“If you don’t know that, pal, you don’t belong on this net. Clear off, we need this for official traffic,” the voice answered coldly. Edwards stared at the radio in mute rage for several seconds before exploding.
“Listen up, asshole! The guy who knows how to work this damned radio is dead, and I’m all you got. The base at Keflavik was hit seven hours ago by a Russian air and ground attack. The place is crawling with bad guys, there’s a Russian ship coming into Hafnarfjördur harbor right now, and you’re playing fucking word games! Let’s get it together, mister. Over!”
“Copy that. Stand by. We have to verify who you are.” Not a trace of remorse.
“Dammit, this thing works on batteries. You want me to run them down while you open a file cabinet?”
A new voice came on the circuit. “Edwards, this is the senior communications watch officer. Get off the air. They might be able to monitor you. We’ll check you out and be back in three-zero minutes from now. You got that? Over.”
That was more like it. The lieutenant checked his watch. “Roger, understand. We’ll be back in three-zero minutes. Out.” Edwards flipped the power switch off. “Let’s get moving. I didn’t know they could track in on this.” The good news was that the radio broke down in under two minutes, and they were moving again.
“Sarge, let’s head for this Hill 152. We should be able to see pretty good from up there, and there’s water on the way.”
“It’s hot water, sir, full of sulfur. Just as soon not drink that shit, if you know what I mean.”
“Suit yourself.” Edwards moved off at a slow trot. Once as a boy he’d had to call in to report a fire. They’d believed him then. Why not now?
MV JULIUS FUCIK
Kherov knew that he was finishing the work that the Americans had begun. Driving his ship into the harbor at eighteen knots was worse than reckless. The sea bottom here was rock, not mud, and a grounding could easily rip his bottom out. But he feared another air attack even more, and he was sure that a flight of American fighters was heading this way, laden with missiles and bombs that would rob him of success in the most important mission of his life.
“Midships!” he called.
“Rudder amidships,” the helmsman acknowledged.
He’d learned minutes before that his first officer was dead, from wounds sustained in the first strafing attack. His best helmsman had died screaming before his eyes, along with many of his skilled deck crewmen. He had only one man qualified to take the shore sightings necessary for a positive position fix. But the quay was in sight, and he’d depend on a seaman’s eye.
“Slow to half speed,” he ordered. The helmsman relayed the order on the engine room telegraph.
“Rudder right full.” He watched his ship’s head come slowly right. He stood on the centerline of the bridge, carefully lining his jackstaff up with the quay. There was no one trained to handle the mooring lines. He wondered if the soldiers could manage it.
The ship touched bottom. Kherov was thrown from his feet and cursed loudly with pain and rage. He’d misjudged his approach. The Fucik shuddered as she slid across the rocky bottom. There was no time to check his chart. When the tide turned, the harbor’s strong eddy currents would make his landing an impossible nightmare.
“Reverse your rudder.” A minute later the ship was fully afloat again. The captain ignored the flooding alarms that hooted behind him. The hull was penetrated, or maybe the damaged seams had sprung further. No matter. The dock was a mere thousand meters away. It was a massive quay made of rough stone. “Midships. All stop.”
The ship was moving far too fast to stop. The soldiers on the dock could already see that, and were slowly backing up, away from the edge, fearing that it would crumble when the ship struck. Kherov grunted with dark amusement. So much for the line handlers. Eight hundred meters.
“All back full.”
Six hundred meters. The ship’s whole mass shuddered as the engines fought to slow her. She headed into the berth at a thirty-degree angle, her speed now eight knots. Kherov walked to the engine room voice tube.
“On my order, shut down the engines, pull the manual sprinkler handle, and evacuate the engine spaces.”
“What are you doing?” the General asked.
“We cannot moor to the quay,” Kherov answered simply. “Your soldiers don’t know how to handle the lines, and many of my seamen are dead.” The berth Kherov had selected was precisely half a meter shallower than his ship’s draft. He went back to the voice tube.
