They turned back onto a northwesterly course to fly the length of the lake.
Ben More Assynt loomed over their port wing as they reached the head of the lake and their next waypoint.
This far north into the North West Highlands the weather had changed, cloud hid the top of Ben Hope which was dead ahead as they cleared the mountains to the north of the Shin.
Turning east they wound their way along valleys between the mountains before re-emerging over open water where the River Helmsdale emptied into the sea.
Back on the ground at RAF Kinloss, blonde and auburn hair bounced across shoulders as the girls walked laughing and talking animatedly with their arms around each other’s waist. An RAF Group Captain stared at them as they walked past him towards operations; their demeanour was hardly compliant with Queens Regulations or becoming that of anyone in uniform.
Svetlana read his look and returned his gaze with one that smouldered seductively before winking and blowing him a kiss.
Whatever the senior officer was going to say was lost as he blushed deeply and tripped over a kerb stone.
Max and Scott returned to London after breakfast leaving Patricia in the care of Constantine and the police firearms officers.
Pat was put through her paces with the collection of weaponry at the house. Neither American was expected to take any other role except protecting the aircraft on the ground, whilst the Russians obtained the location of their target. They had both qualified with handguns annually but that test did not include stripping and assembling the weapons in the dark or stoppage drills whilst both officers with stopwatches screamed into their ears that the boogieman was coming.
The following day, when Constantine and Caroline returned to the house after the major’s jaunt in the stealth fighter, he had chatted away all evening, having missed the experience of flying combat aircraft whilst performing attaché duties
The bunker where the leadership of the new Soviet Union had cosseted itself was built into the side of a mountain, expanding on the network of old mine shafts that had existed since before the late ‘50’s.
Unlike the bunkers in the West, this one contained all the elements of government under one roof, where the leader could keep an eye on them. Only the KGB chief was allowed to come and go, such was the premier’s conviction that she harboured no high personal ambition.
The Russian Premier's Praetorian Guard were the only armed personnel below ground, the army had a perimeter five miles from the entrance and the Guard had one 500m inside that, their guns pointed at the army.
Below ground they were posted in pairs, they were there to guard and intimidate. Outside the premier's office right now the two guards on his door were wincing inwardly, it wasn’t often the boss let his temper get away from him, but when it did blood got spilt.
A messenger from the communications centre had drawn the short straw in delivering the bad news to the premier. He had been drinking iced tea when she delivered the message form and now a cleaner was mopping up the trail of blood from the damage left by the glass smashed in her face.
Hurriedly doing up buttons, the army, navy and air force chiefs appeared from the direction of their sleeping quarters and entered the chamber; the premier was sat calmly at his desk as they did so.
“Premier?” queried Marshal Ortan, the army commander.
The Russian premier held out the message form in reply, the marshal took it and noted the blood smears before reading.
“NATO has used nuclear weapons, atomic mines, in the Atlantic and we no longer have contact with the submarine flotillas, gentlemen!” the premier told them. “I want to know what you products of Russia’s finest military academies are going to do about stopping the convoys from reaching Europe… and if you cannot, then how is this going to affect the land battle?” He could see he did not have the undivided attention of the Admiral of the Navy of the Soviet Union.
“Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza, Petorim… please do not stare off vacantly into the distance when I am talking to you!” Admiral Petorim was thinking of the two thousand plus sailors, and thirty irreplaceable hulls this failed operation had cost his country.
“Please excuse me premier… we have no further units that could fight through the blockade NATO has in place at the North Cape, not without a massive air effort in support of it. I have three first class reserve flotillas’ that is all; the remaining hulls are committed to essential coastal defence or on loan to the Chinese. If I reduce the coastal cover of first class hulls, I can use older vessels to replace them, it will give us between forty and fifty vessels.” He paused whilst he worked out details in his head.
“I do not believe such an operation could prevent the current convoys from arriving; however the next convoys left the United States and Canada this morning, with four more armoured and mechanised divisions on board, plus fuel and munitions of course. Their escort is far lighter than previously, we predict the warships approaching Europe now will turn about and meet them part way. If we can divert air assets from Germany to break the blockade at the North Cape… ”
“No!” stormed Marshal Ortan. “We need to pin NATO’s Germany based forces in place, so they cannot disengage before we strike them in the north. To do that properly I need aircraft to keep the pressure on!”
“General of Aviation, Sudukov… these are your assets we are talking about, can you perform both tasks?” the premier asked his air force commander.
“We do have several plans for such an event as the re-attacking of enemy warships at the North Cape, all the equipment required is in place should it become necessary. It would take a day to move the units back to Titovka and Pechenga, northwest of Murmansk. However, it will greatly reduce the support we are able to give to the army in Germany, both in the east and the north where the 6th Guards Shock Army will emerge out of Poland. One plan calls for heavy use of our stealth airframes, but the Tu-160 bombers have been reconfigured for rear area Spetznaz operations, it would be quicker to proceed with that mission than to stop and reverse the configuration. This of course means that we would need conventional fighter bombers to achieve the same aim. If we cannot stem the enemy supply lines then what happens on the ground will be academic anyway.” He paused for a moment.
“May I ask if we know how they located our submarines; do they have a satellite that can see below the waves?”
“There is no such technology yet, and if there were it could not work too well now. If they exploded a bomb under the sea then there is going to be a lot of cloud about for a while, only radar satellites will be any good… this would be a good time to start destroying their satellites. Before, it was not practical because of the number involved, that number has been effectively halved now as we need only target the radar satellites.”
“That is already in hand Admiral, please answer General Sudukov’s question.” The premier’s tone indicated his current lack of good humour.
“I would guess that they used their hunter/killer submarines to locate our submarines.”
“Now then, you will put into motion a plan to release our submarines into the Atlantic once more, to reduce the losses to our best submarines in the breakout; you will use older vessels in the first wave. In that way NATO will waste munitions and their submarines will betray their own positions to us. I want this plan put into action before the dawn… start withdrawing what you need from the battle in Germany tonight… do you understand?”
All three officers agreed, they had no choice but to do so.