At the same moment, and at selected times throughout that same day, other terrorists from his guild would also slip away unnoticed. But some of them would be captured. They would be relieved to learn that the cyanide capsules would work quickly. But they would never know they had been set up by their own people, or that they would be identified as Greeks. They were not aware that the objective was war between Turkey and Greece.
As expected, war was declared within hours. The Turkish air force directed heavy bombing strikes over major Greek cities, with the emphasis on Athens. Satellite photos confirmed heavily damaged port facilities. Greek retaliation was as severe. The unexpected result on both sides was heavier damage to civilian centers rather than the well-defended military bases. At this there was an almost audible sigh of relief from the Pentagon, for they were expecting to need Greek and Turkish forces in the coming days. On that same day, Turkey announced that the Turkish straits, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, were closed to all shipping until further notice. As it turned out, this was still not soon enough to halt the passage of a number of capital ships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Due to continuing exercises by Russian divisions in Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, NATO forces were placed on Condition Two alert. Satellite photos showed reserve divisions mobilizing in the western sectors of the Soviet Union. Photo reconnaissance also pinpointed supply trains moving at an alarming rate toward the west in all Warsaw Pact countries. The CIA confirmed military contents.
Also that day, the Norwegian government requested U.S. satellite recon of its Svalbard territory, situated more than seven hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Barents Sea. This was a relief to U.S. intelligence specialists, who had already recorded unusual happenings in the area. Communications with Norway’s settlements on Spitzbergen Island had been dead for the past twelve hours. Indications were that heavy message traffic intercepted between Murmansk and Svalbard coincided with Soviet attack submarine activity in that vicinity.
D MINUS 5
ONE HUNDRED MILES EAST OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
“American fighters approaching, Commander…. Range about three hundred miles, speed seven fifty.”
“Their radar locked on us?” The pilot of the Russian long-range bomber was extremely cautious. Though he had reviewed this in his mind time and again, he was worried that something would happen, something that might ruin his mission.
“Yes, sir.” The electronics officer paused for a moment, then added, “Not close enough to pick up a small object in the air…. A few more minutes, sir.”
These huge, modern Soviet bombers often flew missions along the Atlantic Coast, always discreetly beyond U.S. airspace, but also always close enough to require an escort from American fighters. It was a game both for the Russian pilot and his American counterparts. The Bear-D bomber would maintain its altitude and speed and the course would be a carbon copy of all previous flights. The Americans would take station off either wing of the bomber, close enough to see the flight crew, yet distant enough to avoid any danger of a malfunction. They might stay together for an hour, sometimes less if the Navy or Air Force wanted to exercise other pilots and give them a chance to see what the enemy looked like. The pilots would waggle their wings and wave to each other. It was a game.
“Commander, they’re within range now.”
The Russian pilot gave his orders, anxious to release their surprise.
“Another thirty seconds, sir. We’re not quite in position,” the careful, assured voice of the navigator came back.
“You’re sure?” Perhaps something would go wrong now, something to injure the mission.
“Fifteen seconds…”
“Fine,” responded the electronics officer. “No doubt about it. They’ll get a good echo on their radar, but they won’t have the slightest idea what we’re sending down to the water.”
After a long pause, just as the pilot was going to question him again, the navigator remarked quietly, “Release.” His final computer check indicated all systems would function normally.
The pilot exhaled with a long sigh, one that was easily heard over the interior communications systems. Both the electronics officer in his cubbyhole and the navigator in his shook their heads. How the hell would this pilot handle combat? they wondered to themselves.
The American fighter planes did pick up the object on their radars. They could not tell what it was, or why it was there, but their on-board computers told them instantly that it wasn’t a missile—they were in no danger. As they closed in on the giant bomber, taking position on either wing tip, the senior American pilot reported the strange occurrence to his base. On board the Russian bomber, the electronics officer recorded that conversation with Norfolk. When they arrived in Havana, it would prove they had done their part of the job. Now the electronics officer thought to himself, Let’s see if the technicians back home did their part. He carefully selected the correct U.S. Navy frequency, then waited patiently.
Half an hour later, at a small, obscure naval station on the Maryland coast, a chief sonar technician called his superior in Washington. “Sir, Bermuda station reports that SOSUS hydrophone arrays at…” and he gave the locations between the Bermuda station and the Georgia coast, “are inoperative.” The sonar technician went on to explain that the sonar technicians on Bermuda picked up an unidentified noise in the water, one their computers could not identify, just before the hydrophones went dead.
SOSUS is a system of listening points on the bottom of the ocean that can detect and classify literally every noise in the water. It is especially accurate in picking up and identifying movements of Soviet submarines, whether they are exiting a choke point from their own bases into open ocean or taking station off the U.S. coast. SOSUS is a critical line of defense, especially in detecting the possibility of a subsurface missile attack on the U.S. mainland.
