Cuba (42 page)

trailing a wisp of smoke.

“Maybe you hit himea”…Fitzgerald shouted.

“He sure came close enough.”

Now the jet was turning toward the north, still climbing

and trailing smoke. Soon it was out of sight amid

the altocumulus clouds.

The overturned boat had been hit by cannon

fire, which punched at least six holes in the

bottom. One man hi the water had a broken arm,

the other two were dead. A cannon shell

had hit one of the men hi the torso.

Chance and Carmellini managed to get the injured man

aboard.

“The bodies tooea”…Fitzgerald demanded.

“They’re my men.”

“What about the Cuban pilot”…”…Carmellini asked

Fitzgerald.

“He’s probably deadea”…the SEAL lieutenant

said. “If he isn’t, I hope he’s a good

swimmer.”

The naval officer used a handheld GPS to set his

course to the submarine rendezvous.

Jake Grafton walked down the hill from the

Officers” Club and along the pier between the

warehouses. He walked past foxholes and

strongpoints made from piles of torn-up concrete,

each of which contained a handful of marines, wideeyed young

men in camouflage clothing and helmets, armed to the

teem. Someone hi every strongpoint watched every step he

took. He walked by the muzzles of a dozen machine

guns and a few light artillery pieces.

The whole area was well lit by floodlights mounted

on the eaves of every warehouse. Some marines were

gathered around a mobile kitchen, eating hot

MRE’S, and some were gathered around a

headquarters tent near the hurricaneproof

warehouse. They all carried gas masks on their

belts.

Jake stopped at the tent and said hello to the landing

force commander. Lieutenant Colonel Eckhardt,

who was still awake and keeping an eye on things at this

hour. The colonel poured Jake a cup of

coffee.

“Your chief of staff, Captain Pascal, was here

about an hour ago, Admiralea”…the colonel said.

“He tells me that

cleaning out that warehouse will take three more days. The

ordnance crew from Nevada is working around the

clock.”

Jake nodded. Gil Pascal was briefing him four

times a day.

“The men have been told that this whole operation is

classified, not to be discussed with unauthorized

personnelea”…Eckhardt replied.

“Fine. Is there anything I can do for you, anything you

need?”

They discussed logistics for a few minutes, then the

colonel said, “I assume you’re keeping up with the

news out of Havana, Admiral.”

“I was briefed before I came

ashoreea”…Jake replied.

“I got a message from Central Command advising

me that there are large riots going on in three or

four major Cuban cities.”

“I have heard that too.”

“Does that have any bearing on our posture here,

sir”…”…the marine officer asked.

“If I knew what the hell was going on,

Colonel, you’re the first man I’d tell.

Washington isn’t telling me diddlysquat. I

don’t think they know diddly-squat to tell. Yes,

the intel summary says people are rioting in the streets

in several Cuban towns, everyone in Washington is

waiting for Castro to tell his people to shut up, for the

troops to wade in. So far it hasn’t happened.”

“Maybe Castro is deadea”…Lieutenant

Colonel Eckhardt speculated.

“God only knows. Just keep your people alert and

ready. Three more days. Just three more.”

Try as they might, Ocho Sedano and the old

fisherman could not get the water out of

Angel del Mar.

With both of them pushing and pulling on the pump handle

they could just keep up with the water coming into the boat. If

either of them stopped, and the other lacked the

strength to work the pump quickly enough, the water level

rose.

They struggled all night against the rising water. At

dawn they knew they were beaten. No one else on the

boat was willing to come below and pump. Some said they were

afraid of being trapped below deck if the boat should

go under, and others plainly lacked the strength. The

passengers of the

Angel del Mar

lay about the deck horribly sunburned,

semiconscious, severely dehydrated and starving.

On the evening of the previous day one woman drank

sea water. The old fisherman didn’t see her do

it, but he knew she had when she began retching and

couldn’t stop. She retched herself into unconsciousness

and died sometime during the night. When he went up on

deck in the middle of the night, she was dead, lying in

a pool of her own vomit.

The other children were also dead. Three little corpses, now

still forever.

No one protested when he threw their bodies

overboard.

Then he went below to help Ocho.

The losing battle was fought in total darkness against

an inanimate pump handle and their own

failing strength in a tossing, heaving boat as water

swirled around their legs. Ocho prayed aloud,

sobbed, babbled of his mother, of his

deceased father, of the days he remembered from his youth.

The old fisherman remained silent, not really

listening to Ochowho never stopped pumpingbut thinking of

his own life, of the women he had loved, of the hard

things life had taught him. He would die soon,

he knew, and somehow that was all right, a fitting thing,

the proper end to the great voyage he had had through

life. Life pounds you, he thought, knocks out the

pride and piss of youth. Live long enough and you begin

to see the big picture, see yourself as God must

see you, as a flawed mortal speck of

protoplasm whose fate is of little concern to anyone but

you. You work, eat, sleep, defecate,

reproduce, and die, precisely like all the

others, no different really, and the planet turns and the

star bums on, both quite indifferent to your fate.

He understood the grand scheme now, and thought the knowledge

worth very little. Certainly not worth the effort of

telling what he knew to the boy, who would also die

soon and lacked the fisherman’s years and experience.

No, the boy would not appreciate the wisdom that

age had acquired.

When the gray light from the coming day managed to find

its way down the hatch and showed him the level of the

water sloshing about, the old fisherman said “Enough.

Ou. Up the ladder before she goes under.”…He pulled

Ocho away from the handle, shoved him up the ladder.

