to tackle corruption within government, because it was doing its job too well.

Flurries of snow were gusting across the flight deck as he watched two Merlins and a Sea King spool up. The frigates each carried a pair of Sea Lynx helicopters, and the destroyer carried one. They were putting up half of their sub hunting aircraft now, and a four hours on, four off rota was commencing now that the enemy was confirmed as having got past the NATO hunter killer submarines. It was still pitch dark and the ships were steaming west, but once the dawn came they would turn north with the aim of bringing the enemy force to battle.

The Russian paratroopers of Nikoli’s small command lay quietly in their shell scrapes; all kit packed away and ready to move. They watched their assigned arcs, waiting for the dawn and watching for movement. Last light and first light are the times when human eyes are at their least efficient, they don’t recognise shapes as well and are most likely to miss movement in the half-light.

It had been the first night without more snow since they had jumped into Germany, for the second time. Nikoli rolled over onto his back and looked up through the skeletal branches at the sky, and to his surprise saw stars through breaks in the cloud cover. For days now the clouds had blocked out the heavens, drenching the landscape with almost constant rainfall before the temperature had dropped further, and rain turned to snow.

Against backdrop of stars, a cluster of fast moving objects with fiery tails caught his attention briefly before the cloud barred his view.

Sgt Osgood raised his head to check that all his men had their own heads tucked below the level of the ditch they’d hunkered down in, four hundred metres from the woods edge.

Guardsman Robertson and his oppo Aldridge, the would-be sex machines of Tyne and Weir, were peering over the top, hoping to see a fireworks display when the MLRS sub munitions arrived.

“I’m going to come over there and mallet you two if you don’t get yer swedes down, right now!” Like tortoises under threat, their heads vanished from sight. Oz took another moment to reassure himself that there were no other defaulters in his platoon, before settling down next to Colin Probert.

“How accurate are these things they’re lobbing over anyway?”

“The Gunners think they’re hot stuff, dead accurate, surgically precise examples of modern military technology… our lords and masters have full confidence in their abilities.” Colin murmured.

“Is that why we’re a half mile from the target, and hiding in a ditch?”

"Too right mate!” Colin chuckled. “Never rely on the safety assurances of someone in an office, a hundred miles away from the site of a pre-planned explosive event.” His earpiece came to life; the company commanders transmission cutting off any further whispered banter.

“Hello all stations One, this is One Nine, DRURY LANE… out!”

“Here it comes, boys and girls!”

There was a series of high-pitched cracks in rapid succession from high overhead, up above the clouds, and then silence.

The last time Oz had been on a battlefield when this weapon had been used was on the Wesernitz. He had been up to his nuts in muck and bullets at the time, and hadn’t known the MLRS had taken out an entire enemy regiment until after the battle. The constant scream of incoming mortars and shells, explosions and small arms fire had drowned it out.

“Is that it?” he whispered to Colin, somewhat disappointed. The roar of thousands of explosions, lasting several seconds but seeming much longer, drowned Colin’s answer out.

“As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted.” Colin repeated once it was over. “It sounds a bit like a shed load of firecrackers going off in the distance.”

“Yeah right… firecrackers the size of shit-house doors!”

Colin was peering over the top of the ditch at the large mass of trees, where it was apparent that something other than wood and rabbit droppings inhabited the target area. There were several secondary explosions, and small arms ammunition was cooking off in one of the fires, the glow of them showed in the fading darkness.

They both ducked involuntarily as first one pair and then a second pair of fighter-bombers screamed overhead, heading for the fires and secondary’s. Neither soldier saw the aircraft drop their ordnance, but fire boiled up above the treetops, and the whiff of petrochemicals reached then on the breeze.

“I love the smell of… ” began Oz, as he started to recite the line from the film, but Colin cut him off abruptly, drawing his bayonet and wrapping the blade against his helmet to draw attention.

“Well, I don’t… whoever invented that filthy stuff was never in the infantry.” He held up the bayonet until he heard the sound of others being drawn from their scabbards, and then fitted it to his SLR, giving it a test tug to ensure the retaining lug had taken.

From behind came the sound of the battalions 81mm mortars firing off the first mission, and Colin stood up and scrambled up the side of the ditch to kneel on top. The men of No.1 and No. 2 Company, 1CG left the ditch and paused on one knee, bayonets fixed and awaiting the command to advance through the wood.

Nikoli removed his hands from over his ears and realised he was still screaming in mortal terror, and he wasn’t the only one either. The air was full of the scent of spent explosives, petrol vapour, wood sap and something else… the iron tinted scent of fresh blood. He raised his head out of the shell scrape and looked furtively about, the air was hazy with smoke and the trees were no longer heavy with snow resting on their branches. Something had taken numerous bites out of every tree in sight; wounded limbs hung down from freshly torn trunks, and amputated branches lay everywhere.

Nikoli had attended lectures and seen footage of the effects MLRS and its M77 submunitions; he now knew that it was possible to stay alive in its killing zone, only if below ground level. Five thousand, one hundred and fifty two of its grenade-like submunitions had landed on the large wooded area, thank Christ they have no airburst capability, were his thoughts.

Crawling from position to position he took stock, one bomblet had landed on a man as he lay in his hole, another paratroopers head had been poking up at the wrong moment, and was pulverised. Two men were concussed, and five more had minor wounds from wood splinters and sundry flying muck, all were badly shaken up.

The night was on the retreat, yet the glow from the area where they had cammed up their transport, a quarter of a mile away, was visible due to the napalm dropped on the already burning vehicles. There was another glow northeast of them, and although they did not know it, an assortment of stolen NATO vehicles was also burning fiercely.

To the northeast of Nikoli’s paratroopers was another soviet unit, manned by unconventional troops more used to being delivered to, and extracted from lightly defended rear areas than stand-up fights.

The special-forces unit commander had performed ambushes, assassinations, kidnappings, poisoned water holes and delivered booby-trapped kids toys to the outskirts of villages in Afghanistan and Chechnya during his service. However, his only experience of conventional tactics had been during his basic training, and his style of leadership did not include the rigid discipline one might expect of a military unit. At CQB, close-quarters battle, he and his men were deadly, but in conventional warfare they were found wanting. His men were living in the vehicles and two bunkers that housed the equipment and munitions caches, there were no trenches dug, as they did not expect to be in the combat zone for a protracted period, or have to defend the site. Sentries had been in the open, squatting under groundsheets out of the worst of the elements, where they could provide early warning, and contain intruders who may stumble upon them, but little else.

Major Kolsov awoke to the sound of the world ending, even though the heavy door to the bunker was closed against the elements. Scrambling for his weapon he headed for the ladder to the bunkers door, pausing only to stamp hard on the trapdoor to the bunkers lower level, to silence the sound of female screams coming from below. At the top of the ladder he flicked a switch, extinguishing the single electric light bulb, and pushed up the door until it locked open. Peering out cautiously he saw his second in command doing the same from the other bunker twenty feet away.

“Captain… report?”

The other man had been looking in another direction and jumped, obviously shaken by what had taken place. “Er… cluster bomb attack, I think… ”

He glanced down as something was shouted to him from within that bunker, and then looked back.

“No one is answering their radios… I will send two men to check.”

Their own vehicles, a half dozen APCs from various NATO armies, a Landrover, a Humvee and a German civilian police car were only three hundred metres away, in the centre of an area aflame with napalm. Everywhere that Kolsov looked showed the effects of anti-personnel weapons, so he shook his head.

“Don’t bother, they are beyond help… we stay in these uniforms and move out… fast, in five minutes.”

His Captain started to descend from sight and then stopped. “What about the prisoners… can they run, do we take them?”

Kolsov gave a harsh laugh.

“The way we’ve been using them, I doubt they can walk.” Sliding down the ladder he pulled on Wermacht equipment and stuffed extra ammunition inside the pockets of the camouflage jacket. There was little else of immediate use to him in this bunker, older uniforms from the clothing cache in the lower level had served as his bed, 1950’s khaki battle dress jackets bearing the shoulder flashes of Divisions long since disbanded. This level was a store for petrol, grenades, small arms and ammunition; the neighbouring bunker held explosives, medical supplies and rations. Once he was certain he had everything he needed he strode over to the trapdoor, lifting it open. Two faces peered up at him, squinting against the light entering from above. The German policewoman had been the driver of the police car they had seized; her partner had been tossed down an embankment after his throat had been cut. She had been spared for the same reason as the other occupant; both she and the USAF radar operator captured at Geilenkirchen AFB were young and pretty. Their faces had a haggard look about them now, bruised from repeated rapes by Kolsov and his men. Kolsov smiled coldly at them before closing it once more and securing the bolt that held it closed. Carrying over a jerrycan of petrol he carefully removed the pin from a hand grenade and lay the petrol can on its side atop the trapdoor, wedging the grenade beneath where the cans weight would hold the spring-arm in place until the can was moved. He had little doubt that the two females would call out once they heard friendly voices overhead, and some gallant young NATO soldier would try to release them. A second jerrycan was emptied onto the floor, and he grinned maliciously when the flammable liquid found its way down to the lower level through the gaps between the trapdoor and its frame. The prisoners terrified screams would serve to attract attention, providing of course that they had not shouted themselves hoarse by then.

About 300lbs of plastic explosive remained in the bunker, but without detonators inserted it would just burn fiercely, however the boxes of grenades, claymore mines and assorted munitions, would cook off nicely in the flames fed by the remaining twenty jerrycans. Emerging into the open he dropped the light bulb he had removed, and crushed it under foot before gesturing to the captain and the eight remaining men to follow him. Helmstedt held the nearest soviet forces and he headed southwest at a run, looking to put as much distance as possible between the evidence of recent habitation and themselves.

The mortars had dropped smoke to cover the pair of rifle companies in their advance on the woods, but on reaching the trees that cover stopped. The sweep through was only accomplished after much shouting and cursing, frequent stops in order to straighten the line and regain the intervals between each man. At 8am the Coldstreamers came up to the wrecks of a pair of Marder infantry fighting vehicles, a Bradley and a trio of M113s, a smell of something very similar to roast pork hung heavily in the air. The section that made the discovery also reported the presence of children’s corpses, but CSM Probert put the finders straight. He was pleased that the section was in cover when he arrived at the edge of a burnt area, all of 400m long and half again as wide. Blackened tree trunks, their branches burnt down to mere stumps, stuck up like ebony stalagmites from the roasted earth, giving the scene the look of an alien landscape. He followed the sections young commander to the first corpse, the soldier was keeping his features steadfastly neutral as he pointed it out, and Colin knew the young man was disturbed by this apparent discovery.

“The thing about napalm Corporal Tolley is the high temperature it produces. Body fluids boil away, and as they do the rest, including the bones, contracts… this isn’t a child’s body, I’d say he was about medium height when he was alive, the heat just shrank him by six inches or so.” The section commander looked down at the body, and then at Colin, visibly relieved that they hadn’t been involved in the accidental death of some kids playing Robin Hood amongst the trees.

They counted thirty-six bodies amongst the vehicles, and a further ten spread about nearby in pairs, easily identifiable as the sentries, but had found no living enemy troops. The first indication that there were survivors from the attack came a short time later when they came up to the bunkers, and Colin having rejoined his place at the centre of the platoon, hurried back.

He crawled the last twenty feet to where L/Cpl Tolley was lying beside Major Thompson.

“Sir, Armitage came across those two open trapdoors, there’s a fair bit of foot traffic around them in the snow, but he had a listen and says he can hear someone shouting from the far one..… that was before he called me. I’ve had a shufti, and it sounds like women.”

Colin could see the openings, about 25m away.

“What can you tell me, are they tunnels or what?”

“Sir, I can’t see the point of having two entrances next door to each other if they are tunnels. The trapdoors are metal, look fairly old like, and there are ladders that go down ten feet or so… the walls, what I could see of them, are brick, it’s pretty dark in there… maybe they are some sort of hides, sir.”

He nudged Tolley.

“Okay corporal, cut along back to your section, get them to toss across all their toggle ropes.” Colin had decided that an entry had to be effected so he was working on the assumption that there may be booby traps, the ladders were therefore suspect.

Colin used hand signals to tell 2 Section to provide cover if required and once the signal had been passed to everyone in that section, Colin crawled forward on his stomach, following Tolley’s footprints in the snow.

Crisis management is all about priorities, what needs to be done first and what can wait. A policeman at a traffic accident will deal with any casualties first, then the cars and lastly the witnesses, but if there are enough blue uniforms on scene they can do all three at once. The problem the President of the United States had was that there was just one of him and too many crises vying for the top slot. Some items he could farm out but others were his alone to deal with. A crisis not of the national security variety, but much closer to home, had been trying for twelve hours to reach him. A personal secretary at the family home in Wisconsin had notified the First Lady of a very official communication from the Defence Department, addressed to the Presidents first born. She had thought that they had an understanding, that their son would not be required to serve, and furthermore their friends had received the same call-up papers and some though not all felt betrayed. There were other people seeking his attention for the same reason, including some major contributors to the party war chest who did not appreciate their sons and daughters call to arms. It would be some time a lot later that day that the President would receive the first angry caller.

The President broke the connection with the new British PM, and shook his head in dismay. He had meant only to send commiseration’s followed by congratulations to his new office, but the damned man had stated he wanted some ‘input’ into how the war was being fought. He had obviously read a book once on cold war military strategy, and after a few words of very feigned regret at the death of his predecessor, stated he wanted the RAF to commence deep strike operations against railheads etc, in Poland and the Czech Republic. Didn’t the fool realise that his air force, in fact both their air forces, had been four times larger when Deep Strike had been an option, and now they just did not have the aircraft for such missions.

He wasn’t vastly impressed with the cabinet re-shuffle that was proposed either; the ex-servicemen his predecessor had brought in had been ousted by academics. That last thought brought a wry smile to the Presidents face, he was an academic himself and his own opinions of the military had undergone a sea change in the past weeks. However, the President had objected to the new PMs choice for one critical position as he failed to see what a 30-year-old with a degree in Sociology could bring with her by way of experience to the key Defence Ministers post. He was put on hold for half a minute but he knew full well that the ‘urgent matter that would take a few seconds’ was merely a ploy to continue the call on another phone. The CIA and diplomatic sources kept him abreast of the peccadillos in both friendly and unfriendly governments.

Political horse-trading had commenced with the resumption of the call, and ended with a former Shadow Cabinet member getting the job.

He replaced the receiver and chuckled because he didn’t know what amused him more, the fact that the guy wouldn’t be getting anymore extra-marital workouts in that bed, or the Sociologist who’d just been screwed twice, in very different ways.

The Chief Executive signalled for more coffee and turned to the stack of files marked ‘Most Secret’ sent over by Admiral Gee for his signature. After first checking that Henry Shaw had already signed off on them he scribbled his signature and reached for the next in the pile. He didn’t read the content, a glance at the name of the operation was all they got, such odd names designed to disinform an enemy of their purpose. Pork Crackling, Alabama Sunset, Armageddon’s Song, Cosmic Wanderer, and what the hell was a Turkey Snack supposed to do? Henry Shaw certainly wasn’t one for macho sounding names of the Approaching Fury, or Imminent Lightning strain.

The aide who delivered his coffee reminded him that he was due to call the new German Chancellor in five minutes, and then he had to sleep as the Far Eastern and Anzac representatives were arriving in the late hours. The summit would be delayed twenty-four hours in order for the Europeans to send replacements for those killed in Galway Bay. He rushed through the pile and was putting his pen away when the aide re-entered and gave him the nod. He allowed himself a moment to prepare and then picked up the receiver.

“Mr Chancellor, please allow me to express my deepest regret… ”

The broken glass from a light bulb was the first confirmation Colin had that a ‘nasty’ had been left behind by the enemy. He’d lain beside the entrance looking at the shards of glass in the snow before crawling back, only to return with a rather bloodied shirt, taken from a corpse, and a pair of PNGs, passive night goggles.

The bulb had been broken either to hinder anyone entering, or to force them to use light, either of which could prove fatal depending on the type of device in use. He didn’t have ‘Polestar’ to help him out with its remotely activated flashbulbs and light emissions of differing frequencies, so ultimately he would have to go down himself. The hide appeared to be of fairly professional construction, so an automated self-destruct system was a possibility, something like a movement sensor on a timer giving just enough time for an authorised person to disarm it. With that in mind he’d tied the shirt to the rope and laid it across the entrance, retiring to a safe distance before pulling the rope and allowing the shirt end to fall within the dark confines. After five minutes of jerking the rope up and down to spoof any motion sensor, he had tied his end to a tree and climbed down it, avoiding the ladder. Finding the booby-trap was almost an anti-climax, in fact it was such an obvious ploy that it raised goosebumps because he’d thought he might have missed something.

