“You can’t keep her here forever.” He touched his mustache, smoothing the stiff bristles down against his face. They sprang back up as soon as he released them, producing a bushy caterpillar on his upper lip.
“And why not?” Santana demanded. “We have control over everything she releases from here. And when she cooperates …” He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of resignation. “She travels without notifying her own authorities, no doubt. If something happens to her, who will be able to say that we are at fault? An illegal entry into our country, during a time of so much turmoil? The guerrilla sone cannot trust them. They are, as the Americans say, unpredictable.” He smiled, too-large white teeth catching the light from the bare lightbulb overhead.
“But what is the point?” the Libyan persisted. “I see no advantage to us. The longer she remains here, the sooner she will figure out she does not have freedom to travel where she wishes. Her interest in supporting us will burn away as the sea mist in the morning sun. There is no gain to us.”
Santana leaned forward across the table, resting his elbows on the rough wooden surface. He reached over, grasped the other man by the wrist, and pulled him toward him. The Libyan resisted slightly, but stopped with his brass button of his uniform rubbing against the edge of the table.
“No advantage? Think! The Americans understand this sort of situation now, after Desert Storm. There are Americans here, as you well know.
They come whether as news reporters or tourists, illegally sneaking into our country, still they come. You understand the implications from a tactical sense, at least?”
“I see no advantage,” Mendiria repeated. “Simply more victims if” He stopped abruptly and considered the matter. A slow smile, as large as the one on the face of his colleague, crossed his face. “Hostages.”
Santana nodded. “Exactly. If it comes to that. Do you really think that they will target their smart bombs on this facility, knowing that their star television reporter is being held here against her will?
Especially one so attractive as Miss Pamela Drake? While she might not have planned aiding our cause in this way, she will be instrumental in safeguarding us against cruise missiles.”
Mendiria sighed. “I was wrong to doubt you. My apologies. On the surface it seemed” Santana cut him off with a sharp gesture of his hand. “It is nothing between friends. We have lived close to America for a long time now. Perhaps we understand them a bit better, yes?
But you agree?”
The Libyan nodded vigorously.
“There she is. Admiral,” the S-3 pilot said over the ICS.
“Just where she’s supposed to be.”
Tombstone clicked a brief acknowledgment. Two thousand feet below them, as they entered the starboard marshal pattern, the USS Jefferson plowed through the seas like an implacable weapon.
He wondered if the Cubans knew just how much trouble they were in with Jefferson off their shore.
EIGHT
Computers atop the two rows of desks arrayed in the traditional horseshoe pattern beeped in sequence. The muted chirrup traveled from left to right, sounding at each computer terminal in turn until it leaped from the last desk in the semicircle, leaped past the long, now vacant anchor desk centered in front of the arc, leaped to the producer’s console in the glass-walled control room the bridge.
The alert immediately began making its rounds again, the circulating sound designed to jar even the most preoccupied reporter into attention. Flashing letters danced across the top of each monitor screen, identifying the incoming message as a breaking news bulletin from the Associated Press.
Only a few of the workstations were occupied at this hour. The two o’clock news program was a cut-in, and the anchors had already done their five live minutes of reading the news and fled the scene. So had the production crew, leaving the message alert to echo forlornly inside the dark, empty bridge. The instant the live portion gave way to the taped news rerun, giving them fifteen minutes of “free” time, nearly everyone ran for coffee, snacks, the bathroom.
Only a few of the writers remained in the quiet, soundproofed newsroom, working on scripts for the next show, getting on the telephone to finish gathering information for their assigned stories, using their terminals to check facts.
The computer beeped insistently, demanding that the operator attend to the incoming message traffic. Electronic transmission had long ago replaced the old yellow teletypes that chattered away in newsrooms.
“Will you look at this?” the reporter whistled quietly, hitting the keys which scrolled the full text of the bulletin down his screen.
“But I guess we should have expected it.”
He looked over at the producer who’d just walked in and motioned her over. “We’re going into Cuba. And you won’t believe who’s going to do the shooting.”
“Who the hell told the press?”
Batman stormed. The conference room was deadly silent.
“All right, all right, I know it wasn’t anyone here.” He turned to the SEAL team leader. “Can you get them out?”
“We know where the pilot is at least, we think we do.
With the right support, we can extract him.”
“When?”
The SEAL team leader shrugged. “We’ve been ready since Thursday.”
“We’re going to have to move you. Miss Drake,” the colonel said. He bowed slightly, and smiled.
“Of course, with your permission.”
“Why? What don’t you want me to see now?”
“You miss our point entirely. I know you’ve been watching the television coverage of this little conflict. Your country is planning on launching an attack. Staying where we are would be inadvisable at best.”
She glared at him. “You’re moving me to safety?” Scorn dripped out of her voice. “Because if that’s what you have in mind, forget it. I don’t run from a story not ever.”
“Not at all,” the colonel said smoothly, ignoring the tone of voice.
“In fact, we’re going to give you an opportunity to see the futility of it firsthand.”
Pamela stared up at the maze of girders, trying to discern a pattern.
The metal beams angled out in odd ways, no two exactly parallel. There must be major sections of it still missing, she thought, tracing out the pattern in her mind and trying to match it to any other military equipment she’d ever seen before. Nothing immediately sprang to mind except She turned to the colonel. “These are missile launchers, aren’t they?” It was more of a statement than a question.
A small frown crossed his face. “What is it to you?”
“Large missile launchers,” she insisted. “In fact, the only thing comparable I’ve seen was in Germany, the housings for the short-range tactical nuclear weapons aimed at the Soviet Union.” She watched his face carefully, searching for the confirmation she wanted. She found it.
“You will tape the next report from here,” the colonel ordered. “This will make a fine background, will it not?” he said, gesturing at the girders.
“They’ll know you’ve got them. You know the United States will never tolerate this.”
“They already know. Do you believe that we do not understand your satellite operations?”
