watched him suffering over the loss of life in his battle group.
Somehow, when she put a face to it all, her distrust of the military’s
intentions seemed a little less solid.
“Now what?” she asked, suddenly tired of theoretical ethical
speculations. She needed to focus her attention on what was next on
leaving this blasted country, she hoped.
“With the missile launchers destroyed, that’s the end of it.”
A look of satisfaction backlit the weariness in the Cuban colonel’s
face. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
She pointed again at the devastation. “I think the United States
solved the issue once and for all.” She was surprised to feel a sense
of satisfaction at the statement. God, what had happened? Was she
turning into a raving patriot just like Tombstone? No, her
responsibility was to more than just one nation it was to the world, to
report accurately and precisely just what was occurring around the
globe.
“It would be, if that’s where the missiles were.” He shook his head
slightly, all at once looking more relaxed. “But they weren’t.”
“What do you mean? I saw ” He interrupted her. “You saw a stack of
shipping crates and some construction equipment wired together to look
like something else. In other words, you saw what we wanted you to
see. And what you wanted to see, if you will admit it. Isn’t that
so?”
Her mind reeled, trying to take it all in. The dangerous journey
across the sea, the mistreatment in confinement, capped off by the very
real missile attack she’d just witnessed for what? As she looked up at
him, his meaning became clear, sank into her mind with a dreadful
clarity.
“I was part of the deception,” she whispered. “You used me.
He sighed. “No more than you used us. Miss Drake. No more than you
used us.”
1700 Local (+5 GMT) USS Arsenal Twenty Miles North of Cuba The ship
finally finished the last section of its quartered search pattern. The
special crew was starting to get tired, having started the evolution
more than seven hours ago, frantically hunting for survivors of the
collision between Jefferson and the small boat, their enthusiasm and
hopes dimming over the ensuing hours. The crowds of off-duty sailors
who had lined the weather decks, adding their eyes to the designated
search teams’, had started to drift away four hours into the search as
the cruiser methodically quartered the ocean farther and farther away
from the original collision. By now, they all knew, there was
virtually no chance of finding any survivors.
“That’s it. Captain. We’re on the last leg of the pattern.”
The officer glanced down at the hastily scribbled sequence of course
and speed used to bring the cruiser within visual range of any people
in the water. “I wish we could have found one. At least one.”
“Many times you don’t.” Captain Heather paused, deciding whether to
launch into a discussion of some of the other rescue operations he’d
been involved in, to place the whole event in perspective for his
crew.
No, he decided, better not to. They would learn in their own time and
way the inevitability of death, how often the water that made up 90
percent of the earth’s surface won in the battle between flesh and
sea.
“Get us headed back toward the carrier. We’ll take up our former
station on her starboard quarter.”
As the call went out to relieve the special team and set the normal
underway watch. Captain Heather walked over to his brown leatherette
chair on the starboard side of the bridge. Now that the sailors were
being relieved wearied men and women with feet aching from almost eight
hours of standing along the lifeline he felt he could at last sit
down.
It was one of the peculiarities his crew worshipped about him his
unwillingness to have them do anything he was not capable of doing
himself.
He put one foot on the footrest and eased himself up into the chair,
letting the hard-cushioned back support the small muscles in his back
that were knotted and tense. He took a deep breath, watching the OOD
guide the ship through the maneuvers to bring her back around toward