Red Storm Rising

Mackall shifted one platoon right and the other left. His own gu

The crewmen opened their hatches to let fresh air into the stiffing turret. Fifteen empty cases rattled about on the floor. The fire-control computer was out again, but Woody had killed another four tanks, two of them belonging to Soviet officers. The troop commander came over to him in a jeep.

"Three tanks damaged," Mackall reported. "Have to drag them clear for repairs." His face split into a wide grin: "They ain't never go

"Those Bundeswehr regulars made the difference." The lieutenant nodded. "Okay, start getting your people reloaded."

"Oh, yeah. Last time I came back five rounds short."

"They're thi

Mackall thought that one over and didn't like what he came up with. "Have somebody tell those Navy pukes that we can stop these bastards if they get their shit together!"

USS PHARRIS

Morris had never seen Hampton Roads so crowded. At least sixty merchantmen were swinging at anchor, with a beefed-up escort force preparing to take them to sea. Saratoga was in also, her mainmast gone and a replacement being fabricated on the quay while repairs were under way for less visible damage from her near-miss. Numerous aircraft circled overhead, and several ships had their search radars on lest a Soviet submarine sneak close inshore and launch cruise missiles into the mass of shipping.

Pharris was tied to the fueling pier, taking on fuel oil for her boilers and jet fuel for her helicopter. The single ASROC she'd expended had already been replaced, as had the six chaff rockets. Aside from that, the only thing that needed to be taken aboard was food. Ed Morris handed his patrol report to a messenger who would deliver it to his squadron commander. He would have gone himself, but there was no time. They were scheduled to sail in another twelve hours. This was another twenty-knot convoy, bound for the French ports of LeHavre and Brest with heavy equipment and munitions.

Morris had been given the fleet intelligence report. If anything, matters had gotten worse. Twenty NATO submarines were now staked out in the G-I-UK gap, trying to make up for the loss of the SOSUS line. They reported killing a sizable number of Soviet submarines, but they also reported that some had gotten through, and for each known leaker, Morris was sure that there were four or five unknowns. The first convoy had gotten virtually a free ride. Those few Soviet submarines in the Atlantic at the time had been spread thin, and were forced to race noisily to their convoy targets. No longer. About sixty were thought to be in the Atlantic now, at least half of them nuclear-powered. Morris thought over the numbers, what the Soviet inventory was, how many kills NATO claimed, and wondered if sixty was an optimistic assessment.

Then there were the Backfires. The convoy would be taking a southerly routing, adding two full days to the crossing time but forcing the Soviet bombers to stretch to the limit of their fuel. Also, thirty minutes before each satellite pass, the convoy would reverse course to a westerly heading in the hope that the Soviets would then vector their bombers and submarines to the wrong point. A pair of carrier battle groups was at sea and would offer support if possible. Clearly they wanted to spring a trap on the Backfires. The carrier groups would be steaming an evasive path, trying to avoid satellite detection entirely. Morris knew this was possible, an exercise in geometry, but it placed serious limits on the carriers' freedom of action-and having the carrier groups at sea would take up some of the antisubmarine patrol aircraft that the convoys depended on. A compromise, but then all life, and certainly any war operation, was a collection of compromises. Morris lit an unfiltered cigarette. He'd broken the habit years before, but halfway through the outbound leg of his first war cruise he'd found himself at the ship's store purchasing a carton of tax-free "at sea" smokes. The added hazard to his health, he judged, was no more than incidental. Already nine destroyers and frigates had been sunk, two with all hands.

ICELAND

Edwards had learned to hate the rust-colored contour lines on his maps. Each one a

They climbed ten contour lines-two hundred meters, or six hundred fifty-six feet-three hours after breaking camp; crossing, the map said, from the Skorradalshreppur second-order administrative division to the Lundarreykjadashreppur second-order administrative division. There was no green highway sign to a

"Take a break," Edwards said. He sat down next to a three-foot rock so that he'd have something to lean against, and was surprised when Vigdis came over. She sat down three feet away, facing him.

"How are you today?" he asked. There was life in her eyes now, Mike saw. Perhaps the demons that had awakened her the previous day were now gone? No, he thought, they'd never be completely gone-but you had to be alive to have nightmares, and they would probably fade in time. With time you could recover from anything, except murder.

"I have not thanked you for my life."

"We could not stand by and let them kill you," he said, wondering if it was a lie. If the Russians had simply killed all three people in the house, would he have attacked them or would he have waited and simply looted the house after they'd left? It was a time for the truth.

"I didn't do it for you, not only for you."

"I do not understand."

Edwards took his wallet from a back pocket and opened it to a five-year-old photograph. "That's Sandy, Sandra Miller. We grew up on the same block, all the way through school. Maybe we would have gotten married someday," he said quietly. And maybe not, he admitted to himself. People change. "I went to the Air Force Academy, she went to the University of Co