by Bart Gauvin
Kristen’s blue Nordic eyes flashed with irritation. She had spent the previous two days crafting and faxing a position paper for Norway’s representative to the NAC, only to see her minister decide that they should do nothing that would endanger the upcoming Olympics. The meeting in Brussels had ended with a decision to defer any action until the next day to allow the situation in Poland to develop. The chief of staff was opening her mouth to respond when the desk phone rang again.
The foreign minister picked up the receiver, clearly thankful for the reprieve from having to answer the tough questions posed by his senior staffer. “Foreign Minister,” he said, “yes, hello Jӧrgen.” The defense minister, Kristen knew.
Kristen could not hear the other end of the conversation, but watched as her boss tensed almost immediately. Kristen knew that the Defense Ministry was taking things seriously. Her counterpart had called Kristen a few minutes ago from the Akershus Fortress to assure her that the King and Crown Prince, who had both been present in Lillehammer to open the Games, were safely under escort of the army’s Hans Majestet Kongens Garde, the Royal Guard. They were returning the King to the palace here in Oslo, and the Crown Prince to his post with 21 Missile Torpedo Boat Squadron in Bergen, where he was serving as a newly commissioned ensign.
“No. No,” the minister was shaking his head as though the receiver could communicate that for him. “I will not,” he continued testily.
Kristen barely listened to the minister’s one-sided conversation, her thoughts drifted. She realized that Norway, along with Turkey, were the only NATO countries that shared a direct border with the Soviet Union.
“Thank you Jӧrgen, goodbye.” The minister returned the phone to its cradle with a click that brought Kristen back to the situation, now, in this room.
“That was Defense,” the foreign minister told Kristen. “He wanted me to convince the prime minister to allow him to begin a full mobilization. Can you imagine how that would look in the news tomorrow? We cancel our country’s first Olympics and then the next day call up the Home Guard?” He was shaking his head.
“Well,” Kristen countered wearily, “I suppose it would be less embarrassing than having our army caught unprepared for an invasion. Where are the Soviet athletes? We know many of them are military officers, and there are more than a hundred of them unaccounted for in our country right now while the Soviets mobilize their own forces.”
The minister leaned back in his seat and shook his head angrily, saying, “Miss Hagen, you speak as if there is going to be a war. I understand your concern, but in my judgment, such an event is out if the question. President Medvedev is simply flexing his muscles in Poland to try and distract his people from their wretched economic conditions, nothing more.”
“What if you’re wrong, sir?” Kristen asked.
Her chief smiled, tiring now. “I am not.” Then after pause, “You have been working long hours these past few days, Miss Hagen. Get me the number for the IOC so I can call and inform them of our decision. Then go home. Get some sleep. We can deal with the rest tomorrow. I wish I could say ‘enjoy the Games’ but…”
Kristen suddenly realized that she was tired. She nodded and even feigned a half-hearted smile at the minister’s attempt at humor. She gathered her notes, handed over the card of the IOC president, and left. Maybe fatigue is affecting my judgment, making me tense and more fearful. She shook her head, Still, it’s all very concerning. As Kristen walked down the hall and collected her coat and hat, she couldn’t help remembering that her mother, father, and sister lived far to the north, just a few kilometers from the Soviet border. She was not particularly well-versed in military affairs, but couldn’t imagine that her hometown would not be a target for any potential Soviet invasion. She left the historic nineteenth century Victoria Terrasse to catch a trolley for her apartment, and she tried to put the thoughts out of her mind.
CHAPTER 31
2200 CET, Saturday 12 Feb 1994
2100 Zulu
2nd Mechanized Battalion, Skjold, Troms, Norway
RITTMESTER ERIK JOHANSEN strode out the door of his spartan office into organized chaos in the warm open bay that housed his command. Rittmester, meaning “master of the horse,” was a unique captain-equivalent rank in the Norwegian Army, held by officers who commanded a formation of cavalry. In this case, Johansen’s command constituted the reconnaissance cavalry squadron of the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the Norwegian Army’s Brigade Nord, the regular formation tasked with the defense of Northern Norway. The rittmester title was a bit of a misnomer in this modern age. The cavalry soldiers’ mounts were M113 armored personnel carriers and Mercedes G-Wagons rather than horses. Even so, Johansen savored the dash and history of his position. His short, powerful frame, thick but short-cropped blond hair, and dashing good looks would have looked impressive on a cavalry horse a century ago. Pausing, the rittmester surveyed the busy scene before him in his squadron’s work bay.
