EndWar

He slipped onto the stairs, controlled his breathing, and took it one step at a time.

At the top, he spotted the four Russian soldiers that had been behind them, skulking along the edge, preparing to move along the rooftop to ambush his men below.

One poorly placed step would give him away. He eased off the stairs and onto the ice-covered roof, his boots barely finding traction. He shifted over to a tall aluminum venting system, crouched down, and raised his rifle, just as footfalls rumbled on the staircase and the sounds of the battle grew louder.

“Captain, I’m picking up flow noise from Sierra One on narrowband, bearing three-three-nine,” said the Florida’s sonar operator.

Andreas’s breath grew shallow with excitement. “Where’s the thermal layer?”

“Two hundred feet, sir.”

“We couldn’t pick up his flow noises if he wasn’t below the layer with us.”

“Concur, Captain.”

Andreas called out to the officer of the deck. “Come right to three-three-nine, slow to one third, make your depth sixteen hundred feet.”

He waited until the OOD repeated and executed his order, then switched his attention back to sonar. “What’s your best guess on that flow noise source?”

“I think it’s flow-induced resonance, Captain. That snap shot might’ve unlatched a stowage bin outside on his hull. It sounds like blowing into an empty Coke bottle. He has to hear it himself. I’m surprised he hasn’t slowed down to make it go away.”

Andreas squinted and thought aloud: “He knows we’re still alive, but he’s not sure of our status or where we are, so he’s risking some noise to put distance between himself and our contact point. Then he’ll slow to a crawl and acoustically vanish.”

“I agree, Captain.”

“Stay on him, Sonar. That’s two mistakes he’s made.”

“Two, sir?”

“Yeah, taking a cheap panic shot at us during our emergency was his first. On the other hand, we’d most likely have missed each other if we hadn’t had that jam.”

Andreas had to assume that the Romanov would behave like the SSBN it was and try to skulk away and hide—

Because a Joint Strike Force nuclear attack sub was a Russian SSBN crew’s worst nightmare.

Major Alice Dennison’s monitor showed streaming video from the High Level Bridge in Edmonton, just as Spetsnaz mechanized forces were making their way over it—

And just as the Tomahawks launched from the Florida made impact.

As explosions flashed in a string of lights festooning the bridge’s lines, Dennison nodded. A perfect strike.

Sure, the nuke there had already been deactivated, but the Euros had reported that the Russian ground force moving in was much larger than initial intel had indicated, and cutting off their main avenue of approach would now allow the Euros to better engage and delay them, until more follow-on forces arrived, or until the Russians decided to pull out.

The bridge broke apart in three distinct pieces and dropped to the river, creating tremendous waves and sending fountains high into the night sky.

And along with the bridge came the Russian vehicles, tumbling end over end, crashing into the pieces of bridge before they sank or simply splashing hard into the water.

At least a dozen more vehicles had been moving so swiftly that they couldn’t stop, and like elephants herded to a cliff, they plunged over the side.

She took a long pull on her coffee cup, leaned back in her chair, and continued to watch as, in another set of windows, images came in from Calgary Tower, where wounded or killed infantrymen were being evaced away.

She’d spoken to one of the company commanders there, a man named Welch, who’d said one of his rifle squad leaders had saved the entire NEST team by throwing himself on a fragmentation grenade. Stories of men doing this in order to save their brothers in arms were common during times of war.

But that kind of bravery was not.

That solder’s name was Sergeant Marc Rakken, and Dennison would make sure that he received the full recognition he deserved.

A call flashed on her screen. “Yes, General Kennedy. What can I do for you?”

FORTY

“Captain, we’ve got a passive range solution of twenty-six thousand yards and a computed course and speed of three-two-zero, fifteen knots, for the target,” reported the Florida’s attack coordinator.

“Sonar’s lost contact with Sierra One, Captain,” said the operator. “He’s definitely slowed down.”

Commander Jonathan Andreas nodded. “Weps, set the unit in tube one on low speed, passive search, transit depth fifteen hundred feet. Set the unit in tube four on low speed, passive search, transit depth one thousand feet.”

While the Navy called them units, Andreas still thought of the Mark 48s as torpedoes and would refer to them as such when in the company of nonmilitary friends and family.

However, it hardly mattered what they were called when one was bearing down on you.

The Russians would soon testify to that.