by Bart Gauvin
Franklin paused to let the extent of what he had just said sink in before going on. “The governors of both New York and New Jersey have declared states of emergency, and National Guard troops are on the streets in the city. The NYPD took some pretty heavy casualties. Right now,” Franklin again referred to his notes, “they’re main concern is assessing whether they need to ship drinking water to Manhattan. Our news services are reporting more on the terrorist attacks than on the war, right now.”
Might be better that way, thought Falkner wryly, thinking of the media and their understandable obsession with their audience. Only gives the average American one thing to panic about at a time.
“It’s not just here in the US, either.” Franklin went on. “Bombs also targeted the Welland Canal locks up in Canada, near Niagara, and the Rogers Pass railroad tunnels through the Rockies. We’re not sure how bad the damage to the Panama Canal is right now, but initial reports don’t look good. The Soviets are clearly targeting our strategic mobility.”
“Any idea who these guys are?” Falkner asked. “How they got here?”
“The few attackers taken alive aren’t talking, sir,” Franklin answered his chief. “The best lead the FBI actually has is a survivor from the trawler that was dropping mines at the entrance to New York Harbor. The guy apparently lost his arm and is pretty drugged up and delirious. He at least is talking, and he’s talking in Russian, which is surprising to no one. What’s troubling is that the Soviets were apparently able to infiltrate what I estimate were dozens, if not hundreds, of Spetsnaz, GRU, and KGB operators into the US without anyone getting even a sniff.”
“Alright, Ed, let’s talk our own theater. What’s going on in the North Atlantic?”
Franklin flipped to another part of his notebook and said, “Okay, here goes sir. Big units first. As you know, nearly the entire Red Banner Northern Fleet has sortied from their bases in the Kola over the past twenty-four hours. What perhaps none of us anticipated, however, is that the Reds put to sea with two large carriers, not one. Connecticut up on X-Ray Station reported that Admiral Kuznetsov, with a strong escort, sortied from the Kola Inlet just a few minutes before the Soviets kicked off their attacks around the world. Later, she reported a second carrier, also Kuznetsov-class, putting to sea with an equally powerful force of escorts. This has to be the Varyag, which we thought was still about a year from joining their fleet.”
“Any chance Connecticut mistook one of the Kiev-class for a second big-deck?” rumbled Johnson.
Franklin shook his head. “No sir, not a chance. The Kiev was already at sea to the north when the balloon went up, and one of our other subs got a positive ID on the Baku outside the Kola Inlet a couple of hours before the Varyag sighting. The Soviets definitely have four flattops at sea, two big ones and two little ones.”
Johnson fell silent, satisfied but not happy with the news.
Franklin continued, “Also, the Brits report that one of their subs, Trafalgar, is shadowing a large force of amphibious transports heading due west about a hundred miles north of the North Cape. Based on the report, it’s enough transport to lift an entire brigade of Soviet naval infantry.”
“Any better indications where they’re going, Ed?” asked Falkner.
“Negative, sir,” Franklin shook his head again. “Right now they’re positioned to make a play anywhere from Greenland to Norway. I think the most likely targets for that brigade are Iceland or somewhere south along the Norwegian coast. A massive missile attack shut down the runway at Keflavik yesterday, so we haven’t been able to fly in any reinforcements. That might indicate that Iceland is the target. On the other hand, the Soviets’ push into Norway is much more powerful and is proceeding much more rapidly than we anticipated, and a brigade of marines in the Norges’ rear could really pose some serious problems for their defenses. We can’t rule out a thrust towards Scotland, either. The Shetlands and Faroes are vulnerable.”
Falkner grunted, thinking of Rob Buckner now in Portsmouth, getting ready to put to sea with Admiral Reeves with his flag aboard HMS Invincible. Giving voice to his concerns he muttered, “One baby British flattop against the whole Red Banner Northern Fleet.”
