by Tom Clancy
“Okay, copy that, Beagle. How is your situation?”
“We’re pretty well concealed, and the sarge has two escape routes scouted. We haven’t seen the Russians beat any bushes yet. Mostly they seem to be hanging in populated areas and on the roads. If they start heading this way, we’ll be bugging out.”
“Exactly right, Beagle. We will probably be ordering you off that hill soon anyway. You’re doing good, boy. Hang in there. Out.”
SCOTLAND
“The kid’s doing all right,” the major said. He was in an awkward position—an American officer in a NATO communications post run by Brit intelligence types who were evenly split on Edwards’s reliability.
“I’d say he’s doing bloody marvelously,” nodded the senior Brit. He’d lost an eye, quite some time ago by the look of it, but was still one tough-looking bastard, the major thought. “Notice how he discriminates between what his observations and opinions are.”
“Weather forecaster,” snorted another. “We must get some professionals in there. How quickly can we whistle some up?”
“Perhaps by tomorrow. The Navy wants to put them in by submarine, though, and I agree. A bit dicey for a parachute infiltration, you know. Iceland’s covered with rocks, the place is made to break ankles and legs. Then there’s the Soviet fighters. No hurry on putting troops there, is it? We’ve got to reduce their air assets first and generally make life as difficult for them as we can.”
“That starts tonight,” the major said. “Nordic Hammer Phase Two will hit around the local sunset time.”
“Hope it works better than Phase One did, old boy.”
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND
“So how are things going up here?” Toland asked his Royal Air Force counterpart. Right before boarding the flight he’d sent the telegram to Marty: I’M ALL RIGHT. ON THE BEACH FOR A WHILE. LOVE. He hoped that would reassure her. Probably the news of the carrier battle was already in the papers.
“Could be better. We’ve lost eight Tornados trying to assist the Norwegians. We’re about down to a bare minimum for local defense, and Ivan’s begun to attack our northern radar installations. Sorry about what happened to your aircraft carrier, but I must say we’re very happy indeed to have you chaps with us for a bit.”
Nimitz’s interceptors and radar birds were split among three RAF bases. The maintenance crews were still arriving by transport aircraft, and some hitch had developed with the missiles, but the F-14s each carried a full load for one engagement, and they could use RAF Sparrows to reload. Operating off a land base, the fighter could carry a larger load of fuel and ordnance, packing a heavier punch than off a ship. The fighter crews were in a foul humor. Having used their aircraft and precious missiles to kill drones, they had returned to the formation to see the fearful results of the mistake. The total loss of life was still uncertain, but scarcely two hundred men had escaped from Saipan, and only a thousand from Foch. In terms of casualties this had been the bloodiest defeat in the history of the United States Navy, with thousands of men gone and not a single kill to offset the losses. Only the French had scored against the Backfires, succeeding with twenty-year-old Crusaders where the vaunted Tomcats had failed.
Toland sat in on their first briefing, conducted by the RAF. The fighter pilots were absolutely silent. He had trouble gauging their mood. No jokes. No whispered remarks. No smiles. They knew that the error had not been theirs, that it was not their fault at all, but that didn’t seem to matter. They were shaken by what had happened to their ship.
As was he. Toland’s mind kept coming back to the image of the four-inch-thick flight deck steel bent into the sky like cellophane, a blackened cavern below it where the hangar deck used to be. The rows of bags—crewmen who had died aboard the world’s most powerful warship . . .
“Commander Toland?” An airman tapped him on the shoulder. “Would you come with me, please?” The two men walked to the operations room. Bob noted instantly that a new raid was being plotted. The operations officer, a flight lieutenant, motioned for Toland to join him.
“One regiment, perhaps less. One of your EP-3s is snooping up there and caught their radio chatter while they were refueling north of Iceland. They’ll be going for one of these convoys, we think.”
“You want the Tomcats to ambush them on the way home? The timing’s going to be tricky.”
