"Okay," Smith said. "We cross one at a time, a minute apart. I go first. I'll stop fifty feet on the other side by those rocks. When you cross, don't screw around-run and keep low, and come to me. If you see something coming, get as far from the road as you can and drop. They can't see you if you lay still, people. Take things real easy. Okay?" Everyone, Edwards included, nodded agreement.
The sergeant was as good as his word. After a final look to be sure that nothing was moving in their direction, he raced off across the road, his personal gear flopping and slapping against his body as he did so. They waited a minute, then Garcia followed. After another minute, Rodgers went. Edwards counted to sixty and darted forward. The lieutenant was d appalled-at how stressful this was. His heart pounded with terror as he reached the roadway, and he froze dead in the center. Automobile lights were approaching them from the north. Edwards just stood there, watching them come closer
"Move your ass, Lieutenant!'' the sergeant's voice rasped at him.
The lieutenant shook his head clear and ran to the sound of the sergeant's voice, one hand holding his helmet in place on his head.
"Lights coming down!'' he gasped.
"No shit. Be cool, sir. People, let's get spread out. Find some good cover and freeze. And make Goddamned sure those weapons are on safe! You stay with me, sir."
The two privates moved left and right into tall weeds, disappearing from view as soon as they stopped moving. Edwards lay next to Sergeant Smith.
"You think they saw me?"
The darkness prevented him from seeing the angry expression accompanying Smith's reply: "Prob'ly not. Don't freeze in the road like that again, sir."
"I won't. Sorry, Sarge, this isn't exactly my thing."
"Just listen and learn what we tell ya', okay?" Smith whispered. "We're Marines. We'll take good care of you."
The lights approached slowly, proceeding down the steep grade to their north. The driver didn't trust the loose gravel surface. The north-south road split here, forking left and right to Route 1. It had to be a military truck, they saw. The lights were rectangular, taped slips over headlights installed at the Soviets' massive Kama River factory, built largely with Western aid. The truck stopped.
Edwards did not allow himself to react, except that his grip tightened on the plastic stock of his rifle. What if someone had seen them cross the road and telephoned the Russians? Smith's hand reached out and pushed the lieutenant's rifle down.
"Let's be careful with that, Lieutenant," Smith whispered.
The ten men in the truck dismounted and spread into the grass off the road, perhaps fifty yards away. Edwards couldn't tell if they carried weapons or not. Each man stopped, and almost in unison they unbuttoned their flies to urinate. Edwards gawked and nearly laughed. Finished, they moved back to the truck, which started up and proceeded west on the fork to the main road, motoring off with the sound on a poorly muffled diesel engine. The Marines re-formed as the truck's taillights dipped under the horizon.
"Too bad." Rodgers smiled in the semidarkness. "I coulda blow'd one guy's pecker right off!"
"You done good, people," Smith said. "Ready to move out, Lieutenant?"
"Yeah." Shamed by his performance, the lieutenant let Smith lead them off. They crossed the gravel road and a hundred yards later were in yet another lava field, climbing over rocks into the wasteland. Their wet fatigue pants clung to their legs, drying slowly in the cool westerly breeze.
USS PHARRIS
"Our friend the November doesn't have an anechoic coating," ASW said quietly, pointing to the display. "I think that's him, running to catch up with the convoy."
"We have this trace plotted at about forty-six thousand yards," the tactical action officer said.
"Get the helo up," Morris ordered.
Five minutes later, Pharris's helicopter was running southwest at full speed, and Bluebird-Seven, another P-3C Orion, was closing on the datum point from the east. Both aircraft flew low, hoping to surprise the submarine that had killed one of their flock and gravely damaged another. The Russian had probably made a mistake by increasing his speed. Maybe he had orders to trail the convoy and radio data for other submarines to use. Maybe he wanted to catch up to make another attack. Whatever the reason, his reactor pumps were running and making noise that his hull could not contain. His periscope was up, and that gave the aircraft a chance to spot him with their look-down radars. The helo was closer, and its pilot was communicating with the tactical coordinator of the Orion. This could be a textbook attack if things worked out right.
"Okay, Bluebird, we are now three miles from datum center. Say your position."
"We're two miles behind you, Papa-One-Six. Illuminate!"
The systems operator flipped the cover off the radar switch and moved it from Standby to Active. Instantly, energy began to radiate from the radar transmitter slung under the helicopter's nose.
"Contact, we have a radar contact bearing one-six-five, range eleven hundred yards!"
"Stream the MAD gear!" The pilot advanced his throttles to race toward the contact.
"We got him, too,"-the Tacco called swiftly. The petty officer beside him armed a torpedo, setting its initial search depth for a hundred feet.
The helicopter's anticollision lights came on, the red lights flashing in the darkness. No sense in hiding their approach now. The sub must have detected their radar signals and would now be attempting a crash dive. But that took more time than he had.
"Madman, madman, smoke away!" the systems operator screamed.
The smoke was invisible in the darkness, but the short green flame was an unmissable beacon in the darkness. The helo banked left, clearing the way for the Orion now only five hundred yards behind him.
The P-3C's powerful searchlights came on, spotting the telltale wake left by the now-invisible periscope. The MAD contact had been right on, the pilot saw at once. The Orion's bomb doors swung open and the torpedo dropped toward the black waters along with a sonobuoy.
"Positive sonar contact, evaluate as submarine!" a sonar-board operator said over the intercom. The tone lines displayed on his screen were exactly what a November at high speed looked like, and the torpedo chasing her was already on continuous pinging. "Torpedo is closing the target rapidly... Looks good, Tacco, closing... closing-impact!" The torpedo's sound tracing merged with that of the submarine, and a brilliant splotch appeared in the waterfall display. The Orion's operator switched the sonobuoy from active to passive, recording the recurring rumbles of the torpedo warhead explosion. The submarine's screw sounds stopped, and again he heard the sound of blowing air that quickly stopped as the submarine began her last dive.
"That's a kill, that's a kill!" exulted the Tacco.
"Confirm the kill," Morris said over the radio. "Nice job, Bluebird. That was a real quick-draw!"
"Roger, copy, Pharris. Thank you, sir! Beautiful job with the helo and the detection, guy. You just got another assist. Hell, we might just orbit you for a while, Captain, looks like you got all the action. Out."
Morris walked to the corner and poured himself a cup of coffee. So, they had just helped to kill a pair of Soviet submarines.
The TAO was less enthusiastic. "We got a noisy old Foxtrot and a November who did something dumb. You suppose he had orders to trail and report, and that's why we got him?"
"Maybe," Morris nodded. "if Ivan's making his skippers do things like that-well, they like central control, but that can change if they find out ifs costing them boats. We learned that lesson ourselves once."