The captive looked at Hofmeister, and then turned away, mumbling.
“Que?” Hofmeister prodded.
The captive mumbled something again, and Hofmeister leaned in.
With no warning, the captive lunged and spit at Hofmeister who, without hesitation, slugged him across the jaw and swatted the cigarette from his hand. The guard punched the captive’s rib cage, and he screamed in pain, cursing them in Spanish.
Wiping his face, Hofmeister nodded. “Very well. GITMO it is. Chief, until further notice, bread and water for this one.”
With her aircraft aboard, Coral Sea sped north toward GITMO some 500 miles away and to distance itself from the South American landmass. While surface traffic was prevalent in all parts of the Caribbean, it tended to cling to coastal waters and funneled into and out of the approach to the canal. Meyerkopf wanted to get away from the scene of his greatest humiliation. In the dark! He still couldn’t believe it, and, after speaking with higher authority, he would have a one-way conversation with his warfare commanders.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles to the northeast, a single Russian Tu-95 Bear bomber transited high along the eastern seaboard of the United States under the watchful eyes of the North American Air Defense Command. First tracked by the Canadians, the aircraft was handed off to the Northeast Air Defense sector who decided to scramble two Air National Guard F-15C’s standing Air Sovereignty Alert at Otis, Air Force Base in Massachusetts.
The Eagles intercepted the ancient propeller-driven bomber at 150 miles east of Cape Cod and escorted it as it passed down the coast, the Russian maintaining 20 miles offshore as it cruised at 27,000 feet. Bears were known intelligence collectors, and, while not a direct threat, transits like these were not routine and had NORAD’s full attention. Despite the high alert level at headquarters, threat levels were low — this was Russia reminding the Americans not to ignore them. Alert fighters were scrambled from Atlantic City, Langley, and Jacksonville as the Bear lumbered down the continental shelf on a crystal blue day.
Further north, Canadian controllers were shocked when they picked up two contacts that seemed to pop out of the North Atlantic hundreds of miles northeast of Newfoundland. With flight profiles much faster than the slow Bear, these returns were not squawking an International Friend or Foe code, an action which went against accepted aeronautical convention. Nervous about the identity and purpose of these raw radar contacts, Canada scrambled two CF-18 Hornet fighters to rendezvous on the bogeys that were closing North America at a transonic rate of speed. When the excited Canadian fighter pilots intercepted the contacts and identified them as four Tu-22M Backfire bombers in two flights of two separated by fifty miles, the NORTHCOM Commander informed the Secretary of Defense who at once called the President. In like manner, his Canadian counterpart contacted the Prime Minister of Canada. The fact that these supersonic bombers had “popped out” of the ocean indicated they had flown hundreds of miles from of their Murmansk base and around the North Cape and into the Atlantic at low altitude. This had necessitated a rendezvous with in-flight refueling aircraft south of Iceland, topping off down low, and then climbing to cruise altitude, a varsity military demonstration of capability not seen in years. No one on watch up to four stars had memories of anything like it, and, with the groups separated as they were, every alert fighter on the eastern seaboard was pressed into service. AWACS scrambled to help meet the command and control challenge.
It was into this national security emergency that Roland Meyerkopf placed his call to the Commander, Joint Inter-Agency Task Force SOUTH.
Ed Browne dialed the headquarters of JIATF SOUTH in Key West, and, once placed on hold and according to protocol, handed the receiver to Meyerkopf. “We’re on hold, sir.”
Meyerkopf took the receiver and held it to his ear as Browne picked up the extension and covered the phone with his hand. After two minutes, Marine General Jim McGovern picked up.
“Roland, Jim McGovern.”
“Good afternoon, General, Com Strike Group Eighteen checking in. We’ve had some activity down here.”
“Same here. What are you doing?”
“Sir, earlier today one of my pilots was identifying a surface contact south of us, a pleasure yacht as it turns out, and just as he flew past it, he was blinded. I’m still amazed the aviators got him aboard, but somehow they did. Our docs are checking him out, but it looks serious.”
“Go on.”
“On the advice of my air wing commander and chief of staff, we threw on a quick reaction strike and identified the vessel as hostile. When intel sensors said it met the ROE, we disabled it for boarding.”
“Disabled it?”
“Yes, sir, one of my Hornets bombed it, and SEALs boarded it via fast rope. They had to shoot it up pretty bad to make it safe, and we believe the crew of the yacht scuttled it and went down with it.”
“Holy shit. You bombed a fucking yacht? How big was it?”
“About 100 feet, sir. I’ve seen video of it.”
“Get that to me ASAP.” Meyerkopf glanced at Browne, who nodded back at him.
“When did this happen?” McGovern’s irritation and impatience were evident in his voice.
“About two hours ago, sir—”
“Two hours! When was your pilot blinded?”
Meyerkopf was back on his heels. “Late this morning, sir.”
McGovern let out an audible sigh for effect. “Could you not have picked up the phone? Roland, I need to know shit like this when it happens.”
“My apologies, General. Things moved fast, and—”
“Fine. Where are you now?”
“We’re in the central Caribbean, sir, about 150 miles north of Colombia and 300 southwest of Jamaica.”
“What are you doing down there?”
“We’re heading to GITMO to MEDEVAC my pilot and deliver the captives.”
“You have captives? Who are these guys? Druggies? Please tell me they are druggies.”
“We think they are, sir, and we have some evidence that should reap an intel bonanza. My people are on it now.”
“Okay. Now from the top, I forget…. What are you doing down there?”
“We are doing air wing training with the Colombians, showing the flag, identifying surface contacts and doing lots of damage control drills to identify problems. The ship needs some work.” Meyerkopf was unsure if McGovern was familiar with Century Ratchet and, even on a secure line, was afraid to broach the subject. He kept his eyes on Browne as he spoke.
“Okay, and your pilot was out minding his own business and was blinded when he flew by a yacht. A laser?”
“We think so, sir, and one of the pilots reported what could have been a laser during the strike.”
“Okay. Captives… Tell me about them.”
“One bad guy, critically injured. Lost his arm in the firefight. And a girl. We think she’s a prostitute.”
“Are you interrogating them?”
“Yes, sir, and tomorrow we plan to fly them off to GITMO. We’re running hard and should be there by sunup.”
“Okay, speaking of GITMO, the Cubans are mobilizing forces on the western and northern fence lines. At the same time, the fucking Russians are flying Bears and Backfires down the east coast, and we don’t know if they’re heading for Havana or Caracas. We’re spinning up the Marines to defend GITMO. NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM are going ape shit, and the Dutch are reporting a hostile gang threatening their frigate tied to the pier in Aruba. The bubble may be going up down here.”