“The Commodore is writing you up for something. Your third DFC, I guess.”
O’Malley thought about that briefly. His first two were for rescues, not for killing other men.
“How soon will you be ready to go up again?”
“How does next week grab you?”
“Get dressed. We’ll talk in the wardroom.”
The pilot raked his hair into place and changed into fresh clothing. He remembered the last time his wife had told him to use baby powder to protect his skin from the abuse of sweaty, tight clothes, and how stupid he’d been to reject the suggestion as not in keeping with aviator machismo. Despite the shower, there were a few patches of skin that would continue to itch and chafe. When he went to the wardroom, he found Morris waiting for him with a pitcher of iced bug juice.
“You got a diesel boat and two missile boats. How were they operating? Anything unusual?”
“Awfully aggressive. That Papa should have backed off. The Charlie took a smart route, but he was boring in pretty hard, too.” O’Malley thought it over as he drained his first glass. “You’re right. They are pushing awful hard.”
“Harder than I expected. They’re taking chances they ordinarily wouldn’t take. What’s that tell us?”
“It tells us we got two more busy days ahead, I guess. Sorry, Captain, I’m a little too wasted for deep thinking at the moment.”
“Get some rest.”
37 – The Race of the Cripples
STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Two o’clock in the morning. The attack would begin in four hours despite all his efforts to change it. Alekseyev stared at the map with its symbols of friendly units and intelligence estimates of enemies.
“Cheer up, Pasha!” Commander-in-Chief West said. “I know that you think we use up too much fuel. It will also destroy their remaining stocks of war supplies.”
“They can resupply, too.”
“Nonsense. Their convoys have suffered heavily, as our own intelligence reports have told us. They are sending one massive shipment across now, but the Navy tells me they are sending everything they have against it. And in any case it will arrive too late.”
Alekseyev told himself that his boss was probably right. After all, he had made his rank on the basis of a distinguished career. But still . . .
“Where do you want me?”
“With the OMG command post. No closer to the front than that.”
The OMG command post, Pavel thought ironically. First 20th Guards Tank Division was supposed to be the operational-maneuver group, then a two-division formation, then three divisions. Every time the breakthrough maneuver had been frustrated, until the very term “operational-maneuver group” sounded like some kind of absurd joke. His pessimism returned. The reserve formations held for exploitation of the attack were far behind the front, so as to be able to move to wherever the best penetration of NATO lines happened. It might take hours for them to reach the proper point. NATO had demonstrated a remarkable ability to compensate for sudden breakthroughs, he reminded himself. Alekseyev set this thought aside as he had with so many others and left the command center, collected Sergetov, and once again found a helicopter to take him on the trip west. His aircraft waited on the ground for its usual fighter escort.
The use of fighters to escort a single helicopter lifting off from Stendal was a pattern NATO air-control officers had noted before, but they’d never had the available units to do anything about it. This time it was different. An AWACS control aircraft over the Rhein watched the chopper lift off with three MiGs in attendance. The sector controller had a pair of F-4 Phantoms returning from a counter-air mission south of Berlin, and he vectored them north. The fighters skimmed the trees, their own radars off as they followed a safe-transit lane used by Russian aircraft.
Alekseyev and Sergetov sat alone in the back of the Mi-24 attack helicopter. There was room for eight combat-loaded infantrymen, so both had room to stretch and Sergetov took the chance for a nap. Their escorting MiGs were a thousand meters overhead, circling continuously as they watched for low-flying NATO fighters.
“Six miles,” came the call from the AWACS.
One Phantom popped up, illuminated two MiGs with its radar, and loosed a pair of Sparrow missiles. The other fired two Sidewinders at the helicopter.
The MiGs were caught looking the wrong way when their threat receivers went off. One dashed to the ground and evaded. The other exploded in midair as the surviving wingman radioed a warning. Alekseyev blinked in surprise at the sudden gout of light overhead, then grabbed for his seatbelt as the helicopter turned hard left and dropped like a stone. It was almost in the trees when the Sidewinder chopped off the tail rotor. Sergetov awoke and shouted in surprise and alarm. The Mi-24 spun in the air as it crashed into the trees and bounced the last fifty feet to the ground. The main rotor came apart, sending pieces in all directions, and the sliding door on the left side of the aircraft popped off as though made of plastic. Alekseyev went out right behind it, dragging Sergetov with him. Once again his instincts had saved him. The two officers were twenty meters away when the fuel tanks exploded. They never heard or saw the Phantoms that continued west to safety.
“Are you hurt, Vanya?” the General asked.
‘I didn’t even piss my pants. That must mean I’m a seasoned veteran.” The joke didn’t work. The young man’s voice shook along with his hands. “Where the hell are we?”
“An excellent question.” Alekseyev looked around. He hoped to see lights, but the entire country had a blackout in force, and Soviet units had learned the hard way about using lights on the highways. “We have to find a road. We’ll head south until we hit one.”
“Where is south?”
“Opposite from north. That is north.” The General pointed to a star, then turned to select another. “That one will lead us south.”
SEVEROMORSK, R.S.F.S.R.
Admiral Yuri Novikov monitored the progress of the battle from his underground headquarters a few kilometers from his main fleet base. He was stung by the loss of his principal long-range weapon-the Backfire bombers-but the way the Politburo had reacted to the missile attack was a greater shock. Somehow the politicians thought that it meant a ballistic-missile attack from the same area was possible, and no amount of argument to the contrary would change their minds. As if the Americans would risk their precious ballistic-missile subs in such restricted waters! the Admiral growled to himself. He was up against fast-attack boats-he was certain of it-and he was being forced to go after them with half his assets to prevent their escape. He didn’t have that many assets to go around.
The Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Northern Fleet had had a good war to this point. The operation to seize Iceland had gone almost perfectly-the boldest Soviet attack ever staged! The very next day he had smashed a carrier battle group, an epic victory for his forces. His plan to use his missile-armed bombers and submarines in combination against the convoys had worked well, particularly after he’d decided to use the bombers to eliminate the escort ships first. Submarine losses to date had been heavy, but he’d expected that. The NATO navies had practiced antisubmarine warfare for generations. There had to be losses. He’d made mistakes, Novikov admitted to himself. He should have gone after the escorts in a systematic way sooner-but Moscow wanted the merchants killed most of all, and he’d acceded to the “suggestion.”
Things were changing now. The sudden loss of his Backfire force-it would be out of action for another five days-forced him to take his dedicated anti-carrier submarine teams and send them against the convoys, which meant crossing NATO’s picket line of submarines, and losses there were heavy, too. His force of Bear reconnaissance bombers was hard hit. The damned war was supposed to be over by now, Novikov thought angrily. He had a powerful surface force waiting to escort additional troops to Iceland, but he couldn’t move that group until the campaign in Germany was within sight of its conclusion. No battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy, he reminded himself.
“Comrade Admiral, satellite photographs have arrived.” His aide handed over a leather dispatch case. The fleet intelligence chief arrived a few minutes later with his senior photo-interpretation expert. The photos were spread out across a table.
“Ali, we have a problem here,” the photo expert said.
Novikov didn’t need the expert to tell him that. The piers at Little Creek, Virginia, were empty. The American amphibious assault force had sailed with a full Marine division. Novikov had watched the progress of Pacific Fleet units to Norfolk with great interest, but then his ocean-reconnaissance satellites had both been killed, and launch authority on the last of them had been withheld. The next photo showed the carrier berths, also empty.