Five minutes after he’d been awakened, Bird Dog slipped quietly out of his compartment and headed for TFCC.
“Sir, I recommend we put CAP — Combat Air Patrol — up.”
Tomboy’s voice was confident. “We probably won’t need them unless we don’t. Then it’ll be too late.”
Batman frowned. “Any other indications of hostile activity?”
“No, Admiral. I simply think it’s a reasonable precaution.”
Batman nodded. He turned to the officer seated in the right-hand TAO console. “Why didn’t you think of that?”
“I’m sorry, Admiral.” The assigned TAO looked uncomfortable. He had thought of it, but hadn’t felt comfortable interrupting the admiral’s conversation with Tomboy. He shot the small female officer an irked look. It was one thing for her to hang around TFCC, catching up on the changes that had occurred, another entirely for her to trash out her fellow officers in front of the admiral. If Mrs.-Admiral Commander Flynn/Magruder wanted to get along with this staff, she’d better learn to fit in.
“We have two VFA F/A-18s on Alert 15, Admiral,” the TAO continued.
“The Marine pilots are in their Ready Room.”
“They don’t do me much good there, do they? Come on, man, let’s get moving.” Batman turned back to Tomboy.
“Not so long ago, it would have been you and me scrambling for those aircraft, wouldn’t it? I sure do miss it.”
“Anytime you need a backseater, Admiral, you just let me know.” The two exchanged a look of mutual admiration.
Marine Major Frederick “Thor” Hammersmith shivered lightly as he stepped out onto the flight deck and pulled the heavy metal hatch closed behind him. The night was warm, sultry, but the flood of adrenaline that had hit him when the alarm rang in the Ready Room had not yet subsided. The quick five-minute brief in TFCC had done no more than crank it up an extra level.
Around him, the flight deck buzzed with activity. Sailors rolled out of their racks and were now streaming across the deck, visible only in the glare of the giant floodlights mounted on the tower. Green shirts, red shirts, yellow shirts, each color denoting a separate function in the intricate ballet that made up the flight deck operations.
His F/A-18 Hornet was. still parked in the center of the flight deck, a location befitting its assignment as Alert 15 aircraft. A few minutes to run through the checklist and power up, and he could simply taxi straight forward to the catapult.
He groaned and rubbed his eyes. Pulling Alert 15 was a pain in the ass during training exercises, but this was something real. A MiG-29 shooting down a civilian aircraft what in the hell was that about?
Sure, tensions between the United States and her southern neighbor had ratcheted a notch higher since the U.S. had nationalized some of Cuba’s American-held assets, but that had never disturbed the Navy’s operations in its traditional training ground to the north. And why shoot down a civilian aircraft? Bullshit, that was. Why fight somebody who can’t fight back?
Moments later, he was standing next to his aircraft. He walked around her carefully, checking for loose fittings and undogged compartment access panels. He ran a hand over her nose-wheel gear, checking carefully for any signs of looseness or excessive wear on the tires.
The Marine enlisted technicians who maintained Hornet 301 were fanatics, but it was one thing to take responsibility for an aircraft on the deck, another thing entirely to trust your life to it while getting off of the pointy end of a carrier.
Finally satisfied, he stood and stretched, feeling the last vestiges of fatigue seep away. He glanced up at the tower, already illuminated with red light. Inside, the Air Boss and Mini Boss would be settling into their seats, staring down at Thor and his aircraft and waiting for the report from the steam catapult operators that all was ready. A thin wisp of steam was already rising from the narrow gauge track in front of him, evidence of power to the system.
Thor grinned. The Air Boss held certain misconceptions about Marine pilots, prejudices that Thor liked to tweak at every opportunity. As the flight deck teemed with activity around him, Thor dropped down to the nonskid, assumed position, and whipped out a quick fifty push-ups.
The exercise flushed the last traces of fatigue out of his body.
Invigorated, he jumped to his feet and trotted over to the port side of the F/A-18. Clambering up the handhold and steps, he quickly settled into the cockpit. A technician followed him up, pulled the safeties on the ejection seat, and double-checked his harness.
“You’re good to go. Major.” The Marine Corps technician nodded solemnly, barely visible in his bronze shirt on the moonlit deck.
“Good hunting, sir.”
Thor nodded. “Anytime, anywhere. Marine.”
“There he goes.” Tomboy pointed at the plat camera that showed the flight deck. Two JBDs, or jet blast deflectors, had popped up from the deck and were partially screening the raging afterburner fire spewing out of the Hornet’s tailpipes. They could see the dark figure of the catapult officer standing near the Hornet’s nose, the other technicians carefully clear of the red line delineating the flight deck area.
As they watched, the overhead ceiling panels resonated with the harsh roar of the fighter’s engine. The sound built, then climbed an extra notch, rattling monitors, computers, and bulkheads alike. Finally, when it seemed impossible that the noise could get any louder, the Hornet started moving, slowly at first, then quickly accelerating to minimum airspeed of 135 knots. The catapult dragged the fighter down the flight deck to the bow, spewing a trail of steam behind it.
Finally they heard the gentle thump, always too soft, that signified the shuttle had reached the end of its run.
The Hornet disappeared from view for a moment as it lost altitude at the end of the carrier. It reappeared immediately, barely climbing as it struggled to remain airborne. As soon as it reached three hundred feet, it banked away from the carrier in a sharp right-hand turn.
“I always feel better having CAP on station,” the admiral said. “If I know the Cubans, they’re going to blame this on us and put up a full combat spread. If they do, we’ll be ready for them.”
“You’ve got the feed from LINK?” the watch officer asked.
The operations specialist nodded. “Jefferson just launched CAP. Two Hornets, on station in approximately ten minutes.”
The watch officer nodded. He reached for the telephone, Whatever was going on down in the Caribbean was far above his pay grade. As much as he hated waking the admiral up, he disliked taking sole responsibility for it even more.
Jorge Leyta watched the crowd surge and eddy around him.
The protest was taking shape without any effort on his part will only help us, even if he does not wish to. The people, you see,” he said, gesturing to the growing throng, “they know. Only the Coalition has taken action real action and made sacrifices. Aguillar merely postures and talks. If he had his way, Cuba would become the fifty-first state.” He glanced sideways, noting how his words settled his aide’s thoughts. It was always so when he put his mind to it. That’s why leadership of the community was rightfully his, not his rival’s. “And the Americans, they have shot down a peaceful civilian aircraft. They killed my brother! Where now is this wonderful ‘normalization’ that
