Trace and Shotgun located a boat that would be easy to “borrow” for the evening, and then as a bonus spotted two unattended motorbikes in a yard on the outskirts of the village. A bit of Red’s concern for Cubans had rubbed off on Trace, giving her slight pangs of conscience as she confiscated the bikes and took them to a hiding place off the road, but she allayed them by leaving convertible and real pesos worth several times the bikes’ value in their place.
Trace and Shotgun were on their way back to Crusty’s cousin’s house when Junior called her to tell her where they were.
“Can’t you sit still for five minutes?” she said. “I told you not to move.”
More than a little of the kettle calling the pot black, but Junior didn’t rise to the bait.
“You wouldn’t believe what we found.”
“Sit tight,” Trace told him when he finished describing the compound. “I’ll be over in an hour.”
“It’s at least two hours away, Trace, and there’s a checkpoint at—”
“Just sit tight. Don’t move. All right?”
“But—”
“Just sit tight.”
Kind of wonder why she bothered saying that even once, don’t you?
( IV )
The U.S. government played absolutely no role in my sudden interest in Cuba Libre, and had nothing to do with my getting up to the ship. At no point in the proceedings was there any connection, official or otherwise, between myself and the U.S. government or its various agencies. I received no cooperation nor direction, and had no communication with any branch of the service or any member of the U.S. military or Homeland Security during the operation. I acted entirely on my own, as a concerned citizen of the world, under the various sections of maritime law that permit, or may not permit, the casual inspection in transit or not in transit of materials or goods by an interested or uninterested citizen acting under the charter of the United Nations. I take full responsibility for myself, my actions, my thoughts and curse words, forever and ever, amen.
Now that the lawyers are happy . . .
A CIA Gulfstream picked Mongoose, Doc, and me up in Panama City a short while after I got off the phone with Ken. It flew us to an undisclosed location—that would be Tyndale Air Force Base, Florida—where we were met by a Navy P-3C Orion outfitted for support duties. (The aircraft was attached to a Patrol Squadron Special Project Unit, but wasn’t a spy plane itself, I don’t think.) The Orion flew us up to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, where we were met by a Grumman C-2A Greyhound.
Grasshopper? You have a question?
Yes, the Greyhound is a carrier-based aircraft responsible for delivering things like the mail and DVDs to aircraft carriers.
Consider us the mail.
The Greyhound took us to an undisclosed aircraft carrier—which would be CVN-69, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, affectionately known as Ike to the six thousand or so sailors who call it home—sailing off the East Coast. A lieutenant with an oversized security detail in tow met us maybe three seconds after we rebounded against the arrestor cable and quick-stepped us to an SH-3 Sea King idling on the deck nearby. The Sea King lifted off as soon as Doc was in the cabin—leaving Mongoose and me to throw ourselves through the helo’s open door, barely getting inside. A burly petty officer grabbed Mongoose by the back of the shirt and hauled him in; I had to fend for myself, jerking my feet up and in just as one of the crewmen slammed the door shut.
Not that they were in a hurry or anything.
The helo took us to the Wasp, an assault ship sailing roughly a hundred miles northeast of the Ike.
The Wasp and her sister ships look very much like aircraft carriers looked during World War II. Straight flight deck, little island off to the side, and enough firepower to give a fleet of battlewagons agita. But the Wasp’s main purpose was to support amphibious operations, hostile and otherwise.40 In function at least, the Wasp is more closely related to the landing ships that brought men into Okinawa and Iwo Jima rather than the carriers that launched the planes to cover them.
