nothing north for them. So to avoid confrontation we need only change course a few degrees south.’
‘You assume, Mr Ginsberg?’ said Captain Hanks through his teeth. ‘Only a few degrees south, for Chrissake? I am here on a goodwill visit, a peaceable tour and well advertised as such. I have my signal to exit and I have set my course and I do not intend to change my mind or my bearing, if there were a hundred Soviet ships out there!’
‘The Minsk is equipped with torpedoes, and Forger vertical take-offs, sir, and the Ivan Rogov has a battalion strength of Marines aboard with support helos and Sam-2 or Sam-4 missiles.’
‘Why do you pick this exact moment to tell me that, Mr Vaduz? You assume I know nothing about two of the best ships in the enemy’s navy?’
‘With respect, sir, I simply remind you that this is the largest and best equipped naval task force the Soviets have ever sent to the Persian Gulf.’
‘And?’
‘Well, sir, according to my logs on all signals received from SATCOM, three days ago the Minsk and the Ivan Rogov were refuelling at Aden, South Yemen.’
‘For warm-water exercises in the Gulf of Oman,’ said Captain Hanks. ‘So?’
‘Sir, if the computer prediction is correct, they must have been ordered to leave their exercise area fourteen hours ago, which means—’
‘Which means,’ interrupted Commander Daniels, Okinawa ’s Executive Officer, ‘that the Soviet Seventh Fleet was ordered to the Persian Gulf before the Saudi coup had begun.’
The Captain’s eyes narrowed as he absorbed the arithmetic and its implications. The arms of the radar sweep on the green screens had made another seven turns before he spoke again, and so slowly and so softly that the officers at his side had to lean forward to hear and wonder later whether they had heard it correctly.
‘They’re trying another Cuba,’ he said. ‘On another Kennedy. By Christ they are. And this time they may even make it.’
CAIRO
‘One helluva story’
It was 87 degrees Fahrenheit and still Egyptian women covered them in blankets and forced hot cups of coffee into their hands. Egyptian immigration officials demanded passports from the sick on stretchers, ignoring the shouts from the American medical orderlies to let them be. The tired, the injured, the frightened and the wounded who had arrived in Cairo aboard the USAF Galaxies, sedated and comfortable, were suddenly confused and in pain again. Walking wounded sat down in one place and were asked to move to another only to be moved on again. A stretcher was put down in one corner of the airport arrivals hall and seconds later picked up and put somewhere else. There were a dozen different men in a dozen different uniforms and each was in charge. An American stood on a chair and shouted out names and instructions to American citizens but no one could hear him and the tension and anxiety increased so that women suddenly screamed and sat on the floor and sobbed as their children lost themselves, and scattered across the hall. Men wandered in no particular direction hoping to be stopped and told what to do and where to go, and the sick on the stretchers stared at the ceiling and at nothing as flies settled on the caked blood of their bandages. And all the time the women of the Egyptian Red Cross put their blankets around hot and sweating bodies and held scalding mugs of coffee to broken parched lips.
Franklin sat by the air conditioning unit. The cuts in his head and face had been cleaned again with new dressings but the after-effects of the painkillers given him aboard the evacuation plane had made him dizzy and every now and then he could feel his gorge rise. He had to stand up and walk some yards then sit again as his legs began to shake. He watched Egyptian immigration officers stand on the seats shouting out passport numbers and names.
‘Franklin?’
The man went down on one knee close to him and held out the slim green American passport. A second man
‘You assume, Mr Ginsberg?’ said Captain Hanks through his teeth. ‘Only a few degrees south, for Chrissake? I am here on a goodwill visit, a peaceable tour and well advertised as such. I have my signal to exit and I have set my course and I do not intend to change my mind or my bearing, if there were a hundred Soviet ships out there!’
‘The Minsk is equipped with torpedoes, and Forger vertical take-offs, sir, and the Ivan Rogov has a battalion strength of Marines aboard with support helos and Sam-2 or Sam-4 missiles.’
‘Why do you pick this exact moment to tell me that, Mr Vaduz? You assume I know nothing about two of the best ships in the enemy’s navy?’
‘With respect, sir, I simply remind you that this is the largest and best equipped naval task force the Soviets have ever sent to the Persian Gulf.’
‘And?’
‘Well, sir, according to my logs on all signals received from SATCOM, three days ago the Minsk and the Ivan Rogov were refuelling at Aden, South Yemen.’
‘For warm-water exercises in the Gulf of Oman,’ said Captain Hanks. ‘So?’
‘Sir, if the computer prediction is correct, they must have been ordered to leave their exercise area fourteen hours ago, which means—’
‘Which means,’ interrupted Commander Daniels, Okinawa ’s Executive Officer, ‘that the Soviet Seventh Fleet was ordered to the Persian Gulf before the Saudi coup had begun.’
The Captain’s eyes narrowed as he absorbed the arithmetic and its implications. The arms of the radar sweep on the green screens had made another seven turns before he spoke again, and so slowly and so softly that the officers at his side had to lean forward to hear and wonder later whether they had heard it correctly.
‘They’re trying another Cuba,’ he said. ‘On another Kennedy. By Christ they are. And this time they may even make it.’
CAIRO
‘One helluva story’
It was 87 degrees Fahrenheit and still Egyptian women covered them in blankets and forced hot cups of coffee into their hands. Egyptian immigration officials demanded passports from the sick on stretchers, ignoring the shouts from the American medical orderlies to let them be. The tired, the injured, the frightened and the wounded who had arrived in Cairo aboard the USAF Galaxies, sedated and comfortable, were suddenly confused and in pain again. Walking wounded sat down in one place and were asked to move to another only to be moved on again. A stretcher was put down in one corner of the airport arrivals hall and seconds later picked up and put somewhere else. There were a dozen different men in a dozen different uniforms and each was in charge. An American stood on a chair and shouted out names and instructions to American citizens but no one could hear him and the tension and anxiety increased so that women suddenly screamed and sat on the floor and sobbed as their children lost themselves, and scattered across the hall. Men wandered in no particular direction hoping to be stopped and told what to do and where to go, and the sick on the stretchers stared at the ceiling and at nothing as flies settled on the caked blood of their bandages. And all the time the women of the Egyptian Red Cross put their blankets around hot and sweating bodies and held scalding mugs of coffee to broken parched lips.
Franklin sat by the air conditioning unit. The cuts in his head and face had been cleaned again with new dressings but the after-effects of the painkillers given him aboard the evacuation plane had made him dizzy and every now and then he could feel his gorge rise. He had to stand up and walk some yards then sit again as his legs began to shake. He watched Egyptian immigration officers stand on the seats shouting out passport numbers and names.
‘Franklin?’
The man went down on one knee close to him and held out the slim green American passport. A second man
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