The admiral's Striking Force was steaming 140 miles to the west of Isfjord, Spitzbergen's main inlet on its western coast. If Nato had not reacted so swiftly in Spitzbergen, when the enemy invaded Norway four months ago, Jessup wouldn't have been here now: Spitzbergen was a vital link in the West's periphery of defences. The radar early warning and SOSUS chains were making it possible for SACLAVT to challenge the Soviets' assumption of proprietorship in the Barents Sea… a helluva day, since the receipt of Safari's flash report at 0835 this morning. To maintain the Force's LRMPS his carriers' Phantoms, Tomcats, Hornets and F — I8s were flying at extreme limits round the clock to maintain even an hours' umbrella above the LRMPS.
Jessup moved to the for'd end of his bridge, where the wind was buffeting the slab face of Carl Vinson's tiered island. He held on to the frosted rail, watching her gigantic flight deck below him, stretching forward eight hundred feet from the point at which he stood. Even this huge carrier was moving about in these dreary, green seas; Carl Vinson's bows were pitching rhythmically, wisps of spray drifting upwards and turning to ice before slatting against the steel upperworks of the island. The aviators were taking these harsh conditions in their stride, operating a thousand miles from their carriers, refuelled in flight by tankers. The arduous weather was claiming more casualties among his airmen than was the curiously negative response of the enemy, Yes, Operation sow was certainly putting to the test those years of peacetime training, those Goddam years of pinching and scraping to keep the fleets in being while Uncle Sam picked himself up again after the Vietnam syndrome, a malaise ably exploited by Soviet subversion throughout the free world. Jessup's eyes were watering as he peered into the icy wind: the deck-handlers were hard put to it in these conditions, but the spirit among Carl Vinson's 6,400 men was improved now that there was a purpose to the eternal flogging of the Atlantic: the Phantom and Tomcat squadrons were landing on and taking off with admirable precision. He wondered how he himself would cope with these sophisticated flying machines with speeds of mach 2.5-plus: his flying days were over, but he still yearned for his old Corsairs. Flat-tops were fun in those days, less intense: airplanes did not cost millions of dollars apiece; pilots did not take years to train; and the atom did not drive the carriers… Thank God it would soon be over. The President had been briskly curt this morning on the telephone, before passing Jessup over to the Secretary of the Navy: SACLANT had been given another twenty-four hours to bring the operation to its conclusion. Tomorrow at midnight Nato's disposition deployments must be withdrawn from the Barents — the Kremlin was now thoroughly suspicious and running out of patience. SACLANT must not be caught with his pants down when, or if, the Kremlin carried out its threats.
But until Operation SB proved its point, the Kremlin was still retaining faith in its last resort, second strike capability, the SLBMS fired from their invisible SSBNS. The world was still one step away from the holocaust, and Nato had failed to sink the SSBNS it had boasted it could. The total score of fifteen still fell short of the twenty commanded by the President to clinch deterrence and to bring back peace. Destruction of the Typhoon remained the key, but the despair beginning to be felt by Jessup's staff was difficult to combat as they monitored Safari's abortive chase.
Jessup twitched back the sleeve of his wind-cheater: 2105. His staff had been deploying and monitoring Nato forces like pieces on a chessboard since 0900. It was time for him to rejoin his hard-worked team, if only as a dismal witness to the escape of their quarry: the elusive Typhoon would soon be lost under the polar ice. He turned and elbowed his frame through the starboard screen. The door banged shut behind him, as he made his way down to the anti-submarine control centre.
The first watchmen were already installed, the plotters going smoothly about their business of monitoring the movements of all deployments, past, present and future. Whereas earlier there had been an ill-concealed pessimism in the control centre, Jessup, standing before the displays, detected immediately that the atmosphere had altered: there was a bustling confidence which had been absent when he quit to snatch his breather. He dropped into his chair and watched as the computers flipped their data on to the screens. His staff captain had taken charge, a sure sign that something was developing — but first, Jessup needed to recap on the day's events. He swept his eye over the 'past' screen, focussing on the red and blue tracks, the enemy's and Nato's respectively.
Based on Safari's report, the Typhoon's red track started well south at 0800 (estimated). The monster was presumed to have speeded up to thirty-five knots, an estimate confirmed at 1210. Every naval commander merited an element of luck and Jessup acknowledged his fortune when at 1030 the SOSUS chain on the Perseus Bank had picked up, then identified, the Alfa close south of the shallower water. What had aroused Jessup's suspicions was her relatively slow speed, even after clearing the bank. The Alfa was capable of forty-two knots, but she was heading north-east at only twenty before increasing to thirty-five when reaching the deeper water. Her illogical progress alerted Jessup to the possibility of her acting as an escort ahead of the Typhoon — and the earlier presence of a Victor II (sunk by Safari) as a rear escort underlined his suspicions.
Since 0900 there had been jubilant moments in the control centre, instants of intense excitement, as well as despair. The first was the confirmation of the Alfa's signature, course and speed; the second, when his staffs hopes were confirmed: at 1207, SOSUS picked up the Typhoon. Jessup immediately flew off another Viking patrol and alerted the RAF's Nimrods.
The Typhoon, having steamed at speed sine 0800, must have altered to 056° at 1100 to avoid the Perseus Bank and, by SOSUS again, was confirmed as following the Alfa at twenty knots while skirting the shallows. The Typhoon had cracked on to thirty-five knots at 1600, once she was clear of Perseus. But the high drama of the day still lay ahead.
Jessup would long remember the first Nimrod's flash report: the excitement mounting in the anti-submarine control' centre as the movement of every unit in his force was immediately co-ordinated; the data streaming in; the scrambling Phantoms, Tomcats and F — I8s, and finally the relentless passive refining from the Vikings' and Nimrods' sono-buoy fields. It had been a model hunt, culminating in the torpedoing of the Alfa who, even if she had not been bounced by the LRMPS, would have steamed straight into the four SSNS waiting on their patrol line stretching between Graham Bell Land and the Northern tip of Novaya Zemlya.
The sinking of the Alfa had altered the whole picture: the Typhoon, only sixty miles astern, must have been alerted by the Alfa — or might have heard the sinking — because at 1740 the Typhoon altered course to 332°, a course shaving the other SOSUS bank.
Safari, controlled directly by COMSUBEASTLANT, was steaming at full speed on 0100 since losing her quarry: since noon, the forlorn plan had been to try and force the Typhoon back towards the Spitz-Alexandra Land gap. Nato's four SSNS were standing by to scare her northwards, and after Carl Vinson's Viking sank the Alfa at 1730 the LRMPS were moved to the south-eastward to achieve the same result. Safari's track was now converging on the Typhoon's. At 2000, an hour ago, when the enemy fined up to due north for the deep water off Cape Mary Harmsworth, Safari was tantalizingly close astern: only thirty-five miles separated the two submarines. Since then tension had heightened, despite the despairing realization that nothing now could prevent the enemy from reaching the ice. The time was already 2101 and she was outpacing Safari at the rate of five knots: in only two hours, if the Typhoon forged onwards through restricted sea room and depth at this desperate speed, she would be approaching the edge of the polar ice.