He now had a full fighting division across the Leine-the remains of one, he corrected himself. The two reinforcing tank divisions were trying to cross now, but the ribbon bridges had been bombed overnight along with the advancing divisions. The NATO reinforcements were beginning to arrive-their road advances had also suffered from air attacks, though at ghastly cost to the Soviet fighter-bombers. The tactics... no, amateurs discuss tactics, Alekseyev thought wryly. Professional soldiers study logistics. The key to his success would pivot on his ability to maintain bridges on the river Leine and to run traffic efficiently down the roads to Alfeld. The traffic-control system had already broken down twice before Alekseyev had dispatched a team of colonels to handle things.

"We should have picked a better place," Alekseyev muttered.

"Excuse me, Comrade General?" Sergetov asked.

"There's only one good road into Alfeld." The General smiled ironically. "We should have made our breakthrough at a town with at least three."

They watched wooden counters march-creep-down the line on the map. Each counter was a battalion. Missile and antiaircraft-gun units lined the corridor north and south of this road, and the road itself constantly swept to rid it of the remotely deployed mines that NATO was using in large numbers for the first time.

"Twentieth Tanks has taken a serious mauling," the General breathed. His troops. It might have been a quick breakthrough-should have been but for NATO aircraft.

"The two reinforcing divisions will complete the maneuver," Sergetov predicted confidently.

Alekseyev thought him right. Unless something else went wrong.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

Morris sat across the deck from COMNAVSURFLANT: Commander, Naval Surface Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. A three-star admiral, held spent his whole career in what he liked to call "the real Navy," frigates, destroyers, and cruisers. The small gray ships lacked the glamour of aviation and the mystery of the submarines, but right now they were the key to getting the convoys across the Atlantic.

"Ivan's changed tactics on us-a hell of a lot faster than we thought he was able to. They're going for the escorts. The attack on your frigate was deliberate, you didn't just stumble across him. He was probably laying for you."

"They're trying to roll back the escorts?"

"Yes, but with particular attention to the ships with tails. We've hurt their submarine force-not enough, but we have hurt them. The towed-array pickets have worked out very well. Ivan picked up on that and he's trying to take them out. He's looking for the SURTASS ships, too, but that's a harder proposition. We've killed three submarines that tried to move in on them."

Morris nodded. The Surface Towed-Array Sonar Ships were modified tuna clippers that trailed enormous passive sonar cables. There weren't enough of them to provide coverage for more than half the convoy routes, but they fed good information into ASW headquarters in Norfolk. "Why don't they send Backfires after the ships?"

"We've wondered about that, too. Evidently the Russians don't think they're worth the diversion of that much effort. Besides, we've got a lot more electronic capability built into them than anyone thought. They're not easy to locate on radar." The Admiral went no further than that, but Morris wondered if stealth technology-which the Navy had been working on for years-had been applied to the SURTASS force. If the Russians were limiting their effort to locate and kill the tuna boats with submarines, he thought, so much the better.

"I'm putting you in for a decoration, Ed. You did very well. I've only got three skippers who've done better, and one of them was killed yesterday. So how bad was your damage?"

"She may be a total loss, sir. It was a Victor. We took one hit in the bow. The keel let go, and-the bow tore off, sir. We lost everything forward of the ASROC launcher. Lots of shook damage, but most of it's already fixed. Before she'll sail again, we have to build her a new bow." The Admiral nodded. He'd already seen the casualty reports.

"You did well to save her, Ed. Damned well. Pharris doesn't need you for the moment. I want you here with my operations people. We have to change tactics, too. I want you to look over what intelligence and operational information we have and feed me some ideas."

"For starters, we might stop those damned Backfires."

"That's being worked on." The reply held both confidence and skepticism.

THE WINDWARD PASSAGE

To the east was Haiti on the island of Hispaniola. To the west was Cuba. Blacked out, radar systems fully energized but placed on standby, the ships sailed in battle formation, escorted by destroyers and frigates. Missiles were hung on launchers and trained out to port, while the launch controllers sweated in their air-conditioned battle stations.

They didn't expect trouble. Castro had gotten word to the American government that he had had no part in this, and was angered that the Soviets had not informed him of their plans. It was diplomatically important, however, that the American fleet traverse the passage in darkness so that the Cubans could say truthfully that they had seen nothing. As a sign of good faith, Castro had also alerted the Americans to the presence of a Soviet submarine in the Florida Straits. To be used as a vassal was one thing, to have his country used as a base for a war without being informed was too much.

The sailors didn't know all of this, just that no serious opposition was expected. They took it with a grain of salt, as they did all intelligence reports. Their helicopters had laid a string of sonobuoys, and their ESM radar receivers listened for the pulsing signal of a Soviet-made radar. Aloft, lookouts trained clumsy starlight scopes around the sky, searching for aircraft that might be hunting them visually-which would not be hard. At twenty-five knots, every ship left a foaming wake that seemed to fluoresce like neon in the darkness.

Maalox didn't work anymore, one frigate captain grumbled to himself. He sat in the command chair in his ship's Combat Information Center. To his left was the chart table, in front of him (he faced aft) the young tactical action officer stood over his plotting scope. The Cubans were known to have surface-to-surface missile batteries arrayed on their coastline like the fortresses of old. At any moment the ships might detect a swarm of incoming vampires. Forward, his single-arm missile launcher was loaded and trained out, as were his three-inch gun and CIWS topside. The coffee was a mistake, but he had to stay alert. The price was a stabbing pain in his upper abdomen. Maybe I should talk to the corpsman, he thought, and shrugged it off. There wasn't time for that. He'd been working around the clock for three months to get his ship ready for action, racing through the acceptance trials and conducting continuous workups, working his men and ship hard, but working himself hardest of all. He was too proud to admit that he'd pushed too hard, even to himself.

It came just as he finished his third cup of coffee. For all the warnings, it was a pain as severe and surprising as a thrown knife. The captain doubled over and vomited on the tiled deck of CIC. A sailor mopped it up at once, and it was too dark to see that there'd been blood on the tile. He couldn't leave his post, despite the pains, despite the sudden chill from the blood loss. The captain made a mental note to keep off the coffee for a few hours. Maybe he'd see the corpsman when he got the chance. If he got the chance. There'd be a three day layover in Norfolk. He could rest a little then. He knew he needed rest. The fatigue that had been building for days hammered at him. The captain shook his head. Throwing up was supposed to make you feel better.