Soldiers stood in a long file in front of the weapons cage, where the arms room sergeant dispensed personal weapons with his usual reticence under the watchful eyes of one of the squadron’s løytnant troop leaders. Each soldier, or dragon in the Norwegian cavalry, accepted his gun-metal gray G3 rifle, a Minimi light machine gun or MG3 medium machine gun, and then moved over to another cage where a corporal handed over boxes of ammunition, belts of machine gun cartridges, and grenades. The dragons filed past the ammunition issue and over to tables where another corporal supervised them loading the shining brass rounds into magazines, ensuring they loaded a tracer as the third to last round to alert the shooter that it was almost time to reload.
Elsewhere, crews were assembling their venerable M2 Browning heavy machine guns, screwing the meter-long barrels into receivers and using their specialized gauges to check the weapon’s headspace and timing. Nearer to Johansen, other sergeants were moving among the rows of packs, skis, and snowshoes, meticulously pulling and prodding at the rucksacks lined up in the middle of the floodlit bay, ensuring each was packed according to unit standards. All except the newest draftees had practiced such alerts before, some several times. Even so, a no-notice deployment like this, in the dead of winter, when the soldiers had been expecting to sit back over the weekend watching the Olympics, seemed spiteful. Johansen felt a cold wind blow in as the bay’s door opened, allowing a detail of dragons to carry several bundled tents out to the squadron’s waiting vehicles.
The rittmester turned as his tall executive officer, Løytnant Sigurd Berg, approached with a clipboard and a bemused look on his face.
“So, sir, Brigade was so upset about the opening ceremonies being messed up that they called a full alert, eh?” he asked with a wry grin.
“Something like that,” Johansen responded, less amused than his subordinate. He liked Berg, liked that he was more jovial than the typical Norwegian. The young officer was popular with the men, and competent to boot, all a commander could ask for in a company lieutenant. He just needs to learn when to keep that humor in check. “We’re headed up to Banak.”
“Banak?” the løytnant asked, surprised. “What for?”
Although not always practiced, Banak was the normal place for the squadron to assemble in such a situation. In the event of a war with the Soviets, the overall strategy called for Brigade Nord to conduct a delaying action in Finnmark, giving time for NATO reinforcements to establish a strong defense in the mountainous Lyngen position, where the Lyngenfjӧrd and the Swedish border forced an invader to attack on a narrow, difficult front.
“Somebody up at Brigade is worried that the Russians may try something, and they want us up there to make them think twice. That, and we will be there to screen if the rest of the Brigade moves forward, just like we’ve rehearsed.”
Johansen knew what Berg was thinking by the look on the younger man’s face: What on earth does command think the Russians are going to try this time of year? Lik
e the rest of Norway, the løytnant had probably been looking forward to an easy Sunday watching the Games, hoping that this alert would be over by morning. So much for that, thought Johansen.
“It’s the wrong time of year for a war, isn’t it?” Berg said, impertinent as usual.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” responded the squadron commander without a hint of humor, “but regardless, we’re going. There’s a Hercules waiting at Bardufoss to fly most of us up to Banak. I’ll be on that plane with the troop leaders and most of the men. You will road march the vehicles up the E6 and meet us there tomorrow.” Now it was Johansen’s turn to grin as Berg sighed. A road move, the bane of any XO’s existence.