THE SEA OF JAPAN
A brisk wind raised a four- to five-foot chop. Green water splashed over the bows of two ships, the spray splashing the sailors working on their decks. The Russian guided-missile destroyer had been tailing its American counterpart most of the day. The captain of the American ship, Benjamin Stoddert, also a guided-missile destroyer, wondered when the Russian would alter course and leave them alone. Since the Russian craft had been identified that morning, he’d very carefully selected his bridge watch, and now they were very tired.
On the Soviet ship, Bodry, her captain decided it was time. He rang up full speed, then called his engine room to insure that his chief engineer had personally assumed the watch. “We’re moving in now. I want your senior men at the controls.”
The chief engineer acknowledged the orders with a growl. He’d been called down to the engineering spaces to assume the watch three times now. The captain had changed his mind each time. Before they departed Vladivostok, they had gone over the operation with the type commander. Then the squadron commander had done the same thing. Once they were at sea, the political officer met with each department, not only for one more review but to place the operation in a larger, more glorious perspective. The chief didn’t need any more of that bullshit.
On Bodry’s bridge, her captain took the course recommendation from his leading radarman to close with the American ship on a collision heading.
Stoddert’s officer of the deck remained on the port bridge wing, watching the Soviet destroyer through his binoculars. Occasionally he would take a bearing on the other ship, then check its radar range. There was no doubt in his mind—steady bearing, decreasing range, collision course. He looked in the pilothouse. The captain remained calmly in his chair, reading a western. Once or twice he shifted position to scratch, but never once did he look out on the wing or ask a question.
The captain knew the way to manage naval officers was to give them responsibility. But out of the corner of his eye, he was watching that son of a bitch. He knew after many years when a bearing was steady, and he saw by the change in bow waves that
the other captain had increased speed.
“Captain,” the OOD finally called from the bridge wing after one more check on the bearing, “I think we have a problem.” He spoke very calmly, almost matter-of-factly, even though his palms were damp and he could feel trickles of sweat running down his back.
“Just a minute, Jack. Let me finish this page.” The captain never looked up.
The bos’n mate of the watch marveled at the two of them. He’d been watching the Russian and noted the change in the bow wave too, and the steady bearing. These officers were too much, but he was glad they were running Stoddert.
The captain finished his page, turning down a corner so he wouldn’t lose his place, and meandered out beside the OOD. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked, nodding his head toward the closing ship at the same time. “Does he want to give us a rough time today?”
“Looks like it, Captain,” the OOD answered, his binoculars concentrated on the approaching ship. “No doubt he’s on a collision course. Combat plotted it a couple of times.”
“’Bout six to eight minutes, I’d say.”
“Six is closer to it, sir, but I’ll check combat again.”
“No need to, Jack. Why don’t you sound GQ. Button her up—and make sure you sound collision quarters too, so there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind. I’ll be back in a minute. Going to the head.” Instead, he called the chief radioman and bos’n mate to his sea cabin. The captain was following strict orders not to be intimidated. He was to inform Washington of his situation, then maintain course and speed.
The bos’n mate shook his head and muttered to himself, “Sure glad I’m with them.” Then in a normal voice, “Want me to sound the alarm, sir?”
“Sure, Boats. Might as well not wait till the last minute,” he added casually.
A short emergency message sent by the chief radioman to Washington was about to activate the camera in a “keyhole” satellite 150 miles above them. No human ear would ever hear as it shifted its axis minutely to focus on the scene below.
Bodry’s captain looked up at the ship’s chronometer. Pretty close to schedule, he decided. He knew that at approximately this time three other Russian ships were about to do the same thing.
The commanding officer of the Russian vessel insisted on retaining absolute control of his ship. He had no intention of any orders being mistaken in transition. His radar room reported ranges and bearings of the American every thirty seconds. It became obvious to him early on that the other captain had no intention of changing course or speed. The man must realize our intention, he thought. They have the right of way; the American would be a fool to react any other way.
Stoddert’s captain meandered onto the bridge wing. “Jack, you move inside and stay right there,” he said, nodding toward the pilothouse. “Don’t change your course and speed the least bit. And,” he added, “I’ll have your ass if you take even the slightest peek at him from now on.” The captain took out his pipe, dumped the dead ashes, and set it firmly between his teeth. Leaning casually against the bridge railing, he watched the approach of the other ship, nodding his response as each division reported its section of the ship was sealed.
Bodry’s course was set to pass barely off the American’s bow. Seafaring law compelled Stoddert to maintain course and speed. The Russian was the burdened vessel and was required to avoid collision.
At five hundred yards, the two captains could make each other out with the naked eye. Neither gave the slightest indication of concern. The Russian ship was slightly shorter and just a bit lighter, but together they represented eight thousand tons of metal hurtling at each other with collision imminent.
The Russian was a superb seaman. At an invisible point in the ocean, he hurled an order over his shoulder, dropping his speed, and wheeling Bodry to port. She nestled in alongside the other ship with about ten yards to spare between them. It was a perfect maneuver, enough so that neither captain had to shift his stance to look the other directly in the face. They remained devoid of expression, waiting for one or the other to make the first move.
