"Bearing one-zero-nine, range thirteen thousand."
"Set!"
"Match and shoot!"
The Alfa didn't wait to hear the incoming torpedoes. Her skipper knew that there was a third sub out there, knew that he'd been pinged. The Soviet sub went to maximum speed and turned east. Chicago's weapons officer tried to move the torpedoes on a closing course, but they had a scant five-knot advantage on the Alfa, and the math was clear: they'd come up two thousand yards short at the end of their fuel. McCafferty was past caring. He too went to flank speed and chased after her for half an hour, coming down to five knots three minutes before the torpedoes ran out of fuel. The flow noise cleared off his sonars just in time to hear the Alfa decelerate safely.
"Okay, now we'll try again." They were three miles from the ice now, and Chicago was quiet. The Alfa turned west, and McCafferty's tracking party gathered data to compute her range. The turn west was a mistake. He evidently expected Chicago to run for the pack and safety.
"Conn, sonar. New contact, bearing zero-zero-three."
Now what? Another Russian trap?"
"I need information!"
"Very faint, but I got a bearing change, just moved to zero-zero-four." A quartermaster looked up from his slide rule. "Range has to be under ten thousand yards, sir!"
"Transients, transients!-torpedo in the water bearing zero-zero-five!"
"Left full rudder, all ahead flank!"
"Bearing change! Torpedo bearing now zero-zero-eight!"
"Belay that order!" McCafferty shouted. The new contact was shooting at the Alfa.
"Jesus, what is this thing?" the sonar chief asked.
The Alfa heard the new fish and reversed course. Again they heard and saw the thunder of the Alfa's engines... but the torpedo closed the distance rapidly.
"It's a Brit. That's one of their new Spearfish. I didn't know they had any in the fleet yet."
"How fast?" the sonar chief asked.
"Sixty or seventy knots."
"Gawd! Let's buy some."
The Alfa ran straight for three miles, then turned north to head for the ice. She didn't make it. The Spearfish cut the corner. The lines on the display merged again, and a final bright dot appeared.
"Bring her around north," McCafferty told the exec. "Go to eighteen knots. I want to be sure he knows who we are."
"We are HMS Torbay. Who are you?"
"Chicago."
"We heard the commotion earlier. Are you alone?" Captain James Little asked
"Yes. The Alfa ambushed us-we're alone."
"We will escort you."
"Understood. Do you know if the mission was successful?"
"Yes, it was."
40 - The Killing Ground
There was much to do, and time was short.
Lieutenant Potter and his team of Force Recon commandos found eight Russian troops in the town. They were trying to escape down the only road south when they ran into an ambush which killed or wounded five of their number. Those were the last who could have warned Keflavik of the ships on the horizon.
The first regular troops came by helicopter. Platoon- or company-sized units were placed on every hilltop overlooking the bay. Particular care was taken to keep the aircraft below the radar horizon from Keflavik, where a single Russian transmitter remained in operation despite all efforts to the contrary. A CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter airlifted the components of a mobile radar transmitter to a hill on the island's northwest coast, and a team of Army technicians went to work at once to get it operational. By the time the ships entered the rock-filled nightmare called Stykkisholmur harbor, five thousand troops were already in position over the handful of roads leading into the town.
The captain of one big LST-Landing Ship, Tank-had tried to count the rocks and shoals on the trip up from Norfolk. He'd stopped on reaching five hundred and concentrated on memorizing his particular area of responsibility, known as Green-Two-Charlie. The daylight and low tide helped. Many of the rocks were exposed by low water, and helicopter crews relieved of their immediate duties of landing troops dropped radar-reflectors and lighted beacons on most of them, which improved matters greatly. The remaining task was marginally safer than crossing a highway blindfolded. The LSTs went first, winding through the rocks at the recklessly high speed of ten knots, relying on their auxiliary bow thrusters to assist rudder movements to steer the ships through the lethal maze.
Again, Lieutenant Potter's team of commandos helped matters. They went from house to house, locating the captains and mates of local fishing boats. The skilled seamen were flown to the lead ships to help pilot the big gray amphibs through the tightest of the passages. By noon the first LST had her ramp on land, and the first Marine tanks rolled onto the island. Right behind them were trucks loaded with steel, pierced-plank runway material, which was dispatched east to a flat piece of ground preselected as a base for Marine helicopters and Harrier jump-jet fighters.
Once the fleet helicopters had completed their task of marking the rocks and shoals, they returned to moving troops. The troop carriers were escorted by SeaCobra gunships and Harriers as they extended the Marine perimeter to the hills overlooking the Hvita River. There contact was made with outlying Russian observation posts and the first real fighting began.
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND
"So much for our intelligence reports," General Andreyev muttered. From his headquarters he could see the massive shapes steaming slowly into view. They were the battleships Iowa and New Jersey, accompanied by missile cruisers for air defense.
"We can engage them now," the artillery chief said.
"Then do so." While you can. He turned to his communications officer. "Has word gotten out to Severomorsk?"
"Yes, Northern Fleet will sortie its aircraft today and submarines are being sent as well."
"Tell them their primary targets are the American amphibious ships at Stykkisholmur."
"But we are not sure they are there. The harbor is too dangerous for-"
"Where the hell else would they be?" Andreyev demanded. "Our observation posts there do not answer us, and we have reports of enemy helicopters moving south and east from that direction. Think, man!"
"Comrade General, the Navy's primary objective will be the enemy carrier force."
"Then explain to our comrades in blue that carrier aircraft cannot take Iceland away from us, but their fucking Marines can!"
Andreyev saw smoke rise from one of his heavy gun batteries. The sound followed a few seconds later. The first Russian salvo landed several thousand yards short.
"Fire mission!"
Iowa had not fired her guns in anger since Korea, but now the massive sixteen-inch rifles turned slowly to starboard. In the central gunnery control station, a technician worked the joystick controls for a Mastiff remotely piloted vehicle. The miniature airplane purchased a few years earlier from Israel circled eight thousand feet above the Russian gun battery, its television camera shifting from one emplacement to another.
"I count six guns, look like one-fifty-five or so. Call 'em six-inch."
The precise location of the Russian battery was plotted. Next the computer analyzed data on air density, barometric pressure, relative humidity, wind direction and speed, and a dozen other factors. The gunnery officer watched his status board for the solution light to come up.