First Salvo (2 page)

“There… down there,” one of the men shouted excitedly. Porcino searched for a moment before he saw a form taking shape just off the stern. He closed his fist to halt the engine. Peering down, he could barely make out the object. He opened his fist, wagging it softly behind him for a slow speed on the haul.

Gradually, as more of his gear came into view, Porcino saw it was no fish. The hazy sun reflected brightly off the object. Hastily he closed his fist. He knew what it was even before the sun caught the metal—a torpedo!

The others recognized the object. “What we have there, Captain?” one of them inquired nonchalantly. “Another one of those practice torpedoes?”

“More than likely,” he sighed half to himself, slamming his fist on the railing. His catch wasn’t bad enough, now the Navy was finishing his day! He glanced back at the object again. It was too big and too shiny for one of those practice loads the subs used. It should have been dirty and covered with mud. This one looked new. “Haul it in a little closer, Manuel,” he shouted behind him, arm raised, fist closed once again. “Very slowly.”

Rising through the cloudy water, the object took on a new perspective as the sun outlined its form in more detail. Captain Porcino had fouled dummy torpedoes before, and once even an old German one, but none compared in size to this. Longer than any he had seen, it was wider and more lethal looking, and judging by the metal, which was shiny and untarnished, it was of recent vintage. He recognized what looked like Navy markings on its body. It had not been in the water long.

“That’s it, Manuel,” he shouted, opening his fist as the torpedo bobbed to the surface, tearing the netting with its weight. A cable was still tangled around the fins. It was drawn against the fishing boat, bumping the hull each time the boat rolled in the opposite direction. Porcino ordered his men to swing the outrigger to haul the torpedo away from the boat, but the outrigger jammed.

Captain Porcino was not taking any chances. He had no desire to see this evil machine punch a hole in the side of the
Joseph and Mary.
As he started his cranky engine, an especially large swell heaved the round-bottomed boat first to starboard toward the torpedo, then even more wildly to port, yanking it sharply against the hull. With a cracking sound, the weapon smashed into the boat. That was immediately followed by a growling sound from the torpedo.

“Captain, she ees running!” Manuel shouted.

The torpedo drove against the boat’s hull once, then twice, as the projectile’s propellers picked up speed.

“Cut the cable!” Porcino shouted.

But Manuel had already seen the problem. With a huge fire ax, he slashed again and again at the woven metal cable until the combination of his blows and the surging of the boat parted the final strands.

Porcino watched helplessly as the torpedo banged once more against the
Joseph and Mary
’s
hull, then turned and ran in a line directly off the bow. At the same time, the last section of cable slid off the fins. Captain Porcino crossed himself and muttered a Hail Mary as the torpedo moved away, increasing speed rapidly as it slipped just below the surface.

Looking ahead, the captain gasped. Not more than a mile off his bow was the Block Island ferry, her rails lined with vacationers enjoying their brief ride. Mouth ajar, Porcino stared helplessly at the ferry as the telltale wake of the torpedo left no doubt of its direction.

He reached for the mike on his radio, checking to make sure he was still on the Coast Guard emergency frequency. “New London Coast Guard… New London Coast Guard this is
Joseph and Mary…
Emergency… please…” he pleaded.

A voice came back instantly. “Go ahead,
Joseph and Mary.
”

There was no answer for a moment. Then the Coast Guard operator heard a voice repeat over and over again. “Mother of God… Mother of God… Mother of God…” It was all Captain Porcino could say as the large pleasure boat erupted in a sheet of flame. He gazed in horror at the bodies blown skyward, the flaming cars tumbling lazily through the air.

The Block Island ferry disintegrated.

D MINUS 6

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

T
he man squinted at the sun’s reflection on the face of his watch. Religious services would end soon and the premier and his party would be leaving the mosque. It was the largest, most ornate building in that part of Istanbul. The plaza in front and the wide main street were heavily guarded by Turkish security forces. No one for the past five minutes had been allowed into an area cordoned off by the army.

