by Cuba (lit)
question, of course the Cubans have a delivery system,
or several. Biological weapons are the
easiest of all weapons to employ. The delivery
system could be as simple as planes rigged to spray
microorganisms into the atmosphere: after all,
Cuba is just ninety miles south of Key West;
jets could be over Florida in minutes. Or a
few teams of Cuban saboteurs could induce the
toxins into the water supply systems of major
citiestens of millions of people could be infected before
anyone figured out there was even a problem."
Here was the classic dilemma: The U.s. was
prepared to fight a nuclear war to the finish and lick
anyone on the planet in a conventional war.
Hundreds of billions of dollars had been spent
on networks and communications, on precision weapons
and missile Systems, on an army, navy and air
force that were die best equipped, trained, and led armed
forces on earth. So if there were an armed conflict,
no sane enemy would confront the United States
on a conventional or nuclear battlefield:
guerrilla warfare and terror weapons were the
alternatives.
"What die Cubans probably don't
haveea"...General Totten continued, "is the engineering and
industrial capacity to turn tankfuls of toxins
into true weapons, weapons that are safe
to handle, can be stored indefinitely, and aimed
precisely. That's why they want to get tiieir
hands on that shipload of biological warheads."
"So how do we prevent the use of CBW
weapons"..."...the president asked.
"You have to deter the bad guysea"...Tater Totten
explained. "You have to be willing to do it to, them
worse man they can do it to you. And they have to know that you
will."
"You're saying that if the Cubans murder ten
million Americans; we have to kill every human in
Cuba?"
"That's right. Mutually assured destruction."
"M-A-D." .
"Insane. But there is no other way. If these people
think you lack the resolve to retaliate in kind, you
just lost the war."
"If anyone kills Americans we will
retaliateea"...the president said. "That's been
U.s. policy since George Washington took
the oath of office."
The general concentrated on straightening a paper
clip, then bending it into a new shape.
Finally, when the president had had his say, when the
national security adviser had summed up
the situation, the chairman spoke again: 'The agent in
Havana who found the lab had a request. It was in
the last paragraph of bis message this morning.
Mr. Adviser, do you wish to discuss itr
The adviser obviously didn't wish to discuss it;
he could have raised the point at any time during the
meeting and hadn't. A flash of irritation crossed
his face, then he said, "I've gone over that
request with the staff, and with State, ah, and both staff
and State feel it is completely out of bounds."
"What request"..."...the president asked curtly.
"Sir, staff and State feel the request is
absolutely out of the question; I struck it from the
agenda."
"What request"..."...the president repeated with some
heat.
"The agent wants Operation Flashlight to happen
at onethirty A.m. tomorrowea"...Tater Totten said.
"And that is"..."...the president said, frowning.
"He wants the power grid in central Havana
knocked out."
"Oh. Now I remember. You want to blow some
highvoltage towers."
"That's correct, sir. This operation was discussed and
approved three weeks ago."
"Oh, no. Three weeks ago I gave a
tentative approval, tentative only.
Sabotage of a power network of a foreign nation is a
damn serious matter. Back when I was in school
we called that an act of war."
"It still isea"...the national security adviser said. He
was something of a suck-up, General Totten thought.
"I think this matter deserves more discussionea"...the
president said.
"Yes,
sir."
"What happens if the people setting these charges are
arrested?"
The director of the CIA reluctantly stepped
in. "Sir, that is one of the inherent risks of
clandestine operations. The men who set the charges know
the risks. We know the risks. The fact is that the
possible gains here make the risks worth running.
That's the same cost-benefit analysis we make
before we authorize any clandestine operation."
"What if one of these people is arrested? Can the
Cubans prove they work for the CIA?"
"No, sir. They will appear to be Cuban
exiles, in Cuba creating mischief on their own
hook."
"This operation gives me a bad feeling in the pit of
my stomachea"...the president said. "There are too many
things going wrong all at once."
General Totten could hold his tongue no longer.
"There is no time to be lostea"...he said. "Four
vials of microorganisms taken from a
biological warfare laboratory located just
ninety miles south of Key West in the capital
of a communist country hostile to the United States
are this very minute being examined in laboratories in
the Washington area. Cuba could become another
Iraq, armed to the teeth with chemical and
biological weapons. This nation cannot afford to let that
happen. Cuba is only
ninety
miles away. The risk is simply too great."
