As predicted, the bridge lasted less than an hour. In that time Alekseyev had gotten a full battalion of mechanized infantry across, and though the NATO troops launched a pair of vicious counterattacks on his bridgehead, the tanks he"d placed on the east bank had been able to break them up with direct fire. Now NATO had caught its breath, and was a.s.sembling artillery. Heavy guns pounded his bridgehead and the tanks on the Soviet side of the river, and to make matters worse, the a.s.sault boats had been held up by incredible traffic snarls on the road between Sack and Alfeld. German heavy guns were littering the road and surrounding land with artillery-deployed mines, each powerful enough to knock the tread off a tank or the wheel off a truck. Sappers swept the roads continuously, using heavy machine guns to detonate the mines, but every one took time, and not all were seen before they exploded under a heavily loaded vehicle. The loss of the individual trucks and tanks was bad enough; worse still were the traffic tieups that resulted from each disabled vehicle.
Alekseyev"s headquarters were in a camera shop overlooking the river. The plate-gla.s.s window had long since been blown away, and his boots crackled with every step. He surveyed the far bank through his binoculars and anguished for his men as they tried to fight back at the men and tanks on the hills above them. A few kilometers away, every mobile gun in 8th Guards Army was racing forward to provide fire support for his tank division, and he and Sergetov set them to counterbattery the NATO guns.
"Enemy aircraft!" a lieutenant shouted.
Alekseyev craned his neck and saw a dot to the south, which grew rapidly into a German F-104 fighter. Yellow tracer lines reached out from his AA guns and blotted it from the sky before it could release, but instantly another appeared, this one firing its own cannon at the gun vehicle and exploding it. Alekseyev swore as the single-engine fighter bored in, dropped two bombs on the far side of the river, and streaked away. The bombs fell slowly, r.e.t.a.r.ded by small parachutes, then, twenty meters over the ground, appeared to fill the air with fog-Alekseyev dove to the floor of the shop as the cloud of explosive vapor detonated from the fuel-air-explosive bombs. The shock wave was fearful, and above his head a display case shattered, dropping broken gla.s.s all over him.
"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Sergetov yelled, deafened by the blast, then, looking up, "You"re hit, Comrade General!"
Alekseyev ran his hand over his face. It came away red. His eyes stung, and he poured the contents of his canteen over his face to clear them of the blood. Major Sergetov slapped a bandage on his general"s forehead with only one hand, Alekseyev noticed.
"What happened to you?"
"I fell on some of this d.a.m.ned gla.s.s! Stay still, Comrade General, you"re bleeding like a slaughtered cow." A lieutenant general showed up. Alekseyev recognized him as Viktor Beregovoy, 8th Guards Army"s second in command.
"Comrade General, you have orders to return to headquarters. I am here to relieve you."
"The h.e.l.l you say!" Alekseyev bellowed.
"The orders come from Commander-in-Chief West, Comrade. I am a general of tank troops. I can carry on here. If you will permit me to say so, you have performed brilliantly. But you are needed elsewhere."
"Not until I"m finished!"
"Comrade General, if you want this crossing to succeed, we need more support here. Who can better arrange that support, you or I?" Beregovoy asked reasonably.
Alekseyev let out a long angry breath. The man was right-but for the first time Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev had led-really led!-men in combat, and he had done well. Alekseyev knew it-he had done well!
"There is no time to argue. You have your task and I have mine," the man said.
"You know the situation?"
"Fully. There is a vehicle in the back to return you to headquarters."
Alekseyev held the bandage to his head-Sergetov hadn"t tied it properly-and walked out the back of the shop. Where the door had once been, he found a gaping hole. A BMD infantry carrier was there, its motor running. Alekseyev got in and found a medical orderly who clucked over the General and went immediately to work. As the carrier pulled off, Alekseyev listened to the noise of combat diminish. It was the saddest sound he had ever heard.
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VIRGINIA.
There was nothing like a Distinguished Flying Cross to make a person happy about flying, and she wondered if she might be the first female Air Force pilot to have one. If not, Major Nakamura decided, what the h.e.l.l? She had a gun-camera videotape of all three of her Badgers, and a Navy pilot she"d met in Brittany before catching a flight Stateside had called her one d.a.m.ned fine pilot, for an Air Force puke. After which she had reminded him that if the dumba.s.s Navy pilots had listened to her, maybe their air base wouldn"t be in a body and fender shop. Game, set, and match, she grinned, to Major Amelia Nakamura, USAF.
