Shadow Hunter by Geoffrey Archer

of the deck. A raised thumb signalled he’d understood.
    They repeated the circuit but came no closer; the shape of the cargo still could not be defined. The cameraman shook his head and shouted into the correspondent’s ear, ‘Get him over the top!’
    The journalist nodded.
    â€˜Look, we got a problem,’ he reasoned to the pilot. ‘We have to be able to look right down on the deck from overhead . . .’
    â€˜No way, bud!’
    â€˜Look, that ship’s going to Cuba! If she’s carrying warplanes, that could threaten the US of A! That’s something the American people should know about!’
    â€˜You want to get me thrown out the Navy?’
    The correspondent turned to the PIO who was not wearing a communications set and was unaware of what had been said.
    â€˜Commander, you’ve got to help us . . .’
    Shouting slowly, word by word, he explained their need to be certain of the Russian cargo. The commander pursed his lips and shrugged. He took the headset and began to talk to the pilot.
    Looking through the open doorway they could see some of the
Rostov
’s officers gathered on the bridge wing looking up at them with binoculars. One had a camera and was taking photographs.
    The commander grabbed the journalist’s arm.
    â€˜Okay. You got your shot,’ he shouted hoarsely into his ear.
    The correspondent clamped the headset back on and clipped the microphone pads to his larynx.
    â€˜So, we’re okay with that now, yeah?’ he asked cautiously.
    â€˜I got new orders. It’s his arse gets kicked now, not mine. But I still can’t fly over that goddam Russian. But see here! I’m just gonna move up ahead and practise a hover. Now if that ship decides to steam right underneath my hover – that’s his problem!’
    â€˜That’s real neat!’
    The helicopter banked to the left and the nose dipped to accelerate. Five hundred yards ahead the pilot pulled it sharply up into a hover, one hundred feet above the waves. He swung the nose round so that the side door looked directly back at the Soviet ship bearing down on them. The cameraman switched on and adjusted his focus.
    The second SH-3 with the stills photographers on board flew parallel to the ship, but turned sharply away when it saw the first machine hovering in its path.
    As the ship passed beneath them the correspondent’s excitement mounted. The cocooned deck cargo revealed itself indisputably to be what the pilot had said; the wings of jet fighters. As the ship’s bridge passed below, dark uniformed figures could be seen waving and gesticulating furiously.
    Ten minutes later they landed back on the deck of the
Eisenhower.
The TV crew hurried below to prepare their tapes for transmission to New York by satellite. With help from aircraft recognition manuals provided by the PIO, they concluded the wings were for MiG-29 fighters, aircraft considerably superior to anything the Cubans had at present. They counted twelve individual wings; that meant six fighters.
    Admiral Vernon Kritz appeared reluctant to jeopardize the secrecy of his ship’s location by allowing the TV and newspaper men to transmit their reports, transmissions which could be detected by Russian satellites and spy planes. But eventually he allowed himself to be persuaded, and the media men set up a small gyro-stabilized satellite dish on the flight deck, in good time for the material tobe turned round for the morning news programmes back home.
    * * *
    Andrew Tinker caught the early flight to London. Patsy had grudgingly driven him to Plymouth airport after an early breakfast.
    She’d scowled for most of the previous evening, after he told her he’d been ordered to take command of
HMS Truculent
so that Philip could be brought home.
    â€˜It’s not bloody fair!’ she’d railed. ‘Home for three days, and now you’re off on patrol again! You’ll be gone for