They’re probably terrified that we’re going to sidestep the Soyuz and her
consorts and run for North Cape, maybe launch an air strike at Murmansk or
their boomer bastions in the Barents Sea. No, they’ll be looking at a lot of
other places real, real carefully before they look for us here. As long as
they didn’t see us coming in here in the first place.”
Which explained why Jefferson had spent the entire previous day racing
north, then doubled back in the dark, taking advantage of intermittent cloud
cover, and finally slipping into the fjord at dawn under a heavy blanket of
fog.
“You know,” Tombstone said. “They’re right.”
“Who’s right?”
“The Soviets. This is crazy. I wonder if it’s crazy enough to work.”
“Well, it damn well better work, CAG,” Brandt replied. He was leaning
close to his port-side window, peering up at the northern wall of cliffs and
mountains gliding past in the mist. “Getting out of this slot under fire is
going to be a royal bitch.”
“Bottom coming up,” a seaman reported. “Depth one-two-zero-zero.”
“Bridge, Comm,” a voice called over the 1-MC speaker mounted on a
bulkhead. “Message from Stavanger. ‘Approaching anchorage.'”
“Acknowledge,” Brandt replied. “And tell them thanks for the help.”
Jefferson had been in touch with Norwegian military authorities ashore
for several days. Arrangements had already been made for Tombstone, in his
official capacity as CAG, to fly to Bergen to meet with the Norwegian military
commander in order to work out an exchange of codes, radio frequencies, and
the like–necessary if the tragedy of Scorpion and Juggler was not to be
repeated.
Yesterday, a rendezvous had been arranged by radio with the Stavanger,
one of Norway’s few remaining Oslo-class frigates. Though not as large or as
well-equipped as the American Perry-class FFGs like the Decatur, Stavanger was
a very welcome addition to the battle group indeed. She carried Penguin
antiship missiles–Mach .7 infrared homers with a range of twelve miles–Sea
Sparrow for anti-air point defense, and ASW torpedo tubes. While only
marginally useful in a general surface engagement, she would be a big help if
the Soviets were able to locate the battle group and attack it with cruise
missiles.
“Bridge, Comm. Reply from Stavanger. They say, ‘God hell.” That’s
‘good luck,” Captain.”
“Right. Acknowledge, please.”
As they watched, the slim, sharp-angled frigate ahead began to slowly
come about, presenting her side to the carrier as she carefully reversed
course within the narrow, rock-walled channel. She would return to the mouth
of the fjord, where she would take up her station with the rest of the
American battle group, defending the entrance against Soviet subs and
aircraft.
“Depth now eight-five-zero. Shoaling fast.”
“Okay, people. Let’s get this bird farm parked,” Brandt said to the
bridge at large.
Slowly, majestically, the Thomas Jefferson entered her haven.
0900 hours Zulu (1000 hours Zone)
Soviet Aircraft Carrier Soyuz
The Norwegian Sea
Admiral Vasili Ivanovich Khenkin leaned back in his thickly padded chair,
sipping tea from a glass and contemplating the obligatory portrait of Lenin in
its gilt frame on the bulkhead of his office. The reasoning of the men who
had ordered portraits of Lenin, Marx, and the other gods of the Communist
pantheon placed in prominent places aboard every ship remained murky. Surely,
the new military leaders in the Kremlin were aware that such icons held almost
no power at all over most Russians today. The wild, antiCommunist pogroms,
the chaos that had swept the nation from Riga to Vladivostok in 1991, surely
had convinced even the most obdurate of Communist hard-liners that Communism
was, in fact, dead.
Apparently not. Claiming the need to restore order, preserve the state,
and prevent general civil war, the marshals had seized power from the
faltering and disintegrating Soviet republics at gunpoint, proclaiming a new
era of Communist glory, of efficiency, of productivity, of glory.
Well, if that was to be the rallying call for the revitalized Union, so
be it. Chances were, Khenkin thought, no one else–not even Vorobyev or his
marshals–believed much in Communism themselves, but they needed a symbol to
bind the Union together, at least until a final victory over the West made
such symbols obsolete.
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