CARRIER 10: ARSENAL By: Keith Douglass

1300 Local (+5 GMT) Fuentes Naval Base She was getting tired of being

tossed into rickety jeeps and ferried about to obscure locations and

even more fed up with the Cuban demands that she broadcast what they

wanted when they wanted. This was not the way reporting was supposed

to be, not at all. Where was her journalistic integrity, her

independence, her right to seek out the story that her audience

deserved? Not here not under these circumstances. The First Amendment

and freedom of speech simply had no application in Cuba.

As the jeep jolted over the potholed, muddy road, an unwelcome thought

intruded itself into her indignation.

Maybe there was a reason that Cuba was off-limits for American

citizens. Maybe the United States government, and even the State

Department, knew just a tiny bit more about the situation in this

country than she and her cohorts did. Was it possible? Had she made a

mistake?

No. The day she permitted the State Department to determine where and

when she might go anywhere in the world was the day she might as well

turn to narrating documentaries instead of broadcasting combat

reports.

She gritted her teeth, partially out of determination but more to keep

from biting her tongue as the jeep swerved on the road to avoid a tank,

and concentrated on the story. She turned to her companion. “Where to

this time? Are more SEALs invading? Or do you have some other

facility you want to make sure the Americans avoid bombing? I’d give

that last reason some rethinking, if I were you. It didn’t seem like

it did much good last time.”

And so it hadn’t. Even though they’d known she was present at the last

missile site, the Americans hadn’t been deterred from launching their

precision strike weapons at it.

She felt an odd rush of loneliness, of abandonment. Even amongst the

cynical, hard-bitten reporters, there had been an unspoken article of

faith that they were Americans, that if they really got into trouble,

the Marines would come and get them not launch weapons at them.

But wasn’t that a reciprocal obligation? If it were, she’d violated it

sorely by broadcasting photos of the SEALs coming ashore. She supposed

she couldn’t blame them if they were less than eager to come to her

assistance now, since she’d almost gotten some of them killed. In a

strange way, it hurt.

“Nothing quite that important this time. Miss Drake. Or maybe more

so. You’ll have to judge for yourself,” Colonel Santana said

cryptically. “It depends on what you define as important. This might

meet that criterion.”

Pamela’s breath caught in her throat. “The actual missile sites?” she

said softly. “It is, isn’t it?” For a moment, the glimmering ethical

reflections she’d had a few moments earlier were blasted into oblivion

by the all-encompassing drive to get the story. She’d been thwarted

once, twice, but not this time, she vowed. Oh, no, this time she would

send the story home, all wrapped up in a neat, succinct package for her

viewers, telling them what happened, why it happened, and how they, the

viewers, ought to feel about it. She could do that. She’d done it too

many times already not to be able to.

“Why the big hurry now?” she said suddenly, still feeling the rush of

euphoria from the prospect of this story.

“Something’s not making sense about this.”

He glanced at her, annoyed. “It-would make perfect sense to you if you

were Cuban.”

Why don’t you try explaining it to me? she wheedled.

“That’s why I came here, you know to tell your story, not the one the

American military establishment wants told.

Why waste this opportunity to build support for your cause?”

“Mine is not a cause!” he said, his voice harsh. “Causes are what

rabble-rousers have. I represent the legitimate, elected government of

the nation state of Cuba. That is what Aguillar and even Leyta and his

rabble seem to forget. They are nothing more than troublemakers, and

have no concept of what the Cuban people really want or need. We

do.”

“You certainly won a landslide victory at each of the last elections,”

she said carefully, “with a record voter turnout that the United States

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