Petrol fumes had rendered one of the prisoners unconscious, and the other had to be carried out too due to its effects. Both were sent to the rear under escort to where an armoured ambulance would meet them at the forests edge.

By 1400hrs the two rifle companies had emerged out of the far side of the wood without sighting a single live enemy. Lt Col Reed gave the men a half hour to brew up and have some food before swinging back onto their original axis and continuing the advance, leaving Major Thompson and his troops to complete a head count of the corpses. An hour later and the wood had been abandoned by NATO, but the scars of their visit would remain for decades.

In the north western region of the woods, an area of the snow covered woodland floor moved. Like a large green earthworm coming up for air a quilted tip poked up from the snow, and there remained motionless for five minutes as it listened. Apparently satisfied that there was nothing hostile nearby, it wriggled itself clear of the snow and parted down the centre.

Nikoli unzipped the sleeping bag and rolled out of it into a firing position. His assault rifle shook in his hands and he handled it clumsily, the cold that had slowly sucked the heat from his limbs had robbed them of their dexterity.

Over the next few minutes all but two of his men heaved off the snow that had concealed them within their shell scrapes, several were unable to hold their weapons as the cold had made numb hands and fingers into unresponsive claws.

The amount of debris that had fallen onto the snowy surface of the wood during the attack had lessened the chances of discovery by the enemy. They had covered each other over with snow and the hidden men used twigs to keep small air holes open. The British troops had moved through this section of wood carefully but they were more focused on defensive positions and men above ground, so the paratroopers went undiscovered.

The two who had not appeared were wounded men, and in their shocked state had lapsed into hypothermia and died. They were left where they lay and the snow shovelled back over them.

Nikoli kept his men busy, packing away ground sheets and sleeping bags before allowing them to eat cold rations and await the coming of dark. As NATO had apparently blown up a whole wood in order to take them out, he decided that they would rejoin the main force without further diversions. A recce confirmed that the wood and its surrounds were now clear of NATO combat troops, so with the fall of night he led his men west.

Any notions that the Russians would try to sneak past the Royal Navy anti-submarine warfare group were quickly dispelled as dusk was falling. Since the afternoon, the Merlins and Sea Kings caught fleeting glimpses of the enemy on their sonars at extreme range, but like will-o-the-whisp’s they disappeared when they tried to lock them down. The senior ASWO, aboard the Illustrious was in agreement with the operators in the helicopters, these contacts were diesels, and as such more elusive than the nuclear boats. Of the big nuclear powered vessels there was as yet no trace, and it was assumed that the diesels constituted the van of the enemy force. The big fear was that the force had divided into smaller units, sent out to search different sectors of a necessity, due to the hugely degraded satellite coverage. The only known RORSAT the enemy still had up at the moment wouldn’t cover the upper reaches of the North Atlantic for another twelve hours.

At 2015hrs the first missiles had broken the surface and headed for the British surface warships. Sixteen missiles from a single source that had been quickly attacked and sunk, as had another diesel that began emitting radar energy and transmitting radio messages during the attack.

HMS Edinburgh had hardly worked up a sweat as her air defence systems swatted the dozen inbounds from the sky, well before they had closed to critical range. All twelve had climbed to two thousand feet and flown diverging courses, an obvious sign that the Russian submariners had no up to date intelligence on NATO positions. The defenders were still congratulating themselves when the next attack came fifteen minutes later, from five widely spaced vessels and on evasive courses that would terminate close to the Type 42 destroyer, using targeting data gathered by the sacrificed submarine that had plotted HMS Edinburgh’s position on radar, backtracking her missiles. Merlins and Sea Kings, heading back to their patrol areas after running for cover with the first launches, scattered once more. Most went east or west, getting out of the way, whilst those nearer the carrier headed for her deck.

Four vessels launched almost simultaneously, the fifths missiles were not breaking the surface until her sister ships ordnance were all in the air. Edinburgh’s air defence team went to high gear, plotting and launching on the inbounds, which were altering altitude, course and speed every minute or so.

To reach Edinburgh the missiles passed between the frigates HMS Cumberland and Campbeltown, entering the edges of their air defence zones. The first six missiles detected the warships radar energy and altered course, four going for the Campbeltown and two at her sister ship, leaving the destroyer to cope with the forty-six remainder. Illustrious came up with the destroyer, lending its own Phalanx gun to the defence, ten minutes later its magazine had expended all but eighteen rounds in destroying the ten missiles that got inside the missile engagement range.

The last eight missiles, flying almost a minute behind the main wave, were connected to one another by microwave link. Those additions, plus their ultra-sensitive proximity sensors, were upgrades added just prior to departing Murmansk. HMS Cumberland quickly splashed the first pair launched at her, and she sent Sea Darts after the last group of missiles as they entered the western edge of her air defence envelope. Only the last Russian weapon could be attacked due to the extreme range, and Cumberland’s targeting system only predicted a 30 % chance of interception. However the defending missiles were detected a quarter mile away by the tail-end-charlie who flashed a signal to the others. The signal triggered a chain of actions that took less than a thousandth of a second to complete, ending with an electronic impulse reaching Krypton switches in the weapons innards.

Not since the 1960’s had the subterranean complex been filled with so many people and a rich variety of languages and accents seemed to add life to the cold grey concrete walls and passages. The tanned skins of the delegates from the Pacific Rim countries were in sharp contrast to the pallid, prison-like pallor’s of the Americans, most of whom had not seen the sun for many days.

The President had prepared himself for a night of informal meetings and little sleep, but to his surprise there were few delegates with national axes to grind, the war had given focus and unity to the threatened nations.

Any hope of an early night were dashed by the hand written note Admiral Gee passed to him as he made small talk with the PM of New Zealand. It simply stated ‘News from the Atlantic’ and he was wearing a neutral expression so the president excused himself and headed for his office with the admiral in tow. Joe Levi was waiting outside as they arrived, a printout in his hands and a look that matched the admirals, but that changed once they were away from public view.

“Okay… what’s happened?” asked the President.

“Sir, at precisely twenty oh five hours the Royal Navy anti-submarine warfare group made contact with the enemy force… the reds used nukes Mr President.”

His scientific advisor listened grimly as Mike Gee continued.

“Multiple weapons were used and the Brits took heavy losses… their carrier, an air defence destroyer and a frigate are still capable of limited offensive operations, but they lost two frigates and most of their aircraft to the effects… ”

“Actually HMS Campbeltown is still afloat.” Joseph interrupted. “… she’s only sinking quite slowly by the stern, but so heavily irradiated that her crew will be dead by this time tomorrow.” Then he realised he had not allowed the admiral to finish, and muttered “Sorry Mike.”

Admiral Gee wasn’t put out, and merely shrugged.

“Joe has the data downloaded from Illustrious it seems that the total yield was no more than ten megatons but the radiation count is out of proportion to that… the weapons probably all had a cobalt casing.”

“It was quite an ingenious solution to the problem of trying to defeat modern air defences with old systems.” Joe explained. “ If you score a hit on a nuke in flight it will make a mess for years to come, but the warhead won’t detonate… so here they are with a bunch of old systems carrying one meg apiece… or thereabouts, and little chance of doing any real harm with them. They appear to have rigged them all to go off at once, and produce a lot of radiation while they were at it.

The President was getting used to receiving bad news; he did just wish that for once he’d get something he could feel good about.

“No chance at all that the soviets nuclear cupboard is now empty, I suppose?”

Admiral Gee shook his head.

“I very much doubt it sir… our best estimate is that we have whittled down their subs to between twelve and sixteen hulls… if they had nukes to use on the Illustrious group, then they will certainly have some remaining for the convoy.”

“What shape are the rest of them in… the Brit ships?”

“Something on par with sailing through a super tornado… 180mph winds, sixty foot waves, hull plates buckled and leaking, plus degraded electrical systems due to the EMP and a lot of ratings who were topside have sustained damage to their eyes.” Admiral Gee tried to picture what it must have been like in the vessels sickbays, trying to provide some level of comfort to young men and women writhing in the agony caused to their optical nerves. All the while the ships were being pounded by the mountainous seas that resulted from the explosions.

“Okay Mike.” The president’s voice snapped the naval officer out of his imaginings. “If we order the convoy onto a more southerly course they may just avoiding the subs, but it would add another day onto their sailing time. Can we hold out that long in Germany?”

“Supplies are again reaching critical levels sir… they have us outnumbered but our weaponry and equipment makes the difference, but once the ordnance runs out there will be no stopping them. We haven’t been able to snuff out the airborne foothold they have on the western banks of the rivers, and we are only making slow progress in Helmstedt and Braunschweig. And on that note… I have been informed that SACEUR has authorised the use of large fuel air weapons against both those towns. The Brits of their 3^rd Mech, a Dutch armoured brigade and the French 2REP, the Foreign Legion paratroopers, together they are the only regular reserve he has left to form a blocking force if the reds break out. SACEUR has ordered the French and Dutch to link up with the Brits, which should happen tomorrow night.” Admiral Gee had spent an hour on the phone with SACEUR as the Canadian ran through his ‘worst possible scenario’ should NATO fail to hold at its present line, it didn’t make for easy listening.

“We have our own 4^th Mechanised Brigade of the 1^st US Armoured Div out of the line for refit. They fought off the airborne dropped behind them whilst resisting the crossing down south on the Elbe and took a beating… they are at half strength and they are going west to reconstitute. If the line breaks at the Elbe then they will be in a position to join with the blocking force. SACEUR is also about to order forces from Norway to reinforce Germany, the British 40 and 44 Royal Marine Commando units… ”

“Do they have armour?” interrupted the President.

“No sir, they aren’t set up like the USMC.”

“So we will have what… a handful of infantry heavy brigades to stop a whole bunch of armoured divisions?”

“If our line at the Elbe breaks… yes Mr President, but please bear in mind the Reds motor rifle and tank units aren’t anywhere close to full strength anymore.”

The President mulled all that over in his mind

Consequently those German towns are going to be flattened in order to free up the Brits.”

“What the hell is a large fuel air… I thought they were all big?”

“True enough Mr President, but the ones he signed off on are so big a C130 makes the drops.”

“When?” was the Presidents’ only question.

“As soon as we can deliver them from stateside sir.”

Only the wakes of the nearest ships were able to tell Admiral Mann’s eyes that his great vessel was not alone in the night. He stood on the bridge wing staring off into the distance with his arms wrapped around himself, in an attempt to ward off the bitter cold.

He had earlier received a call from the president and had taken it in his office, with the door closed and his staff sat outside for the duration. It had not been the easiest of moments in his life, knowing the fate of Europe, if not the free world, would stand or fall on his decision of how to proceed, now that they knew how the enemy intended to deal with his command.

He was very aware that the president was not alone during the call, and that his military advisors would have been scribbling comments down on paper, and showing them to the president. Whether or not those comments had been critical or supportive, the president had heard him out without interruption, listening to the reasons for his intended course of action, ending the call with a sombre

“Admiral, you are the man on the spot and know the risks better than I. The next forty-eight hours will show whether or not you are right… and our prayers go with you all.”

Admiral Conrad did not know what the presidents’ reaction would have been, had he once more requested permission to employ nuclear depth charges. When the skies had shrouded 90 % of the planet, and the snow had come again after their first use, Conrad had felt a sick panic in his gut, like someone playing with a match who starts a major conflagration they have no hope of stopping. He shook his head now as he thought about it; no he couldn’t, not again. He had opened Pandora’s Box once and maybe they could survive the consequences, but he dare not lift that lid a second time.

The rain started without any preliminary spitting, the heavens opening and reducing visibility even further, as it poured down upon the solitary figure, adding its weight to an already crushing burden.

There was a great deal of activity on the runways and taxiways, all taking place with the very minimum of illumination. B2 Spirit bombers were lined up along the taxiways awaiting the word to launch, but they weren’t the fore runners of this operation, the first of those had taken off hours before.

An impressive number of tankers from the 909^th Air Refuelling Squadron, late of Yokota AFB but now based at Hickam AFB in Hawaii, and the 161^st Air Refuelling Wing from Sky Harbor in Phoenix, were out ahead of them in a long stream of KC-135Es, a long line that initially ran south from Mindanao before curving in a loop to India. The Air National Guardsmen and women were carrying out the complex refuelling plan along the route that gave Singapore and Chinese dominated or occupied areas a wide birth. With a range of over 11,000 miles, the 120,000lbs of transferable fuel each carried would see the bombers with their human loads into China and from there to Hickam AFB where they would revert back to their primary role, ready for the next stage. C5s were enroute to Hickam from Whiteman AFB with the bombers launching gear and ordnance, the ground crews would be on their way to Hawaii within two hours of the last B2 leaving the ground.

The first pair of bombers were still configured for the role they had been designed for, they would precede the way into China, and as a last resort would wild weasel the hell out of any air defences that detected their charges. In the third bomber in line for take-off, Major Dewar had his fingers triple crossed that no defensive action by the bombers would be necessary, because their mission was as good as doomed if it was.

Special Forces soldiers are trained to rely on their own abilities, and those of their teammates, but the two-dozen troops were now locked away in the dark, reliant on other people’s skills and the vagaries of chance.

Further east, quite a long way closer to the US West Coast, the sole surviving warship of Britain’s flag waving mission to the Far East, crept along 900 fathoms below the surface.

The turn-around time in a Pearl Harbor almost devoid of its warships and fleet auxiliaries had been eerie, conducted amidst row upon row of empty berths those occupants were now at sea, either on active operations or stood out of sight of land for security reasons. Aside from the dangers of missile attacks on the facilities, HMS Hood had seen evidence of other threats as she passed a birth where the superstructures of two destroyers protruded above the waves, their hulls breached by saboteurs’ limpet mines on the first day of the war. The only other warship they’d seen had been whilst the replenishment was in full swing, the crew and base personnel working like a huge pit-stop crew. A frigate had steamed slowly past with her bilge pumps straining, the vessel listing slightly to starboard and seawater pouring from additional hose nozzles. Her upper works bearing the scars of modern warfare at sea, its bridge reduced to buckled and jagged steel, scarred by fire.

Hood had entered harbour just before sunset and tied up in the dark, with little in the way of fanfare. On the quayside to meet them had been a USN staff officer with ‘eyes only’ orders and despatches for the captain, two armed SPs for the Chinese aviator, and a female captain accompanying a priest, who had another pair of SPs in tow, which had seemed quite bizarre at the time.

HMS Hood’s captain had debriefed the service personnel, and both civilian’s rescued from the attack by the Chinese Han class submarine, the two sole survivors of the USN/RN battle group that had been centred on the USS John F Kennedy, and two tourists who had stumbled in on the aftermath.

After signing for, and then locking away the orders, the captain had learnt the purpose of the odd foursome, and then sent for Lt Nikki Pelham, leaving her with the USN captain and priest in his cabin whilst they carried out their difficult task.

The young female aviator had been ashen faced as she’d left the vessel, there were no tears but they would come later, in the meantime the SPs assured that no press parasite got anywhere near her enroute to Hickam and a military flight stateside.

The Brits had departed for the embassy in their wake, and in all, the captain had time only for the briefest of farewells to each of his passengers before getting on with readying his command for war again.

A pre-dawn departure followed by a high-speed run of almost fifteen hundred miles had brought them to within sixty miles of the edge of their patrol area, but now they were back in the stealth business.

Following the onset of war a great number of people had left the capital, but they amounted to less than one percent of the total population. Not everyone had a second home to escape to, and most Londoners had to work for a living, global nuclear conflict or not.

The Right Honourable Matthew St Reever’s Esq had spent the previous weeks in the Cotswolds, there was little for a former shadow cabinet minister to do with a coalition government in power, so he and his wife had made a holiday of it.

The sudden death of the Prime Minster in the Atlantic had ended the holiday, and to his great surprise he found himself in office, it came as a surprise because only hours after the death he had been given the name of the new defence minister, prior to the reshuffle announcement, and it had not been his.

The Minister had rushed up to the alternative seat of government site, below ground in northeast England, where he found that his new colleagues were well versed in the intricacies of the Human Rights Act, and could find their way around a spread sheet, but their attitude was that of battlefields being ‘other’ people’s domains. The defence ministers own military experience was limited to a year in the Eton College Army Cadet Corps, but he had taken his shadow post seriously, put himself about and had a serious respect for the nations fighting men and women. Unlike his colleagues, when he said “Army or “Navy” they did not sound like four letter expletives.

