“Only one left, sir. Number four. There are no Cubans there but the marines are having trouble getting the warhead out of the missile.”
“Are you destroying the missiles when they are sanitized?”
“Yes, sir. A magnesium flare ignited near the nose cone. The heat melts it, then finally ignites the solid fuel and causes an explosion in the silo.”
“You destroyed the warhead manufacturing facility?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All that’s left is the lab at the university?”
“That’s correct”
“I want it destroyed, Admiral.”
“There will be casualties, sir, American and Cuban. That thing is smack in the middle of downtown Havana.”
“I understand that. Destroy it.”
“We’ll do it tomorrow night,” Jake Grafton said.
Toad Tarkington found Rita putting a bandage on her copilot, Crash Wade, who had smashed his face into the instrument panel when their Osprey crashed. Half the marines aboard had been injured, but by some miracle only two were killed. The Osprey was a total loss.
Toad put his hands on Rita’s shoulders. She turned and he saw a large goose-egg bump on her forehead, one already turning purple. One of her eyes was also black and slightly swollen.
He knelt beside her. “How’s your head?”
“I’m okay. Didn’t even knock me out.”
“And Crash?”
“The wound that’s bleeding is pulpy — I think his skull is smashed. He doesn’t seem to recognize me or anybody.”
When she had Wade’s wounds bandaged, she and Toad walked over to a tree and sat down. “Somebody said a MiG shot us down, Toad. Cannon holes all over the right engine nacelle. I couldn’t save it.”
She was so tired. When he leaned back against the tree she put her head down in his lap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
By dawn Jake Grafton had five biological warheads locked up aboard United States; five intermediate-range ballistic missiles had been melted and burned in their silos; and every uniformed American and flyable military aircraft was out of Cuba. It had been a tight squeeze.
Over half the SuperCobra helicopters lacked the fuel to return across the Florida Straits to Key West, nor was there room for them on the decks of U. S. ships off the Cuban coast. More fuel in flexible bladders was flown in from Kearsarge. The choppers were refueled, then launched for Key West. Four of the SuperCobras had been shot down, and one had suffered so much battle damage it was unsafe to fly and had to be destroyed.
Prowlers and Hornets armed with HARM missiles continued to patrol over central Cuba all night, ready to attack any radar that came on the air. Above them F-14s cruised back and forth, ready to engage any bogey brave enough to take to the sky.
Several Cuban Army units probed gently at the marines guarding the silo sites while they prepared to withdraw, but a few bursts of machine-gun fire and mortar shells from the marines were enough to discourage further attention. The marines eventually disengaged and pulled out unmolested.
When he landed his MiG-29 at Cienfuegos, Major Carlos Corrado found that he couldn’t get fuel. Two cruise missiles had destroyed the fuel trucks and electrical pumping unit; all fueling would have to be done by hand, a slow, labor-intensive process. Disgusted, Corrado walked to the nearest bar in town, where he was a regular, and proceeded to get drunk, his usual evening routine. By dawn he was passed out in his bunk in the barracks, sleeping it off.
In Havana the next morning, Alejo Vargas summoned the senior officers of the Cuban Army, Navy, and Air Force to the presidential palace for a verbal hiding.
“Cowards, fools, traitors,” he raged, so infuriated he quivered. “We had them in the palm of our hand, and all we had to do was make a fist. A red-handed apprehension of the American pirates would have brought the applause and respect of the Cuban people. A haul of American prisoners in uniform would have given us instant credibility. This was our chance.”
“Señor Presidente, the troops would not obey. They refused to attack. When the troops refuse to obey direct orders, what would you have us do?”
“Shoot some generals,” Vargas snapped. “Shoot some colonels. Scared men fight best.”
“If we shot the generals and colonels the men would shoot us,” General Alba explained, and he meant it. “The Americans are too well equipped, too well trained, too well armed. Their firepower is overwhelming. To fight them toe-to-toe would be suicidal, and the men know that.”
Alba’s logic was unassailable. To complain now that the Cuban Army, Navy, and Air Force did not do what he, Vargas, knew they could not do was illogical and self-defeating. No military force on the planet could whip the Americans in a stand-up fight, which was precisely why he had spent the last three years developing a biological-warfare capability.
Temper tantrums will get me no place, Vargas reminded himself, and willed himself back under control. He sat down at his desk, made a gesture to the others to seat themselves.
“Gentlemen, we must move forward. I have trust and confidence in you, and I hope you have the same in me. You are of course correct — we cannot overcome the Americans militarily. We must outwit them to prevail. With your help, it still can be done.”
They sat looking at him expectantly.
“The laboratory where the biological agent for the warheads was created is in the science building of the University of Havana. Last night the Americans destroyed the warhead-manufacturing facility and our six operational ballistic missiles. All the American cruise missiles, the airplanes, the assault troops were employed to that end. Tonight the Americans will try to destroy the laboratory.”
“Why did they not attack the lab last night?” Alba asked.
“You are the military man — you tell me. Perhaps they lacked sufficient assets, perhaps they did not have political support to create massive amounts of Cuban casualties or sustain significant American casualties — I do not know. The most likely explanation is that they were afraid of inadvertently releasing biological agents. Whatever, the lab is still intact and capable of producing polio viruses in sufficient quantity to supply a weapons program. The minds directing the American military effort will not ignore that laboratory.”
“Señor Presidente, what would you have us do?”
Alejo Vargas smiled. He leaned forward in his chair and began explaining.
“Tell me what happened,” Jake Grafton said to Toad Tarkington when Toad got back aboard the carrier. The sky was gray in the east by then, and Toad was filthy and bone tired.
A stretcher team from the ship’s hospital met the Osprey on the flight deck and took Rita and Crash Wade below for examination.
Toad told his boss everything he thought he would want to know about the battle around silo one, about the missile rising, holding on to the tiny open access port, kicking off as the missile went through the barn roof, falling ….
He didn’t tell Jake that he was so scared he thought he was going to die, and he left out how he felt when they told him Rita had been shot down just in front of the barn. He didn’t mention how he felt when he realized she was alive, bruised up but alive. He didn’t have to tell him, because Jake Grafton could read all that in his face.
The admiral listened, looking very tired and sad, and said nothing. Just nodded. Then patted him on the shoulder and sent him to take a shower and get a few hours’ sleep.
The young CIA officer, Tommy Carmellini, sat in the dirty-shirt wardroom with a stony face, his jaw set. Chance was dead and he didn’t want to talk about it.