Part 1 (1/2)

HUNTER-KILLER.

by James Rouch.

'As I see it, World War Three will be fought in two places; in Western Europe, and on and under every d.a.m.ned inch of ocean around the globe.' Admiral Harvey J. Harrison, US Navy (Retired), in an off-the-record conversation before a televised debate on armament spending, June 1978.

The Atlantic. Aircraft from the USS Aircraft from the USS Carl Vinson, Carl Vinson, lead s.h.i.+p of the nuclear lead s.h.i.+p of the nuclearpowered task force commanded by Admiral Howard Murray, have made theirsecond 'kill' in three days, bringing to four the number of Soviet submarinesdestroyed by the Force in as many weeks. NATO sources have expressedconfidence that the threat to the convoy routes is steadily diminis.h.i.+ng. Merchants.h.i.+pping losses in the last quarter were down by 46 per cent, to 789,000 tons forthat theatre.

The Mediterranean. The Palestinian gunboat, Black September Black September (ex-Soviet (ex-SovietPoluchat cla.s.s patrol boat) has been sunk by the Israeli helicopter/missile craftAliya.A mixed force of British and American destroyers has sunk the Soviet fleetreplenishment s.h.i.+p Boris Chilikin Boris Chilikin (23,00 tons) and driven aground or damaged (23,00 tons) and driven aground or damagedthree Mirka cla.s.s frigates off Kinaros, at the entrance to the Aegean Sea. HMSBirmingham and USS and USS Dewey Dewey suffered some damage in the night engagement, but suffered some damage in the night engagement, but are remaining on station. are remaining on station.

The Pacific. Rescue and decontamination parties are now satisfied they have Rescue and decontamination parties are now satisfied they havelocated all of the survivors aboard the USS Nimitz. Nimitz. Rough weather has prevented Rough weather has preventedthe transfer of the. last of the casualties to the hospital s.h.i.+p Sanctuary, Sanctuary, but a but avolunteer medical team has established facilities aboard the carrier. With 140 feetof the bow and its island superstructure gone and the bodies of a thousand crewmembers still on board, it is thought likely, though the Navy Department has issuedno statement as yet, that the s.h.i.+p will eventually be sunk as a war grave. Thewarhead that inflicted the damage, killing 50 per cent of the 6,328 strongcomplement, is estimated at 5Kt.

The North Seal Baltic Approaches / Baltic. In the past week, five new hulls In the past week, five new hullshave been launched from the Soviet naval s.h.i.+pyards at Leningrad, and fourwars.h.i.+ps have completed fitting-out, including a Kresta cla.s.s cruiser. Threerefitted destroyers and six new frigates have joined the squadrons working-up offthe coast of Poland.Increased radio activity and the s.h.i.+ps'' deployment has been taken by the NATOIntelligence Staffs as an indication that the Russians may shortly attempt abreakout into the North Sea. If successful this would totally alter the balance ofpower in the area, and seriously threaten the resupply of NA TO ground forces inthe Zone.

There is intense diplomatic activity between Stockholm and Moscow, and it isthought likely that the Russians are bringing pressure to bear on Sweden to gainrights of pa.s.sage for Warsaw Pact combat vessels through her territorial waters. Ifthis is granted, then the Soviet s.h.i.+ps will be able to avoid the extensive NATOminefields in the Kattegat. Strenuous efforts to counter the Russian move are beingmade by Western diplomats, who fear that such a concession could be theforerunner of an agreement between the two countries that would virtually takeSweden into the Soviet camp.

ONE.

Flames were coming from the port inner engine of the giant Ilys.h.i.+n military transport. As the aircraft banked steeply towards the cover of broken cloud below, the feather-edged yellow streamer of fire spread along the high-set wing to its root. It seared away the banded green and brown camouflage paint and its furnace heat buckled the thin alloy skin of the fuselage. The blazing two-shaft turbofan suddenly broke from its pylon and whirled into s.p.a.ce, trailing a ribbon of blue smoke.

For an instant a bank of cloud hid the aircraft from sight, then as it emerged into clear sky once more, it was wracked by an internal explosion that littered the air with anonymous debris. Huge sheets of ragged metal were caught and tossed by the slip-stream. The nose of the Ilys.h.i.+n dropped sharply as it began its last, uncontrolled descent.

There followed a second, more violent explosion that tore the flame-enveloped wing from the transport, and it rolled on to its back and began to break up as it went into a steep dive. A moment before the clouds hid it again, the rear cargo doors burst open and the sky was seeded with the burning fragments of its palletised load and the tumbling bodies of its handling crew.

