Red Storm Rising Part 46

"Air Defense Officer!" Alekseyev shouted. "Tell your units to identify their targets!"

"We have fifty aircraft over the front. We can handle the NATO fighters alone!" the aviator insisted.

"Tell all SAM batteries to hold fire on all targets above one thousand meters," Alekseyev ordered. He had discussed this with his Frontal Aviation commander the night before. The MiG pilots were to stay high after making their own attack runs, leaving the missile and gun batteries free to engage only those NATO aircraft that were an immediate threat to ground units. Why were his own planes getting hit?

Thirty thousand feet over the Rhein, two NATO E-3A radar aircraft fought for their lives. A determined Soviet attack was under way, two regiments of MiG-23 interceptors rocketing through the sky toward them. The on-board controllers were calling for help. This both distracted them from countering the attack, and stripped fighters from other missions. Heedless of their own safety, the Russians came west at over a thousand miles per hour with heavy jamming support. American F-15 Eagles and French Mirage jets converged on the threat, filling the sky with missiles. It was not enough. When the MiGs got to within sixty miles, the AWACS aircraft shut down their radars and dove for the ground to evade the attack. The NATO fighters over Bad Salzdetfurth were on their own. For the first time the Soviets had achieved air superiority over a major battlefield.

"Hundred-forty-third Guards Rifle Regiment reports they have broken through German lines," a lieutenant said. He didn't look up, but extended the arrow for which he was responsible. "Enemy units retreating in disarray."

"Hundred-forty-fifth Guards checking in," reported the plotting officer next to him. "The first line of German resistance has collapsed. Proceeding south along the axis of the rail line . . . enemy units are on the run. They are not regrouping, not attempting to turn."

The general commanding 8th Guards Army gave Alekseyev a triumphant look. "Get that tank division moving!"

The two understrength German brigades covering this sector had suffered too much, been called upon to stop too many attacks. Their men spent, their weapons depleted, they had no choice but to run from the enemy, hoping to form a new line in the woods behind Highway 243. At Hackenstedt, four kilometers away, 20th Guards Tank Division started moving down the road. Its three hundred T-80 main battle tanks, supported by several hundred more infantry a.s.sault carriers, spread left and right of the secondary road and formed its attack formation in columns of regiments. The 20th Tanks was the operation/maneuver group for 8th Guards Army. Since the war had begun, the Soviet Army had been trying to break one of these powerful units into the NATO rear. It was now possible.

"Well done, Comrade General," Alekseyev said. The plotting table showed a general breakthrough. Three of the four attacking motor-rifle divisions had broken through the German lines.

The MiGs succeeded in killing one of the AWACS aircraft and three Eagle fighters, at the price of nineteen of their own, in a furious air battle that lasted fifteen minutes. The surviving AWACS was back at alt.i.tude now, eighty miles behind the Rhein, and its radar operators were working to reestablish control of the air battle over central Germany as the MiGs ran for home through a cloud of NATO surface-to-air missiles. At murderous cost they had accomplished a mission for which they had not even been briefed.

But this was only the beginning. Now that the initial attack had succeeded, the most difficult part of the battle was under way. The generals and colonels commanding the attack had to move their units forward rapidly, careful to keep the formations intact as they leapfrogged their artillery southwest to provide continuous support for the advancing regiments. The tank division had the highest priority. It had to hit the next set of German lines only minutes behind the motor-rifle troops, in order to reach Alfeld before nightfall. Units of the field police established pre-planned traffic-control points, and directed units down roads whose marker signs had been removed by the Germans-of course. The process was not as easy as might have been expected. Units were not intact. Some commanders were dead, vehicles had broken down, and damaged roads slowed traffic well below normal rates of advance.

For their part the German troops were trying to reorganize. Rear-guard units lingered behind every turn in the road, pausing to loose their ant.i.tank missiles at the hard-charging Soviet advance guard, which took a particularly heavy toll of unit commanders. Allied aircraft were reorganizing also, and low-level attack fighters began to engage the Soviet units in the open.

