CARRIER 10: ARSENAL By: Keith Douglass
CARRIER 10: ARSENAL By: Keith Douglass
Synopsis:
Book 10 in the Carrier series.
This time, tombstone and the crew are stuck in the middle of a rapidly
worsening situation. Caught between micromanaging unscrupulous
politicians back home and a Cuban faction which is sick and tired of
being pushed around by the U.S. and thinks it can turn things around
with a blow that will break the United States’ will, can tombstone and
the crew of Jefferson pull off another miracle?
Titles by Keith Douglas
THE CARRIER SERIES:
CARRIER
VIPER STRIKE
ARMAGEDDON MODE
FLAMEOUT
MAELSTROM COUNTDOWN
AFTERBURN
ALPHA STRIKE
ARCTIC FIRE
ARSENAL
THE SEAL TEAM SEVEN SERIES:
SEAL TEAM SEVEN
SPECTER
NUCFLASH
DIRECT ACTION
FIRESTORM
1. Saturday,
June 0300 Local (+5 Greenwich Mean Time)
Cuban Fulcrum 101
17,000 Feet, 50 Miles South of Cuba Cuban Air Force Colonel Emilio
Santana banked his Soviet built MiG-29 Fulcrum to the left, skirting
the air defense perimeter of the American battle group. The fighter
twisted through the sultry night air as though the mechanics of
airspeed, altitude, and control surfaces were mere formalities in the
relationship between man and machine. The advanced composite struts
and fuselage were extensions of his own body, the howling jet engines
an echo of the blood rushing through his arteries and veins. The
single-seat fighter seemed to read his mind, translating the smallest
twitches of human muscle and nerve into tactical maneuvers that would
have been impossible in any other aircraft in Cuba’s inventory.
Tonight he was alone in the sky, suspended between the heavens and
black water, surrounded by hard points of light that bit into the dark
without dissipating it. Spattered overhead, the stars. To his right,
Cuba, city lights clustered into hard gems set in velvet. Directly
below him, fog seeped up from the ocean and mixed with broken cloud
cover to obscure patches of water. Water and land, night and stars the
world below him seemed remote and untouchable, changing in response to
universal rhythms that man could neither understand nor alter.
Reality isn’t that simple. First the Soviets, now the Libyans, In both
cases, the first seemingly harmless offers of technological assistance
and money had led to an ominous military presence that pervaded every
facet of daily life. The military advisors weren’t so easily ejected
once they’d established a military presence eighty miles south of the
United States.
More than just a mere presence. They are an infestation, a plague. As
long as we can control them, we benefit. But as with any parasite,
there is a danger that the host may suffer.
He nosed the fighter up, aiming directly at a star. The maneuver bled
off airspeed, slowing his rate of travel around the latest of many
American intrusions into Cuba’s sphere of influence.
Forty miles to the north, clearly visible under the full moon and
through the light haze, the USS Thomas Jefferson , and her covey of
escorts were finishing up the last phase of their workup operations
prior to deployment. The Cubans had been watching carefully for the
last two weeks as Jefferson fought a mock opposed transit through
notional landmasses charted in the middle of the Caribbean. Flight
operations had ceased at 2200, and the Cubans had had sole possession
of the airspace surrounding their island nation since then. From his
altitude, on a moonless, slightly overcast night, the only indications
of the American presence were the phosphorescent green lozenges on his
aircraft’s radar.
Santana sighed and shifted his attention away from the stars and to his
duty. As commander of the Western Air Defense Zone, he’d wanted a
personal look at the armada; assembled off his coast. American battle
group workups were a normal part of life, but this one was particularly
irking. This battle group included the first operational deployment of
an Arsenal-class cruiser, and both Cuba and her allies were desperate
for intelligence on the platform.
That the Americans had no compunction about conducting military
maneuvers so close to the coast of his nation irritated him. Had the
situation been reversed, the Americans would have strenuously objected
to a foreign power conducting war maneuvers off their coast. Why was
it that the Americans were unable to understand Cuba’s objections?