The new PM had obviously had his own ‘dream team’ in mind should he ever find himself in number ten, and he had quite obviously made some promises to those individuals. The unfortunate part was that whereas these academics could possibly have formed a fair to middling peacetime government, it wasn’t peacetime anymore.

The PMs intended candidate for the defence seat was a young woman with zero political or military experience but who made a lot of noise about women’s rights, in particular her objections to the ‘glass ceiling’ that prevented women being CEOs in industry or holding high office; this was someone who always forgot Margaret Thatcher. The young woman was to have been the PMs signal that he had no glass ceilings for talent as regards age or gender, however, it wasn’t lost on those in the know that the ‘young talent’s’ only obvious ability was in dropping her panties for powerful men who could open doors.

One insider had made the wry comment.

“Perhaps the PM thinks the Russian premier won’t nuke us… if he thinks she’d put out for him too?”

The minister was now enroute to Whale Island where the China operation was being run, but he had papers in his safe at his London house in Tooting Bec, papers that he had not expected to need until this post had suddenly become his.

His protection team rode in the Daimlers before and aft of his own, and although he had a police driver for his car, that man was dozing in the passenger seat after fourteen straight hours behind the wheel. Fuel shortages were staring to bite and local councils only ploughed and gritted one lane on essential routes, which, added to the state of the icy road network and blackouts, made their journey south long and tiring.

The minister assured the policeman that he himself drove a Daimler before insisting that they change over, after leaving the M25 motorway at junction 14. Aside from the assigned drivers, the protection officers were either ‘Response’ or ‘Basic’ class drivers; police regulations prevented them from driving vehicles over a certain horsepower whilst on duty, so the minister saw no other choice.

At the slow speeds they were forced by the conditions to hold to, the minister did not notice the differences between his own car and this one.

The journey from the motorway to the A3 dual carriageway was frustrating for the minister, and he was glad to see that the wide, straight surface of the A3 was slightly clearer courtesy of some grit on part of its lanes.

The long journey and tiredness made the minister irritated with the pace of the lead car, which he thought should have been taking advantage of the clear stretch, so putting his foot down he overtook it, forcing it to speed up. He did not switch off the radio when the speaker emitted a protest from his protection team, but he did turn it down.

On a gritted lane with an open road ahead of him, the minister relaxed a little and took notice of the darkened suburbs. Without the aid of lighting it was hard to recall where he was on a road he had driven on hundreds of times before. There were no street or route signs to assist the unfamiliar traveller, they had been removed in order that an invading force could not benefit from the directions they displayed. It was like suddenly becoming a stranger in your own hometown, he thought.

The clear road ceased as he approached the underpass below the Malden Road junction, a container lorry travelling a lot slower occupied the lane free of snow and ice. Grinding his teeth in irritation the minister brought his speed down and glanced at his watch, they were seriously behind time and he wanted to collect the papers and get back on the road to Portsmouth.

His frustration grew as the lorry slowed even more to negotiate the ramp out of the underpass, and with a quick glance in the side mirror he pulled to the right, having to fight the steering as the wheels went off gritted tarmac and onto the snow and ice. He was able to give the lorry a wide berth and regain the cleared lane, putting his foot down instinctively. Beyond the Morden Road junction is a long downhill stretch on the in-town route, and the cars speed grew quickly, as did the lorries behind them.

The lack of illumination and route signs almost made him miss the turn off for Tooting, in fact he was at the junction before realisation hit him and he steered sharply left onto the curving ramp which swept back and over the A3, to Bushey Road.

Bushey Road was not judged to be an essential route and after a few metres the road surface of the turn off was hard packed snow overlying a thick sheet of ice. Due to the harsh steering the minister had used getting on to the turn off, the Daimler was not yet balanced, there was still weight bearing on the rear offside wheel as the car encountered the snow, and it was travelling far too fast for the existing road conditions.

The Daimler he was driving differed greatly from production models, it was armoured for the protection of the principles it carried, and being far heavier its handling qualities were very different indeed.

As the back end started to slew on the ice, the minister under steered, not taking into account the cars extra weight. When that failed to do the trick he felt a spike of panic, and over steered, which sent the car sliding sideways across the road and through the crash barrier. The fall of forty feet, onto the dual carriageway they had only moments before left, caused mortal injuries to the minister and the policeman, but it was the impact of the container lorry, its brakes locked up and its trailer jack-knifing, that killed them.

The radio programmes in Russia churned out an almost constant stream of classical music, traditional folk songs (of the patriotic ilk, of course), with rather vague and repetitive news reports. The news reported heroic yet non-specific deeds, and great advances into Western Europe without actually mentioning place names. Svetlana, who loved music, was becoming desperate for some other audible stimuli, even the god-awful gangsta rap would have been a change at the very least. She was slouched sideways in an armchair, one leg hooked over an arm and the other outstretched as she starred broodily out of the window. The old man was chopping wood outside whilst he listened to a jazz CD on Svetlana’s Walkman, she was not able to make use of it whilst she listened to the couples old radio and he had been charmingly grateful of the loaner, bowing and kissing her hand.

Patricia was in the kitchen helping the old woman prepare a meal, and Caroline had found paper and a pencil from somewhere, with which she was sketching the living room where she and the Russian girl were. It was a talent Patricia was not aware her pilot possessed, but Caroline had modestly declined to let her see the results. The atmosphere in the house was hard to take, tedium and uncertainly, plus a tension in the air that Patricia could feel on her skin, almost. Essential maintenance had been carried out twice thus far on the Nighthawk; Patricia had escaped to the landing site every other day to do systems and maintenance checks, stopping overnight in the forest with the Green Berets tasked with guarding the site. The long journey there and back held little attraction, but it was more of a change of scenery than the Russian girl, confined for twelve hours a day in the room where the radio lived. Although was apparent to all that there was something important she was listening for, the Russian girl had offered no explanation of exactly what it was that commanded her presence by the ancient, yet trusty device.

Those breaks from the house had in some way had some effect, on her return the strain was not so palpable and Caroline, who seemed the worst effected of the two Americans, was a little more chilled out but that faded before the arrival of the evening.

Rather than accompany Patricia on the maintenance runs Caroline had remained to keep Svetlana company, and as the Playboy Pair, as Pat thought of them, had struck up a good friendship whilst back in Scotland, Pat left her to it.

At just after noon, Svetlana suddenly sat bolt upright before standing and grinning.

“Okay, one volunteer to accompany me on an excursion?”

The prospect of actually doing something had brought almost instantaneous reactions from the aircrew, but the bombardier/navigator was beaten by the pilot to the punch by a hair.

Svetlana grinned slyly at Caroline’s smug expression, and as she left to run a bath, added.

“You haven’t seen the uniform of the day yet… follow me!”

The bathroom fittings were rather elderly, dating back to the original construction. The wood fired boiler, which served the house, was undersize and the result was a less than piping hot, half-filled tub, once Caroline had done the honours. She was attempting to coax the bar of soap into producing some lather when there was a slight commotion outside the door.

The old man had brought up towels to leave outside the door; he was straightening up, still puffing away on his pipe when Svetlana left her room, bound for the bathroom.

He was supposed to be exhaling a lung full of smoke at that exact instant, but involuntarily inhaled midway through the process. In all his married life he had never once seen his own wife naked, night clothes had always preserved her modesty, and now here in the latter years of his life a beautiful young woman had appeared, as naked as a jay bird striding unabashed towards him.

Svetlana helped him to his feet, thumping him on the back in order to aid the intake of oxygen once more, and then slipped into the bathroom still giving solicitous advice about not overdoing things and cutting down on his smoking.

Caroline did not consider herself prudish, individual shower stalls were not fitted as standard in USAF accommodation, yet when the naked Russian girl stuck a toe into the water she was occupying, clearly with the intention of joining her she felt somewhat uncomfortable. It was also the first time she had seen her naked, and it gave her an annoying feeling of inferiority even though she knew she had no reason to feel like that. Glancing down briefly at herself, she also felt rather overdressed compared to the Russian’s follicle free zone.

“Sorry Caroline, no time to heat more water, budge up… don’t worry, I promise not to pee!”

The American curled her legs up, relinquishing half the territory but Svetlana stepped in and merely rested on her knees at the free end.

“What was going on out there?” Caroline enquired, indicating the bathroom door with a nod of her head.

“Oh, the old ladies husband had a bit of a turn… can’t for the life of me think why!”

A guffaw burst from Caroline.

“Don’t you have any inhibitions?” It was meant as a joke but she was surprised at the answer, delivered in an offhand and rather matter-of-fact manner.

“Kind of hard to whore for your country and have guilt trips.”

She smiled at the pilot as she said it, but kept silent what was now in her mind. The fact that she was training for a year as a Sparrow before the possibility of escape had come about. A year where she quite literally saw everything did everything… and got marked on it for technique and artistic interpretation. It hadn’t all been sex though; language coaches had taught her to speak unaccented English, retired ballerinas had tutored her in grace of movement along with former models, until she became poetry in motion whether on a dance floor or merely walking down the street. Psychologist’s specialising in manipulation taught the students, there was a class every single day. She learnt from experts how to strip, how to pole dance, to lap dance and how also to waltz and tango with elegance. Art appreciation, current affairs and music lessons were also on the syllabus, it was a cultural ‘dressing up to dress down’ course, designed to produce someone who could adapt to any number of desired roles, from palace courtesan to street walker. These lessons were spaced between live demonstrations and porn movies, followed by homework with a talented and experienced partner but with tutors watching and making notes, ticking or crossing boxes.

The failure rate amongst the ‘students’ had been however on the low side, which was surprising as virtually everyone there had been pressed into the service, and this was probably due to a pretty seventeen year old blond who had refused point blank to cooperate from day one. The girl had been denied food or sleep in order to persuade her otherwise, but after four days her will had been unbroken, so the chief instructor had called all the students outside into the rear courtyard before the start of the fifth days lessons. The chief instructor was already awaiting them there as they filed out, a shotgun resting across his forearm, broken so as to show its barrels were empty. About his shoulders he had worn an ammunition belt with a dozen cartridges sat in the loops, there shiny brass ends gleaming against the polish of the tooled leather. The blond had been called forward to stand a dozen feet to his side, ordered to strip and then face the remainder, and all the time the man had spoken in a clear but neutral tone about the unacceptability of anything but total obedience. Svetlana had thought it to be a scare tactic, even after he carefully slipped a cartridge into each breech and closed the weapon with a sudden flourish, and she could still remember the sound it had made, the solid clunk as the locking levers had engaged. At the end of his speech he had said firmly.

“You will obey!” and then turning, he’d raised the weapon and fired both barrels into the side of the blond girls head. He repeated the phrase as he ejected the spent cartridges and loaded fresh ones, aiming at the torso on the ground, and firing into it again and again, each time at a different part of the body until all the cartridges were gone. Several of the girls had thrown up during the display of calculated destruction, two had fainted and Svetlana, who had tried to turn away, had been grabbed by the hair by an instructor and forced to watch.

The ground rules had been firmly laid out that morning, but two other girls had fallen by the wayside that year, one had tried to run away and one suffered a breakdown. They had disappeared in the night and all signs of their existence had been gone before the coming of dawn. No one for one moment believed that either girl had been simply thrown out for failing. Other, more subtle methods, were also used to provide the proper motivation; such as on the wall of the gymnasium, where there was displayed a poster depicting an empty cartridge case, and beside it the words ‘Cellulite kills’.

From time to time she was taken into the city, as were all the students, accompanied of course by tutors, and given a key to an apartment or hotel room, after which she would have to pick up someone of the instructors choosing, usually in a nightclub or hotel bar and seduce them back to the room. From start to finish her efforts would be watched, and recorded on hidden monitors, and a debrief would take place the next day. These were the 'test nights’ and in the beginning for Svetlana they were the worst. The targets were never terribly attractive physical specimens, giving them a hunk or a beauty to get into bed would have been too easy on the students. So various overweight, hairy, sweaty or downright ugly individuals got to find that the Christmas to end all Christmas’s, had for them come early. Svetlana had come so close to failing after one disastrous evening when she had fled from a hotel room, still only half undressed and unable to go through with the expected act. However, one of the demonstrators who lived and worked in the training facility had taken her to one side the next day and told her the secret. In order to survive, in order to reach old age without being disappeared or going insane, she had to be successful in the role chosen for her. In order to succeed in that then she had to be 100 % convincing, and the only way for that to happen was for her to enjoy what she was doing. Acting out the role, no matter how well, was not sufficient to reach the ultimate goal of dying of old age whilst still of sound mind. Svetlana had listened well to what the demonstrator had called a form self-hypnotism, but who admitted was really achieving a state of mind that could be put on at will, like a suit of clothes, and put away again afterwards.

The Sparrow School was not a totally unforgiving place; everyone was allowed one failure on the test nights, just one. A week after the disaster Svetlana had again been taken into Moscow, to a club popular with the capitols young and rich, and visiting western businessmen who came to ogle at young, scantily clad bodies on its dance floor. There was a book running amongst the staff of the school, and the odds lay against Svetlana’s ‘disappearing’ after this night was high. The tutor with the task of selecting her partner for the night had a week’s wages bet on her failing, and she selected for Svetlana an overweight German businessman in his late thirties, with halitosis and impressive clusters of ginger hair sprouting from each nostril and from within each ear. If she had expected Svetlana to balk at the task then she was disappointed, for from the moment she left the tutors sides she was a different person. With steadily falling spirits the tutor had observed her charges manner on the dance floor as she’d gone about catching the targets attention, this was definitely not the pitifully pathetic teenager who had sobbed quietly on the journey back to the school a week before. Six hours later the unconsciously pronounced swing of Svetlana’s hips as she’d left the hotel room, and the twinkle in her eyes had confirmed what the tutor and her colleagues had witnessed on the hotel room monitors, a star had been born.

So here I am again, she thought as she stepped from the bath to wash her long hair in the basin. I have come full circle, and it is almost time to wear… no, to become that other person once more.

Patricia had found Caroline’s sketches and was looking through them when she heard the bathroom door open; she hurriedly tucked them away behind Caroline’s armchair and went upstairs. In the room the Russian girl used, tucked away on its own at the rear of the house, she found Svetlana sorting through the contents of a trunk brought from Moscow by their contact on the first night. She knew for a fact each item fit her; she just needed something for the American. She smiled widely at Patricia when she appeared, Svetlana’s characteristic exuberance had returned and she hissed triumphantly.

“Yessss!” when she found what she had been seeking. Dropping her towel she extracted a pair of suede leather thigh length boots, before pulling on a matching number that tied up down both flanks. Its designer had intended it to be a top, to go over a blouse, skirt or jeans, but the Russian girl wore it on its own as a mini dress and as anyone observing from the side could see, she wore nothing beneath it.

“Whoa there, honey!” a laughing Patricia exclaimed as the Russian bent over to adjust the fit of her boots, and reached into the trunk to extract a g string which she tossed to Svetlana.

“You are showing way too much territory, if you know what I mean… you’ll catch your death!” The tiny item was wiggled into before a very short skirt was passed over to Caroline.

“These are all mine, my… former tools of the trade. I left a lot of stuff in storage when I left, and as I’m still the same size, and you’re a ten as well, so we should make a convincingly hot pair.”

Caroline first held it at arm’s length, and then against her hips. The filmy silk skirt barely covered her buttocks and was also see-through.

“No way ‘lana!”

“It will be curfew by the time we get to where we are going, and that is to the dacha’s owned by very important people. The only people who go there at night are people on urgent official business… and very expensive hookers. Although most of the owners are conspicuously absent, the area is patrolled by the militia and we could be stopped at a mobile checkpoint.”

Both Americans had been supplied with Swiss passports and visas in Scotland, which described them rather vaguely as being in the entertainment business, and both spoke some German from their frequent postings to that country.

“If we are stopped, leaving the talking to me, don’t say anything, don’t even acknowledge their existence… in fact your whole attitude should be arrogant and one of you can’t afford me, ok?”

Caroline felt butterflies start playing bumper cars with her stomach lining.

“Er, I’m not a spy, I fly advanced aircraft to far flung exotic climes, often populated by strange, yet interesting peoples, and I bomb the shit out of them with pinpoint accuracy… but Lara Croft I ain’t!”

“I need you because the old lady’s bum would look big in that skirt I just gave you… Caroline, your job will be to stay with the car and watch the clock, if I’m not back within ninety minutes you drive back here, collect Patricia, get to the Nighthawk, and get the hell back to the West.”

