The lieutenant had a myriad of things assaulting his decision-making processes at the moment, the most important of which was that somewhere very close — too close — was something trying to kill him. Putting distance between his bird and whoever was out there was the first order of business.
“Hang on!” He screamed and would have been surprised to know that Anderson, himself wondering what the hell was going on, had heard the warning plainly above the cacophony of noise that seemed to be rising appreciably.
“A hit!” Guevarra yelled joyously. “Good shooting, Chiuaigel!”
“He’s running,” Montes said, watching as their target banked hard to the right, staying close to the earth as a fine stream of smoke began to trail from one of his engines.
Guevarra got his best look yet at the craft as it silhouetted itself against the light of the blast reflected off the buildings. It was a Blackhawk, and the way it was being flown could mean only one thing. “He is an American, Chiuaigel! Kill him! KILL HIM!”
Montes swung the cannon fully right as Guevarra followed his wounded prey. Falcon and pigeon, the sergeant thought, as he pressed the fire button a second time.
“High!” Guevarra screamed as the stream of fire passed over the banking helicopter. “I will get closer, then destroy him!”
The light of the nearby explosion reached the command bunker just before the awful roar. Sean and his team secured the one-room structure, making sure their targets were very dead, before stepping through the north door into the glow of the fireball rising from where Tower One had been.
“Bux,” Sean said softly, then reached up and keyed his mic. “Bux!”
There was no response.
“Maj,” Antonelli said, pointing up and to the east.
Sean forced himself to look away from the inferno. “My God.”
“Where did that come from?” Goldfarb practically demanded.
Sean watched helplessly as the Pave Hawk, a ribbon of smoke marking its path, sped away, a second helicopter right behind, its turret-mounted Gatling gun spitting fire and lead.
“Maj, what do we do?”
There was nothing they could do about the Pave Hawk, or for anyone on board. Including Anderson. Cho would have to run for cover, which meant that what remained of Graber’s team was on its own. “We do what we came here to do. Until we know otherwise, we have to assume the warhead is in there somewhere.”
“In that?” Goldfarb said skeptically.
“Until we know otherwise,” Sean repeated with authority.
“But what about…”
Quimpo’s words were cut off by Sean. “Listen! We have a mission to complete! You think I don’t feel like shit right now? Well, I do, but I lived through this before, and we sure as hell ain’t gonna run away like we did then!” The nightmare of Desert One seemed all too real at the moment. The fire. The drone of aircraft. The feeling of failure. There Delta had hightailed it out of harm’s way before it could do its job. Men had died there. Sean looked to the fire, knowing that very good men, very good friends, had fallen here also. But there was no ducking this one. For the moment, at least, they were on their own, and there was still a job to do. “Two and three. Mikey, you guys work around to the east side, by those far buildings. Stay clear of the fire. We don’t know if there’s anything left in there that could blow.” Like a nuke? he wondered. “We’ll take this side. Stay in contact until our reinforcements get here.”
A series of small explosions echoed from the distance. Sean hoped it wasn’t the rebels getting bogged down in a fight. He desperately wanted some more firepower on the ground right now.
BOOM.
The distant explosions became a singular one very close as a rocket-propelled grenade fell short after being fired from the corridors between the reactor buildings three hundred yards to the northwest.
“Damn!” Antonelli cursed. “I’m hit!”
Sean and Lewis dropped low and sprayed multiple bursts in the direction of fire. The shots were met immediately by a volley of full automatic fire from the reactor buildings.
“Inside. Hurry.” Sean tapped two more bursts off, but the effective range of the suppressed MP5s was severely limited. They were close-in weapons, not battle rifles. He would have traded a year’s pay for a few M-16s right then.
Quimpo and Goldfarb dragged the big lieutenant back into the bunker. Quimpo went to cover the south door, while Goldfarb, the team’s medic, went to work on his comrade’s nasty leg wound. Sean and Lewis backed in and took cover as round after round peppered the beautifully thick concrete walls.
“At least the Chinese can build decent prefab,” Lewis joked.
“It won’t mean shit once they get around us,” Sean pointed out. They needed help fast. He switched his radio from the local channel, which allowed the Delta troops to talk freely without distracting communications from the net, to tactical. This linked him with the only assistance he could count on for the moment. “Raptor, this is ground. We need some help here.”
“Okay, ground, whaddya got?” Cadler’s welcome voice inquired.
“Unknown strength to the northwest of our pos in the bunker. Autos and RPGs. We have multiple casualties. Can you assist?”
There was no hesitation in the reply. “A-ffirmative, ground.”
“Launch! Launch!” The NORAD threat officer said loudly. Thousands of heat-sensitive receptors on a DSP satellite, looking down upon the Western Hemisphere from twenty-two thousand miles over Gibraltar, had registered a surge of energy from a single point, and the signal-processing computer had judged the event significant enough to warrant a FLASH warning to NORAD.
General Walker hurried down from the command center’s upper deck. “Where?”
“Central Cuba, thermal-launch signature.” The officer processed the information further, the expression on his face signaling that something was not right. “Very concentrated. Similar to a silo hot launch, but then it spread way out. Going from a thermal of three-thousand-point-eight on a narrow aspect to one thousand even on a wide one.
Walker’s heart was beating faster, enough so that he thought he could hear more than feel it. “Better location.”
A few seconds passed. “Cienfuegos, west of the city.”
“Damn.” CINCNORAD walked three consoles down to the position he would occupy during the real thing. Whether this was or not, he did not yet know, but he also could not wait to do what needed to be done. He picked up the tan-colored phone that sat away from the other communication devices before him. It was picked up immediately in the NMCC. “This is CINCNORAD. I am reporting a NUCFLASH event, central Cuba. Possible launch. This is not a drill.”
Yakovlev pulled the phone away from his ear, a puzzled look on his face. “Voyska PVO, sir. Urgent”
President Konovalenko saw Bogdanov rise slightly in his chair. “Put it on speaker.”
A raspy click sounded from the white box on his desk. “You fool! You send men here to arrest me, and now the Americans have done it!”
Konovalenko recognized the voice as Shergin’s. “Have done what?”
“Launched a missile at us, you idiot! YOU FOOL!”
Bogdanov’s head sank at the revelation. “You… You…”
“From where?” Konovalenko demanded, keeping his composure. “Exactly.”
“How do you expect an exact report? The Caribbean, idiot. Is that precise enough for you?”