All the F-15s that could be ferried across the Atlantic had been ferried, and now she had another job. Only four of the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron"s Eagles were still at Langley. The rest were scattered up and down the East Coast, including the two pilots who were qualified for the ASAT antisatellite missiles. As soon as she"d heard that, she had made a phone call and informed s.p.a.ce Command that she was the Eagle driver who had worked out the ASAT flight profile, and why take a combat pilot off the line when she could handle the mission very well, thank you.
She checked to make sure the ugly missile was properly attached to the airframe. It had been taken out of secure storage and reexamined by a team of experts. Buns shook her head. There had only been one real test of the system before a moratorium had been slapped on the project. A successful test, to be sure, but only one. She hoped it would work. The Navy really needed help from the Air Force pukes. Besides, that A-6 driver was cute.
The major finished her walkaround, taking her time-her target wasn"t over the Indian Ocean yet-then strapped herself into her Eagle, ran her eyes and hands over the gauges and handles, adjusted the seat, and finally input the numbers painted on the wall of the aircraft shelter into the aircraft"s inertial navigation system so that the fighter would know where it was. Finished, she began to fire up her engines. Her flight helmet protected her from the shriek of the two Pratt and Whitney engines. The needles on her engine gauges rotated into proper position. Below her, the crew chief gave the aircraft a careful examination, then waved to her to taxi the aircraft into the open. Six people were out there, standing behind the red warning line to protect their ears from the noise. Always nice to have an audience, she thought, ignoring them.
"Eagle One-Zero-Four ready to taxi," she told the tower.
"One-Zero-Four, roger. You are cleared to taxi," the tower controller replied. "Wind is two-five-three at twelve knots."
"Roger that, One-Zero-Four is rolling."
Buns brought her canopy down. The crew chief snapped to attention and gave the major a perfect salute. Nakamura answered it with panache, advanced her throttles slightly, and the Eagle fighter moved off to the runway like a crippled stork. A minute later, she was in the air, a silky smooth feeling of pure power enveloping her as she pointed her Eagle at the sky.
Kosmos 1801 was just completing its southbound leg, bending around the Straits of Magellan to head north over the Atlantic. The orbital pa.s.s would take it two hundred miles off the American coast. At the ground-control station, technicians prepared to switch on the powerful sea-surveillance radar. They were sure an American carrier battle group was at sea, but had been unable to locate it. Three regiments of Backfires were waiting for information that would allow them to repeat the feat accomplished on the second day of the war.
Nakamura eased her fighter under the tanker"s tail, and the boom operator expertly shoved the refueling probe into the back of her fighter. Ten thousand pounds of fuel transferred into her tanks in only a few minutes, and as she disengaged, a small cloud of kerosene vapor escaped into the sky.
"Gulliver, this is One-Zero-Four, over," she called over the radio.
"One-Zero-Four, this is Gulliver," replied a colonel in the pa.s.senger compartment of a LearJet cruising at forty thousand feet.
"All tanked and ready to go. All on-board systems show green. Orbiting at Point Sierra. Ready to initiate intercept climb. Standing by."
"Roger that, One-Zero-Four."
Major Nakamura kept her Eagle in a small turning circle. She didn"t want to waste a drop of fuel when she started her climb. She s.h.i.+fted ever so slightly in her seat, which for her was a violent show of emotion when flying, and concentrated on her aircraft. As her eyes traced over her c.o.c.kpit instruments, she told herself to control her breathing.
s.p.a.ce Command"s radars picked up the Soviet satellite as it pa.s.sed the bulge of South America. Computers compared its course and speed with known data, matched them with the position of Nakamura"s fighter, and a computer spat out its commands, which were relayed to the LearJet.
"One-Zero-Four, come to heading two-four-five."
"Turning now." The major brought her fighter into a tight turn. "Holding on two-four-five."
"Stand by . . . stand by-initiate!"
