Red storm rising 1986, p.52
Red Storm Rising (1986), page 52
"We'll stay clear of Mr. SAM. First time, gentlemen, we got the odds on our side." The fighter pilots started putting a plan together. They now had solid intelligence of how Russian fighters operated in combat. The Soviets had good tactics, but they were also predictable. If the American aircraft could contrive to present a situation for which the Russians were trained, they knew how Ivan would react to it.
STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
He had never expected it to be easy, but neither had Alekseyev expected NATO air forces to have control of the night skies. Four minutes after midnight, an aircraft that had never registered on their radar had obliterated the radio transmitter station for CINC-WEST'S headquarters. They'd only had three alternate stations, each more than ten kilometers from the underground bunker complex. Now they had one, plus a mobile transmitter that had already been bombed once. The underground telephone cables were still being used, of course, but advances into enemy territory had made telephone communications unreliable. Too often, the cables strung by Signal Corps troops were being destroyed by air attack and badly driven vehicles. They needed the radio links, and NATO was systematically eliminating them. They'd even attempted an attack on the bunker complex itself--the decoy site set exactly between two transmitter stations had been hit by eight fighter-bombers and liberally sprinkled with napalm, cluster munitions, and delay-fused high explosives. If the attack had been on the real complex, the ordnance experts said, there might have been casualties. So much for the skill of our engineers. The bunkers were supposed to withstand a near-miss from a nuclear warhead.
He now had a full fighting division across the Leine--the remains of one, he corrected himself. The two reinforcing tank divisions were trying to cross now, but the ribbon bridges had been bombed overnight along with the advancing divisions. The NATO reinforcements were beginning to arrive--their road advances had also suffered from air attacks, though at ghastly cost to the Soviet fighter-bombers. The tactics . . . no, amateurs discuss tactics, Alekseyev thought wryly. Professional soldiers study logistics. The key to his success would pivot on his ability to maintain bridges on the river Leine and to run traffic efficiently down the roads to Alfeld. The traffic-control system had already broken down twice before Alekseyev had dispatched a team of colonels to handle things.
"We should have picked a better place," Alekseyev muttered.
"Excuse me, Comrade General?" Sergetov asked.
"There's only one good road into Alfeld." The General smiled ironically. "We should have made our breakthrough at a town with at least three."
They watched wooden counters march--creep--down the line on the map. Each counter was a battalion. Missile and antiaircraft-gun units lined the corridor north and south of this road, and the road itself constantly swept to rid it of the remotely deployed mines that NATO was using in large numbers for the first time.
"Twentieth Tanks has taken a serious mauling," the General breathed. His troops. It might have been a quick breakthrough--should have been but for NATO aircraft.
"The two reinforcing divisions will complete the maneuver," Sergetov predicted confidently.
Alekseyev thought him right. Unless something else went wrong.
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
Morris sat across the deck from COMNAVSURFLANT: Commander, Naval Surface Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. A three-star admiral, he'd spent his whole career in what he liked to call "the real Navy," frigates, destroyers, and cruisers. The small gray ships lacked the glamour of aviation and the mystery of the submarines, but right now they were the key to getting the convoys across the Atlantic.
"Ivan's changed tactics on us--a hell of a lot faster than we thought he was able to. They're going for the escorts. The attack on your frigate was deliberate, you didn't just stumble across him. He was probably laying for you."
"They're trying to roll back the escorts?"
"Yes, but with particular attention to the ships with tails. We've hurt their submarine force--not enough, but we have hurt them. The towed-array pickets have worked out very well. Ivan picked up on that and he's trying to take them out. He's looking for the SURTASS ships, too, but that's a harder proposition. We've killed three submarines that tried to move in on them."
Morris nodded. The Surface Towed-Array Sonar Ships were modified tuna clippers that trailed enormous passive sonar cables. There weren't enough of them to provide coverage for more than half the convoy routes, but they fed good information into ASW headquarters in Norfolk. "Why don't they send Backfires after the ships?"
"We've wondered about that, too. Evidently the Russians don't think they're worth the diversion of that much effort. Besides, we've got a lot more electronic capability built into them than anyone thought. They're not easy to locate on radar." The Admiral went no further than that, but Morris wondered if stealth technology--which the Navy had been working on for years--had been applied to the SURTASS force. If the Russians were limiting their effort to locate and kill the tuna boats with submarines, he thought, so much the better.
"I'm putting you in for a decoration, Ed. You did very well. I've only got three skippers who've done better, and one of them was killed yesterday. So how bad was your damage?"
"She may be a total loss, sir. It was a Victor. We took one hit in the bow. The keel let go, and--the bow tore off, sir. We lost everything forward of the ASROC launcher. Lots of shock damage, but most of it's already fixed. Before she'll sail again, we have to build her a new bow." The Admiral nodded. He'd already seen the casualty reports.
"You did well to save her, Ed. Damned well. Pharris doesn't need you for the moment. I want you here with my operations people. We have to change tactics, too. I want you to look over what intelligence and operational information we have and feed me some ideas."
"For starters, we might stop those damned Backfires."
