Red Storm Rising

39. The Shores of Stykklisholmur

They'd finally defeated the counterattack. No, Alekseyev told himself, we didn't defeat it, we drove it off. The Germans had withdrawn of their own accord after blunting half of the Russian attack. There was more to victory than being in possession of the battlefield.

It only got harder. Beregovoy had been right when he'd said that coordinating a large battle on the move was much harder than doing it from a fixed command post. Just the effort of getting the right map opened inside a cramped command vehicle was a battle against time and space, and eighty kilometers of front made for too many tactical maps. The counterattack had forced the generals to move one of their precious A reserve formations north, just in time to watch the Germans withdraw after savaging the rear areas of three B motor-rifle divisions, and spreading panic throughout the thousands of reservists who were trying to cope with old equipment and barely remembered training.

"Why did they pull back?" Sergetov asked his general.

Alekseyev did not respond. There was a fine question that he had already asked half a dozen times. There were probably two reasons, he told himself. First, they'd lacked the strength to pursue the effort and had had to settle for a spoiling attack to unbalance our operation. Second, the central axis of our attack was on the verge of reaching the Weser, and they might have been called back to deal with this possible crisis. The Army group intelligence officer approached.

"Comrade General, we have a disturbing report from one of our reconnaissance aircraft." The officer related the sketchy radio message from a low-flying recce aircraft. NATO's control of the air had brought particularly grim losses to those all-important units. The pilot of this MiG-21 had seen and reported a massive column of allied armor on the E8 highway south of Osnabruck before disappearing. The General immediately lifted the radiophone to Stendal.

"Why were we not informed of this as soon as you received it?" Alekseyev demanded of his superior.

"It is an unconfirmed report," CINC-West replied.

"Dammit, we know the Americans landed reinforcements at Le Havre!"

"And they can't be at the front for at least another day. How soon will you have a bridgehead on the Weser?"

"We have units on the river now at Ruhle-"

"Then move your bridging units there and get them across!"

"Comrade, my right flank is still in disarray, and now we have this report of a possible enemy division forming up there!"

"You worry about crossing the Weser and let me worry about this phantom division! That's an order, Pavel Leonidovich!"

Alekseyev set the phone back in its place. He has a better overall picture of what's going on, Pasha told himself. After we bridge the Weser, we have no really serious obstacle in front of us for over a hundred kilometers. After the river Weser, we can race into the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heart. If we destroy that, or even threaten it, then perhaps the Germans will seek their political solution and the war is won. That is what he is telling me.

The General looked at his maps. Soon the lead regiment would try to force men across the river at Ruhle. A bridging regiment was already en route. And he had his orders.

"Start moving the OMG troops."

"But our right flank!" Beregovoy protested.

"Will have to look after itself."

SACEUR was still worried about his supplies. He'd also been forced to gamble in giving highest transport priority to the armored division now approaching Springe. The container ships loaded with munitions, spare parts, and the millions of other specialty items were just now sending their cargoes to the front. His largest reserve formation, the tank force, was about to team up with two German brigades, and what was left of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, once a brigade in all but name, now only two battalions of weary men.

His supply situation was still tenuous. Many of his line units were down to four days of consumable stores, and the resupply effort would take two days, even if things went perfectly: a thin margin that in a prewar exercise might have seemed equitable enough, but not now, when men and nations were at stake. Yet what choice did he have?

"General, we have a report here of a regiment-sized attack on the Weser. It looks like Ivan's trying to put troops on the left bank."

"What do we have there?"

"One battalion of Landwehr, and they're pretty beat up. There are two companies of tanks on the way, ought to be there in a little over an hour. There are preliminary indications that Soviet reinforcements are heading that way. This might be the main axis of their attack, at least it seems that they're orienting in that direction."

SACEUR rocked back in his chair, looking up at the map display. He had one reserve regiment within three hours of Ruhle. The General was a man who loved to gamble. He was never happier than when sitting at a table with a deck of cards and a few hundred dollars' worth of chips. He usually won. If he attacked south from Springe and failed… the Russians would put two or three divisions across the Weser, and he had precisely one regiment in reserve to stand in their way. If he moved his new tank division there, and by some miracle they got there in time, he would have frittered away his best chance for a counterattack by reacting to a Soviet move again. No, he couldn't just react anymore. He pointed to Springe.

"How long before they're ready to move?"

"The whole division-six hours at best. We can divert the units still on the road south to-"

"No."

"Then we go south from Springe with what's ready now?"

"No." SACEUR shook his head and outlined his plan…

"I see one," Garcia called. Edwards and Nichols were beside him in a moment.

"Hello, Ivan," Nichols said quietly.

Even with binoculars, the distance was still a little over three miles. Edwards saw a tiny figure walking along the crest of the mountaintop. He carried a rifle and appeared to be wearing a soft hat-perhaps a beret-instead of a helmet. The figure stopped and brought his hands up to his face. He had binoculars, too, Edwards saw. He looked north, slightly downward, training his field glasses left to right and back again. Then he turned and looked off in the direction of Keflavik.

Another man appeared, approaching the first. Perhaps they were talking, but it was impossible to tell at this distance. The one with binoculars pointed at something to the south.

"What do you suppose this is all about?" Edwards asked.

"Talking about the weather, girls, sports, food-who knows?" Nichols replied. "Another one!"

The third figure appeared, and the trio of Russian paratroopers stood together doing whatever it was that they were doing. One had to be an officer, Edwards decided. He said something, and the others moved off quickly, dropping out of sight below the crest. What order did you just give?

Presently a group of men appeared. The light was bad, and they shuffled around too much to get an accurate count, but there had to be at least ten. About half of them were carrying their personal weapons, and these started moving downhill. To the west.

"Right, he's a smart soldier," Nichols announced. "He's sending out a patrol to make certain the area's secure."

"What do we do about it?" Edwards asked.

"What do you think, Leftenant?"

"Our orders are to sit tight. So we sit tight and hope they don't see us."

"Not likely they will, you know. I shouldn't think they'd climb down-must be eight hundred feet-then cross that rock yard, then climb up here just to see if any Yanks are about. Remember, the only reason we know they're there is that we saw their helicopter."

Otherwise we might have walked right into them, and that would have been that, Edwards reminded himself. I won't be safe until I'm back home in Maine. "Is that more of them?"

"Must be at least a platoon over there. That is rather clever of our friends, isn't it?"

Edwards got on the radio to report this development to Doghouse while the Marines kept track of the Russians.

"A platoon?"

"That's Sergeant Nichols's estimate. Kinda hard to count heads from three miles away, fella."

"Okay, we'll pass that one along. Any air activity.?"

"Haven't seen any aircraft at all since yesterday."

"How about Stykkisholmur?"

"Too far to make anything out. We still can see those four-by-fours sitting in the street, but no armored vehicles. I'd say they had a small garrison force there to keep an eye on the port. The fishing boats aren't going anywhere."

"Very well. Good report, Beagle. Hang in there." The major switched off and turned to his neighbor at the communications console. "It's a shame to keep them in the dark like this, isn't it?"

The SOE man sipped at his tea. "It would be a greater shame to blow the operation."

Edwards didn't take the radio apart, but left it leaning against a rock. Vigdis was still asleep on a flat ledge twenty feet below the top. Sleep was about the most attractive thing Edwards could think of at the moment.

"They're heading in this direction," Garcia said. He handed the glasses to Edwards. Smith and Nichols were conferring a few yards away.

Mike trained the binoculars on the Russians. He told himself that to have them come right to his position was a very low order of probability. Keep telling yourself that. He shifted his glasses to the Russian observation post.

"There it is again," the sergeant told his lieutenant.

"What's that?"

"I saw a flash from that hilltop, sun reflected off something."

"A shiny rock," the lieutenant snorted, not taking the time to look. "Comrade Lieutenant!" The officer turned at the sharp tone to see a rock flying through the air at his face. He caught it, and was too surprised to be angry. "How shiny does that rock look?"

"An old can, then! We've found enough trash here from tourists and mountain climbers, haven't we?"

"Then why does it come and go and come back?"

The lieutenant got visibly angry at last. "Sergeant, I know you have a year's combat experience in Afghanistan. I know I am a new officer. But I am a Goddamned officer and you are a Goddamned sergeant!"

The wonders of our classless society, the sergeant thought, continuing to look at his officer. Few officers could bear his look.

"Very well, Sergeant. You tell them." The lieutenant pointed at the radio.

"Markhovskiy, before you come back, check out the hilltop to your right."

"But it's two hundred meters high!" the squad leader shot back.

