“Yes, we all owe the Committee for State Security a vote of thanks for their masterful analysis of the West’s situation,” Vorobyev interjected quickly before the KGB chief could react to Boltin’s thinly veiled insult. He needed Doctorov’s good will more than the Party’s, at least for now, and they couldn’t afford to waste time or effort in internal squabbles. The new government’s control over the Soviet Union was still tenuous at best, though the mobilization against the “possible spread of Western anarchy” was rapidly allowing the Red Army and the KGB to deploy enough strength to dominate key areas. “We always knew that there were risks involved in Rurik’s Hammer, that there were some elements we would not be able to control. Neither the KGB nor Admiral Khenkin can be held responsible for what the Americans choose to do.”
“But what do we do?” Ubarov demanded. “War with the Americans was never a part of the plan.”
“Not an all-out war, no.” Vorobyev smiled. “It is in no one’s interest for the nuclear missiles to fly. I believe the Americans will feel that as strongly as I do. The important thing now is to hold them at arm’s length while we complete the conquest of Scandinavia. At that point they will be in the unenviable position of choosing between an unacceptable escalation or a stalemate. While we, on the other hand, will be poised to dominate Europe from our new flanking positions.”
“Hold them at arm’s length,” Doctorov mused. “Then you mean to strike at the carrier battle group? No other American force is in a position to intervene.”
“There is one other that must be cleared in order to isolate the battle group,” Vorobyev said. “In fact, a determined strike on this target could well discourage them from further adventures within our exclusion zone.” He smiled. “I am recommending that we introduce Plan North Star immediately. At the same time it would be wise to begin harassing the American ships … perhaps a few of our attack submarines would be well employed in this. After North Star has been resolved we will evaluate the situation and decide what else needs to be done.”
He saw heads nodding across the table, and his smile broadened. They had a tiger by the tail in Scandinavia. Rurik’s Hammer had to succeed if the Soviet Union was to regain power in Europe. This time it would be the Germans and the British who would have to come begging to Moscow for the very right to survive! Every one of those men knew that there was no going back now.
And as long as Rurik’s Hammer was in motion, they needed Vorobyev. While Doctorov maneuvered and Ubarov trembled and the rest tried to predict the outcome and make the right political choices, it would be the army that solidified its power base and made sure that the Rodina would never again be humbled by the West.
The S-3B Viking banked left and settled onto a new heading, but as far as Magruder was concerned it might as well have been holding steady on an endless flight to nowhere. Outside was the same monotony of cloud and sea, with little prospect of a break in the routine. It was a common belief among fighter pilots that the men who flew ASW missions slept through their flights and returned home with numb asses, and Tombstone was beginning to believe it.
For a Tomcat pilot, Tombstone told himself, a desk job at the Pentagon was a taste of Hell … but the cockpit of an S-3 was Purgatory, pure and simple.
The Viking was an amazing aircraft. That much he was willing to concede. Handsome, high-winged, with fine lines and an aerodynamic design that made it a dream to fly, the S-3 had only one thing in common with the F-14 he knew so well. Both were dedicated weapons platforms, mounting sophisticated equipment and electronics all concentrated on fulfilling one purpose and one purpose only.
In the case of the Viking that purpose was submarine hunting, a job the aircraft performed splendidly. Magruder couldn’t argue with the versatility of the machine or with the skill and dedication of the three other men aboard, all experienced sub-hunters from the VS-42 squadron, the King Fishers.
Tombstone’s complaint was with the job itself. The temperament and skills that made a good fighter pilot were the antithesis of what made a Viking crewman tick. The aircraft was designed to remain aloft for long periods of time, burning fuel at about a sixth the rate of the thirsty Tomcats. And these extended flights required nothing so much as patience, a skill few fighter jocks cultivated.
