Red Storm Rising Part 26

"Three?"

"Both these barges were ruptured when the American missile hit us. The shock damage accounted for several. The main damage came from the water used to fight the fire."

"Those are mobile missiles," the General objected. "Surely the designers antic.i.p.ated that they might get wet!"

"Not with salt.w.a.ter, Comrade. This is the army version, not the naval, and it is not protected against salt.w.a.ter corrosion. The men who fought the fire did so with great gusto, and most of the rockets were soaked. The exposed control wiring and the radar seeker heads on the missile noses were badly damaged. My men have run electronic tests of all the rockets. Three are fully functional. Four more we can probably clean off and repair. The rest are ruined. We have to fly more in."

The General controlled his temper. So, a small thing that no one had thought of. Aboard s.h.i.+p, fires are fought with salt.w.a.ter. They should have asked for the naval variant of this rocket. It was always the small things.

"Divide your launchers as planned. Place all the usable missiles at the Reykjavik airport, and the ones you think you can fix at Keflavik. I'll order the replacement rockets to be flown in. Is there other damage?"

"Apparently not. The radar antennae were covered with plastic, and the instruments inside the vehicles were safe because the vehicles themselves were sealed. If we get new rockets, my battalion is fully ready. We'll be ready to travel in twenty minutes. Sorry, Comrade."

"Not your fault. You know where you are to go?"

"Two of my battery commanders have already checked the routes."

"Excellent. Carry on, Comrade Colonel." The General climbed back up the ladder to the bridge to look for his communications officer. Within two hours a plane loaded with forty SA-11 surface-to-air missiles was rolling off Murmansk's Kilpyavr airfield bound for Iceland.

20.

The Dance of the Vampires

USS NIMITZ.

Toland had been a busy fellow for the past twelve hours. The data on Iceland came in slowly, one confusing piece at a time, and even now he didn't have enough to call a clear picture. The group's orders had been changed, though only after too many hours of indecision. The mission to reinforce Iceland was a washout. For the past ten hours the battle group had been heading due east toward friendly air cover from England and France. Someone had decided that if the Marines could not go to Iceland, then they might find useful employment in Germany. Bob had expected them to be diverted to Norway, where a Marine Amphibious Brigade was already in place, but getting them there could prove difficult. A furious air battle had been raging over northern Norway for almost twenty hours, with losses heavy on both sides. The Norwegians had started the war with scarcely a hundred modern fighters. They were screaming for help, but there was no help for anyone as yet.

"They're not just chewing the Norwegians up," Toland observed. "They're driving them south. Most of the attacks are on the northern bases, and they're not giving them any breather at all."

Chip nodded. "That figures. Gives their Backfires a straighter shot at us. Briefing time."

"Yeah." Toland packed up his notes and walked again toward flag country. It was easier this time.

"Okay, Commander," Admiral Baker said. "Start with the peripheries."

"Nothing much seems to be happening in the Pacific as yet. The Soviets are evidently putting a lot of diplomatic pressure on j.a.pan. The same story they've given the rest of the world-it's all a German plot."

"Horses.h.i.+t," Baker observed.

"True enough, Admiral, but it's a plausible enough story that Greece is refusing to honor its treaty commitments, and a lot of neutral and third-world countries are buying it. Anyway, the Russians are making noises about giving the Sakhalin Islands back if they play ball-or pounding h.e.l.l out of them if they don't. Bottom line: j.a.pan is not allowing any bases on its soil to be used for offensive strikes against the Soviet Union. What we have in Korea is needed there. The only carrier group we have in the Western Pacific is centered on Midway. They're well out to sea at present, and they don't have the moxie to go after Kamchatka alone. There's some air activity in the South China Sea west of the Philippines, but nothing major yet. Cam Ranh Bay appears to be empty of Soviet s.h.i.+pping. So the Pacific is quiet, but that won't last long.

"In the Indian Ocean, somebody launched a missile attack against Diego Garcia, probably a submarine. Not much damage-just about everything there was sent out to sea five days ago-but it got their attention. At last report, their IO squadron was at fifteen-north, ninety-east, a long way from our guys, and heading south.

