Red Storm Rising

35. Time on Target

The first two days went well. The escort force sailed first, blasting with their sonars at the shallow coastal water for possible submarines and finding none. The merchant ships followed, forming slowly into eight columns of ten each. The twenty-knot convoy was in a hurry to deliver its goods. Covered by a massive umbrella of land-based aircraft, it pressed on through the first forty-eight hours with only minor zigzagging as it sailed past the coast of New England and Eastern Canada, Sable Island, and the Grand Banks. The easy part was behind them now. As they left coastal waters for the Atlantic Ocean proper, they entered the unknown territory.

"About filing my dispatches… " Calloway said to Morris.

"Twice a day you can use my satellite transmitter as long as it doesn't interfere with official traffic. You understand that your reports will be run through Norfolk for sensitive information?"

"Quite so. Captain, you may believe me when I say that as long as I'm here with you, I will reveal nothing that would endanger your ship! I had quite enough excitement this year in Moscow."

"What?" Morris turned and lowered his binoculars. Calloway explained what his spring had been like.

"Patrick Flynn, my opposite number from Associated Press, is aboard Battleaxe. Doubtless drinking beer," he concluded.

"So you were there when all this boiled up. Do you know why all this started?"

Calloway shook his head. "If I did, Captain, I'd have filed the story long ago."

A messenger appeared on the bridge wing with a clipboard. Morris took it, read through three messages, and signed for them.

"Something dramatic?" Calloway asked hopefully.

"Fleet weather-update and something about that Russian reconnaissance satellite. It comes overhead in another three hours. The Air Force is going to try and shoot it down before it gets to us, though. Nothing major. You're comfortable, I presume. Any problems?"

"None, Captain. Nothing like a nice sea voyage."

"True enough." Morris stuck his head into the pilothouse. "General Quarters, Air Action."

Morris led the reporter into the Combat Information Center, explaining that the drill he was about to see was to make sure his men could do everything properly even in the dark.

"One of those dispatches give you a warning?"

"No, but in six hours we'll be outside of land-based fighter cover. That means Ivan is going to come looking for us." And it's going to get awfully lonely out here by ourselves, Morris thought. He gave his men an hour's worth of drill. The CIC crew ran a pair of computer simulations. On the second one an enemy missile got through their defenses.

The F-15 fighter rolled to a halt just outside the shelter building. The crew chief set the ladder next to the aircraft, and Major Nakamura climbed down, already looking aft at her scorched airplane. She walked over to examine the damage.

"Don't look bad, Major," the sergeant assured her. A fragment from the exploding rocket motor had drilled a hole the size of a beer can right through her left wing, missing a fuel tank by three inches. "I can fix that in a couple of hours."

"You all right?" the Lockheed engineer asked.

"It blew, fifty feet away, and it just blew the hell up. You were wrong, by the way. When they blow, it's pretty spectacular. Pieces all over the damned place. I was lucky I only caught one of them." It had scared hell out of the pilot, but she'd then had an hour to recover. Now she was just mad.

"Sorry, Major. Wish I could say more than that."

"Just have to try again," Buns said, looking up at the sky through the hole. "When's the next window?"

"Eleven hours, sixteen minutes."

"That's it, then." She walked into the building, then upstairs to the pilots' lounge. There was carpeting on the walls of the building for noise absorption. It also prevented serious injury to the pilots' fists.

Unhampered, the Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite continued its orbit, and on its next pass over the North Atlantic found itself looking down on a collection of nearly a hundred ships in even columns. This must be the convoy their intelligence reports had told them about, the Russian analysts decided-and, they noted with satisfaction, it was out in the open, right where they could get at it.

Ninety minutes later, two regiments of missile-armed Backfire bombers, preceded by Bear-D search aircraft, lifted off the four airfields around Kirovsk, topped off their fuel tanks, and headed for the radar gap over Iceland.

"So this is the surprise you have in store for them?" Calloway asked. He tapped some symbols on the main tactical-display scope.

Morris nodded thoughtfully. "So far we've sent most of the convoys across under EMCON-that's emission control-with their radars blacked out to make them hard to find. This time we're doing something a little different. This is the display from the SPS-49 radar-"

"That black monster atop the pilothouse?"

"Right. These symbols are Tomcats from the carrier America. This is a KC-135 tanker, and this baby here is an E-2C Hawkeye radar bird. The Hawkeye's radar is shut down. When Ivan shows up, he'll have to close to see what's here."

"But he already knows," Calloway objected.

"No, he knows there's a convoy around here somewhere. That's not good enough to launch missiles. All he knows for sure is that there is one operating SPS-49 radar. He'll have to light off his own radar to see what's on the water. If Mr. Bear does that, we see him, and we'll have fighters on his ass so fast he'll never know what hit him."

"And if the Backfires don't come today?"

"Then we'll see them some other time. The Bears talk to submarines, too, Mr. Calloway. They are still worth killing."

It was the first time they'd been bored. Edwards and his party had been terrified often enough, but never bored. Now they had been in the same place for four complete days, and still they had no orders to move. They observed, and reported minor Russian activity, but without anything substantive to do, time was heavy on them.

"Lieutenant." Garcia pointed up. "I got airplanes heading south."

Edwards got out his binoculars. The sky was dotted with white, fleecy clouds. There were no contrails to be seen today, but-there! he saw a flash, a reflection off something. He strained his eyes to identify it.

