"Negative. The Tomcats chased the Backfires off the scope. Let's get reformed."
"Roger, Romeo."
Morris hung up and looked around the CIC. "Well done, people."
The sailors in the room looked at each other, and presently some grins started showing. But they didn't last long.
The TAO looked up. "For your information, Captain, Ivan fired a quarter of his missiles at us. So far as I can tell, the Tomcats got about six, and Bunker Hill got most of the rest.. but we show one frigate hit, and three merchies. The fighters are returning." He kept his voice neutral. "They report zero kills on the Backfire force."
"Damn!" Morris said. The trap had failed-and he didn't know why.
He had no idea that Stornoway considered it a success.
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND
The key to the operation, as with all military operations, was communications, and not enough time had been spent setting the lines up on this one to suit Toland. The America's radar aircraft tracked the Backfires all the way off the scope. The data from the aircraft was linked to the carrier, thence by satellite to Norfolk, and by satellite again to Northwood. His data came by land line from Royal Navy headquarters. The most important NATO mission of the war depended on transistors and telephone wire more than the weapons that were to be employed.
"Okay, their last course was zero-two-nine, speed six hundred ten knots."
"That puts them over Iceland's north coast in two hours, seventeen minutes. How much time did they have on burner?" Commander Winters asked.
"About five, according to America. " Toland frowned. This was pretty thin intelligence information.
"Any way you cut it, their fuel reserves are thinned down some... Okay. Three aircraft, eighty miles apart." He looked over at the newest satellite weather photo. "Good visibility. We'll spot 'em. Whoever does, follows-the other planes come right back home."
"Good luck, Commander."
NORTH ATLANTIC
The three Tomcats climbed slowly to altitude on a course northwest from Stornoway, and at thirty-five thousand feet linked up with their tankers. Several hundred miles away the Backfire crews did much the same thing. The presence of American fighters over the convoy in large numbers had come as a rude shock, but time and distance had been in their favor, and they'd managed to escape without loss this time. The crew of each aircraft talked among themselves, their emotions released by the climax of yet another dangerous mission. They discussed the claims they'd make on returning to Kirovsk, based on a straightforward mathematical formula. One missile in three was judged to have hit a target, even accounting for enemy SAM fire. Today SAM opposition had been light-though none had lingered to evaluate it properly. By consensus they would claim sixteen ship kills, and claim both the outside sonar pickets that their comrades in submarines were having such a bad time with. The flight crews relaxed and sipped tea from thermos jugs as they contemplated their next visit to the eighty-ship convoy. The Tomcats separated as they spotted the mountains of Iceland. No radio signals were passed; the flyers exchanged hand signals before breaking off on their patrol stations. They knew the radars couldn't reach them there. Commander Winters checked his watch. The Backfires should be here in about thirty minutes.
"Such a beautiful island," the Backfire pilot observed to his copilot.
"Pretty to took at, living there I am not so certain about. I wonder if the women are as pretty as I have heard? One day we must have 'mechanical difficulties.' Then we could land there and find out."
"We must get you married, Volodya."
The copilot laughed. "So many tears would be shed! How can I deny myself to the women of the world?"
The pilot punched up his radio. "Keflavik, this is Sea Eagle Two-Six, status check."
"Sea Eagle, we show no contacts except for your group. Count is correct. IFF transponders show normal."
"Acknowledged. Out." The pilot switched off. "So, Volodya, our friends are still there. Lonely place."
"If there are women about, and you are kulturny, you need never be lonely." Another voice came over the intercom.
"Will somebody shut that horny bastard up!'' the navigator suggested.
"Studying to be a political officer?" the copilot inquired. "How long to home?"
"Two hours twenty-five minutes."
The Backfire continued northeast at six hundred knots as it passed over the desolate center of the island.
"Tallyho!" the pilot said quietly. "One o'clock and low." The Tomcat's onboard television system showed the distinctive shape of the Russian bomber. Say what you want about the Russians, Winters thought, they do build 'em pretty.
He turned the aircraft, which took his nose-mounted camera off the target, but his back-seat officer put his binoculars on the Backfire and soon spotted two more flying in a loose formation. As expected, their course was northeast, and they were cruising at about thirty thousand feet. Winters looked for a big cloud to hide in and found one. Visibility dropped to a few yards. There could be another Backfire out there, Winters thought, and maybe he likes flying in clouds, too. That could really ruin this mission.
He ran out of cloud a moment later, banked his fighter hard, and ducked back inside, his mind computing time and distance. The Backfires should all be past now. He pulled back on his stick and popped out of the cloud top.
"There they be," the back-seater said first. "Heads up! I see more of,em at three o'clock."
The pilot vanished back into the cloud for another ten minutes. Finally: "Nothing to the south of us. They should all be past by now, don't you think?"
"Yeah, let's go looking."
One terrifying minute later, Winters was wondering if he hadn't let them get too far ahead, as his TV system swept across the sky and found nothing. Patience, he told himself, and increased his speed to six hundred ninety knots. Five minutes later, a dot appeared on his screen. It grew to three dots. He estimated he was forty miles behind the Backfires, and with the sun at his back, there was no way they could spot him. His backseater made a check of the radar warning receiver and the air behind them for additional aircraft, a procedure repeated three times a minute. If an American fighter could be out here, why not a Russian?
The pilot watched the numbers click off on his inertial navigation system, kept an eye on fuel, and watched forward for any change in the Russian bomber formation. It was both exciting and boring. He knew the significance of what he was doing, but the actual doing was no more thrilling than driving a 747 from New York to L.A. For over an hour they flew, covering the seven hundred miles between Iceland and the Norwegian coast.
"Here's where it gets cute," the back-seater said. "Air-search radar ahead, looks like Andoya. Still over a hundred miles away, they'll probably have us in two or three minutes."
"That's nice." Where there was air-search radar, there would be fighters. "Got their position worked out?"
"Yep."
"Start transmitting." Winters turned the aircraft and headed back out to sea.
Two hundred miles away, a circling British Nimrod receipted the signal and retransmitted to a communications satellite.
NORTHWOOD, ENGLAND
Admiral Beattie was trying to remain calm, but it didn't come easily to a man whose nerves had been stretched and abused by crisis after crisis since the war began. Doolittle was his baby. For the past two hours, he'd waited for word from the Tomcat. Two had returned without sighting the Russians. One had not. Was it tracking them as planned or had it merely fallen into the sea?