Part 54 (1/2)

”When this all over, what will you do?” Her eyes held a great deal of interest now.

”One thing at a time.” He was thinking in terms of hours, not days or weeks. If we do survive, then what? Put that one aside. First comes survival. You think about ”after the war,” and there won't be any. ”I'm too tired to think about that. Let's get some sleep.”

She fought it. He knew that she wanted to know things he hadn't consciously considered, but she was more fatigued than she'd admitted, and ten minutes later she was asleep. She snored. Mike hadn't noticed before. This was no china doll. She had strengths and weaknesses, good points and bad. She had the face of an angel, but she'd gotten herself pregnant-so what! Edwards thought. She's braver than she's beautiful. She saved my life when that chopper came in on us. A man could do far worse.

Edwards commanded himself to lie down and sleep. He couldn't think about this. First he had to survive.

SCOTLAND.

”If the area checks out?” the major asked. He had never really expected Edwards and his party to make it this far, not with eight thousand Russian troops on the island. Every time he thought about those five people trekking over bare, rocky ground and Soviet helicopters circling overhead, his skin crawled.

”Around midnight, I think,” the man from Special Operations Executive said. You could see the smile crinkling the skin around his eyepatch. ”You chaps had better decorate this young man. I've been in his boots myself. You cannot imagine how difficult it is to do what these people have done. And having a b.l.o.o.d.y Hind helicopter sit right on top of them! I've always said it's the quiet little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that you have to watch out for.”

”In any case, it's time we got some professionals in to back them up,” p.r.o.nounced the captain of Royal Marines.

”Make sure they take in some food,” suggested the USAF major.

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VIRGINIA.

”So, what's the problem?” Nakamura asked.

”There are irregularities in some of the rocket motor casings,” the engineer explained.

” 'Irregularities' meaning they go boom?”

”Possibly,” the engineer admitted.

”Super,” said Major Nakamura. ”I'm supposed to carry that monster seventeen miles straight the h.e.l.l up and then find out who goes into orbit, me or it!”

”When this sort of rocket explodes, it doesn't do much. It just breaks into a couple of pieces that burn out by themselves.”

”I imagine from seventeen miles off it doesn't look like much-what about when the sucker ignites twenty feet from my F-15?” A long way to skydive, Buns thought.

”I'm sorry, Major. This rocket motor is nearly ten years old. n.o.body checked our spec sheet on proper storage after it was mated with the ASAT warhead. We've checked it out with X rays and ultrasound. I think it's okay, but I might be wrong,” the man from Lockheed said. Of the six remaining ASAT missiles, three had been decertified by the man for cracks in the solid-fuel propellant. The other three were question marks. ”You want the truth or you want a song and dance?”

”You gotta fly it, Major,” the deputy commander of Tactical Air Command said. ”It's your decision.”

”Can we rig it so the bird doesn't ignite until I'm clear?”

”How long will you need?” the engineer asked. Buns thought about her speed and maneuverability at that alt.i.tude.

”Say ten or fifteen seconds.”

”I'll have to make a small change in the programming software, but that shouldn't be much of a problem. We'll have to make sure that the missile will retain enough forward velocity to keep its launch att.i.tude, though. You sure that's enough time?”

”No. We'll have to check that out on the simulator, too. How long we got?”

”Minimum two days, maximum six days. Depends on the Navy,” replied the General.

”Great.”

STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND.

”Here's some good news,” Toland announced. ”An Air Force F-15 Eagle fighter was flying over a fast convoy north of the Azores. Two Bears came looking for the s.h.i.+ps and the Eagle got 'em both. That makes three in the past four days. The Backfire raid appears to have aborted.”

”What's their position?” the group captain asked.

Toland ran his hand along the chart, checking lat.i.tude and longitude against the numbers on the dispatch form. ”Looks like right about here, and that datum is twenty minutes old.”

”That puts them over Iceland in just under two hours.”

”What about tankers?” the Navy fighter commander asked.

”Not on such short notice.”

”We can stretch that far with two fighters, using another two for buddy stores, but it only gives them about twenty minutes on station, under five on burner, and a ten-minute reserve when they get back here.” The fighter boss whistled. ”Close. Too close. We have to wave off on this.”

A phone rang. The British base commander grabbed.

”Group Captain Mallory. Yes . . . very well, scramble.” He hung up. Klaxons went off at the ready shack half a mile away. Fighter pilots raced to their aircraft. ”Ivan's settled the argument in any case, Commander. Your radar aircraft report heavy jamming activity inbound from the north.”

The commander raced out the door and jumped into a jeep.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA.

The drive from SACLANT headquarters took ten minutes. The Marines at the main gate were checking everyone and everything carefully, even a Chevy with a three-star flag. They drove to the waterfront amid an unending flurry of activity. Trains rolled down the tracks set in the streets, repair shops and testing facilities worked around the clock. Even the McDonald's on the road immediately outside was working a twenty-four-hour day, feeding hamburgers and fries to the men who took a few minutes for nourishment. For sailors spending a day or so on land it was an important, if seemingly trivial, touchstone. The car turned right as it reached the docks, past the submarine piers to the ones that held destroyers.

”She's brand new, only a month in commission, just about long enough to calibrate the electronics, and they must have shaved some time on that,” the Admiral said. ”Captain Wilkens did continuous workups on the transit from San Diego, but nothing with helicopters yet. PACFLT kept hers, and I can't give you a regular helo complement either. All we have left is one Seahawk-F variant, a prototype helo they were evaluating down at Jacksonville.”

”The one with the dipping sonar?” Ed Morris asked. ”I can live with that. How aboat a driver who knows how to use it?”

”It's covered. Lieutenant Commander O'Malley. We pulled him out of a training billet at Jax.”