Cloudburst (43 page)

“You know, back there in the States, it was Vietnam all over again. The military fucks up.” Joe leaned forward on his knees.

“Yeah. But you learn from it. We did.” The old memories were part of the past, but at times they still could sting. “What about your end of it, Anderson?”

“You mean have I done this before?”

“Or something similar.”

He was about to go into a tricky situation with some homemade nuclear reactors ready to melt down, but it wasn’t like anything he’d done before. It might turn out to be easier, and though most people would consider it unlikely, it bore less of a devastating potential than Joe’s shining moment. “Something like it, though not up here.”

“Need to know?” Sean asked, sensing the reluctance to discuss whatever it was.

“You know the game,” Joe responded. There were always those who ‘wanted’ to know some bit of restricted information, but very few who had a ‘need’ to know. It was the foundation of the government’s compartmentalized security policy toward information, and it worked. Still… “Let’s just say I’ve dealt with some of our own big guns when things went awry.”

Sean smiled. “I get the picture. Those things can go haywire?”

“They’re mechanical. Things go wrong,” Joe explained, not giving the whole picture. He knew the limit.

Sean went wide-eyed at the thought. A nuclear-tipped ICBM gone wrong! “They must have hushed that up real good.”

“They did.” Joe didn’t say that a local newspaper in the Great Plains had nearly picked up on the real story, and would have, had it not been for some fancy footwork by the DOD. It was just as well. The country, or the world for that matter, didn’t need to know the real story. Neither did the Delta captain.

Sean felt more comfortable with Anderson, even with the knowledge that he, at times, could be a real ass. What counted was ability, and he had that, Sean reasoned, or he wouldn’t be among them. “Guess you’ll earn your pay on this one, too.”

“Just doing my job,” Joe responded. “Like you.”

Nineteen

THINE ENEMY

Thunder One

Blackjack held his SIG up for the troops to see. “I want no mistakes here. No screwups. So watch me close.” He slid the receiver back until it emitted an audible click. “No rounds in the chamber and no magazines inserted.”

“Isn’t that being a little less than careful?” Quimpo asked. “I mean, the Cubans, no matter what anyone says, they’re not our friends.”

“Precisely why we’re doing this.” McAffee released the slide back to forward, giving the pistol its normal shape, and tucked it into the holster high on his thigh. “If there’s any antagonism I want our weapons safed. There will be no reactionaries in this group…on this team. Mr. Anderson, would you please verify that everyone’s weapon is empty and safe?”

Joe made the rounds of the eight team members, two drivers, and the major, taking each weapon in hand personally.

McAffee continued, “The word we have is that the Cubans will cooperate, but keep this in mind. First, we’re only going to be on their soil a short time, God willing, and second, if we do anything to prevent our chance to take that bird down, then we’ve screwed ourselves and a whole lot of innocents.”

Everyone was quiet now. Their weapons were checked and holstered. Soon they would remove them and load the magazines with 9mm frangible ammunition, rounds preferred by counter-terrorist troops who might find themselves firing among tens or hundreds of hostages and needed to avoid ricochets or over-penetration of their intended targets. Special equipment, the latest available, was at their disposal, but the lowest common denominator was each man and his weapon, the SIG in this case. Each man, isolated from his conscience for the duration of the mission, was a killer. It was a sobering and sometimes horrid thought to those not connected with such antiterrorist efforts that men could have such a cold and calculated purpose. To kill. It was their only function. Kill the bad guys. Kill them at the first opportunity so that they would never again be able to wreak terror upon innocents. Kill them. One and all. Dead. Leave no chance of retaliation or retribution, and take no prisoners. If a terrorist tried to surrender, he or she was dead. No second thought A shot, preferably just above the bridge of the nose, would be fired, giving a long last look at life through the blast of a muzzle flash. Every man knew his job, trained for it hoped for a chance to do it and prayed that he never would. Their existence was a dichotomy of desires, but one that they were uniquely able to live with, for they knew that at the moment of truth, they were as close to death as their adversaries.

*  *  *

The Starlifter’s co-pilot loosened his harness a bit and leaned forward, looking out the side window to the right and behind the aircraft.

