Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

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by Cuba (lit)


  Jake keyed his radio mike. "Roger

  that. I'll make one more photo pass before he gets

  here, then exit the area to the north."

  He tucked the nose down and let the Tomcat

  accelerate. The plane was alive in his handthe

  descending jet bumped and bounced in the swirling,

  roiling tropical air

  under the puffy cumulus clouds drifting along on the

  trade wind.

  "Cameras are on and runningea"...Toad Tarkington

  said from the back seat.

  Staying just outside the three-mile limit, Jake

  flew past the stern of the stranded freighter one more time,

  which meant he was probably getting fine views of

  her stern and oblique views of her flanks.

  "Since we're here ..."...he muttered, and dropped

  a wing as he eased the stick and throttles forward.

  In the back seat, Toad Tarkington was monitoring

  the recon package. "I sure am glad we're

  staying out of Cuban airspaceea"...he told Jake.

  "I'd feel a lot more comfortable outside the

  twelve-mile limit, but that's asking too much of this

  technology. A ship sitting on the rocks like this,

  looks like a setup to me. They're looking

  to mousetrap some dude flying by snapping pictures

  and perforate his heinie."

  "Yeahea"...sd Jake Grafton, and leveled off at

  a hundred feet above the water. He had the

  F-14 flying parallel with the axis of the ship,

  offset with the ship to his right since the recon

  package was mounted under his right engine.

  "Got the cameras and IR scanner going?"

  "Oh, yeah, looking real goodea"...Toad said, just as

  he picked up the seascape passing by the canopy with

  his peripheral vision. He looked right just in time

  to see the freighter flash by, then Jake

  Grafton pulled back on the stick and lit the

  afterburners. The Tomcat's nose rose to sixty

  degrees above the horizon and it went up like a

  rocket, corkscrewing back toward the ocean, as the

  E-2 Hawkeye radar operator called the

  bogey for the Showtime F-14 crews who were

  Jake's armed guard. Both RIO'S said they had

  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

  politic
ian 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

  Hornets that would be over the Ospreys carrying

  HARM'S. HARM stood for high-speed

  antiradiation missile. Enemy radars were the

  targets of HARM'S, which rode the beams right into the

  dishes. HARM'S even had memories, so if an

  enemy operator turned off his radar after a HARM

  was launched, the missile would still fly to the memorized

  location.

  "If the Cubans turn on the SAM radars,

  open fireea"...Jake told his guardian angels.

  "Don't wait until their missiles are in the

  air."

  "Yes, sir."

  Jake had heard nothing from Washington waffling on the

  assertion that the

  Colon

  was in international waters, so

  as far as he was concerned, that fact was a given. The

  Cubans had no right to fire on ships or planes

  in international waters. If they did, Jake

  Grafton would shoot back. Of course, if the

  Cubans shot first, they would probably kill a

 

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