22. Ripostes
The submarine slowed to reacquire the target. She'd run deep at fifteen knots for over an hour, and now reduced speed and came up to five hundred feet, right in the middle of the deep sound channel. McCafferty ordered an easterly course, which allowed the towed-array sonar-his 'tail'-to bear on the supposed target to the north. It took several minutes before the array was straight and aligned in the proper direction so that the sonar operators could begin their work in earnest. Slowly the data came up on their displays, and a senior petty officer plugged in a set of headphones, hoping for an aural detection. There was nothing to detect. For twenty minutes the screen showed only random noise patterns.
McCafferty examined the paper plot. Their erstwhile contact would now be exactly two convergence zones away and should have been easily detected, given known water conditions. But their screens showed nothing.
'We never did have a classification.' The executive officer shrugged. 'He's gone.'
'Take her up to antenna depth. Let's see what's cooking topside.' McCafferty moved back to the periscope pedestal. He could not fail to note the instant tension in the compartment. The last time they'd done this, they'd nearly been sunk. The submarine leveled off at a depth of sixty feet. Sonar did another check and found nothing. The ESM mast went up, and the electronics technician reported only weak signals. The search periscope went up next. McCafferty made a very quick check of the horizon-nothing in the air, nothing on the surface.
'There's a storm to the north, line squall,' he said. 'Down scope.'
The executive officer grumbled an inaudible curse. The noise from the storm would make the normally difficult task of finding a conventional sub motoring along on battery power nearly impossible. It was one thing for them to dart a short distance out of their patrol area with a good chance for a kill. It was another to leave for a whole day looking for something that they might never find. He looked at the captain, waiting for the decision to be made.
'Secure from general quarters,' McCafferty said. 'XO, take us back to station at ten knots. Keep her deep. I'm going to take a nap. Wake me in two hours.'
The captain walked a few steps forward to his stateroom. The bunk was already folded down, unmade, from the portside bulkhead. Instrument repeaters would show him course and speed, and a TV set could show him whatever the periscope might be looking at, or a taped movie. McCafferty had been awake for about twenty hours now, and the added stress that comes from a combat environment made it feel like a week. He took off his shoes and lay down, but sleep would not come.
The colonel ran his hand along the bomber silhouette painted on the side of his fighter. His first combat victory, recorded on his gun cameras. Not since a handful of his comrades had fought in the skies of North Vietnam had a Soviet Air Force pilot won a real air-to-air victory, and this one had been over a nuclear-capable bomber that might otherwise have threatened the homeland.
There were now twenty-five MiG-29 fighters on Iceland, and four of them were aloft at all times to protect the bases as the ground troops tightened their control of the island.
d their control of the island.
The B-52 raid had hurt them. Their main search radar was slightly damaged, but another was being flown out today, a more modem, mobile unit whose position would be changed twice a day. He wished they had an airborne radar, but learned that losses over Germany had severely limited their availability. The news of the air war there was not good, though the two regiments of MiG-29s were doing well. The colonel checked his watch. In two hours he would be leading a squadron escorting a small force of Backfires that was searching for a convoy.
'Okay, Doghouse, I can see six fighter aircraft sitting on the runways at Reykjavik. They all got red stars on them. They have twin-rudder configuration and appear to be armed with air-to-air missiles. Two SAM launchers, and some kind of gun-looks like a Gatling gun-mounted on a tracked vehicle.'
'That's a Zulu-Sierra-Uniform Three-Zero, Beagle. They're very bad news. We want to know all about those bastards. How many of them?'
'Only one, located on the grassy triangle a few hundred yards west of the terminal building.'
'Are the fighters together or dispersed?'
'Dispersed, two on each runway. There's a small van with each pair, plus five or six soldiers. I estimate a hundred troops here, with two armored vehicles and nine trucks. They're patrolling the airport perimeter, and there are several machine-gun emplacements. The Russians also seem to be using the local short-haul airliners for moving troops around. We've seen soldiers boarding the little twin-prop birds. I've counted four flights today. We have not seen a Russian chopper since yesterday.'
'How's Reykjavik city look?' Doghouse asked.
'It's hard to see into the streets. We can look down a valley towards the airport, but we can only see down a few streets. One armored vehicle is visible in there parked, like, at an intersection. Troops are just hanging around, like cops or something at every intersection we can see. If I had to guess, I'd say most of their troops are around Reykjavik and Keflavik. Not many civilians around, and almost no civilian traffic. There's a lot of movement on the main roads, both along the coast to our west, and also east on Route 1. It's all back-and-forth traffic, like they're patrolling. We've counted a total of fifty-some trips, split about even on the two highways. One other thing. We saw some Russians using a civilian vehicle. We haven't seen a jeep yet, except a few of ours on the airport grounds. The Russians have jeeps-their kind, I mean-right? I think they've commandeered the people's four-by-fours. That's practically the national vehicle here, and a lot of them are moving around on the roads.'
'Any more incoming transport flights?'
'Five. We have clear skies, and we can watch them going in towards Keflavik. Four were IL-76s, and the other one looked kind of like a C-130. I don't know the designation for that one.'
'Are the fighters flying?'
'We saw one take off two hours ago. I'd say they have a patrol up, and have fighters here and Keflavik both. That's a guess, but I'll bet money on it. I'd also say the fighters we're looking at can roll off in less than five minutes. Looks a lot like a hot-pad alert status.'
'Okay, copy that, Beagle. How is your situation?'
'We're pretty well concealed, and the sarge has two escape routes scouted. We haven't seen the Russians beat any bushes yet. Mostly they seem to be hanging in populated areas and on the roads. If they start heading this way, we'll be bugging out.'
'Exactly right, Beagle. We will probably be ordering you off that hill soon anyway. You're doing good, boy. Hang in there. Out.'
'The kid's doing all right,' the major said. He was in an awkward position-an American officer in a NATO communications post run by Brit intelligence types who were evenly split on Edwards's reliability.
'I'd say he's doing bloody marvelously,' nodded the senior Brit. He'd lost an eye, quite some time ago by the look of it, but was still one tough looking bastard, the major thought. 'Notice how he discriminates between what his observations and opinions are.'
'Weather forecaster,' snorted another. 'We must get some professionals in there. How quickly can we whistle some up?'
'Perhaps by tomorrow. The Navy wants to put them in by submarine, though, and I agree. A bit dicey for a parachute infiltration, you know. Iceland's covered with rocks, the place is made to break ankles and legs. Then there's the Soviet fighters. No hurry on putting troops there, is it? We've got to reduce their air assets first and generally make life as difficult for them as we can.'
'That starts tonight,' the major said. 'Nordic Hammer Phase Two will hit around the local sunset time.'
'Hope it works better than Phase One did, old boy.'
'So how are things going up here?' Toland asked his Royal Air Force counterpart. Right before boarding the flight he'd sent the telegram to Marty: I'M ALL RIGHT. ON THE BEACH FOR A WHILE. LOVE. He hoped that would reassure her. Probably the news of the carrier battle was already in the papers.