He’d spoken with Reeves earlier in the night, with the British Admiral assuring him, “Don’t worry about us, old boy. We can look after ourselves ’til your chaps arrive. We’ve done it before, y’know. More than once, I believe.”
Falkner grinned at the phone and said back in his best Midwestern lilt, “Of that I have no doubt, Sir Peter, but we’ll try not to be too late to this war. How soon do you expect to be ‘looking after yourselves’ up there?”
“Not for another day at least, Art,” responded Reeves, the humor gone from his tone. “Seems the Sovs have caught us all napping a bit, this time. Gloucester will sortie within the hour. She has some history protecting you chaps, I think. The entire task force won’t be able to move much sooner than tomorrow, I’m afraid.”
The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Gloucester had made history three years before during the Persian Gulf War when her Sea Wolf missiles shot down an Iraqi Silkworm anti-ship missile heading for the American battleship Missouri. This feat had made the British warship the first in history to destroy a modern anti-ship missile in combat. Falkner expected many more ships would be required to match Gloucester’s exploit in the coming days and weeks.
“Okay, you all hold on up there. We’ll have Big E up to support just as quick as we can,” Falkner assured him before hanging up.
Now, standing in the rain, he needed to make sure of his promise. Speaking directly to Johnson, he asked, “How long until Enterprise is within range to support the Brits?”
“Several days, still,” answered Johnson. “They’re making best speed north from Puerto Rico, but remember, they were on a training cruise. They’ll need to stock up on war shots and cold weather equipment en route.”
“STANAVFORLANT?” Falkner queried.
The only other ships standing in the Soviets’ way were NATO’s Standing Naval Force Atlantic—STANAVFORLANT—a collection of destroyers and frigates from several Alliance member states. The idea behind this polyglot task group was to have a respectable force of warships always at sea, always ready to respond to a crisis. The crisis had now arisen, but STANAVFORLANT, racing north from Amsterdam, was looking decidedly vulnerable in the face of four Soviet carriers.
Johnson shook his head. “At least two days before they can rendezvous with Invincible.”
Again, Falkner grunted. Then, addressing both of his key staff officers he said, “Well, if we expected the Russians to fight stupid, they’ve certainly disabused us of that idea. They’ve hit us in ways that we didn’t expect and in places where we weren’t prepared. They’ve got us dancing to their tune right now, and they’re going to do their best to keep us dancing. Is that about right, Ed?”
Franklin nodded. “That about sums it up, sir.”
“What assets do we have to track the Soviet task forces, Ed?” Falkner asked next.
“Not much sir,” responded the N2, “especially after the Reds took out both of our Lacrosse satellites earlier in the day.”
“Any word on when the National Reconnaissance Office plans to get replacements up?” asked Johnson.
Franklin shook his head, “Negative. It’s a good bet that the Soviets have more ASATs than we have new satellites sitting on the launch pad. The NRO doesn’t have many replacements, and they’re husbanding them until there’s a specific, timely need. Those birds will probably have a short, exciting life once they’re in orbit.”
“What about the Soviet RORSATs?” Falkner asked next, referring to the Soviet Union’s Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites, the USSR’s answer to the Lacrosse program.
Johnson spoke up again. “Sir, NORAD plans to start knocking the Russian recon satellites down starting tomorrow morning. They would have done it sooner, but those Sovie
t birds have nuclear reactors aboard and they want to make sure we’re not raining radioactive debris down from space on friendly heads.”
Falkner and Franklin absorbed that idea for a moment. Then 2nd Fleet’s commander re-centered them on the problem at hand.
“Assuming we can track them, what indication will the Soviets give us about which way they plan to thrust with those amphibs, Ed?” Falkner asked.
Franklin pulled a small map of the North Atlantic out of his notebook and unfolded it. Tapping a speck of an island in the Greenland Sea, he said, “Jan Mayen Island, sir. That’s our indicator. If the Russians make a play for Jan Mayen, it’s a good bet they’re planning on using it as a stepping-stone to Iceland. If they ignore it, then best bets are that they’re going to focus on Norway.”