"No activity at all on NATO's southern flank. The Turks aren't about to attack Russia on their own hook, and Greece is staying out of what they call 'this German-Russian dispute.' So Ivan has a secure southern flank, too, and so far it looks like he's happy enough to keep it that way. So far the Russians are only fighting in Western Europe and against selected American installations elsewhere. They are telling anyone who'll listen that they don't even want to fight us. They've even guaranteed the safety of American tourists and businessmen in the Soviet Union. Supposedly, they're flying them all out through India. We've underestimated the political dimension here, sir. So far it's working for them.

"Okay. In Europe their operations began with from twenty to thirty Spetznaz commando attacks throughout Germany. For the most part they were defeated, but they scored big in two places. The port of Hamburg has been blocked. A pair of merchantmen was scuttled in the main channel, and the team that pulled it off got away clean. The same thing was attempted in Bremen-they blocked one channel partially and burned three s.h.i.+ps at one of the container terminals. This team didn't get away. The other attacks were against nuclear weapons storage sites, communications posts, and one big one against a tank site. Our guys were ready for it. We took losses, but those Spetznaz troops got chewed up in most cases.

"The Soviet Army attacked west just before dawn yesterday. The good news here is that the Air Force pulled something really wild. That new Stealth fighter we've been hearing rumblings about is in squadron service, and it was used to raise a lot of h.e.l.l behind Russian lines. The Air Force says they've got air superiority, or something close to it, so Ivan must have taken a big hit. Whatever they did, the initial Russian attack was not as powerful as expected. They're moving forward, but as of midnight nothing more than fifteen kilometers, and in two places they got stopped cold. So far no word on nukes or chemical weapons. Losses are reported heavy on both sides, especially up in northern Germany, where they moved the farthest. Hamburg is threatened. The Kiel Ca.n.a.l may have been hit with an airborne or airmobile attack, we're not sure, but part is under Russian control. That situation is a little confused. A lot of activity on the Baltic, too. The fast attack boats of the German and Danish navies claim to have beaten up hard on a combined Soviet and East German attack, but again things are pretty confused."

Toland went on to describe the situation in Norway.

"The direct threats against us are from submarines and aircraft. Ivan's subs have been pretty busy. We have reports of twenty-two merchant s.h.i.+ps sunk. The worst was Ocean Star, a Panamanian-flag pa.s.senger liner coming back from a Med cruise. Eight hundred miles northwest of Gibraltar she took a missile hit, type unknown, but probably from a Juliet. She burned, lots of casualties. Two Spanish frigates are moving in for the search-and-rescue.

"We have three submarines reported close to our course track, an Echo, a Tango, and a Foxtrot. There could be more, but intelligence reports have most of them south and west of us. When Iceland got neutralized, we lost the G-I-UK SOSUS line, and that will allow Ivan's subs an easier access to the North Atlantic. SACLANT is dispatching subs to block the gaps. They'll have to hustle; we have reports of numerous Soviet submarines heading for the Denmark Strait."

"How many subs have we taken out?" Svenson asked.

"Lajes and Brunswick claim four kills. The P-3s got off to a good start. The bad news here is that one Orion is missing, and another reported being shot at by a sub-launched missile. This is being evaluated now, and we expect something firm by noon. In any case, the main threat to us now appears to be from aircraft, not subs. That could change by tomorrow, though."

"One day at a time. Get to Iceland," Baker ordered.

"The reports we had yesterday were correct. Evidently a regimental-sized unit came in by sea, and the rest of its division was airlifted in, starting around 1400 hours. We have to a.s.sume they're all in by now."

"Fighters?" Svenson asked.

"None reported, but it's possible. Iceland has four usable airfields-"

"Wrong, Toland, it's three," Baker said harshly.

