by Tom Clancy
“Depth nine-zero feet, sir. It’ll be very hard to hold.”
“Maneuvering, give me turns for five knots. Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, come to new heading zero-three-eight.”
“Right fifteen degrees rudder, aye, coming to new heading zero-three-eight,” the helmsman acknowledged. “Sir, my rudder is right fifteen degrees.”
“Very well.” Mancuso watched the gyrocompass click around to the northeasterly course. It took five minutes to get out from under the ice. The Captain ordered periscope depth. Another minute.
“Up ’scope!” Mancuso said next. A quartermaster twisted the control wheel, and the Captain met the rising instrument as the eyepiece cleared the deck. “Hold!”
The periscope stopped a foot below the surface. Mancuso looked for shadows and possible ice, but saw nothing. “Up two feet.” He was on his knees now. “Two more and hold.”
He used the slender attack periscope, not the larger search one. The search periscope had better light-gathering capacity, but he didn’t want to risk the larger radar cross-section, and the submarine for the past twelve hours had been using red internal lights only. It made the food look odd, but it also gave everyone better night vision. He made a slow sweep of the horizon. There was nothing to be seen but drifting ice on the surface.
“Clear,” he announced. “All clear. Raise the ESM.” There was the hiss of hydraulics as the electronic-sensor mast went up. The thin reed of fiberglass was only half an inch wide, and nearly invisible on radar. “Down ’scope.”
“I got that one surface-surveillance radar, bearing zero-three-eight,” the ESM technician announced, giving frequency and pulse characteristics. “Signal is weak.”
“Here we go, people.” Mancuso lifted a phone to the bridge tube. “You ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Clark replied.
“Stand by. Good luck.” The Captain replaced the phone and turned. “Put her on the roof and stand by to take her down fast.”
It took a total of four minutes. The top of Dallas’ black sail broached the surface, pointing directly at the nearest Soviet radar to minimize its radar cross-section. It was more than tricky to hold depth.
“Clark, go!”
“Right.”
With all the drifting ice on the water, the screen for that radar should be heavily cluttered, Mancuso thought. He watched the indicator light for the hatch change from a dash, meaning closed, to a circle, meaning open.
The bridge trunk ended on a platform a few feet below the bridge itself. Clark wrenched open the hatch and climbed up. Next he hauled out his raft with the help of the seaman below on the ladder. Alone now in the submarine’s tiny bridge—the control station atop the sail—he set the thing athwart the top of the sail and pulled the rope that inflated it. The high-pitched rasp of the rushing air seemed to scream into the night, and Clark winced to hear it. As soon as the rubberized fabric became taut, he called to the sailor to close the trunk hatch, then grabbed the bridge phone.
“All ready here. The hatch is closed. See you in a couple of hours.”
“Right. Good luck,” Mancuso said again.
Aloft, Clark climbed smoothly into the raft as the submarine sank beneath him, and started the electric motor. Below, the bottom hatch of the bridge tube was opened only long enough for the sailor to leap down, then he and the Captain levered it shut.
“Straight board shut, we are rigged for dive,” the Cob reported when the last indicator light changed back to a dash.
“That’s it,” Mancuso noted. “Mr. Goodman, you have the conn, and you know what to do.”
“I have the conn,” the OOD replied as the Captain went forward to the sonar room. Lieutenant Goodman immediately dived the boat, heading her for the bottom.
It was like old times, Mancuso thought, with Jones as lead sonarman. The submarine came right, pointing her bow-mounted sonar array at the path that Clark was taking. Ramius arrived a minute later to observe.
“How come you didn’t want to use the ’scope?” Mancuso asked.
“A hard thing to see one’s home and know that one cannot—”
“There he goes.” Jones tapped his finger on the video display. “Doing turns for eighteen knots. Pretty quiet for an outboard. Electric, eh?”
“Right.”
“I sure hope he’s got good batteries, skipper.”
“Rotating-anode lithium. I asked.”