“Extremely. Another complication. They will use Iceland as a navigational check and a secure assembly point. We know Ivan has fighters there, and now it’s reported that he has fighters operating from these two airfields on Iceland.”
“Is the source for this something called Beagle?”
“Ah, you’ve heard about that one. Yes.”
“What kind of fighters?”
“Twin tails, is what your chap reported. Could be MiG-25s, -29s, or -31s.”
“Fulcrums,” Toland said. “The others are interceptors. Didn’t the B-52s get a look at them?” The briefing he’d just left had gone over the Air Force mission against Keflavik. More good news to cheer the troops up.
“Evidently not a good one, and superficially they are quite similar. I agree they’re probably Fulcrums, and the sensible thing for Ivan to do is have the fighters establish a safe corridor for his bombers.”
“They might have to tank coming back . . . go for the tankers?”
“We’ve thought of that. But they have a million square miles of ocean to use.” The area on the chart was obvious. “The timing for that will be damned near impossible, but we think it would be worth the effort some time in the future. For the moment our primary concern is air defense. After that, we think Ivan may be planning an amphibious operation for Norway. If his surface fleet sorties, it’s our job to hammer it.”
USS PHARRIS
“Raid warning, skipper,” the executive officer said. “There’s about twenty-five Backfires downbound, target unknown.”
“Well, they won’t be going after the carrier group, not with twenty-five aircraft now that they’re under NATO fighter cover. Where are they now?”
“Probably over Iceland. Three to five hours off. We’re not the biggest convoy in range, but we are the most exposed.”
“On the other hand, if they go for all those independents out there, they can hunt undefended ships in open ocean. But I wouldn’t. Our ships are carrying war materiel . . .” The convoy had only five SAM-equipped ships. A ripe target.
GRAFARHOLT, ICELAND
“Contrails, Doghouse, we have contrails overhead, looks like twenty or so. Passing overhead right now.”
“Can you get an ID?”
“Negative. Large aircraft with no engines visible on the wings, but I can’t be sure of the type. They’re pretty high, heading south. Can’t gauge the speed, either—no sonic booms, though if they were busting Mach 1, we should have heard it by now.”
“Repeat your count,” Doghouse ordered.
“I count twenty-one sets of contrails, two-one sets, heading about one-eight-zero. All the fighters at Reykjavik lifted off and went north about thirty minutes before they passed overhead. They still haven’t landed back here yet, but we do not know where they are. The bombers do not appear to be escorted. Nothing else new to report.”
“Roger, Beagle. Let us know when the fighters land. Might be nice to get a feel for their cycle time. Out.” The major turned to his sergeant. “Get that one out on the printer right now. Confirm the one-regiment Backfire raid downbound, over Reykjavik right now, estimated course one-eight-zero. Possibly with fighter escort . . . yeah, better put that in, too.”
The NATO communications center was about the only thing working as planned. The communications satellites in their as-yet unreachable orbits over the equator were supplying information to units all over the world, and here in Scotland was one of the main “nodes,” military parlance for a high-tech telephone exchange.
USS PHARRIS
A good day for contrails, Morris saw. Just the right mixture of temperature and humidity at high altitud
e, it would cause condensation in the hot exhaust from aircraft engines. They could see the tracks of air traffic crossing the Atlantic. The big twenty-power binoculars usually kept on the bridge wings for surface lookout work had been moved to the flying bridge atop the forward superstructure, and his lookouts were using them to identify the aircraft. They were mainly looking for Bears, the Soviet search aircraft that scouted targets for the Backfires.
Everyone was tense, and no relief was in sight. The submarine threat was bad enough, but with the carrier group savaged the day before, the convoy was virtually naked to air attack. They were too far at sea for any hope of land-based fighter protection. Pharris had only the most rudimentary air defenses. She could barely protect herself and was of no use whatever to anyone else. The ships equipped with surface-to-air missiles were now assembling in line on the north side of the convoy, twenty miles south of the frigate, while Pharris continued her antisubmarine search. All the frigate could do was keep watch on her threat-warning instruments and radio any data developed. They were sure that Ivan would be using his own Big Bulge search radars aboard the Bears to locate and classify the target. The convoy commander’s plan was to use the SAM-ships as an additional row of targets, formed up just like the merchantmen. With luck, an especially curious Bear might mistake them for unarmed ships and be lured in for a visual search. A long shot, it was the only card they had to play . . .