"Correct. It shouldn't take long at all," the platoon sergeant said comfortingly.

Toland switched viewgraphs, in the projector. "Okay, these satellite shots are less than three hours old. Ivan has three mobile radars, here, here, and here. He moves them about daily-meaning that one's probably been moved already-and usually has two operating around the clock. At Keflavik we have five SA-11 launch vehicles, four birds per vehicle. This SAM is very bad news. You've all been briefed on its known capabilities, and you'd better figure on a few hundred hand-held SAMs, too. The photo shows six mobile antiaircraft guns. We don't see any fixed ones. They're there, gentlemen, they're just camouflaged. At least five, perhaps as many as ten MiG-29 fighter interceptors. This used to be a regiment until the guys from Nimitz cut them down to size. Remember that the ones who're left are the ones who survived two squadrons of Tomcats. That is the opposition at Keflavik."

Toland stepped aside while the wing operations officer went over the mission profile. It sounded impressive to Toland. He hoped it would be so for the Russians.

The curtain went up fifty minutes later. The first aircraft launched for the strike were the E-2C Hawkeyes. Accompanied by fighters, they flew to within eighty miles of the Icelandic coast and radiated their own radar coverage all over the formation. More Hawkeyes reached farther out to cover the formation from possible air-and submarine-launched missile attack.

Ground-based Soviet radar detected the Hawkeyes even before their powerful systems went active. They could see two of the slow propeller-driven aircraft hovering beyond SAM range, each accompanied by two other aircraft whose extended figure-eight-course tracks denoted them as Tomcat interceptors guarding the Hawkeyes. The alarm was sounded. Fighter pilots boarded their aircraft while missile and gun crews raced to their stations.

The fighter-force commander was a major with three kills to his credit-but who had learned the virtue of caution the hard way. He'd been shot down once already. The Americans had sprung one trap on his regiment and he had no wish to participate in a second. If this was an attack and not a feint to draw out what fighters remained on Iceland-how would he know? He reached his decision. On the major's command, the fighters lifted off, climbed to twenty thousand feet, and orbited over the peninsula, conserving their fuel and remaining over land, where they could be supported by friendly SAMs. They had exercised carefully the previous few days with these tactics, and were as confident as they could be that the missile crews could distinguish between friendly and unfriendly aircraft. When they got to altitude, their radar threat receivers told them of more American Hawkeyes to the east and west. The information was relayed home with a request for a strike by the Backfires. What they got back was a request to identify the American fleet's location and composition. The air-base commander didn't bother forwarding that. The Soviet fighter commander swore under his breath. The American radar aircraft were prime targets, and tantalizingly within reach. With a full regiment, he'd streak after them and risk losses from their fighter escorts, but he was sure that that was precisely what the Americans were hoping he'd do.

The Intruders went in first, skimming above the wavetops from the south at five hundred knots, Standard-ARM missiles hanging from their wings. More Tomcat fighters were behind them at high altitude. When the fighters, passed the radar aircraft, they illuminated the circling MiGs with their radars and began to fire off Phoenix missiles.

The MiGs couldn't ignore them. The Soviet fighters separated into two-plane elements and scattered, coached from their ground-based radar controllers.

The Intruders popped up at a range of thirty miles, just outside range of the SAMs, and loosed four Standard-ARM missiles each, which homed in on the Russian search radars. The Russian radar operators faced a cruel choice. They could leave their search radars on and almost certainly have them destroyed or turn them off and lessen the chance-and completely lose track of the overhead air battle. They chose a middle ground. The Soviet SAM commander ordered his men to flip their systems on and off at random intervals, hoping to confuse the incoming missiles while keeping tenuous coverage of the incoming strike. The missile flight time was just over a minute, and most of the radar crews took the time to switch their systems off and leave them off-each misunderstanding the order in the most advantageous manner.

The Phoenixes arrived first. The MiG pilots suddenly lost their ground-control guidance, but kept maneuvering. One aircraft had four missiles targeted, and evaded two missiles only to blunder into another one. The major in command swore at his inability to hit back as he tried to think of something that would work.

Next came the Standard-ARMs. The Russians had three air-search radars and three more for missile-acquisition. All had been turned on when the first alarm sounded, then all had gone black after the missiles had been detected in the air. The Standards were only partially confused. Their guidance systems had been designed to record the position of a radar in case it did go off the air, and they homed in on those positions now. The missiles killed two transmitters entirely and damaged two others.

The American mission commander was annoyed. The Russian fighters were not cooperating. They hadn't come out even when the Intruders had popped up-he'd had more fighters waiting low for that eventuality. But the Soviet radars were down. He gave the next order. Three squadrons of F/A-18 Hornets streaked in low from the north.

The Russian air-defense commander ordered his radars back on, saw that no more missiles were in the air, and soon picked up the low-flying Hornets. The MiG commander saw the American attack aircraft next, and with them, his chance. The MiG-29 was a virtual twin to the new American aircraft.

The Hornets sought out the Russian SAM launchers and began to launch their guided weapons at them. Missiles crisscrossed the sky. Two Hornets fell to missiles, two more to guns, as the American fighter-bombers scoured the ground with bombs and gunfire. Then the MiGs arrived.

The American pilots were warned, but were too close to their bombing targets to react at once. Once free of their heavy ordnance, they were fighters again, and climbed into the sky-they feared MiGs more than missiles. The resulting air battle was a masterpiece of confusion. The two aircraft would have been hard to distinguish sitting side by side on the ground. At six hundred knots, in the middle of battle, the task was almost impossible, and the Americans, with their greater numbers, had to hold fire until they were sure of their targets. The Russians knew what they were attacking, but they too shrank from shooting with abandon at a target that looked too much like a comrade's aircraft. The result was a swarming mix of fighters closing to a range too short for missiles, as pilots sought positive target identification, an anachronistic gun duel punctuated by surface-to-air missiles from the two surviving Russian launchers. Controllers on the American aircraft and the Russian ground station never had a chance to direct matters. It was entirely in the hands of the pilots. The fighters went to afterburner and swept into punishing high-g turns while heads swiveled and eyes squinted at familiar shapes while trying to decide if the paint scheme was friendly or not. That part of the task was fairly even. The American planes were haze-gray and harder to spot, allowing easier target identification at long range than at short. Two Hornets died first, followed by a MiG. Then another MiG fell to cannon fire, and a Hornet to a snap-shot missile. An errant SAM exploded a MiG and a Hornet together.

The Soviet major saw that and screamed for the SAMs to hold fire; then he fired his cannon at a Hornet blazing across his nose, missed, and turned to follow him. He watched the American close for a high-deflection shot on a MiG-29 and damage its engine. The major didn't know how many of his aircraft were left. It was beyond that. He was engaged in a struggle for personal survival-which he expected to lose. Caution faded to nothing as he closed on afterburner and ignored his low-fuelstate light. His target turned north and led him over the water. The major fired his last missile and then watched it track right into the Hornet's right engine as his own engines flamed out. The Hornet's tail fragmented and the major screamed with delight as he and the American pilot ejected a few hundred meters apart. Four kills, the major thought. At least I have done my duty. He was in the water thirty seconds later.

Commander Davies crawled into his raft despite a broken wrist, cursing and blessing his luck at the same time. His first considered action was to activate his rescue radio. He looked around and saw another yellow raft a short distance away. It wasn't easy paddling with one arm, but the other guy was paddling toward him. What came next was quite a surprise.

"You are prisoner!" The man was pointing a gun at him. Davies's revolver was at the bottom of the sea.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I am Major Alexandr Georgiyevich Chapayev-Soviet Air Force."

"Howdy. I'm Commander Gus Davies, U.S. Navy. Who got you?"

"No one get me! I run out of fuel!" He waved the gun. "And you are my prisoner."

"Oh, horseshit!"

Major Chapayev shook his head. Like Davies, he was in a near-state of shock from the stress of combat and his close escape from death.

"Hold on to that gun, though, Major. I don't know if there're sharks around here or not."

"Sharks?"

Davies had to think for a moment. The code name for that new Russian sub. "Akula. Akula in the water."

Chapayev went pale. "Akula?"

Davies unzipped his flight suit and tucked in his injured arm. "Yeah, Major. This is the third time I've had to go swimming. Last time I was on the raft for twelve hours, and I saw a couple of the Goddamned things. You got any repellant on your raft?"

"What?" Chapayev was really confused now.

"This stuff." Davies dipped the plastic envelope in the water. "Let's rope your raft to mine. Safer that way. This repellant stuffs supposed to keep the akula away."

