Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (51 page)

           
“Aye, sir,”
Edgewater replaced the phone to CIC and picked up the phone to flight
operations. “Air ops, this is the bridge. Get Whiskey One airborne and Sierra
on deck. Send Whiskey One to back up Tango.”

           
He turned
back to Clancy, who was staring at the buzz of activity surrounding the two
F-14 Tomcats on the catapults. Behind the retractable blast-fence two more
Tomcats waited for their turn on the catapults, and eight more were lined up
waiting to taxi behind them. The number-three elevator was bringing still
another Tomcat up out of the hangar deck to take its place in line. The flight
deck was noisy and smelly, and cold rain began to pelt the lookout deck
surrounding the bridge of the
Nimitz
—but
Clancy was in his element as he watched his sailors do their stuff.

           
A messenger
ran up to Edgewater and handed him a sheet of computer paper. “Message from the
Mississippi,
Admiral,” Edgewater
called out. When Clancy did not reply, Edgewater went out to him on the
catwalk. “The
Mississippi
intercepted a Soviet AS-6 cruise missile launched from the north
Arabian
Sea
.”

           
“What about
the Backfires? Did the Tomcats ... ?”

           
“All six
down,” Edgewater said, allowing a smile. “The Tomcats took out five of them. A
sixth went out of control.”

           
Clancy
raised his eyes skyward, letting pellets of cold rain hit his face.

           
Thank you,
Silver
Tower
....

 
          
TYURATAM
,
USSR

 
          
The night of the abortive Backfire
bomber attack in the
Arabian Sea
a uniformed man
appeared at Govorov’s home at the Space Defense base at Tyuratam. The banging
on the apartment door startled Govorov’s wife and caused their five-year-old
daughter to wake up, asking if the apartment was on fire. Govorov opened the
door and found an aide of the Minister of Defense with a sealed letter in his
hand. The letter told him there was a MiG-31 waiting for him at Tyuratam
Aerodrome; he was to report to the Kremlin immediately. The letter stated the
exact time of his appointment with the Stavka.

           
Govorov was
irritated but hid it from Czilikov’s aide. There was no way he could arrive at
the designated time, even aboard one of the world’s fastest jet fighters. But
that was intended, an obvious ploy to show how displeased the Stavka was with
him.

           
Telling the
aide to give him a few minutes, he went back to the tiny bathroom in his master
bedroom and without a light began to run hot water to shave. His wife propped
herself up on one elbow in their bed. “Who was it, Alesander?”

           
“A messenger for
Moscow
.
They want me there.”

           
“And you
were going to shave in the dark?” She got up from bed and snapped on the
bathroom light. “I’d better check on Katrina. The messenger scared her.”

           
He could
hear his wife’s soothing voice trying to calm their daughter and had to steady
his razor hand to keep from nicking himself. If one of the august members of
the Stavka were roused out of bed as he had been, heads would roll. He didn’t
really stand much on ceremony or rank, but they were still treating him like a
squadron commander.

           
He knew
why, of course.... It was because of the American space station Armstrong’s
not
being destroyed as he’d thought at
first... .

           
He shaved,
quickly washed, dressed in a space defense command flight suit and a pair of
boots. His wife was waiting at the door with his flying jacket, an insulated
bottle of coffee and an egg-and-sausage sandwich wrapped in a napkin.

           
He took her
face in both his hands and kissed her on the lips. “I do not deserve you,” he
said.

           
“Oh, I
think you do,” she said, helping him on with his jacket, “but I deserve
you
as well.” She zipped up his jacket
for him and returned his kiss with a long, warm one of her own. “Will you call
me before you launch?”

           
Her
question had been unexpected. “I won’t ask how you knew that I might be flying
today. If I could conquer the mysteries of a woman, I could conquer outer
space, maybe even the Stavka members.” She smiled, but it was strained. “Yes,”
he said quickly, “I will try to call.”

           
“I love you,
Alesander.”

           
Her tone
held him. He searched her round eyes—looked away. What he saw bothered him....