"Nichols, what do you think?" He handed the glasses over.

"That's a Russian Backfire," Nichols said simply.

"You sure?"

"Quite sure, Leftenant. I've seen them before often enough."

"Get a count." Edwards unpacked his radio.

"I only see four. All heading south, sir."

"You're sure they're Backfires?" Edwards persisted.

"I am bloody sure, Leftenant Edwards!" Nichols answered testily. He watched the officer turn on the radio.

"Beagle calling Doghouse, over." The communications station was a little slow today. It took three calls before they acknowledged.

"Doghouse, this is Beagle, and I have some information for you. We see Backfire-type bombers southbound over our position."

"How do you know they're Backfires?" Doghouse wanted to know.

"Because Sergeant Nichols of the Royal Marines says he's bloody sure they're Backfires. Four of them"-Nichols held up five fingers now" correction five aircraft southbound."

"Roger, thank you, Beagle. Anything else happening?"

"Negative. How long do you expect us to sit on this hill, over?"

"We'll let you know. Patience, Beagle. We haven't forgotten you. Out."

Bears advanced in an oblique line, their crews scanning the air with their eyes and probing the radar and radio frequencies. Presently the leading Bear detected the emissions of a single American radar, and it took only a minute to identify it as an SPS-49 air-search model of the type used by Perry-class missile frigates. The technicians on board measured the signal's intensity and, plotting its position, judged that they were far outside the radar's detection range.

The raid commander riding in the third Bear received the information and compared it with his intelligence data for the convoy. The position was exactly in the middle of the circle he had drawn on his map. He was suspicious of things that were so exact. The convoy was taking a direct route to Europe? Why? Most convoys to date had taken a more evasive course, detouring far south to the Azores in order to force his aircraft to reach farther than they wanted-and thereby forcing the Backfires trailing the scouts to carry only one missile instead of two. Something was strange here. On his order, the patrol line reoriented itself to a north-south disposition and began reducing altitude to keep below the horizon of the American radar.

"How far can you see?" Calloway asked.

"Depends on the altitude and size of the target, and atmospheric conditions," Morris answered, staring down from his chair to the electronic displays. Two Navy Tomcats were ready for combat. "For the Bear, at thirty thousand feet or so, we can probably spot it about two hundred fifty miles away. But the lower he flies, the closer he can get. Radar can't see through the horizon."

"But flying low will cost him fuel."

Morris looked down at the reporter. "Those damned things carry enough fuel to stay up all week," he exaggerated.

"Message from LANTFLT, Captain." The communications officer handed the form over: REPORT POSSIBLE BACKFIRE RAID SOUTHBOUND OVER ICELAND 1017z. Morris handed the message to his tactical action officer, who immediately looked at the chart.

"Good news?" Calloway asked. He had better sense than to ask to see the dispatch.

"We may be seeing Backfire bombers in a little over two hours."

"Shooting for the convoy?"

"No, probably they'll want to shoot at us first. They have a good four days to blast the convoy, and getting the escorts out of the way makes that job a lot easier."

"Are you concerned?"

Morris smiled thinly. "Mr. Calloway, I'm always concerned."

The captain reflexively checked the various status boards. All his weapons and sensor systems were fully operational-so nice to have a brand-new ship! The threat board showed no known submarine activity in the immediate area, a datum to be taken with a considerable bit of skepticism. He could call General Quarters now, but much of his crew was at lunch. Better to have everyone fed and alert.

The damned waiting, Morris thought. He watched the displays in silence. The blips indicating friendly aircraft orbited slowly as their pilots waited too.

"More CAP coming up." an officer reported. Another pair of Tomcats, part of the combat air patrol, appeared on the scope. America had gotten the same raid warning. The carrier was two hundred miles away, westbound for Norfolk. The same was true of Independence, returning from the Azores. The carriers had been at sea since the war began, cruising back and forth to avoid the orbiting Soviet ocean-reconnaissance satellites. They had been able to provide antisubmarine protection for a number of convoys, though only at great hazard to the carriers themselves. Up to now, the American flattops had not been able to act as they were supposed to act. They were not yet offensive weapons. The fate of the Nimitz group had come as a bitter lesson. Morris lit another cigarette. Now he remembered why he'd quit in the first place. Too many of them burned his throat, destroyed his sense of taste, and made his eyes water. On the other hand, they did give him something to do while he waited.

The Bears were on a precise north-south line now centered on the position of the frigate's radar signals. The raid commander ordered them to turn west and reduce altitude. Two aircraft failed to acknowledge the order, and he had to repeat it.

Two hundred miles west of them, aboard the circling E-2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft, a technician's head went up. Held just heard someone speaking Russian; in code, but definitely Russian.

Within minutes, every ship in the escort force had the information, and they all came up with the same answer: the Backfires couldn't be here yet. These were Bears. Everyone wanted to kill the Bears. The carrier America started launching her fighters and additional radar aircraft. After all, the Russians could be looking for her.

"He's gotta be heading right for us," the tactical action officer said.

"That's the general idea," Morris agreed.

"How far?" Calloway asked.

"No way to know that. The Hawkeye copied a voice radio transmission. Probably it's, fairly close, but freak atmospheric conditions can let you hear that sort of thing from half a world away. Mr. Lenner, let's go to battle stations for air action."

Five minutes later the frigate was ready.

