“A MiG-29,” Jake said.
“What’s he doing out here?” Toad wondered.
“Same thing as we are. Out flying around seeing what is what.”
“I thought the Cubans had retired their MiG-29s. Couldn’t keep paying the bills on ’em.”
“Well, at least one is still operational.”
Even as they watched, the MiG altered course to the left so that he would have a chance to turn in behind the F-14 when their flight paths converged.
Jake Grafton was suddenly sure he didn’t want the MiG behind him. The Soviets specifically designed the MiG-29 to be able to defeat the F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 in close combat; it was, probably, the second-best fighter in the world (the best being the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker). Jake altered course so the two planes would converge head-on.
What would the MiG pilot do?
If the Cuban pilot opened fire over the ocean, over a hundred miles from land, who would ever know?
“Sea Hawk, One Oh Four, are you getting this on tape?”
“Yes, sir. We’re recording.”
“This bogey is a MiG-29.”
“Roger that. We’ve been tracking him for twenty-five minutes now.”
The range was closing rapidly, but still Jake didn’t see the MiG. He looked at the target dot in the heads-up display, but the sky was huge and the Cuban fighter too far away, although it was almost as large as the F-14.
The MiG was about four miles away when Jake finally saw it, a winged silver glint that shot by just under his right wing. Jake Grafton disconnected the autopilot and slammed the stick over.
He pulled carefully, cleanly, craned his head and braced himself with his left hand as he kept the turning MiG in sight.
The Cuban fighter rolled out of his turn heading north. Jake leveled out on a parallel course. Careful not to point his nose at the Cuban, Jake let the Tomcat drift closer on a converging course.
When the planes were less than a hundred yards apart, he slowed the closure rate but kept moving in.
Finally the two planes were in formation with their wingtips about twenty yards apart.
“Look at that thing, would you?” Toad enthused. “Have you ever seen a more gorgeous airplane?”
“I hear it’s a real dream machine,” Jake agreed.
“Oh, baby, the lines, the curves … The Russians sure know how to design flying machines.”
“If this guy has to jump out of that thing,” Jake asked Toad, “do you think Cuban Air-Sea Rescue is going to come pick him up?”
“I doubt it,” Toad replied. “And I suspect he knows that.”
“He’s got a set of cojones on him,” Jake said. “Bet he can fly the hell out of that thing, too.”
In the Cuban fighter, Major Carlos Corrado took his time looking over the American plane. This was the first time he had ever seen an F-14. Amazing how big they were, with the two men and the missiles under the wings.
Carlos was lucky he had this hunk of hot Russian iron to fly, technical generations ahead of the MiG-19s and 21s that equipped the bulk of Cuba’s tactical squadrons, and he damn well knew it. Cuba owned three dozen MiG-29s and had precisely one operational — mis one — which Corrado kept flying by the simple expedient of cannibalizing parts from the others.
He checked his fuel. He had enough, just enough, to get home. Sure, he had no business being out here over the ocean, but he wanted to fly today and the Cuban ground control intercept (GCI) controller said the American was here. One thing led to another and here he was.
Now Carlos Corrado was on course to return to his base near the city of Cienfuegos, on Cuba’s southern coast. He checked the compass, the engine instruments, then turned back to studying the American plane, which hung there on the end of his wing as if it were painted on the sky.
A minute went by, then the man in the front seat of the American plane raised his hand and waved. Carlos returned the gesture as the big American fighter turned away to the right and immediately began falling behind. Carlos twisted his body in his seat to keep the F-14 in sight for as long as possible. Big as it was, the F-14 disappeared into the eastern sky with startling rapidity.
Carlos Corrado turned in his seat and eased the position of his butt.
The Americans were two or three technical generations beyond the Cubans, so far ahead that most Cuban military men regarded American capabilities as almost superhuman. They had read of the Gulf War, of the satellites and computers and smart weapons. Unlike his colleagues, Corrado was not frightened by the Americans. Impressed by their military capability, but not frightened.
If I were smarter, he thought now, I would be frightened
But the Americans and Cubans would never fight. They had not fought since the Bay of Pigs and doubtless never would. Castro would soon be gone and a new government would take over and Cuba would become a new American suburb, another little beach island baking in the sun south of Miami, Key Cuba. When that happy day came, Carlos Corrado told himself, he was going to America and get a decent flying job that paid real money.
Doña Maria Vieuda de Sedano’s daughters arrived first, in the early afternoon, to tidy up and do the cooking for the guests. They had married local men who worked the sugarcane and saw her every day. In truth, they looked after her, helped her dress, prepared her meals, cleaned and washed the clothes.
It was infuriating to be disabled, to be unable to do! The arthritis that crippled her hands and feet made even simple tasks difficult and complex tasks out of the question.
Doña Maria managed to shuffle to her favorite chair on the tiny porch without help. Her small house sat on the western edge of the village. From the porch she could see several of her neighbors’ houses and a wide sweep of the road. Across the road was a huge field of cane. A cane-cooking factory stood about a half mile farther west. When the harvest began, the stacks belched smoke and the fumes of cooking sugar drifted for miles on the wind.
Beyond all this, almost lost in the distance, was the blue of the ocean, a thin line just below the horizon, bluer than the distant sky. The wind coming in off the sea kept the temperature down and prevented insects from becoming a major nuisance.
The porch was the only thing Dona Maria really liked about the house, though after fifty-two years in residence God knows she had some memories. Small, just four rooms, with a palm-leaf roof, this house had been the center of her adult life. Here she moved as a young bride with her husband, bore her children, raised them, cried and laughed with them, buried two of the ten, watched the others grow up and marry and move away. And here she watched her husband die of cancer.
He had died … sixteen years ago, sixteen years in November.
You never think about outliving your spouse when you are young. Never think about what comes afterward, after happiness, after love. Then, too soon, the never-thought-about future arrives.
She sat on the porch and looked at the clouds floating above the distant ocean, almost like ships, sailing someplace ….
She had lived her whole life upon this island, every day of it, had never been farther from this house than Havana, and that on just two occasions: once when she was a teenage girl, on a marvelous expedition with her older sister, and once when her son Maximo was sworn in as the minister of finance.
She had met Fidel Castro on that visit to the capital, felt the power of his personality, like a fire that warmed everyone within range. Oh, what a man he was, tall, virile, full of life.
No wonder Maximo orbited Fidel’s star. His brother Jorge, her eldest, had been one of Castro’s most dedicated disciples, espousing Marxism and Cuban nationalism, refusing to listen to the slightest criticism of his hero. Jorge, dead of heart failure at the age of forty-two, another dreamer.