Behind the sundered battle line a German tank brigade rolled into Alfeld, with a Belgian motorized regiment ten minutes behind. The Germans proceeded northeast on the main road, watched by citizens who had just been ordered to evacuate their homes.

FASLANE, SCOTLAND.

"No luck, eh?" asked Todd Simms, commander of USS Boston.

"None," McCafferty confirmed. Even the trip into Faslane had been unlucky. The guard s.h.i.+p for the safe-transit corridor, HMS Osiris, had gotten into attack position without their having detected her. Had that Brit diesel sub been a Russian, McCafferty could very well be dead now. "We had our big chance against that amphibious group. Things were going perfect, y'know? The Russians had their son.o.buoy lines out, and we beat them clean, just about had our targets lined up for the missile attack-I figured we'd hit with our missiles first, then go in with torpedoes-"

"Sounds good to me," Simms agreed.

"And somebody else launches his own torpedo attack. Screwed everything up. We lofted three Harpoons, but a helo saw us do it, and, bingo! we had the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all over us." McCafferty pulled open the door to the Officers Club. "I need a drink!"

"h.e.l.l, yes!" Simms laughed. "Everything looks better after a few beers. Hey, that sort of thing happens. Luck changes, Danny." Simms leaned over the bar. "Two strong ones."

"As you say, Commander." A white-coated steward drew two mugs of warm, dark beer. Simms picked up the bill and led his friend to a corner booth. There was some sort of small party going on at the far end of the room.

"Danny, for crying out loud, let up on yourself. Not your fault that Ivan didn't send you any targets, is it?"

McCafferty took a long pull on his mug. Two miles away Chicago was reprovisioning. They'd be in port for two days. Boston and another 688-cla.s.s sub were tied to the same quay, with another pair due in later today. They were to be outfitted for a special mission, but they didn't yet know what it was. In the meantime, the officers and crewmen were using their modic.u.m of free time to breathe fresh air and unwind. "You're right, Todd, right as ever."

"Good. Have some pretzels. Looks like quite a s.h.i.+ndig over there. How about we wander over?" Simms lifted his beer and walked to the end of the room.

They found a gathering of submarine officers, which was not a surprise, but the center of attention was. He was a Norwegian captain, a blond man of about thirty who clearly hadn't been sober for several hours. As soon as he drained one jar of beer, a Royal Navy commander handed him another.

"I must find the man who save us!" the Norwegian insisted loudly and drunkenly.

"What gives?" Simms asked. Introductions were exchanged. The Royal Navy officer was captain of HMS Oberon.

"This is the chappie who blasted Kirov all the way back to Murmansk," he said. "He tells the story about every ten minutes. About time for him to begin again."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," McCafferty said. This was the guy who had sunk his target! Sure enough, the Norwegian began speaking again.

"We make our approach slowly. They come right"-he belched-"to us, and we creep very slow. I put periscope up, and there he is! Four thousand meters, twenty knots, he will pa.s.s within five hundred meters starboard." The beer mug swept toward the floor. "Down periscope! Arne-where are you, Arne? Oh, is drunk at table. Arne is weapons officer. He set to fire four torpedoes. Type thirty-seven, American torpedoes." He gestured at the two American officers who had just joined the crowd.

Four Mark-37s! McCafferty winced at the thought. That could ruin your whole day.

"Kirov is very close now. Up periscope! Course same, speed same, distance now two thousand meters-I shoot! One! Two! Three! Four! Reload and dive deep."

"You're the guy who ruined my approach!" McCafferty shouted.

The Norwegian almost appeared sober for a moment. "Who are you?"

"Dan McCafferty, USS Chicago."

"You were there?"

"Yes."

"You shoot missiles?"

"Yes."

"Hero!" The Norwegian submarine commander ran to McCafferty, almost knocking him down as he wrapped the American in a crus.h.i.+ng bear hug. "You save my men! You save my s.h.i.+p!"

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" Simms asked.

"Oh, introductions," said a Royal Navy captain. "Captain Bjorn Johannsen of His Norwegian Majesty's submarine Kobben. Captain Daniel McCafferty of USS Chicago."

"After we shoot Kirov, they come around us like wolves. Kirov blow up-"

"Four fish? I believe it," Simms agreed.

