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Coonts, Stephen - Jake Grafton 7 - Cuba

Page 52

by Cuba (lit)


  The muzzle flash strobed the darkness, and revealed

  Santana swinging the butt of his rifle, swinging it

  at Carmellini's head.

  He tried to duck but the rifle struck his shoulder and

  sent him sprawling. He held on to the pistol,

  triggered two more shots, which came like giant

  thunderclaps, deafening him with their roar.

  The flashlight was gone, lost when he fell. His

  left shoulder was on fire where the rifle butt

  struck him, his arm numb. He could hear Santana

  running, shuffling along, the sound fading.

  He felt for the flashlight with his right hand, couldn't

  find it, paused and listened and searched some more. There!

  He picked it up without releasing the pistol. Now

  he put the pistol between his legs, tried to work the

  flashlight with his right hand. It was broken. He set

  it on the floor out of the way.

  He listened, heard the faintest of sounds, then

  nothing.

  Tommy Carmellini slowly got to his feet and

  began moving back the way he had come, after

  Santana.

  "Showtime One Oh Two, Battlestar Strike.

  You are cleared to engage the bogey with a gun.

  Weapons free gun only, acknowledge."

  "Weapons free gun only, ayeea"...sung out

  Stiff Hardwick, and jammed his throttles forward

  to the mechanical stop. The engines wound up quickly;

  Stiff eased the throttles to the left, stroked the

  afterburners. The big fighter leaped forward and began

  closing the five-mile gap between the two planes.

  Carlos Corrado glanced over his left shoulder,

  for the hundredth time, expecting to see nothing, but this time

  he saw the plume of flame that was Hardwick's

  burners.

  The Yanqui must be right behind me.

  Enough!

  He slammed the throttles to the hilt, dropped the

  left wing and pulled right up to six Gs. The

  MiGo-29 then showed why it was one of the most

  maneuverable fighters in the worldit turned on a

  dime.

  As it did, Carlos Corrado fought the G and

  flipped his radar switch to the transmit position.

  Leveling up after a 180-degree turn, the radar

  scope came alive ... and there was the

  Americanclose. Too close! Jesus Christ!

  Without time to even consider the problem, Carlos

  Corrado punched off an Aphid missile, which

  roared off the rail in a blaze of fire straight

  for the F-14.

  Sailor Karnow saw the bogey wind into a left

  turn, and called it to Stiff, who instinctively

  lowered his right wing to stay in the MiGo's rear

  quadrant.

  What Stiff wasn't prepared for was the

  unbelievable quickness with which the MiGo-29 whipped

  around and pumped off a missile.

  The sight of the fiery exhaust of the Aphid missile

  coming at him from eleven o'clock and the wailing of the ECM in

  his ears, telling him that he was being painted by a

  MiGo-

  29 pulse-doppler radar, reached Stiff

  Hardwick's brain at the very same instant. Before

  Stiff could react in any way, the missile shot

  over his canopy inches above his head. Fortunately

  for Stiff and Sailor and their progeny yet

  unborn,, the Aphid had not flown far enough to arm, so

  the missile passed harmlessly.

  "Holy shit!"

  Sailor shouted into her oxygen mask.

  Stiff Hardwick hadn't spent the last four years

  flying fighters for nothinghis instincts were finely

  honed too. As the Aphid went over his head, he

  jerked the nose of his fighter toward the closing

  MiGo, visible only as a bogey symbol on the

  HUD, and pulled the trigger on the stick. The

  20-mm M-61 six-barreled cannon in the

  nose lit up like a searchlight as a river of fire

  streaked into the darkness.

  Carlos Corrado saw the finger of God reaching for

  him and slammed his stick back, then sideways. The

  MiGo's nose came up steeply and the right wing

  dropped in a violent whifferdill that carried it up

  and out of the way of the fiery stream of cannon shells.

  Completing the roll, Carlos Corrado pushed the

  nose of his MiGo downward, toward the city, and let

  the plane accelerate without afterburners, the light of

  which would beacon to the American. Or Americans,

  if there were more than one, which was probable.

  Carlos pulled out just above the rooftops and thundered

  across the city. He had lost track of the

  enemy's location

  because he could not see him visually or with his radar.

  He desperately needed his GCI site just now

  to call the enemy's position, but of course the GCI

  people had been knocked off the air and were either dead or

  drunk.

  Still, the contest appealed to his sporting instincts.

  He decided to try for one in-parameters missile

  shot before he called it a night and went looking for a

  bar.

  His radar was still on, still looking at nothing.

  Without further ado, Carlos pulled the stick back

  and let the MiGo's nose climb. Up past the

  vertical, G on hard, the MiGo used its

  fabulous turning rate to fly half of a very tight

  loop. Upside down with its nose on the

  horizon, Carlos slammed the stick sideways and

  rolled upright The F-14 was out to his left,

  turning toward him. Corrado flipped his switches

  to select an infrared missile, turned toward the

  American until he got a tone in his headset,

  and squeezed it off.

