Red Storm Rising Part 19

GERMANY, FORWARD EDGE OF THE BATTLE AREA.

The view would have been frightening to most men. There were solid clouds overhead at four thousand feet. He flew through showers that he more heard than saw on this black night, and the dark outlines of trees appeared to reach up and s.n.a.t.c.h at his speeding fighter. Only a madman would be so low on such a night-so much the better, he smiled inside his oxygen mask.

Colonel Douglas Ellington's fingertips caressed the control stick of his F-19A Ghostrider attack fighter, while his other hand rested on the side-by-side throttle controls on the left-side c.o.c.kpit wall. The head-up display projected on the winds.h.i.+eld in front of him reported 625 knots Indicated Air Speed, a hundred six feet of alt.i.tude, a heading of 013, and around the numbers was a monocolor holographic image of the terrain before him. The image came from a forward-looking infrared camera in the fighter's nose, augmented by an invisible laser that interrogated the ground eight times per second. For peripheral vision, his oversized helmet was fitted with low-light goggles.

"Raisin' h.e.l.l over our heads," his back-seater reported. Major Don Eisly monitored the radio and radar signals, as well as their own instruments: "All systems continue nominal, range to target now ninety miles."

"Right," the Duke responded. It had been an automatic nickname for Ellington, who even looked vaguely like the jazz musician.

Ellington relished the mission. They were skimming north at perilously low level over the angular terrain of East Germany, and their Frisbee, never more than two hundred feet off the ground, jerked up and down to the pilot's constant course adjustments.

Lockheed called her the Ghostrider. The pilots called her the Frisbee, the F-19A, the secretly developed Stealth attack fighter. She had no corners, no box shapes to allow radar signals to bounce cleanly off her. Her high-bypa.s.s turbofans were designed to emit a blurry infrared signature at most. From above, her wings appeared to mimic the shape of a cathedral bell. From in front, they curved oddly toward the ground, earning her the affectionate nickname of Frisbee. Though she was a masterpiece of electronic technology inside, she usually didn't use her active systems. Radars and radios made electronic noise that an enemy might detect, and the whole idea of the Frisbee was that she didn't seem to exist at all.

Far over their heads on both sides of the border, hundreds of fighter aircraft played a deadly game of bluff, racing toward the border and then turning away, both sides trying to goad the other into committing to battle. Each side had airborne radar aircraft with which to control such a battle and so gain the advantage in a war which, though few yet knew it, had already begun.

And we're getting a quick one in, Ellington thought. We're finally doing something smart! He'd had a hundred missions over Vietnam in the first production F-111A fighters. The Duke was the Air Force's leading expert on covert low-level missions, and it was said that he could "bull's-eye a chuckhole in a Kansas tornado at midnight." That wasn't quite true. The Frisbee could never handle a tornado. The sad truth was that the F-19 handled like a pig-a consequence of her ungainly design. But Ellington didn't care. Being invisible was better than being agile, he judged, knowing that he was about to prove or disprove that proposition.

The Frisbee squadron was now penetrating the most concentrated SAM belt the world had ever known.

"Range to primary target is now sixty miles," Eisly advised. "All on-board systems continue nominal. No radars are locked onto us. Lookin' good, Duke."

"Roger." Ellington pushed the stick forward and dived as they pa.s.sed over the crest of a small hill, then bottomed out at eighty feet over a wheatfield. The Duke was playing his game to the limit, drawing on years of experience in low-level attacks. Their primary target was a Soviet IL-76 Mainstay, an AWACS-type aircraft that was circling near Magdeburg, agreeably within ten miles of their secondary target, the E-8 highway bridges over the Elbe at Hohenroarthe. The mission was getting a lot hairier. The closer they got to the Mainstay the more radar signal hit their aircraft, its intensity growing at a square function. Sooner or later, enough signal would be reflected back to the Mainstay to be detectable, even by curved wings made of radar-transparent composites. All the Stealth technology did was to make radar detection harder, not impossible. Would they be seen by the Mainstay? If so, when, and how quickly would the Russians react?

Keep her on the deck, he told himself. Play the game by the rules you've practiced out. They had rehea.r.s.ed this mission for nine days in "Dreamland," the top-secret exercise area in the sprawl of Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Even the E-3A Sentry could barely make them out at forty miles, and the Sentry was a far better radar platform than the Mainstay, wasn't it?

That's what you're here to find out, boy . . .

There were five Mainstays on duty, all a hundred klicks east of the inter-German border. A nice safe distance, what with over three hundred fighters between them and the border.

"Twenty miles, Duke."

"Right. Call it off, Don."

"Roge. Still no fire-control emanations on us, and no search stuff is lingering our way. Lots of radio chatter, but mostly west of us. Very little VOX coming from the target."

