Castro's Bomb (9 page)

Andrew thought that over.
 
He'd been hoping Cullen had more experience if it came to actual shooting since he had none whatsoever.
 

"And what about the men?
 
How good are they?"

"I have no idea, lieutenant.
 
This is a scratch group made up of guys who either got unlucky enough to have to pull guard duty on Christmas, or got paid to do it so somebody else could have a nice holiday.
 
Some of them are, like me, in Lieutenant Hannigan's platoon, but half of them don't even know each other, and the only reason I know their names is because they're wearing name tags."

Andrew chuckled.
 
He only knew a couple of them and none of them very well.
 
"Now I don't feel so bad."

"But at least they're all Marines, lieutenant, which makes them a helluva lot better than anybody else, especially Castro's boys.
 
If our guys were army and not marines, then we'd really be fucked."

True enough, Andrew thought.
 
"And what about me, gunny?"

It was Cullen's turn to chuckle.
 
"Word has it you're a decent guy and a pretty good marine for an accountant, or is it the other way around?
 
Seriously, sir, it's common knowledge that you're playing out the string until your time's up and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
Someday I'll be doing it, too.
 
Still, there is no way this little mob can be mistaken for a hard-ass combat unit.”

"One last comment, gunny.
 
Do you believe what they're telling us about saboteurs?"

"Uh, do you, sir?"

"Nope.
 
I believe that about as much as I believe in the tooth fairy.
 
I think it's a bunch of bullshit and that something really big might be happening really soon and we're maybe at the pointy end of the stick.
 
Lucky us, gunny."

In the darkness, Andrew sensed rather than saw Cullen nod.
 
"My thoughts exactly, lieutenant."
 

For Cathy Malone, Christmas Eve had been pleasant but not noteworthy.
 
Dinner with the Petty Officer Pachulski, his wife, and their two little kids had been fun, especially since her Polish-American hosts traditionally celebrated Christmas on the Eve, which meant she got a chance to watch the kids open presents and generally make a mess of the Pachulski's small quarters.
 
The fact that she liked kielbasa, kapusta, and all the other ethnic Polish items on the table had made it a very pleasant time.
 

She'd gotten back to her apartment a little too early and a little too full to go to sleep.
 
She would try to run the meal off in the morning, although the idea of going for a run on Christmas Day seemed just slightly blasphemous for a reasonably good Catholic girl, which was what she still considered herself.
 
She still planned on a second Mass and try for a dinner invite, although maybe this one wouldn't be Polish.
 

She and her roommate, Alice Stockton, had stayed up to talk and allow their respective meals to digest.
 
While this was happening, they'd had several glasses of very cheap wine and Cathy knew she'd regret it a little bit in the morning.
 
Cheap wine gave her sinus headaches and maybe she wouldn’t go for a run tomorrow.
 
Still, it was fun and funny when Alice got drunk enough to admit that she was sleeping with her boyfriend, a sailor stationed at Gitmo as a mechanic, and how much she liked screwing him and what she and he specifically liked to do best.
 
Cathy had to admit she never thought people could be so creative and acrobatic.
 
Her post graduate education was increasing.
 
She now knew that oral sex worked both ways.
 
Amazing.
 

Cathy'd dated one guy fairly seriously in college, but that had fallen apart when she wouldn't go all the way with him.
 
Part of the way, yes, but not completely, and certainly not orally, which he told her he would happily accept as second choice.
 
She sometimes wondered if she was being a fool.
 
At least she was getting an education of sorts here in Gitmo.
 
The nuns she'd had in high school would crap if they knew what she was learning about in the real world.

It was well after midnight when she finally tumbled into bed.
 
She would not go running.
 
She would sleep in.
 
Thank God for holidays.
 
With a little luck she would find someone else to feed her.
 

Firebells in the night was the phrase that always came to mind whenever Lieutenant Colonel Ted Romanski's phone rang in the middle of the night.
 
He thought it was something Thomas Jefferson had said but wasn't certain.
 
The author didn't matter; firebells in the night were never good news.
 
The worst news was that somebody had died or been in an accident or one of the boys couldn't get his car started and needed him to drive out to the middle of nowhere to help.
 
The best was a wrong number from a drunk trying to reach someone to give him a ride home.
 
So far, late night phone calls hadn't been for anything serious, but there was always a first time.

He decided to answer the damn thing.

He looked and saw his wife, Midge, was also sitting upright and trying to remember where she was.
 
As always, their first thought was that something had happened to one of their twin boys who were freshmen in college.
 
But it couldn't be them because they were home for the holidays.
 
One had even brought his girlfriend, which had caused some logistical problems concerning sleeping arrangements.
 
To put it politely, Midge was pissed that her little boy was sleeping with his girlfriend.
 
Ted thought the girl was sweet and cute and that his son was pretty damn lucky.

Romanski managed to grab it on the third ring.
 
"Lt. Col. Romanski," he said.
 
He felt there was fuzz on his teeth.
 
He and Midge had been partying.

"General Bunting, Ted."

Romanski looked at his clock.
 
It was two AM.
 
"Good morning, general."
 
Bunting had been his commanding officer when Romanski had been assigned to the 82nd Airborne.
 
They had a solid history together.

"Ted, this afternoon I had a conference with the president himself and he feels that something major is going down in Cuba, at Gitmo.
 