The president glared around the room. Looking for
someone to blame, General Totten thought.
"Mr. President, Flashlight will take hours
to pull off,"
the CIA director said. "I've already given the
order for it to proceed."
"You've already given the order"..."...The president
repeated the words incredulously.
"There was no time to be lostea"...the director
shot back. "These things take hours to set in
motion. The execution time is one-thirty A.m.,
less than six hours away."
The chairman of the joint chiefs leaned forward in his
chair, rested both elbows on the mahogany table.
"Mr. President, we have no choice in this
matter. None at all. If this administration
fails to move aggressively to learn exactly
what the Cuban threat is and take steps to meet
it, you will almost certainly be impeached and removed from
office by Congress for dereliction of duty."
The president looked as if he were going
to explode. This was a side of him the voters never
saw. A control freak, like most politicians,
he hated just being along for the ride. Watching the
president seethe, Tater Totten knew his days
on active duty were numbered. The CIA
director had better start thinking about retirement,
too.
"Who is our agent i
n Cuba"..."...the president
demanded.
The director looked startled. Names of agents were
closely held, never discussed in meetings like this.
Yet he couldn't refuse to answer a direct question
from the president of the United States.
"Sir, if you need that information, I could write it
on a sheet of paper."...The director grabbed a
notepad and did so. He tore off the sheet,
folded it once, and passed it down the table. The
president put the folded paper in front of him but
didn't open it.
"I want to know who authorized this man"...the
president tapped on the folded paper with a finger"...ffg
to Cuba to see what cesspools he could uncover."
"Sir, this mission was authorized by this council two
months ago."
"Then why in hell didn't someone mention it when we
were discussing getting our warheads home from
Guanta"- namo Bay? Why wasn't that cargo
ship escorted from pier
to pier? Why in hell didn't we get those warheads
out of there two months ago, two years ago?
Why in hell can't you people get a goddamn grip?"
Silence followed that outburst. It was broken when the
chairman said, "Instead of fretting over the timing,
let's pat ourselves on the back for being smart enough to have
an agent in Havana. It's the Cubans'
weapons lab, not ours."
When Tater Totten walked out of the room, he still
had his letter of resignation from the joint chiefs
in his pocket. He had prepared it when the national
security adviser struck Operation Lightbulb from
the agenda. Maybe he should have laid the letter on the
president and retired to the golf course before these
fools drove this truck off the cliff. He had
no doubt the mess in Cuba was about to blow up in their
faces, and soon.
The American warship nearest the unnamed cay where the
North Korean freighter was anchored was a
destroyer out of Charleston, South Carolina,
manned by naval reservists on their annual
two-week tour of active duty. The destroyer
had been on its way to Nassau for a weekend port
call when the flash message rolled off the printer.
The destroyer's flank speed was 34 knots, and
she was making every knot of it now as she thundered down the
Exuma Channel with a bone hi her teeth.
From "five thousand feet Jake Grafton could
see the destroyer plainly eveji though it was twenty
miles away. And he could see the wake lengthening
behind the North Korean freighter,
Wonsan.
"Damn scow is getting under wayea"...Rita said
disgustedly. She was flying the V-22. "It'll be
in international waters long before the destroyer
gets there."
"Wonder how many warheads they pulled out of the
water?"
"We're going to find out pretty soonea"...Jake
muttered. "If this guy stops and lets us board
him, he won't have a
warhead aboard. If he refuses to heave to,
he's got a bunch."
"What are you going to do, Admiral, if he
refuses to stop?"
Jake Grafton didn't have an answer to that
contingency, nor did he want to make the decision.
If that eventuality came to pass he would ask for
guidance from Washington, pass the buck along to people
who would probably refer it to the politicians.
'The
Wonsan
is turning northeastea"...Rita observed. "She'll
probably go between Cat Island and San
Salvador."
"Let's go downea"...Jake Grafton said, "hover
in front of this guy, see if he'll stop."...He was
sitting on the flight engineer's seat just aft of the
pilots.
Five minutes later the Osprey was in
helicopter flight with the rotors tilted up,
descending gently hi front of the
Wonsan,
which was up to five or six knots now. Jake
Grafton could see four people on the bridge, standing
close together and gesturing at the Osprey. The
copilot was watching the clearance, telling Rita how
much maneuvering room she had.
"Closerea"...Jake said.
Rita Moravia kept the Osprey moving in.
