Red Storm Rising Part 44

"Well, lookie here . . ." the squadron commander said to his weapons operator. The flight officer in the Tomcat's back seat centered the TV camera on the aircraft.

"Looks like a Badger to me."

"I don't suppose he's alone. Let's wait."

"Roge."

The bomber was over forty miles off. Soon two more appeared, along with something smaller.

"That's a fighter. So, they have fighter escorts this far out, eh? I count a total of . . . six targets." The weapons operator tightened up his shoulder straps, then activated his missile controls. "All weapons armed and ready. Fighters first?"

"Fighters first, light 'em up," the pilot agreed. He toggled up his radio. "Two, this is Lead, we have four tankers and a pair of fighters on a course of about zero-eight-five, forty miles west of my position. We are engaging now. Come on in. Over."

"Roger that. On the way, Lead. Out." Two brought his interceptor into a tight turn and advanced his throttles to the stops.

The leader's radar activated. They now had two fighters and four tankers identified. The first two Phoenixes would be targeted on the fighters.

"Shoot!"

The two missiles dropped clear of their shackle points and ignited, leading the Tomcat to the targets.

The Russian tankers had detected the fighter's AWG-9 radar and were already trying to evade. Their escorting fighters went to full power and activated their own missile-guidance radars, only to find that they were still outside missile range to the attacking fighters. Both switched on their jamming pods and began to jink their aircraft up and down as they closed in hope of launching their own missiles. They couldn't run away, there wasn't enough fuel for that, and their mission was to keep the fighters off the tankers.

The Phoenix missiles burned through the air at Mach 5, closing the distance to their targets in just under a minute. One Soviet pilot never saw the missile, and was blotted from the sky in a ball of red and black. The other did, and threw his stick over, a second before the missile exploded. It nearly missed, but fragments tore into the fighter's port wing. The pilot struggled to regain control as he fell from the sky.

Behind the fighters, the tankers split up, two heading north, the other pair south. The lead Tomcat took the northern pair and killed both with his remaining two Phoenixes. His wingman racing up from the north fired two missiles, hitting with one, and missing with the other, as the missile was confused by the Badger's jamming gear. The Tomcat continued to close, and fired another missile. By this time he was close enough to track the bird visually. The AIM-54 missile ran straight and true, exploding only ten feet from the Badger's tail. Hot fragments ripped into the converted bomber and detonated the remaining fumes in its refueling tanks. The Soviet bomber disappeared in a thundering orange flash.

The fighters swept their radars around the sky, hoping to find targets for their remaining missiles. Six more Badgers were a hundred miles off, but they had already been warned by the leading tankers and were heading north. The Tomcats didn't have enough fuel to pursue. They turned for home and landed at Stornoway an hour later with nearly dry tanks.

"Five confirmed kills and a damage," the squadron commander told Toland. "It worked."

"This time." Toland was pleased nevertheless. The U.S. Navy had just completed its first offensive mission. Now for the next one. Information was just in on the Backfire raid. They'd hit a convoy off the Azores, and a pair of Tomcats was waiting two hundred miles south of Iceland to meet them on the return leg.

STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.

"Our losses have been murderous," said the General of Soviet Frontal Aviation.

"I will tell our motor-rifle troops just how serious your losses have been," Alekseyev replied coldly.

"We have lost nearly double our projections."

"So have we! At least our ground troops are fighting. I watched an attack. You sent in four attack fighters. Four!"

"I know of this attack. There was a full regiment a.s.signed, more than twenty, plus your own attack helicopters. The NATO fighters are engaging us ten kilometers behind the front. My pilots must fight for their lives simply to get where your tanks are-and then all too often they are engaged by our own surface-to-air missiles!"

"Explain," ordered Alekseyev's superior.

"Comrade General, the NATO radar surveillance aircraft are not easy targets-they are too well protected. With their airborne radar, they can vector their fighters against ours to launch their missile attacks from beyond visual range. When our pilots learn that they are being attacked, they must evade, no? Do your tankers sit still to give their enemies an easy shot? This often means that they must drop their bombs to maneuver. Finally, when they do manage to reach the battle zone they are frequently shot at by friendly missile units who don't take the time to distinguish between friend and foe." It was an old story, and not merely a Soviet problem.

"You are telling us that NATO has command of the air," Alekseyev said.

"No, they do not. Neither side does. Our surface-to-air missiles deny them the ability to control the air over the battle line, and their fighters-helped by their surface-to-air missiles, and ours!-deny it to us. The sky over the battlefield belongs to no one." Except the dead, the Air Force General thought to himself.

Alekseyev thought of what he had seen at Bieben, and wondered how correct he was.

"We must do better," the Theater Commander said. "The next ma.s.sed attack we launch will have proper air support if it means stripping fighters from every unit on the front."