"Good morning, Mr. Bear." The Tomcat pilot stared at his TV display tube. The Russian aircraft was about forty miles away, the sun glinting off its massive propellers. Deciding to close without using his radar for the moment, the fighter pilot advanced his throttles to 80-percent power and activated his missile controls. The head-on closure rate was over a thousand miles per hour, seventeen miles per minute.

Then: "Energize!" the pilot ordered, and instantly the radar intercept officer in the rear seat powered up the fighter's AWG-9 radar.

"We've got him," the RIO reported a moment later.

"Shoot!" Two missiles dropped free and accelerated to over three thousand miles per hour.

The Soviet electronics-warfare technician was trying to isolate the signature characteristics of the frigate's search radar when a beep sounded on a separate warning receiver. He turned to see what the noise was and went pale.

"Air-attack warning!" he shouted over the intercom.

Reacting at once, the pilot rolled the Bear left and dove for the surface of the ocean, while aft the EW technician activated his protective jamming systems. However, the turn had masked the jammer pods from the incoming missiles.

"What's happening?" the raid commander demanded over the intercom.

"We have an interceptor radar on us," the technician replied, scared but cool. "Jamming pods are activated."

The raid commander turned to his communications man. "Get a warning out: enemy fighter activity this position."

But there wasn't time. The Phoenixes covered the distance in less than twenty seconds. The first went wild and missed, but the second locked on the diving bomber and blew its tail off. The Bear fell to the sea with as little grace as a dropped sheet of paper.

The radar showed the Tomcat, and they watched as it launched two missiles that immediately disappeared from sight, and then, silently, as the Tomcat continued east for thirty seconds. Then it turned around and headed back west.

"That, gentlemen, is a kill," Morris said. "Splash one Bear."

"How do you know?" Calloway asked.

"You think he would have turned back if he missed? And if it was anything but a Bear, he'd have broken radio silence. ESM, we copy any radio traffic from zero-eight-zero?"

The petty officer in the forward starboard corner of the compartment didn't look up. "No, Captain, not a peep."

"Damn," Morris said. "It works."

"And if the bugger didn't get a message out-" Calloway understood.

"We're the only ones who know. Maybe we can bushwhack the whole attack force." Morris stepped over to the display screen. The America's fighters were now all in the air, seventy miles south of the convoy. He looked at the bulkhead clock: the Backfires were about forty minutes away. He lifted a phone. "Bridge, Combat. Signal Battleaxe to close in."

Within seconds, Battleaxe turned hard a'port and headed west toward Reuben James. One new thing had already worked today, Morris thought. Why not another?

"Stand by to launch helo," he ordered.

O'Malley was sitting in his cockpit reading a magazine, or at least letting his eyes scan the pictures while his mind struggled to detach itself from what was going on around him. The announcement over the loudspeaker tore him away from Miss July. Immediately, Ensign Ralston began the engine start sequence while O'Malley scanned the trouble board for any mechanical problems, then looked out the door to be sure that the deck crewmen were clear.

"What are we supposed to be doing, Commander?" the systems operator inquired.

"We're supposed to be missile bait, Willy," O'Malley replied amiably, and lifted off.

The southernmost Bear was within sixty miles of the convoy, but didn't yet know it, nor did the Americans, since he was below the horizon from Reuben James's radar. The Bear's pilot did know that it was about time for the aircraft to climb and switch on their own search radars. But word hadn't come yet from the raid commander. Though there was no indication of trouble, the pilot was worried. His instinct told him something strange was happening. One of the Bears that had disappeared last week, reported tracking a single American frigate radar-nothing more. Just like now… The raid commander then had aborted the Backfire mission for fear of enemy fighter activity, only to be dressed down for supposed cowardice. As was so often the case in combat, the only data available were negative. They knew that four Bears had not returned. He knew that his raid commander had not yet given the expected order. He knew there had not been any positive sign of trouble. He also knew that he was not happy.

"Estimated distance to that American frigate?" he asked over his intercom.

"One hundred thirty kilometers," the navigator answered.

Maintain radio silence, the pilot told himself. Those are the orders…

"Screw the orders!" he said aloud. The pilot reached down and flipped on his radio. "Gull Two to Gull One, over." Nothing. He repeated the call twice more.

Lots of radio receivers heard that, and in less than a minute the Bear's position was plotted, forty miles southeast of the convoy. A Tomcat dove after the contact.

The raid commander didn't answer… he would have answered, the pilot told himself. He would have answered. The Backfires should now be less than two hundred kilometers away. "What are we leading them into?

"Activate the radar!" he ordered.

Every screen ship detected the distinctive emissions from the Big Bulge radar. The nearest SAM-equipped ship, the frigate Groves, immediately energized her missile radars and fired a surface-to-air missile at the oncoming Bear-but the Tomcat fighter that was also racing toward the Bear was too close. The frigate shut down her tracking radar, and the SMI missile lost radar lock and self-destructed automatically.

Aboard the Bear the warnings came back to back, first surface-to-air missile alarm, then an air-intercept radar-and then the radar operator acquired the convoy.

"Many ships to the northwest." The radar operator passed the information to the navigator, who worked out a position report for the Backfires. The Bear shut down her radar and dove while the communications officer broadcast his sighting report. And then everyone's radars lit up.

"There are the Backfires," the tactical action officer said as the symbols appeared on the scope. "Bearing zero-four-one, range one hundred eighty miles."

