Two thousand meters away, the world exploded. One moment there was only the demanding keen of the missiles, the next a cacophony of noise and flame and fire. The earth blew up, shooting gouts of dirt and foliage into mushroom clouds of debris speckled with fire and metal.
Shrapnel shot out at all angles, slamming into the structures and vehicles around the missile sites.
The compression wave from the explosion caught her first, even before the noise had a chance to deafen her. It slammed her against the concrete, smashing the back of her head against the rough-laid surface.
She felt consciousness fade, and wavered on the edge of sanity. The microphone dropped from her hand unnoticed, and she paused for a minute, held against the building by the shock wave before sliding down to join it in a graceful heap.
Consciousness returned sometime later. She opened her eyes slowly, feeling raw and scratched, barely able to make sense of the images her eyes were transmitting to her brain.
Around her, the world was silent. The green fields, the awkward and ungainly missile launchers, were gone. In their place, huge craters spattered the landscape, and a thick dust made the air almost unbreathable.
She groaned, tried to shove herself up on her knees with one hand.
There was a sharp pain in her ribs, followed by the realization that every part of her body was dull and aching. She let it overwhelm her for a moment, then shoved it away, grim determination flooding her.
Along with it came a strange euphoria, a gratitude that she’d survived.
Life seemed sweet. Precious even, in a way it never had before.
The men scattered around her were starting to move as well, their groans and involuntary yelps of pain echoing her own. She felt along the ground, searching for her microphone, then looked for the substitute cameraman. She found him finally, still unconscious, his body wrapped around the old equipment protectively. She crawled to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and shook.
“Get up.”
The man moaned, then his eyes fluttered. He stared off into the distance until finally his eyes focused on her.
“Que?”
“Get up,” she repeated. “We’ve got work to do.”
Ten minutes later, after gulping down tepid water from a canteen, she was ready. Her hair was pushed back out of her eyes, but she could feel it springing around her head in an unruly mess. She’d avoided looking in a mirror. It didn’t matter, not now. If there were streaks of dirt and blood on her face, so much the better.
She waited until she was relatively certain that the cameraman was functioning enough to depress the transmit button on his equipment, then stared steadily at the camera.
“This is Pamela Drake of ACN, reporting live from the western coast of Cuba. The United States has just completed a missile strike against this naval base not one mile from where I am standing.” She gestured behind her, hoping the cameraman had enough sense to pan the damage.
She saw him move, squint, refocus, and smiled. She let the time pass, waiting a few beats too long to increase the tension. Finally, she cut her hand down sharply and he snapped the camera back to frame her.
“This is the area from which I made my last live report. As you can see, the effect of the missiles has been devastating. The structures that were here before, which I postulated were missile sites a fact that was never denied by the present authorities in power are destroyed.
I have no word on casualties, but it seems” All at once her voice failed. I could have been one of them. Not minutes ago, it was…
“Casualties are yet to be determined,” she finished finally. She stared at the camera, letting her image speak for itself.
Twenty Miles North of Cuba Captain Heather paced uneasily back and forth on the bridge, staring out over the horizon at the barely visible land. Immediately following the launch the USS Arsenal had been ordered to assist other battle group assets in searching for survivors of the Jefferson’s collision with the small refugee boat.
Almost an hour after the attack, he still had no idea of how effective the attack had been. That was one of the problems of using cruise missiles alone, he reflected. At least when the battle group struck with aircraft and air-launched missiles, they had immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the attack. Not so with his ship.
He turned back to the OOD. “Any word yet?” It was unnecessary to ask, he knew even as the words left his mouth. The bda bomb damage assessment would be conducted by the USS Jefferson. Two F-14s specially equipped with TARPS camera units were orbiting in a starboard marshal even as he spoke. Accompanying them would be two EA6 Prowlers armed with HARM missiles, capable of attacking any radar installations or any antiaircraft sites that were foolish enough to radiate their radars.
Without knowing exactly how effective the attack had been, the aircrafts’ mission was only slightly less dangerous than an actual bombing run.
“No, Captain.” The OOD’s voice was impassive.
“I guess we’ll both hear at the same time, won’t we?” the captain said. The battle group’s circuit was wired into both the bridge and Combat. As soon as they knew anything, the carrier would let him know.
Or would they? He mulled the thought over for a moment. The political battle going on in Washington was making itself felt even down here.
Admiral Wayne, commander of the carrier battle group, and Admiral Magruder, force commander, were both naval aviators. Would it be to their advantage to delay the BDA information’s getting to the Arsenal ship? More important, even if it was, would they do such a thing?
From the few meetings he’d had with the two men, he suspected not.
They were made of stronger stuff than their counterparts that he’d met, both fleet-seasoned aviators with a clear, sharp understanding of how a battle group worked, what it could and couldn’t do.
“I’ll be in Combat,” Captain Heather said abruptly. He strode off the bridge, hoping that the dim light in Combat would mask his growing uneasiness.
“A very effective report. Miss Drake,” Santana said. His uniform was streaked and spattered with mud and dirt, and there was a haggard look to his face that hadn’t been there an hour ago. “I hope they believed you.”
Pamela flung out one hand and gestured toward the area of devastation to her left. “Why the hell wouldn’t they? I sent them pictures, after all.” Her voice was cold and bitter.
This was the man who’d exposed her to grave danger, who had made her a pawn albeit a willing one in this entire political struggle. In all the conflicts she’d covered, she’d never been used like this against her own country. Not intentionally, at least. Her mind wandered back over the other conflicts, to theaters around the world where she’d watched nations struggle for domination over soil. There’d been allegations, sure. The military never liked the press intruding, and was continually speculating that their very presence and reports influenced the course of the battle. The criticism had become markedly more raucous after Desert Storm and Desert Shield and Grenada.
Especially Grenada, where a team of reporters had illuminated an incoming SEAL mission just as she had done earlier on the beach.
But the country had the right to know, didn’t it? And how would it get information if the media didn’t report it? Rely on the military officials?
She snorted. Not likely. The military’s main concern was funding and power. Not so different from their civilian counterparts, but with even more at stake, what with the security of the nation entrusted to them.
All of them? An image of Tombstone Magruder flashed through her mind.
She’d seen him agonize through tactical and operational decisions too often, felt the pain that tormented him over a mission gone wrong, and watched him suffering over the loss of life in his battle group.
Somehow, when she put a face to it all, her distrust of the military’s intentions seemed a little less solid.
“Now what?” she asked, suddenly tired of theoretical ethical speculations. She needed to focus her attention on what was next on leaving this blasted country, she hoped.
“With the missile launchers destroyed, that’s the end of it.”
A look of satisfaction backlit the weariness in the Cuban colonel’s face. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
