What was holding Was.h.i.+ngton up? the colonel asked himself. All he needed was a simple yes or no. He checked his boards. Three KH-type photoreconnaissance satellites were currently in orbit, plus nine electronic surveillance birds. That was his low-level "constellation." He didn"t fear for his higher-flying navigation and communications satellites, but the twelve in low earth orbit, especially the KHs, were valuable and vulnerable. Two of them had Russian killersats in close proximity, and one of his birds was now approaching Soviet territory, with another only forty minutes behind. The third Key-Hole bird didn"t have a satellite a.s.signed yet, but the last pa.s.s over Leninsk showed another F-type booster being fueled on the pad.
"Take another look at the trailer," he ordered.
A technician made the requisite commands, and half a world away, the satellite fired its alt.i.tude control thrusters and pivoted in s.p.a.ce to allow its cameras to search for the Russian killer satellite. It had held position fifty miles behind, and nine miles below the American satellite, but now was . . . gone.
"They moved it. They moved it in the last half hour." He lifted the phone to tell CINC-NORAD that he was moving the satellite on his own authority. Too late. As the satellite turned again to point its cameras at the ground, a cylindrical ma.s.s covered a sizable percentage of the earth"s face-there was a flash and the TV screen went blank. Just like that.
"Chris, you have those maneuver commands set up?"
"Yes, sir," the captain answered, still staring at the screen.
"Execute them right now!"
The captain called up the command sequence on his computer console and punched Enter. The colonel"s phone rang as the satellites" onboard rocket motors made subtle changes in their orbital paths.
"Argus Control," the colonel answered.
"This is CINC-NORAD. What the h.e.l.l happened?"
"That Russian killersat closed and detonated. We have no signal from the KH-11, sir. I must a.s.sume they have successfully negated the bird. I"ve just ordered the other two Key-Holes to make a hundred-foot-per-second delta-V. Tell Was.h.i.+ngton they waited too long, sir."
18.
Polar Glory
KIEV, THE UKRAINE.
It had been decided that all Soviet theater and front commanders would be briefed on developments in Germany. Alekseyev and his superior knew why: if anyone were to be relieved from his command, the new man would have to know the situation. They listened to the intelligence report with fascination. Neither of them had expected many of the Spetznaz attacks to fare well, but it seemed that some had been successful, especially those in the German ports. Then the operational intelligence brief got to the bridges on the Elbe.
"Why weren"t we warned about this?" CINC-Southwest demanded.
"Comrade General," the Air Force officer responded. "Our information was that this Stealth aircraft was a prototype, not yet in regular service. Somehow the Americans have managed to construct a number of them, at least part of a squadron. They used it to eliminate our airborne radar coverage, thus paving the way for a ma.s.sive penetration raid against our airfields and lines of supply, plus a well-planned air battle against our all-weather fighter aircraft. Their mission was successful, but not decisively so."
"Oh, and the commander of Air Forces West was arrested for successfully repelling it, eh?" Alekseyev snarled. "How many aircraft did we lose?"
"I am not authorized to reveal that, Comrade General."
"Can you tell us of the bridges, then!"
"Most of the bridges on the Elbe have been damaged to some extent or another, plus attacks on the bridging units stationed near them for tactical replacement."
"The f.u.c.king maniac-he had his bridging units right next to the primary targets!" Southwest looked up at the ceiling as though expecting an air attack right there in Kiev.
"That is where the roads are, Comrade General," the intelligence officer said quietly. Alekseyev waved him out of the room.
"Not a good start, Pasha." Already a general had been arrested. His replacement had not yet been named.
Alekseyev nodded agreement, then checked his watch. "The tanks will cross the border in thirty minutes, and we have a few surprises in store for them. Only half of their reinforcements are in place. They still have not achieved the psychological degree of preparedness that our men have. Our first blow will hurt them. If our friend in Berlin has made his deployments properly."
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND.
"Perfect weather," First Lieutenant Mike Edwards p.r.o.nounced, looking up from the chart just off the facsimile machine. "We have this strong cold front due in from Canada in twenty to twenty-four hours. That"ll bring a lot of rain with it, maybe an inch worth, but for all of today we have clear skies-less than two-tenths high clouds-and no precip. Surface winds west to southwest at fifteen to twenty knots. And lots of "s.h.i.+ne," he concluded with a grin. The sun had risen for the last time nearly five weeks before, and wouldn"t truly set for another five. They were so close to the North Pole here in Iceland that in summer the sun wandered in a lazy circle around the azure sky, dipping fractionally below the northwestern horizon but never truly setting. It was something that took getting used to.
