officer was effectively transferring responsibility for the engagement
to the pilot.
The Soviet-trained GCI controllers were not noted for their boldness in
combat. Nor were they often willing to disturb their superiors for
direct orders. They walked a fine line between maintaining tight
control over their assigned intercept aircraft and doing everything
possible they could to avoid responsibility for anything that
happened.
Well, this time they’d made a mistake, as far as he was concerned. His
orders from the GCI required him to keep the contact away from Cuba.
Even if a later tribunal decided that the attack was not authorized, he
could be relatively certain that the blame would be fixed on the GCI
officer rather than on him. He reached out and touched the small
recorder he’d taped to the instrument panel, glad he’d begun taking the
precaution of recording the transmissions on his own.
A little closer this time. He eased the Fulcrum to the right,
instantaneously calculating the intercept angle and the relative
airspeeds of the two aircraft. This pass, and then he gasped as the
contact suddenly accelerated on the screen, then twisted the Fulcrum
into a hard, braking turn. Too late.
Santana had two seconds to wonder just how the other aircraft had
managed to eke out another fifty knots of airspeed and make one frantic
grab at the ejection seat handle. Before the fifty-six-foot Fulcrum
could even begin to twist its thirty thousand pounds of mass through
the turn, the Fulcrum slammed into the smaller aircraft. The fireball
blotted out the full moon’s light.
0330 Local (+5 GMT) CDC, USS Jefferson “What the where the hell did
they go?” The TAO’s voice ratcheted two notes higher. He turned to
the CDC watch officer. “Get your ass back to Tracker Alley find out
what the hell is going on here.”
The CDC officer bolted out of his seat and trotted toward the two
parallel rows of consoles. The TAO turned back to the large-screen
display. Two seconds earlier he’d held hard paint on both the Fulcrum
and the civilian aircraft. Now the screen showed empty airspace.
0332 Local (+5 GMT) 40 Miles West of Cuba The surface of the ocean
slammed into Santana like a brick wall. The force drove the air out of
his lungs. He sucked in a breath reflexively, then erupted into
choking and spasmodic retching as seawater coursed down into his
lungs.
He twisted his head back and stared up at the surface so far above.
Five seconds later, the automatically inflating life preserver did its
job. Santana bobbed up to the surface, coughing, sputtering, and
gagging. Warm night air poured into his lungs like a blessing.
Burning debris from the mishap spattered the ocean around him. A large
chunk hit near him, floated for a few seconds trying to scorch the
water, then sank with a burbling swirl of bubbles. Santana gasped,
finally able to concentrate on something besides his own desperate need
for oxygen.
He fumbled with the pocket on his flight suit and drew out his portable
air distress radio. Ten seconds later, he was talking almost calmly to
the sea-air rescue station ashore.
GCI had already passed them his last location, and the watch officer
assured him that a helo was launching at that moment for his
location.
Santana let the radio slip out of his fingers, leaned back in the warm
water with the life jacket buoying him up, and waited.
There was no doubt in his mind now as to the identity of the other
aircraft. No smuggler would have been so careless.
The Americans would pay for this. He would make certain of it.
TWO Saturday, 22 June 0345 Local (+5 GMT) TFCC, USS Jefferson “This
better be good.” The noise level inside TFCC dropped immediately as
Rear Admiral Edward Everett “Batman” Wayne strode into the small
compartment.
The Flag TAO, still wearing his modular headset, stood up and turned to
the admiral. “Admiral, approximately fifteen minutes ago, a Cuban
MiG-29 apparently downed a civilian aircraft forty miles north of
Cuba.
The contact was inbound at one hundred and thirty-five knots, no IFF,
no Mode 4. We designated it as a contact of interest and maintained a