Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,69

one radar ocean reconnaissance satellite up--Kosmos 1801. It's paired with Kosmos 1813, an electronic intelligence bird. 1801 is the nuclear-powered radar bird, and we think it may have a photographic capability to back up the radar system."

"I never heard that before."

"NSA detected indications of a video signal several months ago, but that information was never released to the Navy because it was unconfirmed." Toland didn't say that it had been decided at the time the Navy didn't need-to-know this. They needed to know now, Toland judged. I'm here now. "I'd expect that Ivan has another of his radar satellites ready for immediate launch, probably a few more in the barn. They've been launching an unusual number of their low-altitude communications birds, plus a lot of electronic intelligence satellites--ordinarily they have six or seven of them up, but now the total is ten. That gives them awfully good ELINT coverage. If we make electronic noise, they'll hear it."

"And not a Goddamned thing we can do about them."

"Not for a while, sir,".Toland agreed. "The Air Force has its antisatellite missiles, six or seven as I recall, but they've only been tested once against a real satellite, and there's been a moratorium on the ASAT tests since last year. The Air Force can probably dust them off and try to reactivate the program, but that'll take a few weeks. Their first priority is the radar satellites," Toland concluded hopefully.

"Okay, our orders are to rendezvous with Saratoga at the Azores and escort our Marine Amphibious Unit to Iceland. I suppose the Russians will watch us all the way up! Hopefully by the time we get there, the Icelandic government will allow us to land them. I just learned that their government can't decide if this crisis is real or not. God, I wonder if NATO will hold together?"

"Supposedly we have proof that it's all a put-up job, but we don't need to know what that evidence is. The problem is that a lot of countries are buying this charade, at least publicly."

"Yeah, I love that. I want you to refine your estimate of the threat from Soviet subs and aircraft on a continuous basis. I want information about the smallest change in what they have at sea the moment you get it."

15

The Bastion Gambit

USS CHICAGO

"What's the sounding?" McCafferty asked quietly.

"Fifty feet under the keel," the navigator answered at once. "We're still well outside Russian territorial waters, but we start approaching real shoals in twenty miles, skipper." It was the eighth time in half an hour that he had commented on what lay ahead.

McCafferty nodded, not wanting to speak, not wanting to make any unnecessary sound at all. The tension hung in the attack center of the Chicago like the cigarette smoke that the ventilators would not entirely remove. Looking around, he caught his crewmen furtively disclosing their states of mind with a raised eyebrow or a slightly shaken head.

The navigator was the most nervous of all. There were all sorts of good reasons not to be here. Chicago might or might not have been in Soviet territorial water, itself a legal question of no small complexity. To the northeast was Cape Kanin; to the northwest, Cape Svyatoy. The Soviets claimed the entire region as a "historic bay," while the United States chose to recognize the international twenty-four-mile closure rule. Everyone aboard knew that the Russians were more likely to shoot today than request a decision under the International Law of the Sea Convention. Would the Russians find them?

They were in a bare thirty fathoms of water--and, like the great pelagic sharks, nuclear attack submarines are creatures of the deep, not the shallows. The tactical plot showed bearings to three Soviet patrol craft, two Grisha-class frigates and a Poti-class corvette, all specialized antisubmarine ships. All were miles away, but they were still a very real threat.

The only good news was a storm overhead. The twenty-knot surface wind and sheets of falling rain made noise that interfered with sonar performance--but that included their own sonar, and sonar was their only safe means for getting information.

Then there were the imponderables. What sensing devices did the Soviets have in these waters? Might the water be clear enough that a circling helicopter or ASW aircraft could see them? Might there be a Tango-class diesel boat out there, moving slowly on her quiet, battery-powered electric motors? The only way they'd learn the answer to any of those questions was the metallic whine of a torpedo's high-speed propellers or the simple