"Russians come to us with cruiser, two destroyers," Johannsen continued, now quite sober. "We, ah, evade, go deep, but they find us and fire their RBU rockets-many, many rockets. Most far, some close. We reload and I shoot at cruiser."

"You hit her?"

"One hit, hurt but not sink. This take, I am not sure, ten minutes, fifteen. It was very busy time, yes?"

"Me, too. We came in fast, flipped on the radar. There were three s.h.i.+ps where we thought Kirov was."

"Kirov was sunk-blow up! What you see was cruiser and two destroyers. Then you shoot missiles, yes?" Johannsen's eyes sparkled.

"Three Harpoons. A Helix saw the launch and came after us. We evaded, never did know if the missiles. .h.i.t anything."

"Hit? Hah! Let me tell you." Johannsen gestured. "We dead, battery down. We have damage now, cannot run. We already evade four torpedoes, but they have us now. Sonar have us. Destroyer fire RBU at us. First three miss, but they have us. Then-Boom! Boom! Boom! Many more. Destroyer blow up. Other hit, but not sink, I think.

"We escape." Johannsen hugged McCafferty again, and both spilled their beer on the floor. The American had never seen a Norwegian display this much emotion, even around his wife. "My crew alive because of you, Chicago! I buy you drink. I buy all your men drink."

"You are sure we killed that tin can?"

"You not kill," Johannsen said. "My s.h.i.+p dead, my men dead, I dead. You kill." A destroyer wasn't exactly as good as sinking a nuclear-powered battle cruiser, McCafferty told himself, but it was a whole lot better than nothing, too. And a piece of another, he reminded himself. And who knows, maybe that one sank on the way home.

"Not too shabby, Dan," Simms observed.

"Some people," said the skipper of HMS Oberon, "have all the b.l.o.o.d.y luck!"

"You know, Todd," said the commanding officer of USS Chicago, "this is pretty good beer."

USS PHARRIS.

There were only two bodies to bury. Another fourteen men were missing and presumed dead, but for all that, Morris counted himself fortunate. Twenty sailors were injured to one extent or another. Clarke's broken forearm, a number of broken ankles from the shock of the torpedo impact, and a half-dozen bad scaldings from ruptured steam pipes. That didn't count minor cuts from flying gla.s.s.

Morris read through the ceremony in the manual, his voice emotionless as he went through the words about the sure and certain hope of how the sea will one day give up her dead . . . On command the seamen tilted up the mess tables. The bodies wrapped in plastic bags and weighted with steel slid out from under the flags, dropping straight into the water. It was ten thousand feet deep here, a long last trip for his executive officer and a third-cla.s.s gunner's mate from Detroit. The rifle salute followed, but not taps. There was no one aboard who could play a trumpet, and the tape recorder was broken. Morris closed the book.

"Secure and carry on."

The flags were folded properly and taken to the sail locker. The mess tables were carried below and the stanchions were replaced to support the lifelines. And USS Pharris was still only half a s.h.i.+p, fit only to be broken up for sc.r.a.p, Morris knew.

The tug Papago was pulling her backwards at just more than four knots. Three days to sh.o.r.e. They were heading toward Boston, the closest port, rather than a naval base. The reason was clear enough. Repairs would take over a year and the Navy didn't want to clutter up one of its own repair facilities with something that would take that long. Only those s.h.i.+ps that could be repaired for useful war service would get rapid attention.

Even his continued command of Pharris was a joke. The tug had a reserve crew, many of them salvage experts in civilian life. Three of them were aboard to keep an eye on the towing cable and "advise" Morris on the things he had to do. Their pieces of advice were really orders, but polite ones.

There were plenty of things to keep his crew busy. The forward bulkheads required constant watching and attention. Repairs were under way to the engine plant. Only one boiler was working, providing steam to turn the turbogenerators and provide electrical power. The second boiler needed at least another day of work. His main air-search radar, they said, would be working in four hours. The satellite antenna was just back on line also. By the time they reached port-if they reached port-everything aboard that his crew could fix would be fixed. That didn't really matter, but a busy crew, the Navy has always said, is a happy crew. In practical terms it meant that the crewmen, unlike their captain, did not have time to brood on what mistakes had been made, the lives that had been lost because of them, and who had made them.