  Then he killed his radar and turned hard ninety

  degrees right to exit the fight.

  "Oh, noea"...Stiff Hardwick swore as

  he saw the missile coming at him from ten o'clock.

  He lit his afterburners and dropped the right wing

  slightly and willed the Tomcat to accelerate,

  trying to force the missile into an overshoot, while

  he punched off chaff and flares with a button on his

  right throttle.

  The missile tried to make the turn but couldn't.

  Perhaps the IR seeker in the nose locked onto a

  flare. In any event, as it flew past the tail

  of the Tomcat its proximity fuse caused the

  warhead to detonate, spraying shrapnel into empty

  air.

  The MiGo-29 was gone. It had disappeared.

  "You know, dickwickea"...Sailor Karnow told her

  pilot, "I think God is really trying to tell us

  something."

  Carlos Corrado knew that he had had more than his

  share of luck this night. Although he was flying a

  tremendously maneuverable airplane, the

  electronic detection and coun-

  termeasures systems were generations behind the F-14 that

  had followed him around. Why the F-14 had not shot

  him down he couldn't guess, but he was wise enough to know

  that luck sorely tried is bound to turn.

  He decided to put his MiGo on the ground

  while it was still in one piece. Fortunately there-was

  an airport nearby, Havana's Jos6 Marti

  Internati
onal, right over there in the middle of that vast

  dark area. Since there was a war on, someone had

  turned off the runway lights.

  Corrado pulled off the power, let the fighter slow

  to gear speed, then snapped the landing gear down.

  Flaps out, retrim, and swing out for an approach

  to where the runway ought to be. On final he turned

  on his-landing light and searched the darkness below.

  There! Concrete.

  He squeaked the MiGo on and got on the brakes.

  He left the landing light on to taxi.

  "Showtime One Oh Two, the MiGo is landing at

  Jos6 Marti."...That was the air force controller hi

  the Sentry AWACS plane.

  Stiff Hardwick was climbing through five thousand

  feet at full power when he heard that

  transmission. Fortunately he had committed a

  map of the Havana area to memory, so he knew

  precisely where Jose Marti International lay.

  He cut the power and lowered the nose.

  "What in hell do you think you're doing,

  Stiff"..."...Sailor demanded.

  "Shut up."

  "We barely got enough fuel to make the tanker as it

  is, pea brain. You go swarming around down here for a

  few more minutes begging that Cuban to give you-the

  shaft and we'll be swimming home."

  "I'm gonna get that Cuban son of a bitch.

  Gonna strafe him on the ground. Gonna kill that

  bastard deader than last week's beer."

  Sailor Karnow knew the pilot was serious. Here

  was a

  frustrated man if ever she had met one. As the

  plane dove for the black hole that was Jose'

  Marti International, she tried to reason with Stiff:

  "You can't shoot the guy on the ground at a

  civilian airport. There's no lights down there,

  you might kill a bunch of civilians!"

  "There he is! I can see the fucking guy

  taxiinghe's still got his landing light on!

  There he is!"

  Sailor Karnow was losing her patience.

  "You pull that trigger, Jake Grafton will cut

  your balls off, you silly son of a bitch!"

  His

  Stiff Hardwick knew the jig was up. Sailor

  was right he hated women who were always right. He reached

  up and safetied the master arm switch. And

  kept the Tomcat coming down.

  Edged the throttles forward as he dropped lower and

  lower, boresighting that barely moving plane down there

  with the single landing light shining forward. The needle on the

  airspeed indicator crept past Mach 1.

  The radio altimeter deedled, he kept going

  lower....

  "Don't fly into the ground, you idiotff"...Sailor

  pleaded from the rear cockpit.

  Thfe fear in her voice probably saved both their

  lives. Stiff eased back on the stick just a

  smidgen, an almost microscopic amount, so the

  F-14 rose another ten feet above the ground as

  it roared over Carlos Corrado's taxiing

  MiGo-29 like a giant supersonic missile.

  The American fighter passed a mere four feet

  over the MiGo's tail; the shock wave shattered the

  MiGo's canopy.

  Then Stiff pulled the stick back in his lap and

  lit the burners and went rocketing upward like a bat

  out of hell.

  "Better get on the horn and get us a tanker,

  baby, or you're gonna be my date in a life

  raft tonight."

  Sailor had the last word. "Honest

  to God, dickwick, you oughta think about taking up

  another line of work."

  Tommy Carmellini wondered if he had managed

  to put a bullet into Santana. That was a lot

  to hope for, but still... three shots, and the man no more

  than five, six feet away?

  With luck.

  A man needs luck as he goes through life.

  Life is timing, and timing is- experience plus

  luck.

  Carmellini wondered just how much experience sneaking

  along dark corridors Santana had had through the

  years. He hadn't impressed Carmellini as the

  sneaking type. One never knew, though.

