"Could be better, but we're getting enough forward to supply what we have left-not enough to support an intact division."
"What are you doing now?"
"We launch a two-regiment attack just over an hour from now. Another village, named Bieben. We estimate enemy strength as two understrength battalions of infantry, supported by tanks and artillery. The village commands a crossroads we need. Same one we tried to get last night. This assault should work. Do you wish to observe?"
"Yes."
"Then we'd better get you forward. Forget the helicopter unless you want to die. Besides"-the colonel smiled-"I can use it to support the attack. I'll give you an infantry carrier to get you forward. It will be dangerous up there, Comrade General," the colonel warned.
"Fine. You can protect us. When do we leave?"
The calm sea meant that Pharris was back on port-and-starboard steaming. Half the crew was always on duty as the frigate held her station north of the convoy. The towed sonar was streamed aft, and the helicopter sat ready on the flight deck, its crew dozing in the hangar. Morris slept also, snoring away in his leather bridge chair, to the amusement of his crewmen. So, officers did it, too. The crew accommodations often sounded like a convention of chainsaws.
"Captain, message from CINCLANTFLT."
Morris looked up at the yeoman and signed for the message form. An eastbound convoy one hundred fifty miles north of them was under attack. He walked back to the chart table to check distances. The submarines there were not a threat to him. That was that. He had his own concerns, and his world had shrunk to include them only. Another forty hours to Norfolk, where they would refuel, replace expended ordnance, and sail again within twenty-four hours.
"What the hell's that?" a sailor said loudly. He pointed to a low-lying trail of white smoke.
"That's a missile," answered the officer of the deck. "General quarters! Captain, that was a cruise missile southbound a mile ahead of us."
Morris snapped upright in his seat and blinked his eyes clear. "Signal the convoy. Energize the radar. Fire the chaff." Morris ran to the ladder to CIC. The ship's alarm was sounding its strident note before he got there. Aft, two Super-RBOC chaff rockets leaped into the sky and exploded, surrounding the frigate with a cloud of aluminum foil.
"I count five inbounds," a radar operator was saying. One's heading towards us. Bearing zero-zero-eight, range seven miles, speed five hundred knots."
"Bridge, come right full rudder to zero-zero-eight," the tactical action officer ordered. "Stand by to fire off more chaff. Air action forward, weapons free."
The five-inch gun swiveled slightly and loosed several rounds, none of which came near the incoming missile.
"Range two miles and closing," reported the radar man.
"Fire four more Super-Rocs."
Morris heard the rockets launch. The radar showed their chaff as an opaque cloud that enveloped the ship.
"CIC," called a lookout. "I see it. Star bound bow, inbound-it's gonna miss, I got a bearing change. There-there it goes, passing aft. Missed us by a couple hundred yards."
The missile was confused by the chaff. Had its brain had the capacity to think, it would have been surprised that it struck nothing. Instead, on coming back to a clear sky, the radar seeker merely looked for another target. It found one, fifteen miles ahead, and altered course toward it.
"Sonar," Morris ordered, "check bearing zero-zero-eight. There's a missile-armed sub out there."
"Looking now, sir. Nothing shows on that bearing."
"A five-hundred-knot sea-skimmer. That's a Charlie-class sub, maybe thirty miles out," Morris said. "Get the helo out there. I'm going topside."
The captain reached the bridge just in time to see the explosion on the horizon. That was no freighter. The fireball could only mean a warship had had her magazines exploded by a missile, perhaps the one that had just missed them. Why hadn't they been able to stop it? Three more explosions followed. Slowly the noise traveled across the sea toward them, reaching Pharris as the deep sound of an enormous bass drum. The frigate's Sea Sprite helicopter was just lifting off, racing north in the hope of catching the Soviet sub near the surface. Morris ordered his ship to slow to five knots in the hope that the lower speed would allow his sonar to perform just a little better. Still nothing. He returned to CIC.
The helicopter's crew dropped a dozen sonobuoys. Two showed something, but the contact faded, and was not reestablished. Soon an Orion showed up and carried on the search, but the submarine had escaped cleanly, her missiles having killed a destroyer and two merchantmen. Just like that, Morris thought. No warning at all.
"Raid warning again," the Group Captain said.
"Realtime?" Toland asked.
