"Roger, Romeo."
Morris hung up and looked around the CIC. "Well done, people."
The sailors in the room looked at each other, and presently some grins started showing. But they didn"t last long.
The TAO looked up. "For your information, Captain, Ivan fired a quarter of his missiles at us. So far as I can tell, the Tomcats got about six, and Bunker Hill got most of the rest . . . but we show one frigate hit, and three merchies. The fighters are returning." He kept his voice neutral. "They report zero kills on the Backfire force."
"d.a.m.n!" Morris said. The trap had failed-and he didn"t know why.
He had no idea that Stornoway considered it a success.
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND.
The key to the operation, as with all military operations, was communications, and not enough time had been spent setting the lines up on this one to suit Toland. The America"s radar aircraft tracked the Backfires all the way off the scope. The data from the aircraft was linked to the carrier, thence by satellite to Norfolk, and by satellite again to Northwood. His data came by land line from Royal Navy headquarters. The most important NATO mission of the war depended on transistors and telephone wire more than the weapons that were to be employed.
"Okay, their last course was zero-two-nine, speed six hundred ten knots."
"That puts them over Iceland"s north coast in two hours, seventeen minutes. How much time did they have on burner?" Commander Winters asked.
"About five, according to America." Toland frowned. This was pretty thin intelligence information.
"Any way you cut it, their fuel reserves are thinned down some . . . Okay. Three aircraft, eighty miles apart." He looked over at the newest satellite weather photo. "Good visibility. We"ll spot "em. Whoever does, follows-the other planes come right back home."
"Good luck, Commander."
NORTH ATLANTIC.
The three Tomcats climbed slowly to alt.i.tude on a course northwest from Stornoway, and at thirty-five thousand feet linked up with their tankers. Several hundred miles away the Backfire crews did much the same thing. The presence of American fighters over the convoy in large numbers had come as a rude shock, but time and distance had been in their favor, and they"d managed to escape without loss this time. The crew of each aircraft talked among themselves, their emotions released by the climax of yet another dangerous mission. They discussed the claims they"d make on returning to Kirovsk, based on a straightforward mathematical formula. One missile in three was judged to have hit a target, even accounting for enemy SAM fire. Today SAM opposition had been light-though none had lingered to evaluate it properly. By consensus they would claim sixteen s.h.i.+p kills, and claim both the outside sonar pickets that their comrades in submarines were having such a bad time with. The flight crews relaxed and sipped tea from thermos jugs as they contemplated their next visit to the eighty-s.h.i.+p convoy.
The Tomcats separated as they spotted the mountains of Iceland. No radio signals were pa.s.sed; the flyers exchanged hand signals before breaking off on their patrol stations. They knew the radars couldn"t reach them there. Commander Winters checked his watch. The Backfires should be here in about thirty minutes.
"Such a beautiful island," the Backfire pilot observed to his copilot.
"Pretty to look at, living there I am not so certain about. I wonder if the women are as pretty as I have heard? One day we must have "mechanical difficulties." Then we could land there and find out."
"We must get you married, Volodya."
The copilot laughed. "So many tears would be shed! How can I deny myself to the women of the world?"
The pilot punched up his radio. "Keflavik, this is Sea Eagle Two-Six, status check."
"Sea Eagle, we show no contacts except for your group. Count is correct. IFF transponders show normal."
"Acknowledged. Out." The pilot switched off. "So, Volodya, our friends are still there. Lonely place."
"If there are women about, and you are kulturny, you need never be lonely." Another voice came over the intercom.
"Will somebody shut that h.o.r.n.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d up!" the navigator suggested.
"Studying to be a political officer?" the copilot inquired. "How long to home?"
"Two hours twenty-five minutes."
The Backfire continued northeast at six hundred knots as it pa.s.sed over the desolate center of the island.
"Tallyho!" the pilot said quietly. "One o"clock and low." The Tomcat"s on-board television system showed the distinctive shape of the Russian bomber. Say what you want about the Russians, Winters thought, they do build "em pretty.
