Finally, three hours after she’d lit her first engine, with her
batteries fully charged, the Foxtrot was ready. The sailors first
singled up the lines, leaving only one set of Manila lines holding the
Foxtrot to the pier. Then, following the orders of the officer in the
conning tower, they cast off the remaining lines one by one. The roar
of the diesel engines increased, vibrating through the steel mounts
that bolted them to the decks, through the hull and the water around
it.
Despite the noise, the fumes, and the somewhat unbelievable possibility
that the Foxtrot would actually get under way and conduct a mission,
each sailor watching her felt a stirring of national pride. No, it
wasn’t a Los Angeles attack class, not even a Soviet Union Victor SSN,
but it was a submarine. And it was theirs. It didn’t take a nuclear
submarine to execute this most simple and ancient of naval missions
minelaying.
1430 Local (+5 GMT) Joint Chiefs of Staff Washington, D.C. “The missile
sites, obviously,” the Army said decisively.
“After all, that’s what this entire conflict is about.”
“Are you mad?” the Air Force argued. “Without proper satellite
coverage, those civilian reporters could be right at ground zero. We’d
never know it.”
“We’ve been through this,” the chairman snapped. “There are only two
possible targets the missile sites or the base itself.”
“The missile sites,” the CNO said. He pointed to the tactical display
in front of them. The Arsenal ship, marked with its distinctive
symbol, as well as the possible target sites were all cleanly laid out
with distance vectors and estimated areas of damage shown. “It’s a
conventional weapon, not a nuke. With plenty of need for accuracy.”
“The President wants to avoid killing our own people,” the chairman
said finally. “The only way we can be sure of that is to hit the ships
and the pier. There’s no indication that they’re holding them
there.”
“They could be anywhere,” the Air Force railed. “Our satellite ” “It’s
the missile sites, of course,” the Navy said wearily.
He reached out one stubby finger and touched the red firing button.
“And we’ll do it from here.”
0800 Local (+5 GMT) United Nations The room was decidedly frostier than
it had been the previous week. Ambassador Wexler glanced around at the
faces at the table, sighed, and tapped the note cards containing the
gist of her speech on the podium in front of her. No, this wasn’t
going to be an easy sell. The broadcast from ACN had done its
damage.
Every nation there, even the ones that counted themselves as the United
States’ historical friends, was ready to believe the worst of the giant
democracy to their north.
“I know you’ve all seen the broadcasts. What ACN has done is
misinterpret the entire operation. What you saw was merely a
reconnaissance mission, not the preliminary to a_” “An invasion,” the
Cuban ambassador thundered. He shot to his feet as though
rocket-propelled. He pointed a finger at her, righteous indignation
blazing in his face. “You have wanted to for centuries, admit it.
America covets Cuban soil. Well, you won’t get it not now, not then,
not ever!
You push us too far, Madame Ambassador, thinking we have no means to
respond to your aggression. Well, the United States is not the only
powerful country in the world. There are others who support our right
to self-determination, our independence. Push us again” “Oh, stop this
nonsense,” she snapped, unable to contain herself any longer. “We know
who your playmates are now.
And if you think you’ll find your new Libyan masters any easier to
manipulate than your Soviet ones, you should reconsider carefully.”
“Playmates! How dare you characterize an international diplomatic
relationship such as ours as that of mere ‘playmates’?”
The representatives of the other tiny nations glanced uneasily at one
another. There was too much truth to what both sides were saying.
None of them would have welcomed an armed, covert intrusion onto their
own soil, and each could understand Cuba’s outrage. Still, the
presence of Libyan forces so near to their own soil had prompted more
than one ambassador to call his or her sovereign. It was, at best, an