"That's being worked on." The reply held both confidence and skepticism.
THE WINDWARD PASSAGE
To the east was Haiti on the island of Hispaniola. To the west was Cuba. Blacked out, radar systems fully energized but placed on standby, the ships sailed in battle formation, escorted by destroyers and frigates. Missiles were hung on launchers and trained out to port, while the launch controllers sweated in their air-conditioned battle stations.
They didn't expect trouble. Castro had gotten word to the American government that he had had no part in this, and was angered that the Soviets had not informed him of their plans. It was diplomatically important, however, that the American fleet traverse the passage in darkness so that the Cubans could say truthfully that they had seen nothing. As a sign of good faith, Castro had also alerted the Americans to the presence of a Soviet submarine in the Florida Straits. To be used as a vassal was one thing, to have his country used as a base for a war without being informed was too much.
The sailors didn't know all of this, just that no serious opposition was expected. They took it with a grain of salt, as they did all intelligence reports. Their helicopters had laid a string of sonobuoys, and their ESM radar receivers listened for the pulsing signal of a Soviet-made radar. Aloft, lookouts trained clumsy starlight scopes around the sky, searching for aircraft that might be hunting them visually--which would not be hard. At twenty-five knots, every ship left a foaming wake that seemed to fluoresce like neon in the darkness.
Maalox didn't work anymore, one frigate captain grumbled to himself. He sat in the command chair in his ship's Combat Information Center. To his left was the chart table, in front of him (he faced aft) the young tactical action officer stood over his plotting scope. The Cubans were known to have surface-to-surface missile batteries arrayed on their coastline like the fortresses of old. At any moment the ships might detect a swarm of incoming vampires. Forward, his single-arm missile launcher was loaded and trained out, as were his three-inch gun and CIWS topside. The coffee was a mistake, but he had to stay alert. The price was a stabbing pain in his upper abdomen. Maybe I should talk to the corpsman, he thought, and shrugged it off. There wasn't time for that. He'd been working around the clock for three months to get his ship ready for action, racing through the acceptance trials and conducting continuous workups, working his men and ship hard, but working himself hardest of all. He was too proud to admit that he'd pushed too hard, even to himself.
It came just as he finished his third cup of coffee. For all the warnings, it was a pain as severe and surprising as a thrown knife. The captain doubled over and vomited on the tiled deck of CIC. A sailor mopped it up at once, and it was too dark to see that there'd been blood on the tile. He couldn't leave his post, despite the pains, despite the sudden chill from the blood loss. The captain made a mental note to keep off the coffee for a few hours. Maybe he'd see the corpsman when he got the chance. If he got the chance. There'd be a three-day layover in Norfolk. He could rest a little then. He knew he needed rest. The fatigue that had been building for days hammered at him. The captain shook his head. Throwing up was supposed to make you feel better.
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA
Morris found his home empty. At his suggestion, his wife had gone home to Kansas to stay with her family. No sense having you and the kids home worrying about me, he'd told her. He regretted it now. Morris needed the company, needed a hug, needed to see his kids. Within a minute of opening the door, he was on the phone. His wife already knew what had happened to his ship, but had withheld it from the kids. It took two minutes to assure her that he was indeed all right, at home, and uninjured. Then came the kids, and finally the knowledge that they couldn't arrange a flight home. All the airliners were either ferrying men and supplies overseas or booked solid until mid-August. Ed saw no sense in having his family drive all the way from Salinas to Kansas City to wait on standby. Good-byes were hard.
What came next was harder. Commander Edward Morris donned his whites and from his wallet took a list of family calls he had to make. They'd all been officially notified, but another of the duties that came with command was to make the trips himself. The widow of his executive officer lived only half a mile away. A good man with a barbecue, the XO, Morris remembered. How many weekends had he spent in their backyard watching steaks sizzle over charcoal? What would he tell her now? What would he tell the rest of the widows? What would he tell the kids?
Morris walked to his car and was mocked by the license plate, FF-1094. Not every man got to carry his failure around with him. Most were fortunate enough to leave it behind. As he started the engine, Morris wondered if he'd ever be able to sleep without the fear of reliving again that moment on the bridge of his ship.
ICELAND
For the first time Edwards had beaten his sergeant at his own game. For all his alleged expertise with a fishing rod, Smith had come away with nothing after an hour's effort, and handed the rod to Mike in disgust. Ten minutes later, Edwards landed a four-pound trout.
"Ain't that some shit," Smith growled.
The last ten kilometers they'd covered had taken eleven hours. The one road they'd had to cross, they learned, was a busy one. Every few minutes a vehicle headed north or south. The Russians were using this gravel strip as their principal means of overland travel to Iceland's northern coast. Edwards and his party had spent six hours hiding in the rocks of yet another lava field, watching and waiting for a safe time to cross. Twice they'd seen Mi-24 helicopters patrolling the area, but neither had come close. They'd seen no foot patrols either, and Edwards had concluded that Iceland was too big for the Soviet force to control. At that point he'd taken out his Russian map and set to analyzing the symbols. The Soviet troops were concentrated in an arc extending north and south of the Reykjavik peninsula. He'd radioed that into Scotland, spending ten minutes describing the Russian symbology.
