Cuba

by Stephen Coonts

  “This first location looks like it’s smack in the middle of a sugarcane field,” the senior Air Intelligence officer groused.

  Jake Grafton didn’t have to think that over very long. “Let’s assume that our global positioning is more accurate than the Cubans’.”

  “You mean they don’t know the silos’ exact lat/long locations?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Well, the nearest building to this sugarcane field is this large barn, which is about three-quarters of a kilometer away.” The specialist pointed. Jake used the magnifying glass.

  “That could be it,” he muttered. “Let’s see what we can dig out of the archives. How long has this barn been here, have there ever been any large trucks around—let’s look in all seasons of the year—and are Cuban Army units nearby? I’m really interested in army units.”

  “Power lines,” the senior AI officer mused. “Strikes me that there ought to be a large power feed nearby.”

  “It sort of fits,” Toad Tarkington said to Jake. “If they built the barn first, then they could dig the silo inside the barn and truck the dirt out at night, pour concrete, do all the work at night.”

  “Install the missile at night when the thing is finished,” the AI officer said, continuing the thought, “and if they had no unusual activity near the barn, no one would ever be the wiser.”

  “Prove to me that that is what they did,” Jake said. “And prove that we won’t be sending troops into an ambush.”

  The admiral stood amid the banks of computers and watched the operators trade data via satellite with the computers at the National Security Agency in Maryland.

  The CIA agents were fed and given bunks to sleep in. They went without protest. Someone brought Jake Grafton a cup of coffee, which he sipped as he walked around the intel and planning spaces thinking about intermediate-range ballistic missiles with biological warheads.

  Dawn found Ocho Sedano still afloat, still hanging grimly on to the milk jug and treading water. He had stopped thinking hours ago. Hunger and exhaustion had sapped his strength and thirst had thickened his blood. He was not asleep, nor was he awake, but in some semiconscious state in between.

  He found himself looking into the glare of the rising sun as it rose from the sea. The realization that he had made it through the night crossed his mind, as did the certainty that today was the last day.

  Today, someone must find me today … .

  The television lights were on and the cameras running when Alejo Vargas walked to the podium in the main reception room of the presidential palace in Havana. For forty years Fidel Castro had used this forum to speak to the Cuban people and the world—now it was Alejo’s turn.

  “We are here,” he began, “at a desperate hour in our nation’s life. The greatest Cuban patriot of them all, Fidel Castro, died here five days ago. Everyone listening to my voice knows the details of his career and the greatness of the leadership he provided for Cuba. I was with him when he died”—here Vargas wiped tears from his eyes—“and I can tell you, it was the most profound moment of my life.

  “Yesterday the Council of State elected me interim president, to hold office until the next meeting of the National Assembly, which as you know elects members of the Council of State and selects its president. I swore to the ministers and the Council of State that I would uphold the Constitution and defend Cuba with all my strength. Now I swear it to you.”

  He paused again and gathered himself. “Today there are people on the streets who accuse me of murdering Fidel. May God strike me dead if I am guilty of that crime.”

  He paused, took several deep breaths, and since God didn’t terminate him then and there, continued:

  “Fidel Castro died of cancer. His body shall lie in state for the next three days. If you love Cuba, I invite you to pay your respects to this great man, and to look at his corpse. See if there is a single mark of violence on the body. My enemies have accused me of many things, but the murder of Cuba’s greatest patriot is the most vicious cut of all. I too worshiped Fidel. Look at the body carefully—let the evidence of your own eyes prove the falsity of these accusations against me.”

  Here again he had to pause to wipe his eyes, to steady himself before the podium.

  “I have been accused of other crimes, so I take this opportunity to bare my soul before you, to tell you the truth as God Almighty knows it, so you will know the lies of my enemies when you hear them. My enemies are also whispering that I killed Raúl Castro at a meeting of the Council of State yesterday, when the facts of his brother’s death were first announced. The truth is Raúl was murdered as he stood at the table discussing the hopes and dreams of his dead brother, by Hector Sedano. Raúl Castro was shot down before a dozen eyewitnesses, myself included. I swear to you this day that Hector Sedano will pay the price the law requires for his crime.”

  He paused again here, referred to his notes. Someone had to take the fall for shooting Raúl, so why not Hector?

  “The story of our country is a story of struggle, a struggle between the socialist people of Cuba and the evil forces of capitalism, forces controlled and dominated by the United States, the colossus to the north. The struggle was not won by Fidel, although he fought the great fight—it continues even today. For example, while they are representing to the world that they are destroying their inventory of chemical and biological weapons, the United States has introduced these weapons to Cuban soil.”

  The camera panned to the artillery shell resting on its base on a table beside the podium.

  “Here is an American artillery shell loaded with the bacteria that causes anthrax, one of the deadliest diseases known to man. This shell was stored in a warehouse at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, which is sacred Cuban soil. The Americans were unwilling to keep their poisonous filth in their own country, so they exported it to ours.

  “I have this day asked the ambassadors of five of the nations who keep embassies in Havana to send their military attachés to inspect this warhead. Here is a sworn document these officers executed that states the shell is as I have represented, a biological warhead.” He fluttered the paper, then held it up so the camera could zoom in.

