Cuba (27 page)

the bogey on radar.

“Like I saidea”…Toad told Jake, “sure is

great we’re staying outside Cuban airspace.”

“Greatea”…his pilot agreed.

“Don’t want to piss anybody off.”

“Oh, no.”

“Wonder why that ship ended up where it did?”

“Maybe the photos will tell us.”

“Bogey is six miles aft, Battlestar

Oneea”…the E-2 Hawkeye radar operator said,

“four hundred knots, closing from your eight o’clock.”

“You wanna turn toward him, Admiral, let me

pick him up on the radar”…”…Toad asked this question.

“No, let’s clear to seaward.”

“I got him visualea”…Toad said as the Tomcat

climbed past fifteen thousand feet. “He’s a little

above us, pulling lead.”

“Pulling lead”…”…Jake looked over his left

shoulder, found the MiGo-29.

“He could take a gunshot anytimeea”…Toad said.

“He’s rendezvousingea”…Jake said, “Gonna join

on our left wing, looks like.”

And that is what the MiGo did. He closed

gently, his nose well out in front, his axis almost

parallel, a classic rendezvous. The MiGo

stabilized in a parade position, about four feet

between wingtips, stepped down perhaps three feet.

Despite the bumpy air the MiGo held position

effortlessly.

Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington sat staring

at the helmeted figure of Carlos Corrado in

the other cockpit. Toad lifted his 35-mm

camera, snapped off a dozen photos of the

Cuban fighter and the two air-to-air missiles

hanging on the racks.

“Think he knows we were inside the three-mile

limit”…”…Toad asked Jake.

“His GCI controller told him, probably.”

Corrado stayed glued to the F-14. He paid no

attention to the other Tomcats that came swooping in

to join the formation, didn’t even bother to glance at

them.

Jake Grafton slowly advanced his throttles

to 95 percent RPM. The MiGo was right with him.

Leaving the power set, he got the nose coming up,

began to roll away from the MiGo, up and over to the

inverted and right on through,

coming on with the G to keep the nose from scooping out …

a medium-sloppy barrel roll.

Now a barrel roll to the left. The two

F-14’s behind Carlos Corrado moved

into trail position, behind and stepped down slightly,

to more easily stay with the maneuvering airplanes, but

Corrado held his position in left parade as if

he were welded there.

Now a loop. Up, up, up and over the top, G

increasing down the backside, the sea and sky changing

position very nicely, the sun dancing across

the cockpit. .

“This guy’s pretty goodea”…Toad remarked

grudgingly.

“Pretty good?”

“Okay, he’s a solid stick.”

Now a half loop and half roll at the top,

fly along straight and level for a count of five,

roll again and half turn into a lopsided split

S, one offset from the vertical by forty-five

degrees. Coming out of the dive Jake let the nose

climb until it was pointed straight up; he

slowly rolled around his axis, then pulled the plane

on over onto its back and waited until the nose

was forty-five degrees below the horizon before rolling

wings level and beginning his pullout. Through it all

Carlos Corrado stayed glued in position on

Jake’s wing.

Coming out of the last maneuver, Jake Grafton

turned eastward. The MiGo-29 stayed with the

American fighters for fifteen more minutes, until

the flight was near the eastern tip of Cuba, Cape

Maisi, and turning south. Only then did Carlos

Corrado wave at Jake and Toad and lower his

nose to cross under the F-14.

Out of the corner of his eye Jake saw

Toad salute the MiGo pilot as he turned

away to the west.

“Wonder why that ship ended up on those

rocks”…”…Toad Tarkington mused aloud. Jake

Grafton, Gil Pascal, Lieutenant

Colonel Eckhardt, Toad, and several of the

photo interpretation specialists were bent over a

table in the Air

Intelligence spaces studying the photographs from

the F-14’s reconnaissance pod.

“Maybe the person at the con was lostea”…the senior

AI speculated.

“Or didn’t know the watersea”…the marine suggested.

“Maybe the Cubans wanted it thereea”…Gil said.

Jake Grafton used a magnifying glass

to study photos of the island closest to the stranded

freighter.

“Here’s a crew setting up an artillery

pieceea”…he said, and straightened so everyone could see.

“If they planned to strand the ship on those rocks,

one would think they would have set up guns and a few

SAM batteries in advance.”

“Maybe that’s what they want us to think.”

“How far is the ship from the nearest dry

land?”‘

“Three point two nautical miles, sir.”…That

was one of the photo interpretation specialists, a first

class petty officer. “If you look at this

satellite photo of the mam island, Admiral, you

will see that there are two SAM batteries near this

small port ten miles south of where the

Colon

went on the rocks.”

“That’s probably where the ship was going when it hit the

rocksea”…Jake said. “Or where it had been. So how

many artillery and missile sites are in the area?”

“Four,”

“We’ll have EA-6But Prowlers and

FirstA-18 Hornets overhead, HARM

missiles on the rails, F-14’s as cover.

The instant one of those fire-control radars comes on

the air, I want it taken out.”

“When do you want to land aboard the ship”…”…Eckhardt

asked.

Jake Grafton looked at his watch. “One hi

the morning.”

“Five hours from now?”

“Can we do it?”

“If we push.”

“Let’s push. I talked to General Totten in the

Pentagon. He agreeswe should inspect that ship as

soon as possible. For me, that’s five hours from

now. We will go in three

Ospreys. The lead Osprey will puf Commander

Tarkington and me on the ship; Lieutenant

Colonel Eckhardt will be in the second bird

leading a rescue team to pull us out if anything

goes wrong. The third Osprey will contain another

ten-man team, led by your executive officer.”

