The general secretary didn't show it, but he was pleased. At least this young officer came up with options. He wished the others in the room could be as creative. "It sounds like a workable plan. Do you. agree, Czilikov?" He did. "Comments?" There, were none, "Then it is authorized."
"Thank you, sir," Govorov said. "I'll be requesting final launch approval in eight hours. The attack will begin approximately three hours later."
"Very well, Marshal. You are dismissed."
Govorov stood, saluted the general secretary and left.
After he had gone the general secretary turned once again to Chercherovin. "Any other scapegoats, Admiral?" Chercherovin kept his mouth shut. "If, as I believe, Marshal Govorov makes good on his promise to destroy the American space station," the general secretary said, "will this mean that the Arkhangel group can force the Nimitz carrier group to withdraw, or is there some other small bit of information that has not been revealed, some other excuse that you will tell me only after we have had another defeat?"
"The aircraft lost on the Arkhangel must be replaced," Chercherovin said. "We have no accurate figures as to how many the Americans have lost—"
"Which to me sounds like they have not lost any," the general secretary broke in. "I sense the worst. If I can't get the truth, the whole truth, out of you, I will assume the worst has happened… so we will assume the Americans lost no fighter aircraft, and we have lost twenty fighters from the Arkhangel. How soon can we send twenty fighters out to the Arkhangel?"
"It may be difficult," the admiral said slowly, expecting another outburst. "Sukhoi-27 aircraft modified for carrier duty aboard the Arkhangel are only stationed at Vladivostok, the Arkhangel's home port. An operation to move twenty Su-27s from there will take at least a day of planning and a half-day of flying."
"A day and a half," the general secretary said. "And that, I assume, is a very optimistic figure. And that only places us at the same force level that we were at when the first twenty aircraft were destroyed. When the space station is finally knocked out, what do we have to take advantage of that?" He stood and walked around the triangular table. "Hear me now, I will not be forced to use thermonuclear weapons to secure the Persian Gulf. I will not go down in history as the first Soviet leader to use nuclear weapons, especially on an inferior enemy force. Well, let me hear some alternatives."
"A suggestion, Comrade General Secretary," Ilanovsky, the commander in chief of the army, said. "Sir, the objective is to destroy or cripple the Nimitz and her escorts. I still believe a massive cruise missile attack is the best way to attack the American fleet, but not with air-launched missiles. The flight profiles of the AS-6 and AS-4 missiles are too vulnerable to engagement by the Nimitz's guided missile cruiser escorts, and the other air-to-ground cruise missiles currently deployed, such as the AS-15, are nuclear."
"Then what else is available?"
"We have in early deployment a ground-launched cruise missile, a variant of the SS-N-24 naval cruise missile currently deployed on some of our older attack submarines. It's called the GL-25 Distant Death. It has transsonic speed, inertial and terrain-comparison guidance with active terminal radar homing, and it can carry an eleven hundred kilogram conventional high-explosive warhead or a five hundred kiloton thermonuclear warhead over three thousand kilometers to its target with high accuracy. Only a hundred or so have been deployed, but most were sent to the Southern Military Headquarters region during the readiness exercise Rocky Sweep. From Tashkent and the mountains north of Afghanistan it would be possible to strike at the American fleet in the Arabian Sea."
"But the Nimitz's escorts have already proved that they can protect themselves from cruise-missile attack," Chercherovin put in.
"Not from the GL-25," Ilanovsky told him quickly. "This cruise missile does not stay at high altitude as it gets closer to its target like the AS-4 or AS-6, but is preprogrammed to travel at low altitude when in areas of high-threat concentration, and it can make a supersonic dash for the last hundred kilometers to the target. By the time the Nimitz or her escorts spot it, it will be too late to intercept."
"But the time required to plan a strike sortie—"
"The missiles can be reprogrammed in a few hours," Hanovsky said. "The missiles have been stored in surveyed launch positions since Operation Feather began, targeted on suspected areas of resistance in Iran and Afghanistan. They can be ready to launch well before Marshal Govorov's strike against the space station Armstrong is finished. "
The Stavka was silent. "Any other objections?" the general secretary asked. There were none. "Then I'm in favor of the operation." He turned to Ilanovsky. "How many missiles can be fielded against the American fleet?"
Hanovsky paused, then: "Sir, I believe seventy-five missiles were delivered to the southern TVD in support of Rocky Sweep. I must allow for a certain number to be out of commission due to normal maintenance difficulties, but I believe I can field at least fifty GL-25 cruise missiles for launch against the fleet."
"Fifty missiles against twenty American ships. Can a definite number be targeted for the Nimitz?"
"The GL-25s can't be targeted that accurately, sir. Once within a certain distance from their preplanned target points, their homing radar is activated and the missile flies directly to the largest radar reflector in the area. But the American carrier fleet is spread out enough in the Arabian Sea to make it very likely that each missile will seek out its own target rather than join with others to attack one vessel. I think the GL-25s will have a devastating effect on the American fleet."
The general secretary actually looked pleased. "The GL-25 attack, using conventional high-explosive warheads, will immediately be implemented. I want a briefing on the missiles' exact flight path before launch."
Ilanovsky, relieved and excited, nodded and issued orders to his aide, charging him with alerting the missile brigades in the south-central Soviet Union.
Saint-Michael switched his comm panel to the TDRS channel and adjusted his earset. "Nimitz, this is Armstrong. Horizon crossing in one minute. Over. "
"Copy, Jason," from Admiral Clancy. "Standing by for data transmission test. "
They had performed this routine several times in the past two days, and each time the difference between having the station's eyes and not having them was startling. While Armstrong was on the other side of the globe the Nimitz had to rely on RF-18 Hornet maritime reconnaissance jets, E-2C Hawkeye turboprop early-warning-and-control planes, and Himlord drones to know what the Russians were up to. The Nimitz would launch two Hawkeyes and one Hornet, and the USS Kidd would launch four Himlords all at once. Eventually they all became targets for the escorts and fighters of the Soviet battle group to practice on. So far, two Hornets, one Hawkeye and an entire squadron of Himlords had been lost to Soviet attack.
By contrast, Silver Tower's SBR provided a much wider scale and more detailed look at the region; in fact, Admiral Clancy had begun to talk about the navy acquiring its own space-based radar platforms to be deployed with all its frontline carrier battle groups. It was no wonder he warmly greeted Silver Tower's reappearance every ninety minutes.
Saint-Michael monitored the system self-tests and status reports as they scrolled across the monitors. Ken Horvath pointed to a blinking line on the status monitor. "There's that relay-circuit fault again."