“No. Is it from Cuba?”
“You are blind! There is a submarine out there that has just fired a missile at us! A Trident missile!”
“Could it have come from Cuba?” Konovalenko pressed the question.
“I cannot believe this!” Shergin practically screamed through the phone. “How much proof do you require?”
“More than you are offering.” The president released the line. “Igor Yureivich, suggestions?”
“We get out of here!” Bogdanov answered for the foreign minister. “Before the damned thing kills us all!”
Konovalenko ignored the outburst. “Quickly.”
Yakovlev refused to believe they had been wrong. They had come so far, building a trust with their onetime enemy. That trust had to continue. “Call the Americans immediately.”
The Communications Vessel Vertikal was running a circular course around the growing debris field, her foredeck covered with growing piles of material as her pilot boats continued to bring it aboard. Some of the more interesting items were already in the wardroom.
“Can you read it?” the captain asked. He knew enough conversational English to excel at his job, but the written word had never been his to master. His signals officer was doing those honors.
“A logbook. A captain’s log.” The officer carefully separated the waterlogged papers and laid them on the steel tabletop. He examined the cracked plastic holder that contained them. “A seaman’s folio. I have seen this in Spain before. During our port call last winter. It is normally waterproof and is made of a buoyant material. This is why it floated.”
“But from where?” the captain wondered. “Or what?”
“Pennsylvania,” the signals officer said.
“Hardly,” the captain replied, assuming his subordinate had made a joke.
“No, sir. The USS Pennsylvania,” he said, pointing to the stencil on the folio’s mangled cover.
Pennsylvania? The captain snatched the object from his signals officer and examined it himself. It said as he was told, but how could it be? There were no other ships in the area even searching, and surely…. Of course. There was a search under way farther north. Radio intercepts had indicated that. And they would have no way of knowing where to look, if this was true. A raket submarine. He looked again at the name.
“Go through these papers immediately. Find out all you can and say nothing to anyone but me. Is that clear?” The captain headed for the door.
“Of course, but where are you going?”
“To the radio,” the captain answered. “This is worthy of an immediate report.” And of a promotion, he thought.
“No radar track, no exhaust plume.” The threat officer looked up to CINCNORAD and the two Russians standing behind. “Whatever it was, it stayed on the ground.”
Colonel Belyayev leaned close and studied the data carefully. The survival of Motherland’s capital might be at stake. He could trust, as Marshal Kurchatov had shown him, but he must also verify.
“Colonel?”
Belyayev returned to upright. “I see nothing. Residual heat signature.”
CINCNORAD noticed that the exchange was in English. He thought it might have been otherwise at a time like this. The relationship truly was different. Not only between their countries but between the people. It was different, and refreshing. “Marshal?”
Kurchatov nodded. “I am satisfied. Let us contact President Konovalenko.”
“Toolbox, mark your pos and keep your head down.”
Antonio looked up, seeing nothing but hearing the faint sound of engines as the AC-130U approached.
“Colonel! Stop the advance!”
Ojeda snapped his head toward the American. “What are you talking about, Papa? We are almost to the objective. These loyalists are paper-thin in numbers.”
Antonio knew he had little time to explain. “Maybe so, but farther on the American unit is pinned down, and someone is going to be laying some heavy fire on the area in less than a minute.”
Ojeda followed Antonio’s gaze upward. He heard the sound also. “Back! Fall back!” He reached for a termite grenade from an aide and pulled the pin. “Where?”
“Here. We’ll be safe on this side, then.”
Ojeda tossed the incendiary device around the building’s corner and trotted back the way they had come. A pronounced pop came a few seconds later.
“Gunners, we have a friendly marker west northwest. One click from the target. Check fire west of marker.”
The gunners aboard the AC130U noted the fire-control officer’s directions and prepared to make some noise. The forward weapons station consisted of a single 25mm Gatling gun, located just aft of the cockpit. Closer to the rear, just forward of the aircraft’s loading ramp, were a 40mm cannon and a 105mm howitzer. All the weapons fired to port, requiring the pilot to put the aircraft into a controlled orbit around the target.
“Ten seconds,” fire control announced.
Cadler keyed his mic. “Ground, take cover.”
All three stations would be used in this attack. The gunners already had the target located on their low-light targeting systems. With five seconds to go, the pilot gave the AC130U an additional five-degree bank, allowing the weapons to have free play on the target during the tight orbit.
“Commence firing.”
Fifty of the loyalist forces had just begun dashing across the open area toward the bunker when the ground around them turned to dust and sparks. It was the last thing any of them saw. Thousands of 25mm rounds showered the vicinity of the target with a show of dancing colors as the lead and steel shells impacted the concrete.
The stream of fire, accompanied by the terrible sound of a buzz saw, followed a gentle curve to the reactor buildings. As the rounds stitched across the buildings’ roofs, the 40mm cannon opened up, concentrating on the mini-canyons between the structures. The 105mm howitzer boomed next, firing straight into the mass of troops scurrying away from the devastation. The 25mm gun also shifted to them a few seconds later. After one half-orbit there was no movement visible, and no fire coming from the reactor buildings.
Ojeda ordered his men to advance as soon as the airborne battery had checked fire. The loyalists that had impeded their advance just minutes before were now fleeing north through the dozens of buildings. Calling for his radioman, he instructed half of the northern group to move south and contain the retreating loyalists, lest they escape. No one, he swore, would get away.
“Helicopters!” the rebel gunner yelled, his body turning as he tracked both aircraft with the SA-14 Gremlin SAM resting on his shoulder.
“No!” Ojeda shouted, running to the soldier and yanking the weapon away. He put it on his own shoulder and tracked the targets with the optical sight, waiting for the high-pitched screech that would signal that the infrared seeker in the missile’s nose had acquired a target. Muzzle flashes from the second helicopter dazzled his vision, then series of sparks fell from the lead craft. What is this? he asked himself as the craft both banked right, one following the other. Following…or hunting?
The lock-on tone screeched from the small annunciator on the Gremlin’s firing unit. Ojeda listened, following the path of the helicopters as they turned sharply east. He had a lock, but he could not fire.
“Colonel?” the gunner said as Ojeda lowered the weapon and switched off the firing unit.
“One of those has to be the Americans,” the colonel explained. “The other…”