Finally, the inevitable. Jefferson’s clean-cut bow rolled over the midsection of the small boat, cutting it cleanly in half. The damage drove the small ship underwater immediately, dumping the horde of passengers into the sea. She could see a few of them churning up, tiny white flecks next to the skin of the ship; then those too disappeared.
It was over just seconds after it began.
The aide punched the stop button, freezing the video on the last scene.
There was no evidence of the encounter in the curling water around Jefferson’s hull, in the gentle arc of the bow waves that rolled off her steel sides.
“You wish to see it again?” Santana asked. The aide began to rewind the tape.
She shook her head. “When did this happen?” she asked, grasping for details to avoid acknowledging the horror of what she’d just seen.
“Where?”
“Just north of our coast. And the time? About two hours ago, I think.
Maybe more.” He regarded her sardonically, evil cruelty in his look.
“Is that timely enough to be newsworthy for you. Miss Drake? I assure you, there is no other network in the world that will have firsthand coverage of this event. And the United States Navy’s own message traffic will support the occurrence of the actual event. If you would like to wait for that, for some other network to attend a stateside briefing and scoop you on this matter, we will be glad to oblige. We had just thought …” He let his voice trail off delicately.
“No. I want it. It’s something it’s something the American public needs to see.” Already the words were taking shape in her mind, the damning indictment of Tombstone’s old ship callously running down a group of people seeking freedom. She would get three minutes, maybe even four the lead story, at any rate. Excerpts from the videotape, along with her narrated coverage, would be replayed hourly at the top of the hour until some other critical world event bumped it off the schedule.
Some small part of her mind kept insisting there was more to the story than this. The American ship must have tried to avoid the small boat; she’d seen that from the way the angle on the bow changed in the course of those few minutes. Tried, but hadn’t been able to.
She knew from Tombstone’s long discourses on operations at sea that small craft were difficult to detect, even harder sometimes to pick out from the ocean by visual observation. That was why the rules of the road gave the larger, less maneuverable ship the right-of-way in most circumstances.
The truth, but a rotten story. Atrocities sell better than tragedies.
She’d learned that lesson years ago in Bosnia, in Desert Storm, in a thousand other combat venues around the world. No, even if she didn’t report it this way, her competitors would. And their ratings would outstrip hers in a New York minute.
“Who took this video?” she said suddenly. Santana smiled. Her gut churned as she considered the full implications of the matter. Not only had Jefferson plowed over the ship, but Santana had been somewhere within observation range, watching, and doing nothing to warn either the carrier or the small boat containing his countrymen of the danger.
She wondered whether the story she would report could ever begin to match the horror of the reality.
She took a deep breath. “Get my cameraman.”
1530 Local (+5 GMT)
USS Arsenal
“Incoming signal,” the operations specialist snapped. He kept his eyes glued on the screen and repeated the information over the secondary channel. “Captain, it’s a firing order.”
Seated in his tactical action officer chair, the captain stared at the display in front of him. It shivered, shifted, then resolved itself into a mirror image of the display in front of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A red pip targeting indicator popped into view next to the missile site the carrier SEALs had found.
“Helluva thing, not having control over your own missiles,” the chief petty officer of the watch said, his voice tight with disgust. “We’re no better than a goddamned bunch of monkeys to them.”
The captain turned. “Let’s keep that quiet. Chief. We’ve done our job, getting weapons into the firing basket. If Washington wants to control the weaponeering themselves, we’ll let them. It’s not like we have a choice.”
The chief pursed his lips and scowled. “Helluva way to run a war.”
“Weather deck secure,” the OOD reported over the bitch box. “Standing by to enable launching circuits.”
“Enable the circuits,” the captain echoed, nodding at the tactical action officer.
The TAO nodded, reached across the console, and gave his key one quick twist to the right. The captain did the same on his console. He sat back in his chair, sighed, and waited for the shot.
Moments later, he felt the dark rumble start down in the bowels of the ship, creep its way up the girders and strakes that made up the hull, and vibrate underneath his feet. The ship was ready; he could tell even without the weapons status indicators flashing warnings in front of him. The first shot fired by the Arsenal in anger, and it wouldn’t even be at his command.
Suddenly, the hatches centered in the video camera popped open. Within seconds, a ripple of Tomahawk cruise missiles heaved themselves out of their vertical launch slots, seemed to hesitate above the deck in midair, then blasted the nonskid with fire. They gained altitude quickly after that, the noise and smoke from their propulsion systems blackening the deck and obscuring the picture on the camera.
Even deep inside Combat, he could hear the missiles scream away from the ship and toward their target.
“That’s it, folks,” he announced as the noise finally faded.
“Weapons away.”
He saw the crew glance around at each other, puzzled looks on their faces. They’d all come from different ships, had been used to the routine of firing missiles, acquiring bomb damage assessments, and firing again. Many of them had served on the potent Aegis ships, working in Combat with a vast array of weapons under their direct control.
