Cuba (54 page)

two. Rita didn’t know his real name, just his call

sign, Blue One.

“Old Rover, this is Blue One. I want you

to hold four minutes out while we get some ordnance

on this LZ. It’s sizzling hot.”

“Old Rover, Roger.”…Rita keyed the intercom.

“Okay, Crash, do a holding pattern.”

“How come we got the hot LZ”…”…CRASH wanted

to know.

“Just lucky, I guessea”…Rita replied, and

selected an intercom button that would allow her

to talk to the lieutenant in the cargo bay with his

troops.

Asel Tyvek and Jamail Ali were side by side

in the ditch, just thirty yards or so from the barn. The

other two members of the team were also in the ditch, but

well left and right.

“We ought to get in the barnea”…Ali whispered, “in

case the Cubans want to get in there too.”

“Man, those little boards ain’t gonna

protect anybody from anything. You just be ready in

case the Cubans start diving into this damned ditch with

us.”

“Listen, I can hear our guys coming.”

Tyvek strained his ears. Yep, he could just detect

the distinctive beat of chopper rotors. “Snake

One, Blue Oneea”…he whispered into his radio.

“Cuban troops all around the barn. At least

two tanks, eight or nine trucks, a couple

hundred men. We’re in a ditch near the barn.”

“Got your head down?”

“Yeah.”

Tyvek could hear the choppers distinctly now. He

eased his weapon up, put his finger on the safety.

The Cubans were going to be looking for cover very

shortly, and he didn’t want to share the ditch.

The SuperCobras eased up over the tree line,

barely moving. Tyvek knew what was going to happen

next, and it did. He heard the roar as

Hellfire antiarmor missiles screamed toward

the tanks, and he heard the explosions as they hit.

He lifted his head above the ditch line for a quick

peek. The tanks were smoking hulks. Even as he

watched, more missiles tore into the trucks.

377

Not a standing figure could be seen. Everyone was on the

ground, crawling or lying still.

The two SuperCobras came closer. The noise

of their engines was quite plain now. The flex

three-barreled 20mm cannons opened up and

rockets shot forward from the pylons under the stubby

wings.

The men in the yard realized they couldn’t stay where they

werethe area was a killing zone. Some jumped up and

ran for the ditch. Fortunately few of them seemed

to have weapons in their handsthe attack had caught them

by surprise.

“Here they comeea”…Tyvek shouted, and opened up on the

men closest to the ditch. He couldn’t shoot them fast

enough. Men dashed for the cover of the ditch as he and

Ali and the other two poured fire into them and the

SuperCobras lashed the area with ordnance.

Tyvek spoke into the voice-activated mike on

his helmet-mounted radio. “We’re gonna need

some help, Old Rover. Whenever you can get here.”

Something heavy fell across Tyvek’s legs. He

spun and fired at the same time, but the man was already

dead: Ali had shot him.

“They’re going into the barnff”…Ali shouted. He fired

a whole magazine at three men trying

to get through the front door. One of the men disappeared

inside.

Jamail Ali scrambled over the edge of the ditch and

ran for the barn while Tyvek screamed at the

SuperCobra gunners not to shoot him.

“Snake One Four, this is Orange

One.”…Richard Merriweather let go of the mike and

waited for an answer from the SuperCobra inbound

to silo six.

“Orange One, Snake One Four.”

“Man, we’re on the wrong side of this river or

How about seeing if you can find us.”

“Are you standing up?”

“In plain sight.”

Merriweather and his partner, Kirb Handy, stepped

away from the trees. With their night-vision goggles,

the SuperCobra crewmen should have no trouble seeing

two men standing in an open field, and they didn’t.

Both the helicopters settled to earth and the marines

on the ground ran to them.

The pilot of the lead chopper opened his canopy as

Merriweather ran over. “Where are the other guys?”

“Haven’t seen them or talked to them. Don’t

know.”

“Seen any bad guys?”

“Nope. How about a ride over toward the barn?”

“Sit on the skid and grab hold. We run

into trouble, you gotta get off if we drop down

low.”

Merriweather gave the pilot a thumbs-up and

arranged himself on the skid. Handy was clinging to the

skid on the other side.

The chopper came slowly into a hover, then dipped

its nose and began moving forward. Merriweather held

on for dear life as the rotor downwash and

slipstream tore at his clothing, helmet, and gear,

and threatened to rip the night vision goggles from his

head.

What a stupid idea this was! How in hell had

they ended up four miles south of the goddamned landing

zone? If he ever again laid eyes on that son of a

bitch who flew the Here, he was going to stomp his

ass.

Bryne and McCormickthose two were missing.

If they were okay surely they would have checked in on

the radio. Maybe their parachutes didn’t open.