He specifically asked me to get Task Force Roman organized and ready to go."

"Now, sir?
 
It's after midnight."
 
He immediately regretted the stupid comment.
 
He realized it must be serious.
 
After all, Bunting just said he had been talking directly to Kennedy.
 
He had to get his brain working.

"Yes, now, and I know it's late and it's Christmas.
 
But the word is that the commies are likely to attack Gitmo in a couple of hours, which means it's very necessary to have a tripwire force in place and ready to go.
 
Your people are the only ones who had any plans to reinforce Gitmo, except the Marines, who aren't in any position to help for a day or two.
 
Ted, we've got only a matter of hours if this really happens.
 
I don't like it any more than you do, but this comes directly from the president."

"Understood," Romanski said and hung up.
 
He spent the next couple of minutes explaining the situation to a disbelieving Midge.

She stood and clenched her fists angrily.
 
"Damn it, this can't be right.
 
You just went through one war scare and now there's another one?
 
Just what do they want?
 
You're only a few weeks away from retirement!"

"Are you done?" he asked patiently.

"And when was the last time you actually jumped from a perfectly good airplane?"

"It was a couple of weeks ago, dear.
 
I'm not that bad off."

Romanski commanded part of the airborne training school at Fort Benning, Georgia.
 
He'd been a paratrooper in the 82nd as well as a Ranger, and, during the Crisis, had been ordered to create an ad hoc airborne unit made up of training cadre and other qualified personnel who were currently stationed at Benning.
 
Their job would have been to jump or fly into Guantanamo and reinforce the small garrison.
 
He'd managed to gather and organize a force of nearly eleven hundred volunteers.
 
They'd been armed and ready to go until Marine reinforcements arriving at Gitmo made them redundant.
 
It had been fun while it lasted and could have been a great ending to an otherwise ordinary career.

Still, he understood the assignment.
 
All the other airborne units had been focused on an attack near Havana.
 
Only his group had any plans concerning Gitmo.
 
He wondered if his group was the only one that even knew where Gitmo was?

Midge, however, was not mollified.
 
"And, dear God, it's Christmas.
 
Are you going to miss Christmas again?
 
I thought all that crap was over with."

"I have absolutely no idea," Romanski admitted as he stripped to take a shower.
 
"But I guarantee you it'll be the last Christmas I'll miss.
 
A few more weeks and I'm out of here."
 
But to do what?
 
He and Midge hadn't quite decided on their future.
 
He couldn’t live on his army pension, so a job was going to be a necessity.
   

Enough feeling sorry for himself.
 
He had to make a couple of quick phone calls.
 
He had to get a fanout started with a goal of getting everybody who'd been in Task Force Roman at Fort Benning's Lawson Field within two hours.

 
Midge stood before him.
 
Her anger had dissipated and she smiled winsomely.
 
He still thought she was beautiful. "You need a little good luck to make it through this, soldier, and a few minutes won't matter."
 
She gently pushed him back on the bed and grinned wickedly.
 
"And I need a pony ride."

She pulled off her nightgown and dropped her panties.
 
Twenty years had made her a little plump, but she was still capable of arousing him almost immediately.
 
Also, a pony ride was a traditional farewell event every time he'd shipped out.
 
She smiled and straddled him.
 
He quickly grew hard and he entered her as his hands caressed her full breasts and worked their way back to her buttocks.
 
Years of practice worked and they both climaxed at almost the same time.
 
She got up and smiled at him.
 
Her eyes were moist with tears she would hold in until he left.
 

"Now go fight your damn war and try to be home for dinner."

"You hear anything, lieutenant?"

"Only the sound of my wildly beating heart," Andrew said.
 
He willed himself to be still.
 
"But maybe I feel vibrations in the ground."

"Same here," said Cullen.
 
"I wonder what those two idiots have discovered up front?"

"They've probably discovered that they're scared out of their minds and can't really see or hear anything.
 
They've also likely discovered that they're not going to re-enlist."

Cullen chuckled and grabbed Andrew's arm.
 
"Motion."

Seconds later, they both saw the shapes of two hunched over men running towards them.
 
It'd better be Hollis and Ward from the listening post, Andrew thought, and not a couple of saboteurs who'd managed to sneak by them.
 
He belatedly realized they'd neglected to give the two men a password or countersign.

It was Hollis and Ward, and Andrew breathed a sigh of relief.
 
Both men were excited and out of breath.
 
Ward spoke for the two of them.
 
"We heard vehicles, sir, lots of them.
 
Sounds like trucks and tracked vehicles, but we couldn't see them.
 
Too many low hills in the way."

"Any lights?" Cullen asked.

"Naw.
 
Whatever it was they were running lights out."

Andrew told Cullen to radio the report up the chain of command.
 
Trucks could mean anything from a military convoy to a bunch of farmers getting ready to work their fields, but tracks?
 
Tracks could mean farm tractors but the farmers in the area were too poor to afford tractors.
 
They also could mean tanks or armored personnel carriers, and if they came down that single lane dirt road, he had twenty men and an old machine gun to stop them with.
 

What it boiled down to was that his and Cullen's premonitions might just be correct.
 
There were no saboteurs coming.
 
Instead, they were confronting the possibility of a major Cuban attack.
 
Why the hell had he volunteered to take guard duty?
 
Of course, would snoozing in his BOQ bunk be any safer in the long run if the Cubans were attacking?