and he preferred his caffeine cold.
"Signal coming in from Talbot, sir," the junior officer of the deck reported.
Morris rose and walked to the starboard bridge wing with his binoculars. He prided himself on being able to read Morse almost as quickly as his signalmen: REPORT ICELAND ATTACKED AND NEUTRALIZED BY SOVIET FORCES X EXPECT MORE SERIOUS AIR AND SUB THREAT X.
"More good news, skipper," the OOD commented.
"Yeah."
USS NIMITZ
"How did they do it?" Chip wondered aloud.
"How don't matter a damn," Toland replied. "We gotta get this to the boss." He made a quick phone call and left for flag country.
He almost got lost. Nimitz had over two thousand compartments. The Admiral lived in only one of them, and Toland had only been there once. He found a Marine sentry at the door. The carrier's commander, Captain Svenson, was already there.
"Sir, we have a Flash message that the Soviets have attacked and neutralized Iceland. They may have troops there."
"Do they have aircraft there?" Svenson asked at once.
"We don't know. They're trying to get a recon bird to take a look, probably the Brits, but we won't have any hard information for at least six hours. The last friendly satellite pass was two hours ago, and we won't have another one of those for nine hours."
"Okay, tell me what you have," the Admiral ordered.
Toland went over the sketchy data that had come in the dispatch from Norfolk. "From what we know, it was a pretty off-the-wall plan, but it seems to have worked."
"Nobody ever said Ivan was dumb," Svenson commented sourly. "What about our orders?"
"Nothing yet."
"How many troops on Iceland?" the Admiral asked.
"No word on that, sir. The P-3 crew watched two relays of four hovercraft. At a hundred men per load, that's eight hundred men, at least a battalion, probably more like a regiment. The ship is large enough to carry the equipment load for a full brigade and then some. It's in one of Gorshkov's books that this sort of ship is uniquely useful for landing operations."
"That's too much for a MAU to take on, sir," Svenson said. A Marine Amphibious Unit consisted of a reinforced battalion of troops.
"With three carriers backing them up?" Admiral Baker snorted, then adopted a more thoughtful pose. "You could be right at that. What does this do to the air threat to us?"
"Iceland had a squadron of F-15s and a couple AWACS birds. That's a lot of protection for us--gone. We've lost raid warning, attrition, and raid-tracking capabilities." Svenson didn't like this at all. "We should be able to handle their Backfires ourselves, but it would have been a lot easier with those Eagles running interference."
Baker sipped at his coffee. "Our orders haven't changed."
"What else is going on in the world?" Svenson asked.
"Norway is being hit hard, but no details yet. Same story in Germany. The Air Force is supposed to have gotten a heavy hit in on the Soviets, again no details. It's still too early for any substantive intel assessments of what's happening."
"If Ivan was able to suppress the Norwegians and fully neutralize Iceland, the air threat against this battle group has at least doubled," Svenson said. "I have to get talking with my air group."
The captain left. Admiral Baker was silent for several minutes. Toland had to stay put. He hadn't been dismissed yet. "They just hit Keflavik?"
"Yes, sir."
"Find out what else is there and get back to me."
"Yes, sir." As Toland walked back to the intelligence shack, he pondered what he'd told his wife: The carrier is the best-protected ship in the fleet. But the captain was worried ...
HILL 152, ICELAND
They were almost thinking of it as home. The position was at least easily defensible. No one could approach Hill 152 without being seen, and that meant crossing a lava field, then climbing up a steep, bare slope. Garcia found a small lake a kilometer away, evidently filled with water from the winter snows that had only lately melted. Sergeant Smith observed that it would have made a good mixer for bourbon, if they had any bourbon.
They were hungry, but all had four days of rations along, and they feasted on such delicacies as canned lima beans and ham. Edwards learned a new and indelicate name for this item.
"Anybody here know how to cook a sheep?" Rodgers asked. Several miles south of them was a large herd of the animals.
"Cook with what?" Edwards asked.
"Oh." Rodgers looked around. There wasn't a tree in sight. "How come there ain't no trees?"
"Rodgers only been