Cuba (52 page)

The stunned men turned their attention to the radars on

the north coast, and were just in time to watch the blip of a

Tomahawk from

Hue City

fly right down the throat of the radar and knock it out.

The supervisor turned to the manager and calmly

said, “Apparently the war you didn’t believe would

happen is happening now.”

The stunned manager watched in horror as screen

after screen went blank.

“The Americans rarely leave things half-done,

or so I’ve heardea”…the supervisor continued. “I

would bet fifty pesos that this building is

also a target of a cruise missile. If you

gentlemen will excuse me, I think I will go home

for the evening.”

With that, he turned and walked briskly from the room.

“Everyone outea”…the facilities manager shouted.

“Outside, everyone outside.”

The men at the consoles needed no urging. They

bolted for the doors.

The shift supervisor was outside, walking quickly

for the bus stop, when he heard a Tomahawk. He

fell to the ground and covered his head with his hands as the

missile dove into the roof of the sector control

building and its 750pound warhead exploded with a

thundering boom. Within ” the next fifteen seconds,

two more missiles crashed into the building.

After waiting another minute just to be sure, the

supervisor stood and surveyed the damage.

Clouds of tiny dust particles formed an

artificial fog, one illuminated by flame licking

at the gutted building. The stench of explosives

residue and smoke lay heavy in the night air.

One hundred fifty missiles swept across

central Cuba, some coming from the north, some from the

south. The targeting had been done quickly, but the

information that made it possible had been mined

from databases painstakingly constructed from

satellite and aircraft photo and electronic

reconnaissance over a period of years.

Four dozen Tomahawks were targeted against every known

radar dish within a hundred miles of the missile

silossearch, air traffic, antiaircraft

missile, and artillery radarsall of them, two

missiles for each antenna.

Another fifty Tomahawks attacked every Cuban

Air Force base along the five-hundred-mile

length of the island. Some of the Tomahawks carried

bomblets instead of highexplosive warheads: these

swept across aircraft ramps, scattering bomblets

over the parked MiGs, damaging them and setting some

on fire. Other cruise missiles dove headfirst

into the Cuban Air Force’s hangars, weapons

storage facil-

ities, and fuel farms. Fixed antiakcraft

surface-to-air missile (Sam) sites

received two or three missiles each.

Alejo Vargas learned of the American attack

when the telephone he was using went dead in his hand.

He frowned, jiggled the hook, then replaced the

handset on its base. Only then did the dull

boom of the explosion in the central

Havana telephone exchange reach him. A

Tomahawk had dived through the roof.

More explosions followed in quick succession as two more

cruise missiles hurled themselves into the telephone

exchange. One of the problems the Americans faced

with the employment of cruise missiles was assessing

damage after the attack. The solution was to fire

multiple missiles at the same target to ensure

an acceptable level of damage.

The thought that the presidential palace might be a

target never occurred to Alejo Vargas. He went

to the nearest window and stood listening to the roar of

Tomahawks overflying the city on their way to radar

and antiakcraft gun and missile installations

sited around Jos6 Marti International

Airport. The five-hundred-knot missiles were

invisible in the darkness, but they weren’t quiet.

The missiles had passed when someone near the harbor

opened up with an antiaircraft gun firing

tracers. The bursts of tracers went up like

fireworks and randomly probed the darkness as the

hammering reports echoed over the city.

Colonel Santana came irito the room and

joined Vargas at the window. “The telephone

system in the city is out.”

“It’s probably out all over Cubaea”…Vargas

replied.

“They are attacking much sooner than you thought they

would.”

“No matter. The results will be the same. Get

a car to take us to Radio Havana. I will make

an address to the nation.”

“The Americans may use missiles on the

radio stations or power plants.”

“It is possible, but I doubt it. Get the car.”

Santana went after a car as Vargas thought about what

he would say to fan the fires of patriotism in every

Cuban heart.

The two C-130’s Hercs and four EA-6But

Prowlers that had left Key West were level at

ten thousand feet when they crossed the northern

shoreline of Cuba. The C-130’s actually were

flying with their wingtip lights on so that the Prowlers

could easily stay in formation with them. Inside the

Hercs the pilots were using global positioning

system (Gps) units to navigate to the missile

silo sites.

The Prowler crews watched their computer displays and

listened to their emission-detection gear, waiting for the

Cubans to turn on a radar, any

radar. The night was deathly quiet. The

Tomahawks had done their work well.

As the Hercs crossed over the first of the dairy

farms, two men leaped from each plane. Forty

seconds later two more went as they crossed over the

second possible lab site. Then the Hercs made

a gentle, lazy 270-degree turn to get lined

up for the run-in to the missile silos.

Jose Marti Airport and the surface-to-air

missile sites that surrounded it were only thirty

miles west. Not a peep from them. If the

Tomahawks missed any of the mobile radars, the

operators had not yet screwed up the courage

to turn them on, for which the Hercules crews were

thankful. The Prowler crews, however, with HARM

missiles ready on the rails, were feeling a bit

disappointed. After all the sweating, there should be more

action.

Aboard USS

United States,

the datalink from the E-3 Sentry AW ACS

over Key West revealed the aerial fire drill

going on over Havana as commercial flights tried

to find their way into Jose Marti Airport without the

aid of air traffic controllers with radar.