“Cute.” Jones grunted. He tapped a cigarette out of his pack and offered one to the Captain, who forgot for the moment that he’d quit, again. Jones lit it and took on a contemplative expression.
“You know, sir, now I remember why I retired ...” His voice trailed off as Jonesy watched the sonar trail stretch off in the distance. Aft, the fire-control party updated the range, just to have something to do. Jones craned his neck and listened. Dallas was about as quiet as she ever got, and the tension filled the air far more thickly than cigarette smoke ever could.
Clark lay nearly flat in the boat. Made of rubberized nylon, its color scheme was green and gray stripes, not very different from the sea. They’d thought of some white patches because of the ice to be found in the area in winter, but then it was realized that the channel here was always tended by an ice-breaker, and a rapidly moving white spot on a dark surface might not be a terribly good idea. Mainly Clark was concerned about radar. The submarine’s sail might not have been picked up through all the clutter, but if the Russian radar sets had a moving-target-indicator setting, the simple computer that monitored the returning signals might well lock in on something traveling at twenty miles per hour. The boat itself was only a foot out of the water, the motor a foot higher than that and coated with radar-absorbing material. Clark kept his head level with the motor and wondered again if the half-dozen metal fragments that decorated his anatomy were large enough to be seen. He knew that this was irrational—they didn’t even set off an airport metal-detector-but lonely men in dangerous places tended to develop unusually active minds. It was better, really, to be stupid, he told himself. Intelligence only allowed you to realize how dangerous things like this were. After such missions were over, after the shakes went away, after the hot shower, you could bask in the glow of how brave and clever you were, but not now. Now it just seemed dangerous, not to say crazy, to be doing something like this.
The coastline was clearly visible, a clean series of dots that covered the visible horizon. It seemed ordinary enough, but it was enemy territory. That knowledge was far more chilling than the clean night air.
At least the seas were calm, he told himself. Actually a few feet of chop would have made for more favorable radar conditions, but the smooth, oily surface made for speed, and speed always made him feel better. He looked aft. The boat didn’t make much of a wake, and he’d reduce it further by slowing when he got close to the harbor.
Patience, he told himself uselessly. He hated the idea of patience. Who likes to wait for anything? Clark asked himself. If it has to happen, let it happen and be done with it. That wasn’t the safe way, rushing into things, but at least when you were up and moving, you were doing something. But when he taught people how to do this sort of thing, which was his normal occupation, he always told them to be patient. You friggin’ hypocrite! he observed silently.
The harbor buoys told him the distance from the coast. He cut his speed to ten knots, then to five, and finally to three. The electric motor made a barely audible hum. Clark turned the handle and steered the boat to a ramshackle pier. It had to have been an old one; its piles had been splintered and abraded by the harbor ice of many winters. Ever so slowly, he pulled out a low-light ’scope and examined the area. There was no movement he could see. He could hear things now, mainly traffic sounds that carried across the water to him, along with some music. It was Friday night, after all, and even in the Soviet Union there were parties going on at restaurants. People were dancing. In fact his plan depended on the presence of nightlife here—Estonia is livelier than most of the country—
but the pier was derelict, as his briefers said it would be. He moved in, tying the boat off to a piling with considerable care—if it drifted away, he’d have real problems. Next to the pile was a ladder. Clark slipped out of his coverall and climbed up, pistol in hand. For the first time he noted the harbor smell. It was little different from its American equivalent, heavy with bilge oil and decorated with rotting wood from the piers. To the north, a dozen or so fishing boats were tied to another pier. To the south was yet another, that one piled up with lumber. So the harbor was being rebuilt. That explained the condition of this one, Clark thought. He checked his watch—it was a battered Russian “Pitot”—and looked around for a place to wait. Forty minutes until he had to move. He’d allowed for choppier seas for his trip in, and all the calm had really done for him was to give him the additional time to meditate on how much a lunatic he was for taking on another of these extraction jobs.
Boris Filipovich Morozov walked outside the barracks where he still lived, staring upward. The lights at Bright Star made the sky into a feathery dome of descending flakes. He loved moments like this.
“Who’s there?” a voice asked. It had authority in it.
“Morozov,” the young engineer answered as the figure came into the light. He saw the wide-brimmed hat of a senior Army officer.
“Good evening, Comrade Engineer. You’re on the mirror-control team, aren’t you?” Bondarenko asked.
“Have we met?”
“No.” The Colonel shook his head. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel.”
Bondarenko gestured at the sky. “Beautiful, isn’t it? I suppose that’s one consolation for being at the far end of nothing.”
“No, Comrade Colonel, we are at the leading edge of something very important,” Morozov pointed out.
“That is good for me to hear! Do all of your team feel that way?”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel. I asked to come here.”
“Oh? And how did you know of this place?” the Colonel wondered.
“I was here last fall with the Komsomol. We assisted the civil engineers in the blasting, and siting the mirror-pillars. I was a graduate student in lasers, and I guessed what Bright Star was. I did not tell anyone, of course,” Morozov added. “But I knew this was the place for me.”
Bondarenko regarded the youngster with visible approval. “How goes the work?”
“I had hoped to join the laser team, but my section chief press-ganged me into joining his group.” Morozov laughed.
“You are unhappy with this?”
“No—no, please excuse me. You misunderstand. I didn’t know how important the mirror group was. I’ve learned. Now we’re trying to adapt the mirror systems to more precise computer control—I may soon be an assistant section leader,” Morozov said proudly. “I am also familiar with computer systems, you see.”
“Who’s your section chief—Govorov, isn’t it?”
“Correct. A brilliant field engineer, if I may say so. May I ask a question?”
“Certainly.”
“It is said that you—you’re the new Army colonel they’ve been talking about, correct? They say that you may be the new deputy project officer.”
“There may be some substance to those rumors,” Bondarenko allowed.
“Then may I make a suggestion, Comrade?” Morozov asked.
“Certainly.”
“There are many single men here ...”
“And not enough single women?”
“There is a need for laboratory assistants.”
“Your observation is noted, Comrade Engineer,” Bondarenko replied with a chuckle. “We also plan a new apartment block to relieve the crowding. How are the barracks?”
“The atmosphere is comradely. The astronomy and chess clubs are very active.”
“Ah. It has been time since I played chess seriously. How tough is the competition?” the Colonel asked.
The younger man laughed. “Murderous—even savage.”
Five thousand meters away, the Archer blessed his God’s name. Snow was falling, and the flakes gave the air the magical quality so beloved by poets ... and soldiers. You could hear—you could feel the hushed silence as the snow absorbed all sound. All around them, as far up and down as they could see, was the curtain of white that cut visibility to under two hundred meters. He assembled his subunit commanders and began organizing the assault. They moved out in a few minutes. They were in tactical formation. The Archer was with the lead section of the first company, while his second-in-command stayed with the other.
The footing was surprisingly good. The Russians had dumped the spoil from their blasting all over the area, and even though coated with snow, the rock chips were not slippery. This was well, since their path took them perilously close to a sheer wall at least a hundred meters high. Navigating was difficult. The Archer was going from memory, but he’d spent hours examining the objective and knew every curve of the mountain—or so he’d thought. The doubts came now, as they always did, and it took all his concentration to keep his mind on the mission. He had mapped out a dozen checkpoints in his memory before setting out. A boulder here, a dip there, this the place where the path turned to the left, and that one where it went to the right. At first progress seemed maddeningly slow, but the closer they came to the objective, the more rapid became the pace. They were guided at all times by the glow of the lights. How confident the Russians were, to have lights here, he thought. There was even a moving vehicle, a bus, by the sound of it, with its headlights lit. The small, moving points of light shone through the enveloping white cloud. Within the larger bubble of light, those on guard duty would be at a disadvantage now. Ordinarily the outwardly aimed spotlights would serve to dazzle and blind an intruder, but now the reverse was true. Little of their glow penetrated the snow, and much was reflected back, ruining the night vision of the armed troops. Finally the lead party reached the last checkpoint. The Archer deployed his men and waited for the rest to catch up. It took half an hour. His men were grouped in knots of three or four, and the mudjaheddin took the time to drink some water and commit their souls to Allah, preparing both for the battle and for its possible aftermath. Theirs was the warrior’s creed. Their enemy was also the enemy of their God. Whatever they did to the people who had offended Allah would be forgiven them, and every one of the Archer’s men reminded himself of friends and family who had died at Russian hands.