"Roger." Buns pushed her throttles to the stops and punched up the afterburners. The Eagle leaped forward like a spurred horse, accelerating through Mach 1 in seconds. Next she eased back on the stick, bringing her Eagle into a forty-five-degree climb, still accelerating into a darkening sky. She didn"t look out. Her eyes were locked on her c.o.c.kpit gauges: the fighter had to maintain a specific flight profile for the next two minutes. As the Eagle rocketed into the sky, the altimeter needle whirled around its clockface. Fifty thousand feet, sixty thousand feet, seventy, eighty, ninety thousand feet. Stars were visible now in the nearly black sky, but Nakamura didn"t notice.
"Come on, baby, find the son of a b.i.t.c.h . . ." she thought aloud.
Beneath the aircraft the ASAT missile"s tracking head came on, searching the sky for the infrared heat signature of the Soviet satellite. A light blinked on Buns"s instrument panel.
"My weapon is tracking! Repeat, my weapon is tracking. Auto launch sequence equipment is activated. Alt.i.tude ninety-four thousand feet seven hundred-breakaway, breakaway!" She felt her aircraft lurch as the heavy missile dropped free and immediately brought her throttles back to low power and brought the stick back to loop the fighter. She checked her fuel state. The afterburning climb had nearly emptied her tanks, but she had enough to make Langley without tanking again. She had already turned for home when she realized that she hadn"t seen the missile. It didn"t matter anyway. Nakamura turned west, letting the Eagle settle into a shallow dive that would terminate on the Virginia Coast.
Aboard the LearJet, a tracker camera followed the missile upward. The solid-fuel rocket motor burned for thirty seconds, then the warhead separated. The Miniature Homing Vehicle, an infrared heat sensor embedded in its flat face, had long since acquired its target. The Soviet satellite"s on-board nuclear reactor radiated waste heat out into s.p.a.ce, and the resulting infrared signature rivaled the sun. As its microchip brain computed the intercept course, the MHV made a tiny course alteration and the distance between warhead and satellite dropped at a precipitous rate. The satellite was northbound at eighteen thousand miles per hour, the MHV southbound at over ten thousand, yet another hitech kamikaze. Then- "Jesus!" said the senior officer on the LearJet as he blinked his eyes and turned away from the TV screen. Several hundred pounds of steel and ceramic had just turned to vapor. "That"s a kill, say again that"s a kill!"
The TV picture was downlinked to s.p.a.ce Command, where a radar picture backed it up. The ma.s.sive satellite was now an expanding cloud of orbiting rubble. "Target is negated," said a calmer voice.
LENINSK, KAZAKH S.S.R.
The loss of signal from the Kosmos 1801 satellite was recorded scant seconds after it was obliterated from the sky. It was no surprise to the Russian s.p.a.ce experts, since 1801 had used up its maneuvering thrusters several days before, and had been an easy target. Another F-1M rocket booster was sitting on a launch pad of the Baikonur Kosmodrome Complex. An abbreviated launch sequence countdown would be under way inside of two hours-but from now on the ability of the Soviet Navy to locate convoys and fighting fleets would be in jeopardy.
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VIRGINIA.
"Well?" Buns asked as she jumped down from her fighter.
"Kill. We have it on tape," another major said. "It worked."
"How soon do you think they"ll launch a replacement?" One more kill and I"ll be an ace!
"We think they have one on the pad now. Twelve to twenty-four hours. No telling how many spares they have ready."
Nakamura nodded. The Air Force had a total of six remaining ASAT rockets. Maybe enough, maybe not-one successful mission did not make it a reliable weapon. She walked over to the squadron headquarters for coffee and donuts.
STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
"G.o.ddammit, Pasha!" CINC-West swore. "I don"t have a four-star deputy so that he can run around playing divisional commander. Look at you! You might have got your head cut off!"
"We needed a breakthrough. The tank commander was killed and his deputy was too young. I have given us the breakthrough."
"Where is Captain Sergetov?"
"Major Sergetov," Alekseyev corrected. "He performed well as my aide. His hand got carved up and he"s having it attended to. So. What reinforcements do we have moving to the 8th Guards Army?"
Both generals moved over to a large map. "These two tank divisions are already en route-ten to twelve hours. How firm is your bridgehead?"
"Could be better," Alekseyev admitted. "There were three bridges there, but some madman started dropping rockets into the town and wrecked two of them. That left one. We managed to get a mechanized battalion across, along with some tanks, before the Germans were able to destroy it. They have plenty of artillery support, and when I left, we had boats and bridging equipment coming in. The man who relieved me will be trying to reinforce as soon as he can arrange a crossing in force."
