Ghosts of Havana (A Judd Ryker Novel) (29 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” said the Air Force lieutenant, who Jessica thought had barely started shaving. “The main rotors spin in opposite directions, which negates the need for a tail rotor. Instead, you have the propulsion propeller at the back. It gives the Raider a shitload of velocity.” The lieutenant suddenly looked embarrassed. “Pardon my French.”

“What’s her speed?” she asked.

“Cruising speed is 235 knots.”

Jessica’s heart raced with anticipation.

“That’s almost twice as fast as a conventional helicopter, ma’am.”

“So where’s my pilot, soldier?” Jessica asked, looking around an empty airfield.

“Tampa, ma’am.”

“Excuse me?” she scowled.

“We don’t have pilots here at Homestead who are cleared to fly the Raider. We’re just an Air Reserve Base. This helicopter isn’t even officially here.”

“I need to be airborne right now!” Jessica demanded. She knew that a missing pilot would derail the whole plan.

“Yes, ma’am. I was told you were a chopper pilot.”

“That’s right. But never a bird like this one.”

“The Raider controls are similar to the Black Hawk. This X2 version is configured for a single pilot or can be piloted remotely.”

“Remotely?” She narrowed her eyes.

“You’ll be flying it with a copilot at MacDill Air Force Base up in Tampa.”

“My copilot is with SOCOM?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. Could be Special Operations Command. Could be regular Air Force. Could be . . . another part of our government. That information is way above my security clearance. I only know that your copilot is briefed at MacDill and ready to go. You’ll communicate through the headset. I’ll show you.”

Jessica opened the door of the Raider and climbed into the pilot’s seat. It smelled like a new car.

The lieutenant began pointing out the various cockpit controls. “The navigation and flight controls are all based on the Black Hawk layout. The pilot at MacDill will handle most of this, but here’s how you control the rotors. The pitch is here. And your secure comms are over there. And here,” he said, pointing to a bright red switch above her head, “is how she goes into stealth mode.”

“Stealth in a helicopter?”

“This’s the experimental part. It’s now set to normal operations mode. Push this down one click and she’ll be invisible to radar. It also scrambles the electronic communications with MacDill, so your signal can’t be picked up by the enemy.”

“What’s the third mode?” she asked, pointing to the switch.

“In an emergency, if you need to go totally radio silent, push it down again to here.” He snapped the switch down two clicks. “That kills all onboard external communications. The electronic footprints completely disappear to anyone on the ground, including base.”

“She goes full black?”

“Full black,” he said with a smile.

“How does that work on a helicopter?”

“Above my grade, ma’am.” He shook his head.

Jessica put the headset on and oriented herself around the cockpit.
Yes, I can do this,
she thought, nodding to herself.

The airman started to leave when she grabbed his arm. “Lieutenant, where are the controls for enabling the remote pilot?”

“Right here, ma’am.” He tapped a box underneath the pilot’s seat, with its purple wire that ran into the floor. “When this is on,” he said, touching a flashing purple light next to the analog altimeter, “MacDill is your copilot. Just as if they were sitting
right here next to you. Make sure this light stays on or you’re flying on your own.”

Jessica nodded. “Lieutenant, I’ve got five cases in my vehicle, four in the trunk, one up front. Can you load them into the Raider while I run prestart?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he saluted and marched off.

Once the airman was out of earshot, Jessica tapped a button on the ear of her headset. “This is Alpha Nine Nine. Can you hear me?”

“Roger, Alpha Nine Nine. Good evening. This is Whiskey Base Seven. Are you ready for prestart checks?”

“Affirmative, Whiskey Base Seven. Have you locked in our destination coordinates?”

“Doing that now.”

“What’s our flight time?”

“One hour forty-two minutes to Gitmo, Alpha Nine Nine.”

Perfect.
“Let’s go, Whiskey.”

72.

SANTIAGO, CUBA

FRIDAY, 11:31 P.M.

T
he Dassault Falcon 7X landed, its wheels squeaking sharply on the airstrip as it touched down. Ernesto Sandoval’s heart raced as he felt the jolt of the land, his arrival back in Cuba. He could almost hear the crowds already:
Che! Che! Che!

