"Oh… my God!" the navy flight leader shouted through the confusion. "One of the sixteens is down — his Sidewinder detonated coming off the rail!"
The president grimaced, pressing his earphones tighter. He could hear the anguish in the pilot's voice.
"We got another cruiser dow—" a voice radioed, cut off by a separate radio transmission.
"He's in his chute — good chute!"
"Ghostrider's in!" the VF-142 Tomcat leader radioed, seeing the Air Force F-16s pull up. "They got another missile down." The second AS-15, like the first, had exploded in a blazing fireball.
Jarrett looked over at the general, then listened with heightened anxiety. He heard the navy flight leader announce that their missiles were away.
"Fox Two!"
The president held his breath, waiting.
"Miss!" the pilot radioed. "Two — get it!"
"Come on, damnit," Jarrett said under his breath. He was unaware that he was clutching the edge of his console in a death grip. The seconds passed slowly as the radio chatter quieted, then ceased.
"Okay," the F-14 wingman called. "We had a proximity explosion… don't know if we have a kill."
"Say again," the Hawkeye controller ordered, unsure of the situation. The ALCM, now seven miles east of Key Largo, was still on his radarscope.
"The missile — our Sidewinder," the Tomcat pilot said, "exploded close to the target. The cruise missile appeared to oscillate, then flew into these buildups."
"Do you have a visual?" the distraught Hawkeye coordinator asked, knowing that the fighters were too close to the coast to launch more missiles.
"Negative!" the navy flight leader radioed. "It flew into the clouds — appeared to be descending. Keep us in trail, and we'll nail it when it comes out the bottom."
The president listened to the frantic E-2C controller give the F-14 crews, joined by the three remaining F-16 pilots, vectors to the west of the AS-15. The seconds continued to stretch into a minute before the ALCM descended below the billowing cumulonimbus cloud.
"Tally! Tally!" the air force flight leader yelled. "Cajun lead is in!" The pilot raced across Biscayne Bay, closing on the ALCM at 520 knots. He placed the pipper on the descending missile, squeezed the trigger, twitched the control stick gently, and expended his entire 515 rounds at the cruise missile.
"Got it!" the jubilant pilot radioed, watching the ALCM, minus the tail, cartwheel out of the sky. "It's going into the bay!"
"Go vertical!" the Tomcat leader radioed, reefing his F-14 into a chest-crushing 6 1/2-g climb. "It may deto—"
His warning was cut short when the conventional-warhead missile, nine miles south of the Miami Seaquarium, exploded in Biscayne Bay.
Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Matthews, growing more weary by the minute, prepared to alter course toward the Soviet airfield on Kamchatka Peninsula. He had watched the distant lights of Cabo San Lucas pass off the right wing fifteen minutes earlier.
Matthews, noticing that the Russian general was beginning to show the effects of fatigue, glanced back at Simmons. The technician's eyes were wide open and he sat up straight in his seat, still vigilant and cautious. Matthews, knowing that daylight would catch them in approximately three hours, had to figure a way to stop the flight.
A haggard President Jarrett sat alone in his suite, listening to his defense secretary on a secure line. The vice president, at Raven Rock, and the secretary of state, at Mount Weather, were also listening. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were monitoring the conversation.
"Goddamnit, Bernie," the president said, hunched over his desk, "I want containment… saturation bombing until Castro is completely neutralized… on his knees. He's going to pay a heavy price for the men we've lost."
"Yes, Mister President," Kerchner replied, resting his head on his left hand. "We have twenty-three more B-1 s en route to Barksd—"
"I'm aware of that," Jarrett interrupted tersely. "I also want the Navy to deep-six — to sink every Cuban warship and patrol vessel. I don't want anything flying or floating when we're finished."
"Yes, sir," Kerchner responded, glancing across the table at the tense faces of the Joint Chiefs. "Mister President," the defense secretary continued, "the carrier battle groups are preparing for a second Alpha Strike. We anticipate a launch in two hours fifteen minutes. The strike will be a maximum effort, utilizing the reserve aircraft, too."
"Sam," Jarrett said without acknowledging his defense secretary, "what is Ignatyev's position?"
"Mister President," Gardner answered from Mount Weather, "the Kremlin is pursuing an investigation of KGB officials, but they are flatly refuting any involvement. President Ignatyev contends that our pilots defected to Cuba, and that Castro is operating on his own."
Gardner hesitated a moment, expecting the president to reply. The secretary of state cleared his throat and continued. "Sir, Ignatyev has completely absolved the Soviet Union from any responsibility in the B-2 affair."
The secretary of defense was listening to Sam Gardner when his CIA line buzzed. He switched off the speaker phone and picked up the receiver. "Kerchner."
"Norm Lasharr," the director said, sounding out of breath. "We've just heard from our operative — from San Julian."
"Just a second, Norm," Kerchner interrupted. "The president is on the line… I'll put you through." Kerchner punched the conference call button and waited for a pause. "Mister President, Norm Lasharr is on the line with an update from our San Julian operative." The president spoke quickly. "Go ahead, Norm."
"Sir, we have recovered our agent," Lasharr said hurriedly. "They crash-landed off the coast near Cancun… out of gas, but they're okay. The agent confirms that the B-2 departed San Julian around four o'clock this morning. He couldn't tell the direction of flight, but he's positive it took off."
"Okay," Jarrett responded. "Stay on the line."
"Yes, sir."
The president addressed the entire group. "Gentlemen, we've got an entirely different situation now. A hundred and eighty out. Bernie, let's stand down from the second air strike and concentrate on finding the B-2."
"Yes, sir," Kerchner replied. "We need to be very cautious though, in regard to retaliatory strikes."
"Of course," Jarrett agreed, remembering what General Rafael del Pino, who had defected from Cuba during 1986, had told the CIA. Fidel Castro had planned an air strike against a nuclear power installation in southern Florida if the United States had blockaded Cuba during the Grenada invasion.
"Bernie," the president continued, "we want to maintain our battle groups on station for the time being. Do you have any idea where the B-2 might be at the present time?"
Kerchner had been calculating the possibilities but kept coming back to one point. "Sir, my bet is that they're flying away from the sun, to stay in the dark as long as possible. We have to assume," Kerchner said slowly, "that they're counting on getting the bomber to a safe haven before we have time to find out it hasn't been destroyed in Cuba."
Jarrett thought a moment. "Any other theories?"
"Mister President," the vice president said from Raven Rock, "Secretary Kerchner is probably on the money. My guess is they're traveling west, or northwest-the quickest way to another hiding place with the least exposure to daylight."
"Bernie," Jarrett said calmly, "the B-2 has been airborne about three and a half hours. That has to put them out somewhere around seventeen to eighteen hundred miles."
"Yes, sir," Kerchner replied, thinking about possible contingencies.
Jarrett, sounding more upbeat, continued. "Okay, let's move. Bernie, get every aircraft we can muster airborne. We have to have a semicircle of airplanes, from the mid-Atlantic across North America to the western Pacific, beginning at a radius of two thousand miles from San Julian."