"But he lied to the Politburo!" Sergetov nearly shouted.

"Not at all. You think Josef is foolish? He handed over an official KGB intelligence estimate drawn up under my chairmanship, by my department heads."

Why is he telling me all this? He fears losing his post, and he wants support with other Politburo members. Is that all?

"You're telling me that this is all a mistake."

"Exactly," Kosov answered. "Bad luck and poor judgment in our oil industry-not your fault, of course. Add some fear in the hearts of our Party hierarchy, some ambition in one of my subordinates, the Defense Minister's sense of importance, and outright stupidity on the part of the West; and here we are today."

"So, what do you think we should do?" Sergetov asked warily.

"Nothing. I ask that you keep in mind, however, that the next week will probably decide the outcome of our war. Ah!" he exclaimed. "Look, my car has been repaired. You may pull over here, Vitaly. Thank you for the ride, Misha. Good day." Kosov retrieved his jamming device and stepped out of the car.

Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov watched the KGB limousine pull away and disappear around the comer. He had played many power games in his life. Sergetov's climb up the Party ladder had been more than an exercise in efficiency. Men had stood in his way, and needed brushing aside. Promising careers had been broken so that he could sit in this Zil automobile and aspire to real power in his country. But never had the game been this dangerous. He didn't know the rules, was not sure what Kosov was really up to. Was his story even true? Might he be trying to cover his own flanks for errors he had made and blame it all on Josef Larionov? Sergetov could not recall ever meeting the First Deputy Chairman.

"Straight to the office, Vitaly," Sergetov ordered. He was too deep in thought to worry about his driver's other activities.

NORTHWOOD, ENGLAND

Toland scanned the satellite photographs with great interest. The KH-11 satellite had passed over Kirovsk four hours after the missile attack and the signals sent by real-time link to the NATO command center. There were three frames for each of the Backfire bases. The intelligence officer took out a pad and started his tally, commanding himself to be conservative. The only aircraft he counted as destroyed were those with large pieces broken or burned off.

"We figured a total force of about eighty-five aircraft. Looks to me like twenty-one totally destroyed, and another thirty or so damaged. The base facilities took a real beating. The only other thing I'd like to know is how hard their personnel were hit. If we killed a lot of crews, too-the Backfires are out of business for at least a week. They still have the Badgers, but those birds have shorter legs, they're a lot easier to kill. Admiral, it's a new ball game."

Admiral Sir Charles Beattie smiled. His intelligence chief had said almost exactly the same thing.

LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VIRGINIA

The F-15 interceptor streaked over the runway at a height of one hundred feet. As she passed the tower, Major Nakamura threw her fighter into a slow roll, then turned around for a more sedate landing. She was an Ace! Three Badger bombers and two satellites! The first female Ace in the history of the U.S. Air Force. The first Space Ace.

She rolled to a stop at the ready shelter, jumped off the ladder, and ran to the reception committee. The deputy commander of Tactical Air Command was red-faced with anger.

"Major, if you ever pull something like that again I'll bust your ass back to doolie!"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." She grinned. Nothing was going to spoil today. "Won't ever happen again, sir. You only make Ace once, sir."

"Intelligence says Ivan has one more RORSAT ready to use. Probably they'll think it over some before launching," the General said, calming down somewhat.

"Have they put any more birds together?" Buns asked.

"They're working on two, and we might have them by the end of the week. If we get them, your next target will be their real-time photo reconnaissance satellite. Until then the RORSATs have highest priority." The General smiled briefly. "Don't forget to paint that fifth star on the bird, Major."

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

They would have sailed anyway. The destruction of the Soviet RORSAT merely made it safer. First came the destroyers and frigates, fanning out, looking for submarines under an umbrella of patrol aircraft. Then the cruisers and carriers. Last of all came the ships from Little Creek, Tarawa, Guam, Nassau, Inchon, and twenty more. Over sixty ships in all, they formed into three groups and steamed northeast at twenty knots. It would be a six-day trip.

Even at three knots she didn't ride well. The ship was just over two hundred feet long, and she responded to every wave like a horse to a fence. She had a mixed crew, not really Navy, not really civilian. The civilians ran the ship. The naval personnel ran the electronics gear. The really amazing thing, everyone agreed, was that they were still alive.

Prevail was an adaptation of a blue-water fishing boat. Instead of a trawl, she pulled a sonar array at the end of a six-thousand-foot cable filled with sonar sensors. The signals received were pre-processed by onboard computers, then sent via satellite to Norfolk at a rate of thirty-two thousand bits of data per second. The ship was driven by quiet electric motors, and her hull had been installed with the Prairie/Masker system to eliminate even her tiny amount of machinery noise. Her topsides were made of fiberglass to reduce her radar signature. In a very real sense she was one of the first Stealth ships, and despite the fact that she carried no weapon other than a rifle for dealing with sharks, she was also the most dangerous antisubmarine platform ever made. Prevail and three sister ships were cruising the North Atlantic on the great circle route between Newfoundland and Ireland, listening for the telltale noise of a submarine in transit. Two already had kills painted up on their bridges since each had an Orion patrol aircraft in constant attendance, and Soviet submarines had twice had the misfortune to approach one of them. But their job was not to kill submarines. It was to warn others of them, far away.

In the midships operations center of Prevail, a team of oceanographic technicians watched a bank of TV-type display tubes, while others worked up tracks of anything that might be close enough to be a direct threat.

A petty officer ran his finger down a fuzzy line on the display. "That must be the convoy from New York."

"Yeah," said the technician next to him. "And there're the folks who want to meet them."