Ellington reached his left hand down to arm the four AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles hanging under his wings. The weapon-indicator light blinked a lethal, friendly green.

"Eighteen miles. Target appears to be circling normally, not taking evasive action."

Ten miles to the minute, Ellington computed in his mind, one minute forty seconds.

"Sixteen miles." Eisly read the numbers off a computer readout keyed to the NAVSTAR satellite navigation system.

The Mainstay would not have a chance. The Frisbee would not begin to climb until she was directly underneath the target. Fourteen miles. Twelve. Ten. Eight. Six miles to the converted air transport.

"The Mainstay just reversed her turn-yeah, she's jinking. A Foxfire just swept over us," Eisly said evenly. A MiG-25 interceptor, presumably acting on instructions from the IL-76, was now searching for them. With its high power and small arc, the Foxfire stood a good chance of acquiring them, Stealth technology or not. "The Mainstay might have us."

"Anything locked on us?"

"Not yet." Eisly's eyes were glued to the threat-receiver instruments. No missile-control radars had centered on the Frisbee yet. "Coming under the target."

"Right. Climbing now." Ellington eased back on his stick and punched up full afterburners. The Frisbee's engines could only give him Mach 1.3, but this was the place to use all the power he had. According to the weather people, these clouds topped out at twenty thousand feet, and the IL-76 would be about five thousand above that. Now the Frisbee was vulnerable. No longer lost in the ground clutter, her engines radiating their maximum signature, the Stealth aircraft was broadcasting her presence. Climb faster, baby . . .

"Tallyho!" Ellington said too loudly over the intercom as he burst through the clouds, and the night-vision systems instantly showed him the Mainstay, five miles away and diving for cover in front of him. Too late. The head-on closing speed was nearly a thousand miles per hour. The colonel centered his gunsight pipper on the target. A warbling tone came into his headset: the Sidewinders' seekers had locked onto the target. His right thumb toggled the launch-enable switch, and his forefinger squeezed the trigger twice. The Sidewinders left the aircraft half a second apart. Their brilliant exhaust flames dazzled him, but he did not take his eyes off the missiles as they raced for the target. It took eight seconds. He looked them all the way in. Both missiles angled for the Mainstay's starboard wing. Thirty feet away, laser proximity fuses detonated, filling the air with lethal fragments. It happened too fast. Both of the Mainstay's right-side engines exploded, the wing came off, and the Soviet aircraft began cartwheeling violently downward, lost seconds later in the clouds.

Jesus! Ellington thought as he rolled and dived back to the ground and safety. Nothing like the movies. The target was. .h.i.t and gone between blinks. Well, okay, that was easy enough. Primary target gone. Now for the hard part . . .

Aboard an E-3A Sentry circling over Strasbourg, the radar technicians noted with satisfaction that all five Soviet radar craft had been killed within two minutes: it all worked, the F-19 really did surprise them.

The brigadier general in command of Operation Dreamland leaned forward in his command chair and toggled his microphone.

"Trumpeter, Trumpeter, Trumpeter," he said, then switched off. "Okay, boys," he breathed. "Make it count."

Amid the clouds of NATO tactical fighters hovering near the border, a hundred low-level attack fighters broke clear and dove for the ground. Half were F-111F Aardvarks, the other half "GR.1" Tornados, their wings heavy with fuel tanks and smart bombs. They followed the second wave of Frisbees, already sixty miles into East Germany, fanning out to their ground targets. Behind the strike aircraft, all-weather Eagle and Phantom interceptors, directed by the Sentries circling over the Rhein, began to launch their radar-guided missiles at Soviet fighters that had just lost their airborne controllers. Finally, a third team of NATO aircraft swooped in low, seeking out the ground radar sites that were coming on to replace the radar coverage of the dead Mainstays.

HOHENROARTHE, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.

Ellington circled his target at a thousand feet, several miles away. It was a double bridge, a pair of concrete arches, each about five hundred yards across, and with two traffic lanes, that crossed the River Elbe in the middle of a gentle S-curve. Pretty bridges. Ellington guessed that they dated back to the thirties, since this main road from Berlin to Braunschweig had been one of the first autobahns. Ole Adolf himself might have driven across these bridges, Ellington reflected. So much the better.

At the moment, a low-light television in his targeting systems showed them to be covered with Russian T-80 tanks, all heading west. Ellington evaluated the picture on his television screen. This could only be the second echelon of the army deployed to attack NATO. There was an SA-6 battery atop Hill 76 south of the bridges on the east bank, sited there to defend them. It had to be fully alert now. His earphones chirped constantly with noise from his threat receiver as the search radars from a score of air-defense batteries swept continuously over his aircraft. If only one of them got a good return . . . Pucker factor, Ellington reflected grimly.