“Now, Comrades!”
Below, the chief engineer gave the orders. His chief machinist cut off the diesel engines and ran to the escape ladder. The engineer yanked the emergency handle for the fire-suppression system and followed, after counting heads to make sure that all his men had gotten out.
“Rudder hard right!”
A minute later the bow of Julius Fucik rammed the quay at a speed of five knots. Her bow crumpled as though constructed of paper, and the whole ship pivoted to the right, her side slamming against the rocks in a shower of orange sparks. The impact ripped the ship’s bottom open at the turn of her starboard bilges. Instantly her lower decks flooded, and the ship settled rapidly to the bottom, only a few feet below her flat keel. The Julius Fucik would never sail again. But she had reached her objective.
Kherov waved to the General. “My men will deploy the two baby tugboats we have in the stem. Tell them to remove two barges and set them between the stem and the end of the quay. My men will show you how to secure the barges properly so they don’t drift off. Then use your bridging equipment to take your vehicles off the elevator onto the barges, then from the barges to the quay.”
“We can do this easily. Now, Comrade Captain, you will see my surgeon. I will brook no further argument.” The General waved to his orderly and both men assisted the captain below. There might still be time.
HILL 152, ICELAND
“You decide who I am yet?” Edwards asked testily. Another really annoying thing was the quarter-second delay caused by the signal’s travel time to and from the satellite.
“That’s affirmative. The problem is, how do we know it’s really you?” The officer had a telex in his hand confirming that one First Lieutenant Michael D. Edwards, USAF, had indeed been the met officer for the 57th FIS, information that could easily have been in Russian hands before the attack.
“Look, turkey, I’m sitting here on Hill 152, east of Hafnarfjördur, okay? There is a Russian helicopter flying around, and some godawful big ship just docked in the harbor. It’s too far to see a flag, but I don’t figure the son of a bitch came from New York, y’know? The Russians have invaded this rock. They pounded hell out of Keflavik, and they got troops all over the place.”
“Tell me about the ship.”
Edwards locked the binoculars to his eyes. “Black hull, white superstructure. Big block letters on the side. Can’t quite make it out. Something-Lines. The first word begins with an L. Some kind of barge-carrying ship. There’s a tugboat moving a barge around right now.”
“Have you seen any Russian troops?”
Edwards paused before answering. “No. I’ve just heard radio reports of the Marines at Keflavik. They were being overrun. They’ve been off the air ever since. I can see some people on the dock, but I can’t tell what they are.”
“Okay, we’ll be checking that out. For the moment I’d suggest that you find a good, safe place to belly-up, and stay off the air. If we have to contact you, we’ll broadcast on the hour, every even hour. If you want to talk to us, we’ll be here. Understood?”
“Roger, copy. Out.” Edwards switched off. “I don’t believe this.”
“Nobody knows what the hell’s going on, Lieutenant,” Smith observed. “Why should they? We sure as hell don’t.”
“Ain’t that the truth!” Edwards repacked his radio. “If those idiots would listen to me, we could have some fighter-bombers here to blast that ship inside two hours. God, but she’s a big one. How much
equipment can you Marines load in something that big?”
“A lot,” Smith said quietly.
“You think they’ll be trying to land more troops?”
“It figures, sir. They couldn’t have hit Keflavik with all that many—figure a battalion, tops. This here’s a pretty big rock. I’d sure as hell want more troops to hold it than that. Course, I’m just a buck sergeant.”
HAFNARFJÖRDUR, ICELAND
The General could finally get to work. The first order of business was to board the single working helicopter, now operating off the dock, its pilots delighted to see the ship sunk alongside the quay. He left a rifle company to secure the harbor area, sent another to Reykjavik airport to reinforce that, and detailed his last to get the division’s equipment moving off the ship. Then he flew to Keflavik to survey the situation.
Most of the fires were still burning, he saw. The aircraft fuel dump nearest the base was ablaze, but the main storage tanks five kilometers away seemed intact, and, he could see, were already guarded by a BMD assault vehicle and some men. The assault regiment commander met him on one of the undamaged runways.