"Opposition?"
"Thin, but the terrain is on their side. I"d estimate one regiment or so, the remains of other NATO units. Some tanks, but mainly mechanized infantry. They also have plenty of artillery support. When I left it was a very even match. We have more firepower, but most of it"s trapped on our side of the Leine. It"s a race to see who can reinforce quickest."
"After you left, NATO threw aircraft in. Our people are trying to hold them back, but NATO seems to be ahead in the air."
"We can"t wait for night. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds own the night sky."
"Go now?"
Alekseyev nodded, thinking of what casualties he was bringing down on "his" division. "As soon as we can a.s.semble the boats. Expand the bridgehead to two kilometers, then get the bridges across. What"s NATO bringing in?"
"Radio intercepts have identified two brigades en route. One British and one Belgian."
"They"ll send more than that. They must know what we can do if we exploit this. We have 1st Guards Tank Army in reserve . . ."
"Commit half of our reserves here?"
"I can"t think of a better place." Alekseyev gestured at the map. The drive toward Hannover had been stopped within sight of the city. The northern army groups had gotten into the outskirts of Hamburg, at the cost of gutting 3rd Shock Army"s tank formations. "With luck, we can break all of the 1st into the enemy rear. That will get us to the Weser at least-maybe the Rhein."
"A large gamble, Pasha," CINC-West breathed. But the odds here were better than anything else on the map. If the NATO forces were stretched as thinly as his intelligence staff said, they had to crumble someplace. Perhaps this was it? "Very well. Start posting the orders."
FASLANE, SCOTLAND.
"What about their ASW forces?" asked the captain of USS Pittsburgh.
"Considerable. We estimate that Ivan has two major antisubmarine-warfare groups, one centered on Kiev, the other on a Kresta cruiser. There are also four smaller groups, each composed of a Krivak-cla.s.s frigate and four to six patrol frigates of the Grisha and Mirka type. Add to that a large collection of ASW aircraft and finally twenty or so submarines, half nuclear, half conventional," answered the briefing officer.
"Why don"t we let them keep the Barents Sea?" muttered Todd Simms of USS Boston.
There"s an idea, Dan McCafferty agreed silently.
"Seven days to get there?" Pittsburgh asked.
"Yes, that gives us a good deal of freedom on how to enter the area. Captain Little?"
The captain of HMS Torbay took the podium. McCafferty wondered if the Brits had any need for NFL-style noseguards in their team sports. Under six feet, but very broad across the shoulders, his head topped by a shock of sandy, unruly hair, James Little certainly looked like one. When he spoke, it was with toughly won a.s.surance.
"We"ve been running a campaign we call Keypunch. The objective of Keypunch is to evaluate what ASW defenses Ivan has operating in the Barents Sea-and also, of course, to lop off the odd Sov who gets in our way." He smiled. Torbay had four kills. "Ivan"s set a barrier from Bear Island to the coast of Norway. The immediate area around Bear Island is a solid minefield. Ivan"s been laying the things since he took the island by parachute a.s.sault two weeks ago. South of this area, so far as we can determine, the barrier is composed of some small minefields and Tango-cla.s.s diesel subs as a front line, backed by the mobile ASW groups and Victor-III-cla.s.s nuclear submarines. Their aim appears to be not so much prosecute-to-kill as prosecute-to-drive-off. Every time one of our submarines has made an attack on this barrier line, there has been a vigorous response.
"Inside the Barents, things are pretty much the same. These small hunter-killer groups can be b.l.o.o.d.y dangerous. I personally had an encounter with a Krivak and four Grishas. Insh.o.r.e, they have helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in direct support, and it was a most unpleasant experience. We also found several new minefields. The Soviets appear to be sowing them almost at random in water as deep as one hundred fathoms. Finally they seem to have set a number of traps. One of them cost us Trafalgar. They set a small minefield and placed a noisemaker within it that sounds exactly like a Tango snorkeling her diesels. As near as we can make out, Trafalgar moved in to collect the Tango and ran right into a mine. Something to keep in mind, gentlemen." Little paused to let that bit of hard-won intelligence sink in.