Part 34 (1/2)
”Radar contacts, bearing zero-three-four, range one-eight-zero miles. I count four targets, now five-six targets. Course two-one-zero, speed six hundred knots.”
”Here come the Backfires,” TAO said.
”Radar contact!” came the next call. ”Vampire! Vampire! We have inbound missiles.”
Morris cringed inwardly. The escorts all switched on their radar transmitters. Missiles trained out on the incoming targets. But Pharris was not part of that game. Morris ordered his s.h.i.+p to flank speed, turning north to race away from the missiles' probable target area.
”The Backfires are turning back. The Bear is holding position. We have some radio chatter. Now twenty-three inbound missiles. Bearing changing on all contacts,” TAO said. ”They're all headed for the convoy. Looks like we're in the clear.”
Morris could hear the crew in the Combat Information Center take one deep collective breath. He watched the radar display with marginal relief. The missiles were streaking in from the northeast, and the SAMs were coming up to meet them. The convoy was again ordered to scatter, the merchantmen racing away from the center of the target. What followed had an eerie resemblance to an arcade game. Of the twenty-three Soviet-launched missiles, nine broke through the SAMs and dove into the convoy. They hit seven merchantmen.
All seven were lost. Some disintegrated at once under the hammering impact of the thousand-kilogram warheads. The others lingered long enough for their crews to escape with their lives. The convoy had left the Delaware with thirty s.h.i.+ps. Only twenty were left, and there was almost fifteen hundred miles of open ocean between them and Europe.
GRAFARHOLT, ICELAND.
Two Backfires ran short of fuel and decided to land at Keflavik. Behind them was the damaged Bear. It circled Reykjavik waiting for the Backfires to clear the runway. Edwards reported it in as a propeller aircraft with a damaged engine. The sun was low over the northwestern horizon, and the Bear gleamed yellow against the cobalt-blue sky.
”Stay on the air, Beagle,” Doghouse ordered. Three minutes later, Edwards saw why.
This time there was no standoff jamming to warn the Soviets. Eight FB-111s swept in over the rocks, southwest from the island's rocky center. They skimmed down the bottom of Selja Valley in elements of two, their green and gray camouflage making them almost invisible to the fighters circling overhead. The lead pair turned due west, with another pair half a mile behind it. The remaining four went south around Mt. Hus.
”Holy s.h.i.+t.” Smith saw them first, two fast-moving tail fins to the south. Just as Edwards found them, the lead aircraft popped up and launched a pair of TV-guided bombs. The wingman did the same, and both attackers turned north. The four bombs homed in on the transformer station below them, and all landed within the fence perimeter. As though a single switch had been thrown, every light in view went out. The second pair of Aardvarks roared low over Highway 1, blazing over the rooftops of Reykjavik to line up on their target. The leader lofted his own smart-bombs, and his wingman broke left for the airport tankfarm on the waterfront. Moments later, the control tower exploded, along with a hangar, and Rockeye cl.u.s.ter-bombs blew the fuel tanks apart. Caught by surprise, the Russian gun and missile crews fired too late.
The defense troops at Keflavik were surprised, too, first by the sudden loss of electrical power, then by the bombers, which arrived only a minute later. Here, too, the control tower and hangars were the primary targets, and most came apart under the impact of two-thousand-pound bombs. The second team found two parked Backfires and a missile-launch vehicle for their Rockeyes to hit, and sprinkled more softball-sized bomblets over the runways and taxiways. Meanwhile, the FB-111s continued west on afterburner, with gunfire and missiles chasing them-and fighters. Six Fulcrums dove for the retreating Varks, whose protective jammers filled the sky with electronic noise.
Free of their ordnance loads, the American bombers blazed away at seven hundred knots, a scant hundred feet over the wavetops, but the Soviet fighter commander would not turn away from this one. He'd seen what they had done to Keflavik, and he was furious at having been caught unaware despite having his fighters aloft. The Fulcrums had a slight speed advantage and closed the gap slowly. They were over a hundred miles offsh.o.r.e when their missile radars burned through the Americans' jamming. Two fighters immediately launched missiles, and the American aircraft jinked up, then down to lose them. One FB-111 took a hit and cartwheeled into the sea, and the Soviets were preparing a second volley when their threat receivers came on.