"Fighter weather," agreed Lieutenant Colonel Bill Jeffers, commander of the 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, the "Black Knights," most of whose F-15 Eagle interceptors were sitting in the open a bare hundred yards away. The pilots were in those fighters, waiting. They"d been waiting for ninety minutes now. Two hours before, they"d been warned of a large number of Soviet aircraft taking off from their tactical air bases on the Kola Peninsula, destination unknown.
Keflavik was always a busy place, but for the last week it had been a madhouse. The airport was a combination Navy and Air Force base and a busy international airport at which many airliners stopped to refuel.
The past week had seen this traffic supplemented by grim tactical fighters transiting from the United States and Canada to Europe, cargo aircraft transporting overloads of critical equipment, and airliners returning to America crowded with pale tourists and dependents of the military men who were now on the battle line. The same had happened to Keflavik. Three thousand wives and children had been evacuated. The base facility was cleared for action. If the Soviets kicked off the war that seemed to be springing from the ground like a new volcano, Keflavik was as ready as it could be.
"With your permission, Colonel, I want to check a few things at the tower. This forecast is pretty solid, for the next twelve hours anyway."
"Jet stream?" Colonel Jeffers looked up from the yard-square chart of isobars and wind-trees.
"Same place it"s been all week, sir, no sign at all of a change."
"Okay, go ahead."
Edwards put on his cap and walked out the door. He wore a thin blue officer"s jacket over his Marine-style fatigues, pleased that the Air Force was still pretty casual about dress codes. His jeep held the rest of his "battle gear," a .38 revolver and pistol belt, and the field jacket that went with the camouflage gear everybody had been issued three days before. They"d thought of everything, Edwards reflected as he started up the jeep for the quarter-mile drive to the tower. Even the flak jacket.
Keflavik had to get hit, Edwards reminded himself. Everybody knew it, prepared for it, and then tried not to think about it. This most isolated of all NATO outposts on the western coast of Iceland was the barred gate to the North Atlantic. If Ivan wanted to fight a naval war, Iceland had to be neutralized. From Keflavik"s four runways flew eighteen Eagle interceptors, nine sub-hunting P-3C Orions, and deadliest of all, three E-3A AWACS birds, the eyes of the fighters. Two were operating now; one was circling twenty miles northeast of Cape Fontur, the other directly over Ritstain, 150 miles north of Keflavik. This was most unusual. With only three AWACS birds available, keeping one constantly in the air was difficult enough. The commander of the Iceland defense forces was taking all of this very seriously. Edwards shrugged. If there really were Backfires bearing down on them, there was nothing else for him to do. He was the brand-new squadron meteorological officer, and he"d just given his weather report.
Edwards parked his jeep in an officer"s slot next to the tower and decided to take his .38 with him. The lot was not fenced, and there was no telling if someone might want to "borrow" his handgun. The base was crawling with a company of Marines and another of Air Force police, all looking very nasty with their M-16 rifles and web belts festooned with grenades. He hoped they"d be careful with those. Late the next day, a whole Marine Amphibious Unit was due to arrive to beef up base security, something that should have been done a week earlier but had been delayed, partly because of the Icelandic sensitivity regarding large numbers of armed foreigners, but mainly due to the unreal speed with which this crisis had developed. He trotted up the outside stairs and found the tower"s control room crowded with eight people rather than the usual five.
"Hi, Jerry," he said to the boss, Navy lieutenant Jerry Simon. The Icelandic civilian controllers who usually worked here were nowhere to be seen. Well, Edwards thought, there"s no civilian traffic for them to control.
"Morning, Mike," was the response. The ongoing joke at Keflavik. It was 0315 hours local time. Morning. The sun was already up, glaring in at them from the northeast through roll-down shades inside of the tilted gla.s.s windows.
"Let"s have an att.i.tude check!" Edwards said as he walked over to his meteorological instruments.
"I hate this f.u.c.king place!" the tower crew answered at once.
"Let"s have a positive att.i.tude check."
"I positively hate this f.u.c.king place!"
"Let"s have a negative att.i.tude check."
"I don"t like this f.u.c.king place!"
"Let"s have a short att.i.tude check."
"f.u.c.kit!" Everyone had a good laugh. They needed it.
