you expect our friends to arrive?"
"The RORSAT passes overhead in twenty minutes. They'll probably want that data before they take off. They could take off at any time after that, Admiral. If the Backfires tank up partway down and proceed at max power, two hours. That's worst case. More likely four to five hours."
"CAG?"
The air group commander looked tense. "Each carrier has a Hummer radar bird up, a pair of F-14 Tomcats with each. Two more Tomcats on the catapults, ready to go at five minutes' notice, another Hummer and a tanker. The rest of the fighters are at plus-fifteen on the roof, loaded and fueled. The flight crews are briefed. One Prowler over the formation, the rest ready to go at fifteen. The A-7s have buddy stores rigged. We're ready. Foch has her Crusaders at plus-fifteen. Good birds, but short legs. When the time comes we'll use them for overhead coverage."
KIROVSK, R.S.F.S.R.
The Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, called a RORSAT, passed over the formation at 0310. Its radar transmitter noted the formation and its cameras tracked in on their wakes. Five minutes later, the data was in Moscow. Fifteen minutes after that, flight crews were given their final brief at four military air bases grouped around the city of Kirovsk on the Kola Peninsula. The crews were quiet, no less tense than their American targets. Both sides mulled over the same thoughts. This was the exercise both sides had practiced for over fifteen years. Millions of hours of planning, studies and simulations were about to be put to the test.
The Badgers lifted off first, pushed by their twin Mikulin engines. Each takeoff was an effort. The bombers were so heavily loaded that the tower controllers reached out with their minds to wish every aircraft into the still morning air. Once off the ground they headed north, forming up into loose regimental formations just north of Murmansk before heading west and skirting past the North Cape, before their slow left turns took them toward the North Atlantic.
Twenty miles off the North Russian coast, USS Narwhal hovered beneath the surface of a slate-gray sea. The quietest submarine in the U.S. fleet, she was a specialized intelligence-gathering platform that spent more time on the Soviet coast than did some ships in the Russian Navy. Her three thin ESM antennae were raised, as was a million-dollar search periscope. Technicians aboard listened in on low-power radio conversations between aircraft as they formed up. Three uniformed intelligence specialists and a civilian from the National Security Agency evaluated the strength of the raid and decided that it was large enough to risk a warning broadcast. An additional mast was raised and aimed at a communications satellite twenty-four thousand miles away. The burst transmission lasted less than a fifteenth of a second.
USS NIMITZ
The message was automatically relayed to four separate communications stations, and within thirty seconds was at SACLANT headquarters. Five minutes after that, Toland had the yellow message form in his hand. He walked immediately to Admiral Baker, and handed the message over: 0418z REALTIME SENDS WARNING AIR RAID TAKE OFF 0400 HEADING WEST FROM KOLA ESTIMATE FIVE REGIMENT PLUS.
Baker checked his watch. "Fast work. CAG?"
The air group commander looked at the form and walked to a phone. "Shoot off the plus-fives, recall the patrol aircraft when they get to station, and set up two more Tomcats and a Hummer on plus-five. I want the returning aircraft turned around immediately. Reserve one catapult for tankers." He came back. "With your permission, sir, I propose to put another pair of F-14s and another Hummer up in an hour, and put all the fighters on plus-five. At 0600, the rest of the fighters go up, with tankers in support. We'll meet them with everything we have about two hundred miles out and kick their ass."
"Very well. Comments?"
Svenson looked pensively at the master plot. Circles were already being drawn for the farthest possible advance of the Soviet bombers.
"The Brits get the same warning?"
"Yes, sir," Toland answered. "Norwegians, too. With luck, one or the other might make contact with the raid and nibble at it some, maybe put a trailer with them."
"Nice idea, but don't count on it. If I was running the attack, I'd come way west and turn south right over Iceland." Svenson looked back at the plot. "You think Realtime would have broadcast a warning for Bear-Ds?"
"My information, sir, is that they are allowed to broadcast only for three regiments or more. Ten or twenty Bears wouldn't be