  He found himself moving slower and slower, listening with his

  eyes closed caret concentrating. He could

  hear...

  Breathing. Corning from somewhere ahead. Definitely

  breathing.

  Jake Grafton had Rita circle out over the

  harbor while he talked to other airplanes he had

  inbound. After a few minutes, he told her to fly

  toward the university.

  Looking through the infrared viewer, he could see that the

  streets around the university were deserted.

  Not a car or truck moving, none parked, no people.

  Alejo Vargas was down there, all right.

  Jake got out of the copilot's seat and went aft

  to talk to Hector Sedano, who was sitting beside

  Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt. Jake

  pulled one of the Spanish-speaking marines along

  to translate.

  "Do you know of the biological-warfare laboratory

  in the science building of the university?"

  No, Hector didn't. Jake took a minute

  to explain.

  "My government has sent me to destroy the polio

  viruses that are in that lab, and the equipment that was used

  to grow them. Do you have any objection to me doing that?"

  Hector did not, as long as innocent lives were not

  lost unnecessarily.

  Talking loudly over the aircraft's high internal

  noise, Jake continued while the young marine, a

  buck sergeant, translated: "I promise you,

  we will proceed with all due

  care. The stakes are very high, those viruses must be

  destroyed. If you will join me in this humanitarian

  effort representing the new Cuban government, I

  believe the job can be done with a minimum loss of

  life."

  'Tell me of this laboratoryea"...Hector Sedano

  demanded. "What you know of it, and how it came to be."

  The feeling was coming back in Tommy Carmellini's

  left arm. It hurt like hell now, like someone had

  tried to carve on his shoulder with a dull knife.

  Ignore the arm. Listen!

  He froze. He hadn't realized it, but there were

  cells on both- sides of the corridor, cells with

  open doors.

  Santana must be in one of them. Which one?

  A sound like a sigh.

  He heard it! From the left, maybe ten feet.

  Frozen like a chunk of solid ice, Carmellini

  didn't move. He continued to breathe, but very

  shallowly, taking all the time in the world.

  Minutes passed. How many he couldn't say.

  He could hear the murmur of the mob somewhere below. No

  doubt they had turned all the prisoners loose.

  The other man was being extremely quiet.

  Extraordinarily so.

  Carmellini finally began moving, reluctantly,

  ever so slowly, like the shadow of the sun as it marches

  across a stone floor. And he made about the same

  amount of noise.

  .he was in the cell, feeling his way ...

  when his left foot touched something that shouldn't be there.

  Like a cat he reacted, the pistol booming fas
ter

  than thought.

  In the muzzle flash he saw that Santana lay

  stretched on his back on the floor, his eyes open

  to the ceiling.

  The bastard was dead.

  From the cockpit Jake Grafton could see the

  crowds below on the streets. Rita had the Osprey

  flying at 2,000 feet, and

  *

  Jake could see the swarms of people with his naked eye,

  without using the infrared viewer, though he used it

  occasionally to check on the progress of the crowd.

  Rita swung the Osprey over the university

  district, and he picked out the science building.

  He watched the mass of humanity flow into the

  district, surge along toward the science building.

  He used the viewer, steadied it carefully and

  cranked up the magnification. Yes, the knot of

  humanity at the front of the crowd, that had to be around

  Ocho. El Ocho, as the Cubans called him.

  The boy was fearless. This afternoon when Jake explained

  to Ocho that there was a strong probability that the

  soldiers would refuse to fire on the

  civilians, might even disobey their officers if

  ordered to fire, Ocho merely nodded.

  Perhaps the ordeal in the ocean had toughened Ocho, or

  perhaps he had always been impervious to fear. That

  emotion affected people in an extraordinary variety of

  ways, Jake knew.

  Looking through the viewer it was difficult to be sure,

  but apparently soldiers were joining the crowd with Ocho

  as he walked along.

  He wanted to let Hector accompany Ocho, but

  his better judgment told him no. A single

  sniper, one frightened soldier, and the last best hope

  of Cuba might be dead in the street. With the

  viruses still in that lab, that was a risk Jake

  Grafton was not yet prepared to take.

  As he watched, he wished he were with Ocho. That

  walk must be sublime, he thought.

  Ocho Sedano knew a great many people because he had

  spent years accompanying his brother to speeches,

  sitting in planning sessions, helped him dig

  holes to hide weapons. Many more people, however, knew

  Ocho. Every Cuban between eight and eighty knew of the

  star pitcher who threw the sizzling fastbalis and hit

  home runs when his turn

  came to bat. Many people recognized him,

  shouted to him as he walked along, then decided

  to shake his hand and join the throng behind him.

  As the human river turned the corner onto the

  avenue that led to the university, a knot of soldiers

  left the shelter of a doorway and came toward

  Ocho. He didn't stop, kept striding along the

 

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