the Cubans had seen them, they’d head back to the carrier.
And if the Cubans began mobilizing to repel a SEAL force coming ashore
on the southern coast of Cuba, even better. Because coming ashore
there was the last thing any one of them intended.
2300 Local (+5 GMT) Fuentes Naval Base Pamela had just started dozing
when the sound of her door opening snapped her awake. She resisted the
temptation to rub at her eyes, tried to discipline her face into an
expression of watchfulness. The last thing she wanted was for the
Cuban men to suspect she was tired.
But, oh. Lord, wasn’t she? The last few days, the constant travel at
night, the confrontation with the colonel earlier today at the missile
launcher it had all taken its toll. After the brutal execution of her
cameraman, she’d slipped into a state that wasn’t quite insanity or
rationality. It was somewhere in between, a state that mostly
consisted of waiting for the world to deal out its next brutal shock.
The colonel stepped into the room, as sharp and nattily dressed as he’d
ever been. The hours that had passed seemed to have had no effect on
him, hadn’t even darkened his jaw with a five o’clock shadow. She felt
his eyes roam over her, note the wrinkles in her clothes and the
expression in her face, and she saw a trace of amusement.
“The waiting is almost over, madam.” An odd note of formality was in
his voice.
She stood, ignoring the odd popping in her left knee.
“You’re shooting the missiles?”
He shook his head. “No, certainly not. I’ve told you before, Cuba is
a peaceful nation. No, it is your countrymen they’re planning on
coming ashore. I want you to be there to witness it” “How?”
He stepped into the room, walked slowly to her side, and grasped her
gently by the elbow, his fingers brushing across the bruises he’d left
there earlier that day. “You’ll know when we get there. Not
before.”
“My camera,” she began.
“Has been replaced, with a more reliable operator.” A small sneer
tugged at his lips. “You, my dear, are professional enough to work
around any technical flaws, I hope.”
“But where are we going?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“Here it is,” he said as the jeep ground to a shuddering halt.
“Move quietly. No more surprises.”
Covering ten miles along the rough, potholed roads in an ancient jeep
without any apparent suspension had taken its toll on her. Every
muscle in her body felt as if it had been stretched past any reasonable
limits, and her legs felt shaky as she tried to stand. She held on to
the side of the jeep, took a deep breath, and tried to gather her
strength before attempting a few steps.
“Our conditions are too rough for you?” he inquired solicitously.
“But surely you can continue another hour or so? Especially since this
is the most significant story since Desert Storm.” He put one hand out
to steady her.
She jerked away. “I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was strong, belying
her weariness. “But you still haven’t explained what we’re here
for.”
He turned away from her, pointing out to sea, deliberately exposing his
back to her. “There. They’ll come ashore from that direction.”
“Who will?”
“SEALs, I think. Or maybe Rangers. Either one it will be Special
Forces of some sort.”
“How do you know?”
He turned back to her. With an air of infinite patience, he spread his
hands out in front of him, palms up. “Because they were sighted to the
south earlier this evening,” he said slowly, as though explaining to a
child. “All of our forces on alert there saw them.”
She shook her head, trying to clear out the cobwebs and make sense of
his words. If the Special Forces had been sighted to the south, then
why were they expected here? It didn’t make she nodded as a trickle of
adrenaline energized her thought processes. Of course. What had
Tombstone always told her? That the best operation begins with an
effective deception.
“So they won’t come ashore there,” she said finally, starting to follow
his reasoning. “Because they’re very, very good at what they do. And