by Bart Gauvin
The erstwhile Mr. Taylor clenched his fist against his knee and allowed the frustration to burn in his mind for a moment. Then he closed his eyes, took a breath, and calmed himself. They might be late, he thought, but that might work to their advantage if the Americans’ focus was distracted from security. He promised himself that when he and his team went into the attack, the Americans would not know what hit them. He intended to leave that command post a smoking ruin.
CHAPTER 80
1615 CET, Sunday 13 February 1994
1515 Zulu
Ministry of Defense Building, Akershus Fortress, Oslo, Norway
“MISS HAGEN, THIS way, if you please,” said Nils Dokken, one of the defense minister’s senior civilian aides. He beckoned Kristen into the map room deep within the nineteenth-century masonry structure. This section of Akershus Fortress was the nexus for coordinating the defense of Norway. Dokken was a well-built, dark-haired, square-jawed man about Kristen’s age. As she followed him into the room, he asked, “What made you take the walk over here from the Foreign Ministry? Ah, don’t tell me. Now that the war has started there’s not much left for you diplomats to do, yes?”
Kristen’s blue eyes flashed. She let the tone of her response communicate her displeasure at the brash attempt at humor. “There’s plenty for us all to do, Mr. Dokken. The foreign minister will have landed in Brussels by now. He’ll be asking the North Atlantic Council for the reinforcements we need to safeguard our nation,” she said. “The reinforcements that your ministry will need to win this war, I imagine.”
That the foreign minister had seemed shell-shocked as he departed for the airport, Kristen didn’t say. She’d expected to accompany him to Belgium in her role as his chief of staff, but at the last minute the man had asked in his usual soft-spoken, educated way, “Miss Hagen, would you please go to the Defense Ministry and work to keep me apprised of events in the North? I fear with the great struggle developing in Germany that,” he’d paused and looked down then, “that our little country may be forgotten when it comes time to apportion reinforcements. Any information you can pass along will help me to argue our case.”
Kristen agreed immediately and made the short trek from her normal post in the Foreign Ministry to the Akershus after her chief departed for Oslo Lufthavn at Gardermoen. The subject of the emergency session was obvious; they would be discussing the Alliance’s response to the Soviet storm sweeping into three NATO member states on this day: the recently reunited Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Turkey, and Kirsten’s own beloved Kingdom of Norway.
Kristen spent the entire walk to the thirteenth century Citadel tamping down a growing anxiety for her family in Kirkenes. She wasn’t the only one fretting about the war. As she walked she noticed fellow citizens looking up at the sky as if it was about to fall on them. She desperately hoped that what she learned here at the Defense Ministry would assure her that the sky was not, indeed, falling. Don’t let yourself draw any conclusions until someone here gives you some real, hard facts about what’s going on, Kristen reminded herself. Now, after having waited for Dokken for over forty-five minutes, she could see that the state of affairs in this ministry was just as anxious.
Dokken, apparently unfazed by Kristen’s riposte, led her to a large wall map hanging on the rough masonry. A nearby computer screen showed a hash of nearly indecipherable red, blue, and black symbols slowly meandering across a white map background. Kristen’s eyes shot immediately to the top of the map, to the area around Norway’s short frontier with the USSR where her home town also stood, but she could glean nothing useful from the symbols there.
Kristen was less pessimistic than her minister about their country’s place in the priorities of the Alliance. On the other hand, she was keenly aware that her country was in desperate need of reinforcements, and that those reinforcements would be painfully slow in coming. Here amongst the harried staff officers in the map room she was convinced that the Soviet attacks in Northern Norway had already upset decades’ worth of war plans drawn up in this very building. She reigned in her fear for her family and annoyance at Dokken and waited for him to enlighten her about what all the symbols on the wall map and the computer screen actually meant. Once again, he made her wait.
“So, what’s going on here?” Kristen finally prompted, gesturing towards the map and hoping that fear hadn’t crept into her voice. After Dokken’s earlier comment, she wanted to put up a completely professional front.