He turned the aircraft, which took his nose-mounted camera off the target, but his back-seat officer put his binoculars on the Backfire and soon spotted two more flying in a loose formation. As expected, their course was northeast, and they were cruising at about thirty thousand feet. Winters looked for a big cloud to hide in and found one. Visibility dropped to a few yards. There could be another Backfire out there, Winters thought, and maybe he likes flying in clouds, too. That could really ruin this mission.
He ran out of cloud a moment later, banked his fighter hard, and ducked back inside, his mind computing time and distance. The Backfires should all be past now. He pulled back on his stick and popped out of the cloud top.
"There they be," the back-seater said first. "Heads up! I see more of "em at three o"clock."
The pilot vanished back into the cloud for another ten minutes. Finally: "Nothing to the south of us. They should all be past by now, don"t you think?"
"Yeah, let"s go looking."
One terrifying minute later, Winters was wondering if he hadn"t let them get too far ahead, as his TV system swept across the sky and found nothing. Patience, he told himself, and increased his speed to six hundred ninety knots. Five minutes later, a dot appeared on his screen. It grew to three dots. He estimated he was forty miles behind the Backfires, and with the sun at his back, there was no way they could spot him. His back-seater made a check of the radar warning receiver and the air behind them for additional aircraft, a procedure repeated three times a minute. If an American fighter could be out here, why not a Russian?
The pilot watched the numbers click off on his inertial navigation system, kept an eye on fuel, and watched forward for any change in the Russian bomber formation. It was both exciting and boring. He knew the significance of what he was doing, but the actual doing was no more thrilling than driving a 747 from New York to L.A. For over an hour they flew, covering the seven hundred miles between Iceland and the Norwegian coast.
"Here"s where it gets cute," the back-seater said. "Air-search radar ahead, looks like Andya. Still over a hundred miles away, they"ll probably have us in two or three minutes."
"That"s nice." Where there was air-search radar, there would be fighters. "Got their position worked out?"
"Yep."
"Start transmitting." Winters turned the aircraft and headed back out to sea.
Two hundred miles away, a circling British Nimrod receipted the signal and retransmitted to a communications satellite.
NORTHWOOD, ENGLAND.
Admiral Beattie was trying to remain calm, but it didn"t come easily to a man whose nerves had been stretched and abused by crisis after crisis since the war began. Doolittle was his baby. For the past two hours, he"d waited for word from the Tomcat. Two had returned without sighting the Russians. One had not. Was it tracking them as planned or had it merely fallen into the sea?
The printer in the corner of the communications room began to make the screeing sound that the Admiral had learned to hate: EYEb.a.l.l.s REPORTS HARES AT 69/20N, 15/45E AT 1543z COURSE 021 SPEED 580 KTS ALT 30.
Beattie tore the page off and handed it to his air-operations officer. "That puts them on the ground in thirty-seven minutes. a.s.suming it"s the last group, and a fifteen-minute spread, the first bombers will be landing in twenty-two minutes."
"Fifteen minutes from now, then?"
"Yes, Admiral."
"Get the order out!"
In thirty seconds half a dozen separate satellite channels began transmitting the same message.
USS CHICAGO.
The three American submarines had lain on the bottom of the Barents Sea near the Russian coastline-so near, it was only one hundred seventy-four feet of water-for what seemed like half a lifetime, before finally receiving the signal to move south. McCafferty smiled with relief. The three British submarines, including HMS Torbay, had already done their job. They had sneaked up on a Russian frigate and four patrol boats patrolling the Russian/Norwegian coastline and attacked with torpedoes. The Russians could only a.s.sume a major effort was under way to penetrate their patrol barrier, and had sent their antisub patrol force west to meet it.
Leaving the way clear for Chicago and her mates. He hoped.
As they closed in, his electronics technicians plotted and re-plotted their bearings. They had to be in exactly the right place when they fired their missiles.
"How long before we shoot?" the XO asked.
"They"ll let us know," McCafferty said.
And then, with the chatter of the message from Northwood, they did know.
They would launch at 1602 Zulu Time.