"How's the Pave Tack?"

"Nominal," Eisly responded curtly. Pilot and back-seater were both under enormous stress.

"Illuminate," Ellington ordered. In the back seat, Eisly activated the Pave Tack target-illumination laser.

The elaborate Pave Tack gear was built into the Frisbee's drooping nosecone. Its lowermost part was a rotating turret containing a carbon-dioxide laser and television camera. The major used his joystick controls to center the TV picture on the bridge, then unmasked the infrared laser. An invisible dot appeared in the center of the north span's bridge deck. A computer system would keep it there until told to do otherwise, and a videotape recorder would make a visual record of the raid's success or failure.

"The target is lit," Eisly said. "Still no fire-control radars on us."

"Nemo, this is Shade 4. The target is lit."

"Roge."

Fifteen seconds later the first Aardvark screamed south a bare thirty feet over the water, popped up, and loosed a single GBU-15 Paveway laser-guided bomb before it turned hard to the east over Hohenroarthe. An optical-computer system in the bomb's nose noted the reflected infrared beam, centered it, and adjusted the fins accordingly.

South of the bridge, the SAM battery commander was trying to decide what the noise was. His search radar did not show the Frisbee. He had been told not to expect the presence of "friendly" aircraft-the safe travel lane was fifteen miles to the north, over the Frontal Aviation base at Mahlminkel. Maybe that's where the noise was coming from, he thought. No special alarm has been sent out- The northern horizon went bright yellow. Though he did not know it, four Luftwaffe Tornados had just made a single pa.s.s over Mahlminkel, leaving hundreds of explosive cl.u.s.ter munitions in their wake. A half-dozen Soviet Sukhoi attack fighters went up in flames, sending a fireball of jet fuel that rose up into the rain-filled sky.

The battery commander hesitated not at all-he shouted an order for his men to switch their fire-control radars from stand-by to active, and trace them around "their" bridges. A moment later, one detected an F-111 coming upriver.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t!" The Aardvark's systems operator instantly loosed a Shrike antiradar missile at the SAM battery, another for good measure at the search radar, a second Paveway at the bridge, then the F-111 turned violently left.

A missile-launch officer blanched as he realized what had just appeared from nowhere onto his scopes, and salvoed his three missiles in return. The incoming aircraft had to be hostile, and had just separated three smaller objects . . .

His first SAM struck and exploded on the high-tension power lines that spanned the river just south of the bridges. The entire valley was strobelighted as the power lines fell sparking into the river. The other two SAMs raced past the surreal explosion and locked onto the second F-111.

The first Paveway impacted precisely in the center of the northern span. It was a delayed-action bomb, and penetrated into the thick concrete before exploding a few yards from a battalion commander's tank. The north span was strong-it had been in use for over fifty years-but the 945 pounds of high explosive ripped it apart. In an instant the graceful concrete arch was cut in two, a ragged twenty-foot gap appearing between the two unsecured flying b.u.t.tresses. They were not designed to stand alone, particularly with armored vehicles rumbling over them. The bomb released by the second Aardvark struck closer to sh.o.r.e, and the eastern side of the span failed entirely, taking eight tanks into the Elbe with it.

The second F-111 did not live to see this, however. One of the racing SA-6 missiles struck it broadside and blew it to pieces three seconds after the aircraft-launched Shrikes obliterated the pair of Soviet radar vehicles. Neither side had time for grief. Another F-111 screamed upriver as the surviving SAM crews frantically searched for targets.

Thirty seconds later, the north span was totally destroyed, brick-sized chunks of ferroconcrete scattered on the river bottom from three smart-bomb impacts.

Eisly switched his laser-designator to the south span. It was clogged with tanks, logjammed by a BMP-1 personnel carrier blown whole from one bridge span to the other by the first bomb, torn asunder and blazing on the west end of the bridge. The fourth Aardvark lofted a pair of bombs which homed in remorselessly on the laser-spot now stuck on the turret of a stopped tank. The sky was alight with blazing diesel fuel and streaked with hand-launched SAMs that had been blind-fired by panicked riflemen.

Both Paveways exploded a scant ten feet apart, and the entire bridge span failed at once, dropping a company of armored vehicles into the Elbe.

One more thing to do, Ellington told himself, there! The Soviets had stockpiled bridging equipment on the secondary road paralleling the river. The engineers were probably nearby. The Frisbee screeched over the rows of trucks, each of which carried a section of ribbon bridge, and deployed a row of flares before skimming back west toward the Federal Republic of Germany, and safety. The three surviving Aardvarks came in one at a time, each dropping a pair of Rockeye canisters into the truck park, ripping the bridging equipment to bits, and, their pilots fervently hoped, killing some of the skilled bridging engineers as well. Then the Aardvarks turned west to follow the F-19 home.

