CARRIER 10: ARSENAL By: Keith Douglass

admiral said good naturedly. “I’ll take care of him. We always take

care of our own in the Navy. You remember that.”

As the two senior officers walked away, the lieutenant commander drew a

shaky breath. He looked back down at his screen, and stopped in

mid-exhalation. “Admiral I think you might want to see this.” Damn

it, it was the right thing to do, call the admiral back, as much as

he’d been relieved to see the two men step away from him. “That

Tomcat it’s inbound on the Cuban command center.”

From some yards behind him, the admiral’s voice said, “I know that,

son. The senator and I are going to watch the last part of this from

my console. When it’s over we’ll tell you what actually happened. You

got that?”

“Aye, aye. Admiral.” The lieutenant commander hunched back up to his

controls and settled in to wait.

0710 Local (+5 GMT) Tomcat 202

The prior air strike had silenced most of the anti-air batteries on the

ground. A few sites spat up tracers, but the Tomcat avoided them

easily. Antiaircraft fire was no big deal when there were no

overlapping fields of fire and when the Tomcat owned the air.

“Time to rejoin the world.” Tombstone reached out and flicked on the

communication circuitry. His earphones immediately filled with the

loud tactical chatter from the furball still going on out to the

east.

From the sound of it, the Americans were continuing to dominate. Not

surprising though he wished he were there himself to see it. Still,

maybe that’s what getting more senior earned you going head-on head

with UAVs instead of MiGs. If that was true, he was damned sure he

didn’t want that next star! What would that entail taking on a

satellite single-handedly? Maybe a space shuttle? Surviving near

death always brought with it its own sense of giddiness.

“I’ve got a visual,” he said, surveying the landscape ahead of him.

The Cuban naval base was easily visible in the sunlight now pouring out

from the east. Brilliant white buildings set against the lush tropical

foliage, some of them partially concealed by towering palm trees. A

thin line ran around the compound, undoubtedly a fence of some sort.

Tombstone could see people moving around, the damaged building still

smoldering from the strike the day before, and heavy construction

equipment invading the open field that had contained the alleged

missile silos.

Farther to the west, he established a visual on his target.

From the air, the command center looked innocuous a single-story

building no different from its fellows. But according to intelligence,

it burrowed deep into the earth, and the actual command center was cut

off from the Potemkin village structures aboveground.

“Home Plate, this is Tomcat Two-zero-two,” Tombstone said into his

microphone. “Commencing bombing run.”

“Stoney!” Batman snapped over the circuit. “Goddamn it, one of these

days I’m going to” Tombstone cut him off. “Listen, shipmate, I don’t

have time to talk right now. I’m gonna blast this bastard back to the

Stone Age. As for the details well, if you come clean with me when I

get back to the ship, I’ll fill you in on them.

Otherwise, you’re permanently out of the loop.”

“Not on the circuit,” Batman snapped. “Jesus, don’t you think that I”

“I’m betting you didn’t do anything,” Tombstone interrupted again.

“You remember a certain conversation we had in the Flag Mess two days

ago? About Vietnam and what we learned from that?”

“Yes.” Batman’s voice was wary. “You’ve been thinking about that?”

“You bet. And I think I know how this whole thing developed and how to

keep it from happening again.

We’ll talk about that when I get back, but the priority right now is

preventing Cuba from launching on the U.S. Quick now I’m almost in is

there any later intel?”

“It’s as we suspected, Stoney,” Batman said. “It’s that command center

we ID’d from the photos. We believe the complete command staff is down

there and they’ve got tactical control of every weapon on that

island.

If you damage them, even take out all their antennas, they’ve got no

way to launch. Not unless they’ve got a remoted capability to each of

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