“Contact! We have a Big Bulge radar bearing zero-zero-nine. Signal strength is low.”
“Miss us, you bastard,” the tactical action officer breathed.
“Not much chance of that,” Morris said. “Get the data to the escort commander.”
The Bear was on a southerly heading, using its radar only two minutes out of every ten as it approached the convoy. Soon another was detected slightly to the west. Plotting teams estimated their positions, and a report was sent via satellite to CINCLANTFLT in Norfolk with an urgent request for assistance. Norfolk receipted their message; ten minutes later they learned that no help was available.
Pharris manned her gun mount. The point-defense missile system and Gatling gun radar aft were switched to standby. Other radar was kept off. The radar operators in the combat information center sat nervously at their posts, fingering their switches while listening to the ESM reports and stealing an occasional look at the plot.
“Both of them probably have us now.”
Morris nodded. “Next come the Backfires.”
The captain thought of the battles he had studied at the naval academy—early in World War II, when the Japanese fleet had had air superiority, or when the Germans had used long-range Condors to circle convoys, radioing their positions to any interested party, and not a thing the Allies back then could do about. He’d never expected to be in the same fix. The same tactical situation repeating itself after forty years? It was absurd, Morris told himself. Absurd and terrifying.
“We have a visual sight on a Bear, just over the horizon at two-eight-zero,” the talker said.
“Director, use your optics to track the target aft,” the tactical action officer said at once. He looked over to Morris. “Maybe he’ll fly close enough for a shot.”
“Don’t light off any radars just yet. He might just wander into somebody’s missile envelope if he’s not careful.”
“No way he’ll be that dumb.”
“He will try to evaluate the convoy defenses,” Morris said quietly. “He can’t have them visually yet, not quite yet. Then for a while all he’ll be able to see is bumps with wakes behind them. Not easy to identify a ship from an airplane, mister. Let’s see just how curious this guy is . . .”
“Aircraft just changed course,” the talker reported. “Turning east toward us.”
“Air action starboard! Right standard rudder. All ahead full! Come to new course one-eight-zero,” Morris ordered immediately. He turned south to lure the Bear closer to the SAM ships. “Illuminate the target. Weapons free! Engage when he gets within range.”
Pharris heeled hard to the left as she changed course. Forward, the five-inch gun mount rotated clockwise as the ship brought her stern across the target bearing. As soon as the gun mount was unmasked, fire-control radars gave it a target solution, and the long-barrel gun elevated to thirty degrees and locked on the target. The point-defense missile mount on the fantail did the same.
“Target is at thirty thousand feet, range fifteen miles and closing.”
The escort commander still had not authorized a missile launch. Better to have Ivan shoot his missiles first, before he knew what lay in his path. Data from the carrier battle was already out to the fleet. The big Russian air-to-surface missiles were not especially hard targets to hit, since they ran straight for their targets, though you did have to react in a hurry: they were mighty fast. He figured that the Bear was still doing a target evaluation and did not yet know the strength of the escort force. The longer he was kept in the dark, the better, because the Backfires would not have much time to loiter this far from their bases. And if the Bear came in just a little closer . . .
“Commence firing!” the TAO shouted.
Pharris’s gun mount went to full-automatic mode, firing a round every two seconds. The Bear was barely within range of her gun, and there was scant chance of a kill, but it was time to give him something to worry about.
The first five rounds fell short, exploding harmlessly a mile from the Bear, but the next three came closer, one exploding only two hundred yards from his left wing. The Soviet pilot instinctively turned right to evade. That was a mistake. He didn’t know that the nearest row of “merchantmen” carried missiles.