The Wasp can carry about thirty-eight Harrier jump jets, those fancy but dangerous fighters that can take off and land like pogo sticks, straight up. In this case, the Wasp was carrying only helicopters, but that wasn’t a knock. The choppers were a mix of AH-1 Whiskey Cobras—mean-ass gunships whose ancestors first flew in Vietnam—and MH-53Es, another aircraft whose roots go back to the days of Cream, Credence, and cratering hootches in Southeast Asia. The marines use the MH-53E “Sea Dragon” as the heavy lifters during assault operations. When the neighbors get rowdy, these are the choppers you call in.41
We were met on the Wasp by a lieutenant from Naval Intelligence, a very serious fellow who had the eyes of a mole and cheeks that looked as if they’d been drilled into his face. He snapped off a salute—better safe than sorry, maybe—then introduced us to a CIA officer named Laundry (really), a guy in his mid-fifties who seemed to be straining to smile. Laundry, of course, wasn’t identified as a CIA officer, but he had the Langley bob and weave as he walked; my guess is that he worked paramilitary out in the sticks for quite a while before coming back to HQ and carrying water and other things for the operations directorate. There was a whiff of longing in his voice when he spoke, as if he was thinking, Damn, I wish I were going on this operation, though maybe he just had to visit the head real bad.
Laundry and Intelligence took us to a small cabin in the belly of the beast where our two nongovernment government assets were already waiting. One was a nervous, cocker-spaniel type, who’d clearly been drinking espresso all day from his water dish. Thin as a rail and at least six-five, he practically bounced out of the chair when we came in. Pumping my hand profusely, he swore allegiance to the bitter end.
I told him I appreciated the sentiment, but doubted it would come to that.
He said I should call him Frenchman. I’m not sure how he picked that handle, and frankly I was afraid to ask. He looked more Greek than French, and his accent was southern U.S.
Frenchman carried two small instruments, both of which would have looked right at home on Mr. Spock’s belt in the first season of Star Trek. One was about the size of a PDA, or personal digital assistant, the geeky mini-computers engineers are always tapping love notes on in meetings. His gizmo was apparently able to analyze different types of radiation, sniffing isotopes, or something along those lines as they floated in the air. The other device looked like a small flashlight with three antennalike prongs on the end. He was even more cagey about what this one did, saying only that it “worked along the same lines” as the other.
The other technical expert was huddled inside the hood of his blue sweatshirt, hunkered over a cup of coffee as if he were out in the frosty tundra, rather than in a space where the temperature had to be pushing eighty degrees. When I extended my hand he put up his.
“These have to stay clean,” he said.
His name was Win, and Laundry introduced him as the bomb defuser, supposedly one of the top guys in the world when it came to analyzing and turning off the intricate systems that make nukes go boom. So I thought the comment about keeping his hands clean meant that he had to keep his fingers nimble and flexed, kind of like a concert pianist thoroughly paranoid about his hands. But as I found out, Win meant clean literally. The only thing he was paranoid about were germs, and at several inappropriate points over the next few hours he delivered impromptu lectures on the number of a variety of microscopic creatures that roamed various surfaces around him.
Intelligence gave us a brief on the position of the Cuban ship. Laundry provided photos and schematics of the layout, along with some guesses about where a warhead would be kept. Then Frenchman and Win took over, telling me how they could detect a nuke, how much time they’d need to diffuse it, and some other related tidbits.
“There’s only so much we can be sure of until we get onto the ship itself,” said Frenchman, hopping back and forth. “We need to be very, very close to the device. Real close.”
“I’ll get you there,” I said.
“Um, I should mention one thing,” he added.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t swim.”
“Not at all?”
He shook his head.
“I’ll bet you’ll swim if we toss you into the water,” said Mongoose.
’Goose smiled, but Frenchman didn’t smile back.
Except for the fresh coat of paint, Cuba Libre looked like any of the gray commercial trawlers you’ve seen in scratchy photos from the 1970s. The superstructure was toward the stern. A pair of booms dominated the deck.
Mongoose and I both studied the photos carefully. There were no trailing lines, nor any signs of conveniently sloppy seamanship. The hatches to the cargo holds were battened down, and if there were crew members aboard—and presumably there were—none had shown himself when the planes were nearby.
There didn’t look to be any fixed guns anywhere. Small weapons, of course, could be anywhere. The ship was traveling very slowly; Naval Intelligence said it moved no faster than four knots during the day, and usually cut that to two at night.
