Cuba (29 page)

He got up, dressed, and headed for the computers, where

he typed out a classified E-mail for the people at the

National Security Agency. After breakfast he was

ready to brief Jake Grafton and Gil

Pascal.

“Before she was stranded,

Nuestra Senora de Colon

went into this little Cuban port at the west end of

Bahia de Nipe. She was there for six hours, then

she steamed out and went on the rocks where we found her.

If you look at this satellite photo you can see

a boat nearby, probably taking the crew off after

she piled up. The folks at NSA in Fort

Meade say they can see ropes from the ship to this boat

that the crewmen could slide down.”

Toad Tarkington stood back so Jake

Grafton and Gil Pascal could study the

satellite photos that he had pinned

to a bulletin board in the mission planning

spaces.

“Where are the weapons now”…”…Gil Pascal asked.

“In this fish warehouse.”…Toad pointed at the

photo with the tip of a pencil. “Right here.”

“It’s an easy SEAL targetea”…the Chief of

Staff commented.

“Too easyea”…Jake Grafton said, then

regretted it.

“When did the freighter reach this port?”

“Noon, three days ago.”

“And they spent the afternoon off-loading it?”

“Yes. It went onto the rocks that night.”

“Too easy.”…ationow he was sure.

“What do you mean?”

“These people aren’t stupid. They know about satellite

reconnaissance; they knew we would see them

off-loading the ship in this port; they wanted us to see

that. The question is, Why did they go to all the trouble of

putting on a show for us? What are they hiding?”

Toad flipped through die satellite photos,

looking at date-time groups. “Here is the ship coming

into the bay, there it is against the pier at Antilla,

here it iseabbing offloaded, here is an IR photo

of it going out to the rocks after dark, here is an IR

shot of the freighter and the boat that probably

took the crew off.”

“Radar images?”

Toad had a handful of those too.

“I want to know where this ship was between the time the

destroyer left it and the time it showed up in this Cuban

port.”

“NSA is still working on that stuff. Perhaps in a few

hours, sirea”…Toad said.

“Call me.”

“The weapons weren’t on the shipea”…the national

security adviser told the president in the Oval

Office. “The ship was empty when it went on the

rocks. Apparently the Cubans

booby-trapped itthe thing exploded a few minutes

after the admiral went aboard to inspect it.”

“Casualties?”

“None; sir. We were lucky. If the admiral

had taken more people with him, I can’t say the results

would have been the same.”

“So where are the weapons?”

“NSA thinks they are in a warehouse on the

waterfront in the center of the town of Antilla.

They are studying the satellite sensor data now.”

“Shitff”…sd the president.

William Henry Chance and Tommy Carmellini

ate dinner in the main restaurant of the largest

casino on the Malecon. The fact that 99 percent

of the Cubans on the island didn’t eat this well was

on Chance’s mind as he watched the waiter caret

come and go amid the tables filled with European

diners. Plenty amid poverty, an old Cuban

story so common as to be unremarkable.

Carmellini merely played with his food; he was too

tense to enjoy eating, had too much on his mind.

Chance tried to concentrate on a superb string

quartet playing classical music in the corner

of the room.

To the best of his knowledge, he and Carmellini had not been

followed on their expeditions around the capital, although

he knew very well that a really first-class

surveillance would be impossible to detect. With enough

men, enough radios and automobiles, the subjects

could be kept in sight at all times yet no one would

be directly behind them, following where they could be seen

or noticed. The subjects would seem to be alone,

moving of their own will through the urban environment, yet

their isolation would be an illusion.

He knew all that, yet he could detect no

tails or signs of people that might be

watching, taking an interest in him or Carmellini.

Chance was no neophytehe had a great

deal of experience in this line of work, he knew what

was possible and he knew what was likely.

He thought about all these things as the flawlessly

decked-out Cuban waiter served coffee. The

music formed a backdrop to the babble of conversation from

his fellow diners, who were gabbing in at least five

languages, perhaps six.

Chance sipped the coffee, let his eyes wander the

room. No one was paying the slightest attention. Not

a single furtive glance, no hastily broken eye

contact, no one studiously ignoring him.

Well, if he and Carmellini were going to do it, tonight

was the night. The longer they stayed in Havana, the more

likely it was that they would attract the interest of the

Department of State Security, the secret

police. The interest of Santana and Alejo

Vargas.

The truth was that Vargas might have burned them, might

have devoted the resources necessary to learn everything about

them. Vargas or his minions might be waiting tonight in

the science hall, waiting to catch them redhanded,

to embarrass the United States, perhaps even

to execute Chance and Carmellini as

spies.

In this line of work the imponderables were always huge,

risks impossible to quantify. Still, he and

Carmellini were going to have to look inside that building,

see what was there.

If there was a biological weapons program in

Cuba, it had to be in that building, which housed the

largest, bestequipped laboratory known to be on the

island. And the most knowledgeable people were nearby, the

microbiologists and chemists and skilled lab

technicians that would be needed to produce large

quantities of microorganisms.