“This is amazing,” the Major whispered as he arrived.
“Allah is with us, my friend,” the Archer replied.
“He must be.” They were now only five hundred meters from the site, and still unseen. We might actually survive ...
“How much closer can we—”
“One hundred meters. The low-light equipment they have will penetrate snow to about four hundred. The nearest tower is six hundred meters that way.” He pointed unnecessarily. The Archer knew exactly where it was, and the next one, two hundred meters farther down.
The Major checked his watch and thought for a moment.
“The guard will change in another hour if they follow the same pattern here as in Kabul. Those on duty will be tired and cold, and the relief troops aren’t yet awake. This is the time.”
“Good luck,” the Archer said simply. Both men embraced.
“ ‘ “Why should we refuse to fight for the cause of Allah, when we and our children have been driven from our dwellings?” ’ ”
“ ‘When they met Goliath and his warriors they cried: “Lord fill our hearts with steadfastness. Make us firm of foot and help us against the unbelievers.” ’ ”
The quote was from the Koran, and neither man thought it strange that the passage actually referred to the Israelites’ battle against the Philistines. David and Saul were known to the Muslims, too, as was their cause. The Major smiled one last time before running off to join his men.
The Archer turned and waved to his missile team. Two of them shouldered their Stingers and followed the
leader as he continued his way across the mountain. One more knoll and they were looking down at the guard towers. He was surprised that he could actually see three of them from here, and a third missile was brought out. The Archer gave his instructions and left them to rejoin the main body. On the knoll, the target-acquisition units sang their deadly song to each missileer. The guard towers were heated—and the Stinger searches only for heat.
Next the Archer ordered his mortar team in close—closer than he would have preferred, but the miserable visibility was not entirely on the side of the mudjaheddin. He watched the Major’s company slide down to the left, disappearing into the snow. They would assault the laser test facility itself, while he and his eighty men went for the place where most of the people lived. Now it was their turn. The Archer led them forward as far as he dared, just to the edge of where the floodlights penetrated the snow. He was rewarded with the sight of a sentry, bundled up for the cold, his breath left behind in a series of small white clouds that drifted in the wind. Ten more minutes. The Archer pulled out his radio. They had only four of them, and hadn’t dared to use them until now for fear of being detected by the Russians.
We should never have gotten rid of the dogs, Bondarenko told himself. First thing I do when I get settled here, get the dogs back. He was walking around the camp, enjoying the cold and the snow and using the quiet atmosphere to order his thoughts. There were things that needed changing here. They needed a real soldier. General Pokryshkin was too confident in the security scheme, and the KGB troops were too lazy. For example, they did not have night patrols out. Too dangerous on this terrain, their commander said, our day patrols will detect anyone who tries to get close, the guard towers have low-light scanners, and the rest of the site is floodlit. But low-light devices had their effectiveness cut eighty percent by this sort of weather. What if there was a group of Afghans out there right now? he wondered. First thing, Bondarenko told himself, I’ll call Colonel Nikolayev at Spetznaz headquarters, and I’ll lead a practice assault on this place to show those KGB idiots how vulnerable they are. He looked up the hill. There was a KGB sentry, flapping his arms to keep warm, rifle slung over his shoulder—it would take him four seconds to get it unslung, aimed, and taken off safety. Four seconds, for the last three of which he’d be dead if there were anyone competent out there right now ... Well, he told himself, the assistant commander of any post is supposed to be a ruthless son of a bitch, and if those chekisti want to play at soldiers they’ll damned well have to act like soldiers. The Colonel turned to walk back to the apartment block.