CARRIER 10: ARSENAL By: Keith Douglass

there are probably others.”

The prospect of being trapped below decks, waiting unknowingly for an

attack, was unappealing. No, more than that completely unacceptable.

She twisted away from Leyta’s grasp and ran to the stern of the boat,

again aiming her camera at the burning wreckage. The vague outline of

one side of the ship was now visible through the flames. The

superstructure was completely gone. As her vessel drew away from it,

secondary explosions probably gasoline tanks, one part of her mind

noted dispassionately shook the air.

“We have to get away quickly. The authorities will be coming to

investigate.” Leyta stared at her. “You will stay there no other

parts of the boat, you understand? And no movement.”

She nodded, still filming the burning wreckage. What a scoop.

After the last flaming bit of wreckage disappeared from the sea, Pamela

hunted down her equipment bag below decks.

She carefully stowed the camera, then extracted her second most

critical piece of survival gear. She punched in Keith Loggins’s

telephone number from memory.

0700 Local (+5 GMT) Washington, D.C. “And your fiancee saw it?”

Senator Williams demanded.

Admiral Loggins moved restlessly in his chair. “So she said. She was

calling from her cellular phone. I believe she’s off the coast of Cuba

as we speak.” He didn’t believe that at allhe knew exactly where she

was: on land in Cuba, a far different matter, and one he wasn’t willing

to disclose. “She says she has tape, too, at least of the

aftermath.”

Senator Williams groaned. “That’s all we need, a full picture of this

U.S. mishap on ACN in the next hour. I’d better brief the President.

“You realize this supports the position I’ve held all along,” Williams

continued. “Using a carrier in close like that is just too

dangerous.

Accidents happen. Pilots get downed, and collateral damage is

excessive. The carrier is a battle-ax, not a delicate political

instrument. All we need there is the Arsenal ship. The mere threat of

that valiant firepower will be sufficient, and it will be far less

likely to cause international mishaps than a group of testosterone

laden aviators playing grab-ass in the sky.”

Admiral Loggins wheeled on him. “You don’t know what the hell you’re

talking about. I do.”

Senator Williams regarded him sardonically. “Once a jet jock, always a

jet jock. We all know about your exploits during Vietnam, your career

as a fighter jock, the times you were shot down. But that was then,

this is now. The public is determined there will never be another

Vietnam, and that means no screwing around with our nearest neighbor to

the south. The Arsenal ship is the answer.”

“Didn’t you learn anything from Vietnam? I sure did. The first lesson

is that D.C. can’t be in charge of targeteering.

It’s micromanaging and it won’t work. The on-scene commander has got

to be free to choose his weapons, and that means having somebody with

enough savvy to know how to do it. And that, in case you don’t

understand it, means the carrier battle group. Besides, the Arsenal

ship provides little capability to make the kind of instantaneous

decisions that are needed in the air.”

“Like shooting down a fishing boat?” Williams let the question hang in

the air.

“Our intelligence is better than it was in Vietnam,” Loggins

countered.

“The on-scene commander can make the kind of decisions he needs to.”

“Which so far have led to one missing pilot, probably captured by the

Cubans, and one dead fishing boat. A pretty impressive catch,”

Williams responded sarcastically.

Williams stormed out of the room, heading for the Senate majority

leader’s office. A small worry niggled at the back of his mind. Sure,

this was an international incident in the making, but why had Loggins

not worried more about the fact that his fiancee was on the other

boat?

Thursday, 27 June 1200 Local (+5 GMT) Fuentes Naval Base Pamela Drake

glanced at the clock mounted on the cinderblock wall on the other side

of the room. The minute hand quivered just millimeters away from the

twelve. Good morning, she decided, not good afternoon. That would

make her report sound all the more timely.

And timely it was. That they were here on a Cuban naval base had

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