Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,100

dark amusement. So much for the line handlers. Eight hundred meters.

"All back full."

Six hundred meters. The ship's whole mass shuddered as the engines fought to slow her. She headed into the berth at a thirty-degree angle, her speed now eight knots. Kherov walked to the engine room voice tube.

"On my order, shut down the engines, pull the manual sprinkler handle, and evacuate the engine spaces."

"What are you doing?" the General asked.

"We cannot moor to the quay," Kherov answered simply. "Your soldiers don't know how to handle the lines, and many of my seamen are dead." The berth Kherov had selected was precisely half a meter shallower than his ship's draft. He went back to the voice tube.

"Now, Comrades!"

Below, the chief engineer gave the orders. His chief machinist cut off the diesel engines and ran to the escape ladder. The engineer yanked the emergency handle for the fire-suppression system and followed, after counting heads to make sure that all his men had gotten out.

"Rudder hard right!"

A minute later the bow of Julius Fucik rammed the quay at a speed of five knots. Her bow crumpled as though constructed of paper, and the whole ship pivoted to the right, her side slamming against the rocks in a shower of orange sparks. The impact ripped the ship's bottom open at the turn of her starboard bilges. Instantly her lower decks flooded, and the ship settled rapidly to the bottom, only a few feet below her flat keel. The Julius Fucik would never sail again. But she had reached her objective.

Kherov waved to the General. "My men will deploy the two baby tugboats we have in the stem. Tell them to remove two barges and set them between the stem and the end of the quay. My men will show you how to secure the barges properly so they don't drift off. Then use your bridging equipment to take your vehicles off the elevator onto the barges, then from the barges to the quay."

"We can do this easily. Now, Comrade Captain, you will see my surgeon. I will brook no further argument." The General waved to his orderly and both men assisted the captain below. There might still be time.

HILL 152, ICELAND

"You decide who I am yet?" Edwards asked testily. Another really annoying thing was the quarter-second delay caused by the signal's travel time to and from the satellite.

"That's affirmative. The problem is, how do we know it's really you?" The officer had a telex in his hand confirming that one First Lieutenant Michael D. Edwards, USAF, had indeed been the met officer for the 57th FIS, information that could easily have been in Russian hands before the attack.

"Look, turkey, I'm sitting here on Hill 152, east of Hafnarfjordur, okay? There is a Russian helicopter flying around, and some godawful big ship just docked in the harbor. It's too far to see a flag, but I don't figure the son of a bitch came from New York, y'know? The Russians have invaded this rock. They pounded hell out of Keflavik, and they got troops all over the place."

"Tell me about the ship."

Edwards locked the binoculars to his eyes. "Black hull, white superstructure. Big block letters on the side. Can't quite make it out. Something-Lines. The first word begins with an L. Some kind of barge-carrying ship. There's a tugboat moving a barge around right now."

"Have you seen any Russian troops?"

Edwards paused before answering. "No. I've just heard radio reports of the Marines at Keflavik. They were being overrun. They've been off the air ever since. I can see some people on the dock, but I can't tell what they are."

"Okay, we'll be checking that out. For the moment I'd suggest that you find a good, safe place to belly-up, and stay off the air. If we have to contact you, we'll broadcast on the hour, every even hour. If you want to talk to us, we'll be here. Understood?"

"Roger, copy. Out." Edwards switched off. "I don't believe this."

"Nobody knows what the hell's going on, Lieutenant," Smith observed. "Why should they? We sure as hell don't."

"Ain't that the truth!" Edwards repacked his radio. "If those idiots would listen to me, we could have some fighter-bombers here to blast that ship inside two hours. God, but she's a big one. How much equipment can you Marines load in something that big?"

"A lot," Smith said quietly.

"You think they'll be trying to land more troops?"

"It figures, sir. They couldn't have hit Keflavik with all that many--figure a battalion,