Four American Phantoms were waiting in ambush for them. In a moment eight Sparrow missiles were diving toward the Fulcrums. Now it was time for the Soviets to run. The MiG-29s wheeled and ran back for Iceland on afterburner. One was felled by a missile, and another damaged. The battle had lasted all of five minutes.
”Doghouse, this is Beagle. The electrical station is gone! The Varks knocked it flat, guy. One h.e.l.l of a fire at the southwest edge of the airport, and looks like the tower got chopped in half. Two hangars look shot up. I see two, maybe three burning aircraft, civilian types. The fighters got off half an hour ago. d.a.m.n, that tank farm is burning like a sonuvagun! Lots of people running around on the ground below us.” As Edwards watched, a dozen vehicles with headlights blazing ran back and forth over the roads below him. Two stopped a kilometer away and dismounted troops. ”Doghouse, I think it's time for us to leave this hill.”
”That's a roger, Beagle. Head northeast toward Hill 482. We'll expect to hear from you in ten hours. Get moving, boy! Out.”
”Time to leave, sir.” Smith tossed the lieutenant his pack and motioned for the privates to move. ”Looks like we can score one for the good guys.”
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND.
The MiGs landed on the still undamaged runway one-eight, the base's longest. They had barely stopped rolling when ground crews began the process of turning them around for further combat operations. The colonel was surprised to see the base commander still alive.
”How many did you get, Comrade Colonel?”
”Only one, and they got one of mine. Didn't you get anything on radar?” the colonel demanded.
”Not a thing. They hit Rejkyavik first. Two groups of aircraft, they came in from the north. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds must have flown between the rocks,” the major snarled. He pointed to the big mobile radar that sat in the open between two runways. ”They missed it completely. Amazing.”
”We must move it. Someplace high, very high. We'll never get an airborne radar, and unless we improve radar warning, this low-level business will eat us up. Find a good hilltop. How badly are our facilities damaged?”
”Many small holes in the runways from these bomblets. We'll have them all patched in two hours. The loss of the tower will hinder our ability to operate large numbers of aircraft. When we lost electrical power, we lost the ability to move fuel through our pipeline, probably lost the local telephone service.” He shrugged. ”We can make adjustments, but it's a major inconvenience. Too much work, too few men. We must disperse the fighters, and we must make alternate arrangements for fueling. The next target will be the fuel dumps.”
”Did you expect this to be easy, Comrade?” The colonel looked over at the blazing pyres that only thirty minutes before had been a pair of Tu-22M Backfires. The damaged Bear was just touching down. ”Their timing was too good. They caught us when half my fighters were escorting a bomber force off the north coast. Luck, perhaps, but I do not believe in luck. I want ground troops to check for enemy infiltrators around all the airports. And I want better security arrangements. I-what the h.e.l.l is that?”
A Rockeye bomblet lay on the concrete not twenty feet from them. The major took a plastic flag from his jeep and set it near the bomb.
”The Americans set some for delayed detonation. My men are already searching for them. Be at ease, Comrade, all your fighters have landed safely. Your dispersal areas are clear.”
The colonel drew back a few feet. ”What do you do with them?”
”We've already practiced this. We'll use a specially fitted bulldozer to push them off the concrete. Some will explode, some won't. Those that do not go 'off of their own accord will be detonated by a marksman with a rifle.”
”The tower?”
”Three men were on duty. Good men.” The major shrugged again. ”You must excuse me. I have work to do.”
The colonel took a last look at the bomblet before walking toward his fighters. He'd underestimated the major.
ICELAND.
”There's a light on our hill,” Garcia said. Everyone dropped to the ground. Edwards got next to the sergeant.
”Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d just lit a cigarette,” Smith observed sourly. He'd finished his last one several hours before and was going through withdrawal symptoms. ”Now you see why we're carrying our trash with us?”
”They're looking for us?” Edwards asked.
”Figures. That attack was pretty cute. They'll wonder if the airedales had any help. I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner. Guess they were pretty busy with other stuff.”
”Think they can see us?” Edwards didn't like that idea.