By this time, a second team of F-15 Eagle fighters had darted into East Germany to clear four lanes for the returning NATO strike aircraft. They fired their radar- and infrared-guided missiles at the MiGs trying to vector toward the returning fighter-bombers-but the American fighters still had their aerial radars to direct them, and the Soviets did not. The results reflected it. The Soviet fighters had not had time to reorganize after the loss of the Mainstays, and their formations were savaged. Even worse, the SAM batteries that were supposed to support the MiGs were ordered to engage the invading aircraft, and the surface-to-air missiles began to pluck targets out of the sky entirely without discrimination as the NATO aircraft clung to the nap of the earth.

By the time the last aircraft recrossed the border into West Germany, Operation Dreamland had lasted a total of twenty-seven minutes. It had been a costly mission. Two of the priceless Frisbees and eleven strike aircraft had been lost. Yet it had been a success. Over two hundred Soviet all-weather fighters had been destroyed by the NATO fighters, and perhaps a hundred more by "friendly" SAMs. The most elite squadrons of the Soviet air-defense force had been brutalized, and because of it, for the time being NATO would own the night skies over Europe. Thirty-six major bridges had been targeted: thirty had been destroyed and all of the rest damaged. The initial Soviet ground attack scheduled to begin in two hours would not be supported by the second echelon, nor by specialty units of mobile SAMs, engineers, and other crucial late-arrivals fresh from special training in the Soviet homeland. Finally, the attacks against airfields would give NATO air parity, at least for the moment. The NATO air forces had fulfilled their most crucial mission: the much-feared Soviet ground superiority was decisively reduced. The land battle for Western Europe would now be fought on nearly even terms.

USS PHARRIS.

It was still the previous day on the American East Coast. USS Pharris led the way out of the Delaware at 2200 hours. Behind her was a convoy of thirty s.h.i.+ps, with a dozen escorting vessels. In both cases it was all that could be a.s.sembled on the short notice. Dozens of American and foreign-flag vessels were racing to American ports, many taking southerly routings to keep as far away as possible from the Soviet submarines reported surging south from the Norwegian Sea. The first few days would be tough, Morris knew.

"Captain, please come to communications," the announcing system squawked. Morris immediately went aft to the always-locked radio room.

"It's for-real." The communications officer handed him the yellow message form. Morris read it in the dim lights.

Z0357Z15JUNE.

FR: SACLANT.

TO: ALL SACLANT s.h.i.+PS.

TOP SECRET.

1. EXECUTE UNRESTRICTED AIR AND SEA WARFARE AGAINST WARSAW PACT FORCES.

2. WARPLAN GOLF TAC 7.

3. STOUT HEARTS. SACLANT SENDS.

Rules of Engagement War Option Seven. That meant no nukes, he was perfectly happy to see-Pharris didn't have any at the moment. He was now free to engage without warning any East Bloc wars.h.i.+p or merchant vessel. Well . . . Morris nodded. He tucked the message form into his pocket, returned to the bridge, and went without a word to the microphone.

"This is the captain speaking. Listen up: It's official. We are now in a shooting war. No more drills, gentlemen. If you hear an alarm from now on, it means there's a Bad Guy out there, and they have live weapons, too. That is all." He hung up and looked over to the officer of the deck. "Mr. Johnson, I want the Prairie/Masker systems operating continuously. If they go down, I want to know about it at once. That goes in the order book."

"Aye, Captain."

Prairie/Masker was a system for defeating submarine sonars. Two metallic bands surrounded the frigate's hull, fore and aft of the engine s.p.a.ces. This was Masker. It took compressed air and bled it into the water around the s.h.i.+p in the form of millions of tiny bubbles. The Prairie part of the system did the same with the propeller blades. The air bubbles created a semipermeable barrier that tended to trap sounds made by the s.h.i.+p, letting only a fraction of her propulsion noises escape-which made the s.h.i.+p extremely difficult for a submarine to detect.

"How long till we clear the channel?" Morris asked.

"We'll be at the sea buoy in ninety minutes."

"Okay, tell the bosun's mate of the watch to be ready to stream the tail and the Nixie"-the towed-array sonar and the Nixie torpedo decoy-"at twenty-three forty-five. I'm going to take a nap. Wake me at twenty-three thirty. Anything happens, call me."

"Aye aye, sir."

A trio of P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft swept the area ahead of them. The only hazard was that of normal navigation, and suddenly the prospect of grazing the bottom or smas.h.i.+ng an errant buoy looked like a minor affair. He'd need his sleep now, Morris knew, and he would not be at all surprised to find a submarine waiting right on the continental shelf in three hours. He'd want to be rested for that eventuality.

SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA.