brought.
But he approved of the young pilot. The man had distinguished himself in
the battle with the Americans four days earlier. Though the enemy had
destroyed or scattered the Soviet amphibious group close to shore, the young
MiG-29 pilot was being credited with saving the Soyuz from a desperate
American air attack. He seemed to possess the one quality that Khenkin
admired above all others–luck.
Luck, certainly, was one quality the unfortunate Glushko had not
possessed.
“I expect a full report on the combat readiness of the wing as soon as
possible,” Khenkin said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You will also submit to me a plan for locating the American aircraft
carrier. Finding and destroying the Jefferson is to be our absolute top
priority. Special consideration is to be given to the possibility that the
Americans have already moved past our position and are attempting to round
North Cape.” Khenkin saw a shadow in the man’s eyes. “You disagree?”
“Disagree, no. However, there is another possibility.”
“And that is?”
“I have spent much of these past weeks flying over the Norwegian coast,
Comrade Admiral. It occurs to me that many of the fjords would be an
excellent hiding place. Perhaps the Americans only want you to think they
have moved farther north.”
Khenkin considered the possibility. He knew about the NATO exercises in
these waters, about the concept of forward defense. “Our rear areas and lines
of communication must be protected,” he said. “But you could be right. We
must not fall into the trap of underestimating our opponents. I will have our
intelligence people give special consideration to the idea. If you think
reconnaissance flights would help …”
“I will incorporate the plan in my report,” Terekhov said. “Will there
be anything else?”
“No, Sergei Sergeivich. You are dismissed.”
Khenkin continued to stare at the door for long minutes after the young
pilot had gone. From the bulkhead, Lenin continued to scowl.
CHAPTER 10
Friday, 20 June
1714 hours Zulu (1814 hours Zone)
Sea King 422
Bergen, Norway
Tombstone sat on one of the hard, fold-down seats mounted against a
bulkhead in the back of the Sea King helicopter. The thunder of the rotors
was so loud he and the crew chief with him wore helmets with built-in radios.
“Almost there,” the crewman called. He pointed out the helo’s open door
for emphasis. “Skipper says we’ll be landing in five minutes.”
Tombstone nodded. The landscape visible through the Sea King’s cargo
door was of silver-blue ocean shadowed by lowering thunderheads in the
distance, of green hills and rocky points of land and forest-covered slopes in
the near ground. The outlying suburbs of Bergen, neat, almost
medieval-looking hamlets rising from the lower slopes of the hills encircling
the city, were already in view.
Bergen was the second largest city in Norway, and the country’s largest
port and shipbuilding center. As the helicopter flew low across the
waterfront, Tombstone could see dozens of merchantmen lying at anchor in the
waters beyond the city and within the inlet called the Vdgen that pierced the
heart of Bergen like a dagger.
Several of those ships were low in the water or heavily listing. Smoke
still clung like a greasy cloud to the superstructure of one small tanker that
lay offshore with its foredeck almost completely submerged. Even at this
distance, Tombstone could see numerous tugs, barges, and small craft milling
about the wrecks like beetles on the water, as men worked to salvage cargos or
effect repairs.
Bergen had been raided a dozen times in the past two weeks. According to
OZ Department, there’d been strikes by Soviet cruise missiles every day. He
could see the scars, buildings with windows gone, gaps in neatly ordered rows
of houses where whole buildings had been reduced to charred rubble, where the
spire of the Johanesskirken had toppled into the park-like grounds of Bergen’s
University.
But, like London during the German Blitz, life continued in the
beleagured town. Half the buildings in the city, it seemed, had the Norwegian
flag, a St. George’s Cross on blue, fluttering defiantly from roof or
flagstaff or balcony.
The helicopter circled an open field on a hillside south of the city,
then settled toward a circle marked on the ground with white paint. A number