“Regardless, the question now is, what do we do?”
“We take the damned island! And keep it this time,” the Army barked.
“Damn it, if we” “Quit posturing, Carl,” the Marine Corps snapped. “We
tried that before, remember?”
“Hardly. The Army didn’t head up the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the CIA
did.
Besides, this isn’t at all similar.”
“And why not?” the Air Force asked. “Missiles sitting on the ground,
capable of striking the continental United States, foreign support for
a repressive regime if that’s not similar, I don’t know what is.”
The four men fell silent, each lost in his own thoughts. All were well
schooled in the history of war, and the parallels to the Cuban Missile
Crisis could not be avoided. Each one of them knew in his heart that
if the military had been in charge of that operation, the results would
have been different. Indeed, the present situation might have been
avoided altogether if the United States had just done the right thing
the first time through.
“You know what we’re going to have to advise the President,” the Marine
Corps chief of staff said, finally breaking the unpleasant, heavy
silence that had descended on them. “We’ve got to follow through.”
The CNO shook his head. “We’ll endanger civilian lives.
Reporters, even. How are we going to explain that to the American
public?”
“We’re not. The President is.” The Marine Corps officer looked
stubborn. “We’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
We can’t be protecting Americans in every rinky-dink rogue state in the
world if they insist on going there illegally.
Weighing the cost and the benefits and the correlation of forces, we
can’t allow those weapons to remain in Cuba.
Not aimed at our cities.”
The chairman glanced around the room, taking the measure of each man.
He saw agreement on every face, coupled with reluctance and a knowing
dread for the situation that would surely follow. “I see we’re in
agreement. You know,” he added unnecessarily, “there will be civilian
casualties.”
The looks of resignation deepened. “How do you want to weaponeer
this?” the CNO said. He sighed heavily. “We’re on station, of
course. And I think we’d all rather the shots weren’t fired from the
continental U.S.”
The chairman stood suddenly, his mind made up. “I’ll speak with the
President this afternoon. My recommendation will be a surgical strike
against those weapon sites.
Rather than risk an air crew and aircraft, I’m prepared to recommend
that we use your Arsenal ship.” He managed to eke out a wry smile.
“It’s about time it got an operational test, don’t you think?”
“But not like this,” the CNO said softly. “Not like this.”
1400 Local (+5 GMT) USS Arsenal Fifty Miles North of Cuba The ship cut
cleanly through the light chop, making twenty-five knots with only one
of her powerful gas turbine engines on-line. On both the fore and aft
decks, sailors scampered over the hot nonskid painted-on steel,
conducting weapons checks on the vertical launch hatches, dropping
antennas and guardrails, and generally securing anything loose on the
ship that might be damaged by the firing of a weapon.
On the bridge. Captain Daniel Heather paced back and forth, stopping
only occasionally to take a hurried swig from the ever-present coffee
cup perched on the ledge next to his chair. Captain Heather was a tall
man, powerfully built, darkly tanned from hours of skiing and
fishing.
Dark blond hair, clipped short but still managing to look unruly,
topped sharp features and ice blue eyes.
Captain Heather had tried sitting down, tried staying in Combat, but
found himself unable to stay away from the bridge. From his very first
tours at sea, even before potent Aegis ships and combat control systems
shifted the heart of the ship from the bridge to Combat, his station
had always been here. Now, even under current combat doctrine, he
found the familiar routines of navigating and conning the ship
reassuring. All too soon, as the ship took station within her firing
basket, he’d find himself relegated to controlling the operation from
Combat.
It still seemed unnatural, even after his two tours on Aegis cruisers,
to be so far from air and light and targets and to watch the battle