Finally, she rolled over to look at him. The smile creeping across her face lit it up like a child’s at Christmas. “You noticed that, did you?” There was no mistaking the self satisfaction in her voice.
He nodded. “We all did. It takes a pro to keep their wits about ‘em during something like that. That information will help save lives, ma’am.” And so this is the way you skin this particular cat, he thought, wondering if he’d find his Psychology 101 classes more useful in this mission than any swimming skills.
“Dirty weapons?” she quizzed. “Could we” He shook his head again.
“No, ma’am, the only thing we can do now is leave. There are a lot of people putting a lot on the line to afford you this opportunity, so I suggest you take it. You’ve done your part for the war, now let us do ours.” He stood and held out a hand to her, suddenly uncertain as to exactly what she was wearing beneath the sheet, and wondering whether the SEAL team was really ready to transport a naked female out of the compound undetected.
She flipped her sheet back, and he was relieved to see her in a dark T-shirt and a set of sweats. A pair of blue and white fluorescent running shoes were peeking out from under the bed. She slipped them on quickly.
“Did you mean that? About getting me back in?” she asked as she tied her right shoe. She looked up at him, a winsome smile lighting her face. “I’d really like that if you did.”
“I’ll try, if the debris isn’t too deadly. Best we get back to the shop and let them make that determination before you go back in, though. You’ve reported from some dangerous places, but I don’t want one of them to be a plague quarantine hospital.”
She looked slightly paler, but still determined. “We’ll see,” she said enigmatically, standing next to him.
Pamela grabbed her equipment bag and followed them to the door. She paused at the threshold, glancing around suspiciously. Sikes motioned to her impatiently. “Come on we know what we’re doing.”
She stepped across the threshold and stopped again.
“What about the pilot?”
The air between the SEAL team members crackled with tension. Was it possible? Of course it was they should have suspected it, planned for it. “Pilot?” Sikes said, stepping close to her and whispering. The question wasn’t necessary he knew which one she meant.
Pamela pointed impatiently. “The Marine Corps pilot. I saw him yesterday I think they’re keeping him over there.”
Five hundred yards away, a small building blazed with lights. It was surrounded by another fence, and a mongrel looking dog roamed restlessly inside of it.
Good thing we’re downwind, Sikes thought. It’s sheer luck that he wasn’t alerted by our motion. If he’d caught our scent, he’d be barking his damned head off.
The SEALs held a hasty huddle. The SEAL team to the east thought they were heading to Major Thor’s rescue, but clearly the Cubans had screwed that plan up. And since his team was already here, they had very few options. Come back with both hostages or don’t come back at all.
While the admiral hadn’t said it, that had been the secret resolve of each member of the team.
“So we go get him,” Huerta said finally, settling the matter. “Dogs, lights no big deal.” He looked toward Sikes as though seeking permission a courtesy, both men knew, but one that was appreciated.
“You two head back toward the coast with Miss Drake. Sikes and I will go after the jarhead. That work?”
Sikes nodded. As much as he hated splitting up the team, it was the only course of action that made sense. They could not risk Miss Drake’s life no matter how much he despised what she’d done by taking her on the rescue mission.
“No way.” The objection came from the expected quarter.
Although her voice was still a low whisper, Pamela Drake was livid.
“There’s a good chance we won’t make it,” Sikes said calmly. He already knew it was futile to argue. He motioned to Garcia to key up his communications equipment.
“I think maybe I have more faith in you than you do.” The reporter regarded him solemnly, no trace of mockery or sarcasm on her face.
“Call the other team,” Sikes said finally. “Abort their mission.
We’ll grab the pilot and scoot.”
“When SEALs go out to get someone, that someone generally gets gotten.
So let’s gowe’re wasting time.”
She pointed at the dog. “That’s your first problem. Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to want to be up close and personal for your solution.”
“They should be back on the beach by now,” Batman said.
“This timetable is tight too tight, maybe.” He thought about the many SEAL operations he’d participated in, how the damnedest sure bets could go wrong at the worst possible time. The risk factor was enormously greater than that of a combat air patrol in an F-14.
“They designed the schedule. Admiral. I’m sure it’s something they can live with.” Lab Rat’s voice sounded a good deal more convinced then he himself felt. “Anyway, there’s nothing that we” “Commander?”
An enlisted technician looked up from his bank of electronic monitoring equipment. “I think you’d better see this.”
Lab Rat darted over to the console, checked the screen in front of the technician. “Oh, shit.”
Batman joined him behind the technician. He studied the array of figures and scrolling information, incomprehensible to someone not inculcated into the arcane traditions of Intelligence. “What is it?”
Lab Rat shook his head. “Missile launch indications.
They’re getting ready. We should see thermal blooms any second, once the preliminaries are out of the way.”
“Damn it all to hell!” Batman slammed his hand down on the console.
“We need another two hours to get them back aboard. Launching a diversionary small-scale strike with men on the ground is one thing, but I don’t want them there for the main attack. But if we’re going to prevent a strike on the continental U.S we’ll have to move it up.
Damn the Cubans damn them!” He glared at Lab Rat for a moment, then the anger drained out of his face. “They’re not going to make it, are they?”
Lab Rat shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. Admiral.
I just don’t know.”
THIRTEEN
The flight deck was a maelstrom of noise, heat, and wind.
For the last fifteen minutes, aviators had been kicking the tires and lighting fires on a wide variety of aircraft. EA-6B Prowlers were already spooled up and waiting on the catapult; their bulged cockpits and forward radomes, coupled with the distinctive pods mounted aft atop tail fins, marked them as EA-6B variants. The strange pods held both receivers and antennas for the SIR group, a systems integrated receiver for five bands of emissions. Other antennas were mounted on the fins, below the pods, enabling the aircraft to cover all electronic emissions from the A through the I bands.
The two J-52 turbojets flanking the fuselage were generating over eleven thousand pounds of thrust each, and each aircraft was straining at the tieback that held her shackled to the shuttle. The JBDS-jet blast deflectors aft of the catapult shunted the wash from their engines to the side, although the gaggle of fighters clustered farther back on the flight deck was generating more than enough wind across the deck.
Each aircraft carried three jamming pods, one on either side on a wide pylon and one on the centerline fuselage hard point. Additionally, AGM-HARM anti radar missiles graced their wings from the other pylons.