Not until the Oregon was twenty miles out to sea did a general in Cuban security put two and two together and deduce that the sudden departure of the ship and the escape of the Santa Ursula prisoners were somehow tied together. He ordered missiles fired at the fleeing ship, but by the time the word filtered down through the sluggish command, the Oregon was out of acceptable range.

He then ordered jets from the Cuban air force to intercept and sink the mystery ship before it reached the protection of a United States Coast Guard cutter. It could not possibly escape, he thought, as he sat back, lit a cigar and contentedly puffed a cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling. Seventy miles away, two geriatric MiGs were sent aloft and set a course toward the Oregon as directed by Cuban radar.

CABRILLO DIDN'T NEED to study a chart to see that sailing around the tip of Cuba from Santiago through the Windward Passage and then northwest to Miami was little more than a suicide run. For nearly six hundred miles, the Oregon would be less than fifty miles from the Cuban coast, a voyage in a shooting gallery. His safest option was to set a course southwest around the southern tip of Haiti and then almost due west to Puerto Rico, which was a territory under the U.S. flag. There he could unload his passengers, where they would be safe and cared for at proper medical facilities before being flown to Florida.

"Two unidentified aircraft closing," announced Linda.

"I have them," Murphy announced, hunched over a console with enhanced radar screens and an array of knobs and switches.

"Can you identify?" asked Linda.

"Computer reads them as a pair of MiG-27s."

"How far out?" Cabrillo probed.

"Sixty miles and closing," Murphy answered. "Poor beggars don't know what they're in for."

Cabrillo turned to his communications expert, Hali Kasim. "Try and raise them in Spanish. Warn them we have surface-to-air missiles on board and will knock them out of the sky if they show any sign of hostility."

Kasim didn't have to speak Spanish to deliver the warning. He merely ordered the computer to translate his message over his radio, which was tuned to twenty different frequencies.

After a couple of minutes he shook his head. "They are receiving, but not responding."

"They think we're bluffing," said Linda.

"Keep trying." Then to Murphy: "What's the range of their missiles?"

"According to specs, they're carrying short-range rockets with a range of ten miles."

Cabrillo looked solemn. "If they don't break off within thirty miles, take them out. Better yet, launch one of ours. Then manually guide it for a close flyby."

Murphy made the necessary calculations and pressed a red button. "Missile on its way."

An audible swoosh swept the command center as a rocket lifted from an opening in the foredeck and swept into the sky. They all watched on the monitors as it raced to the northwest and soon disappeared.