The Cuban ambassador held the pleasant, charming expression on his face
at some cost to him. He could feel the muscles quiver, the mouth
threaten to twitch into a scowl. It was just the confirmation she was
looking for, he was certain. If, in fact, she needed it at all.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Nothing. At least then you won’t lie to me.” She eyed him sternly.
“What Cuba does as a sovereign nation is her own business. But you
know better than to push us too far.
And you have this time. That pilot had better be back in American
hands by the end of the day or you’ll suffer the consequences.”
“A threat?” he snapped.
She paced slowly across to the door, paused with her hand on the knob,
and turned back to him. “Consider it a promise.”
1015 Local (+5 GMT) Fuentes Naval Base “Release me now.” Thor kicked
at the man holding his arms behind him. “Damn it, you have got no
grounds to” “We can do anything we feel necessary.” The guard easily
evaded Thor’s foot and jabbed him sharply in the kidneys with the
muzzle of his pistol. “You are no longer in the United States, my
friend, but on our soil.”
“We’re not at war!” Thor wheeled around to face Santana. Thirty-six
hours of kick-floating in the warm ocean, no food, no sleep the
movement made him dizzy. But he held on to consciousness, straining to
look solid and steady on his feet.
Santana regarded him blandly. “Oh, indeed we are.
You’re to be tried for war crimes, sir on behalf of the nation that
downed an innocent aircraft in our airspace and then violated our
no-fly zone.”
“You shot those aircraft down, not us. And you damned well know it.
And as for this supposed no-fly zone, what makes you think your nation
has the right to cordon off international airspace unilaterally?”
Santana shrugged. “The rest of the world believes otherwise. As for
the exclusion zone, you should understand that well enough America is
the first to declare one in any part of the world. Iraq and Bosnia are
just the most recent examples. I suggest you cooperate fully with my
friends when they ask you question sit may help to mitigate your
sentence after your trial.”
Two of the men standing against the wall stepped forward. The first
one slammed his fist into Thor’s gut, then brought his knee up to smash
the pilot’s face as he doubled over. Thor hit the deck, bleeding.
The second stranger muttered a questioning comment to the first. Even
through the pain, Thor heard enough to cause his balls to contract.
He may not have taken Spanish in school, but Latin had at least given
him a familiarity with some of the root words, and what they were
speaking was certainly not Spanish or any other Romance language. He
stared up at the two men, now more afraid than he’d been when the first
shark had brushed up against him in the warm ocean.
1130 Local (+5 GMT) VF-95 Ready Room, USS Jefferson “And that concludes
this discussion of rough sea ditching procedures. Are there any
questions?” The VF-95 safety officer looked around the room
inquiringly. Not an aviator twitched.
The safety officer sighed and shook his head. Not that he’d expected
any. Still, it would have been nice to be certain they’d been paying
attention. Deep in his heart, he knew exactly what they were thinking
the same thing he thought at that age. Invincible, invulnerable no way
they’d ever need to review rough weather ditching procedures, not a
chance. Maybe the guy in the next seat. But not me.
He supposed it took turning thirty and putting that first oak leaf on
the collar to convince a pilot that the unthinkable could happen to
him.
“Okay, let’s break for chow. We’ll reconvene in the Ready Room at
thirteen hundred. At that time, I’ll give the quarterly NATOPS quiz.
Those of you who are current have to take it, too,” he added quickly as
the surly muttering arose from the back row. “That’s part of safety
stand-down.”
He watched from the podium as the aviators filed out, some in shipboard