The water was almost blood temperature. It soothed his strained muscles like a hot tub, coaxing the pain and soreness out of his back and legs. Bird Dog gradually relaxed into the flotation device, letting it carry his weight.
It was over now for him at least for this battle.
And maybe permanently for Gator. Every time Bird Dog crested a wave, he scanned the sea around him, looking for the distinctive orange color that would pinpoint his backseater’s location.
There was no trace of him.
He felt his mind starting to drift, lulled into an odd state of relaxation by the warm water and the release of tension following his violent ejection from the aircraft. It felt so odd, to float so peacefully on the water while to the east the rest of the squadron still battled off the Cuban aggressors.
He could hear his blood pounding in his ears, a gentle rhythmic whop-whop that he jerked violently upright in the water, shifting his gaze from the sea to the air. That was no heartbeat he recognized the sound all too well, although he’d never heard it from exactly this angle.
An odd, ungainly insect was hovering mere inches above the water-at least at first glance that’s what it looked like.
As he refocused himself out of the temporary euphoria that always followed unexpected survival, the shape resolved itself into the ungainly figure of the SAR helicopter.
He felt a wild surge of hope, a reorientation toward reality. From that altitude, he’d have an excellent view of miles and miles of surrounding ocean. They’d be able to spot Gator immediately.
At least, one part of his mind said, they would if his backseater’s seat span had deployed properly. And if Gator hadn’t impacted the canopy on the way out of the aircraft.
And if Bird Dog shoved away the myriad possibilities of what could have gone wrong with Gator’s egress from the aircraft. It didn’t pay to think about it not now, not with the helicopter inbound. He hoped if they saw Gator, they’d vector over and pull his backseater out of the water first. He watched for any jink in the aircraft’s course, hoping it would veer away to pursue some other target. But no, it bore steadily in on him.
Five minutes later, the rescue swimmer plunged into the ocean beside him. The water was spread out flat around Bird Dog, evidence of the powerful downdraft from the helicopter’s blades. As he horse-collared up into the helicopter, Bird Dog was already shouting questions to the pilot. He fumbled with the catches, flung the rescue device away from him, and stumbled to the edge of the open hatch. A crew member grabbed him, slapped a safety line on him.
“You’re not going back into the water. Not after I just hauled you out of it.”
“Leave me alone.” Bird Dog scanned the water frantically, then darted to the other side of the cabin and peered out the small window. Miles of ocean stretched out before him. Blue, solidly blue except for tiny scraps of white topping the waves.
There was no sign of Gator.
SIXTEEN
“You’re out of options. Admiral.” Senator Williams swiveled away from the tactical display. His presence here in the Joint Chiefs of Staff war room was unusual, but not unprecedented. As a member of the military subcommittee, he had access on a need-to-know basis. This, Williams figured, was the most need-to-know opportunity that had arisen since the original Cuban Missile Crisis incident.
Admiral Loggins’s voice got tight. “Jesus, you are insane!
Nuclear weapons? And in Cuba? If we use the UAV option, the fallout alone will have consequences in the United States.”
Williams shook his head. “Not so. If you’ve been listening to the experts, the chances of radiation reaching American soil are minimal.”
“I have pilots in the air right now,” Loggins thundered.
“What do your so-called experts say about them? Are they in any danger? You know as well as I do that the EMP is liable to knock them all out of the air! I’m not taking that chance not today, not ever.
They don’t deserve that.”
“Hard choices require hard men,” Senator Williams shot back. “You think it was easy for my predecessors, deciding to leave those POWs in enemy hands after each war? To sacrifice men and women in combat? Do you think we’re that heartless?”
And that. Admiral Loggins realized, was essentially the question. Did he really think that the good faith on the part of men such as Senator Williams was sufficient for him to entrust the safety of the men and women under his command to them? Would Williams make good decisions, decisions that would strengthen the nation rather than weaken it? Or did the larger picture” national strategy,” as Williams was fond of referring to it outweigh the safety of the men in the air, and his commitment to keep them alive?
“It’s set up now, isn’t it?” Williams asked.
Loggins nodded. “We’ve already programmed the vector to the command post. And the link between Arsenal and the missile is working well.
All we have to do is authorize the divert and it’ll be on its way. But I think we ought toNO!” Admiral Loggins grabbed at Williams’s hand, which was poised over the execute switch. The admiral’s fingers grazed the back of Williams’s hand as me senator quickly flipped the lever into execute position.
Four rows of green lights flickered on Loggins’s console as the UAV ran its self-check verifying what it had known all along, that everything was in working order and commenced executing its last given instruction.
As an additional safety precaution, the UAV was programmed to lock out further orders after it received a go signal, to prevent the possibility of enemy jamming or cryptological deception making it deviate from its course.
Loggins watched in horror as the UAV gently rolled out of its orbit, shuddered, and pitched its deadly rounded snout up. He saw the exhaust spit a whiff of black smoke, then steady into a clear, turbulent blast of hot gas. Seconds later, the missile was no longer under visual observation and could only be tracked by its small blip on the radar scope.
That, too, was intermittent, given the Stealth technology of the missile.
“Dear God, what have you done?” Loggins gasped. “You had no right to ” Williams leaned back in his chair and smiled, an ugly, twisted parody of a pleasant expression. “If you had the guts, you’d have done it yourself. Remember that, Loggins.
Remember that.”
“Stoney, it’s starting a rollout!” The first trace of excitement entered Tomboy’s voice.
“I see it, I see it I’ve got it now.” Tombstone identified the UAV’s green blip on his heads-up display. “How long?”
“Minutes. Stoney, if that missile detonates on target, we don’t have a chance. Neither do those men in the air to the south.”
“I know it.” Tombstone jammed the throttles forward into full afterburner. “It should be accelerating keep giving me range and bearings to it. Tomboy, as well as a vector to intercept. There’s going to be a very small window when it’s within range.”
“Sidewinder,” Tomboy suggested.
Stoney clicked the mike twice. “Roger. It’s the only one reliable enough to trust for one shot.”
And one shot is all he’d have. One chance to knock the missile out of the air, to send it tumbling helplessly to land before the nuclear warhead armed, to detonate it into a conventional explosion in the atmosphere without invoking the deadly hellfire contained in its nose cone. One chance, one shot.
“You’re insane,” Loggins blurted out. Suddenly, the sheer lunacy of their position struck him full force. How had he gotten involved in this, one part of his mind wailed. To wander so far from the traditional honors and values of the United States Navy, to allow political control to assert itself over the very targeting decisions the military made? If anyone ought to know better, it should be you, he chided himself. After Vietnam, you swore you would never let this happen again. Not only did you let it happen, but you’re part of it.