On the bridge the executive officer was as nervous as he would ever get. In addition to the inbound bomber raid, he was now conning his ship exactly fifty feet from the side of HMS Battleaxe The ships were so close together that on a radarscope they'd appear as a single target. Five miles away, O'Malley and the helicopter from Battleaxe were also flying close formation over the ocean at twenty knots. Each had its blip-enhance transponder turned on. Ordinarily too small to register on this sort of radar, the helicopters would now appear to be a ship, something worthy of a missile attack.

The air action now had all the elegance of a saloon fight. The Tomcats on combat air patrol near the convoy flew toward the three Bears, the first of which already had a missile streaking toward it. The other two had not yet detected the convoy, and never would, as they ran due east to get away. It was a vain attempt. Propeller-driven patrol bombers cannot run from supersonic fighters.

Gull Two died first. The pilot managed to get his contact report out and acknowledged before a pair of Sparrow missiles exploded close aboard, setting his wing afire. He ordered his men to bail out, kept the aircraft level so they could, and a minute later struggled out of his seat and jumped through the escape hatch in the floor. The Bear exploded five seconds after he opened his parachute. As the pilot watched his aircraft fireball into the sea, he wondered if he'd drown.

Above him a squadron of Tomcats headed toward the Backfires, and the race was to see who got into missile-firing position first. The Soviet bombers climbed steeply on afterburner, activating their own look-down radars to find targets for their missiles. Their orders were to locate and kill escorts, and they found what they were looking for thirty miles from the body of the convoy: two blips. The large blip in the rear drew six shots. The smaller one five miles away drew four.

"We have a multi-regiment Backfire raid in progress now at forty-five degrees north, forty-nine west." Toland held the Red Rocket telex in his hand.

"What does COMEASTLANT have to say about it?"

"He's probably going over this one now. You ready?" he asked the fighter pilot.

"Damned right I'm ready!"

The teleprinter in the corner of the room started chattering: INDICATE OPERATION DOOLITTLE.

"Vampire, vampire! We have incoming missiles."

Here we go again, Morris thought. The tactical display was more modern than what he'd had on Pharris-each of the incoming missiles was marked with a velocity vector that indicated speed and direction. They were coming in low.

Morris lifted his phone. "Bridge, Combat. Execute separation maneuver."

"Bridge, aye. Separating now," Ernst said. "Crash stop! All back emergency!"

The helmsman pulled the throttle control back, then abruptly reversed the pitch of the propeller blades, throwing the ship from ahead to full astern. Reuben James slowed so rapidly that men had to brace themselves, and Battleaxe forged ahead, accelerating to twenty-five knots. As soon as it was safe, the British frigate turned hard to port, and Reuben James went to ahead full and turned sharply to starboard.

Any Soviet radar operator who had lingered behind would have been impressed by the deception. The oncoming AS-4 missiles had been targeted on a single blip. Now there were two, and they were separating. The missiles divided their attention evenly, with three opting for either target.

Morris watched his display intently. The distance between his ship and his companion was widening rapidly.

"Missiles are tracking us!" the ESM operator said loudly. "We have multiple missile seeker heads tracking us."

"Right full rudder, reverse course. Fire off chaff rockets!"

Everyone in the Combat Information Center jumped as four canisters exploded directly overhead, filling the air with aluminum foil and creating a radar target for the missiles to track while the frigate heeled violently to port as she turned. Her forward missile launcher turned around with her, a SAM already assigned to the first incoming Russian missile. The frigate righted herself on a northerly course, three miles behind Battleaxe.

"Here we go," the weapons officer said. The solution light blinked on the firecontrol console.

The first of the white-painted SMI missiles shot into the sky. It had scarcely cleared the launch rail when the launcher twisted in two dimensions and accepted another missile from the circular magazine, then turned and elevated again, firing seven seconds after the first missile was launched, then repeated the cycle twice more.

"That's it!" O'Malley said when he saw the first smoke trail. He punched his finger on the blip-enhance button. "Hatchet, shut down your emitter and break left!" Both helicopters went to full power and ran away. Four missiles suddenly had no targets. They kept heading west to look for more, but there were none to be found.

"More chaff," Morris ordered, watching the electronic traces of friendly and unfriendly missiles converge. The CIC shook again as another cloud of aluminum blasted into the air, and the wind carried it toward the incoming missiles.

"We still have missiles tracking us!"

"Hit!" the weapons officer exclaimed. The first missile disappeared from the scope, intercepted sixteen miles out, but the second Soviet missile kept coming. The first SAM sent after it missed, exploding harmlessly behind it, and then the second one missed, too. Another SAM was fired. Range was down to six miles. Five. Four. Three.

"Hit! One missile left-veering off. Going after the chaff! Passing aft!"

The missile struck the water two thousand yards from Reuben James Even at that distance the noise was impressive. It was followed by total silence in the CIC. Men kept staring at their instruments, looking for additional missiles, and it took several seconds before they were satisfied that there were no more. One by one the sailors looked at their comrades and began to breathe again.

"What modern combat lacks in humanity," Calloway observed, "it more than makes up for in intensity."

Morris leaned back in his chair. "Or something like that. What's the story on Battleaxe?"

"Still on radar, sir," the tactical action officer replied. Morris lifted the radiotelephone.

"Bravo, this is Romeo. Do you read, over."

"I do believe we're still alive." Perrin was examining his tactical display and shaking his head in amazement.