Davies tried to secure the rafts one-handed and failed. Chapayev set the gun down to help. After being shot down once, then surviving an air battle, the major was suddenly obsessed with the idea of being alive. The idea of being eaten by a carnivorous fish horrified him. He looked over the side of the raft into the water.

"Christ, what a morning," Davies groaned. His wrist was really hurting now.

Chapayev grunted agreement. He looked around for the first time and realized he couldn't see land. Next he reached for his rescue radio and found that his leg was lacerated, the radio pocket on his flight suit ripped away in the ejection.

"Aren't we two sorry sons of bitches," he said in Russian.

"What's that?"

"Where is land?" The sea had never looked so vast.

"About twenty-five miles that way, I think. That leg doesn't look too good, Major." Davies laughed coldly. "We must have the same kind of ejector seats. Oh, shit! This arm hurts."

"Damn, what do you suppose that's all about?" Edwards wondered aloud. They were too far away to hear anything, but they could not miss the smoke rising from Keflavik.

A more immediate concern was the squad of Russians now at the base of their hill. Nichols, Smith, and the four privates were spread out across a front of a hundred yards centered on Edwards, faces darkened, mainly squatting behind rocks and watching the Russians half a mile away.

"Doghouse, this is Beagle, and we got trouble here, over." He had to call twice more to get an answer.

"What's the problem, Beagle?"

"We got five or six Russians climbing our hill. They're about six hundred feet below us, half a mile away. Also, what's going on at Keflavik?"

"We have an air attack under way there, that's all I know at the moment. Keep us posted, Beagle. I'll see if I can send you some help."

"Thank you. Out."

"Michael?"

"Good morning. Glad one of us got a decent night's sleep." She sat down beside him, resting her hand on his leg, and the fear subsided for a moment.

"I'd swear I just saw some movement on the top there," the platoon sergeant said.

"Let me see." The lieutenant moved his powerful spotting glasses on the peak. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe you saw a bird. Those little puffin things are all over the place."

"Possibly," the sergeant allowed. He was starting to feel guilty for sending Markhovskiy up there. If this lieutenant had half a brain, he thought, he'd have sent a larger force, maybe led it himself, like an officer should.

"The air base is being heavily attacked."

"Have you radioed in?"

"Tried to. They're off the air at the moment." There was concern in his voice. Sixty miles was too far for the small tactical radios. Their heavy VHF set reported into the air base. As much as he wanted to be with the patrol, the lieutenant knew his proper place was here. "Warn Markhovskiy."

Edwards saw one of the Russians stop and fiddle with his walkie-talkie. Tell him he's climbing the wrong hill-tell him to come home to Mama.

"Keep your head down, babe."

"What is it, Michael?"

"We got some people climbing this hill."

"Who?" There was concern in her voice.

"Guess."

"Skipper, they're coming up for sure," Smith warned over the radio.

"Yeah, I see that. Everybody got a good place?"

"Leftenant, I strongly recommend that we let them get in very close before opening fire," Nichols called.

"Makes sense, skipper," Smith agreed on the same circuit.

"Okay. You got ideas, gentlemen, I want to hear them right away. Oh, yeah, I've called in for some help. Maybe we can get some air support."

Mike pulled back on the charging handle of his rifle to make sure a round was chambered, set it on safe, then put the M-16 down. The Marines had all the hand grenades. Edwards had never been taught how to use them, and they frightened him.

Come on, fellows, just go the hell away and we'll be glad to leave you alone. They kept coming. Each paratrooper climbed slowly, rifle in one hand and the other hand grabbing or fending off rocks. They spent their time evenly looking up toward Edwards and down at their footing. Mike was truly frightened. These Russians were elite soldiers. So were his Marines-but he was not. He didn't belong here. The other times he'd faced Russians, in Vigdis's house, the terrifying incident with the helicopter, all those were behind him and for the moment forgotten. He wanted to run away-but what if he did? He'd earned the respect of his Marines, and could he throw that away and still live with himself? What of Vigdis — could he run away in front of her? What are you most afraid of, Mike?

"Stay cool," he muttered to himself.

"What?" Vigdis asked. She too was afraid, just from seeing his face.

"Nothing." He tried to smile and half succeeded. You can't let her down, can you?

The Russians were now five hundred yards away and still well below them. Their approach became more cautious. There were six of them, and they moved two at a time, fanning out and no longer taking what looked to be the easy route to the top.

"Skipper, we got a problem," Smith called. "I think they know we're here."

"Nichols, I want to hear you."

"We wait until they get within one hundred yards, and for Christ's good sake, keep heads down! If you can get some support, I would suggest you do so."

Edwards switched radios. "Doghouse, this is Beagle, and we need some help here."

"We're working on that. We're trying to get-to get some friends to listen in on this frequency. It takes time, Lieutenant."

"I got about another five minutes-tops-before the shooting starts."

"Keep this channel open."

"Where are they? Edwards asked himself. He couldn't see anyone now. The rocks and cover that had so often worked for them were now working against them. He stopped bobbing his head up and down. He was the officer, he was in command, he had the best vantage point, and he had to see what was happening. Edwards moved slightly to get a decent view of the events below him.

"There is somebody there!" the platoon sergeant said, grabbing for the radio. "Markhovskiy, you're heading into a trap! I see a man with a helmet atop the hill."

"You're right," the lieutenant said. He turned. "Get the mortar set up!" The officer ran over to the big VHF radio and tried to raise Keflavik. Armed troops on this hill could only mean one thing-but Keflavik was still off the air.

Edwards saw one Russian rise up, then drop back down on a shout from someone else. When the shape reappeared, it was behind a rifle. He heard a whistling sound, then there was an explosion fifty yards away.

"Oh, shit!" Edwards fell to his face and cowered next to his rock. Bits of other rocks fell around him. He looked at Vigdis, who seemed all right, then over at the far peak, where men were racing downhill. Another mortar round fell to his right, and was followed by automatic-rifle fire. He grabbed his satellite radio.

"Doghouse, this is Beagle. We are under attack."

"Beagle, we are now in contact with a Navy carrier. Stand by." The ground shook again. The round fell less than thirty feet in front of his position, but he was well shielded. "Beagle, the Navy carrier is now on your frequency. Go ahead and transmit. Their call sign is Starbase, and they know where you are."

"Starbase, this is Beagle, over!"

"Roger, Beagle, we show your position five klicks west of hill 1064. Tell me what's happening."

"Starbase, we are under attack by a squad of Russian infantrymen, with reinforcements on the way. Their observation post on 1064 has a mortar and we're getting fire from that. We need help fast."

"Roger, copy, Beagle. Stand by… Beagle, be advised we're diverting some help your way, ETA two-five minutes. Can you mark your position?"

"Negative, we don't have anything to do it with."

"Roger, understand. Hang in there, Beagle. We'll be back. Out."

Edwards heard a scream to his left. He stuck his head up and saw mortar rounds falling near Nichols's position-and Russians less than a hundred yards to his front. Mike grabbed his rifle and sighted it on a moving shape, only to have it drop out of sight again. He picked his walkie-talkie up with his free hand.

"Nichols, Smith, this is Edwards, report in."

"Nichols here. Whoever has that mortar knows what he's about. I have two wounded men here."

"We're okay, skipper. We seen two Russians go down hard. I sent Garcia to cover you."

"Okay, guys, we have air cover on the way in. I-" The shape came up again. Edwards dropped the radio, aimed his rifle, and fired three rounds, missing the shape that dodged out of sight. Back to the radio. "Nichols, you need help?"

"Two of us can still shoot. I'm afraid your Rodgers is dead. There-" The radio went dead for a moment. "All right, all right. We killed one, and the other is backing away. Look out, Leftenant, there are two fifty yards to your left front."

Mike looked around his rock and got shot at for his trouble. He shot back without hitting anything.

"Hi, skipper!" Garcia crashed down next to him.

"Two bad guys, that way." Edwards pointed. The private nodded and moved left behind cover of the hill crest. He got thirty feet when another mortar round exploded four strides behind him. The private fell hard and didn't move.

It's not fair, it's not fair. I got them this far, and it's not fair!

"Smith, Garcia's down. Get back up here. Nichols, if you can get to my position, move!" He switched radios. "Starbase, this is Beagle. Tell your birds to hurry."

"Two-zero minutes out, Beagle. Four A-7s. We have some other help coming, but they'll get to you first."

