Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba
Page 22
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