by Tom Clancy
Another missile landed farther away, and then for a minute or so the sounds blended into a series of immense thunderclaps. Edwards was choking from the dust. It felt as though his chest would burst, and impulsively he bolted for the door to get fresh air.
He was greeted by a solid wall of heat. The Esso facility was a roaring mass of flames which had already engulfed the nearby photo lab and base thrift shop. More smoke rose from the enlisted housing area to the east. A half-dozen aircraft still on the flightline would never leave it, their wings snapped like toys from the blast of a missile that had exploded directly over the runway crossroads. A smashed E-3A Sentry burst into flames before his eyes. He turned to see that the control tower had been damaged, too, all its windows gone. Edwards ran that way, not thinking to take his jeep.
Two minutes later, he entered the tower breathlessly to find the crew all dead, torn apart by flying glass, the tiled floor covered with blood. Radio receivers were still making noise over desk-mounted speakers, but he couldn’t seem to find a working transmitter.
PENGUIN 8
“What the hell is that?” the Orion pilot said. He turned his aircraft violently to the left and increased power. They had been orbiting ten miles out from Keflavik, watching the smoke and flames rising from their home field, when four massive objects passed under them.
“It’s a—” the copilot breathed. “Where—”
The four Lebeds were moving at over forty knots, bouncing roughly over the four- to five-foot waves. About eighty feet long and thirty-five wide, each had a pair of ducted propellers atop, immediately forward of a tall,’aircraft-type rudder painted with the Soviet naval ensign, a red hammer and sickle over a blue stripe. They were already too close to shore for the Orion to use any of her weapons.
The pilot watched incredulously as he approached, and any doubts he had ended as a 30mm cannon fired at them. It missed wide, but the pilot jerked the Orion around to the west.
“Tacco, tell Keflavik ASW Ops they got company coming. Four armed hovercraft, type unknown, but Russian—and they gotta be carrying troops.”
“Flight,” the tactical coordinator reported back thirty seconds later. “Keflavik is off the air. ASW Ops Center is gone; the tower is gone, too. I’m trying to raise the Sentries. Maybe we can get a fighter or two.”
“Okay, but keep trying Keflavik. Get our radar lit off. We’ll see if we can find where they came from. Get our Harpoons lit off, too.”
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND
Edwards was surveying the damage through binoculars when he heard the message come in—and could not answer it. Now what do I do? He looked around and saw one useful thing, a Hammer Ace radio. He took the oversized backpack and ran down the steps. He had to find the Marine officers and warn them.
The hovercraft raced up Djupivogur Cove and came to land a minute later less than a mile from the airbase. The troopers gratefully noted the smoother ride as their craft spread out to line abreast, three hundred yards between them as they tore across the flat, rocky gorse toward the NATO air base.
“What in the hell—” a Marine corporal said. Like a dinosaur coming to the picnic, a massive object appeared on the horizon, apparently coming overland at high speed.
“You! Marine, get over here!” Edwards screamed. A jeep with three enlisted men stopped, then raced toward him. “Get me to your CO fast!”
“CO’s dead, sir,” the sergeant said. “CP took a hit, Lieutenant—fuckin’ gone!”
“Where’s the alternate?”
“Elementary school.”
“Go, I gotta let them know, we got bad guys coming in from the sea—shit! You got a radio.”
“Tried calling, sir, but no answer.” The sergeant turned south down International Highway. At least three missiles had landed here, judging by the smoke. All around, the small city that had been the Keflavik air base was a loose collection of smoking fires. A number of people in uniforms were running around, doing things that Edwards didn’t have time to guess at. Was anybody in charge?
The elementary school had also been hit. The third of the building still standing was a mass of flame.
“Sergeant, that radio work?”
“Yes, sir, but it ain’t tuned into the perimeter guards.”
“Well, fix it!”
“Right.” The sergeant dialed into a different frequency.
The Lebeds halted in two pairs, each a quarter mile from the perimeter. The bow door on each opened, and out rolled a pair of BMD infantry assault vehicles, followed by mortar crews who began at once to set up their weapons. The 73mm guns and missile launchers on the minitanks began to engage the Marine defensive positions as the reinforced company in each vehicle advanced slowly and skillfully, using their cover and taking advantage of their fire support. The assault force had been handpicked from units that had fought in Afghanistan. Every man had been under fire before. The Lebeds immediately turned crablike and sped back to sea to pick up yet more infantrymen. Already, elements of two elite airborne battalions were engaging a single company of Marines.
The frantic words on the platoon radio nets were all too clear. The base electrical supply was cut, and along with it the main radios. The Marine officers were dead, and there was no one to coordinate the defense. Edwards wondered if anyone really knew what the hell was going on. He decided that it probably didn’t matter.
“Sergeant, we gotta get the hell outa here!”
“You mean run away!”
“I mean get away and report what’s happened here. Looks like we lost this one, Sarge. Somebody’s gotta report in so they don’t send any more planes to land here. What’s the fastest way to Reykjavik?”
“Dammit, sir, there’s Marines out there—”
“You wanna be a Russian prisoner? We lost! I say we gotta report in and you’ll do what I Goddamned tell you, Sergeant, you got that!”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“How we fixed for weapons?”