Edwards took his rifle and moved over to Garcia. The private was still breathing, but his back and legs were peppered with fragments. The lieutenant crawled to the crest and saw a Russian crouched thirty feet away. He aimed his rifle and fired two bursts. The Russian went down, firing his own weapon in a wide arc that missed Edwards by a scant yard. Where was the other one? Mike stuck his head up and saw something the size of a baseball flying through the air. He scrambled backwards as the grenade went off ten feet from where he'd been. Mike rolled to his right and went back uphill.

The Russian had disappeared again, but Edwards saw the others had reached the foot of his hill on a dead run and were starting up to his position. He strained to look and keep his head down at the same time. The other one-there! He was clambering down the hill, apparently dragging a wounded man with him. Mortar fire started to drop behind him, covering the man's retreat.

"You okay, Lieutenant?" It was Smith. He was wounded in the arm. "Whoever's working that Goddamned mortar must be the Russian Davy Crockett!"

Nichols arrived three minutes later. He was unhurt, but the Royal Marine private with him was bleeding from the abdomen. Edwards looked at his watch.

"We got air support coming in about ten minutes. If we stay here at the top in one place, they can drop all around us."

The men took position within fifty feet of Edwards. Mike grabbed Vigdis by the arm and set her between two boulders.

"Michael, I'm-"

"I'm scared, too. Stay here no matter what happens, stay here! You can-" The whistling sound came again, and this one was close. Mike stumbled and fell right on top of her. A hot needle seemed to penetrate his lower leg.

"Shit!" The wound was just above his boot. He tried to rise, but the leg wouldn't take any weight. He looked around for the radio and hopped over to it, cursing all the way. "Starbase, this is Beagle, over."

"Nine minutes out, Beagle," the voice said patiently.

"Starbase, we're all on top of this hilltop, okay? We're all within fifty feet of the summit." He stuck his head up. "We have about fifteen bad guys coming towards us, maybe seven hundred yards away. We beat off the first attack, but we're down to-four, I guess, and three of us are wounded. For God's sake, get that mortar first, it's murdering us."

"Roger that. Hold it together, son. Help is coming."

"You're wounded, Leftenant," Nichols said.

"I noticed. The planes are eight or nine minutes out. I told them to take the mortar position out first."

"Very good. Ivan's in love with the bloody things." Nichols cut the pants away from the wound and tied a bandage on. "You won't be doing much dancing for a while."

"What can we do to slow them down?"

"We'll open fire at five hundred. That will make them more cautious, I think. Come on." Nichols grabbed his arm and pulled him to a position on the crest.

The Russians were moving forward with great skill. Men alternated brief rushes with dives behind whatever cover was available. The mortar was quiet at the moment, but that would change as soon as the paratroopers got close enough for their final assault. Nichols had discarded his submachine gun, and was aiming a semiautomatic rifle. When he figured the range at five hundred yards, the sergeant took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. He missed, but every Russian on the hill dropped.

"You know what you just did?" Edwards asked.

"Yes, I just invited more mortar fire on us." Nichols turned to look at his lieutenant. "Bloody poor choice we have, isn't it?"

"Michael, you need this." Vigdis came down beside him.

"I told you to stay-"

"Here is your radio. I go-"

"Down!" Mike yanked her beside him as a mortar round dropped thirty feet away. A series of five dropped across their position.

"Here they come!" Smith yelled.

The Marines opened fire, and the Russians returned it, dashing from one piece of cover to another in a two-pronged advance that threatened to envelop the hilltop. Mike got back on the radio.

"Starbase, this is Beagle, over."

"Roger, Beagle."

"They're coming in on us now."

"Beagle, our A-7s have you in sight. I want to know exactly where you and your people are-say again exactly."

"Starbase, there are two secondary summits on this hill, about three miles west of hill 1064. We are on the northern one, repeat northern one. My group is all within five-zero feet of the top of that hill. Anything that moves is the enemy, we are all sitting tight. The mortar is on hill 1064, and we need that taken out quick."

There was a long pause. "Okay, Beagle, they've been told where you are. Get your head down, they're one minute away, approaching from the south. Good luck. Out."

"Two hundred yards," Nichols said. Edwards joined him and leveled his M-16. Three men rose at once, both men fired, but Edwards couldn't tell if he'd hit anyone or not. Bullets kicked up dirt and stone chips a few feet away, and the whistle of more mortar rounds came down again. The group of five landed right on the crest as Edwards caught the shape of a haze-gray fighter-bomber diving from his right.

The stubby A-7E Corsair pulled out a thousand feet above the mountaintop three miles away. Four canisters of cluster bombs fell, splitting open in the air. A small cloud of bomblets cascaded on the Russian observation post. From three miles, it sounded like a loud string of firecrackers as the hilltop disappeared in a cloud of dust and sparks. A second aircraft repeated the maneuver twenty seconds later. There could be nothing left alive on the hilltop.

The attacking Russians stopped cold in their tracks and turned to see what had happened to their base camp. Then they saw that more aircraft were circling only two thousand yards away. It was clear to everyone that their best chance to stay alive another five minutes was to get as close to the Americans as they could. As one man, the Russian squads rose firing their weapons and ran up the hill. Two more Corsairs wheeled in the sky and darted in, their pilots drawn by the movement. They swept in level only a hundred feet above the slopes and loosed pairs of cluster bombs. Edwards heard the screams over the thunder of the explosives, but could see nothing through the cloud of dust that rose before his eyes.

"Christ, they can't drop much closer than that."

"They can't drop any closer than that," Nichols said, wiping blood from his face.

They could still hear rifle fire from within the dust. The wind blew it way, and at least five Russians were still up and moving toward them. The Navy Corsairs made another run in but broke off, unable to drop so close to friendly troops. They curved back in seconds, firing their cannon. The shells scattered wildly, with some exploding ten yards from Edwards's face.

"Where'd they go?"

"The left, I think," Nichols answered. "You can't talk directly to the fighters?"

Edwards shook his head. "Not that kind of radio, Sarge."

The A-7s circled overhead while their pilots watched the ground for movement. Edwards tried to wave at them, but couldn't tell if they recognized the gesture or not. One of them dove to his left and fired a cannon burst into the rocks. Edwards heard a scream, but saw nothing.

"Stalemate." Edwards turned to look at his satellite radio. The last set of mortar rounds had sent a fragment through the backpack.

"Down!" Nichols grabbed the lieutenant as a grenade arced through the air. It exploded a few feet away. "Here they come again."

Edwards turned and put a fresh magazine in his rifle. He saw two Russians fifty feet away and fired a long burst. One went down on his face. The other returned fire and dodged left. He felt a weight on his legs and saw Nichols down on his back with a trio of red holes in his shoulder. Edwards put the last magazine in his rifle and moved awkwardly across the hill to the left, unable to put much weight on his right leg.

"Michael…"

"Go the other way," Edwards replied. "Look out!"

He saw a face and a rifle-and a flash. Edwards dove right, too late to keep from being hit in the chest. Only shock kept the pain from becoming unbearable. He fired a few rounds into the air to keep the man's head down as he backpedaled his feet to get away. Where was everyone? There was rifle fire to his right. Why wasn't anybody helping him? He heard the roar of jet engines as the A-7s continued to circle, unable to do anything but watch in frustration. He cursed them as he bled. His wounded leg revolted at being used this way, and his left arm was useless. Edwards held the rifle like an oversized handgun as he waited for the Russian to appear. He felt hands under his arms dragging him backwards.

"Drop me, Vigdis, for Christ's sake, drop me and run."

She said nothing. Her breathing was heavy as she struggled, stumbling, to pull him over the rocks. He was losing consciousness from the blood loss, and looked up to see the A-7s drawing off. There was another sound that didn't seem to make much sense. Dust rose around him with a sudden wind and there was another long burst of machine-gun fire as a huge green-black shape appeared overhead. Men jumped out, and it was all over. He closed his eyes. The Russian commander had gotten through to Keflavik. Here was the Mi-24 to reinforce the outpost… Edwards was too drained to react. He'd run a good race and lost. There was more chattering rifle fire, then silence as the helicopter moved off. How did the Russians treat prisoners who'd killed helpless men?

"Your name Beagle?"

It required the greatest effort of his life to open his eyes. He saw a black man standing over him.

"Who're you?"

"Sam Potter. I'm a lieutenant with Second Force Recon. You're Beagle, right?" He turned. "We need a corpsman over here!"

"My people are all hurt."

"We're working on it. We'll have you outa here in five minutes. Hang in there, Beagle. I gotta go do some work. Okay, people," he called loudly. "Let's get those Russians checked out. If we got any live ones, we wanna move them the hell off this rock right now!"