           
“I’ll call
you,” he said, and hurried out. He nearly stumbled over the aide in his rush
toward the stairway. The man ran ahead to open the door for him as they emerged
into the cold darkness. Govorov snatched up the telephone in the rear of the
car as the driver hustled behind the wheel and sped off.

           
Govorov
punched four digits into the dialing keypad. “Marshal Govorov here. Duty
officer. Gulaev? Put him on. Nikolai. I’ve been ordered to
Moscow
.
Call dispatch at the aerodrome and take whoever is the pilot of the MiG-31 off
the flight orders. I’ll fly myself to
Moscow
.
Have life-support put my gear on the plane, then put me on the flight orders
for Elektron
One
effective upon my return to Glowing
Star.
Shift Colonel Kozhedub to Elektron Two and Litvyak to
Three.
Put Vorozheykin on the flight orders of Elektron One until I get
back. He will drop back to standby with Pokryshkin when I take command of Elektron
One.”

           
Govorov
dropped the phone back onto its cradle and leaned toward the front seat. “Drive
faster.” A vivid image of his wife and daughter came to him and he forced it
away. He had seen something in his wife’s eyes back in the apartment that he
badly wanted to change. She was scared, too scared for her own good... or his.

           
“Faster
. ”

 
          
October 1992

 
          
THE EMERGENCY INFORMATION AND
RESPONSE
CENTER
,
NOVOMOSKOVSK
,
USSR

 
          
It was the first time in months that
any member of the Stavka VGK, the Armed Forces Supreme High Command, had been
in the Soviet military’s alternate command post located one hundred sixty
kilometers south of
Moscow
. This
particular post was never involved in any preparedness exercises or drills, was
manned by only a small staff of hand-picked technicians and soldiers and did
not have a major military airfield associated with it—Stavka members from
Moscow
were flown in to Novomoskovsk by helicopter. The other well-known “high-value”
alternate command posts under the Kremlin and in Pushkino received all the
attention and publicity and, it was assumed, were the ones targeted by the West
in the event of a thermonuclear exchange. Novomoskovsk, well away from military
targets, factories, rail depots and—most important—publicity, was designed to
escape all but a direct hit. Unless an attack had already been launched against
the
Soviet Union
and time was running out, the eleven
men of the Stavka and their aides and assistants knew that the Novomoskovsk
command post was far safer and more secure than any in
Moscow
.

           
In fact,
the Novomoskovsk command post was probably the most secure place in
eastern
Europe. When the
Soviet Union
perfected the technique of welding ultrathick pieces of metal they had
immediately applied that technology to the walls of the
three-thousand-square-foot underground facility. The main construction of the
bunker consisted of four-foot-thick walls of steel welded by small nuclear
detonations in industrial reactors. The steel chamber rode on huge shock
absorbers that would cushion the chamber from the terrific overpressures of a
nearby nuclear explosion. Two dozen men and women could live and work there in
reasonable comfort for at least a month. No question, Novomoskovsk was the
place to be if there
were ever a nuclear war
.

           
But at the
moment the command post was not the place to be if one wanted to be safe from
the stinging disapproval of the general secretary of the
Soviet
Union
. The Soviet leader sat at the apex of a large triangular
table, listening with growing irritation to First Deputy Minister Khromeyev as
he stood before an electronic briefing board, reviewing the progress of
Operation Feather. The Stavka members were arranged on either side of the
general secretary, each with a communications terminal and a telephone at his
side.

           
Yesterday,
when the first of the massive air attacks on the
Nimitz
carrier group had begun, the general secretary had postponed
all his appearances and appointments to take personal command of the
Arabian
Sea
conflict. The breaking of the American blockade around the
mouth of the
Persian Gulf
was now the major focus of his
attention, and he was growing progressively angrier as he realized nothing was
working as planned. And who could blame him? He also had a rather complex
domestic economy to run. His military people were supposed to handle their end
once the goals and strategies had been spelled out.