“Do you know who it is you are going to meet?”

Svetlana levelled with her, telling as much as would be safe for the American to know.

“I know who the meeting is for the benefit of, but there is a chance that they cannot be there and a proxy will be waiting instead. The proxy will be someone in a position to know the information we need, and in a position to deal.”

Patricia picked up on that last word.

“Deal?” Her own profession dealt with more black and white issues, cloak and dagger wasn’t the norm for aircrew. “So this isn’t one of our guys working undercover, or a CIA mole then?”

“No, this is someone who has always worked for the state, and has now reached lofty heights… ” Pat’s mouth opened to protest, but Svetlana continued.

“You won’t know this, but there is currently a high turnover of people filling the top slots of the new Soviet Union, and they have to be feeling pretty damned worried that they don’t screw up. Giving one of them the option to cut and run could seem extremely attractive about now.”

Patricia mulled it over in her head for a moment.

“You know these guys personally, like on friendly terms?”

“Yes, I know the one the contact was made with; I doubt we could exactly be termed as friends though.”

Caroline was as much unhappy with the situation as Patricia, and she shook her head.

“So if there is bad history there, then why you… I mean why not send Constantine, or even one of our spooks?”

Svetlana couldn’t tell her it was because they wanted something from her personally; she certainly couldn’t state that an element of revenge was possibly a motive, so she told a half-truth. “They know me from before, and I made the initial contact… so when I’m talking immunity and several million in cash, to see out their days in comfort, it will come across better than from a totally unknown face.”

“Are they trustworthy though?” Caroline’s butterflies were not getting any better with what Svetlana had told her up to now.

The Russian almost pulled a face. Trustworthy? It wasn’t the first word that jumped to mind. Ruthless, controlling, perverse and morally corrupt were certainly the lasting impression she had, but before, once quid pro quo had taken place to the satisfaction of all parties, they’d kept their word.

“Providing they get what they want… yeah, they’ll do their part.”

But despite the emphatic nod she gave as she spoke, Svetlana felt a knot of fear squeeze her insides.

She allowed Caroline to sort through the trunk and grinned at Patricia.

“Your turn next time, if there is one.” But the bombardier looked merely uncomfortable, worrying about their safety. The pilot turned and went downstairs, absenting herself from the giggling pair, electing to take a walk in the woods instead.

An hour later, Svetlana had made up her own face and then Caroline’s, and the pilot had to admit that she looked chic, elegant and in fact pretty damn sensational, in revealing clothing bearing designer labels. However, had her Mother been present she would have a stroke to she could see her daughter attired as if expecting to collect an award at a porn industry ceremony.

The last item Svetlana put on was a thin gold belt, and after checking the batteries of the Walkman given her by Scott, she clipped it to the belt.

Pat didn’t know how he was summoned, but their CIA contact arrived outside in his old but reliable van, keeping the engine running whilst the heater attempted to produce something resembling warmth.

Genuine sable coats and hats, the badges of office of the high class Muscovite call girl, kept out the cold on the journey to the northern outskirts of the city. They travelled by the back roads into the suburbs where their contact dropped them outside a warehouse used for vehicle storage. Caroline listened to Svetlana sweet talk the night watchman, without understanding a word, into opening up for them, adding a ten dollar US bill for his trouble, along with some papers. Despite the war the dollar still held more clout in Russia than the rouble; it disappeared into the man’s pocket as he led them into the depths of the building. Eventually they came to the long-term storage area and the watchman checked the bay number on the paperwork handed over by the Russian against those painted on the walls behind the bays. On reaching the correct space, the watchman pulled off a dustcover from a Mercedes sports car, and checked the registration plates tallied with those on the forms.

“It has been maintained as agreed Miss, the oil changed once a year, the engine run every week… every week for six years Miss, have you been away?”

“Yes, in St Petersburg.” She delved in a pocket of the expensive fur and extracted her set of keys as she walked around the car, running a hand over the red paintwork in a caress before coming around to the driver’s side.

The night watchman stepped forward quickly to open the door for her, and Pat watched the Russian girl give him a beatific smile, slide elegantly behind the wheel, whilst adding a wink as she allowed the coat to fall open briefly, permitting a view of white lace gusset framed by silky thighs.

Christ on crutches, thought the American, she is terminally incorrigible!

As her own door was held open for her, she kept the coat close about her legs.

“Lana, was it really necessary to give the guy a hard-on?”

Svetlana grinned back.

“Well what can I say, the gal’s a slut, and besides, I’m getting into character.” She turned her attention back to the car, inhaled the scent of leather upholstery, and turned the ignition key.

The engine fired first time and she goosed the accelerator, allowing the car to roar. Svetlana ran her fingers over the wheel and patted the top of the dash, purring aloud to herself like a contented cat.

“Hi baby, mommy’s home!”

In the annex to Derjinsky Square the time was just before 9 pm as a pop-up appeared on the screen before Timoskova, alerting him to the fact that someone was home at a target address. The sound activated microphones came to life, and the cameras that had been in hibernation, the battery saving mode, took in the scene in each room.

Although it was virtually impossible for him, or anyone else, to erase the information beyond a point where an audit could not ferret it out, he took up a pen and recorded the event in a log.

Despite over fifty premises being under electronic surveillance, and only himself pulling the night shift, he did not expect to be overwhelmed with work. Most of the occupants had left the city, leaving only maids to tend to the houses. The apartments held a greater number of their principle inhabitants, whereas the dachas were virtually empty. It was the same old way of things, houses for wife and family, city apartments for mistresses and dacha’s for clandestine plotting, plus entertainment by whores, of course.

Anyone who could have got away from the city, but a few of the mistress’s remained, as had a small proportion of the high-class call girls.

Although Timoskova would have been annoyed had he been accused of voyeurism, it was that very vice that night duty on the special surveillance detail bearable.

Up until now the evening and been pretty humdrum, tiny peccadilloes of the serving classes and a mistress engaging in phone sex with a man other than the one who paid the bills.

He checked the address of the new location, it was another dacha, and that made two that were being occupied after long absences. The general of air defence forces for the capital and its surrounds owned this latest one, and the state security man felt a sense of anticipation, the general was a randy old goat with a taste for expensive ladies. He doubted a peep show would occur at the first dacha, the only passion ever expended there was in the owners’ enjoyment of traditional Ukrainian folk music.

Double clicking on the pop-up, a window appeared on screen, giving him access to the cameras in every room of the general’s country retreat. He allowed the live feed from the living room and bedroom to occupy a window apiece, because the general was hurrying back and forth between both, lighting the log fires in each, and laying out supplies. Champagne, vodka, caviar, and some dildos that would have been impressive on a small horse, had they been the real thing. Company in the form of the oldest profession was obviously expected, so the evening would not be one of utter boredom in the annex.

Drunkenness on duty was a breach of discipline that would be punished by a bullet, but a single beer to while away the night, well that was a different kettle of fish, and one that a blind eye would be turned to, if discovered. Timoskova had a bottle secreted away, and he checked that the general’s companion had not yet arrived, before he left his post to retrieve it, he’d have himself a cold one whilst enjoying the upcoming display of carnal talents.

Opening the bottle he took a sip as he returned to his workstation, where he saw a further pop-up was flashing a warning, and he cursed aloud because the general had finished his preparations and was looking expectant. Placing the beer atop the monitor he got busy with his mouse, grunting to himself when he identified the source as being another dacha. The fresh location was a place rarely visited, and then he whistled when he identified the owner, about as high as you could go in the service of the state.

Opening windows to the visual feeds he saw not just the owner, but three others there too, all four were in uniform, the shoulder boards and insignia of the KGB, Navy, Air force and Army were present.

What the hell was going on? By all rights the person wearing that KGB uniform should be at the Premiers side, not out in the woods with officers from the fighting services.

He double-checked that the hard drive was collecting the data, and created a separate file for this last address, before inserting a blank CD into the writer, he would err on the side of safety and ‘burn’ a back-up copy.

Whilst all this was going on, loud music was turned on at the KGB officer’s dacha, and the officer had a hand held scanner in play, sweeping for hidden recording devices. Timoskova smiled when he saw, and heard, the lengths being gone to in order to provide secrecy. In this day and age it took more than retiring to the bathroom and turning on the taps to prevent every word being listened to, eventually anyway. He didn’t worry about the scanner performing as advertised either, because he had personally installed the tiny cameras and microphones in that building just a few days before.

Once satisfied the CD was also gathering the information he took the time to observe. The group were obviously satisfied because they had gone upstairs to the room at the top of the stairs, where they sat on hard back chairs against the walls. It appeared as if they were waiting for someone else to arrive, but there was not chitchat, and no banter-taking place. The first thing that struck him was the ranks of the fighting men, a captain and two light colonels, not even Staff rank! The war was obviously improving prospects for promotion, because they seemed a little on the young side to be of those ranks. But then again, he thought, talented young officers often hold more advanced rank, if serving with elite units.

Things were looking decidedly sinister, he finally decided with a sigh.

They hadn’t driven far from the storage site when Svetlana had stopped and changed the cars registration plates with another set from the trunk, before moving off again.

The curfew came into force at 9pm, and there were many people still rushing home after that time had passed. Whilst there were other people out and about they were relatively safe, but the roads were virtually clear apart from themselves by the time the suburbs of Pushkino had fallen behind.

If the Russian girl was concerned about her ability to talk her way past any police or militia attentions they might receive, she did not show it. Caroline on the other hand was trying to keep her anxiety under control, not wanting to let the side down. She had already made the mistake of asking about weapons, but Svetlana had shaken her head.

“If we get into something where we need a gun, a pistol, or even two won’t be enough to help us..… .if we are searched and they find a gun, then its game over Caroline.”

The American felt the outline of the pistol in the coat pocket, given her by Constantine before leaving Scotland after he had made her promise to look out for Svetlana, without the other girl’s knowledge. She now wondered if she would have time to open the window and throw it out, if they saw a checkpoint ahead. However she said nothing about the pistol to the Russian, and just hoped that the journey remained uneventful.

They reached the pine forests within which the rich and powerful had their retreats, the Russian girl turned off the M8, the main route onto a utility road, which she followed for several minutes before leaving the surfaced road. Caroline wasn’t sure what was going on when the car stopped, and then reversed, leaving the road at an angle before disappearing beneath the trees, the frozen ground below the inch or so covering of snow, crackled and snapped under the cars weight.

“Any car travelling the same way we did along the road would see straight away that a someone had left the road back there if I had simply pulled off under here.” The pilot wasn’t a woodsman, and she had to admit to herself that she wouldn’t have thought of that.

“Okay, we are out of site here, and I want you to stay in the car while I’m gone. Just watch the time, and if I am not back before ten forty-five, just leave. Don’t go giving me an extra few minutes, just drive.” She reached up to the visor, and took down a road map, showing the American where they were and where ‘home’ was. She checked her watch and then opened the door. “I’ve got to hustle now… don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” Giving a brief smile she climbed out, closing the door behind her and vanished into the forest darkness.

Moving with confidence the Russian reached the clearing after a few minutes’ walk, little had changed in that aspect since she had last made the same journey years before, perhaps the meeting itself would be though.

Rather than walk right in to a possible ambush she took a few basic precautions, because both she and Constantine had to have accumulated quite a bounty on their scalps.

The woods about the clearing were empty of anyone lying in wait, although a car sat close to the dacha’s covered porch, unoccupied but the engine was still warm. She checked that a power light was showing on her Walkman but left the earpiece draped over her shoulders, and then studied the ground around the car. Not one, but four sets of footprints led out across the snow from the car to the buildings door, and Svetlana felt a thrill run through her as she too headed for the dacha.

Timoskova’s patience was rewarded when the general answered his door, smiling in greeting to the young lady who stepped across the freshold, kissing her hand and offering something to take away the chill of the night. As he brought her over to the fireplace she removed her fur hat, and a glorious mass of hair tumbled free. She exchanged the headwear for a shot glass proffered by her host, which she knocked back in one go before returning it, and then removed the sable coat she wore, and Timoskova let out an appreciative whistle. She was without doubt a rare beauty, and what she wore beneath the fur left little to the imagination.

She knelt before the burning logs, holding out her hands to soak in the warmth whilst the general put on some music to set the mood, and ruining the audio reception arriving at the annex in central Moscow.

Timoskova was not greatly concerned; he had programs that could identify and isolate any frequency, allowing conversations to be listened to with clarity, but something odd was happening at the other dacha.

The previously clear images in the open windows upon his screen were being affected by some kind of interference. It started on the hallway monitor and then seemed to spread outwards from there, the audio reception was being glitched too. Timoskova ran a fault finding program for his own system, not expecting to find anything though because the general’s windows still held clear images. That would leave the cause as being either pretty sophisticated jamming, or a line fault somewhere between his console and the receiver, which picked up the short-range transmissions from the dacha and sent them down the landline.

As expected, his computer was running perfectly, so dialling the telephone exchange he ordered them to test the line. He would have to check that the lines in his own building were operating correctly, so after taking a look at events in the general’s home he elected not to walk around the console to check the sockets where the feeds were arriving, the soldier and the beautiful whore were still discussing money but the action could begin at any moment. Of greater importance was the problem of finding what was screwing up his reception, if it wasn’t a fault on the line then he would eventually be able to cleanse the downloads of any jamming interference.

Leaning full length across the work surface he reached down, using his fingertips to probe for the cables and trace them to the sockets he could just about reach, but couldn’t see, intending to check that none had come loose.

He heard the bottle of illegal beverage fall on its side when he inadvertently knocked against the monitor, its contents gushed out, finding the vents that allowed heat to dissipate from the unit, and the electrical circuitry within. There was a loud bang and the monitors screen went dark.

Timoskova scrambled upright, grabbing at the bottle but the damage had been done. With an oath he banged the side of the dead device, realising he was going to be in deep shit if he wasn’t careful. Swapping the piece of drowned equipment wasn’t a problem; there were several unlocked and unattended offices on this floor with identical monitors at workstations there. The system was still downloading the feeds, unaffected by the mishap that had befallen one of its peripheral devices, but simply plugging it into his terminal wouldn’t make it work, the computer would need to be restarted first for that to happen. He would have no option but to report the strange gathering, and if the data had a big chunk missing, caused by a restart then drinking on duty would be the least of his worries, they might suspect him of collusion. His best hope was for the line to be faulty, but then the telephone rang and the exchange supervisor dashed that same hope on the rocks.

He looked at the wall clock and came to a decision, the individuals at the dacha were not likely to be staying there indefinitely, and they had to get back to their posts before too long, so he would give it until 4am and then attach another monitor, restart the system and get cracking on filtering out the jamming. His boss would want to know what the hell he had been doing with his time if he had a report of suspicious activity, and nothing usable to give to his boss!

Caroline watched the Russian girl disappear and checked her watch, allowing fifteen minutes to elapse before leaving the car also, she noted that she could see well enough to follow Svetlana’s tracks in the snow, which aside from small animal tracks was almost pristine; apparently no one was going for strolls in the woods these days.

It took ten minutes for her to reach a spot where the Russian girl had obviously paused for a few minutes to listen, before moving off again at a tangent. This new course went around almost in a complete circle, and it wasn’t until she saw a tiny speck of light that Caroline noticed the dark outline of a two-storey building. Svetlana had circled the building as a precaution should a trap be awaiting her instead the promised meeting.

The American pilot had gotten as far as the far side of the house when she froze in her tracks. A door had opened and then shut, briefly illuminating the snow, but with the outline of a man silhouetted within it. She hears footfalls on the steps and the crunch of snow underfoot but they did not come toward her, a car door opened and closed, followed after a few minutes by the engine starting, no doubt to keep the occupant warm.

Whoever was in the vehicle left the headlights off and after waiting for two minutes, Caroline backed away until the building was between herself and the vehicle, before screwing up her courage and leaving the trees, to cross the open ground to the dacha’s rear wall.

Working her way around, keeping close to the wall she looked for some means of seeing or hearing what was going on inside the building. Heavy drapes were at all the windows and music was being played which drowned out all other sounds from within, but at one the curtains had not been closed with the same care as the others, the chink of light that Caroline had seen from the trees allowed her a very limited view inside.

There was no one in sight, but a mirror on an internal wall across from her allowed her to see that an open staircase ran above the window she was using, it was hardly a prime surveillance post that she had found for herself and she was about to move on when a movement in the mirror caught her eye. It was so quick that she had to think hard on what she had seen, it was a man in an unbuttoned uniform jacket she decided, coming down the stairs and then the door opened and she heard him go to the car and join the other man inside it.