The wind remained steady. The ocean chop of their port bows would give Bodry a slight push to within feet of the other ship. Then the reverse action would push her away. The slightest variation in wave size, any hesitation on the part of either helmsman, any change in revolutions in their propeller turns, could bring them together.
Bodry added a few turns to increase her speed ever so slightly, her increase indicated only by a few feet every half minute. Then she eased gently into Stoddert, bumping like two racehorses in the final turn, their bows grinding together. As they rose and fell unequally, the sound of tearing metal rose above the roar of the ocean washing between them. The sea forced Bodry away for a moment, only to bring them back together more forcefully, the contact shaking both ships.
The captains stared at each other impassively.
Inside Stoddert’s pilothouse, the OOD gripped a stanchion tightly, his knuckles white. He was positioned beside the helmsman, whispering encouragement. Next to him was the bos’n somehow glad that he could finally perceive sweat dripping off the OOD’s brow.
It was no different in Bodry’s pilothouse. The human reactions were similar, but here they also knew they were responsible for any movements, that the American would not initiate any changes. In addition, the political officer was behind them, leaning silently against the bulkhead, watching each sailor intently.
The two ships continued to bump dangerously into each other, and damage became more apparent with each contact. The Soviet captain finally accepted that there would be no winner; neither would give in. He gave the orders to increase speed. They would pull forward and alter course away from the American. But his order was reversed for an instant, just enough time for Bodry to drop back slightly, then be sucked by the wave action against Stoddert. As they bumped, a swell heeled the Russian over into the American.
Their railings and superstructures touched. The davits holding their motor whaleboats became tangled. With a grinding sound, Stoddert’s boat was ripped free and crushed against the bulkhead, then the steel davit of the Soviet ship tore through a bulkhead and an American sailor in the compartment behind it was instantly crushed to death.
At the same moment, the torpedo launcher on Bodry was ripped free. The launcher and four torpedoes were hurled into the water. The mistake in direction had been caught and corrected, and the Russian ship surged ahead, scraping the length of Stoddert’s hull as she hauled away to port.
Far above the two ships, invisible to both of them, the incident had been recorded and transmitted instantly to Washington. A simple electronic order was then given. With a quiet whirr, the camera perched 150 miles above changed its orientation minutely and began recording another such incident less than fifty miles away.
This time the Russians had been caught, their actions filmed. The film from outer space was clearer than slides taken at a family outing at the beach. When the Russian news agency announced the American aggression and requested UN censure, the pictures would speak for themselves.
THE WHITE HOUSE
There was never a word from Washington about their SOSUS system. In the Kremlin, it was an entirely different story. The Russians officially protested four separate incidents in the Sea of Japan involving U.S. and Soviet military ships. In each case, the Russians charged that American ships harassed Soviet units without provocation, causing damage and some injury to personnel. Anticipating this ploy, the White House authorized the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to distribute satellite photos to Security Council members to reinforce American charges of Russian aggression in each instance.
Well before the incidents in the Sea of Japan, however, the president learned that a relatively junior admiral had developed a series of unique war scenarios via the Naval War College computer system, scenarios that emphasized Soviet activity in another part of the world. The officer had become convinced that, while Soviet ground forces would attack with a
blitzkrieg-type offense across Central Europe even before their naval supremacy was certain, defeat of the Russian naval forces in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean would stop the ground war in its tracks.
No matter the variations he programmed, three objectives continued to be paramount: 1) deny the Soviet Union control of the Mediterranean by means of the Sixth Fleet; 2) deny the attack submarines of the Soviet Northern Fleet access— via the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap— to our vital resupply routes to Europe; 3) neutralize the Soviet ability to threaten and/or carry out strategic nuclear warfare.
It was explained in more detail to the president that the Soviet Army would roll through Europe to the Atlantic coast unless the U.S. Navy and its NATO allies could support those three objectives. The point was not to allow the Russians to establish a second front on Europe’s Mediterranean shores. If this occurred, NATO ground troops would be forced to divide their strength; that would insure their defeat, since the USSR had considerably more troops, aircraft, and armor. They could afford a dual front and NATO could not. Of equal concern would be resupply of NATO forces from the United States. Soviet doctrine was based on the belief that their strike forces could overwhelm defending forces so rapidly that they would capture or destroy most NATO military stockpiles long before the shock of their offensive wore off. NATO could survive only if the North Atlantic supply routes remained open. Therefore, the Russians would attempt to flood the North Atlantic with their formidable Murmansk-based submarine force if they were allowed to escape the GIUK. The final threat—the use of strategic nuclear weapons—had to be neutralized. The president noted that there was no solution offered for the last problem.
But he knew that if somehow these three objectives could be accomplished, Moscow would either withdraw or sue for peace.
First Salvo Page 2