“Up, up, damn you. I want out of here

too.”…The words made Ocho scramble out of the way.

The sea was empty in every direction. The old

fisherman looked carefully, then shook his head

sadly. Where were the ships and boats that were usually

here? Why had no one seen the drifting wreck of the

Angel del

Mar?

“Into the ocean with you. The boat is sinking. You must

get into the water, swim away, so the mast and lines

will not trap you and pull you under when she sinks.”

They stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Into the water, or notea”…he said softly, “as you

choose. May God be with you.”

And he walked aft and stepped off the stern of the

ship into the sea. The salt water felt refreshing,

welcomed him.

Ocho Sedano stood on the rail a moment, then

stumbled and fell in. He paddled toward the old

man.

“Ochoff”…Dora stood mere on deck, calling

to him.

“You must swimea”…Ocho said. “The boat is

smking.”…There was little freeboard remaining, the deck was

almost awash. Indeed, even as he spoke a wave

broke over the deck.

Dora looked wildly about, unwilling to abandon the

dubious safety of the boat Other people joined her, some

on hands and knees, unable to stand. They looked at the

two men hi the water, at the horizon, at the

swells, at the sky.

One woman rocked back and forth on her heels,

moaning softly, her eyes open.

“Swimea”…the old man toldjOcho. “Get away

before it goes.”

He turned his back on the boat and began

swimming. Ocho followed.

After a minute or so Ocho ceased paddling and looked

back. The boat was going under, people were trying to swim

away. He heard a woman screaming-r-Dora,

perhaps.

The mast toppled slowly as the swells capsized

Angel del Mar.

Then, with an audible sigh as the last of the air

escaped, the boat went under.

Heads bobbed in the swellsjust how many Ocho

couldn’t tell.

He ceased swimming. There was no place to go, no

reason to expend the energy.

He was so tired, so exhausted. He closed his

eyes, felt the sun burning on his eyelids.

He opened them when salt water choked him. He

couldn’t sleep in the sea.

So that was how it would be. He would struggle to stay

afloat until exhaustion and dehydration overcame

him and he went to sleep, then he would drown.

The screaming woman would not be quiet. She paused

only to rill her lungs, then screamed on.

A line in the sky caught his attention. A

contrail. A jet conning against the blue. Oh,

to be there, and not here. .

He was listening to the screaming woman, trying not to go

to sleep, when he felt something bump against his foot.

Something solid.

He lowered his face into the water, opened his eyes.

Sharks!

The president of the United States sat listening

to the national security adviser with a scowl on his

face. The president usually scowled when he

didn’t like what he was hearing, the chairman

of the joint chiefs, General Tater Totten, thought

sourly.

The adviser was laying it out, card by card: The

Cubans had at least six intermediate-range

ballistic missiles, which the staff thought were

probably sited in hidden silos, away from the

cameras of reconnaissance planes and

satellites. According to the documents obtained from the

safe of Alejo Vargas, the missiles now

carried biological warheads, apparently a

super-virulent strain of polio. Some of the warheads

stolen from

Nuestra Sefiora de Coldn

were now stacked in a warehouse on the waterfront in

a Cuban provincial town, Antilla.

Complicating everything were the riots and demonstrations

going on in the large cities of Cuba. No one was

moving aggressively to quell the unrest; the army was

not patrolling the cities; in fact, people in Cuba were

openly speculating that Fidel Castro was dead.

CIA believed that Castro was indeed dead; the

director said so at the start of the meeting.

“If Castro has bit the big one, who is

running the show down there? Who is the successor”…”…The

secretary of state asked that question.

“Hector Sedano, we hopeea”…the adviser said,

glancing at the president, who was examining his

fingernails. “Operation Flashlight was designed

to whittle Alejo Vargas down to size.”

“Stealing a safeful of blackmail files will hurt

Vargas, but it won’t do much to help Hector

Sedanoea”…General Totten muttered. “I seem

to recall a CIA summary that says Hector

might be in prison just now.”

“That’s rightea”…the director agreed, nodding. “We

think the rioting is directly due to the fact

Sedano is in prison. The lid is coming off down

there.”

“We’ve had our finger in a lot of Cuban

piesea”…the president said disgustedly, folding his hands

on the table in front of him. “Probably too

many. I seem to recall that die CIA did some

fast work with a computer, emptied Fidel’s Swiss

bank accounts.”

“The money is still hi those banksea”…the director said

quickly. “We just created a few new accounts and

moved the money to them. Don’t want anyone to think

we are into bank robbery these days.”

“Why not? This administration has been accused of

everything elseea”…die president said

lightly. Poking fun at himself was his talent, the

reason he had made it to die very top of die heap

in American politics. He laced bis fingers

together, leaned back in his chair. “If we had any

sense we would let die Cubans sort out their own

problems. Lord knows we have enough of our own.”

A murmur of assent went around die table.

Tater Totten sighed, took his letter of resignation

from an inside jacket pocket and unfolded it,

placed it on die table in front of him. Then he

took out another letter, a request for immediate

retirement, and placed it beside die first. He

smoothed out both documents, put on his glasses,

looked diem over.

The secretary of state was sitting beside him. She

looked over to see what Totten was reading. When she

realized she was looking at a letter of resignation, she

leaned closer.

“What is today”…”…later whispered. “The date?”

“The seventh.”

General Totten got out his ink pen, wrote the

date in ink on the top of the letter of resignation and the