Some of the flights announced they were diverting, and

headed for the United States or Jamaica or the

Cayman Islands. The others queued up and landed

VFRIEND as Jake Grafton watched the computer

displays with his fingers crossed. While he didn’t

want to be responsible for the crash of a civilian

airliner, he couldn’t

delay this operation until there was a temporary lull

in civilian air activity.

As the first Here approached silo one, two men

leaped from the open rear door. Seconds later,

two more leaped from the second transport.

The jumpers fell away from the airplanes like

stones.

Over silo two, marines leaped in pairs from each

of the Hercs, and so on, until the transports had

overflown and dropped recon teams at all six

silo sites. Then they turned northward, toward the

sea.

The Prowlers followed faithfully.

At that moment a SAM control radar near silo

two came on the air, probing for a target.

The Prowlers with the Hercs picked up the signal, of

course, and two of them dropped their wings to turn

back toward the threat.

Forty miles south of silo two, Schuyler

Coleridge also picked up the SAM radar, an

old Soviet Fansong. As he slaved the HARM

to the signal, his pilot, Marcus Gillispie,

turned the plane ten degrees to ppint at the

offending radar. Although the new missiles could be

fired at very large angles, a quick turn by the

launching aircraft shortened the missile’s flight

time by a few seconds.

“Fireea”…Coleridge ordered, and Gillispie

punched off the HARM, which shot forward off the rail in

a blaze of fire.

Coleridge keyed the radio. “Fox Threeea”…he

said, letting everyone on the freq know that a beam

rider was in the air.

The HARM zeroed in on the side lobes of the

radiating Fansong, whose operator was trying to lock

up a Here for an SA-2 launch. The operator

never realized the beam rider was in the air.

The missile actually flew into the back of the

antenna dish at almost Mach 3 and went several

feet through it before the warhead exploded.

The warhead contained thousands of 3/16th-inch

tungsten-alloy cubes, which were three times denser

than steel. The warhead blasted these cubes

in all directions,

obliterating the radar antenna and wave guides,

shredding the trailer on which the antenna was mounted, and

knocking out the equipment in the trailer. The flying

cubes also killed the radar operator and severely

wounded the three other occupants of the trailer.

Another HARM launched by one of the FirstA-18

Hornets on the Prowler’s wing arrived six

seconds later and impacted a tree just a few

feet from the smoking, gutted trailer. Although the

target radar had been off the air for six

seconds, the missile’s strap-down.ineitial

allowed it to fly to the place where the computer memory

believed the radar to be. The shrapnel from the warhead

severed the tree and sprayed the shell of the trailer

yet again, killing one of the already-wounded men.

Major Carlos Corrado was sleeping off a

hangover when the roar of a Tomahawk going over

woke him. His eyes came open. He heard the

staccato popping of bomblets from the Tomahawk, but

had no idea what caused the sound. He thought the

Tomahawk was a low-flying airplane.

Groggy, aching, sick to his stomach, he was hugging

a commode when another Tomahawk went over. In

ten seconds the sound of the bomblets

detonating on the planes parked on the flight line

reached him though his alcoholic haze. Then one of the

planes exploded with a rolling crash that shook the

barracks.

Corrado staggered outside and looked toward the

flight line, where at least three planes were burning

brightly.

“Holy Mother!”

Suddenly sober, Corrado went back inside and

hastily donned his flight suit and boots.

He was jogging toward the flight line when another

Tomahawk went over scattering bomblets. The

missile flew on, out of sight.

As Corrado rounded the corner and the flight line

came into view, the first cruise missile that had

scattered bomb-

lets dove into one of the hangars. There wasn’t much

of an explosion, but in seconds a hot fire was

burning in the wooden structure.

Corrado’s personal fighter was parked between the

burning hangar and another, which would probably be

struck within seconds. The maintenance men had been

working on the plane today, which was why it was not on its

usual parking place at the head of the

flight line.

Running men helped Corrado push the plane

away from the burning hangar, the wall of which was

perilously close to collapse.

“There is no fuel in the planeea”…someone shouted.

“Get a truckea”…Corrado roared in reply.

“And ammunition for the guns.”

The words were no more out of his mouth when the second

missile crashed into the untouched hangar.

Corrado seethed as linemen fueled his plane and

serviced the guns. He was still on the phone in the

dispersal shack talking to someone at the base armory

when the truck carrying missiles braked to a

squealing halt near the fighter, a silver

MiGo-29 Fulcrum. Now he called the

sector GCI site. The telephone rang and

rang, but no one answered.

Corrado stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth and

stomped out to the plane. “Careful there, fools. Do

it right. Do not embarrass me.”

He was watching the last of the 30-mm cannon

shells going into the feed trays when one of the Havana

colonels showed up.

“You aren’t going up in this thing, are you, Corrado?”

“We are servicing it as a joke, dear

Colonel. Every Saturday night when the

Americans attack we put the cannon shells

in, then take them out on Sunday morning.”

“Don’t trifle with me, Major. I won’t stand

for it.”

“You pompous limp-dick! Go find a whore and

let the real men fight.”

“Do not insult me, you sot. You stink of rum and

vomit! Show some respect!”

“Why should I? Your putrid face insults you every

day.”

The colonel was so angry he spluttered. “I

absolutely forbid you to fly this airplane without

written orders from Havana.”

“Court-martial me tomorrow.”

“The Americans will destroy this airplane if you