“Don’t look so down, Sigurd. It will be a beautiful drive along the fjӧrds, so long as you can keep the tracks on the road.” teased the commander. Then he turned serious and said, “We’re on a short timeline. The Hercules leaves from Bardufoss in four hours. The sergeant major is arranging the busses to get the men there. I’ll be flying to Bardufoss in a helicopter in thirty minutes to get a full briefing from brigade. You’ll need to depart here with the vehicles by twenty-three hundred so you can meet us at Banak. If the weather holds, and there aren’t too many break-downs, you should make it to Banak by noon tomorrow. We’ve done this before, several times. You know the way. Gather up the officers and troop sergeants in the ready room. I want to give the warning order brief in five minutes.”
“Yes sir,” Berg saluted, turning on his heel.
Thirty minutes later, Johansen was bracing himself against the arctic night and the downdraft thrown by the descending Lynx helicopter. The bird’s green and red landing lights were approaching out of the darkness onto the Skjӧld garrison’s parade field fifty meters away. Despite his light-hearted tone with Berg earlier, the twenty-nine-year-old rittmester was concerned. The chaos down at the Olympics, his squadron’s no-notice deployment to Banak, and now the uneasy tone coming down from the 2nd Battalion’s commander and staff gave the young officer a sense of foreboding. This can’t be the real thing, can it? he thought.
Standing next to Johansen was Major Laub, the 2nd Battalion’s operations officer, who would be accompanying him on the flight to Brigade Nord’s headquarters in Bardufoss. As both men turned away from the flying ice crystals thrown by the downdraft, Johansen saw the same look of concern on the major’s face. Laub had come to the squadron’s bay just as Johansen was finishing his orders brief. The major informed Erik that 2nd Battalion was attaching a battery of Bofors anti-aircraft guns to their road party, as well as an anti-tank section and a section of pioneers.
Johansen had watched as Berg tallied up the new vehicles and concluded that the size of his convoy had just ballooned from a dozen vehicles to nearly twice that number. Making it on schedule is going to be difficult with all these hangers-on, thought Johansen.
Berg, a relatively big man even for a Norwegian, was clearly thinking the same thing as he let out a forlorn sigh before reining in his emotions. Straight line distance to Banak was 250 kilometers, but the road distance was more than twice that, and there was no guarantee that the roads would be free of snow this time of year.
Brigade was flying people from the service battalion to petrol stations along the route to provide refueling support to the squadron, but Johansen didn’t envy his executive officer the trip, especially now that it was complicated by vehicles from three other companies. On the other hand, the attachments significantly increased the firepower of Johansen’s reconnaissance squadron. As he and Laub left the bay for the parade field, Berg walked out right behind them with the squadron’s vehicle crews. He was en route to the vehicle park to link up with the rest of his expanded column.
A gray-painted Coast Guard helicopter from 337 Squadron, the “Lynxes,” settled onto the flat, snowy parade ground amidst a cloud of ice crystals. The crew inside slid the passenger doors open as Johansen and Laub ran forward, bent low beneath the still spinning rotors. They climbed into the aircraft and settled into mesh seats. The crew chief scrambled back to help buckle the two officers’ five-point harnesses while another crewman slid the doors closed against the frigid swirling air. Johansen, wearing his white parka and snow pants, fumbled with his harness as he tried to help the crew chief. This normally would have drawn a sour comment from the taciturn Laub, but tonight the major was looking straight ahead, obviously concerned.
The crew chief finished buckling Johansen in, then leaned forward into the cockpit with a thumbs-up. Immediately the helicopter lifted off and tilted forward. As the pilot banked to the left to fly back down the glacial valley that led from Skjӧld to Bardufoss, Johansen caught a glimpse out the side window of his soldiers in the blue darkness. They filed out the yellow-lit door of the squadron bay and onto a pair of waiting busses. For them it would be an hour drive in the dark over icy roads to get to Bardufoss. Most of the soldiers would sleep for the entire trip, he knew. For Johansen, the journey was a ten-minute flight, with most of his planning and work still ahead of him at the airfield. The young commander sat back in his seat as the helicopter settled into a westward course down the valley, with dark mountains rising high above the aircraft to either side. It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 32
1643 EST, Saturday 12 Feb 1994
2143 Zulu
2nd Fleet Headquarters, Building W-5, Norfolk Naval Station, Virginia, USA
IT TOOK ONLY half a ring before the receiver was snatched up: “Admiral Falkner,” the US 2nd Fleet’s commander answered into the secure telephone on his desk.