It was a high holy day, one of the most significant. That’s what he had been told the day before in Simferopol, a city in the Crimea northeast of Sevastopol. Not only was it a major Russian port on the Black Sea, Simferopol was also the headquarters for a major Soviet terrorist school run by the KGB. Each member of his so-called “guild” had been trained there and, like him, had departed only the day before.

Some of them would be performing the same acts near the other mosques in other major Turkish cities—Izmir, Konya, Adana, Ankara. He couldn’t begin to remember all those foreign names, nor had anyone ever answered his question about why the premier had chosen to attend services in Istanbul rather than the capital in Ankara. But he didn’t care either. His one and only requirement was to follow through with his orders.

This wasn’t his first assassination, and he was sure it wouldn’t be his last. Most of the new guild members, the first-timers, would be caught, he knew. They would be too excited, too interested in seeing the spoils of their work. Security forces would notice them quickly. The bodies and the gore and the blood meant nothing to him. He enjoyed his job and would be satisfied simply to read about it in the papers when he returned to Russia. His superiors always had copies of the foreign papers.

He saw the premier exiting, a retinue of guards surrounding him. The assassin never looked up, never made any motion that might attract attention. It was simple caution. He was more than a block away and it was unlikely anyone would notice him. As the Turkish leader walked briskly with his escort toward the car, the assassin thought briefly about his comrades in those other cities. In the next few hours, and certainly by the end of the day, Turkey would be in chaos. Government and military bases would be damaged. Many important officials would be dead, along with hundreds of innocent people unfortunate enough to be nearby.

The premier was within twenty yards of his car as the man watching him shook out a cigarette, sticking it in his mouth at enough of an angle to maintain his view. He extracted a cigarette lighter from a breast pocket, snapping it into flame. When he judged the positioning of everyone was as close to perfect as possible, he depressed a small pin on the underside of the lighter.

The explosion of the fire hydrant closest to the premier’s limousine was tremendous, the blast flattening people as far as fifty yards away. But the most exacting part of his job involved attaining the correct angle of explosion, for men could survive even mightier blasts at equivalent ranges. At the moment of the detonation, secondary charges propelling tiny cylindrical pieces of metal blossomed out in an arc that took in the Premier and his guards ten yards to either side of him. Like grapeshot, the metal shards ripped through them, tearing flesh to ribbons, shattering vital organs, amputating limbs. There was no chance of survival within that arc of metal.

Even as the agonizing, terrified screams echoed back to him, the man calmly finished lighting his cigarette. Then he arose, acting as startled and horrified as anyone around him.

As confusion mounted into chaos, he chose the appropriate moment to slip away. It would be many hours before he was delivered back to the coast of the Black Sea, north of the entrance to the Bosporus. Then he could sleep. But he knew he wouldn’t sleep well until he returned to Simferopol and read the papers.

At the same moment, and at selected times throughout that same day, other terrorists from his guild would also slip away unnoticed. But some of them would be captured. They would be relieved to learn that the cyanide capsules would work quickly. But they would never know they had been set up by their own people, or that they would be identified as Greeks. They were not aware that the objective was war between Turkey and Greece.

A
s expected, war was declared within hours. The Turkish air force directed heavy bombing strikes over major Greek cities, with the emphasis on Athens. Satellite photos confirmed heavily damaged port facilities. Greek retaliation was as severe. The unexpected result on both sides was heavier damage to civilian centers rather than the well-defended military bases. At this there was an almost audible sigh of relief from the Pentagon, for they were expecting to need Greek and Turkish forces in the coming days. On that same day, Turkey announced that the Turkish straits, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, were closed to all shipping until further notice. As it turned out, this was still not soon enough to halt the passage of a number of capital ships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Due to continuing exercises by Russian divisions in Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, NATO forces were placed on Condition Two alert. Satellite photos showed reserve divisions mobilizing in the western sectors of the Soviet Union. Photo reconnaissance also pinpointed supply trains moving at an alarming rate toward the west in all Warsaw Pact countries. The CIA confirmed military contents.

