not been sounded. He moved to the edge of the trees and waited for a gap in the American column. It was only thirty meters to the far side. Five seconds to cross the gap, he told himself. Less.
Another M-1 blazed past him. He looked left and saw that the next was nearly three hundred meters away. Sergetov took a deep breath and ran into the open.
The tank commander saw him, but couldn't get to his machine gun fast enough. Besides, one man on foot without even a rifle wasn't worth stopping for. He reported the sighting on his radio and returned to the mission at hand.
Sergetov didn't stop running until he was a hundred meters into the trees. Such a short distance, but he felt as if his heart would spring from his chest. He sat down with his back against a tree to catch his breath and continued to watch the vehicle pass. It took several minutes before he could move again, then it was up the steep hill, and soon he was once more looking down at the Leine.
The shock of seeing the American tanks was bad enough. What he saw here was far worse. The Army tank-repair yard was a smoking ruin. Everywhere there were burning trucks. At least it was downhill. He ran down the east side of the ridge right up to the river. Quickly stripping off his pistol belt, Sergetov leaped into the swift current.
"What's that? Hey, I see a Russian swimming!" A machine gunner swiveled his .50 caliber around. The vehicle commander stopped him.
"Save it for the MiGs, soldier!"
He climbed up the east bank and turned to look back. The American vehicles were digging into defensive positions. He ran to cover and stopped again to make a count before proceeding. There was a traffic-control point at Sack. Sergetov ran all the way.
After the first hour, things settled down. Lieutenant Mackall got out of his tank to inspect his platoon's positions. One of the few ammunition carriers to accompany the troop stopped briefly at each tank, its crew tossing out fifteen rounds each. Not enough to replace what they'd fired, but not bad. The air attacks would be next. Crews were out chopping down trees and shrubs to camouflage their vehicles. The accompanying infantry set out their Stinger crews, and Air Force fighters were already circling overhead. Intelligence said that eight Russian divisions were on the west side of this river. Mackall was sitting on their supply route. That made it a very important plot of real estate.
USS INDEPENDENCE
Quite a change from the last time, Toland thought. The Air Force had an E-3 Sentry operating out of Sondrestrom to protect the fleet, and four of their own E-2C Hawkeyes were also up. There was even an Army-manned ground radar just coming up on Iceland. Two Aegis cruisers were with the carriers, and a third with the amphibious force.
"You think they'll hit us first, or the 'phibs?" Admiral Jacobsen asked.
"That's a coin-toss, Admiral," Toland replied. "Depends on who gives the orders. Their navy will want to kill us first. Their army will want to kill the 'phibs."
Jacobsen crossed his arms and stared at the map display. "This close, they can come in from any direction they want."
They expected no more than fifty Backfires, but there were still plenty of the older Badgers, and the fleet was only fifteen hundred miles from the Soviet bomber bases: they could come out with nearly their maximum ordnance loads. To stop the Russians, the Navy had six squadrons of Tomcats, and six more of Hornets, nearly a hundred forty fighters in all. Twenty-four were aloft now, supported by tankers while the ground-attack aircraft pounded Russian positions continuously. The battleships had ended their first visit to the Keflavik area and were now in Hvalfjordur--Whale Bay--providing fire support to the Marines north of Bogarnes. The entire operation had been planned with the likelihood of a Russian air-to-surface missile attack in mind. There would be more vampires.
The loss of northern Norway had eliminated the utility of Realtime. The submarine was still on station gathering signal intelligence, but the task of spotting the outbound Russian bomber streams passed on to British and Norwegian patrol aircraft operating out of Scotland. One of the latter spotted a three-plane Vic of Badgers heading southwest and radioed a warning. The Russian aircraft were roughly seventy minutes from the fleet.
Toland's station in CIC was immediately below the flight deck, and he listened to the roar of jet