“Art?” the admiral heard through the slight static of the secure connection, “this is SACLANT.” Falkner was surprised that that the commander of the US Atlantic Fleet was using his official NATO title. That can only mean trouble.
“Sir,” Falkner said to his old Academy classmate, “what can I do for you this afternoon?” The admiral had spent a long Saturday at the headquarters, watching increasingly troubling reports of Soviet military activity trickle in through his intelligence staff. He had already drawn his own conclusions about what it all meant. Given his deductions, Falkner had been anticipating, even hoping for this call.
“We’re going to DEFCON Four,” SACLANT announced curtly.
Falkner paused, gathering himself before responding, “Only DEFCON Four, sir?” He had been hoping for a higher level of alert given how fast the situation was developing.
“Look, Art,” Falkner’s superior explained, “the State Department wants time to pursue diplomacy before we start throwing our military weight around. They’ve convinced the president that anything more drastic could be viewed as a provocation by the Soviets right now.”
“Provocation?” Falkner said, keeping his tone in check but pressing his point, “Frank, if this ends up being the ‘bolt from the blue’ Soviet offensive it’s beginning to look like, we need to get moving as fast as we can to counter it. Our assets are completely out of position, just like I warned you they would be.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” his boss agreed, “but—” There was a pause from the other end of the line as Falkner heard the muffled sound of someone speaking in the background. Then the man’s voice was back. “Art, lots going on up here at the Pentagon right now. We’ll be pushing out the official DEFCON Four warning in the next few minutes, but I’m telling you now, get the word out to your command, fast.”
“Roger, sir,” Falkner acknowledged, then added, “thanks, Frank.”
“Thank you, Art. I’ll keep you updated.” The line clicked off.
Immediately Falkner rose from behind his desk and walked out into his office’s foyer. His flag lieutenant was there, faithfully working behind his own smaller desk.
“Ben,” he addressed the young officer, “tell Admiral Forrest to get a message out. All hands. We’re adopting DEFCON Four. I want every ship and station to take whatever measures they deem neces
sary to strengthen the security of their commands. And I want them reporting anything, anything they can give us on Soviet naval movements. Clear?”
“Aye, sir,” the lieutenant said, rising from behind his desk. He quickly added, “Is there going to be a war, sir?”
“God, I hope not, Ben,” Falkner said wearily. Then his fatherly tone hardened into something more menacing, though his voice remained soft, “If there is, we’re going to kick those red bastards all the way back to Moscow before we’re done.”
CHAPTER 33
2300 CET, Saturday 12 Feb 1994
2200 Zulu
Headquarters, Brigade Nord, Bardufoss, Troms, Norway
RITTMESTER JOHANSEN, ACCOMPANIED by Laub, was taken aback by the number of high-ranking officers present around the conference table in the Bardufoss Air Base’s headquarters building. He recognized Brigade Nord’s G3, the lieutenant colonel responsible for the Brigade’s operations, as well as the Brigade’s chief intelligence officer, the chief of artillery operations, and the chief of staff. He also noticed several blue air force uniforms sitting and standing around the cheap conference table. The young officer felt out of place with his white coveralls, combat rig, and helmet under his arm, and he was already starting to sweat in the overheated room. He began looking for a place to take off his parka when he felt someone slap his back in a friendly greeting.
“Erik!” he heard his assailant almost shout in a familiar voice. Johansen spun around until he was looking into the familiar face of a young air force captain.
“Jan Olsen!” Erik Johansen exclaimed as he shook his boyhood friend’s hand in a warm greeting. “So, the air force is sending their delinquents over to the army to get some education in soldiering now?”
“Hardly,” responded the flight-suited captain good-humoredly, “they say you ground pounders can’t do anything without us giving you top cover. I’m taking a flight of F-16s up to Banak to set up a patrol over the Cape.”