  “The revelation here today of the United States’s perfidy will undoubtedly provoke a reaction from the bandits to our north. Fidel always knew that the day might come when we would have to defend ourselves again from American aggression, so he installed a battery of intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cuba for defensive purposes. These missiles are operational and ready now to defend our sacred soil. Rest assured, my fellow Cubans, that we shall resist American aggression, that we shall fight to defend Cuba from those who would destroy her, and we shall make her great for the generations to come.

  “Thank you.”

  As a speech to a Cuban audience accustomed to Fidel’s six-hour harangues full of baroque phrases and soaring rhetoric, Alejo’s little effort seemed underdone. He had actually made a conscious effort not to sound like Fidel. Watching the tape of the speech, he thought it went well.

  “Air it immediately,” he said to the television producer, and walked back toward Fidel’s old office.

  Alba and Delgado were there to meet him. They had known that Vargas intended to blame Raul’s murder on Hector Sedano when he made this speech: indeed, they had already signed eyewitness affidavits swearing that they saw Hector shoot the man. That Alejo Vargas had the cojones to make the big lie stick meant a lot to these men who had spent their lives in an absolute dictatorship and knew that the man at the top had to be completely ruthless, without scruple of any kind, to survive. Fidel had been willing to crush his enemies any way he could; Vargas seemed to have the same talent, so perhaps he had a chance.

  The two military men shook Vargas’s hand. “Tell us, Señor Presidente, what the Americans will do.”

  “I have thrown the ballistic missiles in their face,” Vargas said. “I expect the Americans to go to the United Nations Security Council and ask for sanc
tions, perhaps a world trade embargo sanctioned by the UN. Now that the missiles have been discussed in public, the American government cannot ignore them, even if they want to.”

  “Do you anticipate an attack?”

  “I do not, but we must take precautions. The missiles sit in hardened silos impervious to air attack, or nearly so. It is possible that the Americans might attempt commando raids. I suggest you move troops to the sites, have them dig in around the silos.”

  “And if the Americans attack and we cannot repulse them?”

  “This dog will bite. Fire the missiles.”

  Alba grinned. His hatred of the Yanquis was common knowledge. “If the Americans do attack, when would you expect it?”

  “They will try diplomacy first. Only if that fails will they try military action.”

  “Still, I would like to move the troops immediately.”

  “By all means,” said Alejo Vargas. “We will have television cameras film your men digging in to defend Cuba.”

  “And the missiles? Are you going to film them?”

  “Of course. Cuba is a sovereign nation. The world has changed since the 1962 missile crisis. We have an absolute right to defend ourselves, and if necessary we shall. Any noise the Americans make will rally the Cuban people to us.”

  Even as Vargas talked to his military men, the president of the United States’s advisers were arguing for diplomatic initiatives before military options were weighed. “We must go to the United Nations first,” the secretary off state stated forcefully.

  “What if the UN turns us down?” the president asked in reply.

  “We need political cover,” the secretary shot back. “A significant percentage of Americans think Castro was a hero, a champion of the downtrodden, and we unfairly bullied him. The fact that he was an absolute dictator with zero regard for human rights means very little to the political left. Then there is the casualty problem—the American people won’t tolerate seeing their soldiers killed while fighting for oil or corporate profits in foreign wars.”

  “What bullshit!” snapped Tater Totten. “I’m really sick of listening to Vietnam draft evaders tell us that Americans don’t have the guts to fight for civilization.”

  “I am not a draft evader,” shouted the secretary of state, her face red, her cheeks quivering. “I demand an immediate apology!”

  “Shut up, both of you,” the president growled.

  “I apologize,” Tater Totten muttered, almost as if he meant it.

  The president had done some hard thinking since Tater Totten demanded that the presence of the Cuban missiles be addressed before any other matter with Cuba was put on the table. Six missiles with biological warheads aimed at the southeastern United States—Cuban missiles today were every bit as serious as when John F. Kennedy had to deal with them, he decided. If the administration asked for the blessing of the UN Security Council and didn’t get it, he would be worse off than if he ordered military action immediately.

  The lab and processing facility worried him too. If Cuba could manufacture polio virus and put it in an aerosol solution, any plane that could fly across the Straits of Florida could attack the United States.

  By the time Alejo Vargas’s broadcast was translated and replayed for the National Security Council, the president strongly believed that the American people would react angrily to the presence of missiles in Cuba. The outrage of the congressmen and senators who heard the speech convinced him.

  He called on Tater Totten again. “I’m getting the cold sweats just thinking about this crap. Tell me what we are going to do to make sure the Cubans don’t shoot those missiles.”

  “Sir, the best insurance is to go after the missiles, the lab, and the processing facility as soon as humanly possible, before the Cubans get troops in there to defend them.”

  “When is humanly possible?”

  “Tomorrow night would be the earliest possible date. Every day we wait allows us to assemble more forces. Conversely, every day we wait the risk increases: Tomorrow Vargas can move more troops to guard those silos; he could get wind of what’s coming and threaten to release polio virus by airplane, by missile, or have somebody with an aerosol bomb in a suitcase turn it loose God knows where.”