Maybe they fell into that river. Maybe the

Cubans captured them as soon as they hit the

ground. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

He could see the barn now. The chopper was just a few

feet above the trees, making an approach to the area

right in front of the damn thing. The other chopper was

flying over the trees, three or four hundred

yards awayclose, but not too close.

Nobody in sight around the barn. Not a soul.

Merriweather jumped when the chopper was three feet

off the ground, and fell on his face. He got up,

staggered out from under the rotor blast.

Handy appeared at his elbow.

The glow of a cigarette tip showed in the door.

Someone sitting there!

Merriweather froze, his M-16 at the ready.

A marine sat in the open door smoking d

cigarette. His face and neck were coated with green

and brown camo grease. His helmet and night-vision

goggles lay in the dirt beside him.

Merriweather walked over to the man, who said, “No

one around.”

“Where’s Bryne?”

McCormick nodded toward the east. “Over there about

a hundred yards. Parachute streamed, backup

didn’t open.”

“Your radio?”

“Broke. Bryne’s got smashed.”…McCormick

stood, took a last drag on the cigarette, and

tossed it away. “Been sitting here waiting for you.

The place is deserted, quiet as a graveyard.”

“Too bad about Bryne.”

“Left two little kids. Too fucking bad.”

The interior of the barn was large, empty, and dark.

Merriweather used a flashlight, looked in eve

caret you corner, inspected the ceiling, the floor,

the nooks and crannys.

Then he spoke into his boom microphone.

“Let’s get the Osprey into the LZ, set up a

perimeter.”

Through her night-vision goggles, Rita Moravia

could see the silo two landing zone and the hovering

SuperCobras plain as day as she made her

approach in the Osprey. She saw bodies lying

everywhere, still-warm bodies radiating heat, and she

saw living men. She transitioned to hovering flight

and lowered the Osprey toward the ground between the

choppers. A cloud of dirt and dust rose up,

obscuring everything. She went on instruments.

On the intercom she told the lieutenant to get

ready.

As soon as the wheels hit, the marines in

back charged out the door of the Osprey and kept right

on going for fifty yards, when they went down on their

stomachs with their rifles at the ready.

Rita didn’t wait to see what was going to happen

next. As soon as her crew chief said the last

marine was out, she lifted the Osprey into the air,

climbed straight up out of the dust cloud and only then

began the transition to winged flight.

The lieutenant was named Charlie Herron, and he

had his orders. His primary responsibility was

to ensure that the missile in that silo never left the

ground. As his feet hit the ground, he flopped on

his belly and waited while the roaring Osprey

climbed away. When the dust began to clear, he

spotted the barn and went for it on a run.

Bodies and body parts lay scattered everywhere. The

living men he passed sat in the dirt with empty

hands reaching for the sky. Herron shouted over the

radio, “Cease-fire, cease-fire. They are

surrendering.”

Inside the barn he found Asel Tyvek standing over

a dead Cuban.

“Over here, Lieutenant. I think this wooden thing

is a door.”

Tyvek and Herron opened the wooden

door, which revealed a steel door with built-in

combination lock. “Think there’s anybody in

there”…”…Herron asked. After all, Tyvek had been

here longer than he had.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Well, we gotta get in there. Let’s blow the

door.”

A charge of C-4 took less than a minute

to rig. The two men took cover behind a wooden

stall.

The explosion was sharp, a metallic wham that rang

their ears.

The demolition charge cut the lock clean out of the

door and warped it. The two men pried the door

open. A stairway lit by naked light bulbs led

away downward. Herron

and Tyvek took off their night-vision goggles and

let them dangle around their necks. With Herron in

the lead with his pistol in his hand, the two of them

descended the stairway.

Aboard

United States

Jake Grafton was getting the blowby-blow

update. Air Intelligence officers annotated

the maps and briefers told him of every

report from the silos. “Heavy firefight around

silos one and two.”"…ationo opposition at sites

four, five and six.”"…Ospreys on the ground at

sites two, three, and four.”"…SeaCobra hit and

in trouble at site one.”"Team leader into silo

two.”…”…Recon leader into silo six.”

Each report was entered on a checklist: there were

eight of them, one for each silo and dairy site.

First Lieutenant Charlie Herron and Asel

Tyvek found the control room of silo two

empty. A series of stairs and more steel doors

led downward to the bottom of the concrete structure.

The doors weren’t locked. When he opened the last

door, there was the missile towering upward. The shiny,

painted fuselage reflected pinpoints of light from

the naked bulbs arranged around the top and sides of the

concrete silo.

Under the missile was a steel grate over a black

hole. That was the flame pit, to exhaust the flame

and gases when the missile was launched.

