The voice over the speaker was in marked contrast to the way the captain felt. Two days ago, it could have been him.
There was a cool, calm note of command in it, the very choice of words and expressions denoting absolute confidence in the ability of the battle group to take this war to the enemy’s homeland. “And your operational capabilities?”
Captain Heather forced down a small spike of anger.
Admiral Magruder knew that there were dead sailors on his ship, men still waiting on the mess decks for medical attention. The admiral was just asking what he had to know, needed to know and had a right to know: How capable was the Arsenal ship of being a part of the battle plan?
“Most of the electronics are fine,” he answered, striving for professionalism. God, it was hard, when he’d just come back from visiting the wounded and dead on the decks below. “What was damaged we can bypass. The structural integrity of the launch tubes is another matter. I think we have some damage we won’t really know until we try to op-test them.”
“I don’t have to tell you we don’t have time for you to return to port and do that,” Magruder said slowly. The captain stared at the speaker as the admiral paused. “Give me your best guess. We’ll plan around it.”
The captain sucked in a sharp breath. “Admiral, the missile-launching capabilities of this ship are honeycombed together in the forward and aft parts of the ship even along the gangplanks, in some cases. If one cell is defective, it could pose a major fire hazard for us. Without shipyard-level testing, I can’t be sure.”
“It you’re looking for certainties, you’re in the wrong business. And I don’t think you are. There was a reason the Navy put you in command of Arsenal, and I suspect it’s because you’re superbly qualified for the position. This is why you get paid the big bucks. Captain. Or are you going to take the easy way out and declare your ship a total casualty?”
“I need to get back to you. Admiral,” the captain said, his voice frostily neutral. “Give me two hours. I’ll have a complete operational damage assessment for you then. And my decision as to whether there’s any chance at all we can still launch safely.”
“That will have to do,” the admiral said. “Make it sooner if you can.”
The circuit dissolved into a smooth hiss of static, the connection broken. The captain slammed the receiver down and jolted upright in his seat, slamming his hand into his open palm. After a few minutes, his anger became determination.
As much as he hated to admit it, the admiral was right.
The USS Arsenal was out here for one purpose to demonstrate the operational capabilities of a platform so far advanced over anything else the Navy had ever designed that it would change the shape of battles to come. And if it couldn’t survive a hit from the most primitive of naval weapons, an underwater mine, and continue fighting, then it might not be worth all the money that had been sunk into the program. It was up to him to demonstrate that now, one way or the other. He owed that to the men who’d died, to the men who’d lived, and to his country.
He could do it. He was convinced of that now. It was just a matter of making his crew believe that their ship could do it, too.
She was getting tired of being tossed into rickety jeeps and ferried about to obscure locations and even more fed up with the Cuban demands that she broadcast what they wanted when they wanted. This was not the way reporting was supposed to be, not at all. Where was her journalistic integrity, her independence, her right to seek out the story that her audience deserved? Not here not under these circumstances. The First Amendment and freedom of speech simply had no application in Cuba.
As the jeep jolted over the potholed, muddy road, an unwelcome thought intruded itself into her indignation.
Maybe there was a reason that Cuba was off-limits for American citizens. Maybe the United States government, and even the State Department, knew just a tiny bit more about the situation in this country than she and her cohorts did. Was it possible? Had she made a mistake?
No. The day she permitted the State Department to determine where and when she might go anywhere in the world was the day she might as well turn to narrating documentaries instead of broadcasting combat reports.
She gritted her teeth, partially out of determination but more to keep from biting her tongue as the jeep swerved on the road to avoid a tank, and concentrated on the story. She turned to her companion. “Where to this time? Are more SEALs invading? Or do you have some other facility you want to make sure the Americans avoid bombing? I’d give that last reason some rethinking, if I were you. It didn’t seem like it did much good last time.”
And so it hadn’t. Even though they’d known she was present at the last missile site, the Americans hadn’t been deterred from launching their precision strike weapons at it.
She felt an odd rush of loneliness, of abandonment. Even amongst the cynical, hard-bitten reporters, there had been an unspoken article of faith that they were Americans, that if they really got into trouble, the Marines would come and get them not launch weapons at them.
But wasn’t that a reciprocal obligation? If it were, she’d violated it sorely by broadcasting photos of the SEALs coming ashore. She supposed she couldn’t blame them if they were less than eager to come to her assistance now, since she’d almost gotten some of them killed. In a strange way, it hurt.
“Nothing quite that important this time. Miss Drake. Or maybe more so. You’ll have to judge for yourself,” Colonel Santana said cryptically. “It depends on what you define as important. This might meet that criterion.”
Pamela’s breath caught in her throat. “The actual missile sites?” she said softly. “It is, isn’t it?” For a moment, the glimmering ethical reflections she’d had a few moments earlier were blasted into oblivion by the all-encompassing drive to get the story. She’d been thwarted once, twice, but not this time, she vowed. Oh, no, this time she would send the story home, all wrapped up in a neat, succinct package for her viewers, telling them what happened, why it happened, and how they, the viewers, ought to feel about it. She could do that. She’d done it too many times already not to be able to.
“Why the big hurry now?” she said suddenly, still feeling the rush of euphoria from the prospect of this story.
“Something’s not making sense about this.”
He glanced at her, annoyed. “It-would make perfect sense to you if you were Cuban.”
Why don’t you try explaining it to me? she wheedled.
“That’s why I came here, you know to tell your story, not the one the American military establishment wants told.
Why waste this opportunity to build support for your cause?”
“Mine is not a cause!” he said, his voice harsh. “Causes are what rabble-rousers have. I represent the legitimate, elected government of the nation state of Cuba. That is what Aguillar and even Leyta and his rabble seem to forget. They are nothing more than troublemakers, and have no concept of what the Cuban people really want or need. We do.”
“You certainly won a landslide victory at each of the last elections,” she said carefully, “with a record voter turnout that the United States itself has never approached. Still, there was only one candidate on the ballot. Do you feel that weakens your position any?”
“The people wanted only one candidate. This was their opportunity to show their grateful support for our leader, not to engage in pointless bickering.” The jeep ground to a halt unexpectedly, throwing Pamela sideways against the hard metal strake. She hit her head sharply, felt a flash of pain, then pushed it aside to zoom back in on the man she was questioning. “So if the Cuban people feel that way, in the majority, why is this revolution taking place?”