reporting was supposed to be, not at all. Where was her journalistic integrity, her independence, her right to seek out the story that her audience deserved? Not here not under these circumstances. The First Amendment and freedom of speech simply had no application in Cuba.
As the jeep jolted over the potholed, muddy road, an unwelcome thought intruded itself into her indignation.
Maybe there was a reason that Cuba was off-limits for American citizens. Maybe the United States government, and even the State Department, knew just a tiny bit more about the situation in this country than she and her cohorts did. Was it possible? Had she made a mistake?
No. The day she permitted the State Department to determine where and when she might go anywhere in the world was the day she might as well turn to narrating documentaries instead of broadcasting combat reports.
She gritted her teeth, partially out of determination but more to keep from biting her tongue as the jeep swerved on the road to avoid a tank, and concentrated on the story. She turned to her companion. “Where to this time? Are more SEALs invading? Or do you have some other facility you want to make sure the Americans avoid bombing? I’d give that last reason some rethinking, if I were you. It didn’t seem like it did much good last time.”
And so it hadn’t. Even though they’d known she was present at the last missile site, the Americans hadn’t been deterred from launching their precision strike weapons at it.
She felt an odd rush of loneliness, of abandonment. Even amongst the cynical, hard-bitten reporters, there had been an unspoken article of faith that they were Americans, that if they really got into trouble, the Marines would come and get them not launch weapons at them.
But wasn’t that a reciprocal obligation? If it were, she’d violated it sorely by broadcasting photos of the SEALs coming ashore. She supposed she couldn’t blame them if they were less than eager to come to her assistance now, since she’d almost gotten some of them killed. In a strange way, it hurt.
“Nothing quite that important this time. Miss Drake. Or maybe more so. You’ll have to judge for yourself,” Colonel Santana said cryptically. “It depends on what you define as important. This might meet that criterion.”
Pamela’s breath caught in her throat. “The actual missile sites?” she said softly. “It is, isn’t it?” For a moment, the glimmering ethical reflections she’d had a few moments earlier were blasted into oblivion by the all- encompassing drive to get the story. She’d been thwarted once, twice, but not this time, she vowed. Oh, no, this time she would send the story home, all wrapped up in a neat, succinct package for her viewers, telling them what happened, why it happened, and how they, the viewers, ought to feel about it. She could do that. She’d done it too many times already not to be able to.
“Why the big hurry now?” she said suddenly, still feeling the rush of euphoria from the prospect of this story.
“Something’s not making sense about this.”
He glanced at her, annoyed. “It-would make perfect sense to you if you were Cuban.”
Why don’t you try explaining it to me? she wheedled.
“That’s why I came here, you know to tell your story, not the one the American military establishment wants told.
Why waste this opportunity to build support for your cause?”
“Mine is not a cause!” he said, his voice harsh. “Causes are what rabble-rousers have. I represent the legitimate, elected government of the nation state of Cuba. That is what Aguillar and even Leyta and his rabble seem to forget. They are nothing more than troublemakers, and have no concept of what the Cuban people really want or need. We do.”
“You certainly won a landslide victory at each of the last elections,” she said carefully, “with a record voter turnout that the United States itself has never approached. Still, there was only one candidate on the ballot. Do you feel that weakens your position any?”
“The people wanted only one candidate. This was their opportunity to show their grateful support for our leader, not to engage in pointless bickering.” The jeep ground to a halt unexpectedly, throwing Pamela sideways against the hard metal strake. She hit her head sharply, felt a flash of pain, then pushed it aside to zoom back in on the man she was questioning. “So if the Cuban people feel that way, in the majority, why is this revolution taking place?”
“It is not a revolution. It is treason.” He smiled coldly.
“And that. Miss Drake, is something you ought to understand.”
“But how will missiles help you deal with an internal affair?” she pressed. “Surely if Cuba is capable of handling this issue herself, the last thing you need is the United States annoyed and intervening.
Unless,” she said, pausing as insight flashed into her mind, “you’re having a problem with your Libyan masters. Are they holding out for more control over the legitimate government in exchange for quashing the rebels for you? Is that it?”
Bingo. She knew she’d struck gold by the flash of annoyance in his eyes. Exultation warred with an increasing feeling of uneasiness as she contemplated her position. She was in Cuba illegally, neither entitled to nor likely to get support from her own government, and trapped between three warring forces. The so-called legitimate government of Cuba, the Libyan “advisors” who were increasingly in evidence, and the guerrilla fighters whom Leyta represented on the mainland.
A hell of a story if she survived it.
“I don’t know how you can expect me to keep this up,” Admiral Loggins hissed. “There’s absolutely no chance I can keep the aircraft carrier out of it. Not after what’s happened down there. It’s not only impossible, but it makes no tactical sense whatsoever. None.”
“You’re going to be lucky if you’ve even got any carriers left after I’m through with you,” Senator Williams shot back. He pointed at the TV broadcasting ACN headlines in the corner of the room. “That footage of those SEALs is worth more during budget debates than five hundred pounds of briefings and testimony. You think they ever read all the material we send them? No they make their decisions based on sound bites and shots like that. And you can bet they’re going to be hearing from every Cuban constituent in every district over this one.”
“What you’re asking is unreasonable. With the Arsenal ship damaged, if we need to take action against Cuba, it’s going to have to be with the carrier. There’s no other way to do this safely; there’s just not” “Safety’ is a relative term. And you’re going to be thinking longingly about this conversation when the Senate subpoenas you about your relationship with Miss Pamela Drake and the film footage ACN broadcast.
Don’t cross me now, Keith. You’re in this too far.”
Admiral Loggins slammed his hand down on the desk and glared at the senator. “Don’t you dare threaten me. Not me, not Pamela not ever.
I’ve gone along with your plans because they were what I felt was best for the Navy, but you’ve gone too far this time. My relationship with Pamela has nothing to do with her work, nor does she have anything to do with mine. We’re just private citizens, trying” “The hell you are!”
Senator Williams shoved himself out of his chair and leaned across the desk to glare at Loggins, his hands planted and splayed on the blotter in front of the admiral. “You gave up a private life the day you put on those stars, and don’t you forget it. Just the way I did when I took my first oath of office in Congress twenty years ago. What you do, who you screw, all of it. It’s all career material.
And if you don’t understand that, then you’ve already been promoted two times too many. You got me?”
The admiral stood up from behind his desk slowly, his shoulders slumped. He stared out the window that gazed out across the Potomac, at the landscape spotted with fog and pollution, at the distant white figures of the various memorials scattered around Washington, D.C. There was truth to what the senator said but it wasn’t the whole story.
And if it were, then what did that say about the twenty-five years he’d spent in the military?
Duty, honor, country. Those were things that mattered, not the pork-barrel electioneering that Williams was engaged in. Not even his own career mattered more than duty.
He wondered why he hadn’t seen that before, what should have been so obvious to a man raised, educated, and tempered in the service of his country.