Chance was well aware that the most serious technical

problem a researcher faced when constructing a

biological weapon was how to keep the

microorganisms alive inside a warhead or

aerosol bomb for long periods of time. Some

biological agents were easier to store than others,

which

was why they were most often selected for weapons

research. For example, the spores of anthrax were

very stable, as were the spores of the fungal disease

coccidioidomycosis, which incapacitated but rarely

killed its victims. Of course, the

naturally occurring strains of an infectious disease

could have been altered to make the microorganisms more

stable, more virulent, or to overcome widespread

immunity: years ago researchers produced a

highly infective strain of poliomyelitis

virus for just these reasons.

Idly he wondered about the microbiologist who

ran the program. Who was he? What were his

motivations? Perhaps that question answered itself in a

totalitarian society, but it was worth researching,

when he had some time. If he ever had some time.

“Ready”…”…Chance muttered to Carmelliniea”…who drained

the last of his coffee.

The two men paid their bill in cash and left the

casino. They got into a car parked at the curb, one

driven by one of their associates, and sped off into the

night.

In a dark, deserted lane on the outskirts of the

city the car in which Chance and Carmellini rode met the

former telephone van they had used before, but now it

bore the logo of a wholesale food supplier.

Inside the van Carmellini and Chance changed

into black trousers, a black pullover shirt with a

high collar, black socks, and black

rubber-soled shoes. When they were dressed,

they sat listening to the insects, drinking water,

monitoring a radio frequency. One of their

colleagues was observing the science building at the

university. He checked in every fifteen minutes.

So far he had seen nothing out of the ordinary.

“Why did you get into this line of work”…”…Chance asked

Carmellini as they sat listening to the chirp of

crickets.

“The challenge of it, I guess. I had an

uncle who cracked a few safes… he was a

legendary figure. The only time he ever went to the

pen was for tax evasion: he did a couple

years that time. I was always asking him questions. He

told me if I wanted to be a safecracker, go

to work for a firm that manufactured and installed the

things. That was good advice. I installed safes for

several summers while I was in college, got

too cocky for my own good. Thought I had this stuff

figured out, you know? One thing led to another, and before you

know it I was cracking the things.”

Chance nodded.

“Here I am still at it. Only this time I won’t go

to the pen if they catch me.”

“Yeah. The Cubans will probably execute us as

soon as Vargas gets through with us, if

there’s anything left to execute.”

“The way I figure it, I finally made the big

leagues.”

“You optimists, always looking on the bright side.”

“Which brings up a point. You got us garroting

wires and knives and pistols. I never carry

weapons. I’m a safecracker, not a killer.”

“You’ll probably become a dead safecracker

if they catch you in there.”

“I’ve never carried weapons. Ever.”

“A wise precaution if you are burgling

gentlemen’s safes. You’re in the major leagues

now.”

“Listen, Chance”

“This isn’t a game, Tommy. Speaking for myself,

I want to keep breathing. You’ll do as I say.”

The driver parked the van in an alley near the

science building. He sat hunched over the wheel

watching people on the sidewalks as Chance and

Carmellini examined the building through binoculars.

They were behind him, in the body of the van, looking forward

through the windshield.

The way in, they decided, was through the roof. To get

there, they would need to go into the building beside the science

building, a lecture hall, ascend to the

top floor, then get access to the roof. From here they

would need to cross to the roof of the science hall, then

find a way in.

The lecture hall was locked at night, though it was

not guarded.

It was one in the morning when the van stopped in the

empty alley behind the lecture hall. The two men

in back pulled on latex disgloves, swung on

backpacks, then went out the van’s side door.

The door was not wired with an alarm. Carmellini

picked the lock in thirty seconds, and they were in.

The van drove away as the door closed behind mem.

They stood in the darkness letting their eyes adjust

to the gloom.

Carmellini led off. Behind him Chance took out his

pistol and thumbed off the safety, keeping the pistol

pointed downward at the floor.

The weak light filtering through windows in classrooms

and thence through open doors to the hallway did little

to alleviate the darkness. The floors were uncarpeted

concrete, the walls massive masonry, the

ceilings at least twelve feet high. The building

was devoid of decoration or even a trace of

architectural imagination.

Carmellini moved like a shadow, making no

detectable noise. Chance seemed to be making enough

noise for both of them. He could hear himself breathing and

his heart pounding, could hear the echoes of his

footfalls

in

the cavernous hallways.

Keeping near the wall, they climbed the stairs to the

second floor. Carmellini moved slowly,

steadily, listened carefully before turning every corner,

then lowered his head, keeping it well below the place

one would naturally look for it, and peeped around the

corner. Then he slithered around the corner out of

sight; Chance followed as silently as he could.

The top of the staircase put them out on the fourth

floor of the building. There had to be another

staircase, probably very narrow, leading to the roof.

Where might it be?

Carmellini was ready to go explore when he suddenly

held up his hand. He held a finger to his lips.

Chance listened with all the concentration he could muster.

He

could

hear something! Voices? Carmellini slowly inched

along the hallway toward an open door, then

froze there.

He came back down the hajlway to Chance, put his

lips against Chance’s ear. “A couple of kids

making love.”

The silenced Ruger felt heavy in Chance’s hand.

“Gonna kill ‘em?”

Not shooting them was a risk, sure.

Chance listened carefully. The lovers were whispering.

No other sounds.

“Find the stairs up.”

The stairs were at the end of a hall, behind a locked

door. Carmellini worked on the lock in the darkness

for almost a minute before he pulled the door open.