On his own, a private ran to what was left of the school. A Marine was lying there facedown, a pool of red spreading from some invisible, fatal wound. The private came back with the man’s M-16, field pack, and ammo belt, handing the collection to Edwards.
“We all got one now, sir.”
“Let’s get the hell outa here.”
The sergeant threw the jeep into gear. “How we gonna report in?”
“Let me worry about that, okay?”
“You say so.” The sergeant turned the jeep completely around, back up International, toward the wrecked satellite antennae.
MV JULIUS FUCIK
“Aircraft sighted, port bow!” a lookout screamed. Kherov raised his binoculars to his eyes and swore softly. He saw what could only be missiles dangling from each wing of the multiengined aircraft.
PENGUIN 8
“Well, lookie what we got here,” the Orion’s pilot said quietly. “Our old friend, the Doctor Lykes. Combat, Flight, what else is around?”
“Nothin’, Flight, not another surface ship for over a hundred miles.” They had just completed a complete circuit of the horizon, scanning with their surface-search radar.
“And it’s for Goddamned sure those hovercraft didn’t come in off no submarine.” The pilot adjusted course to pass within two miles of the ship, with the sun behind the four-engine patrol aircraft. His copilot examined the ship through binoculars. On-board TV cameras operated by the weapons crew would provide even better close-up pictures. They saw a pair of helicopters warming up. Someone aboard the Fucik panicked and fired a hand-held SA-7 missile. It failed to lock onto the Orion and blazed off directly into the low sun.
MV JULIUS FUCIK
“Idiot!” Kherov growled. The smoke from the rocket motor didn’t even come close to the aircraft. “He’ll shoot at us now. All ahead flank! Helmsman, be alert!”
PENGUIN 8
“Okay,” the pilot said, turning away from the merchantman. “Tacco, we got a target for your Harpoons. Any luck with Keflavik?”
“Neg
ative, but Sentry One is relaying the data into Scotland. They say a bunch of missiles hit Keflavik, looks like the place is closed whether we keep it or not.”
The pilot cursed briefly. “Okay. We’ll blow this pirate right out of the water.”
“Roge, Flight,” the tactical coordinator replied. “Two minutes before we can launch the—damn! I got a red light on the portside Harpoon. The sucker won’t arm.”
“Well, play with the bastard!” the pilot growled. It didn’t work. In the haste to get off the ground, the missile’s control cables had not been fully attached by the weary ground crew.
“Okay, I got one working. Ready!”
“Shoot!”
The missile dropped clear of the wing and fell thirty feet before its engine ignited. Fucik’s weather deck was lined with paratroopers, many holding hand-launched SAMs and hoping to intercept the incoming ASM.
“Tacco, see if you can raise an F-15. Maybe they can rip this baby up with twenty-millimeters.”
“Doing that already. We got a pair of Eagles coming in, but they’re skosh fuel. One or two passes’ll be all they can manage.”
Forward, the pilot had binoculars to his eyes, watching the white-painted missile skimming the wavetops. “Go, baby, go...”
MV JULIUS FUCIK
“Rocket coming in, low on the horizon, portside.” At least we have good lookouts, Kherov thought. He estimated the distance to the horizon, and gave the missile a speed of a thousand kilometers per hour . . .
“Right hard rudder!” he screamed. The helmsman threw the wheel over as far as it would go and held it down.
“You cannot run from a missile, Kherov,” the General said quietly.
“I know this. Watch, my friend.”
The black-hulled vessel was turning radically to starboard. As she did so, the ship heeled in the opposite direction, the same way a car rolls away from a turn on a flat road, which artificially raised the waterline on the vulnerable portside.
Some enterprising officers aboard fired signal flares, hoping to decoy the missile away, but all the missile’s microchip brain cared about was the enormous blip that occupied the center of its radar seeker head. It noted that the ship’s heading was changing slightly, and altered its own course accordingly. Half a mile from the target, the Harpoon lurched upward from its ten-foot altitude in its programmed “pop-up” terminal maneuver. The troopers aboard the Fucik instantly fired an even dozen SAMs. Three locked onto the Harpoon’s engine exhaust plume, but were unable to turn rapidly enough to hit the incoming missile, and continued past it. The Harpoon tipped over and dove.
PENGUIN 8
“All right . . .” the pilot whispered. There was no stopping it now.
The missile struck the Fucik’s hull six feet above the waterline, slightly abaft the bridge. The warhead exploded at once, but the missile body kept moving forward, spreading two hundred pounds of jet fuel that fireballed into the lowest cargo deck. In an instant, the ship disappeared behind a wall of smoke. Three paratroopers, thrown off their feet by the impact, accidentally triggered their SAMs straight up.
“Tacco, your bird hit just fine. We got warhead detonation. Looks like . . .” The pilot’s eyes strained at his binoculars to assess the damage.
MV JULIUS FUCIK
“Rudder amidships!” Kherov had expected to be knocked from his feet, but the missile was a small one, and Julius Fucik still had thirty-five thousand tons of mass. He ran out to the bridge wing to survey the damage. As the ship returned to an even keel, the ragged hole in her side rose ten feet from the lapping waves. Smoke poured from the hole. There was fire aboard, but the ship should not flood from the blow, the captain judged. There was only one danger. Kherov rapidly gave orders to his damage-control teams, and the General sent one of his own officers to assist. A hundred of the paratroopers had been trained over the last ten days in shipboard firefighting. They would now put what they had learned to use.
PENGUIN 8
The Fucik emerged at twenty knots from the smoke, a fifteen-foot hole in the ship’s side. Smoke poured from the opening, but the pilot knew at once that the damage would not be fatal. He could see hundreds of men on the upper deck, some of them already running toward ladders to fight the fire below.
“Where are those fighters?” the pilot asked. The tactical coordinator didn’t answer. He switched his radio circuits.
“Penguin Eight, this is Cobra One. I got two birds. Our missiles are all gone, but we both got a full load of twenty-mike-mike. I can give you two passes, then we gotta bingo to Scotland.”
“That’s a roge, Cobra Lead. The target has some helos spooling up. Watch out for hand-held SAMs. I seen ’em fire about twenty of the bastards.”
“Roger that, Penguin. Any further word of Keflavik?”
“We’re gonna have to find a new home for a while.”
“Roger, copy. Okay, keep clear, we’re coming in from up-sun, on the deck.”
The Orion continued to orbit three miles out. Her pilot didn’t see the fighters until they started firing. The two Eagles were a few feet apart, perhaps twenty feet over the water as their noses sparkled with the flash from their 20mm rotary cannon.
MV JULIUS FUCIK
Nobody aboard saw them come in. A moment later, the water around the Fucik’s side turned to froth from short-falling rounds, then her main deck was hidden with dust. A sudden orange fireball announced the explosion of one of the Russian helicopters, and burning jet fuel splattered over the bridge, narrowly missing the General and captain.
“What was that?” Kherov gasped.
“American fighters. They came in very low. They must only have their cannon, else they’d have bombed us already. It is not over yet, my captain.”
The fighters split, passing left and right of the ship, which continued to move at twenty knots in a wide circle. No SAMs followed the Eagles away, and both turned, re-formed, and closed on the Fucik’s bow. The next target was the superstructure. A moment later, the freighter’s bridge was peppered with several hundred rounds. Every window was blown away, and most of the bridge crew killed, but the ship’s watertight integrity hadn’t been damaged a whit.
Kherov surveyed the carnage. His helmsman had been blown apart by a half-dozen exploding bullets and every man present on the bridge was dead. It took a second for him to overcome the shock and notice a crippling pain in his own abdomen, his dark jacket darkening further with blood.
“You are hit, Captain.” Only the General had had the instinct to duck behind something solid. He looked at the eight mutilated bodies in the pilothouse and wondered once again why he was so lucky.
“I must get the ship to port. Go aft. Tell the first officer to continue landing operations. You, Comrade General, supervise the fires topside. We must get my ship to port.”
“I will send you help.” The General ran out the door as Kherov went to the wheel.
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND
“Stop, hold it right here!” Edwards screamed.
“What now, Lieutenant?” the sergeant demanded. He stopped the jeep by the BOQ parking lot.
“Let’s get my car. This jeep’s too friggin’ conspicuous.” The lieutenant jumped out of the jeep, pulling his car keys from his pants pocket. The Marines just looked at each other for a moment before running after him.
His car was a ten-year-old Volvo that he’d purchased from a departing officer a few months before. It had seen rugged service on Iceland’s mainly unpaved roads, and it showed. “Well, get in!”
“Sir, what the hell are we doing, exactly?”
“Look, Sarge, we gotta clear the area. What if Ivan’s got helicopters? What do you suppose a jeep looks like from the air?”
“Oh, okay.” The sergeant nodded. “But what are we doing, sir?”
“We’ll drive at least as far as Hafnarfjördur, ditch the car, and start walking back into the boonies. Soon as we get to a safe place, we’ll radio in. That’s a satellite radio I got. We have to let Washington know what
’s happening here. That means we gotta be able to see what Ivan’s got coming in. Our people are gonna at least try to take this rock back. Our mission, Sergeant, is to stay alive, report in, and maybe make that easier.” Edwards hadn’t thought this out until a few moments before he said it. Would they try to take Iceland back? Would they be able to try? What else was going wrong all over the friggin’ world? Did any of this make sense? He decided it didn’t have to make sense. One thing at a time, he told himself. He for damned sure didn’t want to be a prisoner of the Russians, and maybe if they could radio some information in they could get even for what had happened to Keflavik.
Edwards started up the car and drove east up Highway 41. Where to ditch the car? There was a shopping center at Hafnarfjördur . . . and Iceland’s only Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. What better place to ditch a car than that? The young lieutenant smiled in spite of himself. They were alive, and they had the most dangerous weapon known to man—a radio. He’d work out the problems as they arose. His mission, he decided, was to stay alive and report in. After they did that, someone else could tell them what to do. One thing at a time, he repeated to himself, and pray to God somebody knows what the hell is going on . . .