They clustered together under a small clump of bushes and conferred in soft whispers and hand movements. Their intelligence said that Miss Drake was hardly here against her will, although the Cubans might have been less than cooperative in letting her go. Too, given the prior incursion of the SEALs onto their island, it might be reasonable to expect a heavier guard on her. While they publicly hooted about any threat that a Cuban security force might pose to a team of SEALs, privately each man knew that an armed guard of any kind could pose a problem. That, and your luck going sour on you at the worst possible moment.
A few minutes of observing the compound did much to allay their fears.
Although the base blazed with lights, there was evidently only one patrol, and he was a slackard at best, criminally negligent at worst.
The Cuban patrolled at regular intervals, pacing his way easily around the compound in continuous circles. With a nightscope, Huerta watched him, noting how the man kept his attention centered on the lighted areas, never peering beyond the fence into the dark shadows surrounding the compound.
The Cuban nodded, satisfied. It was doable.
With the arrival of the team outside the compound, leadership of the evolution had shifted to SEAL3. Sikes waited until he saw the hand signal, nodded acknowledgment, then darted silently forward. He was wearing the nighttime version of woodland green cammies, a combination of burnt green and dark gray that made him part of the night. He darted twenty feet across open land, then settled down into the grass surrounding the fence. A few quick experiments told him their intelligence was accurate it wasn’t electrified, a relief, even though the SEALs had come prepared to deal with that eventuality if necessary.
Garcia joined him moments later and pulled an insulated set of wire snips out of his back pocket. Two minutes later, there was a SEAL-sized hole in the wire fence.
Sikes and Garcia squiggled through it, found cover, and waited for Huerta and Carter to join them. Operating in teams of two, they proceeded leapfrog fashion through the dark and shadows, blending in with the night when they could, taking cover when they couldn’t.
The security guard was almost painfully easy to avoid.
The cement building was locked from the outside by a heavy padlock.
Nothing fancy, nothing complicated, but effective. They made a quick circuit of the building, verifying that there were no windows in it, then turned back to the problem of the lock. A shot from a pistol would have destroyed it, but even their silencers would have been easily detectable in the quiet Cuban night.
Garcia produced the snips that had dealt with the fence around the compound and fitted them experimentally around the lock’s shaft. He bore down, squeezing the blades together, but made little impression on the metal. Huerta watched patiently for a few moments, then gently shoved him aside.
He took the handles to the snips in his two massive paws, his hands enveloping them completely. Sikes watched in awe as Huerta bore down, knots of muscles and blood vessels popping out at odd angles all over his hands and arms. The metal blades whined slightly as they bit into the steel, complained, and suddenly met with a sharp click.
Huerta twisted the rest of the lock off the door and tossed it to Garcia. Sikes shook his head, then put his hand on the doorknob.
It is always difficult to tell how hostages will react, even more so when they are members of the media. There is a well-known phenomenon, the Stockholm Syndrome, in which hostages begin identifying with their captors, to the extent of even resisting rescue. Sikes wondered if such would be the case with Miss Drake.
He shook his head. No, no way. Their biggest problem would be getting her out without letting her catch it all on film. These reporters just who the hell did they think they were? A spur of anger cut through his concentration, distracting him. She was here by her own actions, but her willful disobedience of her nation’s embargo on Cuba was now endangering his life and that of his men, plus the team on the other side of the island headed for the downed pilot.
Was it worth it? No, she probably wasn’t but the pilot sure as hell was.
He shoved the door open quietly and stepped into the room, still a ghost. It was stark, furnished only with a bed and linen. A door off to the right appeared to lead to a bathroom.
Pamela Drake was asleep. She was lying on her stomach, her head cushioned in one elbow, the pillow partially shielding her eyes. It also covered her ear, making it unlikely that she’d heard them enter the room. He motioned the other men in, out of immediate line of sight, then quietly shut the door so that it would appear normal from the outside. The only problem would be if the sentry came close enough to observe that the lock was now missing from the door. Given his brief observation of the man’s performance, he doubted that was a probability.
Crossing the room in a few steps, Sikes knelt quietly by the bed. He shook the mattress slightly, trying to rouse her without bringing her to full consciousness. Many times he’d found that actually touching sleeping hostages had startled them so much that they’d screamed, thus bringing unwanted attention to the rescue operation.
Pamela moaned and rolled over onto her back, and her eyelids fluttered.
He shook the bed again.
Her eyelids slammed upward and she rolled to the right, freezing as she saw the man kneeling next to her bed. He felt her eyes travel over his uniform quickly, noting the lack of insignia.
“SEALs?” she finally whispered.
He nodded grudging approval of her quiet voice and quick grasp of the situation. Whatever else she was, this woman was no dummy. Time for you to go home, ma’am.”
Pamela sat up in bed, gathering the sheet around her defensively.
“What makes you think I want to go home?”
Sikes rocked back on his heels. “The admiral thought” “Tombstone, was it?” Her voice was sharp and slightly louder. “Coming to rescue the fair damsel again, is he? Well, you just head back and tell the admiral that I think I can take care of myself. I got in here on my own, I can get out. Now go away. You’re interrupting my beauty sleep.” She lay down again and turned her back to him, pulling the sheets up around her neck.
Sikes sighed. This mission was becoming more of a pain in the ass every second. “Ma’am, I don’t think I can let you do that,” he said gently. “There’s some things you need to know.”
“Are you going to make me leave by force?” she asked, still not turning to face him.
“There’s a strike inbound on the base. We don’t recommend you stick around for it.”
“I already survived one.”
“You won’t survive two.” Sikes made his voice deadly certain. “Not from our weapons they’re as accurate as you report them to be. If they hit what they’re supposed to, this area’s going to be lousy with nuclear debris.”
“We’re shooting a nuclear weapon?”
He saw her go stiff under the sheet. “Not us. Conventional munitions only. But what’s stored in those weapons is dirty weapons, ma’am, real dirty. Some nukes, maybe some biological. Certainly some chemical ones. And they’re all capable of reaching the United States. You want to come back when it’s all over, hell, I’ll help you talk them into it.
But for now, I think you’re going to want to be out of here when it goes down. At least long enough to find out what’s in those boxes.”
“You saw my report?”
The question surprised him, but not for long. He forced himself to sound calm. “It was used for an intelligence briefing, ma’am. I figure,” he said, an idea suddenly occurring to him, “that that’s what you intended. That wasn’t a mistake, was it? Getting all that in the background?”