  “So why not go tomorrow night?”

  “We must put enough people and firepower in there to get the job done. It’s a nice calculation.”

  “Do you want me to make that decision?”

  “I recommend that you leave the decision to the military professional who is there, Rear Admiral Grafton. He’s spent thirty years in uniform training for this moment, for this decision.”

  The president grunted.

  The Chairman continued, “By tonight we will have two Aegis cruisers in the Florida Straits between Cuba and Florida. Jake Grafton ordered them there on his own initiative. He’s a good man. The cruisers have the capability of shooting down ballistic missiles coming out of Cuba.”

  “Do the Cubans know that?”

  “Someone in Cuba might—the information is in the public domain—but I doubt that Alejo Vargas knows much about U.S. naval capability.”

  “You hope he doesn’t, because if he does, they might launch before the cruisers get in range.”

  Tater Totten nodded affirmatively.

  “This Grafton, I’ve heard that he goes off half-cocked, doesn’t obey orders, isn’t a team player.”

  “I don’t know who said that, but Jake Grafton is the best we have. War is his profession. Alejo Vargas is an amateur playing at war—there is a vast difference.”

  “Grafton has enemies.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “What if the Cubans launch their missiles and the cruisers miss?”

  “Then the shit will really be in the fan, Mr. President. Americans will die, a lot of them. You’ll have to decide how much of Cuba you want to wipe off the face of the earth.”

  “We’re going to hold a news conference to reply to Vargas this afternoon.”

  “I wouldn’t mention biological weapons, if I were you,” Tater Totten advised. “Let your audience assume the Cuban missiles still have nuclear warheads. Germs scare people more than bombs, perhaps because they are invisible. And we’ve lived with the bomb for fifty years.”

  The president pursed his lips thoughtfully.

  Autrey James, Petty Officer Third Class, USN, always watched the ocean from his station in the door of the helicopter. It was a point of pride with him. He once spotted two fishermen whose boat had sunk off Long Island and was given a medal and had his name and photograph in the newspapers, but the part of that adventure that he remembered best was his grandmother’s reaction when she read of his exploits. “You save people, Autrey, what a marvelous profession!” Grandmom’s comment somehow said it all for Autrey James; whenever his helo was airborne, he watched the ocean. Maybe someday he would save another life.

  So that was the reason Autrey James spotted the tiny object on the surface of the immense ocean and called it out to the pilots on the ICS.

  “Yo, Mr. P., looks like a man in the water at ten o’clock, two miles,” Autrey James said.

  “Are you kidding me, James? You got eyes that good?”

  “Looks like a man to me, sir, but I could be wrong.”

  “Well, we’ll motor over that way just to find out if you are.”

  The helicopter was an SH-60B Seahawk from USS Hue City, one of the two Aegis-class cruisers that Jake Grafton had sent charging northwest. The cruisers were doing just that right now, running abreast of each other a mile apart, making 32 knots, twenty-five miles east of the helicopter’s position.

  Hue City’s commanding officer had launched his helo so the crew could get some flight time and he could find out what was over the horizon, beyond the range of his surface-search radar.

  “Dog my dingies, James, danged if that ain’t a survivor. Is he alive, do you think?”

  “His head’s still up, sir. Give me a hover and I’ll put the basket in the
water.”

  The basket was just that, a basket on the end of a winch cable. All the survivor had to do was crawl in, then James could winch the basket up to the chopper and help the survivor out.

  Unfortunately, with the basket in the water just in front of him, the survivor made no attempt to get in.

  “He ain’t gettin’ in, Mr. P.,” Autrey James told the pilot. He was leaning out the door of the helicopter so that he could see the survivor and the basket.

  “Maybe he’s dead.”

  “I don’t think so. Looks like his head is out of the water. Dead men don’t float like that.”

  “You wanna jump in and help?”

  “On my way,” said Autrey James. The pilot lowered the chopper to just a few feet above the water and James jumped into the sea.

  One look at the survivor’s face told him the man was near death, too weak to help himself. With some pushing and pulling, James got the survivor into the basket. The other enlisted man in the chopper winched him up, then dropped the basket for James.

  When James had his helmet on again, he informed the pilot, “We’d better head back quick, Mr. P. This guy is in real bad shape. His eyes don’t focus.”

  “Try to give him some water.”

  “I’ll try, but we need to get him to a doc.”

  Autrey James leaned over the survivor, who was deathly cold, and shouted to make himself heard above the loud background noise, “Hey, man, you’re one lucky dude. You’re gonna be okay. Just hang on for a few more minutes.”

  “Blankets,” James said to the other crewman. Both of them wrapped the survivor in wool blankets.

  “Gracias,” said Ocho Sedano, and tried to smile. Then exhaustion overcame him and he passed out.

  The carrier and her battle group got under way at dawn. Kearsarge stayed in Guantánamo Bay and began loading the marines that had been guarding warehouse number nine. The last of the warheads were going aboard the cargo ship this afternoon, then it would sail. When it left, Kearsarge would also get underway with the marines, all nineteen hundred of them.