"Michael?" Edwards was still confused. Her face was right above his when he lost consciousness.

"Just who the hell is this guy?" Lieutenant Potter asked five minutes later.

"Wing-wiper. He done good," Smith said, wincing with his own injuries.

"How'd you get here?" Potter waved for his radio operator.

"We fucking walked all the way from Keflavik, sir."

"Quite a trip, Sarge." Potter was impressed. He gave a short radio order. "Chopper's on the way in now. I guess the lady goes out too."

"Yes, sir. Welcome to Iceland, sir. We been waiting for you."

"Take a look, Sarge." Potter's arm swept to the west. A series of gray bumps on the horizon headed east toward Stykkisholmur.

They were still out there, McCafferty was sure-but where? After killing the last Tango, contact had never been reestablished with the other two Russian submarines. Eight hours of relative peace rewarded his evasive maneuvering. The Russian ASW aircraft were still overhead, still dropping sonobuoys, but something had gone wrong for them. They weren't coming very close now. He'd had to maneuver clear only four times. That would have been a lot in peacetime, but after the past few days it seemed like a vacation.

The captain had taken the chance to rest himself and his crew. Though they would all have gratefully accepted a month in bed, the four or six hours of sleep they'd all had were like a cup of water for a man in the desert, enough to get them a little farther. And there was only a little farther to go: exactly one hundred miles to the jagged edge of the arctic ice. Sixteen hours or so.

Chicago was about five miles ahead of her sisters. Every hour, McCafferty would maneuver his sub to an easterly course and allow his towed array sonar to get a precise fix on them. That was hard enough: Boston and Providence were difficult to pick up even at this distance.

He wondered what the Russians were thinking. The mobbing tactics of the Krivak-Grisha teams had failed. They'd learned that it was one thing to use those ships for barrier operations against the Keypunch team, but something very different to rush after a submarine with long-range weapons and computerized fire-control. Their dependence on active sonobuoys had reduced the effectiveness of their ASW patrol aircraft, and the one thing that had nearly worked-placing a diesel sub between two sonobuoy lines, then spooking their target into moving with a randomly dropped torpedo-had failed also. Thank God they didn't know how close they came with that, McCafferty thought to himself. Their Tango-class subs were formidable opponents, quiet and hard to locate, but the Russians were still paying for their unsophisticated sonars. All in all, McCafferty was more confident now than he'd been in weeks.

"Well?" he asked his plotting officer.

"Looks like they're steaming as before, sir, about ten thousand yards behind us. I think this one's Boston. She's maneuvering a lot more. Providence here is plodding along pretty straight. We got a good fix on her."

"Left ten degrees rudder, come to new course three-five-five," McCafferty ordered.

"Left ten degrees rudder, aye, coming to new course three-five-five. Sir, my rudder is left ten degrees."

"Very well." The captain sipped at a cup of hot cocoa. It made a nice change of pace from coffee. Chicago turned slowly north. In the engine spaces aft, the submarine's engineer crew kept watch on their instruments as the reactor plant turned out an even 10-percent power.

About the only bad news was the storm on the surface. For some reason a series of squalls was parading around the top of the world, and this one was a real growler. The sonar crew estimated fifteen-foot waves and forty-knot winds, unusual for the arctic summer. It knocked 10 to 20 percent off their sonar performance, but would make for ideal conditions as they approached the icepack. The sea conditions would be grinding acre-sized ice floes into ice chips, and that much noise would make the American subs very hard to detect in the ice. Sixteen hours, McCafferty told himself. Sixteen hours and we're out of here.

"Conn, sonar, we have a contact bearing three-four-zero. Not enough data to classify at this time."

McCafferty went forward to sonar.

"Show me."

"Right here, skipper." The chief tapped the display. "I can't give you a bladecount yet, too sketchy for anything, Well, it smells like a nuclear boat," the chief allowed.

"Put up your model."

The chief pushed a button and a secondary screen displayed the predicted sonar range, generated by computer from known local water conditions. Their direct-path sonar range was just over thirty thousand yards. The water was not deep enough yet for convergence zones, and they were beginning to get low-frequency background noise from the icepack. It would impede their ability to discriminate sonar contacts in the same way bright sunlight lessens the apparent intensity of an electric light.

"Getting a slow bearing change here. Going left-to-right, bearing to target is now three-four-two… fading out a little bit. What's this?" The chief looked at a new fuzzy line on the bottom of the display. "Possible new contact bearing zero-zero-four." The line faded out and stayed out for two minutes, then came back on bearing zero-zero-six.

McCafferty debated whether to go to battle stations. On one hand he might need to engage a target very soon… but probably not. Wouldn't it be better to give his crew a few more minutes' rest? He decided to wait.

"Firming up. We now have two possible submarine contacts, bearing three-four-zero and zero-zero-four."

McCafferty went back to control and ordered a turn east, which would track his towed array on the new targets, plus give a cross bearing on each from which to compute range. It gave him more than he bargained for.

"Boston is maneuvering west, sir. I can't detect anything out that way, but she's definitely heading west."

"Sound general quarters," McCafferty ordered.

It was no way to wake up from needed sleep, the captain knew. In berthing spaces all over the boat, men snapped instantly awake and rolled out of their bunks, some dropping to the deck, other climbing upright in the crowded spaces. They ran to stations, relieving the routine watch-standers to head for their own battle stations.

"All stations report manned and ready, sir."

Back to work. The captain stood over the plotting table and considered the tactical situation. Two possible enemy submarines were astride his course to the ice. If Boston was moving, Simms probably had something also, maybe to the west, maybe aft. In twenty short minutes, McCafferty had gone from coolly confident to paranoid again. What were they doing? Why were two subs almost directly in his path?

"Take her up to periscope depth." Chicago rose slowly from her cruising depth of seven hundred feet. It took five minutes. "Raise the ESM."

The slender mast went up on hydraulic power, feeding information to the electronic-warfare technician.

"Skipper, I got three J-band aircraft search sets." He read off the bearings. Bears or Mays, McCafferty thought.

"Look around. Up scope." He had to let the periscope go all the way up to see over the wave tops. "Okay, I got a May bearing one-seven-one, low on the horizon, heading west-she's dropping buoys! Down scope. Sonar, you have anything to the south?"

"Nothing but the two friendly contacts. Boston is fading out on us, sir."

"Take her back down to six hundred." The Russians are supposed to depend almost exclusively on active sonobuoys, dammit. He ordered a turn back to the north once they reached the ordered depth, and slowed to five knots. So they're trying to track us passively now. They must have gotten a twitch somewhere… or maybe nowhere. Passive sonar tracking was technically very demanding, and even the sophisticated signal-processing equipment in Western navies made for many false contacts… On the other hand, we've pretty well telegraphed our course. They could flood the area Why didn't we try something different? But what? The only other passage north was even narrower than this. The western route between Bear Island and the North Cape of Norway was wider, but half of the Soviet Northern Fleet had a barrier there. He wondered if Pittsburgh and the rest had escaped safely. Probably. They should have been able to run faster than Ivan was able to hunt. As opposed to us.

This is how we hunt the Russians, McCafferty thought. They can't hear our passive buoys, and they never know when they're being tracked or not. The captain leaned against the rail surrounding the periscope pedestal. The good news, he told himself, is that we're damned hard to hear. Maybe Ivan got a twitch, maybe not. Probably not. If they heard us for sure, we'd have a torpedo in the water after us right now. But we don't, so they don't.

"Bearings are firming up on both forward contacts."

In open ocean water, they'd have a layer to fool with, but there was none here. The combination of fairly shallow water and the overhead storm eliminated any chance of that. Good news and bad news, McCafferty thought.

"Conn, sonar, new contact, bearing two-eight-six, probable submarine. Trying to get a blade count now."

"Come left to three-four-eight. Belay that!" McCafferty changed his mind. Better to be cautious than bold here. "Come right to zero-one-five." Then he ordered Chicago down to one thousand feet. The farther he got from the surface, the better the sonar conditions he would have. If the Russians were near the surface to communicate with their aircraft, their sonar performance would suffer accordingly. He'd play every card he had before committing to battle. But what if-

He faced the possibility that one or more of the contacts were friendly. What if Sceptre and Superb had received new orders because of the damage to Providence? The new contact at two-eight-six could be friendly, too, for that matter.

Damn! No provision had been made for that. The Brits said they'd leave as soon as the boats reached the pack, that they had other things to do-but how often had his orders been changed since May? McCafferty asked himself.