"Nice to see that we"re all maintaining our equilibrium," Edwards observed. The short, scrawny officer had become instantly popular on his arrival two months earlier. A native of Eastpoint, Maine, and a graduate of the Air Force Academy, his gla.s.ses prevented him from flying. His diminutive size-five-six and a hundred twenty pounds-was not designed to command respect, but his infectious grin, ready supply of jokes, and recognized expertise at making sense of the confused North Atlantic weather patterns had combined to make him an acceptable companion for anyone at Keflavik. Everyone thought he would make one h.e.l.l of a TV weatherman one day.
"MAC Flight Five-Two-Zero, roger. Roll her out, Big Guy, we need the room," said a tired controller. A few hundred yards away, a C-5A Galaxy cargo plane began to accelerate down runway one-eight. Edwards took a pair of binoculars to watch. It was hard to get used to the fact that something so monstrous could actually fly.
"Any word from anywhere?" Simon asked Edwards.
"Nope, nothing since the Norwegian report. Lots of activity at Kola. You know, I picked a h.e.l.l of a time to come here to work," Mike replied. He went back to checking the calibration of his digital barometer.
It had started six weeks before. The Soviet Naval and Long-Range Aviation groups based at a half-dozen airfields around Severomorsk had exercised almost continuously, flying attack-profile missions that could have been directed at nearly anyone or anything. Then two weeks before, the activity had been cut way back. That was the ominous part: first they drilled all their flight crews to perfection and then they went to a stand-down maintenance period to make sure that every bird and every instrument was also fully operational . . . What were they doing now? An attack against Bod in Norway? Or Iceland maybe? Another exercise? There was no telling.
Edwards lifted a clipboard to sign off for having checked his tower instruments that day. He could have left it to his enlisted technicians, but they were backstopping the aircraft techs with the fighter squadron, and he could handle it for them. Besides, it gave him an excuse to visit the tower and- "Mr. Simon," the senior enlisted controller said rapidly. "I just copied a Flash from Sentry One: Warning Red. Many bandits inbound, sir. Approaching from due north to northeast-Sentry Two is checking in . . . they got "em, too. Jesus. Sounds like forty to fifty bandits, sir." Edwards noted that the inbounds were being called Bandits instead of the usual Zombies.
"Anything friendly coming in?"
"Sir, we got a MAC C-141 twenty minutes out, eight more behind it at five-minute intervals, all inbound from Dover."
"Tell them to turn back, and get an acknowledgment! Keflavik is closed to all inbounds until further notice." Simon turned to his telecommunications man. "Tell Air-Ops to radio SACLANT that we"re under attack, and to get the word out. I-"
Klaxons erupted all around them. Below, in the early-morning shadows, ground crewmen pulled red-flagged safety pins off the waiting interceptors. Edwards saw a pilot drain a Styrofoam cup and begin to strap himself in tight. The starter carts next to each fighter belched black smoke as they generated power to turn the engines.
"Tower, this is Hunter Leader. We"re scrambling. Clear those runways, boy!"
Simon took the microphone. "Roger, Hunter Leader, the runways are yours. Scatter Plan Alpha. Go for it! Out."
Below, canopies were coming down, chocks were pulled away from wheels, and each crew chief gave his pilot a smart salute. The shriek of jet engines changed to a roar as the aircraft started to roll awkwardly off the flight line.
"Where"s your battle station, Mike?" Simon asked.
"The met building." Edwards nodded and headed for the door. " "Luck, guys."
Aboard Sentry Two, the radar operators watched a broad semicircle of blips converging on them. Each blip had "BGR" painted next to it, plus data on course, alt.i.tude, and speed. Each blip was a Tu-16 Badger bomber of Soviet Naval Aviation. There were twenty-four of them, inbound for Keflavik at a speed of six hundred knots. They had approached at low alt.i.tude to stay below the E-3A"s radar horizon, and, once detected, were now climbing rapidly, two hundred miles away. This mission profile enabled the radar operators to cla.s.sify them instantly as hostile. There were four Eagles on Combat Air Patrol, two of them with operating AWACS, but it was close to changeover point and the fighters were too low on fuel to race after the Badgers on afterburner. They were directed to head for the incoming Russian bombers at six hundred knots, and could not yet detect the Badgers on their own missile-targeting radars.
Sentry One off Cape Fontur reported something worse. Her blips were supersonic Tu-22M Backfires, coming in slowly enough to indicate that they were heavily loaded with external ordnance. The Eagles here also moved off to intercept. A hundred miles behind them, the two F-15s kept on point defense over Reykjavik had just been topped off from an orbiting tanker and were charging northeast at a thousand knots while the remainder of the squadron was even now leaving the ground. The radar picture from both AWACS aircraft was being transmitted by digital link to Keflavik"s fighter-ops center so that ground personnel could monitor the action. Now that the fighters were rotating off the ground, the crews for every other aircraft at the air station worked frantically to ready their birds for flight.