'Don't get f.u.c.king excited. It's not a real-time transmission. The general likes a few tapes of edited highlights played when things are a little slack.' Major Revell didn't need to look away from the big screen and the operations room spread out below to know that it was Ol' Foul Mouth who stood behind him on the balcony. The dramatic scenes of the recording had already been replaced with grid, continent outline and vari-coloured coded symbols of the status chart as he turned from the rail. 'When do I get my command, Colonel?' 's.h.i.+t, you still rumbling on about that?' Colonel Lippincott s.h.i.+ed the half-inch stub of pencil into a waste basket on the floor below and xylophoned his teeth with a fresh one, before testing its composition with a crunching bite. 'Come with me, I'll explain how it is.'

Led at a fast pace half the length of the underground complex, Revell had no chance to repeat his question, as both keeping up and the narrowness of some pa.s.sageways prevented him from putting it again.

'Well?' Lippincott threw open a rivet-studded steel door to reveal a small room not more than ten by ten. The bare, rough hewn walls of natural rock were relieved at intervals by unframed rectangles of startlingly daubed canvas. 'So tell me, what d'yer think?'

Not certain what it was he was supposed to comment on, Revell played safe. 'It isn't what I was expecting.'

'You can bet your f.u.c.king a.r.s.e it isn't. You know, I got better than ninety-five square feet here. There's a two-star general down the corridor apiece who ain't got half that, and he has to share with a couple of buckets and a mini-mop. How d'yer like the paintings?' He didn't give Revell a chance to reply. 'Did them myself. Kinda hobby of mine.'

Grateful to have been spared the need to conjure up what could only have been an unconvincing 'very nice', Revell sat on the canvas sling of the metal-framed chair he was waved to, and waited for Ol' Foul Mouth to settle in the swivelling bucket-style seat on the other side of the wide polished desk that dominated the artificially lit room.

'My one little luxury.' Lippincott ran his hand over the beautifully waxed wood. 'Had to slip a couple of fifties to a horse-faced master sergeant to get it in, but I feel happier with it down here, tucked away nice and safe.' 'There must be a lot of German civvies up above who'd like to feel the same about themselves.'

's.h.i.+t, they're safe enough.' Lippincott jerked his thumb towards the rock ceiling. 'They're a good twenty of their c.r.a.ppy kilometres from the Zone. Unless the Commies start breaking the rules again, and sling a few nukes around outside of it, they're safe. Give or take a spot of s.h.i.+tty fallout, that is.' 'What about my command?' Revell was growing impatient with the drawn-out preliminaries.

Taking a file from the neat stack barely lining the bottom of a wire basket, Lippincott flicked it open and smoothed the top sheet of crisp white paper. 'Before we get to that, I got the Staff verdict on that little j ob you did for me.' 'Verdict?' There'd been no special emphasis on the word, but it warned Revell to be on his guard.

'That's what I f.u.c.king said. Seems the good citizens of Frankfurt got their knickers a mite twisted over that... shall we call it 'adventure', of yours.' The colonel's finger found a particular line on the double s.p.a.ced report. 'As I read it, seems like they could have forgiven you for scaring the c.r.a.p out of them with that false Nuke alert while you flattened one of their showpiece industrial estates; but what stuck in their craw was coming back out of their shelters to find you'd done a h.e.l.l of a demolition job on a key power station, and f.u.c.ked-up who knows how many millions of man-hours of war effort.' 'I did the job I was given. My men destroyed the Ruskie armoured column...' 'Yeah, and that's probably what saved your hide, otherwise by now you'd be a s.h.i.+t-house cleaner, tenth cla.s.s.'

'Are you telling me I don't get the Special Combat Company I was promised three months back, is that it?' Revell leant forward and the top back rail of his chair clanged against the stone. 'I've got just seven men, seven. A couple of the survivors from that other group we absorbed might be worth hanging on to, but that's it.' He included Andrea in the number, counting her among the men. Judging by her ability to take care of herself, there was no reason why he should do otherwise.

'Sit still. h.e.l.l, there ain't the room to get excited and start jumping about in here.

OK, so that's how it is at the moment... now will you f.u.c.king sit, shut it, and listen...' Lippincott forestalled the objections and protest he sensed coming. 'Jesus, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with the combat commands think you're the only ones fighting this s.h.i.+tty war. All you got to fight is sneak-punching Russians; me, I've got to do battle with a dozen different cruddy Staff whiz-kids every day. Every d.a.m.ned day. You know the latest bee they got in their swollen heads? Course you f.u.c.king don't. Private armies.'

A crudely secured extension vent, from the main air-conditioning trunk in the pa.s.sageway, gave a sudden shudder and a tinny clatter of vibration at a distant impact and vomited a spoonful of fine dust that floated down to settle on the desk top. It had hardly touched before Lippincott was deftly brus.h.i.+ng it to the floor with a soft yellow cloth he took, neatly folded, from a top drawer. Only when the oak surface was once again without blemish did he flap the residue from his shoulders and his stump-encasing sleeve.