“Bad news, mostly,” Dokken said, pointing with a wooden stick, his tone arrogant and oddly upbeat. “The Soviets started the war here with an aerial blitz across Northern Norway. They shot down the AWACS control plane that was supporting our pilots and destroyed nearly all of our ground-based radars in the first few minutes. Our pilots are claiming that they inflicted heavy losses against the first waves of Soviet jets, but who knows? You know how those fighter pilots can be.” Dokken gave Kristen a significant look, as if to emphasize that he certainly knew what fighter pilots were like, and that he expected her to share his amused disdain.
She ignored the look and asked, “What about on the ground?”
Turning back towards the map, Dokken pointed to the towns that dotted Norway’s northern coast. “Soviet marines and heliborne assault troops have seized several important coastal towns between Banak and the frontier. The Home Guard fought hard in a few places, but it was pretty hopeless. We really can’t expect to stop the Reds anywhere east of Banak. We managed to get evacuation flights out of most of the lufthavns before the Russians got them, though.”
“And Kirkenes?” Kristen asked, her hopes soaring.
Dokken shook his head. “Kirkenes Lufthavn went quiet exactly at noon. We’ve heard nothing from them, and no flights have come out of there. There never really was a chance for that place anyway, being so close to the border. The town isn’t even a speed bump for the Russians.”
Kristen was unable to stop a hand from flying up to her mouth as she thought of her sister, who worked at the lufthavn most Sundays. She fought back tears, but felt her vision blur anyway.
Either not noticing Kristen’s discomfiture or not caring, Dokken went on, “Things aren’t much better at sea. Our missile boats up there have traded some deadly shots with the Soviets’ coastal fleet, but not enough to prevent their marines from getting through to our coast, and we’ve taken heavy losses ourselves.” He tapped a section of the map further south along Norway’s jagged coast and went on, “Bergen and Stavenger, two of our frigates, were hurrying north from Tromsø to support the missile boats, but they apparently ran into a Soviet diesel submarine. Bergen was sunk and Stavenger is limping back south with a five-meter hole in her bow. She’ll be out of the fight for several weeks at least,” Dokken concluded, and then paused as if expecting some sort of response from Kristen.
He thinks he’s an expert here, Kristen could barely hold back her emotions, her mind’s focus was scattered from Kirkenes to the Norwegian losses on all fronts, to her own powerless position and then back to Kirkenes again, and her sister in the lufthavn.
When Kristen didn’t say anything, Dokken continued, “Ah, I almost forgot one of the worst bits.” He pointed towards a spot on the map towards the northern end of the Porsangerfjӧrd and said, “The Coast Guard cutter Nordkapp was evacuating civilians from Lakselv. She was caught in a Soviet air attack and crippled. The captain ran her aground to prevent sinking, but for now the crew and a couple of hundred civilians are trapped onboard. I’m not sure how we’re going to get to them, either. Our navy is taking losses we can’t sustain.”
Kristen steeled herself enough to ask, “So we’re losing, then?”
Dokken smiled in a way that made Kristen realize that the man was enjoying playing the expert on military affairs. If you like all this so much, why aren’t you in uniform? The question flashed across Kristen’s mind before Dokken answered: “Hardly. The Home Guard is mobilizing s
moothly across the country, aided by the Directive. You know what the Directive is, don’t you?” He gestured at a framed document hanging on the opposite wall. “It applies to all—”
“Yes, I know about the Directive,” Kristen cut him off, getting her senses back. Her father had spoken approvingly of the fabled “poster on the wall” often when conversation turned to the possibility to a Soviet invasion. “Please continue.”
Dokken nodded and said, “Some reinforcements are already arriving. The first American F-15s landed at Bardufoss from England,” he paused to look at his watch, “a few minutes ago.”
Kristen looked over to see that a tight grin had appeared on Dokken’s face with that last statement. The Americans had always been the senior partner in the NATO Alliance, she knew, possessing more military resources than any other member state. Since the Gulf War, three years ago, expectations of what American air power could achieve had taken on mythical proportions. Kristen got the impression that Dokken thought the mere appearance of American fighter jets in the far North was going to be enough to turn the tide. His optimism had her questioning whether encouragement was really due. What could a few American fighter jets do against the might of Soviet aviation bearing down on her country?