Short of climbing up to an upper window, which would be noisy, or trying the front of the house, where she would be seen by the car’s occupants, this was her only option, so she stayed where she was.

The cold was making inroads into her feet through the soles of her borrowed boots before something again happened indoors; another man in uniform descended the stairs and went to the car.

Whatever was going on, she had seen no guns or attack dogs, no torture chamber or heard any screams from within, but she kept her promise to Constantine and stayed beside the window, her hand in the coat pocket fingering the pistol.

It was a full twenty minutes later before a, by now thoroughly chilled, Caroline saw anything else, but it made her start; she saw the thigh length boots and her long tanned legs. No one followed behind with cattle prod or firearm so Caroline backed off before Svetlana descended the stairs, withdrawing to where she could just see through the trees, and waited. After a few minutes the door open and Svetlana emerged, wrapped in the fur coat and with hat firmly in place. Caroline saw her wave girlishly toward the car and then hurry off the porch toward the trees, so she too made rapid tracks back to the car herself, arriving five minutes before the Russian, and about thirty seconds before the deadline set by the Russian girl expired.

Svetlana walked slowly up to the car when she did appear, and stood for a moment looking at Caroline through the windscreen; the Americans footprints had been very evident, following the Russians as they had. When she open the door and slid inside she continued to look levelly at the pilot before speaking, and there was tenseness, an air of apprehension about her when she did. “You followed me… why?”

Caroline shrugged.

“Con asked me to keep an eye on you, he thought that there was something you weren’t telling him.”

“And?”

“He said that you seemed to think you were the bionic woman, and he thought that this meeting was more dangerous than you let on.”

“So how did it look to you?”

“I’m not expert at clandestine plotting, from what I could see it was you and a bunch of military types. No one was waving heated irons and wearing hoods, so I guess you read it right… … … .how did it go anyway?”

Svetlana relaxed visibly, almost letting out a gasp of relief but caught herself in time.

“Well, they wanted more than Scott thought they would, but I knew better so I was ready for it. I’ve got the location of the premier’s present location, and the next one he will be moving to, if he hasn’t already. All we need now is for the contact to let us know he is there… ok?” Svetlana paused before continuing. “So what else did my knight in shining armour tell you about me?”

Caroline laughed.

“Nothing, he was just worried that you would get in over your head, and that he wouldn’t be there to ride shotgun.”

Constantine knew, or rather feared a lot more than that about the people she was dealing with. So Svetlana held out her hand, palm upwards.

“Hand it over!”

After a moment’s hesitation Caroline brought out the small handgun, extracted the magazine and worked the slide. An exasperated Svetlana took the items and then checked the chamber was clear.

“Jesus Caroline, it’s bad enough that we’d have been shot out of hand had we run into a road block, and they’d found this… but it wasn’t even cocked?”

“Sorry, but I’m a flier not a spook.”

Svetlana opened the car window and tossed the pistol and magazine out into the night.

“Caroline, and I am speaking from some experience here, a good looking female body and a pretty face will get you out of most situations that a gun never could, because once a guy has a stiffy, then things get blurry in his head. What he sees will bypass his frontal lobe and logic centres, before taking a radical turn and heading straight south.”

Caroline laughed aloud.

“Well let’s hope whoever stops us isn’t gay.”

The Russian girl reached into a pocket and withdrew some US dollar bills, handing across $500 to Caroline who raised a questioning eyebrow, so she explained.

“It’s camouflage, you have just ridden a balding general to heaven and back… and I was pretty damn nasty between the sheets too,” she added with a wink. “It would look a bit odd if we came away empty handed, don’t you think?” before starting up the car and getting them on the service road again towards the city. “Open your coat and show those great legs of yours, just in case we are less lucky getting home than we were coming here.”

The cash was her own but the curfew pass had been handed over in the dacha. The general in question was still otherwise engaged several miles from the other dacha, and would never know his name had been taken in vain.

Five miles down the road a pair of elderly yet functional BTR fighting vehicles of the militia were sat blocking the road in such a manner as to force vehicles to slow to a crawl in order to negotiate the chicane they had formed. Tonight however, all vehicles would be stopped and searched for draft dodgers and curfew breakers before they could proceed.

The young militiaman stood out front with the task of flagging the cars down, saw the light from the cars main beams before he heard its engine. His colleagues further ahead even than he was, faded into the trees, ready to provide cover as he turned on the red lamp he carried and began to swing it side to side in a clear signal for the driver of the oncoming vehicle to stop.

He did not like being so exposed, stood out in the centre of the road and so far from the protection afforded by the BTRs armoured sides, but the cars headlights dipped and the engines tone altered as its driver slowed and eventually brought it to a halt before him.

The driver reached up to switch on the internal light allowing him to relax when he saw the occupants of the two-seater were not only female, but what females!

The passenger had deep blue eyes framed by eyelashes that matched the colour of her blonde hair; she was beautiful but rather haughty, not deigning to look his way at that time. The driver on the other hand was just as gorgeous but she was looking directly at him in a very bold fashion, a smile playing on her lips. The side window had been wound down but he was just staring instead of getting on with the business of the night, and the auburn haired driver leant out the window and smiled widely.

“Hello soldier, see anything you like?”

With something of a start he realised he was still stood by the front of the car and stepped quickly forward, bending at the waist to look in. The driver and passenger both wore expensive Sable, and the militiaman took a long look at what he believed must be the most expensive hookers he had ever seen, looking chic and elegant in their expensive, yet revealing outfits.

“Ladies… good evening, I must ask you for your papers please.”

When they were passed across he tried to scrutinise the documents and still ogle the long legs of both driver and passenger, but from behind him he could hear someone pacing about impatiently, and knew his officer was in an irritable mood so he concentrated on the curfew pass.

“And how is the good General tonight Madame?”

“Snoring away softly with a smile on his face, when I last looked.”

“The, er, General is not a young man… … … yet he managed you both?”

The driver wet her lips.

“The General likes to watch… if you know how I mean soldier?” She reached across to the passenger side as she spoke, one hand stroked her friends’ knee, and the legs parted a few inches, allowing the hand to caress along the blondes thigh and disappear from view beneath the hem of her filmy, silk mini skirt. The blonde turned to look him directly in the eyes, her expression still one of quiet arrogance, but she deliberately allowed him to see her part her thighs wider still.

He gulped, and a collage of erotic images filled the young man’s head, but then the moment was spoilt by an angry voice from behind him.

“Stop gawping at what you can’t afford, get them out of the car and searched… I’m freezing my balls off here!”

Word that there were two attractive females in the car had spread to all in the patrol, and driver’s hatches popped open to allow a better view. The blonde had exited the car into the chill night, but the long fur coat remained open as she lounged against the side of the red sports car with her hands in the pockets, whilst the militiaman searched inside. Her companion who was leant with her elbows on the car roof, smiled and waved to their audience.

On the other side of the roadblock, another car that had been stopped was cleared on through, and it wound itself between the APCs before accelerating past the Mercedes. Svetlana bit back a giggle as the breezed caused by its passage lifted the other young woman’s skirt, but rather than prudishly try to slap the wispy material down, the American allowed the militiamen to cop an eyeful of flat belly and minute black G-string, whilst still appearing aloof. An appreciative cheer sounded from somewhere in the darkness, much to the annoyance of the officer who plainly thought that hidden sentries should be both silent as well as invisible.

As it was patently obvious that neither woman was hiding a weapon under their inner clothing, only the coat pockets received the young man’s attentions once he had finished searching the car.

At last the papers were returned and the red Mercedes negotiated the chicane with the auburn haired driver waving to the grinning men, before she gunned the engine and left them with just a pleasant memory and a story to be told back in barracks.

Svetlana was as effervescent as ever drove on towards Moscow, talking animatedly without realising the American was withdrawn. The incident at the roadblock and the simulated groping by the Russian girl had suddenly brought back to her mind something that had happened before they had come to Russia. She found herself staring at Svetlana’s legs and the generous expanse of exposed thigh, and blushed deeply before looking out of the side window, and she stayed like that for most of the return journey.

It was almost 2am by the time they arrived back at the farmhouse in the old van, having returned the sports car to its bay in the storage site. They said farewell to their contact and he drove away, leaving them to head toward the building where a single light still burned.

Patricia had been dozing in a chair until the sound of the vans engine awoke her, and she was pouring vodka into three glasses when they came in. Hugs were exchanged and then Patricia was filled in on the night’s events. It was seven hours before the next satellite pass so it was time to get some sleep, and Patricia had to leave for another maintenance run on the Nighthawk.

Svetlana yawned and stood, removing the long sable and heading for the stairs but an oath from Caroline stopped her in mid stride.

“Shit… I don’t believe you could have done that ‘lana!”

Patricia was as taken aback as the Russian girl, but Caroline pointed at the flesh revealing sides of Svetlana’s outfit. “You fucked him didn’t you?”

Caroline marched past Svetlana, her frame rigid with anger.

Pat realised that the Russian was no longer wearing the G-string and raised an eyebrow questioningly, not just because the girl was pantiless, but at her colleagues reaction, however Svetlana just shrugged and added an “Ooop’s.” before heading off to her own room. She owed no explanation to either American as to what had become of the item and was too tired now to care anyway.

The moon was sending its silver light to illuminate the countryside, and Svetlana kept the light off on reaching her room, allowing the moonbeams to show her the way to the bed, where she stripped off quickly and was asleep soon after climbing between the sheets.

The creak of a hinge awoke Svetlana two hours later, and she opened her eyes to see the American pilot stood in the doorway, looking somehow fragile in a wool shirt a couple of sizes too large for her. Moonlight still shone through the open curtains and long shadows fled away from the furniture’s dark sides towards the door.

She propped herself up on an elbow before asking what was wrong.

There was a tinge of the indignant in Carolinas answer.

“I wanted to say sorry for snapping… but I do think Con deserves a little more loyalty from you.”

Svetlana was quiet for a moment before speaking.

“So you don’t think that my going in wearing panties and coming out without them, could have been due to a combination of forgetfulness… and having had to strip, in order to prove I wasn’t wired for sound then?”

That the American hadn’t considered that possibility was written on her face once Svetlana finished.

“Look, I’m sorry… I just assumed… … … ” But Svetlana cut her off before she finished her sentence.

“Yes you did, didn’t you?”

Caroline half turned to leave and then stopped.

“It was you, wasn’t it… that night at the dinner party up at the house?”

“I’m sorry, but now what am I supposed to have done?”

“At the dinner table someone touched my leg; I thought either Scott or Max had allowed the wine to override their inhibitions. But when you put your hand on my leg at the roadblock… I suddenly realised that it wasn’t a hand I’d felt that night but a foot, and you were sat directly opposite me.”

The Russian seemingly ignored the statement, but continued looking levelly at the pilot before speaking.

“You don’t know Con well enough to get all defensive on his behalf, so why did you get angry tonight?”

“I just told you, I was mistaken.”

The sheets dropped down to the Russian girl’s waist as she sat upright in the bed, and although Caroline should have expected the other girl to prefer sleeping naked, she blushed anyway.

“I’ll tell you why you came here tonight Caroline, and why you got mad at me, shall I?”

Caroline looked uncomfortable but did not reply.

“You thought that someone had fucked me tonight, and because that someone wasn’t you, you got jealous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not a… lesbian!” The rest of the house was sleeping, so the last word came out as a hiss.

Swinging her feet to the floor Svetlana walked naked to the door, drawing the American inside and closing it. Caroline had been entranced by the almost feline grace with which the Russian girl had crossed the room, so much so that she was taken by surprise, but now stepped back against the wall defensively.

“It has to be difficult for you; trying to do a job you love in what must be a very homophobic organisation?”

Caroline reached for the door but the nude Russian stepped in front of her.

“I saw it in your eyes the very first time we met.”

Caroline’s heart was beating fast but she couldn’t speak, she wanted to be gone from here before someone, someone like Patricia walked in and undid her career in the armed forces of the United States. But no one walked in and the house slept soundly on.

Svetlana stepped up until they were almost touching, and reaching up she began to unbutton the shirt.

“You mentally undressed me Caroline… and all I did at the table was to let you know that I was interested too.”

“Please don’t ‘lana.” Caroline pleaded with Svetlana but made no attempt to stop her, allowing the shirt to be slipped off her shoulders and fall to the floor. Moonbeams caressed both naked young women, the auburn haired Russian agent and the blonde USAF pilot. The former traced fingertips along the latter’s flanks before bending to take an erect pink nipple into her mouth to savour the salt taste of the other girl. Caroline trembled and gasped aloud until the Russian girl covered her mouth with her own, stifling it with a kiss filled with passion and lust. Her hands guided one of the Americans up until it cupped a breast, and Caroline moaned softly as she felt the Russian girl’s nipple harden at the touch. Svetlana raised a foot elegantly to rest, leg bent like a ballerina, against the inside of the opposite knee, and thus perfectly balanced on one foot she guided Caroline’s free hand down her flat belly, and beyond..

When the need for oxygen ended the clinch Svetlana led her by the hand to the bed.

“But what about Con?”

“Con was my Control in London, he knows about every man and every girl I ever slept with. He knows that I’m attracted to you, and knowing me as he does, that you’d probably end up in my bed sooner rather than later.”

On reaching the bed Svetlana seated her on its edge before kneeling before her.

“And this is what I was thinking about doing to you, that night at the table.” Caroline allowed her thighs to be parted before her back arched involuntarily, tossing golden locks about wildly whilst whimpering with pleasure.

The day shift found Timoskova still hard at work trying to clear the interference from the download, four hours after switching monitors and rebooting his system. He was not in the best of moods as despite his earlier optimism he was having little joy with the task. Never before had he encountered such sophisticated electronic counter surveillance, but he wasn’t beaten yet, his own apartment held superior equipment and software to that which he was currently using, and the CD was in his jacket pocket.

After noting an equipment failure in the log, giving the address of the dacha, he went home, setting his alarm clock to wake him in six hours, before going to sleep himself. He would rise early and get to work on the CD before performing the nightshift again.

The imminent arrival of Typhoon Lucinda to this area of the ocean was rather obvious on the surface, with deepening swells, rainsqualls and winds building in strength.

Below the surface it was less obvious, unless of course you worked in the sonar department and if that was the case then you had your work cut out for you.

HMAS Hooper’s Sonar Officer had undergone an exchange tour with the USN the previous year, spending six months aboard USS Seawolf on one of her cruises. Right now he was thinking wistfully of the state of the art sonar systems aboard the American vessel, as he struggled with the system aboard this vessel. They were cruising at 3 knots below the layer, whilst their tail was trailing above it as it listened for surface and sub-surface traffic; this meant that Mother Nature in a bad mood was degrading the reception.

Since reaching their patrol area they had seen not a single vessel, no smoke on the horizon, or sails either. They had seen contrails on the last ESM and visual sweep prior to transmitting a status report, which meant that the global wide cloud covering that resulted from the use of nuclear weapons in the Atlantic Ocean, was breaking up. He had felt a sense of relief as the periscope slid back down into its well, so maybe they would be spared a nuclear winter.

Twelve hours later they had been on the receiving end of communications, and their floating antennae received the daily intelligence and operational updates, along with a weather map. The weather map had told them what they would have deduced for themselves had they been a surface vessel, the glass was dropping fast.

Apart from the defective snorkel seal his boat was holding together, without anything else getting broken or bent, up to this point. It was a state of affairs that gave him peace of mind and allowed him to focus on the business at hand, but that changed a little before midnight when he was awoken by a summons to the control room.

His sonar officer was stood with the officer of the watch when he arrived, the look on the sonar officers face was one of frustration tinged with concern.

“Captain sir, sorry to disturb your rest.”

The captain could see he was holding a circuit board in his hands, an identical one lay on the chart table beside where the two officers waited.

“What’s the problem… and in lay terms, if you please?” he said indicating the electronic components.

“Captain, the central processor for the sonar systems went down, and when I replaced it with the spare I found that was crook too.”

If they couldn’t hear what was going on then there was no point them being there below the surface, they may as well be a surface vessel and go up top.

The captain could feel his temper heading toward a spike, but this was not the place to do it, not on a war patrol, so he led the officer back behind closed doors, to his cabin.

“We have to have more than one spare Harry, so what’s the story?” The officer before him was a good man, conscientious and not likely to have forgotten to stock up on departments essential stores before a war patrol.

“The SOPs state four sir, but we haven’t ever had that many aboard. When this thing, the war kicked off, I personally went to the stores but they had none in stock. The system has been one of a one for one exchange, you take the defective one in and they indent for a replacement which arrives before you are next due out.”

The captain finished the sentence for him.

“Or the cruise is delayed until it does arrive.” The captain was acquainted with national defence run by bean counters, and he now felt the urge to shout at someone except the persons who deserved to be on the receiving end were not on the firing line, they were sleeping safely at home. So instead of giving voice to his anger he took a deep breath instead, because a solution may lie elsewhere.

“Is there anything else aboard that we could use, spare processors for other ships systems?”

The sonar officer has already thought of that and had his PO working on it.

“Yes captain, but there won’t be anything as fast as this.” He held up the defective part for emphasis. “No promises as to how well it will work, except to predict a somewhat reduced service, sir.”

A signaller encoded a situation report ready for a burst transmission to the closest satellite, and the vessel came up toward the stormy surface in readiness for its passive sweeps prior to sending.

For the third time that hour, mortar rounds landed nearby to a Royal Artillery Subaltern and the small party from his own unit and the Light Infantry. Debris rained down upon them as they huddled inside a warehouse loft near the marshalling yards, as the mortars once again targeted locations that could harbour artillery-spotting teams.

As the last fragment of concrete fell the young officer raised his head cautiously, and then nudged an even younger man to his left.

“I told you I was right Lance Bombardier, there was only four rounds that time… they are rationing their ammunition!”

The NCO was not as enthusiastic about the revelation, spitting dust from his mouth and grumbling.

“Well I am chuffed-to-friggin’- NAAFI-breaks for yer boss… but how do you know they didn’t just work out that they can as easily make me shit meself with four rounds, as they can with ten.”

The officer smiled good-naturedly.

“Do the batteries have enough power to send that, or should we save it for later, when someone fetches new ones?”

“I think sir, that calling in targets takes priority… I’m sure someone within earshot can count back there.”

They were on their last battery, and for the past three hours had left the radio off until they had something to call in. One of the Light Infantrymen had gone back for fresh ones two hours before, but he had not returned, somewhere along the way a sniper had probably taken him out.

A large section of the roof was now sagging inward, providing illumination that had not existed when they first moved in. It allowed the young NCO to see the edge of a painting where its dust cover had slipped. Apparently this loft was some storage area for a nearby college, and former students work was cached here. He pulled away the dust cover in order to view the artwork, liking the rich colours but knowing little about the finer points, the council housing estate he was brought up on didn’t go in much for the arts.

“Like it?” He looked over his shoulder at his boss, who’d noticed his interest.

“It would add colour to the wall of my married pad, sir.”

The officer canted his head to see it the better and wrinkled his nose critically.

“If you want colour then buy floral wallpaper, if you want art then don’t buy any of his… or her, work.”

The junior NCO looked back at it, wondering what his boss could see that he couldn’t.

“Oh I don’t know, it looks alright?”

“Look at the chimney stack at top left, and the trees on the right..… the shadows go in different directions… and the stream is tumbling downhill on the right, toward the centre of the picture, yet on the other side the waters are flowing over the weir, and also flowing to the pictures centre… same stream.”

Disappointed, the NCO pulled a face.

“I hadn’t noticed that… you know a bit about painting then, boss?”

“I thought I did once, I even had an exhibition.”

“So why aren’t you out in the Pacific painting naked bints, drinking and shagging yourself to fame and an early grave then… pardon me for saying so sir, but I’d rather be doin’ that then getting’ me arse shot off here?”

“Well a critic for a broadsheets arts section summed up the exhibition in one line… Jules Reed's work has an honesty about it, it proclaims to all who gaze on it… I can’t paint!” When the chuckles subsided he shrugged philosophically. “So I joined the army… not the Guards, that’s what the Reed’s usually do, I thought I’d join the artillery and sit safely twenty miles behind the fighting.” That was also the cause of some mirth.

“So how did that choice go down at home, if you don’t mind me asking sir?”

Jules grinned.

“My father said it probably beat proper soldiering, for a living.”

The rifleman with the task of watching their six hissed a warning, and silence fell instantly. He lay peering cautiously through a hole in the wall, not letting sunlight fall on him as he watched the alleyway that led to the buildings rear doors. The rifleman took aim at the top of a helmet whose wearer was moving steadily closer to their building, moving cautiously from the direction of friendly lines, but that didn’t mean he was a friend. Two more helmets came into view, and he was looking down on the trio with a critical eye as he assessed their tactical movement. As one came to a turn or a junction he bellied down, removed his helmet a peeped around the corner keeping his head to the ground, not a place a waiting enemy would be aiming for. Another would then aim his weapon around the corner, showing as little flesh as possible, just two hands, an arm and half a face, dominating the space whilst the other two crossed and one returned the favour at the other side as he joined them.

By the time they had come twenty-five metres the Rifleman grudgingly allowed that they knew what they were doing. They were now close enough for him to note the shape of the helmets and pattern of the helmet covers.

The subaltern had crawled up beside him, peering out from the other side of the hole.

“We got any yanks working with us sir?”

2Lt Reed thought for a moment. “1CG’s got a couple of companies worth, maybe they’ve come up and rejoined the brigade?

Jules Reed signalled for the other two members of 2LI to go down the three floors and challenge their visitors, whilst the rest kept a sharp eye out.

Five minutes later a bemused Rifleman came back. “We got a Yank para sarn’t major wearing a Brit RSMs insignia on his smock and a pair of 82^nd Pee Eff… whatchamacallits.”

Arnie Moore had left both his troopers downstairs because he wasn’t intending on stopping overlong, and 2Lt Reed watched the big American appear and squint as his eyes became accustomed to the surroundings

“Mr Reed sir… Sarn’t Major Arnie Moore. Colonel Reed sends his compliments, along with your own COs, and strongly suggests that you rapidly un-ass this AO ‘cos since your last transmission it seems bad things are about to happen sir, and they haven’t been able to reach you by radio.”

A palm sized, woven coat-of-arms, did indeed hang from the zip of the American’s smock, its presence on the paratrooper was not necessary, even given his unique position, but Arnie wore it in memory of the big Guardsman, who even whilst mortally wounded had smothered a hand grenade with his body. The younger Reed knew little of events in his father’s unit, and let it go without comment.

Half an hour later found them inside Warriors from 1CG, and heading through abandoned NATO positions as fast as they could travel, without throwing a track.

Above them and to the northwest, the RAF Tornadoes and USAF F-16s of the wild weasel sortie turned onto their approach routes to the town, to clear away the danger to the lumbering C-130s and the large devices they carried. There were four of the Hercules transports, flying in a wide spread diamond formation from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. Ideally the weapons would have been dropped simultaneously on all the towns held by the Russian airborne troops, but suitable airframes were in ever shortening supply, and these four would reload several times before the mission was complete.

Smoke from fresh fires burnt on the ground far below the Hercules as they rolled in on their IPs, but being high above the cloud ceiling they could see nothing of this. They could not know for certain if the wild weasel had done its job effectively, until the time came to enter enemy paratroops air defence zone but no threat warnings sounded when this line was crossed.

At the release points, drogue chutes pulled the heavy, fuel air weapons clear of the aircraft before static lines deployed the main chutes, and the C-130s banked for home.

The Warriors had still been in the outskirts of the town when fast jets tore past overhead, and despite the bright orange identification panels on the APCs roofs, their occupants cringed in expectation of a ‘friendly fire’ hit.

Accidents happen in war, but they seem to happen most frequently to armoured vehicles.

The vehicles were clear of the last buildings when charges vaporised the contents of the weapons, and then ignited them in four colossal detonations five hundred feet above the ground.

The effects bore striking similarities to that of a detonating nuclear weapon, though not as far ranging and the flash dazzled rather than blinded.

The weapons detonated roughly over the enemy forward positions, on the north, east, south and western perimeters, immolating anything exposed and sending blast waves outwards. Those not burned alive suffered asphyxia, as all available oxygen was consumed by the fireballs. The centre of the town was spared the worst of the super-heated air, but the centre was where all four blasts met.

At his headquarters in Braunschweig, Colonel General Alontov was informed that communications had been lost with the headquarters of the 2^nd Guards Shock Army’s airborne division, in Eisleben. His signallers had already been trying for several hours to re-establish communications with their own Helmstedt brigade when this occurred, and Alontov was no great believer in coincidence. There had been numerous reports of huge explosions heard in the distance; by troops in the east of the town at the time communications had ceased with Helmstedt.

They had been experiencing little difficulty holding their own perimeter against NATO, the local forces they faced were reservist units as NATOs main combat power was tied up along the Elbe and Saale, trying to contain the foot holds that the Red Army had established.

Alontov was well aware that a single British brigade was all that was tasked with destroying the two airborne divisions, in their rear. Even the most average second lieutenant knew that the smallest formation with any chance at completing that task, should have been an entire Army Corps, a mere brigade was wholly inadequate. So Alontov knew all along that NATO would have to try something else in addition, or else lose Europe and its armies there.

Staring once last time at the map pinned to the cellar wall of his CP, he came to a decision, and turned to his assembled staff.

“Gentlemen, we are leaving.”

The simple statement registered as unease on several faces of the assembled staff.

After a moment of silence, one of his regimental commanders spoke.

“With respect General, our orders to hold until relieved were quite specific?”

Serge looked carefully at all of them before replying.

“We jumped into Germany… .correction; we took off with six full strength brigades of men and equipment. Attrition started the moment we crossed into NATO territory. The brigade that went to Belgium was doomed from the outset, and their mission was a failure as all intelligence suggests that SACEUR survived. Our own brigade at Helmstedt, and the 2^nd’s brigade in Eisleben, plus their headquarters, are gone… .somehow NATO destroyed them, although I do not believe nuclear weapons were responsible, it was something equally catastrophic. That leaves only us and the 2^nd’s two regiments at Bernburg.” He paused for effect before asking the question. “Would one of you like to toss a coin and guess who is next on NATO’s list?” There was no reply from any of the assembled group so Serge aimed the next question at his regimental commanders.

“Has there been any enemy activity around the perimeter?” There had been no contact with the enemy since dawn, no harassing fire, no sniping, and no patrol activity. It was a first.

“Going west, toward the channel ports would be a futile gesture, we would never make it on foot without close air support on tap, and however, by heading east we can be a credible force that NATO will need to deal with. I can see no practical value in a phased withdrawal Gentlemen, as I am willing to bet good money that the opposition has lit the blue touch paper and has withdrawn to a safe distance as it were… so let’s not waste time destroying non portable equipment and stores in place, are friends will do that for us. Any vehicles are for the carrying of ammunition, rations and the wounded until such time as we regain friendly lines… now, let us carry out what will probably be the fastest O Group in military history.”

Another O Group was taking place at the same time but further east. Nikoli Bordenko and his small force of paratroops had been circling Helmstedt looking for a blind spot in which to slip through NATO lines and into the town under siege to join their brothers in arms within. They had been in a hide position near the crest of a wooded hill, sleeping and observing, when the town had been levelled. Nikoli had decided to head west and join with Alontov’s brigade in Braunschweig. There was to be no move before 2100hrs.

In addition to Nikoli’s men, several other parties of soviet troops, in similar situations, were coming to decisions as to whether to go east or west at that time.

Major Richard Dewar had earned his parachute wings at No. 1 Parachute Training School, RAF Brize Norton many years before, as had all of his Marines. However, wearing the wings was not an endorsement that the wearer liked launching himself into oblivion.

Dewar hated parachuting, and considered enthusiasts of sports parachuting to be either certifiable, or Californian, which was the same thing in all probability. To him it was a necessary evil, a means of arriving at B having left A by a more sensible mode of transport. He hated the feeling of having nothing under his feet but fresh air, and the sensation of falling in the seconds before his canopy deployed always made him kick involuntarily, as his brain told his legs to find something solid to stand on.

Tonight’s jump had been no better, it had been pitched dark as he’d left the B-2 bomber above the small valley chosen as the DZ. Twelve seconds later he was on the ground in mainland China, trying to catch his breath in the bitterly cold air, and gain his feet at the same time. He then had to shuffle downwind through powdery snow to overtake the canopy that the wind was trying to refill, and pulling on the shrouds he collapsed it once and for all.

He had the parachute gathered up by the time Cpl Alladay collected it from him, for burial with the rest of the team’s parachutes. Each man would be carrying a little over his own weight in kit over mountains uncharted except by satellite photograph, so no one would be taking excess baggage on this yomp.

Garfield Woods and Shippey-Romhead gathered up the men and carried out a check on both men and equipment, any damage to the radios or laser designators could jeopardise the mission, and an injured man could equally harm their chances of success.

Lady Luck was, by and large, with them.

One man had a suspected broken rib, plus a variety of bumps and scrapes amongst the remainder, but nothing that would hold them up.

Forty minutes later, the M&AWC contingent led off with the Green Berets and Mountain Troop in trail, heading roughly WSW and into the night with 36.2 miles to go, as the crow flies, to their objective.

The Alfa, pennant number 512 had become, by right of succession, the flagship of the soviet submarine force in the Atlantic. Its commander had left port somewhat junior to the then commander. He was eighth in the seniority stakes at that time, but attrition by NATO had thrust him into a command position he would have taken ten years to reach in peacetime.

He had a problem; inasmuch as Admiral Conrad’s convoy was approaching the point where land based maritime patrol aircraft would add considerably to its defence. Latest humint reports told of a massing of these aircraft on the closest airfields, coming in from all points to arm up and await the convoy.

Since his attack on the Royal Navy anti-submarine vessels, the convoy had altered course, choosing a more direct line to the ports of destination, rather than going further south. The Russian submariner was aware of the only three realistic choices he had presented the convoy’s commander. Maintain course and speed in the knowledge that the enemy were too strung out to mount a concentrated attack, and suffer instead a lighter, but prolonged series of strikes, as the submarines came into range. Take a longer, more southerly course, and hope that would avoid the wolf pack, or, take a more direct line to safety, and hope that its defensive screen was sufficient to resist a mass onslaught. Admiral Conrad had chosen the third option, so perhaps NATOs armies were even closer to collapse than was thought.

What he lacked was a plan of the convoy, something to tell him where NATOs ships carrying the troops, equipment and supplies were. He had ordered his diesels to try to penetrate the warship screen and give exact coordinates for these vessels that were so vital to NATO in Europe.

He had just five diesels remaining, all Kilos but only two of these were the even quieter improved models, of these he needed at least one to infiltrate the screens and provide him with that fix.

Behind Potyemkin, the commanders Alfa, a half-mile in trail the Oscar II guided missile submarine Stalin held station, and in her vertical launch tubes sat twenty missiles topped with one-megaton warheads. He had the means to sink each and every merchant vessel in the convoy, but the last radar picture was two days old, and it showed his enemy spread over fifty square miles of ocean. Warships formed an inner and outer screen, and the merchantmen lay within, but there was a lot of room to manoeuvre inside that screen

Two days ago when they had then known that they were safe from nuclear attack, the convoy had covered fifty square miles. They would likely have now increased the spacing between ships, and so be covering a greater expanse. As powerful as his weapons were, they could easily be wasted vaporising empty sea.

The American’s had shot down the RORSAT over the Midwest, and its replacement was still on a launch pad somewhere. All he could do was blanket the area occupied by the ships with conventional, chemical and nuclear tipped weaponry, unless his diesels could provide him with hard data.

His Kilos were shadowing the convoy, and in just over thirty minutes his missile boats could accelerate into firing position. Every minute he delayed brought Conrad’s gamble closer to success, so he gave the order to his communications officer.

“Make to all vessels… Attack!”

With the loss of the Illustrious ASW group from the convoy’s defence, so too went 50 % of its rotary wing airframes. Conrad no longer had the comprehensive cover of before, but those that remained heard the enemy begin their approach.

In the CIC aboard the USS Gerald Ford, Conrad ordered the ships to carry out pre planned spacing, putting greater distance between themselves, without losing ASW screen and missile defence integrity.

The carrier’s principle bodyguards, the AEGIS cruisers USS Normandy and USS Anzio, along with the older USS Thomas S Gates, took station to port, the threat side, of the carrier. The ageing AEGIS cruiser lacked the VLS; vertical launch systems of the younger pair, but her Mk 26 launchers would hopefully find plenty to do. With that done the admiral turned the fight over to the ASWO and ordered the CAG to launch all the F/A-18 and F14s. Once their hard points were bare of air to air ordnance they were free to meet with the tankers, 200 miles to the west of the Gerald Ford, and then on to Europe. Should the carrier be lost, at least SACEUR would have some damn fine men and women bolstering his available air assets.