           
“The
Arkhangel
task force will soon open the
high-speed air-attack lane around the
Nimitz
carrier force,” Khromeyev went on. “This lane will provide a relatively clear
path for our Sukhoi-24 carrier-based fighter bombers to transit the American
fleet and reinforce the
Brezhnev
carrier group in the
Persian Gulf
. We are expecting—”

           
“Stop,”
the general secretary broke in.
“What is all this about a ‘relatively clear’ air attack lane? I want to know
about the damned
Nimitz.
It’s still
blocking the
Strait of Hormuz
, isn’t it? Why aren’t we
launching another attack on the
Nimitz?
Why don’t we have control of the
Arabian Sea
? Why can’t
we bring the
Arkhangel
carrier group
through to the
Gulf
of
Oman
?
Why?”

           
“We have
not sufficiently reduced the American forces to allow our vessels to pass,”
Admiral Chercherovin said. “Sir, it will take time—”

           
“How much
have we reduced the American forces? How many ships have we sunk?”

           
Chercherovin’s
silence said it all.

           
“None?
We’ve sunk
none?”

           
“The
conflict has not progressed far enough where the surface combatants are in direct
conflict,” Minister of Defense Czilikov put in. “That is a phase of battle
still a few days away. The battle is being fought in the air, with our aircraft
winning the ships’ right to move forward....”

           
“And we
have inflicted heavy damage on some American vessels,” Chercherovin added. “Our
AS-12 missiles are very effective against the older American
search-and-tracking radars. Once their guided- missile cruisers are made
ineffective our bombers can clear a path for the
Arkhangel
group to pass—”

           
“You seem
fixed on this idea that we are conducting this latest offensive merely to let
the
Arkhangel
pass into the
Persian
Gulf
, Admiral,” the general secretary said. “That is not our goal.
Our goal is to remove the
Nimitz
carrier group as a presence in the
Persian Gulf
area. If
necessary I want the
Nimitz
and all
her escorts blown out of the water.... I believe that’s the phrase you people
use. Well, is that
clear
, Admiral?”

           
“Yes, sir,”
Chercherovin said, literally feeling the heat. The Soviet commander in chief
turned to the other Stavka members. “All right,” he said, “let’s get the rest
of the bad news out in the open. What about our losses?”

           
“Principal
surface combatant losses are still zero,” Khromeyev quickly put in. “Damage has
been reported aboard five vessels, all due to antiradiation missile attacks.
The Krivak-class frigate
Kara- marov
was seriously damaged but is still under way. Aircraft losses reported from
Arkhangel
are eighteen Sukhoi-27
fighters, three Kamov-27 anti-submarine warfare—”

           
“Eighteen fighters,”
the general
secretary said. “In two days we have lost eighteen fighters from the
Arkhangel?
How many were on it to begin
with?”

           
“Seventy-four—”

           
“We have
lost
one-fourth
of our carrier-based
fighters? How?” He turned to Chercherovin. “The
Arkhangel
was supposed to be the ultimate weapon, Chercherovin. So
far it has been damn near worthless.”

           
“That is
not true, sir,” the admiral said quickly. “Our losses have been higher than
anticipated because the Americans apparently aren’t concerned about the dangers
of escalating this conflict into a major confrontation. The
Nimitz
group should have pulled back
from the
Persian Gulf
area—instead, it has not only
blocked the sea lane but has used force to repel any overflight of the area—”

           
“Admiral,
what is the problem here
?...
We
should be
the ones willing to engage the enemy whatever the cost.
We
should be taking the battle to
them.
Instead we’re being pushed around the
Arabian Sea
by a much inferior force.” He glanced at Czilikov, anticipating a response.
When none came he added, “I think it’s time a younger, more aggressive admiral
take charge of the
Arabian Sea
flotilla.”

           
Admiral
Chercherovin quickly scanned the room, searching for supporters. No one said a
word. Not even Czilikov. Then the Admiral looked to Alesander Govorov.

           
“I think we
should first ask Marshal Govorov the status of the American military space
station. That station he supposedly crippled has obviously increased the
Americans’ ability to repel our attacks these past two days.”