“Want to take her for a while, Commander?” the pilot asked over the ICS. Commander Max “Hunter” Harrison was CO of the King Fishers, a soft-spoken black man whose pride in his squadron was evident in everything he said. He had elected to come on the mission this morning as the Viking’s pilot as soon as he’d learned that the Deputy CAG was going out. Tombstone could see that much, at least. Back when he’d been a squadron leader he had tried to be on hand anytime CAG or his staff were around.
“What’s my course?” Magruder asked. “This game’s a little out of my regular line of work.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Harrison said with a chuckle. “The computer’ll tell you where to steer.” He pointed to a display screen on the instrument panel. “Keep lined up on this and everything’ll be great.”
Magruder nodded. His training on the Viking was coming back slowly. The computer accepted instructions from the plane’s Tactical Coordinator, or TACCO, who designated where he wished to deploy sonobuoys as part of an overall search pattern. The computer marked the spot and guided the pilot there. On reaching the chosen position the number and type of sonobuoys selected for that location were ejected automatically from the rack in the belly of the aircraft.
“Right,” he said. He grasped the stick. The Viking was the only jet aboard the carrier which had duel flight controls. That allowed a pilot and copilot to divide up the flying duties on a five-hour patrol. There were other controls at his station in the cockpit besides the regular flight instruments, since the copilot was also expected to assist the TACCO in the sub-hunting part of the plane’s work. In fact Magruder was filling the slot of COTAC, although his knowledge of the electronics was limited. “I’ve got her!”
It felt good to be doing something at least, even if this wasn’t the most challenging flying he’d ever been called upon to attempt. The S-3’s mission was to range out beyond the screen of frigates and destroyers masking a battle group and crisscross the ocean in search of enemy submarines. The sonobuoys were the key to that. Each one was a floating module containing a sonar transducer and a radio. Once deployed, they sent out pulses of sound which were reflected back by obstacles — the sea bottom, whales, schools of fish, and the occasional submarine. The radios relayed the results of the sonar searches back to the Viking, where a crewman known as the Senso was responsible for translating the arcane data into an approximation of what was in a given stretch of ocean, and where.
The Senso had other tools at his command as well, from magnetic-anomaly detectors to electronic- surveillance gear that monitored radio traffic to FLIR, Forward-Looking Infrared Radar, which could detect the heat emissions of ships and subs lying at or near the surface. But the sonobuoys were the first and most important tool in the ongoing search for enemies lying beneath the waves.
Harrison slumped in his seat, looking completely relaxed. “What d’you think, Spock? Are we going to have anything to show our VIP this time out?”
From the rear compartment of the plane Lieutenant Commander Ralph Meade, the TACCO, gave a cautious answer over the ICS. He was a tall, spare man who bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor Leonard Nimoy, and that together with his precise, measured way of speaking had earned him his running name. “Hard to say, Skipper. SOSUS showed at least five subs filtering out in the past week, but there’s no telling if they’re still hanging around here or if they’ve moved on by now.”
That, Magruder thought bitterly, was the real problem with the sub-hunting business. The arcane art of ASW work was at least as much an art form as it was a science. Aircraft like the Viking had to fly long, complicated patrol patterns searching for enemy submarines because as yet no one had developed a reliable way to keep tabs on subs from a distance. The first line of defense was SOSUS — for Sonar Surveillance System — a line of permanent underwater microphones strung along the sea floor all the way across the GIUK (Greenland-Iceland- United Kingdom) gap. The technicians in the SOSUS control center back in Norfolk swore they could detect any sub that tried to cross the line, but once a submarine had passed through the network of microphones there was no way to keep further tabs on them except through dedicated ASW ships, planes, and helicopters. Frigates like the Gridley, helicopters off Jefferson and her escorts, the two submarines attached to the battle group, even P-3C Orion aircraft out of Keflavik in Iceland, all played a part in the ongoing hunt for the weapon most carrier skippers feared above all others. But it was the Viking that was the real backbone of the whole effort.
Yet with everything they could set to hunting they still couldn’t cover all the bases. Too much ocean, not enough people. A losing proposition, if viewed strictly from the technical side of things.
