by Cuba (lit)
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,
Senor Presidente,
what the Americans will do."
"I have thrown the ballistic missiles in their
faceea"...Vargas said. "I expect the Americans
to go to the United Nations Security Council and
ask for sanctions, 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 hi 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 meansea"...sd 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 of state stated forcefully.
"What if the UN turns us down"..."...the president
asked in reply.
"We need political coverea"...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
problemthe-American people won't tolerate seeing their
soldiers killed while fighting for oil or
corporate profits in foreign wars."
"What bullshitff"...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 evaderea"...shouted the secretary of state,
her face red, her cheeks quivering. "I demand an
immediate apology!"
"Shut up, both of youea"...the president growled.
"I apologizeea"...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 StatesCuban 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 so-
lution, 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 mightthe information is in the public
domainbut 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 warthere 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 ybu 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 youea"...Tater Totten advised. "Le
t 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 marvel-
ous professionff"...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 milesea"...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-60But 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.ea"...Autrey
James told the pilot. He was leaning out the door
of the helicopter so that he could see the survivor and the
basket.
"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 wayea"...sd 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."
"Blanketsea"...James said to the other crewman.
Both of them wrapped the survivor in wool
blankets.
"Gracias,"
said Ocho Sedano, anil 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 Guantanamo 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.
The battle group steamed south from Guantanamo
bay. For about an hour the southern hills of Cuba
were visible from the decks of the ships, but they soon
dropped over the horizon and all that could be seen in
any direction was
the eternal ocean, always changing, always the same. It
was then that the carrier launched an E-2
Hawkeye, which carried its radar up to 20,000
feet. Everything the Hawkeye's early warning radar
saw was datalinked to the carrier's computers, where
specialists kept track of the tactical
picture.
Toad Tarkington took Jake aside and showed him
the latest message from the National Security
Council. He was directed to destroy the viruses
in the laboratory in the University of Havana's
science building, find and destroy the
warhead-manufacturing facility, and to remove the
warheads from the six missiles and destroy them in their
silos.
As Jake read the message, Toad said, "They
don't want much, do they?"
"Where in hell is the warhead-manufacturing
facility"..."...Jake groused. He went to find
William Henry Chance to ask him that question. He
found Chance in the wardroom drinking coffee with
Tommy Carmellini. They were the only two people there
at ten in the morning.
"Do you have any idea where we might find this
factory for making biological warheads?"
"Sit down, Admiral. Let me buy you a cup
of navy coffee."
Jake sat. Carmellini went for the coffee while
Jake repeated the question.
"It has to.be someplace between the science building
and the missile silosea"...Chance said. "No one in their
right mind would want to haul that stuff very far. A
traffic accident of some type ..."
Jake Grafton's brows knitted. He tapped
on the table. "If you were going to haul polio
viruses around, what kind of truck would you use?"
Chance shrugged. "I don't knowea"...he said.
"I've been thinking about it for five hours now, and
I've got an idea. We'll run it though the
recon computers and see what pops ou"...He got up
from his chair.
"Mind sharing your epiphany?"
"I'd haul the stuff in milk trucks. Clean,
sterile, and sealed. A dairy should have a sterile
environment and the equipment to mix the viruses with some
sort of a base, then load them into warheads."
Jake turned and marched from the room just as
Carmellini approached with the extra coffee
cup and
saucer.
"He didn't stay long, did he?"
"Noea"...Chance grunted, and sipped at the coffee
Carmellini had brought from the urn in the
corner of the room.
"Think Grafton's big enough for this
job"..."...Carmellini asked..
"Yeah. I think he is."
Three dairies met Jake's specificationsthey
were located between Havana and the first of the missile
silos, which were arranged in a line beginning forty
miles east of Havana and going east from there. The
silos were about fifteen miles apart.
"Cows. See if they have cows around them."
"When?"
"The latest satellite photography. Whenever that
was."
Two of the dairies no longer had cattle in the
adjacent fields. The one that did was scratched off
the list. The other two were examined minutely by the
carrier's intelligence center experts and the National
Security Agency photo interpreters in
Maryland, who conferred back and forth via encrypted
satellite telephones. The experts decided that
neither dairy coold be eliminated as a possible
site for the warhead factory.
"We'll do 'em bothea"...Jake Grafton said.
By three that afternoon the staff and air wing planners had
come up with a draft plan. Actually the
task, destruction of eight targets, was a
relatively simple military one. Tomahawk
missiles could take out
the
lab and the dairies without muss or fuss. They could
probably also destroy the missiles in their
silos, as the silos were hardened in a simpler age,
when the threat was unguided air-dropped bombs.
With their ability to power-dive straight down on a
hardened target and penetrate ten or twelve feet
of reinforced concrete, Tomahawks were the weapon of
choice.
And they were out of the question. The president absolutely
refused to take the chance that polio viruses might
escape from a bombed lab or silo and kill tens
of thousands of Cubans in their beds. An event like that
would be political dynamite, with repercussions beyond
calculation. No, the politicians said,
American troops were going to have to lay their lives
on the line to prevent just such an occurrence. And,
Jake Grafton well knew, some of them would
die. . He had already put the wheels in motion.
Preliminary messages had been sent to other
commands, asking them for the assistance Jake thought he would
require. A thousand details remained
to be worked out by the various staffs involved, but the