"Beg pardon, sir, four. The big base is Keflavik. Five runways, two of them over ten thousand feet long. We built the place to stage B-52s out of, and it's quite a facility. Ivan got it virtually intact. His attack was planned deliberately not to crater the runways. Second, they have the civilian airfield at Reykjavik. The longest runway there is about two thousand meters, plenty big enough for fighters, and it's got a city wrapped around it. Hitting that place means running the risk of civilian casualties. On the north side of the island is Akureyri, one hard-surface strip. The fourth one, Admiral, is old Keflavik, about two miles southeast of the current NATO air base. It shows on the maps as unusable, but I ran into a guy who put in two years on Iceland. That strip is usable, certainly for rough-surface-capable aircraft like our C-130. The base personnel use it for racing their go-carts and sports cars. He thinks you could use fighters out of there, too. Finally, every city on that island has a gravel strip for their domestic airline. The MiG-23 and several other Russian fighters have a rough-field capability, and could use any one of those."

"You're full of good news," observed Nimitz's commander, air group, known as the CAG. "What about the other base facilities, like fuel?"

"The fuel depot right on the base was destroyed in the attack, but the base tank-farm was not, and neither was the new terminal at Hakotstanger. Unless somebody takes it out, we've left the Russians enough jet fuel to operate for months."

"How solid is all this?" Baker wanted to know.

"We have an eyeball report from a Navy P-3 crew who surveyed the damage immediately after the attack. The RAF sent two recce birds for a look-see. The first one got good shots of Keflavik and the surrounding area. The second didn't make it back, reason unknown."

"SAMs." The CAG really looked unhappy now.

Toland nodded. "A good bet. The photos show vehicles consistent with the presence of a reinforced Soviet Air Rifle division. Icelandic radio and TV are off the air. The Brits report contact with ham radio operators on the Icelandic coast, but nothing at all is coming out of the southwest corner of the island. That's where most of the people are, and it looks to be completely under Soviet control. We're getting some intel information, but it can't last."

"What you're telling us is that we can't expect raid warning from the Norwegians, and we've lost our picket fence at Iceland. What other a.s.sets do we have?" Svenson asked.

"Evidently something. I've been told to expect possible raid warning from an a.s.set code-named Realtime. If a large force of Soviet aircraft leaves Kola, we ought to know about it."

"What's Realtime?" the CAG asked.

"They didn't tell me that."

"Submarine." Baker smiled thinly. "Jesus protect him when he transmits. Well, Ivan sent his bombers against Iceland yesterday. Anybody wonder where they'll be coming today?"

"In case anyone wants it, my official intelligence estimate is, right here," Toland said.

"Always nice to have a professional opinion," the CAG observed acidly. "We ought to head north and pound on those Russians" -by training and experience the CAG was an attack pilot-"but we can't do that until we deal with the Backfires. What is the strength of the threat to us?"

"I'm a.s.suming no a.s.sistance from the Air Force units. With Soviet Naval Aviation alone we have six regiments of strike aircraft, three each of Backfires and Badgers. One regiment of Badger jammers. One regiment of Bear reconnaissance birds. Add some tanker a.s.sets to that. Twenty-seven aircraft to the regiment. That's about a hundred sixty strike aircraft, each of which can carry two or three air-to-surface missiles."

"Those Badgers will have to stretch to get here. The round trip must be a good four thousand miles, even if they cut across Norway. Those are tired old birds," CAG said. "What about their satellites?"

Toland checked his watch. "There will be a RORSAT pa.s.s over us in fifty-two minutes. They got us twelve hours ago, too."

"I hope the Air Force gets its act together with their ASAT pretty soon," Svenson said quietly. "If Ivan can real-time that satellite intelligence, they don't need those d.a.m.ned Bears. They can figure our course easily enough, and it's only a four-hour cruise down here for them."

"Try a course change as it pa.s.ses overhead?" CAG wondered.

"Not much point in it," Baker replied. "We've been heading east for ten hours. They can't miss that, and we can only do twenty knots. We can give them a plus-minus of eighty miles. How long does it take to fly that?"

Toland noted that Svenson and the CAG didn't like that decision, but neither disputed the point. He'd been told that Baker wasn't a man to argue with, and wondered if that was a good trait in a combat commander.

HILL 152, ICELAND.

Edwards took some solace in having predicted the cold front's arrival properly. The rain had come exactly on time, just after midnight. If there was anything to make the worst situation worse still, it was a steady cold rain. The showers were intermittent now, a ceiling of gray clouds two thousand feet over their heads, blown along by thirty-knot winds toward Iceland's mountainous center.