There was something unnatural about this, giving up control of their very essence to someone they couldn’t see, touch, or even be certain existed.
Yet, this was the very mission for which the Arsenal ship had been constructed. The captain stood and walked back out on the bridge to reclaim his coffee cup. As much as he might understand that, he didn’t have to like it.
1532 Local (+5 GMT)
Fuentes Naval Base
A thin, high-pitched whine cut through the air like a buzz saw, at first barely audible, then quickly increasing in pitch and volume until it dominated the entire world.
Pamela shrank back against the cement wall, panic overriding her trained reporter instincts, desperately wishing that she were anywhere in the world other than at ground zero for this attack. How many times had she been near military actions?
Hunkering under bushes, darting around ruined buildings, following other freedom fighters on perilous missions against opposing forces whose ideologies seemed not too much different from that of the men she watched kill their relatives. Yet, never under any other combat conditions had she felt she was in imminent danger of dying. Why, oh why had she let her ego, her determination to get the best story before anyone else, lead her into this situation?
A Mach 2 missile gives its intended recipients barely enough time to appreciate the danger they’re in. The precision guided munitions flashed into view, barely discernible gray-white streaks on the horizon, then became clearly visible almost before her terror could reach its peak.
They moved too quickly for the eye to follow, streaking in over the gently rolling terrain to find their targets.
Two thousand meters away, the world exploded. One moment there was only the demanding keen of the missiles, the next a cacophony of noise and flame and fire. The earth blew up, shooting gouts of dirt and foliage into mushroom clouds of debris speckled with fire and metal.
Shrapnel shot out at all angles, slamming into the structures and vehicles around the missile sites.<
br />
The compression wave from the explosion caught her first, even before the noise had a chance to deafen her. It slammed her against the concrete, smashing the back of her head against the rough-laid surface.
She felt consciousness fade, and wavered on the edge of sanity. The microphone dropped from her hand unnoticed, and she paused for a minute, held against the building by the shock wave before sliding down to join it in a graceful heap.
Consciousness returned sometime later. She opened her eyes slowly, feeling raw and scratched, barely able to make sense of the images her eyes were transmitting to her brain.
Around her, the world was silent. The green fields, the awkward and ungainly missile launchers, were gone. In their place, huge craters spattered the landscape, and a thick dust made the air almost unbreathable.
She groaned, tried to shove herself up on her knees with one hand.
There was a sharp pain in her ribs, followed by the realization that every part of her body was dull and aching. She let it overwhelm her for a moment, then shoved it away, grim determination flooding her.
Along with it came a strange euphoria, a gratitude that she’d survived.
Life seemed sweet. Precious even, in a way it never had before.
The men scattered around her were starting to move as well, their groans and involuntary yelps of pain echoing her own. She felt along the ground, searching for her microphone, then looked for the substitute cameraman. She found him finally, still unconscious, his body wrapped around the old equipment protectively. She crawled to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and shook.
“Get up.”
The man moaned, then his eyes fluttered. He stared off into the distance until finally his eyes focused on her.
“Que?”
“Get up,” she repeated. “We’ve got work to do.”
Ten minutes later, after gulping down tepid water from a canteen, she was ready. Her hair was pushed back out of her eyes, but she could feel it springing around her head in an unruly mess. She’d avoided looking in a mirror. It didn’t matter, not now. If there were streaks of dirt and blood on her face, so much the better.
She waited until she was relatively certain that the cameraman was functioning enough to depress the transmit button on his equipment, then stared steadily at the camera.
“This is Pamela Drake of ACN, reporting live from the western coast of Cuba. The United States has just completed a missile strike against this naval base not one mile from where I am standing.” She gestured behind her, hoping the cameraman had enough sense to pan the damage.
She saw him move, squint, refocus, and smiled. She let the time pass, waiting a few beats too long to increase the tension. Finally, she cut her hand down sharply and he snapped the camera back to frame her.
“This is the area from which I made my last live report. As you can see, the effect of the missiles has been devastating. The structures that were here before, which I postulated were missile sites a fact that was never denied by the present authorities in power are destroyed.
I have no word on casualties, but it seems” All at once her voice failed. I could have been one of them. Not minutes ago, it was…
“Casualties are yet to be determined,” she finished finally. She stared at the camera, letting her image speak for itself.
1630 Local (+5 GMT)
USS Arsenal
Twenty Miles North of Cuba Captain Heather paced uneasily back and forth on the bridge, staring out over the horizon at the barely visible land. Immediately following the launch the USS Arsenal had been ordered to assist other battle group assets in searching for survivors of the Jefferson’s collision with the small refugee boat.
Almost an hour after the attack, he still had no idea of how effective the attack had been. That was one of the problems of using cruise missiles alone, he reflected. At least when the battle group struck with aircraft and air-launched missiles, they had immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the attack. Not so with his ship.