“Thanks, Ed.” Looking at Johnson, Falkner said firmly, “I want plans for two contingencies, and I want you to find ways to get the Reds reacting to us, rather than the other way around. First,” he raised a finger, “I want a good plan for counterattacking against Iceland and preventing the Soviets from breaking out against our lines of communication to Europe. Second,” he raised a second finger, “a plan to hit the Soviets in their seaward flank if they’re making a hard push against central and southern Norway. Understood?”
Johnson nodded.
Falkner paused. Light rain continued to dribble onto the three officers, the men coming and going around them, and the hulking, powerful carriers to their left and right. Then the Admiral said slowly, “I also want a third plan.”
“What plan is that, sir?” asked Johnson, leaning in.
“I want a plan in case the Russians try to go for both Iceland and Norway at once.”
CHAPTER 94
0645 CET, Monday 14 February 1994
0545 Zulu
Eidsvoll Square, in front of the Storting Building, Oslo, Norway
SOFT, COLD FLURRIES fell mingling with ash around the brightly clad emergency workers crawling over the jumbled masonry wreckage of the Norwegian parliament building. Cranes and construction vehicles moved in slow motion, like mournful dinosaurs grazing on what had been a cornerstone building in the Norwegian national identity. Kristen Hagen, standing in a small but growing crowd of onlookers, fought back tears as she watched the rescuers crabbing over the jumbled blocks. Flashing blue emergency lights pierced the gray pre-dawn darkness. Rescue vehicles stretched away from the disaster in every direction, filling the beautiful nineteenth century boulevards of Oslo’s downtown area. The windows all around the plaza were shattered, giving the surrounding square an aura of abandonment and death. The rescuers were no longer moving with the same sense of urgency as had marked their efforts through the night. For the past two hours they’d pulled nothing but corpses from the wreckage.
Kristen could only watch in a state of slow shock that refused to go away. The powerful blast had rattled the windows even at the Ministry of Defense, one kilometer away. It felt, Kristen thought, exactly as it was meant to feel: terrifying.
The directional blast of the massive shaped charge had almost completely demolished the building, leaving only a shell of the north wing still standing. The rest lay collapsed in on itself, and upon the gathered representatives of the government of Norway. Kristen cringed as she remembered the last moment she’d seen her King on television, addressing the nation. She watched the rescuers and waited for the blow to her soul that she knew must come out of the of the wreckage. Then it fell.
A knot of neon yellow-clad workers congregating near the center of what had been the building’s parliamentary chamber drew Kristen’s attention. A crane was just pulling up a section of the circular roof of the legislative space. Kristen saw a man wearing an orange reflector jacket dart down into the wreckage as the crane pulled it away. Then, from a hundred meters away, she heard the call.
“The King, it’s the King!” The softly falling snow muffled the call. For a moment Kristen’s hopes soared as more rescuers scrambled across the jumbled masonry blocks, converging on the source of the call, but their body language quickly dispelled any misconceptions that the monarch had survived. As the crane finished rotating the piece of roof away, shoulders slumped and heads bowed.
A call went out. Kristen saw someone scramble up into the wreckage, a scarlet object in his hands. The man arrived at the hole, then descended into it with several others. Kristen held her breath, dreading what would come next.
Gingerly, the men lifted their King out of the hole, using a splintered door as a litter. They’d draped the body in a Norwegian flag, the banner’s scarlet field and blue and white cross standing out starkly against the grays and whites of the rubble. All work stopped. Everyone turned, watching as hands gently pulled the flag-draped body out of the hole, then lifted it until it rested atop the shoulders of six waiting men, who carried their burden. Pallbearers, Kristen thought.