Also that day, the Norwegian government requested U.S. satellite recon of its Svalbard territory, situated more than seven hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Barents Sea. This was a relief to U.S. intelligence specialists, who had already recorded unusual happenings in the area. Communications with Norway’s settlements on Spitzbergen Island had been dead for the past twelve hours. Indications were that heavy message traffic intercepted between Murmansk and Svalbard coincided with Soviet attack submarine activity in that vicinity.

D MINUS 5

ONE HUNDRED MILES EAST OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

“A
merican fighters approaching, Commander…. Range about three hundred miles, speed seven fifty.”

“Their radar locked on us?” The pilot of the Russian long-range bomber was extremely cautious. Though he had reviewed this in his mind time and again, he was worried that something would happen, something that might ruin his mission.

“Yes, sir.” The electronics officer paused for a moment, then added, “Not close enough to pick up a small object in the air…. A few more minutes, sir.”

These huge, modern Soviet bombers often flew missions along the Atlantic Coast, always discreetly beyond U.S. airspace, but also always close enough to require an escort from American fighters. It was a game both for the Russian pilot and his American counterparts. The Bear-D bomber would maintain its altitude and speed and the course would be a carbon copy of all previous flights. The Americans would take station off either wing of the bomber, close enough to see the flight crew, yet distant enough to avoid any danger of a malfunction. They might stay together for an hour, sometimes less if the Navy or Air Force wanted to exercise other pilots and give them a chance to see what the enemy looked like. The pilots would waggle their wings and wave to each other. It was a game.

“Commander, they’re within range now.”

The Russian pilot gave his orders, anxious to release their surprise.

“Another thirty seconds, sir. We’re not quite in position,” the careful, assured voice of the navigator came back.

“You’re sure?” Perhaps something would go wrong now, something to injure the mission.

“Fifteen seconds…”

“Fine,” responded the electronics officer. “No doubt about it. They’ll get a good echo on their radar, but they won’t have the slightest idea what we’re sending down to the water.”

After a long pause, just as the pilot was going to question him again, the navigator remarked quietly, “Release.” His final computer check indicated all systems would function normally.

The pilot exhaled with a long sigh, one that was easily heard over the interior communications systems. Both the electronics officer in his cubbyhole and the navigator in his shook their heads.
How the hell would this pilot handle combat?
they wondered to themselves.

The American fighter planes did pick up the object on their radars. They could not tell what it was, or why it was there, but their on-board computers told them instantly that it wasn’t a missile—they were in no danger. As they closed in on the giant bomber, taking position on either wing tip, the senior American pilot reported the strange occurrence to his base. On board the Russian bomber, the electronics officer recorded that conversation with Norfolk. When they arrived in Havana, it would prove they had done their part of the job. Now the electronics officer thought to himself,
Let’s see if the technicians back home did their part.
He carefully selected the correct U.S. Navy frequency, then waited patiently.

Half an hour later, at a small, obscure naval station on the Maryland coast, a chief sonar technician called his superior in Washington. “Sir, Bermuda station reports that SOSUS hydrophone arrays at…” and he gave the locations between the Bermuda station and the Georgia coast, “are inoperative.” The sonar technician went on to explain that the sonar technicians on Bermuda picked up an unidentified noise in the water, one their computers could not identify, just before the hydrophones went dead.

SOSUS is a system of listening points on the bottom of the ocean that can detect and classify literally every noise in the water. It is especially accurate in picking up and identifying movements of Soviet submarines, whether they are exiting a choke point from their own bases into open ocean or taking station off the U.S. coast. SOSUS is a critical line of defense, especially in detecting the possibility of a subsurface missile attack on the U.S. mainland.

THE SEA OF JAPAN

A
brisk wind raised a four- to five-foot chop. Green water splashed over the bows of two ships, the spray splashing the sailors working on their decks. The Russian guided-missile destroyer had been tailing its American counterpart most of the day. The captain of the American ship,
Benjamin Stoddert
, also a guided-missile destroyer, wondered when the Russian would alter course and leave them alone. Since the Russian craft had been identified that morning, he’d very carefully selected his bridge watch, and now they were very tired.