Hawke

They were climbing now, up the great curving staircase they’d descended earlier with the late General Juan de Herreras.

“Good thing about water,” Stoke said. “Don’t climb steps too good.”

They gained the main hallway where they’d first met the recently deceased Juanito and his guards. It was wholly deserted. Both men wished they had grabbed weapons from the guards as they’d left the collapsing room. Alex still had his dive knife at least. Stoke had nothing.

They both knew there had to be tangos gathering outside, perhaps hundreds of them.

With extreme caution, they peered around the massive doors of the entrance. The moon was out now, and the whole compound was bathed in its blue-gold glow. A breeze swayed the palms in a lazy dance.

There was no one inside the perimeter wall that they could see. No one in either guardhouse. Beyond, only the dark wall of jungle. They could see the moonlit sea off to their left. Something was burning out there, sending great tendrils of fire and black smoke licking high into the air.

Nighthawke?

Hawke pushed the thought out of his mind as he and Stoke gingerly made their way down the broad stone steps of the entrance. Unarmed, they had no choice now but to simply make a run for the sea and hope to God somebody was out there waiting in an IBS.

They hadn’t taken three steps when the wall of jungle beyond erupted with automatic weapons fire. Hundreds of winking muzzles in the blackness. The air was instantly full of lead, ringing off the ironwork of the gates and fence, kicking up sand at their feet. They dropped to the ground and scrambled back up the steps and inside the entrance of the finca, slamming the heavy wooden doors behind them.

“Holy shit!” Stoke said. “The whole damn Cuban army must be out there waiting for us!”

They knelt beneath a window, a hail of bullets showering them with broken glass. Alex saw Stoke pull something from inside his flak vest.

“What the hell is that?” Hawke asked.

“SatCom phone,” Stoke said, flicking a switch that lit the thing up. “We get lucky, I can raise Fitz or Boomer.”

“Get lucky,” Hawke said.

“Bravo, you copy?” Stoke said into the handheld device.

“Copy, Stoke. What’s going on?”

“Unexpected delay here. What’s burning out there at the LZ? Ain’t you, is it?”

“No. Another nosy Cuban patrol boat. We’ve sunk four. All accounted for here, aboard Nighthawke. We’re in a holding pattern. An IBS is on its way in for your E&E.”

“Yeah, well that’s the problem. We ain’t evading and we certainly ain’t evacuating. We pi

“No problem. We’ll come ashore and pull you out.”

“Belay that, you’d never get ashore. The whole fucking jungle’s full of los tangos cubanos, amigo.”

“Fuck.”

“I was thinking that, too.”

“Stoke,” Hawke said, tapping him on the shoulder. He had risen and was peering out just above the sill of the shattered window. “They’re moving up into position for a frontal assault. I’ve got an idea.”

“All our problems are over, Boomer,” Stoke said into the SatCom. “Mr. Hawke here has an idea. Stay tuned. Over.”

“Standing by, Skipper, over.”

“Follow me,” Hawke said.

The rounds were zinging overhead with ever increasing intensity as Hawke motioned for Stoke to follow him. They both ran in a low crouch toward the stairway leading up.

“Remember that terrace we saw?” Hawke said, taking the steps two at a time. “The one built out over the sea?”

“Right,” Stoke replied. “What about it?”

“It has to be this way.”

“So?”

“If we can reach it, we go over the wall. Can’t be more than a fifty-foot drop into the sea from up there.”

“Well, it ain’t rocket surgery, boss, but it’s all we got. Let’s go!”

There was a problem with the terrace. The Cubans had thought of it first. Stoke and Alex raced across the broad expanse of white marble and peered down over the edge. There were at least twenty soldiers down there on the rocks with automatic weapons, waiting in case anyone should try to leave the island without saying good-bye. At least ten of them had already started climbing up the rocky cliff that would bring them up to the terrace.

Shots rang out, and pieces of stone just beneath them exploded outwards.

Both men ducked behind the four-foot crushed stone wall that ringed the large patio. The moon was so bright on the expanse of white marble that, if they remained standing, they were as good as dead. Hawke held his breath, waiting to see a grenade come flying over the wall.

“Next idea?” Stoke said.

“I’m thinking,” Hawke replied.

“Think faster,” Stoke said, but Hawke never heard him.

There was an earth-shattering explosion in the rooms just behind them followed by a deafening roar just over their heads. They caught a glimpse of a massive winged shadow that blocked out the sky, something huge screaming over the rooftops.

“Hell was that?”

“That would be an F-14 Super Tomcat,” Hawke said, a smile spreading across his face. “Black Aces Squadron.” Never in his life had Hawke been so happy to see an official representative of the United States Navy.

Two more Tomcats roared overhead in quick succession and then three more. The building shook to its foundations with the impact of the Tomcat’s deadly Sidewinder missiles. Explosions lit up the thick jungle beyond the wall, and Alex heard the screams of wounded soldiers.

Stoke had his SatCom out instantly.

“Boomer! What the hell is going on?”

“U.S. Navy to the rescue, Skipper! Seems like Fidel Castro escaped somehow, got to a phone, and opened Cuban airspace to the American Navy! Friendly fire! Hooo-hahh!!”

“Friendly fire? I’d return their friendly fire if I had any damn bullets! Them flyboys are goddamn shooting at my ass!”

“May I borrow that gadget, Stoke?” Hawke asked.

Stoke handed it to him and Hawke said, “Boomer, this is Hawke. Get that fighter squadron commander on the radio. Tell him he’s got two friendlies on the ground. Make that the large west terrace of the main house, facing the sea. We’d appreciate more fire suppression in the jungle and on the rocks beneath the terrace. Our only way out is a jump into the sea, over.”

“I’ve already spoken to him, sir,” Boomer said. “He’s laying down fire suppression right now, trying to keep the tangos inside the house from rushing you, over.”

“How about below the terrace?” Hawke asked. “We’re going over the side. And we need to go now!”

“Uh, the squadron leader has a better idea, sir. If you look out over the wall, you should be able to see it now.”

Stoke and Hawke crept up to the wall and peered over it. What they saw brought, if not tears to their eyes, certainly a hell of a lot of joy into their lives.

Waves of Navy jets were blacking out the stars, the bright flame of rockets igniting under their swept-back wings and screaming toward targets; and there, a few hundred feet below the formations, skimming in just over the wavetops, was the most beautiful sight of all.

A mammoth U.S. Navy SeaKing helicopter headed directly for the terrace, twin .50 cals firing out both sides as it flared up for a landing.

Little more than half an hour later, Alex Hawke was aboard Nighthawke, sitting at Vicky’s side, holding her hand and whispering to her.

He’d dimmed the lights of the stateroom way down after Froggy had left. The medic had given her something to help her sleep. Hawke couldn’t stop staring at her tender profile. There was a thin sheen of perspiration on her forehead, and her long eyelashes were fluttering on her cheeks. Her beautiful auburn hair, burnished with gold in the dim light, was twisted in knots of tangled cobwebs but to Alex she had never looked more beautiful.

He and Stokely had watched the destruction of Telaraсa, their legs hanging out the open hatch of the SeaKing, sitting on either side of the red-hot .50 cal. The machine gun was still chattering loudly just above their heads as the SeaKing swung out across the island and doubled back over what had been the submarine pen. It was now a blackened pile of twisted steel and broken concrete. Two halves of the Soviet Borzoi-class submarine’s hull rose from the rubble. Boomer’s charges had broken her spine. The U.S. Navy had finished the job.