Kristen struggled to keep her composure as they carefully picked their way down and out of the wreckage. She swallowed the lump in her throat as they emerged onto the pavement between the ruined Storting and Eidsvoll Square, where they transferred their burden to six uniformed soldiers from the Hans Majestet Kongens Garde Battalion, the Royal Guards of the Norwegian Army. The soldiers took custody of the body, one whom they had been sworn to protect, and carried it respectfully the last few meters to the open back door of a waiting ambulance. After the body was placed inside, still draped in the flag, the ambulance slowly drove away, escorted by several HMKG and Oslo police vehicles.
“They will find the prime minister’s body next,” said Nils Dokken, standing next to Kristen. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet. “When will the new prime minister be back in Oslo?” he asked, quietly.
The question startled Kristen. For a moment she didn’t comprehend what her colleague was asking. Then it dawned on her. Her own chief, the foreign minister, was the most senior surviving official in the government. He was in Brussels. He’d asked her to stay and feed him information so that he could represent Norway at the emergency meeting of the North Atlantic Council. “He,” she swallowed again, regaining her composure, “his plane should leave Brussels within the hour.” She wiped her eyes with gloved hands and pushed a loose lock of hair behind her ear before continuing, “There was some delay when the Russians threatened an air raid over the Baltic.”
“Do you think he’s up to this?” Dokken asked with a sweep of his hand towards the floodlit ruins.
Kristen considered the question for a moment, and its context. Nearly every member of the Norwegian parliament lay buried under the rubble in front of her. A few had been pulled out alive during the night, battered and dazed, but in nearly every meaningful sense Norway’s elected government had ceased to exist. That left the foreign minister as the legal head until a new government could be formed. Kristen thought about her chief’s character. He was a brilliant diplomat and an able administrator, but Kristen knew how shaken he’d been by the impending war, how unwilling he was to accept the reality that their country was in real danger. Was he up to the task of leading their country through its greatest challenge since the German invasion? She didn’t know the answer to that question, giving rise to a darker thought. Why was the man next to her even asking?
Kristen sensed out of the corner of her eye that Dokken was looking at her. The defense minister was still alive as well, having remained at the Akershus fortress. Did he intend to try to lead the government? Suddenly she wondered if a crisis was brewing in the succession of leadership for her nation.
She decided to change the subject. “Where is the Crown Prince?”
“The Crown Prince,” the Dokken paused in realization, “Excuse me, the King, is safely under guard and being escorted back to Oslo from Bergen. Apparently it took a lot of convincing by the Kongens Garde to get him off his missile boat. The Prince’s commanding officer almost ordered him to perform his duty as monarch.”
Kristen breathed an invisible sigh of relief to hear that the man was safe. A living monarch could at least arbitrate disputes of succession for the government. That was a fight that Kristen wanted no part of, and one she hoped would never actually occur, despite her reservations about the foreign minister’s abilities as a national leader.
“So what are your plans?” Dokken was asking, returning the conversation obliquely to the subject of the succession of Norway’s government. “Will you remain at the Foreign Ministry?”
At that moment, tired and grieving, Kristen Hagen realized that she wanted nothing to do with the goings on in Oslo anymore. She’d come to the capital in a different context than the one that now existed. The job had been rewarding, even exhilarating at times, as her boss worked to fulfill Norway’s traditional role as global peacemaker. But now that diplomacy had failed utterly, it all seemed so meaningless. Being at the Defense Ministry through the previous night, seeing officers making minute-to-minute decisions with direct and immediate effects on the defense of their nation, Kristen had started to lose the taste for the slower, softer workings of diplomacy.
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, seeing the scene of destruction in front of her. “I want to do something more to resist the Soviets,” she paused, trying to think of the word, “More directly. Do you know of any such jobs that a Foreign Ministry staffer might be able to fill?” Kristen finally looked over at the Defense Ministry man.
Dokken nodded. “Don’t you have family in the North?”
The emotion returned to Kristen’s throat. She had worked hard to push those thoughts from her mind. She once more could only manage a nod.
“Yes, I think we can find a job for you,” Dokken said with that annoying, knowing smile.
CHAPTER 95
0110 AST, Monday 14 Feb 1994