'We ought to have one ready in another half hour. Their artillery support is slackening off. They blew one bridging unit to hell, but this one will be completed. I have a battalion of tanks lined up already. The SAMs are doing well. I can see the wreckage of five aircraft from where I'm standing. I see-' The General was interrupted by man- made thunder.
Alekseyev could do nothing but stare at the telephone receiver. His fist tightened in anger around the handset.
'Excuse me. That was close. The final section of bridge is rolling out now. Those engineers have taken terrible losses, Comrade General. They deserve particular attention. The major in command of the unit has been exposed for three hours now. I want the gold star for him.'
'Then he'll get it.'
'Good, good-the bridge section is off the truck and in the water. If they give us ten minutes to anchor the far end, I'll get those dammed tanks across for you. How long on my reinforcements?'
'The lead elements will arrive just after sunset.'
'Excellent! I must leave now. I'll be back when we start rolling tanks.'
Alekseyev handed the phone back to a junior officer. It was like listening to a hockey game on the radio!
'The next objective, Pasha?'
'Northwest to Hameln and beyond. We might be able to cut off NATO's northern army groups. If they start to disengage their forces around Hamburg, we go to a general attack and chase them all the way to the English Channel! I think we have the situation we've been hoping for.'
At NATO headquarters, staff officers looked at the same maps and reached the same conclusions with less enthusiasm. Reserves were dangerously low-yet there was no choice. Men and guns converged on Alfeld in ever increasing numbers.
It was the biggest transit of U.S. Navy ships in years. The gray hulls used both sides of each lock system, preventing westbound traffic from moving. They were in a hurry. Helicopters moved the Canal pilots to and from ships; speed restrictions were broken, regardless of the erosion problems at the Gaillard Cut. Those ships needing refueling had it done as soon as they exited the Canal at the Gatun Locks, then formed an antisubmarine barrier outside Lim?n Bay. The formation's transit from Pacific to Atlantic lasted twelve hours under ruthless security. Finished, they departed north at a fleet speed of twenty-two knots. They had to go through the Windward Passage at night.
30. Approaches
They call it the smell of the sea, Morris thought, but really it's not. It's the smell of land It came from the tidal marshes-all the things that lived and died and rotted at the water's edge, all the smells that fermented in the marginal wetlands and when released blew out to sea. Sailors considered it a friendly odor because it meant that land, port, home, family were near. Otherwise it was something to be neutralized with Lysol.
As Morris watched, the tug Papago shortened her towline for better control in the restricted waters. Three harbor tugs came alongside, their crews throwing messenger lines to the frigate's sailors. When they were secured, Papago cast off and proceeded up the river to refuel.
'Good afternoon, Captain.' The harbor pilot had come out on one of the tugs. He looked to have been bringing ships in and out of Boston for fifty years.
'And to you, Captain,' Morris acknowledged.
'I see you killed three Russian subs?'
'Only one by ourselves. The others are assists.'
'How much water are you drawing forward?'
'Just under twenty-five feet-no,' Morris had to correct himself. The sonar dome was at the bottom of the Atlantic now.
'You did well to bring her back, Captain,' the pilot said, looking forward. 'My 'can didn't survive. Before you were born, I guess. Callaghan, seven ninety-two. Assistant gunnery officer, I'd just made j.g. We got twelve Jap planes, but just after midnight the thirteenth kamikaze got through on us. Forty-seven men-well.' The pilot took the walkie-talkie from Ins pocket and started giving directions to the tugs. Pharris began to move sideways toward a pier. A medium-sized drydock was straight ahead, but they were not moving that way.
'Not the drydock?' Morris asked, surprised and angry that his ship was being moved to an ordinary pier.
'Mechanical problems in the dock. They're not ready for you yet. Tomorrow, day after for sure. I know how you feel, Captain. Like your kid's hurt and they won't let her in the hospital. Cheer up, I watched mine sink.'
It made no sense to grumble, Morris knew. The man was right. If Pharris hadn't sunk during the tow, she was safe enough alongside the pier for a day or two. The pilot was an expert. His trained eye measured the wind and the tide, and he gave the proper orders to the tug captains. Within thirty minutes the frigate was secured to the cargo pier. Three TV news crews were waiting for them behind a screen of sailors in shore patrol livery. As soon as the brow was rigged, an officer hurried aboard and came right to the bridge.
'Captain, I'm Lieutenant Commander Anders. I have this for you, sir.' He handed over an official-looking envelope.
Morris tore it open and found a standard Navy dispatch form. The message ordered him in terse Navy prose to Norfolk by the quickest available transport.
'I have a car waiting. You can catch the shuttle to D.C., then hop a short-hauler to Norfolk.'
'What about my ship?'
'That's my job, Captain. I'll take good care of her for you.'
Just like that, Morris thought. He nodded and went below to pack his gear. Ten minutes later he walked without speaking past the TV cameras and was taken to Logan International Airport.
Toland went over the satellite photographs of Iceland's four airfields. Strangely, the Russians were not making any use of the old Keflavik field, preferring instead to base their fighters at Reykjavik and the new NATO base. Occasionally, a Backfire or two were landing at Keflavik, bombers with mechanical problems or running short of fuel, but that was it. The northerly fighter sweeps had had their effect, too-the Russians were doing their tanking farther north and east now, which had produced a marginal but nevertheless negative effect on the Backfires' range. The experts estimated that it cut twenty minutes off the time they had to search for convoys. Despite the searching done by the Bears and satellite reconnaissance, only two-thirds of the raids actually launched attacks. Toland didn't know why. Was there a problem with Soviet communications? If so, could they find a way to exploit it?
The Backfires were still hurting the convoys, and badly. After considering Navy prodding, the Air Force was starting to base fighters in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the Azores. Supported by tankers borrowed from the Strategic Air Command, they were trying to maintain a combat air patrol over those convoys they could reach. There was no hope of actually breaking up a Backfire raid, but they could start thinning the Bears out. The Soviets had only about thirty of the wide-ranging Bear-D reconnaissance aircraft. Roughly ten flew every day with their powerful Big Bulge radars turned on to guide the bombers and submarines in on the convoys, which made them relatively easy to find, if a fighter could be put out there to find them. After much experimentation, the Russians had fallen into a predictable pattern of air operations. They would be made to pay for that. Tomorrow the Air Force would have a two-plane patrol over six different convoys.
The Russians would be made to pay a toll for basing aircraft on Iceland, too.
'I make it a regiment, say twenty-four to twenty-seven aircraft. All MiG-29 Fulcrums,' Toland said. 'We never seem to see more than twenty-one on the ground. I figure they're running a fairly steady combat air patrol, say four birds aloft almost around the clock. They also appear to have three ground-based radars, and they're moving them around a lot. That probably means that they're set up for ground-controlled intercepts. Any problem jamming the search radars?'