'You any idea how many brigade, divisional, even army commanders are trying to grab the headlines by forming special units? It's a h.e.l.l of a lot. Word has come down that it's got to stop. Too much dilution of effort is the reason given. Me, I reckon it's pressure from the guys running the Rangers and Commandos and the SAS. They don't want their thunder stolen.'

'So my new outfit gets its wings clipped even before it takes off.' The news wasn't a complete surprise to Revell. He'd been half expecting something like it.

'Yeah, but only clipped. A lot of others have been plucked, stuffed and cooked.' Closing the file, Lippincott replaced it, and took a second from a locked centre drawer. 'I got something else for you here, just to keep you ticking over. It's a toughie, but tailor-made for the size of your squad.' He paused a moment before going on. 'How you feel about starting a war?'

For a second Revell thought he must have misheard him. 'd.a.m.n it, Colonel, what have we got now? A two-hundred-mile wide no-man's-land running the length of Europe; ten million dead civvies, four times that number of refugees... what more do you want?'

'We want Sweden in the war, on our side. Finland could be forced into the Russian camp at any time, it's practically in it now. Like b.l.o.o.d.y Frog-land it's more f.u.c.king neutral to the Commies than it is to us.. Shoots at us if we only look that way, and meantime supplies the Ruskies with everything from ice-breakers to bootlaces and pyjama cords. If Sweden comes in on our side it would give us a good base from which to try and get back into the Baltic. Command aren't too happy about it having become a Russian lake, and with the Finns having to worry about the Swedish army they wouldn't be able to spare men to help the Russians in Norway.'

'The country's armament industry would be useful, too.' The attractions of the possibility were obvious to Revell.

'That'd be a bonus.'

'How is the miracle going to be worked? The Swedes are firmly neutral, they've been treading very careful with the Russians.' Lippincott smiled. 'The Ruskies are going to help us, but they don't know it yet. Come to that, they won't know until after they have. What's the weather like outside? I haven't been above ground for a week.'

To Revell the question seemed an irrelevance. 'Very cold, threatening snow. Why?'

'The weather boffins reckon all the little old ladies are being proved right at last. All those tactical nukes both sides have been so cheerfully chucking about inside the Zone have screwed the climate. Winter will be early this year, stay longer and bite a lot harder. Satellites tell us that the Russians are already having to do round- the-clock ice-breaking to keep Leningrad and the other northern Baltic ports and yards open. There's seven-tenths pack as far south as Gdansk and if they're going to get all the hardware their yards have been building or updating out into the Atlantic, then they'll have to be moving it real soon...'

'Where does my squad fit in, and how's Sweden going to be dragged in?'

'The Swedes have given the Commies the OK to make the pa.s.sage to open sea through their territorial waters, so we lose our chance to hit them in the narrows of the Baltic approaches. Once they reach the Skaggerak and the North Sea they'll spread out, have more room to manoeuvre, and altogether be a f.u.c.king tough target. Any we miss will be able to play havoc with either the Brits' oil-rigs or our convoy routes. Just when it begins to look like we got the measure of their subs, they're going to chuck surface units our way.' Spitting with machine-gun rapidity and accuracy, Lippincott sent fragments of soggy pencil wood into an ashtray...

'We're going to dump you and your men on a small island inside Swedish territorial waters, where the Russians will have to pa.s.s close. You'll be given enough firecrackers to scare the s.h.i.+t out of the Commies as they come racing out of the narrows between Sweden and the occupied Danish islands. If our Russian friends perform as per usual, they'll plaster the nearest Swedish territory with everything they've got. You should have a nice ringside seat for the first battle between the Commies and our newest ally.'

'And what if they're not so obliging?' The many problems the thumbnail sketch of the mission presented crowded in upon Revell. 'If the Ruskies don't lash out, then you'll have a multiple warhead Lance missile to stir them into action yourself. Nothing that'll do them any real harm, but it should get the party going.' Swivelling back and forth in his chair, and chewing furiously, Lippincott waited for the major's reaction.

'My men will be on the nearest chunk of Sweden when the Russians open fire. I'd like to know just how much ordnance is likely to come our way. What's the size of the force that'll be making the breakout?'

'Can't be sure at this stage. You'll get provisional figures before you go, and we'll feed you updates once you're established.' 'What's the estimate? There must be a number flying around somewhere.'

'It's only a guess, but Staff are working on the a.s.sumption there'll be ten major units and thirty-plus destroyers, frigates and mine hunters as escorts. You'll only be going for the big stuff, cruisers and the like.'

'And what do we hit them with? The Swedes have a good radar net. If we're going to land undetected we have to be travelling light. Since when has NATO had a weapon with a decent range, the ability to resist jamming and get through a s.h.i.+p's close-in defences, with a warhead. hefty enough to upset the captain of a fifteen thousand ton cruiser, that'll fit into a shoe box?'