They were there, though he could see only one. There would be another on the left side, symmetrical with its wingman, about a hundred feet off and fifty feet behind the wingtip, slightly above the big jet.

“I got one on this side,” he said. “Friendlies, right?”

The pilot a thirty-year Air Force veteran, liked the sarcasm in the lieutenant’s voice. “You got it. Compliments of Fidel himself.”

Another look satisfied the lieutenant’s curiosity. All he could make out in the darkness were the anti-collision strobes underneath the much smaller aircraft “The light pattern looks like a twenty-nine,” the rights eater commented, referring to the MiG-29 Fulcrum, a compact Soviet-built fighter.

“Well, the Cubans have a bunch of those, for sure. You can bet whatever’s under the wings doesn’t hold extra avgas.”

“Right sir.”

It was a good guess. If the light had been better they would have been able to clearly make out the AA-10 Alamo air-to-air missiles on each wing.

The navigator swung his mask over his mouth. “We’ve got glide slope in two minutes. Suggest descend to eight thousand and come left to two-five-zero.”

The pilot acknowledged the recommendation and began nosing the Starlifter down toward the waters south of the Florida Keys and turning it toward Havana. He made the adjustments slowly, giving his somewhat unwelcome wingmen ample time to come clear and modify their flight profile.

“We’re cleared straight in, right?” the airman operating the com console asked, for verification only.

“That’s a roge,” the lieutenant answered. “No tower contact required.”

“Let’s take her in,” the captain said. “Everything by the numbers. Com, let the major know we’ll be on the ground in fifteen.”

*  *  *

The time evaporated rapidly. McAffee felt his web seat shift slightly to the left as the pilot flared the aircraft for touchdown, then, five seconds later, the main gear, just forward of the team, grabbed the runway. The nose wheel came down a few seconds later, and with no fanfare, the Americans had come to Havana.

Thunder One rolled to the end of the runway and turned left on the last taxiway, following a decidedly military-looking aircraft-service vehicle. Atop it was a rack of rotating amber strobe lights and in its bed were two soldiers in Cuban Army smocks and carrying the unmistakable Kalashnikovs familiar to all American military men.

As the aircraft’s roll slowed, the team went through their final checks. Graber checked each Humvee, paying particular attention to the stowed equipment.

“One is loaded,” he announced loudly. “Charges are present.” Sean moved back—actually forward—and looked over the number two vehicle. Everything was ready in this one, too, though there were no charges. That had been decided during the final planning stage. It was better, they figured, to have the two very special frame charges together, ready to be used when needed, considering that one would be useless. “Two is ready.”

“Fire them up!” the major ordered. The Humvees rumbled, belching a short spurt of smoke which was vented out through the Starlifter’s filtering system. “Okay, listen up. When the ramp goes down we’re going to move to cover. Where that is I don’t know. The word is that we’ll be directed somewhere. I want everyone in the buggies when they roll out. I’ll be on foot. Do not pass me. Understood?” The drivers gave a thumbs-up in reply. “Mr. Anderson, you’re with Captain Graber’s section. Keep track of your gear.”

“Got it,” Joe answered, trying not to sound nervous.

“All right. We’ll do a final talk-through once we have a spot to lay up. Remember, the bird’s going to be here in about twenty minutes, and we don’t know how long the turnaround is going to be, so everyone is ready to go now—right?”

“Right!”

Joe looked around, embarrassed almost that he was feeling a twinge of nerves. This was really going to happen.

“Mount up!”

The vehicles filled quickly. McAffee walked the few yards to the hinge of the stem ramp and waited for the aircraft to stop completely. A minute later it did with a last forward lurch. Immediately the outer part of the rear opening swung upward, allowing streams of light from numerous vehicles to bathe the inside of the aircraft. The ramp dropped next. It touched the tarmac with a metallic clang.

*  *  *

The Cuban major saw the first American trot down the incline from the airplane’s interior. He was black, as were many of the security troops around the area, but much darker.
Direct African descent
, thought Major Sifuentes. Not much like his own troops, who were a motley mix of Caribbean blood.

McAffee stopped short of his Cuban counterpart and saluted. “Major,” he began in flawless Spanish, “on behalf of my troops and my government, thank you for your much needed assistance in this terrible, terrible incident”

Sifuentes recognized the content as gracious. Behind the words and thankful tone, though, the American must have been gloating at his being here.
What is happening? Why would the general secretary allow this?