“Keflavik air base is secure, Comrade General!” he proclaimed.
“How did it go?”
“Hard. The Americans were uncoordinated—one of the missiles hit their command post—but they did not give up easily. We have nineteen dead and forty-three wounded. We have accounted for most of the Marines and other security troops, and we are still counting the other prisoners.”
“How many armed troops escaped?”
“None that we know of. Too early to tell, of course, but some undoubtedly died in the fires.” The colonel waved at the smashed base area to the east. “How is the ship? I heard he took a missile hit.”
“And we were strafed by American fighters. He’s tied to the dock, and the equipment is being unloaded now. Can we use this airfield? I—”
“Getting that report now.” The colonel’s radio operator handed his radiophone over. The colonel spoke for a minute or so. A five-man party of Air Force personnel had accompanied the second wave and was evaluating the base facilities.
“Comrade General, the base radar and radio systems are destroyed. The runways are littered with debris, and they tell me that they need some hours to sweep them clear. Also the fuel pipeline is broken in two places. Fortunately it did not burn. For the moment we’ll have to use the airport’s trucks to transfer fuel. All of them seem to be intact . . . they recommend that the airlift come into Reykjavik. Have we secured that?”
“Yes, and it is intact. Any hope of getting information from the American aircraft?”
“Unfortunately not, Comrade. The aircraft were badly damaged from incoming missiles. Those that did not burn of their own accord were burned by their crews. As I said, they fought hard.”
“Very well. I’ll send the remainder of your two battalions with your equipment as soon as we can get things organized. I’ll need the third at the dock for the moment. Set up your perimeter. Start the cleanup, we need this airfield operational as soon as possible. Get the prisoners together and ready to move. We’ll be flying them out tonight. They are to be treated correctly.” His orders on that score were very precise. Prisoners are assets.
“As you say, Comrade General. And please get me some engineers so that we can repair that fuel pipe.”
“Well done, Nikolay Gennadyevich!”
The General ran back to his helicopter. Only nineteen dead. He’d expected a higher number than that. Taking out the Marine command center had been a real stroke of luck. By the time his Hip returned to the dock, the equipment was already rolling off. The ship’s barges had been fitted with loading doors in their hulls, like miniature landing craft, which allowed vehicles to roll straight out. The units already were being organized on the dock and nearby lots. His staff officers were fully in charge of things, the General saw. To this point, Operation Polar Glory was a total success.
When the Hip landed, it refueled from a line draped down from the ship’s side. The General went to his operations officer.
“Reykjavik airport is secure also, Comrade General, and there we have complete fueling facilities. Is that where you want the airlift to come in?”
The General thought about that one. Reykjavik’s airport was a small one, but he didn’t want to wait until the larger Keflavik was clear to bring in his reinforcements. “Yes. Send the code word to headquarters: I want the airlift to begin at once.”
HILL 152, ICELAND
“Tanks.” Garcia had the binoculars. “A bunch of ‘em and they all got red stars. Heading west on Route 41. This oughta convince ’em, sir.”
Edwards took the field glasses. He could see the tanks, but not the stars. “What kind are they? They don’t look like real tanks.”
It was now Smith’s turn. “That’s BMPs—maybe BMDs. It’s an infantry assault vehicle, like an amtrak. Holds a squad of men and a 73-millimeter gun. They’re Russian, that’s for sure, Lieutenant. I count eleven of the bastards, and maybe twenty trucks with men in ’em.”
Edwards broke out his radio again. Garcia was right. This did get their attention.
“Okay, Edwards, who do you have with you?”
Edwards rattled off the names of his Marines. “We bugged out before the Russians got into the base.”
“Where are you now?”
“Hill 152, four kilometers due east of Hafnarfjördur. We can see all the way into the harbor. There are Russian vehicles heading west toward Keflavik, and some trucks—we can’t tell what kind—heading northeast toward Reykjavik on Highway 41. Look, guys, if you can whistle up a couple of Aardvarks, maybe we can kill that ship before she unloads,” the lieutenant said urgently.
