"Damned if I know.  You want to hand me those ham cubes?  And could you check the bread in the oven?  Ought to be about done."

The New Jersey

Commander Eaton was perplexed.  His battle group was holding twenty miles south of the Russians.  If it hadn't been dark he could have seen the Kirov's towering superstructure on the horizon from his perch on the flat bridge.  Her escorts were in a single broad line ahead of the battle cruiser, pinging away in the search for a submarine.

Since the air force had staged its mock attack the Soviets had been acting like sheep.  This was out of character to say the least.  The New Jersey and her escorts were keeping the Russian formation under constant observation, and a pair of Sentry aircraft were watching for good measure. The Russian redeployment had switched Eaton's responsibility to the Kirov group.  This suited him.  His main battery turrets were trained in, but the guns were loaded with eight-inch guided rounds and the fire control stations were fully manned.  The Tarawa was thirty miles south, her armed strike force of Harriers sitting ready to move at five-minute notice.  The Soviets had to know this, even though their ASW helicopters had not come within five miles of an American ship for two days.  The Bear and Backfire bombers which were passing overhead in shuttle rounds to Cuba—only a few, and those returning to Russia as quickly as they could be turned around—could not fail to report what they saw.  The American vessels were in extended attack formation, the missiles on the New Jersey and her escorts being fed continuous information from the ships' sensors.  And the Russians were ignoring them.  Their only electronic emissions were routine navigation radars.  Strange.

The Nimitz was now within air range after a five-thousand-mile dash from the South Atlantic; the carrier and her nuclear-powered escorts, the California, Bainbridge, and Truxton, were now only four hundred miles to the south, with the America battle group half a day behind them.  The Kennedy was five hundred miles to the east.  The Soviets would have to consider the danger of three carrier air wings at their backs and hundreds of land-based air force birds gradually shifting south from one base to another.  Perhaps this explained their docility.

The Backfire bombers were being escorted in relays all the way from Iceland, first by navy Tomcats from the Saratoga's air wing, then by air force Phantoms operating in Maine, which handed the Soviet aircraft off to Eagles and Fighting Falcons as they worked down the coast almost as far south as Cuba.  There was not much doubt how seriously the United States was taking this, though American units were no longer actively harassing the Russians.  Eaton was glad they weren't.  There was nothing more to be gained from harassment, and anyway, if it had to, his battle group could switch from a peace to a war footing in about two minutes.