Launching of the Tomcats and F/A-18s was still underway when the soviets started the ball rolling; the shadowing diesels launched spreads of acoustic torpedoes at the mass of surface ships before using the distraction to try to breach the screen.

The Perry class frigate USS Paul Cooper, found two torpedoes heading for her and kicked on all the speed she could, making radical course changes as she did so. The soviet weapons did not waver, keeping with the target as she twisted and turned, closing the distance all the time. The ship was closed up for NBC warfare, and there was no one above decks to observe the outcome of the race, but everyone heard it and felt it. The closer torpedo homed onto the little ships streamed Nixie, its mate a split second behind. The double concussions rang through the hull as the ocean heaved behind her, knocking men and women off their feet, and causing unsecured crockery in the galley to jump a foot in the air, to shatter on the deck.

Of the twenty torpedoes fired, five malfunctioned, thirteen were decoyed by Nixies, and two found the fleet ammunition ship, USNS Dutchman’s Ferry.

Six hundred feet up at the controls of the Paul Cooper’s UH-60B Sea Hawk, its pilots watched the exploding torpedoes white water column drench the stern and upper works of their own ship, and they were then buffeted by the titanic explosion that had obliterated the ammunition ship a full mile away.

In the back, the Sea Hawks operator gripped the edge of his workstation to steady himself, but his attention was on his instruments.

“Sir, we have a solid contact on our last line of sonar buoys!”

“Gimme a steer!”

“It’s just south of number four… take a heading of 009’ and hustle, he’s heading down!”

Turning onto that heading, the Sea Hawk dropped down toward the waves and the co-pilot reported their sonar buoy contact to Paul Cooper’s ASWO, who in turn passed it along to the ASW department on the carrier where it was added to the big picture.

On reaching the area of the number four buoy of that particular line, the Sea Hawk flared and lowered its dipping sonar below the waves.

The usually quiet diesel boat had traded stealth for speed, to egress its firing point before the hunters came looking. Its poor luck had been its proximity to the line of sonar buoys when it had launched its attack.

Less than a minute was all that the operator needed to lock its position down, the dipper was raised and a Westinghouse Mk50 dropped from the Sea Hawk. The torpedo immediately locked on to the Kilo that had tried to sink their home, and accelerated toward it.

After hours of stalking and shadowing the convoy, her batteries were far from fully charged, so making her best speed on the charge that was available, fell short of what was required.

Paul Cooper’s Sea Hawk did not need to drop its second weapon, as soon as they heard the sound of the pressure hull letting go; they called it in, claiming a kill and went looking for more trade.

A mere quarter of a mile from the scene of that interception, the feelings of another crew were mixed with sorrow and relief that the torpedo they had at first thought was meant for them, hadn’t been, but more of their comrades were now gone. The Murmansk nursed the batteries and crept along towards the first screen of warships.

Of the five diesels involved, two were sunk within minutes of launching, and both as they attempted to duck inside the screen. A further pair were located during the next ten minutes, and shortly thereafter shared the fate of their sister ships. The attrition to their numbers since the breakout had begun had claimed good and bad crews alike, but those that had gotten this far were all first team quality.

Whilst the convoy screen was dealing with the attack by the diesel boats, the first salvo of anti-ship missiles broke the surface one hundred and eighty miles to the northwest, shedding their protective launch containers and deploying stubby wings.

An E-2C Hawkeye, within its longer-range radars saw the threat first, and an operator sounded the alarm even as its ‘take’ was being beamed to the ships far below.

“Vampires, Vampires, Vampires!… twenty plus inbound vampires, range 175 miles… . bearing 351’… . speed Mach one plus!”

Two flights of F14s were vectored toward the inbounds, launching AMRAAMs as they achieved a lock and egressing to the northwest, leaving the thirty-two missiles under the guidance of the Hawkeye.

Whilst the missiles were still fifty miles apart, a further forty-eight of the high speed SS-N-19s appeared on the E-2Cs screens.

Admiral Mann paced up and down the deck in CIC, allowing the men and women to do their jobs without interference, but taking it all in.

The continuously updated big screen did not give him the information he wanted, which was how many enemy submarines were out there.

Intelligence sources claimed no more than twelve faced them but would not hazard a guess at how many of those were SSGNs, the Oscar II’, the big missile boats capable of carrying the anti-shipping SS-N-27 nuclear missiles.

The incoming missiles were not coming on dumb, but jinking and altering speed. Conrad could see at a glance that the AMRAAMs were not stopping them all; the seventy-two incoming missiles had been whittled down to forty-seven that his warships were going to have to deal with.

The ASWO called off his helicopters, and their search for the Kilos was halted as they got out of the firing line and hovered behind warships as radar decoys.

Withdrawal of the ASW helicopters left the way clear for the soviet Akulas, Alfas and Sierra IIIs to try and close to firing range of their shorter-range ordnance, largely unhindered.

Conrad Mann had little with which to counter this other threat. He had nine of the old Knox class frigates with Mk-26 launchers and ASROCs, but the weapon had been out of production quite a few years, and supplies were limited. Four of the frigates patrolled inside the cordons whilst the remainder were paired off with air defence capable hulls and their operators listened to the lines of sonar buoys, waiting for a contact. Of the four prowler sentries one had no offensive anti-submarine weaponry; she had only her sonar suite.

The warships increased speed and trained their Phalanx systems to port, whilst those delegated by the TAO began launching air defence missiles at the incoming missiles.

Aboard the Murmansk the crew breathed a little easier, the increased speed of the convoy screen meant a larger margin of safety for them, and they passed below the surface ships, into the convoys’ inner sanctum. Pressed by time and the need to acquire targeting data, her captain ordered their speed increased to 10 knots and to standby to stream the towed array.

On the big screen an icon representing the Knox class frigate USS John Allen, one of the four inner piquet’s, altered course, coming about to retrace its steps. An operator’s fingers flew over her keyboard, sending an interrogative to the small ship. After a few seconds she read the reply.

“Our tail just twitched… investigating.”

Twisting and turning, the first of the anti-ship missiles dodged inside of the defenders Standard 2 missiles, losing a quarter of their remaining number and coming into range of the shorter range Standard 1s.

Admiral Mann decided that the fight was out of the hands of the aircrews, and ordered away those that still carried air-to-air ordnance, sending them to holding orbits.

The Murmansk’s sonar department plotted their own journey past the outer and inner lines of warships, and when that plot showed them a kilometre inside the convoys’ defences they streamed the array. Her captain allowed himself the small indulgence of feeling hope, although that hope was focused on achieving his objective, actually surviving the battle was pushed to the back of his mind. “Sonar, any sign of the convoy?” He received a brief shake of the head.

“No sir, not yet, too much background noise from the warships.”

Aboard the AEGIS cruiser USS Anzio the roar of launching Standard 1 missiles reverberated through its hull as she added her quota to the defending missiles racing north.

Murmansk’s sonar department were concentrating their search for the convoy, the towed arrayed listening southward. So intent were they that they almost did not hear the USS John Allen heading their way.

To the west of the John Allen, one of her sister ships was closing fast to assist, her screw thrashing the sea in her wake to a phosphorescent glow, but she was coming from the rear of the convoy, ploughing into the Atlantic rollers as she drove east.

“Captain… enemy warship closing, bearing 025’, two thousand metres!”

The Murmansk’s commander looked at the speaker.

“Any chance that they haven’t got us?”

The USS John Allen was not entirely certain that they had a submarine somewhere close, the USNS Dutchman’s Ferry had gone down not far away so they had to be one hundred percent certain they weren’t just hearing her as she sank toward the ocean floor. To eliminate that possibility, her ASWO gave an instruction to a crewman.

The frigates sonar went active; its pulses hammered the hull of the Kilo, causing several of her crew to jump.

“No captain, no chance at all.”

“Pizd’uk!” the captain snarled his frustration. “Flood Q… take us down to six hundred feet… … … .come right to 170’, fifteen knots… and standby counter measures!”

North of the convoy screen, the night was lit up as another Standard 1 scored, its targets 500Kg warhead detonating at the moment of interception, but Conrad Mann had ceased his pacing, his eyes fixed on the big board and his jaw set in the realisation that the sea skimmers were going to get through his missiles, and some of his ships were likely to die in the next few minutes.

USS John Allen’s ASROC launcher swung out, guided by the ASWOs instructions until it was pointing unerringly along the bearing to the submerged Kilo.

The interval between sonar pulses was lessening, and not a single man aboard the Murmansk did not feel hunted, including her captain, and yet his voice remained calm. “Hard a-port… make your course 045’… hold that course for thirty seconds and release counter measures, then reverse your course and go to flank speed.”

“Aye, captain!”

The Phalanx system aboard the USS Paul Cooper was the first to open fire on the inbound missiles, the barrels rotating as it began expending rounds at a rate of three thousand per minute. One by one, other ships joined in as the anti-ship missiles came within range until seven vessels were involved in this last line of defence.

Five miles to the south of her, flame lashed the foredeck of the John Allen as an ASROC left the launcher, and its intended victim heeled over as it reversed course and increased speed, ejecting a pair of noisemakers into the knuckle it had created.

To the tearing sound created by the Phalanx guns aboard the screens warships there was added the thump of chaff dischargers throwing aloft their clouds of aluminium strips. Although all the ships were running without lights, the cruiser USS Normandy was illuminated briefly by the light produced from an exploding destroyer to the northeast, and then her superstructure was lit again as her own Phalanx opened up to engage two missiles entering the breach created by the destroyers destruction. Sweating crewmen paused for a moment to listen before redoubling their efforts to manhandle Standard 1 and 2 missiles from makeshift stores to refill the magazines.

USS John Allen’s first ASROC shed its rocket booster and a small drogue chute allowed the Mk42 Mod 5 torpedo to enter the water at the correct angle. It had been aimed to land astern of the enemy submarine, but the Murmansk had turned through 180’ and the torpedo now had no immediate target to home on. It was old technology and had no guidance from its mother ship, so it performed its hunting manoeuvre, turning in a wide arc and actively pinging.

The John Allen carried only twelve of the old ASROCs, all aged between twenty and thirty years old. As soon as the first Mk42 had left the launcher the crew had hustled to ready the next.

An ugly fireball, rich in white fire and red gold hues, rose into the air to announce the death of another US warship, this time a frigate. With the loss of the destroyer, and then the frigate, a hole had been bored through the inner and outer screens.

The Mk42 had turned through 200’ before it found a target, and quickly accelerated to 40knots.

Murmansk had achieved a speed of 24knots by the time the torpedo had plunged through the knuckle and gas bubbles generated by the noisemaker, where it immediately heard the Kilo and steered toward her.

Two seconds before the Anzio’s 20mm magazines ran dry, her sister ships automated flank defence systems ordered Normandy’s and Thomas S Gates Phalanx guns to open fire. The submarine launched missiles had been whittled down to just eight, but the three big cruisers, plus the massive USS Gerald Ford were in their path.

Murmansk did not have the battery power to run at speed for prolonged periods, and in any case she could not outrun even an old weapon such as the Mk42. She ejected another pair of noisemakers into her wake, and responded gamely to the planes in the full rise position.

USS John Allen’s ASWO held off launching the Mk42 now waiting on the launcher, he had few to play with and watched the information being added to the plot in the small CIC. Only if the torpedo in the water looked certain to have failed, would he re-attack with a second ASROC.

The instructions to both cruisers Phalanx guns were sent within milliseconds of one another, Normandy and her older sister were already tracking, and Normandy’s guns began to hammer at the first of a pair now homing on her.

Thomas S Gates had three coming straight for her and her computerised guidance system selected the greatest threat, unfortunately through some fault that would never be identified, both of her Phalanx guns remained silent except for the whirr of the motors that kept the barrels unerringly following the path of her killers.

With the magazines for her Phalanx guns now empty, Anzio had her own problem to contend with, and she heeled hard over as she turned toward it. Her Sea Hawk kept station, above and abaft her stern as the pilots played decoy with a sharp eye on the glow of the incoming missiles exhaust, ready to evade if they saw the ruse had worked.

The approaching SS-N-19 registered that its principle target was shrinking, as the ship turned bow-on to it, yet a smaller target above that one suddenly expanded, as yet another chaff bundle appeared in the Sea Hawks path.

The aircrews concentration was broken when two miles away, an SS-N-19 detonated inside Thomas S Gates hull immediately above the magazine, which both startled them with the violence of the cruisers destruction, and robbed them of their night vision so that they never saw, or even felt, the missiles impact against the UH-60Bs port engine.

Although she escaped the older cruisers fate, the close proximity of the exploding warhead rout havoc with Anzio’s stern works, it stove in hull and deck plates, and set her hangar ablaze.

Below the ocean’s surface, several miles south, Murmansk was answering her helm well and rising toward the surface. At 200 feet she came level and again heeled over in a hard turn, this time to starboard but again ejecting noisemakers. It was the Tortoise and the Hare, except the Hare showed no sign of needing a nap.

The noisemakers left by the Kilo served only to mask its location from the Mk42 so long as the devices were between the torpedo and the submarine. Once it pierced the bubble cloud it quickly reacquired without losing much in the way of ground.

Murmansk was merely prolonging the inevitable, but fortune favours the brave and the Mk42 overshot as the Kilo turned hard a-starboard. It registered the steel hulls proximity however, but its speed carried it beyond the target before detonating.

The blast rolled the Murmansk clear onto her side, severing the towed array’s umbilical and dealing the vessel a hammer blow that only months refitting in a dry dock could cure. Inside the hull it became bedlam, with electrical fires triggering alarms, failing lighting and injured crewmen’s screams mixed with that of the simply terrified.

The second of the three SS-N-19s that had singled out the Thomas S Gates wasted itself as it flew into the cruisers funeral pyre. The third missile flew on with its sensor suite questing southwards for a new target.

A brief exultation in the USS John Allen’s CIC, was quelled when they heard the sound of the Kilo re-emerge as the explosions reverberations diminished.

It took almost ten seconds to lock down the Kilos new bearing, course and speed, which was how long it also took the stray SS-N-19 to acquire the frigate and cover the distance.

In the Murmansk’s control room they did not hear the anti-ship missile do its work, their sonar suite was offline, acrid fumes from burning insulation were making breathing and vision difficult, and a vibration that originated in the bearings of the submarines single propeller shaft was noticeable throughout the vessel.

Her captain picked himself up off the deck and shouted for quiet.

“Silence!” His eyes were smarting from the smoke, but he could see he had their attention. Taking the PA microphone he depressed the switch but there was not operating light, it was dead so he tossed it aside to hang by its coiled cable.

“Damage reports… get on it… and find out what the hell is causing that vibration while you are at it!”

Whilst his officers made their way along the vessel, compartment by compartment, he went around the control room speaking with the men, a few words of encouragement to settle shaken nerves.

USS Gerald Ford’s TAO allowed himself to breathe again, now that there were no longer hostile missiles in the air. The plot showed the firing positions of every soviet vessel that had taken part; at least at the time of firing anyway, and as tempting as it was to extract vengeance on those vessels for the sinking of US warships, it would have been a serious error to do so. Those vessels were missile boats, and now empty of surface to surface ordnance, but the hunter killers, the Sierras, Alfas and Akulas, still had theirs, albeit shorter ranged. Once again the Sea Hawks moved out from the ships to begin hunting once more, because those vessels were now free of their tasks of protecting the big missile submarines, and would right now be seeking to come within launch range of the convoy.

Admiral Mann took stock of his warships situations; an AEGIS cruiser, a destroyer, two frigates and an ammunition ship had been lost. A second cruiser, the Anzio, had now come about and was steaming slowly into wind, to keep the fires raging aft from spreading to the superstructure, her damage control parties were pumping gallons of seawater into the conflagration, and trying to stem the dozen or so leaks in her hull. Conrad had to detach a frigate to escort her until she could rejoin the fast moving main body. Away from the mutually protective arms of the remaining escorts she was an easy target, but they could not afford to wait for her, and certainly could not spare more than the single frigate to ward off the attack submarines that were out there.

Elsewhere, a destroyer and a frigate had suffered the effects of large warheads detonating close inboard, intercepted at the last moment by Phalanx. A further destroyer and a frigate had also endured similar narrow escapes although without the associated damage, but aboard those two vessels alarms had screeched the warning that the upper works were contaminated with a persistent nerve agent. In its gaseous form the agent had spread with the wind, contaminating two other warships, so far. The chemical warfare agents were a minimal hazard to the crews so long as the ships were closed up for NBC, but for merchant ships it would be a different story. The crews of the merchant vessels pressed into service had all been issued with nuclear, biological and chemical warfare suits, along with the requisite training in there use, but with ships not equipped for such an environment, manned by crews of a different mind-set to that of their military cousins, the effects would be devastating.