The masses, unable to contain their love and admiration. Just like Pope Francis in Revolution Square.

The plane taxied for a few minutes, Ernesto’s nose pressed against the window for his first glance of home, his first sight of
his people
.

The pilot rolled the Falcon away from the main terminal and parked at the far end of the tarmac near an empty cargo hangar. The engines shut down and the door opened with a satisfying pop.

Ernesto poked his head out of the door.

“Welcome home, Dr. Che!” said an elderly woman surrounded by half a dozen shabbily dressed middle-aged men.

“Where is everybody?” Ernesto asked, frowning.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Che,” the woman said, forcing a smile, “you
arrived too late for a welcoming party. The cells will be activated in the morning.”

“Cells?”

“The crowds will come tomorrow, Dr. Che.”

“Tomorrow?” Ernesto knew he should hide his disappointment, but he couldn’t help himself.

“For the bread rally,” she said.

“Bread?”

“Our
Cubita bella
is running out of wheat. There is no bread. The government has failed us again.” She tisked. “Mass protests are planned for tomorrow. In the Plaza de la Revolución. That’s when the crowds will come. That’s when the people will hear you, Dr. Che. That’s when we will begin a new chapter for Cuba!”

“I was expecting a crowd here. Tonight.”

“Tomorrow, Dr. Che. Tomorrow is your day!”

73.

GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA

FRIDAY, 11:36 P.M.

A
lpha Nine Nine, prepare for final approach to Leeward Point,” said the voice in Jessica’s headset.

“Preparing for approach, Whiskey Base Seven,” Jessica replied, seizing the cyclic control stick with one hand and the collective with the other. She spied the red lights of the airstrip dead ahead and, at its very end, the green circle of the helicopter-landing pad. Beyond the airfield, she could see the brightly illuminated fence line that separated Guantánamo Bay Naval Base from the mainland. The official border between Cuba and America.

“I have a visual of the helipad, Whiskey,” she said. “I have the controls.”

As the Raider crossed into official American military airspace, the copilot announced, “Negative, Alpha Nine Nine. We’ve got you. We’re putting you in a ten-foot hover.”

“Roger that, Whiskey,” she conceded.

The Raider slowed until it was just floating in midair over the landing pad, the engine vibrating but the helicopter motionless. Jessica reached up and pushed the red switch to activate stealth mode, scrambling communications with Tampa and, she hoped, vanishing from Cuban radar screens. The plan assumed that the Cuban military tracking incoming American flights would conclude that the helicopter had landed at the base.
Nothing to see here.

Jessica followed the next step in the plan, turning the Raider to the south and accelerating forward at low altitude. Within seconds, she was over the fence line and in Cuban airspace. Jessica was flying straight for the drop point with Charlie Three, an isolated location nestled within the hills of Baconao Park adjacent to the naval base.

“ETA four minutes, Alpha Nine Nine,” said the voice in her headset.

“Roger that. Four minutes, Whiskey Base Seven.”

Unlike the bright lights of the naval base, the park was pitch-black. Jessica could barely see the ground with the naked eye, relying instead on the Raider’s night vision capabilities to fly low and fast.

After three and a half minutes, Jessica tapped her ear again. “Approaching Charlie Three.”

“Roger that, Alpha Nine Nine. We see you. We’re putting you back in a ten-foot hover.”

The target was blinking on her navigation screen and the helicopter slowed to a midair halt.

“Roger, Whiskey Base Seven,” she said. Jessica then reached up to the red stealth switch above her head and rubbed it
between her fingers. She looked out the window into a total void of light. Jessica couldn’t see anything, but she knew Charlie was down there somewhere.

“I see movement on the ground. Whiskey Base Seven, can you confirm that’s Charlie Three?”

“Checking now, Alpha Nine Nine. Stand by.”

“Negative,” she said. “Whiskey, I’m going full black.”

“Negative, Alpha Nine Nine. Repeat, negative. We advise—”

Jessica clicked the switch down, cutting off her copilot in Tampa in midsentence. She then reached down underneath her seat, feeling for the box and the connecting wire. She gripped it tight.