"Up scope." McCafferty spun the instrument around. A rainstorm overhead drove four-foot waves.
"Looks clear to me," the XO said, watching the TV display.
The captain slapped the handles up on the scope. It headed down into its well. "ESM?"
"Lots of radar stuff, Cap"n," the technician replied. "I show ten different transmitters in operation."
McCafferty inspected the Tomahawk weapons status board on the starboard side of the attack center. His torpedo tubes were loaded with two Mark-48s and two Harpoon missiles. The clock ticked away toward 1602.
"Commence launch sequence."
Toggle switches were thrown, and the weapons status lights blinked red; the captain and the weapons officer inserted their keys in the panel, and turned them; the petty officer on the weapons board turned the firing handle to the left-and the arming process was complete. Forward, in the bow of the submarine, the guidance systems of twelve Tomahawk cruise missiles were fully activated. On-board computers were told where their flight would begin. They already knew where it was supposed to end.
"Initiate launch," McCafferty ordered.
Ametist was not part of the regular Soviet Navy. Princ.i.p.ally concerned with security operations, this Grisha-cla.s.s patrol frigate was manned by a KGB crew, and her captain had spent the last twelve hours sprinting and drifting, dipping his helicopter-type sonar and listening in the American fas.h.i.+on rather than the Russian. With her diesel engines shut down, she made no noise at all, and her short profile was hard to spot from more than a mile away. She had not heard the American submarines approach.
The first Tomahawk broke the surface of the Barents Sea at 16:01:58, two thousand yards from the Russian frigate. The lookout took a second or two to react. As he saw the cylindrical shape rise on its solid-rocket booster and arc southwest, an icy lead ball materialized in his stomach.
"Captain! Missile launch to starboard!"
The captain raced out onto the bridge wing and looked on in amazement as a second missile broke the surface, then he leaped back into the pilothouse.
"Battle stations! Radio room, call Fleet HQ, tell them enemy missiles launching from grid square 451/679-now! All ahead full! Rudder right!"
The frigate"s diesel engines roared into life.
"What in h.e.l.l is that?" the sonar chief asked. His submarine shuddered every four seconds with the missile launches, but-"Conn, sonar, we have a contact bearing zero-nine-eight. Diesel-surface s.h.i.+p, sounds like a Grisha, and he"s close, sir!"
"Up scope!" McCafferty whirled the periscope around and snapped the handle to full power. He saw the Russian frigate turning hard. "Snap shot! Set it up! Surface target bearing zero-nine-seven, range"-he worked the stademeter control-"one six hundred, course, s.h.i.+t! he"s turning away. Call it zero-nine-zero, speed twenty." Too close for a missile shot, they had to engage with torpedoes. "Down scope!"
The fire-control man tapped the numbers into the computer. The computer needed eleven seconds to digest the information. "Set! Ready for tubes one and three."
"Flooding tubes, outer doors open-ready!" the XO said.
"Match generated bearings and shoot!"
"Fire one, fire three." The executive officer struggled with his emotions and won. Where had that Grisha come from? "Reload with 48s!"
"Last bird away!" the missile technician announced. "Securing from launch."
"Left full rudder!"
Ametist never saw the missiles launching behind her. The men were too busy racing to stations, while her captain rang up full power and the s.h.i.+p"s weapons officer ran up in his shorts to work the rocket launchers. They didn"t need sonar for this; they could see all too well where the submarine was-firing missiles at the Motherland!
"Fire when ready!" the captain yelled.
The lieutenant"s thumb came down on the firing key. Twelve antisubmarine rockets arched through the air.
"Ametist," the radio squawked. "Repeat your message-what missiles? What kind of missiles!"
USS Providence discharged her last missile just as the frigate fired at her. The captain ordered flank speed and a radical turn even as the rockets tipped over and began to fall toward his submarine. They fell in a wide circular pattern designed to cover the maximum possible area, two exploding within one hundred yards, close enough to startle but not to damage. The last one hit the water directly over the submarine"s sail. A second later, the forty-six-pound warhead exploded.