“Yes, yes. It is a terrible thing that some would deny others liberty.” The hand came down from its return salute and rested atop his pistol holster. “Major Orlando Sifuentes, and you?”

“Major Mike McAffee, United States Army.” The major did not offer his hand, as it was silently understood that a military salute would be the boundary of their shows of mutual respect.

“Yes. Army.” Sifuentes turned his head, breathed, then looked back to his onetime nemesis. “You may ride in my car. I understand you have your own vehicles, no?”

“Two. I’ll have them follow.”

The Cuban nodded. His own men were all over the tarmac, a good portion of them forming a widely spaced human gauntlet to the service hangar where he would lead the Americans.

McAffee returned down the ramp, the lights of the Humvees coming on and backlighting him from inside. “We’re ready, Major Sifuentes.”

“Good. Let us hurry, then. I understand your quarry is not far behind.”

As the open-back truck pulled away with Sifuentes and McAffee, the two Delta vehicles rolled down the stern ramp. Graber radioed the pilot of Thunder One that they were clear. The Starlifter would have under five minutes to get airborne and clear of the area.

In the lead vehicle, Joe held his black duffel on one knee while watching the right-side guardrail of gun-toting soldiers. Their white eyes showed no love of the guests, leaving Joe with a realization that there truly was an adversary of some determination very close to home, a thought even more sobering considering that this adversary was now a very unwilling bedfellow.

Springer Seven-Eight

Springer Seven-Eight loitered twenty-five thousand feet above the billowing tempest that usually was the peaceful watery paradise of the Florida Keys. The cloud system was playing havoc with shipping far from land, and closer in to shore the oil rigs off the Gulf Coast were battening down for the storm. It wasn’t a hurricane yet, just a strengthening tropical storm, named Aldo. It was moving almost directly west after lashing Nassau with sixty-mile-an-hour winds, and there was no telling which direction would be next.

“This thing’s a bitch,” one of the radar operators commented with a shake of his head. He was on weather watch, his set using special Doppler techniques to track and analyze the storm system.

“A bastard, Airman.”

“Sir?” The young white kid from Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, was taken by surprise. The louie had heard him.

“Bastard, Wickham. Aldo is a male name. It’s all gender-respective now.”

“Gender what, sir?” The talk was above him. He could handle twenty million dollars’ worth of radar equipment, but fancy talk soared right over him.

“You’re on the weather scope, son—you should know this. Severe tropical weather systems, like tropical storms and hurricanes, they used to all be named after women. Nowadays they alternate between male and female. The last one was Zelda, so Aldo got the call on this one.”

“Yeah. I see.” He didn’t really. Hell, they were clouds after all, right? Clouds were clouds. Sure, they did different things, but why name them. Blizzards and tornadoes didn’t get names.

“What’s south Florida saying on the winds?” the lieutenant asked.

The airman looked to his last report from the land stations on the tip of the panhandle. “The cape’s showing sixty-five knots, and Fort Meyers got a straight sixty, sir.”

That meant Aldo was probably going to go north. Before getting AWACS duty the lieutenant had spent two tours in Central America, mostly in Panama and Guatemala. His MOS was meteorology, a pseudo art form he had perfected forecasting Pacific weather. The East Coast stuff wasn’t so different he had discovered in his two years on the Atlantic side.

“What were the readings at Fort Meyers thirty minutes and ninety minutes ago?”

“Uh…just a minute, sir.” He folded back two pages of the printout. “Forty knots ninety minutes ago, and fifty-eight thirty minutes ago.”

It was the pattern, and the history. Aldo was going to follow the warm coastal waters of the Florida Gulf Coast almost directly north. His was a little conjecture mixed with the scientific, the lieutenant knew, but tropical disturbances moving due west had proven easier to forecast over the years. The nature of the beast, he figured. Aldo would never make it to hurricane strength. It’d try too hard to suck up that nice, warm Gulf water and then run aground still thirsty. There’d be some nasty thunderstorms for a day or so, not much more than Aldo’s peripheral systems had given to the Atlantic coast all the way up to Norfolk.