Seconds later, two missiles launched and the Bear immediately dove to evade, a shower of chaff in her wake as she headed right for Pharris, which gave the frigate’s gun crew another chance to score a kill. They fired off twenty new rounds as the plane approached. Perhaps two were close enough to damage the bomber, but there was no visible result. The missiles came in next, tiny white darts trailing columns of gray smoke. One missed and detonated in the chaff cloud, but the second detonated a hundred yards away from the bomber. The warhead expanded explosively like a watchspring, breaking into thousands of fragments, and several ripped into the Bear’s port wing. The massive propjet lost power in one engine and suffered major wing damage before the pilot regained control just outside Pharris’s gun range. She headed off north, trailing smoke.
The other Bear remained discreetly out of everyone’s range. The raid commander had just learned a lesson that he’d pass on to his regimental intelligence officer.
“More radars coming on. Down Beats!” warned the ESM technician. “I count ten—count is increasing. Fourteen—eighteen!” the air-search radar operator sang out next.
“Radar contacts, bearing zero-three-four, range one-eight-zero miles. I count four targets, now five—six targets. Course two-one-zero, speed six hundred knots.”
“Here come the Backfires,” TAO said.
“Radar contact!” came the next call. “Vampire! Vampire! We have inbound missiles.”
Morris cringed inwardly. The escorts all switched on their radar transmitters. Missiles trained out on the incoming targets. But Pharris was not part of that game. Morris ordered his ship to flank speed, turning north to race away from the missiles’ probable target area.
“The Backfires are turning back. The Bear is holding position. We have some radio chatter. Now twenty-three inbound missiles. Bearing changing on all contacts,” TAO said. “They’re all headed for the convoy. Looks like we’re in the clear.”
Morris could hear the crew in the Combat Information Center take one deep collective breath. He watched the radar display with marginal relief. The missiles were streaking in from the northeast, and the SAMs were coming up to meet them. The convoy was again ordered to scatter, the merchantmen racing away from the center of the target. What followed had an eerie resemblance to an arcade game. Of the twenty-three Soviet-launched missiles, nine broke through the SAMs
and dove into the convoy. They hit seven merchantmen.
All seven were lost. Some disintegrated at once under the hammering impact of the thousand-kilogram warheads. The others lingered long enough for their crews to escape with their lives. The convoy had left the Delaware with thirty ships. Only twenty were left, and there was almost fifteen hundred miles of open ocean between them and Europe.
GRAFARHOLT, ICELAND
Two Backfires ran short of fuel and decided to land at Keflavik. Behind them was the damaged Bear. It circled Reykjavik waiting for the Backfires to clear the runway. Edwards reported it in as a propeller aircraft with a damaged engine. The sun was low over the northwestern horizon, and the Bear gleamed yellow against the cobalt-blue sky.
“Stay on the air, Beagle,” Doghouse ordered. Three minutes later, Edwards saw why.
This time there was no standoff jamming to warn the Soviets. Eight FB-111s swept in over the rocks, southwest from the island’s rocky center. They skimmed down the bottom of Selja Valley in elements of two, their green and gray camouflage making them almost invisible to the fighters circling overhead. The lead pair turned due west, with another pair half a mile behind it. The remaining four went south around Mt. Hus.
“Holy shit.” Smith saw them first, two fast-moving tail fins to the south. Just as Edwards found them, the lead aircraft popped up and launched a pair of TV-guided bombs. The wingman did the same, and both attackers turned north. The four bombs homed in on the transformer station below them, and all landed within the fence perimeter. As though a single switch had been thrown, every light in view went out. The second pair of Aardvarks roared low over Highway 1, blazing over the rooftops of Reykjavik to line up on their target. The leader lofted his own smart-bombs, and his wingman broke left for the airport tankfarm on the waterfront. Moments later, the control tower exploded, along with a hangar, and Rockeye cluster-bombs blew the fuel tanks apart. Caught by surprise, the Russian gun and missile crews fired too late.