He turned back to the OOD. “Any word yet?” It was unnecessary to ask, he knew even as the words left his mouth. The bda bomb damage assessment would be conducted by the USS Jefferson. Two F-14s specially equipped with TARPS camera units were orbiting in a starboard marshal even as he spoke. Accompanying them would be two EA6 Prowlers armed with HARM missiles, capable of attacking any radar installations or any antiaircraft sites that were foolish enough to radiate their radars.
Without knowing exactly how effective the attack had been, the aircrafts’ mission was only slightly less dangerous than an actual bombing run.
“No, Captain.” The OOD’s voice was impassive.
“I guess we’ll both hear at the same time, won’t we?” the captain said. The battle group’s circuit was wired into both the bridge and Combat. As soon as they knew anything, the carrier would let him know.
Or would they? He mulled the thought over for a moment. The political battle going on in Washington was making itself felt even down here.
Admiral Wayne, commander of the carrier battle group, and Admiral Magruder, force commander, were both naval aviators. Would it be to their advantage to delay the BDA information’s getting to the Arsenal ship? More important, even if it was, would they do such a thing?
From the few meetings he’d had with the two men, he suspected not.
They were made of stronger stuff than their counterparts that he’d met, both fleet-seasoned aviators with a clear, sharp understanding of how a battle group worked, what it could and couldn’t do.
“I’ll be in Combat,” Captain Heather said abruptly. He strode off the bridge, hoping that the dim light in Combat would mask his growing uneasiness.
1645 Local (+5 GMT)
Fuentes Naval Base
“A very effective report. Miss Drake,” Santana said. His uniform was streaked and spattered with mud and dirt, and there was a haggard look to his face that hadn’t been there an hour ago. “I hope they believed you.”
Pamela flung out one hand and gestured toward the area of devastation to her left. “Why the hell wouldn’t they? I sent them pictures, after all.” Her voice was cold and bitter.
This was the man who’d exposed her to grave danger, who had made her a pawn albeit a willing one in this entire political struggle. In all the conflicts she’d covered, she’d never been used like this against her own country. Not intentionally, at least. Her mind wandered back over the other conflicts, to theaters around the world where she’d watched nations struggle for domination over soil. There’d been allegations, sure. The military never liked the press intruding, and was continually speculating that their very presence and reports influenced the course of the battle. The criticism had become markedly more raucous after Desert Storm and Desert Shield and Grenada.
Especially Grenada, where a team of reporters had illuminated an incoming SEAL mission just as she had done earlier on the beach.
But the country had the right to know, didn’t it? And how would it get information if the media didn’t report it? Rely on the military officials?
She snorted. Not likely. The military’s main concern was funding and power. Not so different from their civilian counterparts, but with even more at stake, what with the security of the nation entrusted to them.
All of them? An image of Tombstone Magruder flashed through her mind.
She’d seen him agonize through tactical and operational decisions too often, felt the pain that tormented him over a mission gone wrong, and watched him suffering over the loss of life in his battle group.
Somehow, when she put a face to it all, her distrust of the military’s intentions seemed a little less solid.
“Now what?” she asked, suddenly tired of theoretical ethical speculations. She needed to focus her attention on what was next on leaving this blasted country, she hoped.
“With the missile launchers destroyed, that’s the end of it.”
A look of satisfaction backlit the weariness in the Cuban colonel’s fa
ce. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
She pointed again at the devastation. “I think the United States solved the issue once and for all.” She was surprised to feel a sense of satisfaction at the statement. God, what had happened? Was she turning into a raving patriot just like Tombstone? No, her responsibility was to more than just one nation it was to the world, to report accurately and precisely just what was occurring around the globe.
“It would be, if that’s where the missiles were.” He shook his head slightly, all at once looking more relaxed. “But they weren’t.”
“What do you mean? I saw ” He interrupted her. “You saw a stack of shipping crates and some construction equipment wired together to look like something else. In other words, you saw what we wanted you to see. And what you wanted to see, if you will admit it. Isn’t that so?”
Her mind reeled, trying to take it all in. The dangerous journey across the sea, the mistreatment in confinement, capped off by the very real missile attack she’d just witnessed for what? As she looked up at him, his meaning became clear, sank into her mind with a dreadful clarity.
“I was part of the deception,” she whispered. “You used me.
He sighed. “No more than you used us. Miss Drake. No more than you used us.”
1700 Local (+5 GMT)
USS Arsenal
Twenty Miles North of Cuba
The ship finally finished the last section of its quartered search pattern. The special crew was starting to get tired, having started the evolution more than seven hours ago, frantically hunting for survivors of the collision between Jefferson and the small boat, their enthusiasm and hopes dimming over the ensuing hours. The crowds of off-duty sailors who had lined the weather decks, adding their eyes to the designated search teams’, had started to drift away four hours into the search as the cruiser methodically quartered the ocean farther and farther away from the original collision. By now, they all knew, there was virtually no chance of finding any survivors.
Arsenal c-10 Page 17