My favorite means of boarding a ship is across the gangway, preferably under my own power after a nice long liberty. If that can’t be arranged, I’m not particular.
Our options were severely limited in this case. Flying in aboard a helicopter was out of the question. Not only was the navy not about to lend us one, but the CIA wanted our inspection to be as secret as possible. Ideally we would get on and off without being seen, heard, or dreamed of.
Climbing aboard from a rigid boat would have been the next best option, but our party was so small that any serious opposition would jeopardize the mission.
That left only one real possibility. We had to be invited aboard.
We spent the next few hours getting some food and rest. Mongoose wanted to go down to one of the shipboard gyms and work out a little; Naval Intelligence arranged that for him. Because of security precautions, he had to clear not just the gym but the passageways and every space where he went, trying to avoid unnecessary contact.
That was probably just as well, given Mongoose’s fondness for marines. He’d spent some of his best moments in the service beating the hell out of them.
I checked in with Danny, who’d set everything up for a midnight pickup on Cuba. Trace had told him what was going on with Junior, et al., but the version I got was short on those details. It sounded like everything there was under control and our people would be home soon.
Famous last words.
( V )
Our operation on the Cuba Libre, in time stamp style. Just remember real life doesn’t quite move in such neat increments:
2010: That’s ten past 8:00 P.M. in civilian time.
Mongoose, Frenchman, Win, and I changed into civilian clothes, the sort of thing weekend warriors might wear while fishing. Doc, who was acting as our mission coordinator and interfacing with Naval Intelligence and the rest of the navy and CIA ass-ets, briefed the helo crew on our plan and worked out various contingency plans in case the shit hit the fan.
2012: Escorted by two marines on security detail who had orders to shoot anyone who got in our way, Mongoose, Frenchman, Win, and I trotted across the deck to a waiting Sikorsky MH-53E. The whole ship seemed to shake as the aircraft’s rotors began spinning. Doc went over the emergency procedures with us, checked our gear, and gave us the thumbs-up. Then he went forward and squeezed into a jump seat not far from the two pilots.
2013: We were airborne. Frenchman practically rebounded off the ceiling of the helo, unable to control his adrenaline rush. Win pulled the hood of his sweatshirt—he’d insisted on wearing it, arguing it was typical civilian gear—so far over his head he looked like a gnome.
2020: The crew chief reported that everything was “copacetic.” I took that to mean things were on schedule.
2045: Frenchman announced he had to pee. The crew chief offered him two options—he could open the hatch and piss out the door as we flew, or he could use the yellow jug strapped to the spar. Frenchman decided he’d hold it in.
2103: Doc came back and told us we were five minutes from drop. Since our gear was pretty minimal—besides our clothes, Mongoose and I carried survival knives and a pair of high-tech miniature satellite radios, courtesy of the CIA—it didn’t take long to look it over and get ready. Mongoose inflated a raft on the deck of the helo.
2107: The chopper lurched sharply to the right and descended toward the waves. It had skimmed so close to the water that the landing gear would have been wet had it been extended.
The crew chief looked at us, then barked a warning that he was opening the ramp at the stern. Frenchman suddenly looked seasick. Win tightened the drawstrings on his hood even tighter.
“Into the raft,” I told them.
Frenchman sprawled forward, tumbling into the small craft. Win sat down calmly, then scrunched himself up to avoid being touched by the rest of us, whose germs could not be trusted.
2108: The rear ramp of the helicopter slammed open. Wind, dust, and a fine mist of water flew around us. I grabbed the line on the gunwale and hunkered down as the raft slid aft toward the waves. My stomach lagged a few yards behind as we plummeted into the water—think Six Flags Water Park, without the stiff entry fee and the overpriced burgers.
Wha-lal-lop!! Our bow shot below the waves, and the fine mist I’d felt on the way out turned into a deluge. We spun sharply to port. We didn’t take on water—there wasn’t any more room, as we were already under the waves.