"We are trying to get more aircraft forward by using deceptive maneuvering. Yesterday we tried to feint NATO's fighters to the wrong place. It nearly worked, but we made a mistake. That mistake has been identified."

"We attack south of Hannover at 0600 tomorrow. I want two hundred aircraft at the front line supporting my divisions."

"You'll have them," the Air Force General agreed. Alekseyev watched the flyer leave.

"So, Pasha?"

"That's a start-if the two hundred fighters show up."

"We have our helicopters, too."

"I watched what happens to helicopters in a missile environment. Just when I thought they'd blast a hole through the German lines, a combination of SAMs and fighters nearly annihilated them. They have to expose themselves too greatly when they fire their missiles. The courage of the pilots is remarkable, but courage alone is not enough. We have underestimated NATO firepower-no, more properly we have overestimated our ability to neutralize it."

"We've been attacking prepared positions since this war began. Once we break into the open-"

"Yes. A mobile campaign will reduce our losses and give us a much more even contest. We have to break through." Alekseyev looked down at the map. Just after dawn tomorrow, an army-four motor-rifle divisions, supported by a division of tanks-would hurl itself into the NATO lines. "And here seems to be the place. I want to be forward again."

"As you wish, Pasha. But be careful. By the way, the doctor tells me the cut on your hand was from a sh.e.l.l fragment. You are ent.i.tled to a decoration."

"For this?" Alekseyev looked at his bandaged hand. "I've cut myself worse than this shaving. No medal for this, it would be an insult to our troops."

ICELAND.

They were climbing down a rocky slope when the helicopter appeared two miles west of them. It was low, about three hundred feet over the ridge line, and moving slowly toward them. The Marines immediately fell to the ground and crawled to places where they might hide in shadows. Edwards took a few steps to Vigdis and pulled her down also. She was wearing a white patterned sweater that was all too easy to spot. The lieutenant stripped off his field jacket and draped it around her, holding her head down as he wrapped the hood over her blond hair.

"Don't move at all. They're looking for us." Edwards kept his own head up briefly to see where his men were. Smith waved for him to get down. Edwards did so, keeping his eyes open so that he could look sideways at the chopper. It was another Hind. He could see rocket pods hanging from stubby wings on either side of the airframe. Both the doors to the pa.s.senger compartment were open, revealing a squad of infantrymen, weapons at the ready, looking down. "Oh, s.h.i.+t."

The noise from its turboshaft engines increased as the Hind came closer, and the ma.s.sive five-bladed main rotor beat at the air, stirring up the volcanic dust that coated everything on the plateau they had just left. Edwards's hand tightened on the M-16's pistol grip, and he thumbed off the safety. The helicopter was coming almost sideways, its rocket pods pointed at the flatlands behind the Marines. Edwards could make out the machine guns in the Hind's nose, some kind of rotary gun like the American mini-gun that spat out four thousand rounds per minute. They wouldn't have a chance in h.e.l.l against that.

"Turn, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," Mike said under his breath.

"What is it doing?" Vigdis asked.

"Just relax. Don't move at all." Oh, G.o.d, don't let them see us now...

"There! Look there at one o'clock," the gunner said from the front seat of the helicopter.

"So this mission isn't a waste after all," the pilot replied. "Go ahead."

The gunner centered his sights and armed the machine gun, setting his selector for a five-shot burst. His target was agreeably still as he depressed the trigger.

"Got him!"

Edwards jumped at the sound. Vigdis didn't move at all. The lieutenant moved his rifle slightly, bringing it to bear on the chopper-which moved south, dropping below the ridgeline. He saw three heads come up. What had they shot at? The engine sounds changed as the helicopter landed, not far away.

The gunner had hit the buck with three bullets, with little damage to the edible tissue. There was just enough in the eighty-pound animal to feed the squad and the helicopter crew. The paratroop sergeant slit the deer's throat with his combat knife, then set to remove the viscera. The local deer were nothing like the animals his father hunted in Siberia, but for the first time in three weeks he'd have some fresh meat. That was sufficient to make this boring mission worthwhile. The carca.s.s was loaded into the Hind. Two minutes later it circled up to cruise alt.i.tude and flew back to Keflavik.

They watched it depart, the stuttering rotor sound diminis.h.i.+ng on the breeze.

"What was that all about?" Edwards asked his sergeant.

"Beats the h.e.l.l out of me, skipper. I think we better boogie on outa here. They were sure as h.e.l.l looking for something, and I'll betcha it's us. Let's keep to places with some kind of cover."

"You got it, Jim. Lead off." Edwards walked back to Vigdis.

"Is safe now?"

"They've gone. Why don't you keep that jacket on. It makes you harder to spot."

