"That black monster atop the pilothouse?"
"Right. These symbols are Tomcats from the carrier America. This is a KC-135 tanker, and this baby here is an E-2C Hawkeye radar bird. The Hawkeye's radar is shut down. When Ivan shows up, he'll have to close to see what's here."
"But he already knows," Calloway objected.
"No, he knows there's a convoy around here somewhere. That's not good enough to launch missiles. All he knows for sure is that there is one operating SPS-49 radar. He'll have to light off his own radar to see what's on the water. If Mr. Bear does that, we see him, and we'll have fighters on his ass so fast he'll never know what hit him."
"And if the Backfires don't come today?"
"Then we'll see them some other time. The Bears talk to submarines, too, Mr. Calloway. They are still worth killing."
It was the first time they'd been bored. Edwards and his party had been terrified often enough, but never bored. Now they had been in the same place for four complete days, and still they had no orders to move. They observed, and reported minor Russian activity, but without anything substantive to do, time was heavy on them.
"Lieutenant." Garcia pointed up. "I got airplanes heading south."
Edwards got out his binoculars. The sky was dotted with white, fleecy clouds. There were no contrails to be seen today, but-there! he saw a flash, a reflection off something. He strained his eyes to identify it.
"Nichols, what do you think?" He handed the glasses over.
"That's a Russian Backfire," Nichols said simply.
"You sure?"
"Quite sure, Leftenant. I've seen them before often enough."
"Get a count." Edwards unpacked his radio.
"I only see four. All heading south, sir."
"You're sure they're Backfires?" Edwards persisted.
"I am bloody sure, Leftenant Edwards!" Nichols answered testily. He watched the officer turn on the radio.
"Beagle calling Doghouse, over." The communications station was a little slow today. It took three calls before they acknowledged.
"Doghouse, this is Beagle, and I have some information for you. We see Backfire-type bombers southbound over our position."
"How do you know they're Backfires?" Doghouse wanted to know.
"Because Sergeant Nichols of the Royal Marines says he's bloody sure they're Backfires. Four of them"-Nichols held up five fingers now" correction five aircraft southbound."
"Roger, thank you, Beagle. Anything else happening?"
"Negative. How long do you expect us to sit on this hill, over?"
"We'll let you know. Patience, Beagle. We haven't forgotten you. Out."
Bears advanced in an oblique line, their crews scanning the air with their eyes and probing the radar and radio frequencies. Presently the leading Bear detected the emissions of a single American radar, and it took only a minute to identify it as an SPS-49 air-search model of the type used by Perry-class missile frigates. The technicians on board measured the signal's intensity and, plotting its position, judged that they were far outside the radar's detection range.
The raid commander riding in the third Bear received the information and compared it with his intelligence data for the convoy. The position was exactly in the middle of the circle he had drawn on his map. He was suspicious of things that were so exact. The convoy was taking a direct route to Europe? Why? Most convoys to date had taken a more evasive course, detouring far south to the Azores in order to force his aircraft to reach farther than they wanted-and thereby forcing the Backfires trailing the scouts to carry only one missile instead of two. Something was strange here. On his order, the patrol line reoriented itself to a north-south disposition and began reducing altitude to keep below the horizon of the American radar.
"How far can you see?" Calloway asked.
"Depends on the altitude and size of the target, and atmospheric conditions," Morris answered, staring down from his chair to the electronic displays. Two Navy Tomcats were ready for combat. "For the Bear, at thirty thousand feet or so, we can probably spot it about two hundred fifty miles away. But the lower he flies, the closer he can get. Radar can't see through the horizon."
"But flying low will cost him fuel."
Morris looked down at the reporter. "Those damned things carry enough fuel to stay up all week," he exaggerated.
"Message from LANTFLT, Captain." The communications officer handed the form over: REPORT POSSIBLE BACKFIRE RAID SOUTHBOUND OVER ICELAND 1017z. Morris handed the message to his tactical action officer, who immediately looked at the chart.
"Good news?" Calloway asked. He had better sense than to ask to see the dispatch.
"We may be seeing Backfire bombers in a little over two hours."
"Shooting for the convoy?"
"No, probably they'll want to shoot at us first. They have a good four days to blast the convoy, and getting the escorts out of the way makes that job a lot easier."
"Are you concerned?"
