Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,187

later, the tug was pulling the frigate on an easterly course at four knots, backwards to protect the damaged bow. Morris ordered his towed-array sonar to be strung over the bow, trailing it out behind to give them some small defense capability. Several extra lookouts were posted to watch for periscopes. It would be a slow, dangerous trip back home.

28

Breakthroughs

STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

"Be careful, Pasha."

"As always, Comrade General." Alekseyev smiled. "Come, Captain."

Sergetov fell in behind his superior. Unlike during their previous front-line outing, both men wore protective body armor. The General carried only a sidearm to go along with his map case, but the captain was now officially a bodyguard in addition to a staff officer and had a small Czech submachine gun slung over his shoulder. He was a different man today, the captain saw. On Alekseyev's first trip to the front, he'd been tentative, almost hesitant in manner--it hadn't occurred to the younger man that, as senior as Alekseyev was, he had never seen combat before and had approached this gravest of contests with the same sort of apprehension as a new private. No longer. He had smelled the smoke. Now he knew how things worked or didn't work. The change was remarkable. His father was right, Sergetov thought, he was a man to be reckoned with. They were joined in their helicopter by an Air Force colonel. The Mi-24 lifted off in darkness, its fighter escort overhead.

LAMMERSDORF, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

Not many people appreciated the importance of the videocassette recorder. A useful convenience for the home, to be sure, but not until a captain in the Royal Dutch Air Force had demonstrated a bright idea two years before had its battlefield utility been proven in secret exercises first in Germany, then in the Western United States.

NATO radar surveillance aircraft kept their customary positions high over the Rhein. The E-3A Sentry aircraft, better known as AWACS, and the smaller, lesser-known TR-1, flew their missions in boring circles or straight lines far behind the fighting front. They had similar but different functions. The AWACS was mainly concerned with air traffic. The TR-1, an upgraded version of the venerable U-2, looked for vehicles on the ground. Initially the TR-1 had been something of a failure. Because it tracked too many targets, many of them immobile radar reflectors set everywhere by the Soviets, the NATO commanders had been deluged with information that was too disordered to use. Then came the VCR. All the data relayed from the aircraft was recorded on videotape anyway since it was a convenient medium for data storage, but the VCRs built into the NATO system possessed only a few operating features. The Dutch captain thought to bring his personal machine into his office, and demonstrated how by using fast forward and fast reverse, the radar data could be used to show not only where things were going, but also where they had come from. Computer support made the task easier by eliminating items that moved no more than once every two hours--thus erasing the Russian radar lures--and there it was, a brand-new intelligence tool.

With several copies made of each tape, a staff of over a hundred intelligence and traffic-control experts examined the data round the clock. Some engaged in straight tactical intelligence. Others looked for patterns. A large number of trucks moving at night to and from front-line units could only mean shuttle runs to fuel and ammunition dumps. A number of vehicles breaking away from a divisional convoy and deploying in line parallel to the front meant artillery preparing for an attack. The real trick, they had learned, was to get the data to the forward commanders quickly enough so they could make use of it.

At Lammersdorf, a Belgian lieutenant was just finishing up a tape that was six hours old, and his report was sent by land line to the forward NATO commanders. At least three divisions had been moved north and south on Autobahn-7, he reported. The Soviets would attack at Bad Salzdetfurth in strength, sooner than expected. Immediately, reserve units from the Belgian, German, and American armies were rushed forward, and allied air units alerted for a major land action. Fighting in this sector had been vicious enough already. The German forces covering the area south of Hannover were at less than 50-percent strength, and the battle that had not yet begun was already a race, as both sides tried to get reserves to the point of attack before the other.

HOLLE, FEDERAL