           
The general
secretary understood Chercherovin was trying to shift the blame, though the
admiral did have a point. He gave Chercherovin a look that told him he wouldn’t
get off this easily, then turned to Govorov. “Military intelligence
has
reported that the Armstrong
space-based radar is operational again. Satellite relay signals suggest that
the station is warning American vessels of attack and directing attacks against
our forces. Is it possible?”

           
“Yes, sir,
it is. I was mistaken in my damage estimates. We carried only twenty
nonexplosive missiles on our first attack, and Colonel Voloshin was lost before
expending all his missiles. In my rush to search for Voloshin I depleted my
fuel reserves and had to withdraw from the attack before all missiles were
directed on the station. The damage estimates on each station subsystem were
accurate—”

           
“Govorov, I
respect you. At least you aren’t making stupid excuses, although it seems you
made some stupid, or at least unwise decisions. Concern for a comrade is
admirable, but there are times when difficult decisions need to be made. You
left the job half finished. And more than one man has suffered for it. Well, do
you have any thoughts about what you can do to make some amends?”

           
At that
moment Govorov was easily the most resented man in that room. And he understood
the general secretary’s indulgence was a double-edged sword. He was being given
a second chance—partly at least because he was still the most qualified man to
do what had to be done. But he also understood if he should fail again, it
would be better for him if he didn’t come back.

           
“Sir, I
propose to lead another attack on the space station—to complete what I should
have finished the first time.” He turned to include the other Stavka members.
“The way I see it, the attack will be preceded by a chemical-laser barrage from
Sary Shagan Research Facility against the new American Air Force geosynchronous
surveillance satellite over the
Indian Ocean
. The laser
will keep firing at the satellite while the space station Armstrong is on the
opposite side of the earth, until we can be sure that the satellite has been
neutralized or knocked out of its orbit. This will insure that our launch from
Tyuratam will go undetected. Ground-tracking stations will find it difficult to
track us without first knowing our launch point or orbital insertion point, so
the space station Armstrong can receive no advance warning of our
attack         

           
“The attack
will again be made by armed Elektron spaceplanes launched from Glowing Star
Launch Facility at Tyuratam, but
this
time
there will be three Elektron spaceplanes instead of two. My two wingmen will
each carry ten
Bavinash
missiles
aboard each space- plane, which have been modified with forty-kilogram
high-explosive warheads instead of depleted uranium and molybdenum
armor-piercing nosecaps. The objective of my two wingmen will be to disable the
Armstrong’s space-based radar system, station propulsion and any defensive
armaments. My Elektron will carry a far more important cargo, sir. The Scimitar
missiles cannot destroy such a large station as Armstrong, and our spaceplanes
cannot drag the station into the atmosphere. Therefore I will carry a
two-thousand-kilogram space-reactive bomb into orbit. The bomb uses a chemical
reaction to provide the heat and the power to mix a large volume of hydrogen
and oxygen gas together in a compressed chamber that will produce the power of
over two tons of TNT in the vacuum of space. When Armstrong’s defenses have
been neutralized I will fly to the station, plant the explosive on it, then
detonate it once my wingmen and I are away. ... On my first mission I took it
on myself to slow my attack to allow the station’s crew to evacuate the
station. I don’t apologize for my intent. But 1 also understand that it gave
the Americans time to build a defense that ended in the death of Colonel
Voloshin. By returning to their station and reactivating their offensive
surveillance and warning systems, the Americans have shown that they don’t
consider our spaceplane force a threat. So this time my attack will begin
immediately. And this time I
will
destroy that station.”

           
The general
secretary didn’t show it, but he was pleased. At least this young officer came
up with options. He wished the others in the room could be as creative. “It
sounds like a workable plan. Do you agree, Czilikov?” He did. “Comments?” There
were none. “Then it is authorized.”

           
“Thank you,
sir,” Govorov said. “I’ll be requesting final launch approval in eight hours.
The attack will begin approximately three hours later.”