Morris went to the Combat Information Center. The tactical crew was rerunning the tape and paper record of the encounter with the Victor, trying to find what had happened.

"I don't know." The sonar operator shrugged. "Maybe it was two subs, not just one. I mean, here he is, right? This bright trail here-then a couple minutes later the active sonar picked him up over here."

"Only one sub," Morris said. "Getting from here to there is about a four-minute run at twenty-five knots."

"But we didn't hear him, sir, an' it don't show on the screen. Besides, he was heading the other way when we lost him." The sonarman rewound the tape to run it all again.

"Yeah." Morris went back to the bridge, playing it over again in his mind. He had the entire sequence memorized now. He walked out on the bridge wing. The spray s.h.i.+elds were still perforated, and there was a faint bloodstain where the XO had died. Someone would be painting over that today. Chief Clarke had all kinds of work gangs going. Morris lit a cigarette and stared at the horizon.

REYDARVATH, ICELAND.

The helicopter was the last warning they needed. Edwards and his party were heading northeast. They pa.s.sed through an area of many small lakes, crossed a gravel road after waiting an hour to see what the traffic there was like-none-and began to traverse a series of marshes. By this time Edwards was thoroughly confused by the terrain. The mixture of bare rock, gra.s.sy meadows, lava fields, and now a freshwater marsh made him wonder if Iceland might not be the place where G.o.d had put everything that had been left over after the world was built. Evidently He'd made just the right amount of trees, though, because there were none here, and their best cover was the knee-high gra.s.s that sprouted from the water. It must be hardy gra.s.s, Edwards thought, since this marsh had been frozen not too long ago. It was still cold, and within minutes of entering the marshes everyone's legs ached with it. They endured the misery. The alternative was to travel on bare and slightly elevated ground, not something to be contemplated with enemy helicopters about.

Vigdis surprised them with her endurance. She kept up with the Marines without faltering or complaining. A true country girl, Edwards thought, she was still benefiting from a childhood of chasing the family sheep around-or whatever it was you did with sheep-and climbing these G.o.dd.a.m.ned hills.

"Okay, people, take ten," Edwards called. Immediately everyone looked for a dry spot to collapse. Mainly they found rocks. Rocks in a mars.h.!.+ Edwards thought. Garcia kept watch with the purloined Russian binoculars. Smith lit up a cigarette. Edwards turned around to see Vigdis sitting down next to him.

"How do you feel?"

"Very tired," she said with a slight smile. "But not so tired as you."

"Is that so!" Edwards laughed. "Maybe we should step up the pace."

"Where we go?"

"We're going to Hvammsfjrdur. They didn't say why. I figure another four or five days. We want to stay clear of all the roads we can."

"To protect me, yes?" Edwards shook his head.

"To protect all of us. We don't want to fight anybody. There's too many Russians around to play soldier games."

"So, I don't hurt-ah, stop you from important things?" Vigdis asked.

"Not at all. We're all happy to have you with us. Who wouldn't like a walk in the country with a beautiful girl?" Edwards asked gallantly. Was that a smart thing to say?

She gave him a strange look. "You think I pretty, after-after-"

"Vigdis, if you were hit by a truck-yes, you are very beautiful. No man could change that. What happened to you was not your fault. Whatever changes it made are inside, not outside. And I know somebody must like you."

"My baby, you mean? Mistake. He find another girl. This is not important, all my friends have babies." She shrugged it off.

That stupid son of a b.i.t.c.h, Edwards thought. He remembered that b.a.s.t.a.r.dy carried no stigma on Iceland. Since no one had a surname-most of the Icelanders had given names followed by patronymics-you couldn't even tell the difference between the legitimate and illegitimate. Besides which, the Icelanders didn't seem to give a d.a.m.n one way or the other. Young unmarried girls had babies, took proper care of them, and that was that. But who would walk away from this girl?

"Well, speaking for myself: Vigdis, I've never met a girl prettier than you."

"Truly?"