A circular steel stairway led up to a

catwalk. From the catwalk it appeared a person

could reach over and gain access to the missile’s

warhead and control panel.

Herron bolstered his pistol and turned

to Sergeant Tyvek. “See if you can figure out a

way to safety this bottle rocket so they can’t

fire it from Havana while I’m working on it.”

“Lieutenant, I’ve got bad news for you. I

don’t know shit about guided missiles.”

“Well, you sure as hell don’t want to be standing

here

with your thumb up your butt if they light this thing off.

Now go look for a switch or something.”

“Yes,

sir”

Tyvek said, and disappeared back up the stairway.

Herron took the steps two at a time. He hoped

he would find what he expected when he got to the

catwalk, although he thought a lot of the old

Russian engineer’s explanation had been pure

bullshit. Somebody had found an engineer in

Russia who said he helped design these

missilesthe guy was hi his eighties. They had him

on television for an hour explaining how the business

end of the missile was put together. The engineer spoke

not a word of English so a translator did the

talking. The man had a hell of a memory or was

lying through his teeth. Herron was about to find out which was the

case.

“If it’s typical Russian stuffea”…the

American briefer said, “you’ll be able to work on it

with pliers and screwdrivers. American designers

could learn a lot from Russian engineers, who

design for ease of maintenance.” They gave each

officer and NCO who might get near a missile

a small tool pouch.

Herron examined the access panel, which was only about

six inches long by six inches high, and curved, a

part of the missile’s skin. The screws holding it

hi place looked like Dzus fasteners. They

weren’t, though: they were plain old screws. Careful

not to drop mem, he unscrewed them one by one and put

the screws hi a shirt pocket. There were a dozen

screws, just like the Russian engineer said. Okay!

So far so good.

Sweat dripped down his nose, ran into his eyes.

He wiped the palms of his hands on his camo pants

and used his sleeve to swab his face, then went back

to twisting the screwdriver. He worked as quickly as he

could. comFinally he took out the last screw.

Carefully, ever so carefully, Herron pulled off

the access panel and laid it on the catwalk by his

feet. He dug a small flashlight from his

pocket. Looking through the access

panel, he could see lots of wires. And a

stainless-steel sphere about the size of a

basketball. That, he concluded, must be the

biological warhead. The missile had been

designed for a nuclear warhead, which would have been round,

so the biological warhead had to go into the same

space. Yet the warhead was too large to come out this

little six-inch access hole.

Charlie Herron reached through the hole to his elbow,

felt upward with his ear against the skin of the missile.

Yes, he could feel the latch. He opened it. Now

down … one there too. Right, then left.

With the last latch open, he pulled at the panel he

had his arm in. It came out in his hand, making a

hole at least twenty inches across. So the engineer

had been telling the truth.

Herron turned to put the panel on the

catwalk… and dropped it.

It fell, striking the side of the missile, finally

landing on the grate at the bottom with a tinny sound,

much like the lid of a garbage can.

Charlie Herron grabbed the rails of the catwalk and

held on to keep from falling.

He wiped his face on his sleeves, the palms of

his hands on his trousers.

Using a pair of wire snips, the lieutenant

began clipping wires, then pulling the ends out of the

way so he could see how the warhead was held in

place.

William Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini

stepped from their Osprey transport wearing their

CBW suits. Two marines similarly clad

followed them. Each marine carried a cylinder about

six feet long and five inches in diameter

balanced on his shoulder.

Doll Hanna was waiting for them as they approached

the main entrance. “I count five people in the clean

areaea”…he said. “They don’t know we’re here yet.

The aircirculation system is pretty loud.”

Chance went to the partially open door and eased his head

around for a peek. He counted the people inside. Five.

He had been thinking about this moment ever since Jake

Grafton asked him to take out this facility. If

the integrity of the sealed area was broken before the fire

got hot enough to destroy the virus, some of the virus

might escape. If there were any free viruses in

the air inside there, or if one of the culture

trays was broken, intentionally or unintentionally …

How much was some? Who could say?

He pulled his head back, looked at

Doll Hanna, looked at the marines carrying the

cylinders on their shoulders.

Well, it was a hell of a risk. A

hell

of a risk.

Just then William Henry Chance wished he were back

in New York City, eating dinner at a nice

restaurant or preparing a case for trial or

sitting at home with the woman who had shared his life

for the past ten years. Anywhere but here.

“Give me your rifleea”…he said to Hanna, who

handed him. his M-16.

“Is it loaded?”

“Full. Selector is on single shot. This is

the safety.”…Hanna touched it.

“Okayea”…sd William Henry Chance.

He turned to Carmellini. “If worse comes

to worst, you know what to do.”

Carmellini didn’t say anything.

The dumb shit is probably wishing he was safe and

snug in a federal pen,

Chance thought.