Manoeuvring to avoid burning hulks that had minutes before been ships of war, the remaining warships were even now shifting formation to fill in the gaps, reloading ready-use magazines and carrying the injured down to sickbays, readying themselves for the next onslaught.

Considering the speed with which the surface ships had emptied their magazines, the surviving ammunition ships would be unable to replenish them all inside of four hours, and the soviets were unlikely to be so obliging as to wait. Admiral Bernard’s tactics might defy health and safety, but the American’s adoption of them was about to save lives.

South of the surface ships, two hundred feet down the Murmansk’s captain had received the reports of his own commands situation without expression. Sonar was out, cracked bearings were keeping his vessel below 10knots, and his engineer was seriously concerned about the effects of going any deeper. Communications were also out, although his troops thought they could send, if not receive. The only plus was radar, it appeared to be fully functional and so he intended to take the only course of action that would fulfil their mission, locating the merchantmen carrying troops, equipment and supplies.

Summoning his communications officer he spoke quietly. “Oleg, we have arrived at the time that the Americans call ‘make or break’, and I have an important task for you.”

The young officer nodded.

“Yes captain?”

“We are about to come up to periscope depth and raise the radar mast, this will make us extremely vulnerable but it is the only way that we can complete our mission in pinpointing the troopships and cargo carriers.” He paused as he let that sink in. “We may have only moments in which to send that information to our comrades, so your mast will be raised at the same time and I need you ready to transmit, do you understand?”

The communications officers face sagged.

“But captain, the board shows only an intermittent transmission light whenever we test it, we have not been able to find the short yet!”

The captain’s reply was rueful.

“We are out of time Oleg, you must keep on transmitting, over and over until… ” he left the sentence unfinished. Slapping Oleg on the back his voice changed to one of authoritative optimism. “Perhaps the NATO boys have too many troubles of their own right now to worry about us, so come along and get back to your men.”

Turning back to address the control room, he dropped the optimism and pushed the authoritative up a notch.

“Bring us up to 50 feet, standby to raise ECM, radar and communications masts.”

As Murmansk rose to the required depth, an air of fatalism settled on her crew. Although only the officers had chosen this profession, the remainder of the crew were fiercely proud of their vessel, and the reasons, rights and wrongs of the war now counted for little, all that mattered was their role in this particular bit of it.

“Raise ECM.”

A moment or two passed once that electronic sensor emerged above the surface, but its operator’s screens remained blank, and its dials failed to register any activity.

“Up periscope.”

The device slid up out of housing, and was accompanied by a trickle of water down its shaft from damaged seals losing integrity as the periscope rose, a trickle that increased by the moment. It did not bode well, the captain could see nothing through the lenses, and switching to lo-lite illuminated nothing except the fact that that facility was also unserviceable.

“Radar… we know what’s behind us so don’t waste time with 360’s, just sweep from 30’ to 200’, understood?”

“Raise radar and communications… begin sending our position straight away.” The captain crossed to the radar position and folded his arms to mask from the crew his crossed fingers.

It took but seconds for the beam to swing back and forth but no returns showed up on the screen. Either the radar is out also, or there is nothing there, he reasoned. However, their radar had a finite range and the greater the transmitter’s height above the seas, the farther it could see.

“Conning tower party close up… standby to surface.” Turning to his 2 i/c he added. “Lieutenant Stepov, the way our lucks running the repeater will be out, you will go topside and I will remain here.”

Wet weather gear was pulled from lockers and quickly donned, the lieutenant and lookouts gathered at the bottom of the ladder.

“Surface!”

The captain’s eyes returned to the radar screen and he spoke without turning. “Communications?”

“Aye captain?”

“Are we sending, Oleg?”

“I don’t know captain, maybe someone is receiving broken text and will put the pieces together.”

Above them the sky was overcast, and the Atlantic the colour of ink, a uniform blackness that suddenly parted in white foam to admit the Kilo back into the realm of air.

Water cascaded from her plates, a dark gleaming killing machine now out of its element, vulnerable to the ships it hunted.

Below, the captain breathed in the salt air that had entered the hull as the lieutenant opened the hatch, but his eyes remained on the screen unwilling at first to accept what they told him.

“Communications, send and keep sending, our position and the following… from west to east through south, to a range of twenty-eight point seven miles, there are no, repeat no, merchant vessels!” For the number of vessels he knew to be in the convoy, they should have picked up at least some of the outlying ships, if not the majority. The only conclusion he could draw was that they had been suckered, and the merchant ships were elsewhere.

Something close to despair crossed the young communications officers face.

“Aye captain… sending.”

Lieutenant Stepov emerged into the wet and cold, stepping clear of the hatchway for his lookouts he first braced himself against the roll of the deck before raising a night vision device to his eyes. Common sense should have told him not to look first in the direction they thought the merchantmen lay, but toward the north. It would not however have affected their fate even if he had done so.

At a speed of 18knots, the bow of USS Peel sliced deep into the Kilos starboard ballast tank, just forward of the conning tower before riding up onto the Murmansk’s coaming, the screech of tortured metal drowning out the screams of the submarines look-outs. The Knox class frigate came to a halt with her bows in the air and twenty feet of keel exposed to view, and for a moment it remained in that position as air boiled from the submarines ruptured tank. Peel’s single screw still churned the water to froth and then the frigates weight, the push of her screw, and the damage already inflicted on the Kilo brought an end to the brief impasse. With a groan the Murmansk’s pressure hull gave way and the frigates crumpled bow again met the ocean. Murmansk’s bows disappeared from sight and her stern rose clear of the waves, up and up until it stood close to the vertical, its propeller a blur as it turned unchecked. Slowly at first, and then increasing in speed the submarine sank from view forever.

The USN frigate, still showing the signs of her encounter with the man-made tidal wave on the first convoy, hastily and crudely patched up at sea as she was, now quickly lost way and began to settle at the bow.

Far over the northern horizon, Potyemkin’s signaller had eventually gotten Murmansk’s position from the halting transmission. Murmansk had only managed to repeat its final message twice before going of the air, and the signaller thought he had the intended text from what had been received, but he had to replay the recording several times until he was satisfied. He handed his commander the message on a signal form.

‘Our position 43” 8’ North, 36” 35’ West // Merchant vessels 28.7 miles South’.

“Is this all?”

“Yes Captain, it was repeated twice through heavy interference, but there have been no further transmissions from Murmansk.”

The captain considered the messages content, and pondered the lack of a precise set of coordinates for the enemy shipping.

“You say that there has been nothing further from them?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Apparently their brave comrades-in-arms had sent them this vital message with their dying gasp, and the captain would ensure their sacrifice did not go in vain. Crossing to the chart table he marked the location that the Kilo had given as its own, and then went to work with dividers. To the same signal form the captain added a longitude and latitude, circling it in red before handing it back to the signaller for onward transmission to the Stalin.

One of the hardest of his own orders, that Admiral Mann had to stand by, was that of rescuing survivors. His warships and helicopters reported dozens in the water. Those downwind of the chemical warheads would have no chance, but the remainder waved, shouted and blew whistles in order to gain attention.

USS Peel’s crew were fighting to shore up bulkheads, but the only safe course of action for her was to turn her stern to the seas and put her engines in reverse, making for the Azores in that slow fashion, if a torpedo did not find her first of course.

Conrad Mann would not compromise his warships integrity by allowing seals to be broken in order for crewmen to go topside and carry out rescues. He could not allow his ships to break formation, and he could not afford to weaken his defensive screen by detaching another vessel. The same went for his rotary wing assets, he needed them hunting rather than performing SAR.

All requests to heave-to or to delay ASW operations were refused, and the winking beacons on survival rafts and immersion suits fell astern, disappearing into the cold, black Atlantic night.

Twenty-one minutes later a UH-60B from the USS Gerald Ford firmed up very quickly on a contact that was coming on too fast for caution. Within another three minutes a further two helicopters began to prosecute separate contacts, but before any could drop on the hulls they rose to launch depth and the next attack began.

The soviet hunter-killers had used well the time the helicopters had been absent, and all seven began launching within minutes of each other.

SS-N-7 anti-ship missiles burst out of the black depths in welters of spray, their solid rocket motors providing the thrust that would send them at high subsonic speed towards their victims.

Gerald Ford’s TAO saw at a glance that none of his remaining F-14s and F/A-18s would be of use, their attackers were within forty miles of the nearest US ship, and the aircraft were too far away to engage in time.

Standard 2 missiles roared from vertical launch tubes, tipping over as their ships guidance systems fed them data on the incoming attack.

High above the ships, the radar operators aboard the early warning Hawkeye watched the attackers come on, locked down their firing positions to within six feet, and fed mid-course corrections to the Standard 2s. Whilst they were doing all this they saw twenty new tracks appear two hundred and ninety-six miles out.

Placing a cursor on the lead inbound the operator was surprised, he had thought that he could judge speed pretty well, and he’d have guessed that these newcomers were coming in at mach one, give or take. However the speed was mach 2.7, and these inbounds were climbing.

Selecting the Gerald Ford’s CIC on his frequency selector he spoke quickly and clearly.

“Vampires, Vampires, Vampires… Lunch Bunch this is Eye Spy Zero Two, I have two zero Vampires, bearing 350’, Angels two five and climbing, range now at two hundred fifty-five miles!”

The TAOs reply was immediate.

“Roger, Eye Spy, we have them on the board.” A moment later the TAO came on again, this time on an air wing frequency.

“Long Knife Zero One, Lunch Bunch.”

The F-14 squadron commanders’ reply was short, and to the point. “Go.”

The TAO told them where, how high, and a one word instruction that meant they were to hustle.

“Long Knives steer 349’, make Angels Twenty and buster!”

“Roger, the Knives are in the elevator with burners on, our heading is now three four nine.”

“Roger Knives, you have the fast moving vampires which are now levelling at Angels Thirty.”

“Rog.”

Long Knife Zero One had only four other aircraft with him, the remainder having already emptied their hard-points in the previous attack. Between the five of them they had eight AIM-54 Phoenix, and fifteen AMRAAMs. Sat in back the RIOs assigned weapons to targets, and fifteen seconds later the first AIM-54 left its hard-point.

Unlike the weapons released by the attack hulls, the newcomers were not configured to single out ships; they had sets of coordinates to aim for.

In the USS Gerald Ford’s CIC, Admiral Mann knew without asking that this was the soviets big effort, their last chance at stopping desperately needed reinforcements and supplies from reaching Europe.

The twenty fast approaching missiles were heading for the protected zone within the twin rings of warships, and they all had to be nukes.

“Make to all ships, brace for nuclear strike… tell the inner pickets to make for the outer screens at flank.”

The plot showed all his airborne assets, and some were too damn close to them.

“Get the helo’s down, those that can do so in the next three minutes, it’ll take too long to secure them beyond that time… tell the rest, with the exception of Eye Spy and the Long Knives to beat feet.”

The young officer at his elbow turned to give the orders and then paused.

“Beat feet to where, sir?”

Conrad half smiled.

“Anywhere but here, son.”

The Alfa Potyemkin left its charge to clear datum whilst the Alfa itself descended to 1200 feet and sprinted north at 30 knots. Once there sonars registered the unmistakable signature of a nuclear event he would send his detailed report, declaring that the army no longer had anything to fear in Europe

The first AIM-54 was a clear miss, detonating in the wake of the lead missile, but the second scored on it. It wasn’t a spectacular explosion, the complex mechanisms necessary to enable a nuclear reaction to take place, were simply destroyed. Nuclear weapons do not have impact fuses, and they don’t even go off if an aircraft that should be carrying them should fly into a mountain. They just aren’t that sort of explosive device.

The board on Gerald Ford’s CIC recorded the hits and misses, and there were more of the latter than of the former as thirteen still remained.

With all there ordnance expended the F-14s turned northeast, clearing the way for the warships not yet involved with the sea-skimmers.

Far below, the battle raged on. West of the carrier, the frigate USS Hallemville fell out of line, with what remained of her superstructure ablaze and flames roaring through rents in her hull. Her sister ship the USS Gallishere was one moment forging through heavy seas with spray fogging the air above her bows and her Phalanx gun hammering to the north, and then was engulfed from view by smoke flecked with fire. When the wind swept the smoke clear moments later she was gone, with only the still falling debris to confirm that she had ever having existed.

Being more sporadic, and coming from far wider spaced firing points, a greater number of warships had been able to engage this attack than the last.

USS Normandy had only expended half of her re-filled magazine during this attack, and now she began launching in a different direction.

Although this current turn of events had been allowed for, Conrad could see that there was more than a fair chance that one or more were going to get through.

“Do you know how to pipe ‘Up Spirits’ young man?” he said to the young officer without turning.

The ensign frowned, unsure as to whether he had heard the admiral correctly.

“Sir?”

Admiral Mann turned his head and smiled. “Never mind, wrong navy… and even they don’t do that anymore.”

Five of the soviet weapons escaped the Normandy’s best efforts, to tip over and descend. Two were five miles apart, and a few seconds ahead of the remainder, achieving three times the speed of sound in their descent toward the ocean.

Milliseconds separated the pair as they reached 10,000 feet, and their onboard systems completed the tasks they had been programmed for.

Orbiting at 26,000 feet the E-2C Hawkeye was the first casualty.

EMP, the electro-magnetic pulse produced by nuclear events, fried electrical circuits, and then the weapons thermal output lifted the twin-engine aircraft to 39,000 feet, well above its maximum ceiling. Before the super thermal had carried them to that altitude the Allison T56-A-427 turboprops sputtered and faltered, starved not of fuel, but of air. The little AWAC aircraft was then caught by the blast wave, and swiped from existence.

Admiral Mann did not know it, but they had gotten off lightly. Only two of the five missiles had detonated, and in doing so they destroyed the remainder that followed behind them.

On USS Gerald Ford’s starboard side, her external sensors burnt out, and in so doing triggered alarms throughout the vessel. The same went for all the surviving surface warships, whatever their position the part of the vessel facing ground zero had optical and sensor equipment frazzled by the unbearable light that heralded the detonations. EMP also did its worst on those electrical systems not shut down and shielded. Communications and radar were lost throughout the fleet and until the back-up systems came online, they were deaf and blind.

In the carriers CIC the board had gone blank and the officers in charge of the various departments harangued their technicians to boot up the back-up systems and get the show back on the road.

Being inside the double rings of warships, though close to the northern perimeter, USS Gerald Ford was closer to ground zero than any other surface ship, but still 30 miles from it. Her starboard side’s paintwork had been bleached several shades lighter than the rest of the ship, by the thermal pulse.

The blast wave took all of three minutes to reach the carrier, but still had the strength to heel her 104,000 ton bulk over by twenty degrees.

The TAO braced himself against a bulkhead until the ship righted itself, and then barked at the personnel in CIC. “Come on people, no one’s sailed through the after effects of one a nuclear strike before, it could get pretty damn stormy pretty damn quick, and we’re still blind… … … get those systems back up, NOW!”

His words were prophetic, as the huge warship heeled over once more with the assault of an 80 foot wave moving at as many miles an hour.

Captain Sonderland had remained on the bridge, despite the heavy lead lined blast shutters that prevent anyone looking out of the screens. Gripping the arms of his chair he had trouble recollecting whether he had been on a ship as large as this before, in what seemed an equal to the worst storms of his long career. They were sailing blind and he did not like that one tiny bit, the bridge radar repeater remained blank despite five minutes of promises from technicians, and so he ordered the bridge lighting extinguished and the shutters hand cranked open.

For all he could see, once that had been accomplished, they could as well have been left in place for all the good it did.

Massive quantities of water had been vaporised by the airbursts, and what greeted him outside was the thickest fog he had ever encountered.

Leaving his chair he stood beside the helmsman, squinting in an effort to penetrate the murk, and decided that until radar had been restored he needed a lookout on the bow. He was weighing up the dangers to such a lookout should the easterly wind change and blow fallout across the vessel, when he saw something ahead. A faint orange glow, much defused by the thick blanket of fog had altered the otherwise uniform vision of nothingness.

He had time only to mutter to himself. “What in hells name is that?” before the Gerald Ford slammed into the burning hulk of the USS Hallemville.