“We’ve planned a counterattack in the air that’s going to start,” Dokken looked at his watch again, “just a few minutes from now.” He guided Kristen over to the computer display and explained, “This is the data feed from our AWACS aircraft, just arriving from Orland and controlling the air battle up there. These,” he pointed to several groups of blue symbols circling near Bardufoss, “are the jets that are going to sweep eastward in a few minutes to clear the skies over Finnmark. The Swedes and the Finns have closed their airspace to us and the Soviets, so the plan is to use their frontiers to anchor the right flank of the sweep. I’ll admit,” Dokken raised a hand as if he’d been the one to plan the operation, “this whole thing is being thrown together on the quick. We’ll have F-16s from four squadrons involved, backed up by four of the American F-15s. You know what that means, of course.”
Kristen did not know what that meant, and wasn’t too proud to shake her head to indicate as much.
“Ah, of course,” Dokken said with a smirk. He explained, “The American F-15Cs carry the new AMRAAM. Those are long-range missiles that have what we call ‘fire-and-forget’ capability. Most long-range missiles, certainly the ones the Soviets are using, require the firing aircraft to keep its radar pointed towards the target to guide the missile all the way to intercept. The drawback is that the pilot must keep his aircraft pointed a certain way and therefore he cannot evade incoming missiles. The AMRAAMs will allow our side to shoot at the enemy and still evade. So the plan here is for our F-16s to sweep ahead in a line from the Finnish border to the coast while the Americans and some of the AMRAAM-capable F-16s from our 338 “Tiger” Squadron hang back slightly. The AMRAAM shooters will distract the Soviets enough for our nimble F-16s to get close in for dogfighting. We showed in the first engagements that we are better at that sort of combat than they are,” Dokken concluded, apparently forgetting his earlier disdain of the fighter pilots’ claims. “We’re putting more than thirty jets into the air for this sweep.”
“This counterattack will stop the Soviets before they can get to—” where was it that Dokken had mentioned as the first place the enemy could be stopped? Kristen looked back at the map. Ah, yes, “—Banak?”
“Yes,” Dokken said, in the tone of a surprised school teacher proud of a particularly dull student. “When we regain control of the air we’ll be able to put a stop to these heliborne and seaborne landings the Soviets are using to push into our country. The whole thing hinges on one detail I haven’t mentioned yet, of course.”
“What’s that?” Kristen asked, she was seething, but her anger wasn’t her priority, she needed information and so was unable to resist the bait.
Pointing back at the computer display, he said, “The Soviets destroyed most of our ground-based radars in Finnmark and their electronic jamming has been surprisingly effective. That means our AWACS planes are having trouble seeing very far into the battle zone. But! This radar site right here,” Dokken tapped a symbol on the screen in central Finnmark that bore the label “Backstop,” “survived and has been feeding us valuable data all day. Our fighters have broken up two Soviet attacks on the site since then. If we lose Backstop, we could lose the ability to control our aircraft over the entire far north.”
Kristen nodded. So, this coming counterattack by our air force and the Americans will both stop the Russians from advancing further and protect our ability to see what’s going on in the sky over Northern Norway, she reasoned. That was all she had time to think before visions of her mother, father, and sister came flooding back; smiling in their Christmas photo; chatting on the phone about life, boys; waving goodbye to her from the window of the small Kirkenes airport as she boarded her plane. She quickly asked Dokken where the ladies’ room was. He gave her brief directions, and she walked quickly out of the buzzing map room.
Once in the quiet solitude, Kristen leaned on her hands against a sink, her moist eyes looking back at her from the mirror. Were her parents all right? Was Kirkenes even there anymore? Kristen had no idea what a modern war would actually look like. Would there be prisoners? The person she was most worried about was Anna. The airport must have been a target for the Soviets. Kristen shook her head, trying to shake off the fear gripping her, and the sinking despair that followed. She couldn’t allow herself to think the worst. If there’s one girl who can make it through all this, it’s Anna, she told herself. Anna can do it.
CHAPTER 81
1620 CET, Sunday 13 February 1994
1520 Zulu
Tromsø Lufthavn, Tromsø, Norway
THE WHEELS OF Jan Olsen’s rearmed and refueled F-16 left the ice-swept pavement of Tromsø’s civilian airport in a roar of hot jet exhaust. The fighter pilot could see the sun sinking low into the southwest horizon. The short Arctic day would end soon, though the sky would remain light for several hours more. Two more F-16s followed him into the sky. One member of Olsen’s new, improvised flight was a squadron-mate from Olsen’s own 332 Eagle Squadron, Willi, who had also diverted to Tromsø rather than landing at Bardufoss. The other jet, a two-seater “B” model F-16 from Rygge, had arrived at Tromsø an hour ago piloted by an old friend of Jan’s, Sven Hokensen, who was serving his second year as an instructor pilot in the training squadron. Both of the other pilots pulled up until they were flying in an echelon formation off Olsen’s wing tip.
Jan banked left to lead his improvised flight east. He should have been leading four ships, but the flight returning from Backstop had been delayed and only one had shown up, damaged, with no word on what had happened to his wingman. Undoubtedly another name on a growing list of casualties. Jan shook his head, Time to focus.
After desperately parrying the massed blows of the Soviet VVS all afternoon, they were finally going on the offensive. The three jets gained altitude as they flew east towards Bardufoss, eager to strike back. Nearly thirty NATO fighters were massing in circular holding patterns, preparing to sweep north and east against the Soviet fighters and fighter-bombers that were methodically attacking troops and infrastructure across Northern Norway.
The plan for their sweep was the very definition of improvisation, but Olsen felt confident nonetheless. Allied Forces North Norway, AFNN, the NATO command responsible for directing the war in this part of the world, had managed to mass an impressive aerial force for this first offensive sweep by pulling together aircraft from half a dozen bases scattered across the northern half of Norway, from one American and five different Norwegian squadrons. Few of the pilots had been able to sit in ready rooms together to discuss the plan, and many, like Jan, were already flying their second combat mission of the war. A replacement AWACS, bearing the standard callsign of “Magic,” was aloft to help contro
l the action and electronic jamming support would come from two Norwegian aircraft that would follow the sweep, Tasman One and Two.
Arriving over Bardufoss, Olsen led his small flight into a racetrack holding pattern east of the base at twenty thousand feet altitude. Above, below, and all around, Jan could see more F-16s and bigger, twin tailed F-15s circling, waiting for the command from Magic to turn northeast. A final group of four fighters, these ones the Norwegian 338 Squadron F-16s with the MLU upgrade able to fire the new AMRAAM missiles, joined the flock, making the mission package as complete as it would get. Through his helmet speakers, Olsen heard Magic call one final update:
“All flights, all flights,” the controller’s deadpan voice crackled in German-accented English, “be advised, it appears the Sovs have pushed one of their own AWACS forward across the border. They will have aerial radar coverage over most of the north. We are starting to pick up indications that they may be gearing up for another major push.”
The news about the Soviet AWACS was unsurprising, but still troubling; it meant the enemy pilots would have the same advantages in situational awareness enjoyed by the NATO fliers. Despite that, Jan and his comrades were eager to get at the people who were invading and bombing their country.
Olsen rehearsed the coming engagement in his mind as the fleet of NATO jets flew northeast and rounded the “hump” of territory formed by Swedish and Finnish Lapland. Both Nordic countries had declared their airspace closed to the belligerents and were flying patrols of fighters over their territory to enforce the exclusion, though the Finns were not contesting the sky over the far northeast of their territory, where Soviet jets were transiting at will. Closer to where the boundaries of the three countries met, however, a flight of jets were squawking the radio identification codes of the Finnish Air Force, apparently a buffer against deeper Soviet penetrations.