“I’m afraid the Varks are a little busy right now, fella. In case nobody told you, there’s a shooting war in Germany. World War III kicked off ten hours ago. We’re trying to get a recon bird up your way, but it might take awhile. Nobody’s decided what to do about you either. For right now, you’re on your own.”
“No shit,” Edwards replied, looking at his men.
“Okay, Edwards. Use your head, avoid contact with the enemy. If I read this right, you’re the only friendly we have there right now. It figures they’ll want you to keep the reports coming in. Observe and report. Conserve the battery power you have. Play it nice and cool, guy. Help will be coming, but it might take awhile. Just hang in there. You can listen for us on the hour, on even hours. You got a good watch?” In the meantime, the communications officer thought, we’ll try to figure a way to find out if you’re really who you say, and that you haven’t got a Russian pistol at your head.
“Roger, it’s set to Zulu time. We’ll be listening. Out.”
“More tanks,” Smith said. “Jeez, that ship sure is a busy place!”
HAFNARFJÖRDUR, ICELAND
The General would not have believed how well things were going. When he had seen the Harpoon coming, he was sure that his mission would be a failure. Already a third of his vehicles had rolled off the ship and were en route to their destinations. Next, he wanted the rest of his division flown in. After that came more helicopters. For the present, all around him were a hundred thousand Icelanders whose friendship he did not expect. A few hardy souls were watching him from the opposite side of the harbor, and he’d already sent a squad of men to get rid of them. How many people were making telephone calls? Was the telephone-satellite relay base still intact? Might they be calling the United States to tell what was happening in Iceland? So many things to worry about.
“General, the airlift is under way. The first aircraft took off ten minutes ago with a fighter escort. They should begin to arrive in four hours,” his communications officer reported.
“Four hours.” The General looked up from the ship’s bridge into a clear blue sky. How long before the Americans reacted and threw a squadron of fighter-bombers at him? He pointed to his operations officer.
“We have too many vehicles sitting on the qua
y. As soon as a platoon-sized grouping is together, move them off to their objectives. There is no time to wait for company groups. What about Reykjavik airport?”
“We have one company of infantrymen in place, with another twenty minutes away. No opposition. The civilian air controllers and the airport maintenance people are all under guard. A patrol going through Reykjavik reports little activity on the streets. Our embassy personnel report that a government radio broadcast told people to remain in their homes, and for the most part they seem to be doing this.”
“Tell the patrol to seize the main telephone exchange. Leave the radio and television stations alone, but get the telephone exchange!” He turned as a squad of paratroopers arrived at the crowd on the far side of the harbor. He estimated perhaps thirty people there. The eight soldiers approached quickly after dismounting from their truck, rifles at the ready. One man walked up to the soldiers, waving his arms wildly. He was shot down. The rest of the crowd ran.
The General shouted a curse. “Find out who did that!”
USS CHICAGO
McCafferty returned to the attack center after a brief visit to his private head. Coffee would always keep you awake, he thought, either through the caffeine or the discomfort of an always-full bladder. Things were already not going well. Whatever genius had decided to order the American submarines out of the Barents Sea in the hope of avoiding an “incident” had neatly gotten them out of the way. Just in time for the war to start, the captain grumbled, forgetting that the idea hadn’t seemed all that bad at the time.
Had they stuck to the plan, he might already have put a dent in the Soviet Navy. Instead, someone had panicked over the new Soviet missile sub dispositions, and so far as he could tell, the result was that no one had accomplished much of anything. The Soviet subs that had come storming out of the Kola Fjord had not come south into the Norwegian Sea as expected. His long-range sonar reported possible submarine noises far to his north, heading west before fading out. So, he thought, Ivan’s sending his boats down the Denmark Strait? The SOSUS line between Iceland and Greenland could make that idea a costly one.