This time there was no standoff jamming to warn the Soviets. Eight FB-111s swept in over the rocks, southwest from the island's rocky center. They skimmed down the bottom of Selja Valley in elements of two, their green and gray camouflage making them almost invisible to the fighters circling overhead. The lead pair turned due west, with another pair half a mile behind it. The remaining four went south around Mt. Hus.

"Holy shit." Smith saw them first, two fast-moving tail fins to the south. Just as Edwards found them, the lead aircraft popped up and launched a pair of TV-guided bombs. The wingman did the same, and both attackers turned north. The four bombs homed in on the transformer station below them, and all landed within the fence perimeter. As though a single switch had been thrown, every light in view went out. The second pair of Aardvarks roared low over Highway 1, blazing over the rooftops of Reykjavik to line up on their target. The leader lofted his own smart-bombs, and his wingman broke left for the airport tankfarm on the waterfront. Moments later, the control tower exploded, along with a hangar, and Rockeye cluster-bombs blew the fuel tanks apart. Caught by surprise, the Russian gun and missile crews fired too late.

The defense troops at Keflavik were surprised, too, first by the sudden loss of electrical power, then by the bombers, which arrived only a minute later. Here, too, the control tower and hangars were the primary targets, and most came apart under the impact of two-thousand-pound bombs. The second team found two parked Backfires and a missilelaunch vehicle for their Rockeyes to hit, and sprinkled more softballsized bomblets over the runways and taxiways. Meanwhile, the FB-111s continued west on afterburner, with gunfire and missiles chasing them-and fighters. Six Fulcrums dove for the retreating Varks, whose protective jammers filled the sky with electronic noise.

Free of their ordnance loads, the American bombers blazed away at seven hundred knots, a scant hundred feet over the wavetops, but the Soviet fighter commander would not turn away from this one. He'd seen what they had done to Keflavik, and he was furious at having been caught unaware despite having his fighters aloft. The Fulcrums had a slight speed advantage and closed the gap slowly. They were over a hundred miles offshore when their missile radars burned through the Americans' jamming. Two fighters immediately launched missiles, and the American aircraft jinked up, then down to lose them. One FB-111 took a hit and cartwheeled into the sea, and the Soviets were preparing a second volley when their threat receivers came on.

Four American Phantoms were waiting in ambush for them. In a moment eight Sparrow missiles were diving toward the Fulcrums. Now it was time for the Soviets to run. The MiG-29s wheeled and ran back for Iceland on afterburner. One was felled by a missile, and another damaged. The battle had lasted all of five minutes.

"Doghouse, this is Beagle. The electrical station is gone! The Varks knocked it flat, guy. One hell of a fire at the southwest edge of the airport, and looks like the tower got chopped in half. Two hangars look shot up. I see two, maybe three burning aircraft, civilian types. The fighters got off half an hour ago. Damn, that tank farm is burning like a sonuvagun! Lots of people running around on the ground below us." As Edwards watched, a dozen vehicles with headlights blazing ran back and forth over the roads below him. Two stopped a kilometer away and dismounted troops. "Doghouse, I think it's time for us to leave this hill."

"That's a roger, Beagle. Head northeast towards Hill 482. We'll expect to hear from you in ten hours. Get moving, boy! Out."

"Time to leave, sir." Smith tossed the lieutenant his pack and motioned for the privates to move. "Looks like we can score one for the good guys."

KEFLAVIK, ICELAND

The MiGs landed on the still undamaged runway one-eight, the base's longest. They had barely stopped rolling when ground crews began the process of turning them around for further combat operations. The colonel was surprised to see the base commander still alive.

"How many did you get, Comrade Colonel?"

"Only one, and they got one of mine. Didn't you get anything on radar?" the colonel demanded.

"Not a thing. They hit Reykjavik first. Two groups of aircraft, they came in from the north. The bastards must have flown between the rocks," the major snarled. He pointed to the big mobile radar that sat in the open between two runways. "They missed it completely. Amazing."

"We must move it. Someplace high, very high. We'll never get an airborne radar, and unless we improve radar warning, this low-level business will eat us up. Find a good hilltop. How badly are our facilities damaged?"