They had practiced this task eight times in the past month. Some flight crews had been sleeping with their aircraft. Others were summoned from their quarters, no more than four hundred yards away. Those aircraft just back from patrol had their fuel tanks topped off, and were pre-flighted by the ground crews. Marine and Air Force guards not already at their posts rushed to them. It was just as well that the attack had come at this hour. There was only a handful of civilians about, and civilian air traffic was at its lowest. On the other hand, the men at Keflavik had been on double duty for a week now, and they were tired. Things which might have been done in five minutes now took seven or eight.
Edwards was back in his meteorological office, wearing his field jacket, flak jacket, and "fritz" style helmet. His emergency duty station-he could not think of his office as a "battle" station-was his a.s.signed post. As if someone might need an especially deadly weather chart with which to attack an incoming bomber! The service had to have a plan for everything, Edwards knew. There had to be a plan. It didn"t have to make sense. He went downstairs to Air-Ops.
"I got breakaway on Bandit Eight, one-two birds launched. The machine says they"re AS-4s," a Sentry controller reported. The senior officer got on the radio for Keflavik.
MV JULIUS FUCIK.
Twenty miles southwest of Keflavik, the "Doctor Lykes" was also a beehive of activity. As each Soviet bomber squadron launched its air-to-ground missiles, its commander transmitted a predetermined codeword that the Fucik copied. Her time had come.
"Rudder left," Captain Kherov ordered. "Bring his bow into the wind."
A full regiment of airborne infantry, many of them seasick from two weeks aboard the huge barge-carrier, was at work testing and loading weapons. The Fucik"s augmented crew was stripping the falsework from the aftermost four "barges," revealing each in fact to be a Lebed-type a.s.sault hovercraft. The six-man crew of each removed the covers over the air intakes that led to the engines they had tended with loving care for a month. Satisfied, they waved to the craft commanders, who lit off the three engines in each of the aftermost pair.
The s.h.i.+p"s first officer stood at his elevator control station aft. On a hand signal, an eighty-five-man infantry company plus a reinforced mortar team were loaded into each craft. Power was increased, the hovercraft lifted up on their air cus.h.i.+ons and were winched aft. In another four minutes, the vehicles were resting on the barge-loading elevator that formed the stern of the Seabee vessel.
"Lower away," the first officer ordered. The winch operators lowered the elevator to the surface. The sea was choppy, and four-foot waves lapped at the Fucik"s bifurcated stem. When the elevator was level with the sea, first one, then the other Lebed commander increased power and moved off. At once, the elevator returned to the topmost deck while the first pair of hovercraft circled their mothers.h.i.+p. In five more minutes, the four a.s.sault craft moved off in box formation toward the Keflavik Peninsula.
The Fucik continued her turn, returning to a northerly course to make the next hovercraft trip a shorter one. Her weather deck was ringed with armed troops carrying surface-to-air missiles and machine guns. Andreyev remained on the bridge, knowing this was where he belonged, but wis.h.i.+ng he were leading his a.s.sault troops.
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND.
"Kef-Ops, the bandits are all turning right back after launching their ASMs. So far it"s been two birds per aircraft. We got fifty-make that fifty-six inbound missiles, and more are being launched. n.o.body behind them, though. I repeat, nothing behind the bomber force. At least we don"t have any paratroopers headed in. Hunker down, guys, we now have sixty inbound missiles," Edwards heard as he came through the door.
"At least they won"t be nukes," said a captain.
"They"re shooting a hundred missiles at us-they don"t f.u.c.kin" need nukes!" replied another.
Edwards watched the radar picture over the shoulder of one of the officers. It was eerily like an arcade game. Big, slow-moving blips denoted the aircraft. Smaller, quicker blips were the Mach-2 missiles.
"Gotcha!" hooted the enlisted radar operator. The leading Eagle had gotten within missile range of the Badgers and exploded one with a Sparrow missile-ten seconds after it had launched its own missiles. A second Sparrow missed its separate target, but a third appeared locked on it. The first fighter"s wingman was just launching at yet another Russian. The Soviets had thought this one out, Edwards saw. They were attacking from all around the northern littoral, with lots of s.p.a.ce between the bombers so that no single fighter could engage more than one or two. It was almost like- "Anybody check the geometry of this?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" The captain looked around. "How come you aren"t where you belong?"