Captain Pascal zeroed in immediately. “Do the people in

Washington know that you intend to board that ship,

Admiral?”

“No, and I’m not going to ask.”

“Sir, if you get caughta two-star admiral on

a ship stranded in Cuban waters?”

“The ship is in international waters. We must find

out what happened aboard the

Colon

after it left Guantaiiamo. The stakes are very

high. I am going to take a personal look.

While I’m gone, Gil, you have the con.”

“Admiral, with all due respect, sir, I

think you should take more than just one person with you. Why

not a half dozen well-armed marines?”

“I don’t know what’s on that

shipea”…Jake’”explained. “There may be people

aboard, there may be a biological hazard, it

may be booby-trapped. It just makes sense to have a

point man explore the unknown before we risk very many

lives. I am going to be the point man because I

want to personally see what is there, and I make the

rules. Understand?”

The news about the loss of a ship loaded with

biological weapons arrived in Washington with the

impact of a highexplosive warhead on a cruise

missile.

When the National Security Council met to be

briefed about the ship the president was there, and he was

in an ugly mood.

“Let me get this straight,”eahe said, interrupting

the national security adviser, who was briefing the

group. “We decided to remove our stockpile of

biological and chemical warheads from

Guantdnamo Bay when we heard Castro

might be developing biological weapons of his

own. Is that correct?”

“The timing was incidental, sir. They were scheduled

to be moved.”

“Scheduled to be moved next yearea”…the president

saitl acidly. “We hurried things along when the

CIA got wind that El Gato might be shipping

lab equipment to Cuba. Will you grant me that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Just for the record, why in hell were those damned things

in Gitmo in the first place?”

“A computer error, sir, back when the Pentagon

was prepositioning war supplies at Guantanamo.

Somehow the CBW material got on the list, and by the

time the error was discovered, the stuff was on its way.”

The president’s lip curled in a sneer. “Did

this circle jerk happen under my administration?”

“No, sir. The previous one.”

The president glanced at the ceiling. “Thank you,

God.”

He took a deep breath, exhaled, then said, “So

we decided to clean up old mistakes. We

didn’t want to take the chance Castro knew of our

CBW stockpiles at Gitmo when we started

fulminating about bis.” The president was addressing

the national security adviser. “But to cover our

asses, you wanted a carrier battle group that just

happened to be in the Caribbean to keep an eye on

things while you got the weapons out. Just

having the navy hanging around would keep the Cubans

honest, you said.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now a ship full of weapons from the Gitmo

warehouse is on the rocks off the Cuban coast.”

‘The ship is on the rocks, but we don’t know if

any weapons are still aboard.”…v

“Are you going to court-martial the admiral in charge

of the battle group”…”…the president asked the

chairman of the joint chiefs, General Howard D.

“Tater”…Totten, a small, gray-haired man

who looked like he was hiding inside the

green, badged, bemedaled uniform of a four-star army

general.

“No, sir. He was told to quote ‘monitor”

unquote the situation in Guantanamo, not escort

cargo ships. He actually had the cargo ship that was

hijacked escorted out of Cuban waters, but he

didn’t disdirect that it be escorted all the way

to Norfolk. No one did, because apparently no one

thought an escort necessary.”

“Was the ship hijacked?”

“We don’t know, sir. We’ve been unable

to contact it by radio.”

“How are we going to find out if the weapons

are still aboard?”

“Send marines aboard tonight to look.”

“I don’t think that ship is stranded in international

watersea”…the secretary of state said.

“Your department told us it wasea”…Totten shot

back.

“That was a first impression by junior staffers. Our

senior people demanded a closer look. We are just not

sure. The determination depends on where one draws

the line that defines the mouth of the bay. Reasonable people

can disagree.”

Totten took a deep breath. “Mr.

President, we don’t know what happened aboard

that ship. We don’t know if the weapons are

aboard. If they have been removed, we need to learn

where they went. Now is not the time to split hairs

over the nuances of international law. Let’s board

the ship and get some answers, then the lawyers can

argue to their hearts’ content.”

“That’s the problem with you uniformed testosterone

typesea”…the secretary of state snarled. “You think

you can violate the law any time it suits your

purposes.”

The president of the United States was a cautious

man by nature, a blow-dried

politician who had maneuvered with the wind at his

back all his life. His national security adviser

knew him well, General Totten thought, when he

said, “Preliminary indications are that the stranded ship

is

CUBA J87rter-than

in international waters, Mr. President. The

naval commander on the scene has the authority

to examine a wreck

in international waters if he feels it prudent to do

so. Let him make the decision and report back

what he finds.”

“That’s rightea”…the president said. “I think that is the

proper way for us to approach this.”

“Will you pass that on to the battle group commander”…”…the

national security adviser asked General Totten.

The general reached for an encrypted telephone.

Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington went

aboard the V-22 parked at the head of the line on

the flight deck of USS

United States.

Marines filed aboard the second and third

airplane. Tonight the carrier was thirty miles

northeast of Cape Maisithe distance to the stranded

freighter was a bit over a hundred

miles.

Jake was more nervous than he had been in a long,

long time. Before he left the mission planning

spaces this evening, he looked again at the chart that

depicted the threat envelope of the two

surface-to-air missile sites on the Cuban

mainland just a few miles from the stranded freighter,

Nuestra Sefiora de Colon.

The freighter was well inside those envelopes, and the

Ospreys would be also.

Jake had had a long talk with the EA-6But

electronic warfare crews and the four FirstA-18