supporting us will burn away as the sea mist in the morning sun. There
is no gain to us.”
Santana leaned forward across the table, resting his elbows on the
rough wooden surface. He reached over, grasped the other man by the
wrist, and pulled him toward him. The Libyan resisted slightly, but
stopped with his brass button of his uniform rubbing against the edge
of the table.
“No advantage? Think! The Americans understand this sort of situation
now, after Desert Storm. There are Americans here, as you well know.
They come whether as news reporters or tourists, illegally sneaking
into our country, still they come. You understand the implications
from a tactical sense, at least?”
“I see no advantage,” Mendiria repeated. “Simply more victims if” He
stopped abruptly and considered the matter. A slow smile, as large as
the one on the face of his colleague, crossed his face. “Hostages.”
Santana nodded. “Exactly. If it comes to that. Do you really think
that they will target their smart bombs on this facility, knowing that
their star television reporter is being held here against her will?
Especially one so attractive as Miss Pamela Drake? While she might not
have planned aiding our cause in this way, she will be instrumental in
safeguarding us against cruise missiles.”
Mendiria sighed. “I was wrong to doubt you. My apologies. On the
surface it seemed” Santana cut him off with a sharp gesture of his
hand. “It is nothing between friends. We have lived close to America
for a long time now. Perhaps we understand them a bit better, yes?
But you agree?”
The Libyan nodded vigorously.
2300 Local (+5 GMT) Viking 791
“There she is. Admiral,” the S-3 pilot said over the ICS.
“Just where she’s supposed to be.”
Tombstone clicked a brief acknowledgment. Two thousand feet below
them, as they entered the starboard marshal pattern, the USS Jefferson
plowed through the seas like an implacable weapon.
He wondered if the Cubans knew just how much trouble they were in with
Jefferson off their shore.
EIGHT Saturday, 29 June 1200 Local (+5 GMT) ACN Newsroom Computers atop
the two rows of desks arrayed in the traditional horseshoe pattern
beeped in sequence. The muted chirrup traveled from left to right,
sounding at each computer terminal in turn until it leaped from the
last desk in the semicircle, leaped past the long, now vacant anchor
desk centered in front of the arc, leaped to the producer’s console in
the glass-walled control room the bridge.
The alert immediately began making its rounds again, the circulating
sound designed to jar even the most preoccupied reporter into
attention. Flashing letters danced across the top of each monitor
screen, identifying the incoming message as a breaking news bulletin
from the Associated Press.
Only a few of the workstations were occupied at this hour. The two
o’clock news program was a cut-in, and the anchors had already done
their five live minutes of reading the news and fled the scene. So had
the production crew, leaving the message alert to echo forlornly inside
the dark, empty bridge. The instant the live portion gave way to the
taped news rerun, giving them fifteen minutes of “free” time, nearly
everyone ran for coffee, snacks, the bathroom.
Only a few of the writers remained in the quiet, soundproofed newsroom,
working on scripts for the next show, getting on the telephone to
finish gathering information for their assigned stories, using their
terminals to check facts.
The computer beeped insistently, demanding that the operator attend to
the incoming message traffic. Electronic transmission had long ago
replaced the old yellow teletypes that chattered away in newsrooms.
“Will you look at this?” the reporter whistled quietly, hitting the
keys which scrolled the full text of the bulletin down his screen.
“But I guess we should have expected it.”
He looked over at the producer who’d just walked in and motioned her
over. “We’re going into Cuba. And you won’t believe who’s going to do
the shooting.”
1525 Local (+5 GMT) USS Jefferson “Who the hell told the press?”
Batman stormed. The conference room was deadly silent.
“All right, all right, I know it wasn’t anyone here.” He turned to the
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