"As I have already said, we have no reason whatever to believe that any other Western nation had the slightest complicity in this act of international terrorism. This crisis is, therefore, a matter between the government of the Soviet Union and the government in Bonn. It is our hope that this crisis can be resolved through diplomatic means.. We call on the Bonn government to consider the consequences of its actions with the greatest care and to act to preserve the peace.

"That is all I have to say." The Foreign Minister gathered his papers and left. The gathered reporters did not even attempt to shout questions at the receding form.

Flynn tucked his notepad back into his pocket, and screwed his pen closed. The AP correspondent had stayed behind at Phnom Penh to see the arrival of the Khmer Rouge, almost at the cost of his life. He'd covered wars, revolutions, riots, and been wounded twice as a result of his devotion to his business. But covering wars was a young man's game.

"When are you planning to leave?"

"Wednesday at the latest. I already have two tickets reserved, SAS to Stockholm," Calloway answered.

"I'm going to cable New York to shut down the Moscow office tomorrow. I'll stick around until you leave, but, Willie, it's time to go. If I cover any more of this story, it'll be from a safer place."

"How many wars have you covered, Patrick?"

"Korea was my first. Haven't missed many since then. Damned near bled to death at a place called Con Thien. Caught two mortar fragments in the Sinai in '73."

USS PHARRIS

DEFCON-2. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT OPTION BRAVO NOW IN EFFECT. THIS MESSAGE IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS A WAR-WARNING, Morris read in the privacy of his stateroom. HOSTILITIES BETWEEN NATO AND THE WARSAW PACT ARE NOW TO BE CONSIDERED AS LIKELY BUT NOT CERTAIN. TAKE ALL MEASURES CONSISTENT WITH THE SAFETY OF YOUR COMMAND. HOSTILITIES COULD INITIATE WITHOUT RPT WITHOUT WARNING.

Ed Morris lifted his phone. "Call the XO to my stateroom."

He was there in under a minute.

"I hear you got a hot message, skipper."

"DEFCON-2, ROE Option Bravo." He handed over the terse message form. "We start maintaining round-the-clock Condition-Three steaming at once. The ASROC and torpedo tube directors are to be manned at all times."

"What do we tell the men?"

"I want to go over this with the wardroom first. Then I'll speak to the crew. We haven't got specific operations orders yet. I figure we head either to Norfolk or New York for convoy duty."

"Okay, Toland, let's hear it." Baker sat back in his chair.

"Admiral, NATO has increased its alert level. The President has authorized DEFCON-2. The Naval Defense Reserve Fleet is being mobilized. Reforger will begin at 0100 Zulu. The commercial jets are already being taken into military service. The Brits have enacted Queen's Order Two. A lot of airports in Germany are going to be busy as hell."

"How long to complete Reforger?"

"Eight to twelve days, sir."

"We may not have that long."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me about their satellite reconnaissance," Baker ordered.

"Admiral, they currently have one radar ocean reconnaissance satellite up-Kosmos 1801. It's paired with Kosmos 1813, an electronic intelligence bird. 1801 is the nuclear-powered radar bird, and we think it may have a photographic capability to back up the radar system."

"I never heard that before."

"NSA detected indications of a video signal several months ago, but that information was never released to the Navy because it was unconfirmed." Toland didn't say that it had been decided at the time the Navy didn't need-to-know this. They needed to know now, Toland judged. I'm here now. "I'd expect that Ivan has another of his radar satellites ready for immediate launch, probably a few more in the barn. They've been launching an unusual number of their low-altitude communications birds, plus a lot of electronic intelligence satellites-ordinarily they have six or seven of them up, but now the total is ten. That gives them awfully good ELINT coverage. If we make electronic noise, they'll hear it."

"And not a Goddamned thing we can do about them."

"Not for a while, sir," Toland agreed. "The Air Force has its antisatellite missiles, six or seven as I recall, but they've only been tested once against a real satellite, and there's been a moratorium on the ASAT tests since last year. The Air Force can probably dust them off and try to reactivate the program, but that'll take a few weeks. Their first priority is the radar satellites," Toland concluded hopefully.

"Okay, our orders are to rendezvous with Saratoga at the Azores and escort our Marine Amphibious Unit to Iceland. I suppose the Russians will watch us all the way up! Hopefully by the time we get there, the Icelandic government will allow us to land them. I just learned that their government can't decide if this crisis is real or not. God, I wonder if NATO will hold together?"

"Supposedly we have proof that it's all a put-up job, but we don't need to know what that evidence is. The problem is that a lot of countries are buying this charade, at least publicly."

"Yeah, I love that. I want you to refine your estimate of the threat from Soviet subs and aircraft on a continuous basis. I want information about the smallest change in what they have at sea the moment you get it."

15 - The Bastion Gambit

"What's the sounding?" McCafferty asked quietly.

"Fifty feet under the keel," the navigator answered at once. "We're still well outside Russian territorial waters, but we start approaching real shoals in twenty miles, skipper." It was the eighth time in half an hour that he had commented on what lay ahead.

McCafferty nodded, not wanting to speak, not wanting to make any unnecessary sound at all. The tension hung in the attack center of the Chicago like the cigarette smoke that the ventilators would not entirely remove. Looking around, he caught his crewmen furtively disclosing their states of mind with a raised eyebrow or a slightly shaken head.

The navigator was the most nervous of all. There were all sorts of good reasons not to be here. Chicago might or might not have been in Soviet territorial water, itself a legal question of no small complexity. To the northeast was Cape Kanin; to the northwest, Cape Svyatoy. The Soviets claimed the entire region as an "historic bay," while the United States chose to recognize the international twenty-four-mile closure rule. Everyone aboard knew that the Russians were more likely to shoot today than request a decision under the International Law of the Sea Convention. Would the Russians find them?

They were in a bare thirty fathoms of water-and, like the great pelagic sharks, nuclear attack submarines are creatures of the deep, not the shallows. The tactical plot showed bearings to three Soviet patrol craft, two Grisha-class frigates and a Poti-class corvette, all specialized antisubmarine ships. All were miles away, but they were still a very real threat.

The only good news was a storm overhead. The twenty-knot surface wind and sheets of falling rain made noise that interfered with sonar performance-but that included their own sonar, and sonar was their only safe means for getting information.

Then there were the imponderables. What sensing devices did the Soviets have in these waters? Might the water be clear enough that a circling helicopter or ASW aircraft could see them? Might there be a Tango-class diesel boat out there, moving slowly on her quiet, battery-powered electric motors? The only way they'd learn the answer to any of those questions was the metallic whine of a torpedo's high-speed propellers or the simple explosion of a falling depth-bomb. McCafferty considered all these things, and weighed the dangers against the priority of his Flash directive from COMSUBLANT: