Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

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