“Good-bye, Whiskey,” she said, and released a guttural roar as she ripped the cable out of the floor. She examined the purple wire, limp in her hand, and then tossed it behind her, satisfied she now had full control of the Raider.

Jessica pushed back her sleeve to read the new coordinates written on her arm. She typed them into the navigation system and then spun the nose of the Raider to the east.

“Sorry, Charlie,” she said aloud as she pitched the helicopter forward and shot off.

74.

DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON, D.C.

FRIDAY, 11:42 P.M.

T
he Deputy Director flipped up the collars on his jacket and pulled the Nationals baseball cap lower on his head. It had been stupid to risk exposure at a high-profile hotel like the Willard InterContinental, just a stone’s throw from the White House. He cursed himself for his weakness.
And at a time like this.

The lobby of the Willard was full of foreign agents and, boy, would they love to have spotted him here. How many times had his operatives found valuable information in the walls and wires of that very building. The same hotel where Abraham Lincoln had stayed, where Martin Luther King, Jr., had written his famous “I have a dream” speech, where countless business deals, foreign plots, even revolutions, had been hatched.

But he couldn’t allow his own activities at the Willard that evening to become part of history. The secret cables back to Moscow, Caracas, Beijing, London—they all had to be clean.

She had insisted on a suite at the Willard, one she promised had been arranged for inconspicuously. With a few basic precautions, no one would ever know. It was safer than risking a U.S.
park policeman knocking on the fogged-up window of a Cadillac Escalade. So they had arrived separately, through different doors, and taken distinct paths to the suite. Now that it was time to leave, he had changed his clothes and departed first, taking the elevator down two floors, then a flight of the stairs, then crossed the hallway and took another elevator. Once on ground level, the doors opened with a cheery ding. He brushed his shoulders and double-checked his fly.

The Deputy Director walked briskly, making no eye contact with the clusters of businessmen, diplomats, and tourists milling around the lobby. He reached the main revolving door facing Pennsylvania Avenue, pushed hard, and, without slowing down, jumped into a taxi and sped off.

He knew that someone in that lobby would have killed to spy a juicy nugget like the Deputy Director of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency slinking out of a downtown hotel late on a Friday night. He would have to be more careful once he was CIA Director. And even more so if he became DNI. He was warming to that idea.

For now, the Deputy Director was just grateful that no one had recognized him in the lobby. And he hoped, in five minutes or so, that no one would recognize the nine-term congresswoman from Florida either.

75.

OFFSHORE EASTERN CUBA

FRIDAY, 11:44 P.M.

J
essica was back over the Caribbean Sea en route to her new target. Flying at low altitude in the dark was easier over open ocean without the perils of dodging the rolling mountains of eastern Cuba. She kept the Raider’s nose tucked forward like the head of a charging bull.

A visual of her target soon appeared on the horizon. The single white star in the distance quickly multiplied into two, three, four lights, then, eventually, the clear outline of a naval ship bobbing in the sea.

She slowed her speed and circled the vessel from fifty feet away.
GRANMA NUEVA / HAVANA,
was painted on the stern, just below a raised deck and a dark gray helicopter pad. “Honey, I’m home!” she announced to no one.

Soldiers on the ship began to emerge, crowding the top deck and pointing weapons menacingly at the helicopter.
Not everyone is expecting me.
She briefly considered turning the communications system back on and radioing to the captain but decided
against it. She hovered just off the stern, sliding side to side like a hummingbird approaching a flower.

This seemed to agitate the Cubans further, until a short muscular man in civilian clothes appeared. At his command, the soldiers lowered their weapons and scampered into a tight circular formation. The man jogged out to the middle of the landing deck and waved his arms, then crossed them forming an X in front of his body—the universal signal to land.

Jessica eased the Raider gently down onto the helipad, cut the engine, and showed her palms to the men gathering around her.

As she opened the door, half a dozen soldiers again raised their rifles. Jessica stepped out cautiously, her hands high over her head. The Cubans stared in disbelief at the woman in the tight black jumpsuit who had emerged from this spaceship.