Luckily the wind was from the west, so she could keep the
twin-rotor machine on the starboard side of the
freighter, yet pointed right at the bridge. This
kept the wind on her starboard quarter.
She stopped when the distance between her cockpit and the
bridge glass was about fifty yards. The right
rotor was still well above the top of the freighter's
crane, which was mounted amidships.
"Closerea"...Jake said again, "but watch your
clearance."
The copilot glanced nervously at Jake.
"Give me clearanceea"...Rita snapped at him, which
brought him back to the job at hand.
She maneuvered the Osprey until it was
completely on
the starboard side of the
Wonsan,
then she dropped it until she could see the length of the
bridge.
The captainhe might have been the captain, wearing a
dirty, white bridge capstepped through the door of the
bridge onto the wing and stood looking into the
cockpit, fifteen feet away. He had his hands
pressed against his ears, trying to deaden the mighty roar
of the two big engines. The downwash from the rotors
raised a storm of sea spray, which was soaking him,
and now it carried away his hat.
"Closerea"...Jake said one more time.
"The air is sorta bumpy coming around this
superstructure."
"Yeahea"...the admiral said.
Ten feet separated the nose of the V-22 from the
rail of the bridge wing. Rita eased the Osprey
forward a foot at a time, until the refueling
probe and three barrels of the turreted
fifty-caliber machine gun dist protruded from the
nose were no more than eighteen inches from the rail.
"Aim the gun at the captainea"...Jake said.
The copilot flipped a switch, then looked at the
captain's head, and the machine gun
faithfully tracked, following the aiming commands sent
to it from the gunsight mounted on the copilot's
helrriet.
The captain's face was nowiess than ten feet from
Jake Grafton's. He was balding, a bit
overweight, in his late fifties. The rotor wash
lashed at him and tore at his sodden clothes, making
it difficult for him to keep his footing. Groping for a
rail to steady himself against the fierce wind, he looked
at the three-barreled machine gun, which tracked him
like a living thing, then at Jake Grafton on the
seat behind the Osprey pilots.
The captain turned and shouted something over his left
shoulder; he held on with both hands as he went through
the door onto the enclosed bridge.
"Watch itea"...Jake muttered into his lip mike.
"This guy may be fool enough to turn into you."
Rita was the first to realize what was happening. She
felt the need to turn left to hold position. "The
ship is slowbigea"...she said. "I think he's stopped
his engines."
In a few seconds it became obvious that she was
correct. Rita backed away until the distance
between the cockpit and ship was about fifty
feet.
"I think he lost his nerve, Admiral."
"Look at the stuff on his deckea"...the copilot
said, pointing. "Looks like he pulled up a bunch
of warheads."
The freighter was drifting when the destroyer arrived a
half hour later and coasted to a stop several
hundred yards away. In minutes the destroyer had
a boat hi the water.
When armed Americans were standing on the
Wonsan's
deck, Jake tapped Rita on the shoulder.
"Let's go home."
"I listened to the tape from Alejo Vargas's
office this afternoonea"...Carmellini said to Chance. They were
walking the Prado looking for a place to eat dinner.
To have a decent selection and palatable food, the
restaurant would have to be a hard-currency place.
Although the best restaurants were in ramshackle
houses hi Old Havana, tonight Chance wanted
music, laughter, people.
"Someone told Vargas all about the break-in at the
university lab, the contamination, the dead lab worker.
They spent most of the day running the fans at the
lab, trying to lower the count of the stuff in the
air before they went in."
"What did they say about the dead man, why he
died?"
"That had them stumped. He was vaccinated. They
called hi a Professor Svenson."
"Olaf Svenson?"
"No one used a first name."
"It must be him. I've heard of him. Damned
potty old fool. He was at Cal Tech for
years. Thought he was at Colorado now. A
genius, almost won a Nobel Prize."...He
snapped his fingers. "That photo we gave
Bouchardthat must have been Svenson."
"Well, he is their main man down at the lab,
to hear the conversation at Vargas's office."
"So why did the lab worker die? Wasn't he
vaccinated?"
"The stuff mutated, according to the professor.
Mutated again, he said."
"Well, what the hell is it? Did they say that?"
"Some kind of polio."
"Polio doesn't kill that quicklyea"...Chance
objected.
"This kind does. The lab worker wasn't the first,
apparently. The professor wanted
to dissect him like the others but Vargas ordered the body