Come on, Danny! You're the captain, you're supposed to know what to do… even when you don't.

The only thing he could do was try to establish the range to and identity of his three contacts. It took another ten minutes for sonar to work on the contacts.

"They're all three single-screw boats," the chief said finally.

McCafferty grimaced. That told him more about what they weren't than what they were. The British submarines were all of a single-propeller design. So were the Russian Victor and Alfa classes.

"Machinery signatures?"

"They're all running at very low power settings, skipper. Not enough for a classification. I got steam noises on all three, that makes 'em nucs, but if you look here you can see that we're just not getting enough signal for anything else. Sorry, sir, that's the best I got."

The farther we go east, McCafferty knew, the less signal his sonar would have to work on. He ordered a turn to reverse course, coming to a southwesterly heading.

At least he had range. The northerly targets were eleven and thirteen miles away respectively. The western one was nine miles off. All were within range of his torpedoes.

"Conn, sonar, we have an explosion bearing one-nine-eight… something else, a possible torpedo at two-zero-five, very faint, comes in and out. Nothing else in that area, sir. Maybe some breaking-up noises at one-nine-eight. Sorry, sir, these signals are very weak. Only thing I'm really sure of is the explosion." The captain was back in sonar yet again.

"Okay, Chief. If it was easy, I wouldn't need you." McCafferty watched the screen. The torpedo was still running, with a slowly changing bearing. It was no danger to Chicago. "Concentrate on the three submarine contacts."

"Aye, Cap'n."

You'd think with all the practice I've had that I would have learned patience by now.

Chicago continued southwest. McCafferty was stalking his western target now. He thought it the least likely to be friendly. The range closed to eight miles, then seven..

"Captain, classify the target at two-eight-zero as an Alfa-class!"

"You sure?"

"Yes, sir. That is an Alfa-type engine plant. I have it clearly now."

"Set it up! We'll run one fish in deep, dogleg it at low speed, then pop it up right underneath him."

His fire-control crew was getting better by the day. It almost seemed that they were working faster than the computer support.

"Skipper, if we shoot from this deep, it'll take a lot of our reserve highpressure air," the exec warned.

"You're right. Take her to one hundred feet." McCafferty winced. How the hell did you let yourself forget that?

"Fifteen-degree rise on the planes!"

"Set-solution set, sir."

"Stand by." The captain watched the depth-gauge needle turn counterclockwise."

"One hundred feet, sir."

"Fire-control?"

"Set!"

"Match generated bearings and shoot!"

"Two fired, sir."

The Alfa might hear the air blast or he might not, McCafferty knew. The torpedo moved off at forty knots on a heading of three-five-zero, well off the bearing to the target. Three thousand yards out, a command sent down the control wires told the torpedo to turn and go deep. McCafferty was being very cagey with this shot, more than he would have preferred. When the Alfa detected the incoming fish, it would be from a bearing that Chicago wasn't at-if he fired a return shot, it would not come toward them. The disadvantage of this was the increased chance of losing the control wires and getting a clean miss. The torpedo was running deep to take advantage of the water pressure that reduced cavitation noise, hence reducing the range at which the Alfa could detect it. They had to play some extra angles on this because the Soviet sub had a top speed of more than forty knots and was almost as fast as the torpedo itself. Chicago continued to move southwest, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the torpedo.

"Torpedo continues to run normal, sir," sonar reported.

"Range to target?" McCafferty asked.

"About six thousand yards, sir. Recommend that we bring her up at four thousand and go to high-speed," the weapons officer suggested.

"Very well."

The tracking party plotted the course of the torpedo and its target. "Conn, sonar, the Alfa just increased engine power."

"He hears it. Bring the fish up now, full speed, switch on the sonar."

"Hull-popping noises, sir. The Alfa is changing depth," the sonar chief called, excitement in his voice. "I have the torpedo sonar on my scope. Our unit is pinging. The target seems to be pinging also."

"Sir, we lost the wires, the fish has lost the wires."

"Shouldn't matter now. Sonar, give me a blade count on the Alfa."

"Doing turns for forty-two knots, sir, lots of cavitation noise. Seems to be turning. He may have just deployed a noisemaker."

"Anybody ever shoot at an Alfa before?" the executive officer asked.

"Not that I know about."

"Miss! Conn, sonar, the fish has passed aft of the target. Target appears to be heading east. The fish is still-no, it's turning now. The torpedo is still pinging, sir. Torpedo also heading east-turning again, I have a bearing change on the fish. Skipper, I think it's chasing after the noisemaker. I show an opening bearing between the fish and target."

"Damn, I thought we had that one locked in," the weapons officer growled.

"How far are we from launch point?"

"About seven thousand yards, sir."

"Bearing to the Alfa?"

"Three-four-eight, target bearing is moving east, machinery noises are down, blade count shows about twenty knots."

"He'll keep putting distance between himself and the torpedo," McCafferty said. As long as it was running and pinging, nobody wanted to get near it. The fish would circle until it ran out of fuel, but anything that came within its four-thousand-yard sonar radius risked detection. "What about the other two contacts?"

"No change, sir," the plotting officer said. "They seem to be pretty much holding their positions."

"That means they're Russians." McCafferty looked down at the plot. If they were Brits, they would have maneuvered and fired their own fish as soon as they'd heard the Alfa, and probably everyone in twenty miles had heard the Alfa.

Three to one, and they're alerted now. McCafferty shrugged. At least I know what I'm up against. Sonar reported another contact to the south. It should be Boston, Danny thought. If it wasn't, Providence would have done something. He ordered Chicago south. If he had to blast a hole through three submarines, he wanted help. He rendezvoused with Boston an hour later.

"I heard an Alfa."

"We missed. What did you get?"

"It had twin screws, and it's dead," Simms answered. Their gertrude phones were on a very low power setting.

"Three boats ahead about fourteen miles. One's the Alfa. I don't know about the others." McCafferty outlined his plan quickly. The submarines would proceed north, ten miles apart, and would try to engage the targets from their flanks. Even if they missed, Providence should be able to go straight through when the Russians split to pursue. Simms agreed, and the boats split up yet again.

McCafferty noted that he was still about sixteen hours from the ice. There were probably still Soviet patrol aircraft overhead. He'd wasted a torpedo-no, he told himself, that was a well-planned attack It just hadn't worked, as sometimes happened.

A line of sonobuoys appeared-active ones this time-to his northeast. He wished angrily that the Russians would select one set of tactics and stick to it. Hell, all he wanted to do was leave! Of course he had launched missiles at the Soviet homeland and they were probably still angry about that. Nobody had ever told him whether the mission was successful or not. McCafferty commanded himself to stop this random thinking. He had trouble enough right here.

Chicago moved northwest. As she did so, the bearing to all of her sonar contacts changed to the right. The Alfa was still there, her machinery noise fading in and out. Technically speaking, he could shoot at her, but he'd just seen that her speed and maneuverability were enough to beat a Mark-48 torpedo. He wondered what the Alfa's skipper had done. Surprisingly, he hadn't fired a torpedo of his own down the bearing of the incoming fish. What did that mean? It was an American tactic, and was supposed to be a Soviet tactic also. Was it because he knew that "friendly" boats were in the area? McCafferty filed it away, yet another case where the Russians were not acting the way they were expected to act.

The northwest course closed the distance markedly to one of the contacts. The Alfa and the other unknown maneuvered east themselves, maintaining the ten-plus mile range-unknowingly, the captain thought. He stood over the plot. A fire-control solution was already set on the nearest contact. Range was down to eight miles. McCafferty went to the sonar room again.

"What can you tell me about this one?"

"Starting to look like a Type-2 reactor plant, the new version. He may be a Victor-III. Give me five more minutes and I'll know for sure, sir. The closer we get, the clearer he looks."

"Power output?"

"Pretty low, sir. I thought I might have a blade count a few minutes ago, but it didn't work out. He's probably just making steerage."

McCafferty leaned back against the bulkhead separating the room from the monstrous computer used to process signals. The line on the waterfall display that would show the unique frequency pattern of the machinery on the Victor-III was fuzzy but narrowing. Three minutes later it was a fairly sharp vertical stroke of light.

"Captain, I can now call target Sierra-2 a Victor-III-class Russian sub."

McCafferty went aft to control. "Range to target Sierra-2?"

"Fourteen thousand five hundred yards, sir."

"Solution is set, sir," the weapons officer reported. "Ready for tube one. Tube one is flooded, outer door is closed."