The downdraft from the blades of the helo pushed us down farther, the aircraft pounding the air furiously as she pulled away. Veering east and out of sight, the chopper sent a hurricane-force wind into us, whipping the raft like a leaf caught in a drain.
Frenchman began puking.
2110: Mongoose and I succeeded in stabilizing the vessel. We’d lost one of the paddles overboard and Mongoose found it necessary to paddle with his bare hands. We were still underwater.
“Bail!” I told the others. I added several expletives to emphasize the importance of my order.
“If you’re going to puke,” Mongoose added, “do it overboard.”
Frenchman took Mongoose’s advice to heart. Win pulled out one of the collapsible pails—think reinforced plastic bags—and went to work. Sensing progress, I unlashed the small outboard from the side and began setting it up on the transom at the stern.
2115: We were under way, headed toward the course the Cuba Libre was taking. Doc checked in.
“You havin’ fun yet?” he asked.
“Real fuckin’ funny,” answered Mongoose, who was handling our satellite link. “You and fuckin’ Shotgun fuckin’ belong fuckin’ together.”
“The f-word frequency is up,” said Doc cheerfully. “You must be doing well.”
2125: The bottom of the raft, though slick, was no longer filled with water. My GPS reading had us dead-on course for the Cuba Libre, just over the horizon. Doc, who was watching a radar plot supplied from a JSTAR’s aircraft, confirmed that we were on course for an intercept. I leaned on the throttle of the tiny outboard.
2140: I steered directly toward the bow of the Cuba Libre in view, still maybe two miles off. The boat had minimal navigational lights, not spots or even a work light on deck, but it stood out pretty well in the darkness, a big looming shadow that says, Come to papa.
2150: We got ready to look like shipwrecked pleasure boaters who have been lost at sea for several days. Mongoose messed up his hair—hard to tell given it’s about a half inch long—and threw salt water into his eyes, rubbing them harshly to irritate them. I channeled my inner wildebeest. Frenchman, soaked with vomit and still hanging on the gunwale, didn’t have to act and wasn’t going to invite very close inspection anyhow.
Win, I’m not sure about. He hadn’t said a peep since we boarded the helicopter.
With the ship getting closer and closer, I secured the engine, then dumped it below the water. I pushed our
weighted waterproof gear bag gently over the side as well. I’d cut both loose when I was sure we were going to be picked up.
If the ship were to pass us by—not out of the realm of possibilities—then we would haul the engine and bag back aboard and use the boarding suction cups and lines to get aboard. Assuming we were close enough, assuming the engine worked, etc., etc.
Harder than trying to shit into a test tube, you say?
You may be right.
2155: Mongoose fired a flare. There was no acknowledgment from the ship.
2157: Mongoose fired another flare. We followed with a hearty round of cursing as the bastards still didn’t respond.
2159: Yet another flare. We were so close that we could fire point-blank and hit the bow.
I began sizing up the ship for boarding.
Suction cups are about the worst way to get aboard a vessel, with the possible exception of dropping from ten thousand feet without benefit of a parachute.
No, I take that back—they’re definitely the worst. At least if you’re falling you know your agony will soon be over.
2200: A light appeared on the port side.
“Looks like they’re manning a boat,” said Mongoose.
I waited until the boat was in the water to cut the lines to the engine and extra gear. We were past the point of no return.
2210: Two crewmen came out to rescue us. They seemed extremely reluctant to take us back, circling several times before approaching. Even then, they looked us over pretty well before bringing us aboard their whaleboat. Frenchman’s limp body finally convinced them we were legit.
A rope ladder was lowered as we approached the Cuba Libre. Mongoose pretended to slip as he went and fell into the water. The rest of us remained prostrate in the rescue boat.
If we’d been out in the water for two days without food and very little water—our cover story, remember—we wouldn’t have the energy to run up the rungs. Besides, the weaker we seemed, the more at ease the crew would be. And we needed them at ease.
RW15 - Seize the Day Page 35