It was two sizes too large for Edwards, and looked like a tent on Vigdis's diminutive frame. She held her arms out straight in an effort to get her hands out of the sleeves, and for the first time since he met her, Vigdis Agustdottir smiled.

USS PHARRIS.

"All ahead one-third," the executive officer ordered.

"All ahead one-third, aye," the quartermaster of the watch responded, moving the annunciator handle up from the Ahead Full setting. A moment later the inside pointer changed also. "Engine room answers all ahead one-third."

"Very well."

Pharris slowed, coming off a twenty-five-knot sprint to commence another drift maneuver, and allowing her towed-array sonar to listen for hostile submarines. Morris was in his bridge chair, going over messages from sh.o.r.e. He rubbed his eyes and lit up another Pall Mall.

"Bridge," called the urgent voice of a lookout. "Periscope feather on the port bow! Halfway to the horizon, port bow!" Morris s.n.a.t.c.hed his binoculars from the holder and had them to his eyes in an instant. He didn't see anything.

"Battle stations!" ordered the XO. The alarm gong went off a second later and weary men ran again to their posts. Morris looped his binoculars around his neck and ran down the ladder to his battle station in CIC.

The sonar loosed a dozen ranging pings to port as Morris took his position in CIC. Nothing. The helo lifted off as the frigate maneuvered north, allowing her towed-array sonar to track on the possible contact.

"Pa.s.sive sonar contact, evaluate as possible submarine bearing zero-one-three," announced the towed-array operator. "Steam noises, sounds like a possible nuke."

"I got nothing there," said the active-sonar operator.

Morris and his ASW officer examined the water-conditions board. There was a layer at two hundred feet. The pa.s.sive sonar was below it, and could well be hearing a submarine that the active pings could not reach. The lookout might have seen anything from a spouting whale-this was the mating season for humpbacks-to a streak of foam . . . or the feathery wake left by a periscope. If it was a submarine, he had plenty of time to duck under the layer. The target was too close to be bottom-bounced and too far for the sonar to blast directly through the layer.

"Less than five miles," ASW said. "More than two. If this is a sub, we're up against a good one."

"Great. Get the helo on him right now!" Morris examined the plot. The submarine could have heard his frigate as it sprinted at twenty-five knots. Now, at reduced speed, and with Prairie/Masker operating, Pharris would be very hard to detect . . . so the sub's fire-control solution had probably just gone out the window. But Morris didn't have one either, and the submarine was perilously close. An urgent contact report was radioed to the screen commander twenty miles away.

The Sea Sprite dropped a pattern of son.o.buoys. Minutes pa.s.sed.

"I got a weak signal on number six and a medium on number four," the son.o.buoy petty officer said. Morris watched the plot. That made the contact less than three miles off.

"Drop some pingers," he ordered. Behind him the s.h.i.+p's weapons officer ordered the arming of the ASROC and torpedo launchers. Three miles off, the helicopter turned and swept across the target area, dropping three Ca.s.s buoys this time, which sent out active, nondirectional pings.

"Contact, a strong contact on buoy nine. Cla.s.sify as possible submarine."

"I got him, bearing zero-one-five-this one's a sub, cla.s.sify as positive submarine contact," said the towed-array man. "He just increased power. Some cavitation sounds. Single-screw submarine, maybe a Victor-cla.s.s, bearing changing rapidly left-to-right."

The active sonar still didn't have him despite continuous maximum-power pings down the correct line of bearing. The submarine was definitely under the layer.

Morris wanted to maneuver but decided against it. A radical turn would cause his towed-array sonar to curve, rendering it useless for several minutes. Then he would have to depend on son.o.buoys alone, and Morris trusted his towed sonar more than the buoys.

"Bearing to contact is now zero-one-five and steady . . . noise level is down somewhat." The operator pointed at his screen. Morris was surprised. The contact bearing had been changing rapidly and was now steadied down?

The helicopter made yet another pa.s.s. A new son.o.buoy registered the contact, but the MAD gear didn't confirm the presence of a submarine and the contact was fading. The noise level continued to drop. Morris watched the relative position of the contact pa.s.s aft. What the h.e.l.l was this character doing?

"Periscope, starboard bow!" the talker reported.

"Wrong place, sir . . . unless we're looking at a noisemaker," the operator said.

The ASW officer had the active sonar change bearing and the results were immediate.

"Contact bearing three-four-five, range fifteen hundred yards!" A bright pip glowed on the sonar scope.

"All ahead flank!" Morris yelled. Somehow the submarine had evaded the towed sonar, then popped up atop the layer and run up his periscope. That could only mean one thing. "Right full rudder."

"Hydrophone effects-torpedoes inbound, bearing three-five-one!"