"Right ten degrees rudder," McCafferty said. Chicago turned to unmask her ready torpedo. He checked depth: two hundred feet. On firing, he'd run east rapidly and dive to a thousand feet. The submarine turned slowly at six knots; bearing to the target was three-five-one, and Chicago's midship torpedo tubes were angled slightly outward from her center line. "Solution?"

"Set!"

"Open outer door." The petty officer on the torpedo board pushed the proper button and waited for the status light to change.

"Outer door is open, sir."

"Match bearings and shoot!" The seven thousand tons of USS Chicago shuddered again with the torpedo launch.

"One fired, sir."

McCafferty gave orders to change course and depth, increasing speed to ten knots.

Another exercise in patience. How soon will he hear the fish coming in? This one ran in at shallow depth. McCafferty hoped that its propulsion sounds might be lost in the surface noise. How good is Victor's sonar? he wondered.

"One minute." The weapons officer held a stopwatch. The Mark-48 ran thirteen hundred yards per minute at this speed setting. About ten minutes to go. It was like watching some perverse sports event, McCafferty thought, a two-minute drill in a football game, two minutes of playing time that could stretch to half an hour if the quarterback knew his stuff. Except that they weren't trying to score points. "Three minutes. Seven minutes to go."

Chicago leveled out at one thousand feet and the captain ordered speed cut back to six knots again. Already he had fire-control solutions set on the other two targets. But they'd have to wait.

"Five minutes. Five to go."

"Conn, sonar, target Sierra-2 has just increased power. Cavitation sounds, blade count shows twenty knots and increasing."

"Kick the fish to full speed," McCafferty ordered. The Mark-48 accelerated to a speed of forty-eight knots: sixteen hundred yards per minute.

"Target is turning east, her blade count shows thirty-one knots. Sir, I'm getting a funny signal slightly aft of the target. Target bearing is now three-five-eight. The new signal is three-five-six."

"Noisemaker?"

"Doesn't sound like that. Sounds like something different… not a nixie, but something like that, sir. Target is continuing to turn, sir, bearing now three-five-seven. I believe she may be reversing course."

"Take her up to two hundred feet," the captain said.

"What the hell's he doing?" the exec wondered as the submarine rose again.

"Sir, that new signal has masked the target," sonar announced.

"The fish is now pinging, sir."

"If he has a decoy deployed-he put it between himself and the fish," the captain said quietly. "Fire-control, I want another fish on target Sierra-2, and update the solution for Sierra-l."

Range and bearing figures were re-input into the computer.

"Set for tube three on target Sierra-2 and tube two for target Sierra-I." The submarine passed through three hundred feet.

"Match bearings and shoot." McCafferty gave the order quietly, then took his submarine down again. "That pod on the Victor-III that we thought was a towed-array housing, what if it's a decoy like our nixie?" We don't use them on submarines, McCafferty thought, but Ivan does things his own way.

"The fish might still ignore it."

"He doesn't think so. He thinks it'll work-then he can turn behind the noise of the explosion and get one off at us." McCafferty walked over to the plot. The other new fish was running toward what was probably another Victor-class. The second target was maneuvering east now. The Alfa was also. The obvious tactical move: clear the danger area, turn, and begin your own stalk. While both were turned away, their sonar would be ineffective along the route of the advancing torpedo. Sonar called out.

"Captain, I have an explosion bearing three-five-four. We have lost contact with target Sierra-2. I don't know if the fish hit her or not. The other two fish seem to be running normally."

"Patience," the captain breathed.

"Conn, sonar, we show some sonobuoys dropping aft." The bearings were plotted. They were in a north-south line two miles aft of Chicago.

"One of the other boats got a message out to his friends," the exec suggested.

"Good bet. These cooperative tactics'll be a cast-iron bitch if they ever figure out how to do it right."

"Sierra-2 is back, sir. I have a Type-2 machinery signature at three-four-nine. Some possible hull-popping noises. Sierra-2 is changing depth."

The weapons officer commanded one of the running torpedoes to turn left a few degrees. McCafferty picked up a pen and started chewing on it.

"Okay, probably his sonar is a little messed up. I'll bet he's trying to get an antenna up to tell his friends where we fired from. All ahead two-thirds."

"Torpedoes in the water bearing zero-three-one!"

"Do we have anything else on that bearing?"

"No, sir, I show nothing else."

McCafferty checked his plot. It was working, by God. He'd spooked the Russians into moving east toward Todd Simms in the Boston!

"Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water aft, bearing two-eight-six!"

"Make your depth twelve hundred feet," the captain said instantly. "Right full rudder, come to new course one-six-five. Our friend the Victor got word out to his airedale friends."

"Sir, we lost the wires to both fish," Weapons reported.

"Estimated range to Sierra-2

"The fish should be about six thousand yards out; it's programmed to start pinging in another minute."

"Mr. Victor made a mistake this time. He should have covered his ass before he went topside to radio the airplanes. Sonar, what's the position of the torpedo on our stem?"

"Bearing changing―sir, I'm losing sonar performance due to flow noise. Last bearing on the Russian fish is two-seven-eight."

"All ahead one-third!" McCafferty brought his submarine back to slow, quiet speed. In two minutes they realized that the air-dropped torpedo was well clear of them, and that their second shot at the Victor was close to its target.

By this time the sonar display was totally confused. Target Sierra-2 had picked up the incoming fish late, but was racing directly away from it at full speed now. Their shot at the other Victor was still running, but that target was maneuvering to avoid another fish from Boston. The Alfa was at full power heading due north, another Mark-48 in pursuit. Two more Russian torpedoes were in the water to the east, probably heading after Boston, but Chicago didn't have her sister ship on sonar. Five submarines were racing around, four of them chased by smart-weapons.

"Sir, I have another decoy deployed on Sierra-2. Sierra-I has one deployed also. Our fish is pinging on -2. Somebody's fish is pinging on -1, and one of the Russian fish is pinging at zero-three-five-sir, I have an explosion at bearing three-three-nine."

Dad wanted me to be an accountant, McCafferty thought. Maybe then I could keep all these damned numbers straight. He walked over to the plot.

The paper plot wasn't much clearer. The pencil lines that designated sonar contacts and running torpedoes looked like electrical wire dropped at random on the chart.

"Captain, I have very loud machinery noises at bearing three-three-nine. Sounds like something's broke, sir, lots of metallic noise. Getting some air noise now, he's blowing tanks. No breakup noises yet."

"Left full rudder, come to new course zero-one-zero."

"We didn't kill the Victor?"

"I'll settle for a small piece of him, if it sends him home. We'll score that one as a damage. What's going on with the other two?"

"The fish after Sierra- I is pinging, and so's Boston's-I guess it's from Boston. "

The slight abatement of the confusion lasted ten minutes. The second target put her stem on both torpedoes and ran northwest. More sonobuoy lines appeared across Chicago's path. Another air-dropped torpedo was detected to the west, but they didn't know what it had been dropped on-just that it wasn't close enough to worry about. The torpedo they'd put in pursuit of the second Victor-class sub was struggling to catch a target running directly away as fast as it could go, and another fish was angling in from the opposite direction. Possibly Boston had fired at the Alfa too, but the Alfa was racing away at a speed almost as great as the torpedo's. McCafferty reestablished sonar contact with Providence and continued north. Chaos worked in his favor, and he took maximum advantage of it. He hoped Boston could evade the torpedoes that had been launched in her direction, but that was out of his hands.

"Two explosions bearing zero-zero-three, sir." That was the last bearing to the second Victor, but sonar detected nothing more. Had the fish killed the sub, the decoy, or had they homed in on each other?

Chicago continued north, increasing speed to ten knots as she zigzagged through the sonobuoy lines to increase her distance from the injured Providence. The attack-center crew was emotionally exhausted, as drained as their captain from the frantic tracking and shooting exercise. The technical aspects of the work had been handled well in pre-war workups, but nothing could simulate the tension of firing live weapons. The captain sent them in pairs to the galley for food and a half-hour's rest. The cooks brought up a platter of sandwiches for the ones who couldn't leave. McCafferty sat behind the periscope, eyes closed, head back against something metallic while he munched on a ham sandwich. He remembered seeing the cans loaded aboard. The Navy had gotten a good price earlier in the year on canned Polish hams. Polish hams, he thought. Crazy.

He allowed his crew to go off battle stations an hour later. Half his men were allowed to go off duty. They didn't head for the galley and a meal. They all preferred sleep. The captain knew that he needed it at least as badly as they. After we get to the ice, he promised himself. I'll sleep for a month.

They picked up Boston on sonar, a ghostly trace on the sonar screens due east of them. Providence was still aft, still cruising along at six knots, and still making too much noise from her battered sail. Time passed more rapidly now. The captain remained seated, forgetting his dignity and listening to reports of… nothing.

McCafferty's head came up. He checked his watch and realized he'd been dozing for half an hour. Five more hours to the ice. It came up clearly on sonar now, a low-frequency growl of noise that covered thirty degrees on either side of the bow.

Where did the Alfa go? McCafferty was in sonar ten seconds after asking himself that question.

"What was your last bearing on the Alfa?"

"Sir, we lost him three hours ago. Last we had him, he was at flank speed on a steady northeasterly bearing. Faded out and he hasn't come back, sir. "

"What's the chance he's hiding in the ice, waiting for us?"

"If he does, we'll pick him up before he picks us up, sir. If he's moving, his engine plant turns out a lot of medium- and high-frequency noise," the sonar chief explained. McCafferty knew all that, but wanted to hear it again anyway. "All the low-frequency ice noise'll ruin his chance to detect us at long range, but we should be able to hear him a good ways off if he's moving." The captain nodded and went aft.

"XO, if you were driving that Alfa, where would you be?"

"Home!" The exec smiled. "He has to know there are at least two boats out here. Those are awful short odds. We crippled that one Victor, and Boston probably killed the other one. What's he going to think? Ivan's brave, but he's not crazy. If he has any sense at all, he'll report a lost contact and leave it at that."

"I don't buy it. He beat our fish, and he probably beat one from Boston, " the captain said quietly.

"You could be right, skipper, but he ain't on sonar."

McCafferty had to concede that point. "We'll be very careful approaching the ice."

"Agreed, sir. We're being paranoid enough."

McCafferty didn't think so, but he didn't know why. What am I missing?

Their fix on the edge of the icepack was old. Currents and wind would have moved the ice a few miles south as increasing summer temperatures weakened the thick white roof on the ocean. Maybe an hour's worth? the captain wondered hopefully.

The plot showed Boston fifteen miles to the east, and Providence eight miles southeast. Three more hours to the ice. Eighteen nautical miles, maybe less, and they'd be safe. Why should there be anything else out here? They can't send their whole fleet after us. They have plenty of other problems to worry about. McCafferty dozed off again.

"Conn, sonar!" McCafferty's head came up.

"Conn, aye," the exec answered.

"Providence has speeded up somewhat, sir. Estimate she's doing ten knots."

"Very well."

"How long was I out?" the captain asked.

"About an hour and a half. You've been awake quite a while, sir, and you weren't snoring loud enough to bother anybody. Sonar is still blank except for our friends."

McCafferty got up and stretched. That wasn't enough. It's catching up with me. Much more of this and I'm more dangerous to my own crew than I am to the Russians.

"Distance to the ice?"

"About twelve thousand yards, near as we can make out."

McCafferty went to look at the chart. Providence had caught up and was even with him now. He didn't like that.

"Go to twelve knots and come right to zero-four-five. He's getting too eager."

"You're right," the exec said after giving the proper orders, "but who can blame him?"

"I can. What the hell does another few minutes matter after all the time it's taken to get this far?"

"Conn, sonar, we have a possible contact bearing zero-six-three. Sounds like machinery noise, very faint. Fading out now. We're getting flow noise that's blanking it out."

"Slow down?" the executive officer asked. The captain shook his head.

"All ahead two-thirds." Chicago accelerated to eighteen knots. McCafferty stared down at the chart. There was something important here that he wasn't seeing. The submarine was still deep, at one thousand feet. Providence still had her tail working, but she was running close to the surface, and that made trouble for her sonar performance. Was Boston running shallow, too? The quartermasters on the fire-control tracking party kept advancing the positions of the two American subs in keeping with the known course and speed of each. Chicago rapidly closed the distance. After half an hour she was broad on Providence's port bow, and McCafferty ordered speed reduced to six knots again. As the submarine slowed, the exterior flow noise abated and her sonars returned to full performance.

"Sonar contact bearing zero-nine-five!"

The plotting team ran a line across the chart. It intersected the previous bearing line… almost exactly between Boston and Providence!

McCafferty bent down to check the depth there-nineteen hundred feet. Deeper than a 688-class sub could dive…

… but not too deep for an Alfa…

"Holy shit!"

He couldn't fire at the contact. The bearing to the target was too close to Providence. If the control wires broke, the fish would go into automatic mode and not care a whit that Providence was a friendly.

"Sonar, go active, Yankee-search on bearing zero-nine-five!"

It took a moment to power-up the system. Then the deep ba-wah sound shook the ocean. McCafferty had meant to alert his comrades. He'd also alerted the Alfa.

"Conn, sonar, I have hull-popping noises and increased machinery noise at bearing zero-nine-five. No target on the scope yet."

"Come on, Todd,!" the captain urged.

"Transients, transients! Boston just increased power, sir-there goes Providence. Torpedoes in the water, bearing zero-nine-five! Multiple torpedoes in the water at zero-nine-five!"

"All ahead full!" McCafferty looked at the plot. The Alfa was perilously close to both subs, behind both, and Providence couldn't run, couldn't dive, couldn't do a Goddamned thing! He could only watch as his fire-control team readied two torpedoes. The Alfa had fired four fish, two at each American boat. Boston changed course west, as did Providence. McCafferty and the exec went to the sonar room.

He watched the contact lines swing left and right across the screen. The thick ones denoted the submarines; the thinner, brighter lines each of the four torpedoes. The two aimed at Providence closed rapidly. The wounded sub was up to twenty knots, and made noise like a gravel truck trying to run. It was clear that she'd never make it. Three noisemakers appeared on the screen, but the torpedoes ignored them. The lines converged to a single point that blossomed bright on the screen.

"They got her, sir," the chief said quietly.

Boston had a better chance. Simms was at full speed now, with the torpedoes less than a thousand yards behind. He, too, deployed noisemakers and made radical changes in course and depth. One torpedo went wild, diving after a decoy and exploding on the bottom. The other locked on Boston and slowly ate up the distance. Another bright dot appeared, and that was that.

"Yankee-search the Alfa," McCafferty said, his voice low with rage. The submarine vibrated with the powerful sonar pulses.

"Bearing one-zero-nine, range thirteen thousand."

"Set!"

"Match and shoot!"

The Alfa didn't wait to hear the incoming torpedoes. Her skipper knew that there was a third sub out there, knew that he'd been pinged. The Soviet sub went to maximum speed and turned east. Chicago's weapons officer tried to move the torpedoes on a closing course, but they had a scant five-knot advantage on the Alfa, and the math was clear: they'd come up two thousand yards short at the end of their fuel. McCafferty was past caring. He too went to flank speed and chased after her for half an hour, coming down to five knots three minutes before the torpedoes ran out of fuel. The flow noise cleared off his sonars just in time to hear the Alfa decelerate safely.

"Okay, now we'll try again." They were three miles from the ice now, and Chicago was quiet. The Alfa turned west, and McCafferty's tracking party gathered data to compute her range. The turn west was a mistake. He evidently expected Chicago to run for the pack and safety.

"Conn, sonar. New contact, bearing zero-zero-three."

Now what? Another Russian trap?"

"I need information!"

"Very faint, but I got a bearing change, just moved to zero-zero-four." A quartermaster looked up from his slide rule. "Range has to be under ten thousand yards, sir!"

"Transients, transients! — torpedo in the water bearing zero-zero-five!"

"Left full rudder, all ahead flank!"

"Bearing change! Torpedo bearing now zero-zero-eight!"

"Belay that order!" McCafferty shouted. The new contact was shooting at the Alfa.

"Jesus, what is this thing?" the sonar chief asked.

The Alfa heard the new fish and reversed course. Again they heard and saw the thunder of the Alfa's engines… but the torpedo closed the distance rapidly.

"It's a Brit. That's one of their new Spearfish. I didn't know they had any in the fleet yet."

"How fast?" the sonar chief asked.

"Sixty or seventy knots."

"Gawd! Let's buy some."

The Alfa ran straight for three miles, then turned north to head for the ice. She didn't make it. The Spearfish cut the corner. The lines on the display merged again, and a final bright dot appeared.

"Bring her around north," McCafferty told the exec. "Go to eighteen knots. I want to be sure he knows who we are."

"We are HMS Torbay. Who are you?"

"Chicago."

"We heard the commotion earlier. Are you alone?" Captain James Little asked

"Yes. The Alfa ambushed us-we're alone."

"We will escort you."

"Understood. Do you know if the mission was successful?"

"Yes, it was."