"Where are the fighters?" Edwards asked. He swept Reykjavik airport with his binoculars, but couldn't find the six fighters he'd reported on the previous evening. All the transports were gone also. He saw one Soviet helicopter and some tanks. There was very little traffic on the streets and roads he could see. Certainly not much for a Monday morning. Surely the commercial fishermen would be driving to their boats? "Anybody see them lift out?"

"No, sir. Weather we had last night, the whole Russian Air Force could have come in and left." Sergeant Smith was annoyed too, mainly with the weather. "Could be in those hangars, maybe."

About 2300 the previous night, they'd observed a streak of light like that of a rocket taking off, but whatever it had been aimed at had been lost in a rain shower. Edwards had not reported that, halfway wondering if it might have been lightning.

"What's that? That's no tank. Garcia, check it out-five hundred yards west of the terminal." The lieutenant handed the gla.s.ses over.

"Okay. That's some kinda tracked vehicle. Looks like it has some sort of-not a gun, there's three of them. Rocket launcher, maybe."

"SAMs," the sergeant commented. "How much you wanna bet that's what we saw shot off last night?"

"E.T., phone home." Edwards started putting his radio together.

"How many launchers and what type?" Doghouse asked.

"We see one launcher, possibly three missiles on it. We can't tell the type. I wouldn't know the difference anyway. They might have fired off a missile last night about 2300 local."

"Why the h.e.l.l didn't you tell us?" Doghouse demanded.

" 'Cause I didn't know what it was!" Edwards nearly yelled. "G.o.ddammit! We're reporting on everything we see, and you don't even believe half of what we tell you!"

"Settle down, Beagle. We believe you. I know it's hard. Anything else happening?"

"He knows it's hard," Edwards told his men. "Can't see much activity at all, Doghouse. Still early, but we'd expect civilian traffic on the streets."

"Copy that. Okay now, Edwards, real fast, what's your father's middle name?"

"Doesn't have one," Edwards said. "What-"

"The name of his boat?"

"The Annie Jay. What the h.e.l.l is this?"

"What happened to your girlfriend Sandy?"

It was like a knife in the guts. The tone of his voice answered for him. "You go and f.u.c.k yourself!"

"Copy that," the voice replied. "Sorry, Lieutenant, but you had to pa.s.s that test. We have no further orders for you yet. Tell you the truth, n.o.body's decided what to do about you. Stay cool and avoid contact. Same transmission schedule. If you get tagged and they try to make you play radio games, start off every transmission with our call sign and say that everything is going great. Got that? Going great."

"Roger. If you hear me say that, you know something's wrong. Out."

KEFLAVIK, ICELAND.

The major commanding the Air Force detachment was enjoying himself despite having been up for over thirty hours. Keflavik was a magnificent base, and the paratroopers had captured it nearly intact. Most importantly, the Americans had thoughtfully stored their maintenance equipment in protective shelters dispersed throughout the base, and all of it had survived. As he watched from the smashed control tower, a half-dozen sweeper trucks were brus.h.i.+ng the last fragments from runway nine. In thirty minutes it would be safe to use. Eight fuel bowsers sat filled and ready on the field, and by the end of the day the pipeline should be repaired. Then this would be a fully functional Soviet air base.

"How long before our fighters arrive?"

"Thirty minutes, Comrade Major."

"Get the radar operating."

The Soviets had packed most of the equipment for a forward air base in one of the Fucik's barges. A mobile long-range radar was now operating just west of the main runway intersection, plus a van from which ground controllers could direct radar intercepts of incoming targets. Three truck-vans of spare parts and air-to-air missiles were on the base, and three hundred maintenance personnel had been flown in the previous day. A full battery of SA-11 missiles guarded the runways, plus eight mobile antiaircraft guns and a platoon of infantrymen armed with hand-held SAMs for low-flying raiders. The only hangup had been with the SAMs, and the replacements flown in a few hours ago had already been loaded on the launcher vehicles. Any NATO aircraft that came waltzing into Iceland was in for a rude surprise, as a Royal Air Force Jaguar had discovered the night before, shot out of the sky over Reykjavik before its pilot could react.