"Any damage?"

"None. Hatchet is checking in. He's all right, too. Remarkable," Captain Perrin said. "Any further inbound traffic? We show none."

"Negative. The Tomcats chased the Backfires off the scope. Let's get reformed."

"Roger, Romeo."

Morris hung up and looked around the CIC. "Well done, people."

The sailors in the room looked at each other, and presently some grins started showing. But they didn't last long.

The TAO looked up. "For your information, Captain, Ivan fired a quarter of his missiles at us. So far as I can tell, the Tomcats got about six, and Bunker Hill got most of the rest.. but we show one frigate hit, and three merchies. The fighters are returning." He kept his voice neutral. "They report zero kills on the Backfire force."

"Damn!" Morris said. The trap had failed-and he didn't know why.

He had no idea that Stornoway considered it a success.

The key to the operation, as with all military operations, was communications, and not enough time had been spent setting the lines up on this one to suit Toland. The America's radar aircraft tracked the Backfires all the way off the scope. The data from the aircraft was linked to the carrier, thence by satellite to Norfolk, and by satellite again to Northwood. His data came by land line from Royal Navy headquarters. The most important NATO mission of the war depended on transistors and telephone wire more than the weapons that were to be employed.

"Okay, their last course was zero-two-nine, speed six hundred ten knots."

"That puts them over Iceland's north coast in two hours, seventeen minutes. How much time did they have on burner?" Commander Winters asked.

"About five, according to America. " Toland frowned. This was pretty thin intelligence information.

"Any way you cut it, their fuel reserves are thinned down some… Okay. Three aircraft, eighty miles apart." He looked over at the newest satellite weather photo. "Good visibility. We'll spot 'em. Whoever does, follows-the other planes come right back home."

"Good luck, Commander."

The three Tomcats climbed slowly to altitude on a course northwest from Stornoway, and at thirty-five thousand feet linked up with their tankers. Several hundred miles away the Backfire crews did much the same thing. The presence of American fighters over the convoy in large numbers had come as a rude shock, but time and distance had been in their favor, and they'd managed to escape without loss this time. The crew of each aircraft talked among themselves, their emotions released by the climax of yet another dangerous mission. They discussed the claims they'd make on returning to Kirovsk, based on a straightforward mathematical formula. One missile in three was judged to have hit a target, even accounting for enemy SAM fire. Today SAM opposition had been light-though none had lingered to evaluate it properly. By consensus they would claim sixteen ship kills, and claim both the outside sonar pickets that their comrades in submarines were having such a bad time with. The flight crews relaxed and sipped tea from thermos jugs as they contemplated their next visit to the eighty-ship convoy. The Tomcats separated as they spotted the mountains of Iceland. No radio signals were passed; the flyers exchanged hand signals before breaking off on their patrol stations. They knew the radars couldn't reach them there. Commander Winters checked his watch. The Backfires should be here in about thirty minutes.

"Such a beautiful island," the Backfire pilot observed to his copilot.

"Pretty to took at, living there I am not so certain about. I wonder if the women are as pretty as I have heard? One day we must have 'mechanical difficulties.' Then we could land there and find out."

"We must get you married, Volodya."

The copilot laughed. "So many tears would be shed! How can I deny myself to the women of the world?"

The pilot punched up his radio. "Keflavik, this is Sea Eagle Two-Six, status check."

"Sea Eagle, we show no contacts except for your group. Count is correct. IFF transponders show normal."

"Acknowledged. Out." The pilot switched off. "So, Volodya, our friends are still there. Lonely place."

"If there are women about, and you are kulturny, you need never be lonely." Another voice came over the intercom.

"Will somebody shut that horny bastard up!'' the navigator suggested.

"Studying to be a political officer?" the copilot inquired. "How long to home?"

"Two hours twenty-five minutes."

The Backfire continued northeast at six hundred knots as it passed over the desolate center of the island.

"Tallyho!" the pilot said quietly. "One o'clock and low." The Tomcat's onboard television system showed the distinctive shape of the Russian bomber. Say what you want about the Russians, Winters thought, they do build 'em pretty.

He turned the aircraft, which took his nose-mounted camera off the target, but his back-seat officer put his binoculars on the Backfire and soon spotted two more flying in a loose formation. As expected, their course was northeast, and they were cruising at about thirty thousand feet. Winters looked for a big cloud to hide in and found one. Visibility dropped to a few yards. There could be another Backfire out there, Winters thought, and maybe he likes flying in clouds, too. That could really ruin this mission.

He ran out of cloud a moment later, banked his fighter hard, and ducked back inside, his mind computing time and distance. The Backfires should all be past now. He pulled back on his stick and popped out of the cloud top.

"There they be," the back-seater said first. "Heads up! I see more of,em at three o'clock."

The pilot vanished back into the cloud for another ten minutes. Finally: "Nothing to the south of us. They should all be past by now, don't you think?"

"Yeah, let's go looking."

One terrifying minute later, Winters was wondering if he hadn't let them get too far ahead, as his TV system swept across the sky and found nothing. Patience, he told himself, and increased his speed to six hundred ninety knots. Five minutes later, a dot appeared on his screen. It grew to three dots. He estimated he was forty miles behind the Backfires, and with the sun at his back, there was no way they could spot him. His backseater made a check of the radar warning receiver and the air behind them for additional aircraft, a procedure repeated three times a minute. If an American fighter could be out here, why not a Russian?

The pilot watched the numbers click off on his inertial navigation system, kept an eye on fuel, and watched forward for any change in the Russian bomber formation. It was both exciting and boring. He knew the significance of what he was doing, but the actual doing was no more thrilling than driving a 747 from New York to L.A. For over an hour they flew, covering the seven hundred miles between Iceland and the Norwegian coast.

"Here's where it gets cute," the back-seater said. "Air-search radar ahead, looks like Andoya. Still over a hundred miles away, they'll probably have us in two or three minutes."

"That's nice." Where there was air-search radar, there would be fighters. "Got their position worked out?"

"Yep."

"Start transmitting." Winters turned the aircraft and headed back out to sea.

Two hundred miles away, a circling British Nimrod receipted the signal and retransmitted to a communications satellite.

Admiral Beattie was trying to remain calm, but it didn't come easily to a man whose nerves had been stretched and abused by crisis after crisis since the war began. Doolittle was his baby. For the past two hours, he'd waited for word from the Tomcat. Two had returned without sighting the Russians. One had not. Was it tracking them as planned or had it merely fallen into the sea?

The printer in the corner of the communications room began to make the screening sound that the Admiral had learned to hate:

Beattie tore the page off and handed it to his air-operations officer. "That puts them on the ground in thirty-seven minutes. Assuming it's the last group, and a fifteen-minute spread, the first bombers will be landing in twenty-two minutes."

"Fifteen minutes from now, then?"

"Yes, Admiral."

"Get the order out!"

In thirty seconds half a dozen separate satellite channels began transmitting the same message.

The three American submarines had lain on the bottom of the Barents Sea near the Russian coastline-so near, it was only one hundred seventy-four feet of water-for what seemed like half a lifetime, before finally receiving the signal to move south. McCafferty smiled with relief. The three British submarines, including HMS Torbay, had already done their job. They had sneaked up on a Russian frigate and four patrol boats patrolling the Russian/Norwegian coastline and attacked with torpedoes. The Russians could only assume a major effort was under way to penetrate their patrol barrier, and had sent their antisub patrol force west to meet it.

Leaving the way clear for USS Chicago and her mates. He hoped.

As they closed in, his electronics technicians plotted and replotted their bearings. They had to be in exactly the right place when they fired their missiles.

"How long before we shoot?" the XO asked.

"They'll let us know," McCafferty said.

And then, with the chatter of the message from Northwood, they did know.

They would launch at 1602 Zulu Time.

"Up scope." McCafferty spun the instrument around. A rainstorm overhead drove four-foot waves.

"Looks clear to me," the XO said, watching the TV display.

The captain slapped the handles up on the scope. It headed down into its well. "ESM?"

"Lots of radar stuff, Cap'n," the technician replied. "I show ten different transmitters in operation."

McCafferty inspected the Tomahawk weapons status board on the starboard side of the attack center. His torpedo tubes were loaded with two Mark-48s and two Harpoon missiles. The clock ticked away toward 1602.

"Commence launch sequence."

Toggle switches were thrown, and the weapons status lights blinked red; the captain and the weapons officer inserted their keys in the panel, and turned them; the petty officer on the weapons board turned the firing handle to the left-and the arming process was complete. Forward, in the bow of the submarine, the guidance systems of twelve Tomahawk cruise missiles were fully activated. On-board computers were told where their flight would begin. They already knew where it was supposed to end.

"Initiate launch," McCafferty ordered.

Ametist was not part of the regular Soviet Navy. Principally concerned with security operations, this Grisha-class patrol frigate was manned by a KGB crew, and her captain had spent the last twelve hours sprinting and drifting, dipping his helicopter-type sonar and listening in the American fashion rather than the Russian. With her diesel engines shut down, she made no noise at all, and her short profile was hard to spot from more than a mile away. She had not heard the American submarines approach.

The first Tomahawk broke the surface of the Barents Sea at 16:01:58, two thousand yards from the Russian frigate. The lookout took a second or two to react. As he saw the cylindrical shape rise on its solid-rocket booster and arc southwest, an icy lead ball materialized in his stomach.

"Captain! Missile launch to starboard!"

The captain raced out onto the bridge wing and looked on in amazement as a second missile broke the surface, then he leaped back into the pilothouse.

"Battle stations! Radio room, call Fleet HQ, tell them enemy missiles launching from grid square 451/679-now! All ahead full! Rudder right!"

The frigate's diesel engines roared into life.

"What in hell is that?" the sonar chief asked. His submarine shuddered every four seconds with the missile launches, but- "Conn, sonar, we have a contact bearing zero-nine-eight. Diesel-surface ship, sounds like a Grisha, and he's close, sir!"

"Up scope!" McCafferty whirled the periscope around and snapped the handle to full power. He saw the Russian frigate turning hard. "Snap shot! Set it up! Surface target bearing zero-nine-seven, range"-he worked the stademeter control-"one six hundred, course, shit! he's turning away. Call it zero-nine-zero, speed twenty." Too close for a missile shot, they had to engage with torpedoes. "Down scope!"

The fire-control man tapped the numbers into the computer. The computer needed eleven seconds to digest the information. "Set! Ready for tubes one and three."

"Flooding tubes, outer doors open-ready!" the XO said.

"Match generated bearings and shoot!"

"Fire one, fire three." The executive officer struggled with his emotions and won. Where had that Geisha come from? "Reload with 48s!"

"Last bird away!" the missile technician announced. "Securing from launch."

"Left full rudder!''

Ametist never saw the missiles launching behind her. The men were too busy racing to stations, while her captain rang up full power and the ship's weapons officer ran up in his shorts to work the rocket launchers. They didn't need sonar for this; they could see all too well where the submarine was-firing missiles at the Motherland!

"Fire when ready!" the captain yelled.

The lieutenant's thumb came down on the firing key. Twelve antisubmarine rockets arched through the air.

"Ametist," the radio squawked. "Repeat your message-what missiles? What kind of missiles!"

Providence discharged her last missile just as the frigate fired at her. The captain ordered flank speed and a radical turn even as the rockets tipped over and began to fall toward his submarine. They fell in a wide circular pattern designed to cover the maximum possible area, two exploding within one hundred yards, close enough to startle but not to damage. The last one hit the water directly over the submarine's sail. A second later, the forty-six-pound warhead exploded.

Ametist's captain ignored the radio while he tried to decide if his first salvo had hit the target or not. The last rocket had exploded faster than the others. He was about to give the order to fire again when the sonar officer reported two objects approaching from aft, and he shouted rudder orders. The ship was already at full speed as the radio speaker continued to scream at him.

"Both fish have acquired the target!"

"Up scope!" McCafferty let it go all the way up before pulling the handles down. At full magnification the Grisha nearly filled the lens, and then both fish hit her port side and the thousand-ton patrol frigate disintegrated before his eyes. He turned completely around, sweeping the horizon to check for additional enemy ships. "Okay, it's clear."

"That won't last very long. He was shooting at Providence, sir."

"Sonar, what do you have on zero-nine-zero?" McCafferty asked.

"Lotsa noise from the fish, sir, but I think we have blowing air at zero-nine-eight."

"Get us over there." McCafferty kept the periscope up as the XO conned the sub toward Providence. The Grisha was well and truly destroyed. Together the torpedoes carried nearly fifteen hundred pounds of high explosives. He saw two life rafts that had inflated automatically on hitting the water, but no men.

"Boston is calling on the gertrude, skipper. They want to know what the hell happened."

"Tell 'em." The captain adjusted the periscope slightly. "Okay, there she is, she's surfacing-holy shit!"

The submarine's sail was wrecked, the after third of it completely gone, and the rest shredded. One diving plane hung down like the wing of a crippled bird, and the Periscopes and masts housed in the structure were bent into the shape of a modernistic sculpture.

"Try to raise Providence on the gertrude."

Sixty Tomahawk missiles were now in the air. On leaving the water, solid-fuel rockets had boosted them to an altitude of one thousand feet, where their wings and jet-engine air inlets had deployed. As soon as their jet engines had begun to function, the Tomahawks began a shallow descent that ended thirty feet above the ground. On-board radar systems scanned ahead to keep the missiles close to the ground, and to match the terrain with map coordinates stored in their computer memories. Six separate Soviet radars detected the missiles' boost phase, then lost them as they went low.

The Russian technicians whose job it was to watch for a possible nuclear attack against their homeland were every bit as tense as their Western counterparts, and the weeks of sustained conventional conflict, coupled with continuous maxirnum-alert status, had frayed nerves to the breaking point. As soon as the Tomahawks had been detected rising from the sea, a ballistic-missile attack warning had flashed to Moscow. Ametist's visual missile warning arrived at naval headquarters in Severomorsk almost as fast, and a THUNDERBOLT alert sent immediately, the code-word prefix guaranteeing instant passage to the Ministry of Defense. Launch authority for the antiballistic missiles deployed around Moscow was automatically released to the battery commanders, and though it was several minutes before radar officers were able to confirm to Moscow's satisfaction that the missiles had dropped off their scopes and were not on ballistic trajectories, defense units stayed on alert, and all over northern Russia air-defense interceptors scrambled.

The missiles could not have cared about the furor they had caused. At this point, the Russian coast was composed of rocky bluffs and cliffs that gave way to tundra, the flat marsh of northern climes. It was ideal terrain for the cruise missiles, which settled down to a flight path scant feet over the grassy swamps at a speed of five hundred knots. Each flew over Lake Babozero, their first navigational reference point, and there their flight paths diverged.

The Soviet fighters now lifting off the ground had little idea what they were after. Radar information gave the course and speed of the targets, but if they were cruise missiles, they could reach as far as the Black Sea coast. They could even be targeted on Moscow and be flying a deceptive course far off the direct path to the Soviet capital. On orders from their ground controllers, the interceptors arrayed themselves south of the White Sea, and switched on their look-down radars to see if they could spot the missiles crossing the flat surface.

But they weren't going to Moscow. Dodging between the occasional hills, the missiles flew on a bearing of two-one-three until they reached the scrub pine forest. One by one they banked hard to the right and changed course to two-nine-zero. One missile went out of control and fell to the earth, another failed to make the turn and went south. The rest continued to their targets.

The last Backfire bomber circled Umbozero-South, waiting to land. The pilot checked his fuel. About thirty minutes left, there was not that much of a hurry. For security reasons the three regiments were divided among four airfields clustered south of the mining city of Kirovsk. The tall hills around the town held powerful radars and mobile SAM batteries to stave off a NATO air attack. Most of the smelters were still operating, the pilot saw, the smoke rising from the many tall chimneys.

