Cuba by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

that guy on the scope. Honest! I was just gonna say something when that E-2 guy beat me to the switch.”
    “Sure, Toad. These things happen. If you’re going to nap, next time bring a pillow.”
    “This guy is coming south, like he’s out of some base in central Cuba, about our altitude. Heck of a coincidence, huh?”
    The F-14 had an optical camera mounted in the nose that was slaved to the radar cross-hairs.
    “Tell me when you see him,” Jake murmured.
    “Be a couple miles yet. Let’s come right ten degrees just for grins and see what happens.”
    Jake again had the fighter on autopilot. He pushed the stick right, then leveled on the new course.
    At fifty miles Toad had the other airplane on the screen of his monitor. A silver airplane, fighter size, with the sun glinting off its skin. The electronic countermeasures (ECM) panel lit up as the F-14’s sensors picked up the emissions of the other plane’s radar.
    “A MiG-29,” Jake said.
    “What’s he doing out here?” Toad wondered.
    “Same thing as we are. Out flying around seeing what is what.”
    “I thought the Cubans had retired their MiG-29s. Couldn’t keep paying the bills on ’em.”
    “Well, at least one is still operational.”
    Even as they watched, the MiG altered course to the left so that he would have a chance to turn in behind the F-14 when their flight paths converged.
    Jake Grafton was suddenly sure he didn’t want the MiG behind him. The Soviets specifically designed the MiG-29 to be able to defeat the F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 in close combat; it was, probably, the second-best fighter in the world (the best being the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker). Jake altered course so the two planes would converge head-on.

    What would the MiG pilot do?
    If the Cuban pilot opened fire over the ocean, over a hundred miles from land, who would ever know?
    “Sea Hawk, One Oh Four, are you getting this on tape?”
    “Yes, sir. We’re recording.”
    “This bogey is a MiG-29.”
    “Roger that. We’ve been tracking him for twenty-five minutes now.”
    The range was closing rapidly, but still Jake didn’t see the MiG. He looked at the target dot in the heads-up display, but the sky was huge and the Cuban fighter too far away, although it was almost as large as the F-14.
    The MiG was about four miles away when Jake finally saw it, a winged silver glint that shot by just under his right wing. Jake Grafton disconnected the autopilot and slammed the stick over.
    He pulled carefully, cleanly, craned his head and braced himself with his left hand as he kept the turning MiG in sight.
    The Cuban fighter rolled out of his turn heading north. Jake leveled out on a parallel course. Careful not to point his nose at the Cuban, Jake let the Tomcat drift closer on a converging course.
    When the planes were less than a hundred yards apart, he slowed the closure rate but kept moving in.
    Finally the two planes were in formation with their wingtips about twenty yards apart.
    “Look at that thing, would you?” Toad enthused. “Have you ever seen a more gorgeous airplane?”
    “I hear it’s a real dream machine,” Jake agreed.
    “Oh, baby, the lines, the curves … The Russians sure know how to design flying machines.”
    “If this guy has to jump out of that thing,” Jake asked Toad, “do you think Cuban Air-Sea Rescue is going to come pick him up?”
    “I doubt it,” Toad replied. “And I suspect he knows that.”

    “He’s got a set of cojones on him,” Jake said. “Bet he can fly the hell out of that thing, too.”
     
    In the Cuban fighter, Major Carlos Corrado took his time looking over the American plane. This was the first time he had ever seen an F-14. Amazing how big they were, with the two men and the missiles under the wings.
    Carlos was lucky he had this hunk of hot Russian iron to fly, technical generations ahead of the MiG-19s and 21s that equipped the bulk of Cuba’s tactical squadrons, and he damn well knew it. Cuba owned three dozen