Road traffic had dropped off at dusk, allowing them to cross the road on the run. They'd found themselves without food in another area of lakes and streams. Enough was enough, Edwards had decided. They had to rest again and began fishing to get themselves some food. The next leg of their journey would keep them well clear of inhabited areas.
His rifle and other gear lay next to a rock, covered with his camouflage jacket. Vigdis was with him. She'd hardly left his side all day. Smith and the Marines had found places to relax while their lieutenant did most of the work.
The local bug population was out in force today. His sweater kept most of them off his skin, but his face attracted their share. He tried to ignore them. Quite a few bugs had found their way to the surface of the stream, and the trout were going after them. Every time he saw a ripple, he cast the feathery lure toward it. The rod bent again.
"Got another one!" he hooted. Smith's head came up, shook angrily, and went back down in the bushes fifty yards away.
Edwards had never done this sort of fishing. All his experience was in his father's boat, but the principles were pretty much the same. He let the trout pull against the line, but not too much, just enough to wear him out as Edwards worked the rod up and down, drawing the fish upstream and into the rocks. Suddenly he tripped over a rock and fell into the shallow water, managing, however, to keep his rod-tip high. Struggling to his feet, he stepped back, his fatigue pants black and wet against his legs.
"This is a big one." He turned to see Vigdis laughing. She watched him work the fish in and began moving toward it. A minute later she grabbed the leader and pulled the trout clear of the water.
"Three kilos, this one." She held it up.
At age ten Mike had caught a hundred-pound albacore, but this brown trout looked a lot bigger. He reeled in the line as Vigdis walked toward him. Ten pounds of fish in twenty minutes, he thought. We might just be able to live off the land yet.
The helicopter appeared without warning. There was a westerly wind--it had probably been patrolling the road to the east--and the aircraft was less than a mile away before they heard the stuttering sound of its five-bladed rotor headed right toward them. "Everyone freeze!" Smith yelled. The Marines were in good cover, but Mike and Vigdis were in the open.
"Oh, God," Edwards breathed. He finished reeling his line in. "Take the fish off the hook. Relax."
She looked at him as the helicopter approached, afraid to turn around toward the incoming chopper. Her hands shook as she worked the hook free of the wriggling trout.
"It's going to be all right, Vigdis." He wrapped his arm about her waist and walked slowly away from the stream. Her arm pulled his body close against hers. It came as a greater shock than the Russian chopper. She was stronger than he'd expected, and her arm was a heated path around his back and chest.
The chopper was less than five hundred yards off, bearing directly at them, nose down, the multibarreled gun trained directly at them.
He'd never make it, Edwards saw. His rifle was fifty feet away under his camouflage jacket. If he moved fast enough to get there, they'd know why. His legs were weak beneath him as he watched death approach.
Slowly, carefully, Vigdis moved the hand in which she held the fish. She used two fingers to grab Mike's hand at her waist, moving it up and around until it rested on her left breast. Then she held the fish high above her head. Mike dropped his rod and stooped to get the other trout. Vigdis followed his movements and managed to keep his left hand in place. Mike held up his fish as the Mi-24 attack helicopter hovered fifty yards away. Its rotor tossed up a circle of spray from the surrounding marsh.
"Go away," Mike rasped through his grinning teeth.
"My father loves to fish," the senior lieutenant said, manipulating the flight controls to Hover.
"Shit on the fish," the gunner snapped back. "I want to catch one of those. Look where that young bastard has his hand!"
They probably don't even know what's going on, he thought. Or if they know, they have sense enough not to do anything about it. Nice to see that some people are untouched by the madness that's sweeping the world . . . The pilot looked down at his fuel gauges.
"They look harmless enough. We're down to thirty minutes' fuel. Time to return."
The chopper settled at the tail, and for a terrible moment Edwards thought it might be landing. Then it pivoted in midair and moved to the southwest. One of the soldiers riding in the back waved at them. Vidgis waved back. They stood there as it fiew off. Their hands came down, and her left arm held his tight against her. Edwards had not realized that Vigdis didn't wear a bra. He was afraid to move his hand, afraid to appear to make an advance. Why had she done that? To help fool the Russians--to reassure him, or herself? That it had in fact worked seemed unimportant. The Marines were still concealed. They stood there quite alone, and his left hand seemed to burn as his mind stumbled over what he ought to do.
Vigdis acted for him. His hand slid away as she turned to him and buried her head against his shoulder. Here I am holding the prettiest girl I ever met in one hand, Edwards thought, and a Goddamned fish in the other. That was easily solved. Edwards dropped the fish, wrapped both arms around her, and held on tight.
"Are you all right?"
She looked up at his face. "I think yes."
There was only one word for what he felt toward the girl in his arms. Edwards knew this wasn't the time, and wasn't the place, but the look and the word remained. He kissed her gently on the cheek. The smile that answered him counted more than all the passionate encounters of his life.
"Excuse me, folks," Sergeant Smith said from a few feet away.