"Sea Eagle Two-Six, you are cleared to land," the tower said finally.

"Who will it be tonight, Volodya?"

"Twenty degrees of flaps. Air speed two hundred. Landing gear is down and locked. Irina Petrovna, I think. The tall, skinny one at the telephone exchange."

"What's that?" the pilot asked. A small white object suddenly appeared over the runway in front of him.

The first of twelve Tomahawk missiles assigned to Umbozero-South cut across the runway at a shallow angle, then the blunt nose cover sprang off the airframe, and several hundred small bomblets began to sprinkle over the area. Seventeen Backfires were already on the ground. Ten were being refueled from trucks in the open, the others were armed and ready for another mission, dispersed in concrete revetments. Each bomblet was the equivalent of a mortar shell. The Tomahawk dropped its complete load, then climbed straight up, stalled, and crashed back to earth, adding its own fuel load to the destruction. A ready-force Backfire went first. Two bomblets fell on its wing and the bomber fireballed into the sky.

The pilot of Two-Six advanced his throttles and climbed out of the landing pattern, watching in horror as ten bombers exploded before his eyes and telltale puffs of smoke told him of less serious damage to many others. In two minutes, it was over. Crash trucks raced like toys along the concrete as men played fire hoses on the burning trucks and aircraft. The pilot headed north for his alternate field and saw smoke rising there also.

"Fifteen minutes' fuel. You'd better find us a place fast," Volodya warned. They turned left for Kirovsk-South and the same story was repeated. The attack had been timed for the missiles to hit all four targets simultaneously.

"Afrikanda, this is Sea Eagle Two-Six. We are low on fuel and need to land immediately. Can you take us?"

"Affirmative, Two-Six. Runway is clear. Wind is two-six-five at twenty."

"Very well, we're coming in. Out." The pilot turned. "What the hell was that?" he asked Volodya.

"Communications is gone, fire-control is gone, fairwater planes gone. We stopped the leaks. Engines are okay, we can steam," the skipper of Providence said over the gertrude.

"Very well. Stand by." Boston was also alongside. "Todd, this is Danny. What do you think?"

"She won't make it out alone. I suggest we send the rest back out. You and me escort her."

"Agreed. You follow 'em out. We'll try to clear datum as quick as we can."

"Good luck, Danny." Boston raised her radio whip and made a quick transmission. A minute later USS Chicago's sonar showed the noise of the other submarines racing north.

"Providence, recommend you come to course zero-one-five and go as fast as you can. We'll cover your tail. Boston will rendezvous later and we'll both escort you to the pack."

"You can't risk it, we can-"

"Move your fucking boat!" McCafferty shouted into the microphone. He was exactly three months senior in rank to his counterpart on Providence. Presently the wounded submarine dived and headed northeast at fifteen knots. Her damaged sail structure sounded like a junk wagon in the waterflow, but there was nothing they could do about it. If the submarines were to have any chance of survival, they had to put as much distance between themselves and the firing point as they could.

Mikhail Sergetov looked around at a group of men still pale at what might have been.

"Comrade Defense Minister," the General Secretary said. "Can you tell us what has happened?"

"It would seem that submarines launched a number of cruise missiles at some of our northern airfields. Their aim was evidently to destroy a number of our Backfire bombers. How successful they were I do not yet know."

"Where did they launch their missiles from?" Pyotr Bromkovskiy asked.

"East of Murmansk, less than thirty kilometers from our coast. A frigate saw and reported the launch, then went off the air. We have aircraft searching for him now."

"How the hell did he get there! If that submarine had launched ballistic missiles at us," Bromkovskiy demanded, "how much warning would we have had?"

"Six to seven minutes."

"Wonderful! We cannot react that fast. How can you let them get so close!"

"They won't get out, Petya, I promise you that!" the Defense Minister replied heatedly.

The General Secretary leaned forward. "You will see to it that this can never happen again!"

"While we are all here, Comrades," Sergetov spoke up. "Can the Comrade Defense Minister review overnight developments on the German Front?"

"NATO forces are strained to the breaking point. As the KGB has told us, their supplies are critically low, and with the diplomatic developments of the past few days, I think we may safely assume that NATO is on the verge of political disintegration. All we have to do is keep the pressure on, and they must collapse!"

"But we are running out of fuel also!" Bromkovskiy said. "The offer the Germans have given us is a reasonable one."

"No." The Foreign Minister shook his head emphatically. "This gives us nothing."

"It gives us peace, Comrade," Bromkovskiy said quietly. "If we continue-consider, my friends, consider what we were all thinking a few hours ago when the rocket warning came in."

For the first time, Sergetov realized, the old man had made a point they all agreed with. After weeks and months of promises and plans and assurances on how things could be kept under control, that one false alarm had forced them to look at what lay over the edge of the abyss. For ten minutes they feared that control had been lost, and all the Defense Minister's bluster could not make them forget that.

After a moment of consideration, the General Secretary spoke. "Our representatives are meeting with the Germans in a few hours. The Foreign Minister will report to us tomorrow on the substance of their new offer."

On that note the session ended. Sergetov tucked his notes in his leather briefcase, left the room alone, and walked downstairs to his official car. A junior aide held the door open when a voice called.

"Mikhail Eduardovich, may I ride with you? My car has broken down." It was Boris Kosov, chairman of the Committee for State Security, the KGB.